The gargoyles lasted longer than Daphne expected. Stone did not tire as did flesh. Lacking any well-mannered metabolism, their muscles could not be poisoned by the by-products of their use. Good thing Daphne did not tire, either.

At last a gargoyle slipped—she caught it in a shell of infinite space, held it still, and pierced. The goddess scrambled to free Daphne’s prisoner, too late—Daphne snared two more, and then a fourth. The goddess tried to burn Daphne from the world, but the circle blunted that attack. Needles of red light pierced gargoyle throats, and the power she tore from them was sweet.

The fight against Wakefield had been a Craftswoman’s struggle: structures of proof and argument falling before Daphne’s knife only to re-form in answer to each cut. That work was elegant; this, routine. All she had to do was repeat, again and again, the simple, incontrovertible fact that gargoyles could die.

As could their goddess.

It would not do to yawn before the Judge. So when the machine Daphne had become finally snared the gargoyle queen, when the Stone Men and Women weakened, she pinched her earlobe between thumb and forefinger—a stopgap remedy an herbalist once suggested she try to keep alert.

That cleared things up nicely.

Blood dripped from her earlobe onto her suit. One more bill for dry cleaning.

*   *   *

Fire flared on the sanctum altar. Nestor fell. Bede knelt by his side and cradled the old man’s head.

Rage swelled in Abelard. He smelled blood, and Craft, and blasphemy.

He’d spent a day opening his mind to God, and now felt His fury.

Cardinal Aldis groaned. Veins stood out on the backs of her hands, and at her temples. She fought—they all did—to contain God’s wrath.

Lord Kos could burn the Craftsmen from the sky—exposing Himself as He protected Seril. To survive, He’d have to kill them all, to press the battle to the world’s corners, to fight and win a God War on his own. Impossible.

He might try anyway.

Moans of pain, grinding teeth, shattered prayers, Father forgive, blessed by flame, transfigured into sacred ash—their voices burned with the Godhead, their twiglike fingers clutched to stay a charging boar.

Bede had caught Nestor when the old man fell. No one had yet stepped up to lead the prayer. Cardinals babbled, drunk on vintages of rage grown rich through years of cultivation.

But Abelard was no Lord of the Church. He was younger, and less confirmed in anger.

His knees shook as he stood. Hands reached for him, voices rose to reproach his temerity. He climbed to the altar and turned to face the Cardinals. Their stares fixed him like a butterfly to a board.

Surely it was harder to die and rise again than to lead the Cardinals in prayer.

Surely.

He held out his hands and spoke the words.

Glory to Your Flame—

*   *   *