“Which means,” Tara said into the silence, “the Craftwork world can’t afford to let Kos’s value collapse. If they lose confidence in him and in the priesthood, they’ll attack. Rather than allowing him to die, they’ll kill him and rebuild him to save themselves. Skyspires encroaching on Coulumbite airspace, dragons in the heavens, demons creeping out of downtown shadows. They have to save the world, you see.”

She let the silence stretch. They sat in the center of the God’s power, in a great and prosperous city, and she had to make them feel uncertain. She thought she’d succeeded.

Hooray.

“But all this,” Abelard said, “happens only if Kos has undisclosed liabilities. Which he doesn’t.”

Bede’s chair creaked.

“Not by your standards,” Tara replied. “But Seril complicates things.”

“Complicates doesn’t sound good. I don’t like complicates.”

“Even though they don’t share explicit contractual bonds, Kos and Seril are linked by, let’s call it sentiment. Kos died last year because he tried to support Seril in her exile. To a Craftsman, that looks like an under-the-table guarantee that Kos will bail Seril out if she’s in trouble. And this is a goddess who makes trouble for herself—remember, she ran off to the Wars and left Him.”

Aev growled. “She fell in combat; She stood alone against murderous hordes.”

“Which sounds great in a poem,” Tara said, “but to a banker the important word is ‘fell.’ Seril takes big risks, and they don’t always work out. Let’s say an Alphan Securities banker wants to analyze Kos. She learns that Kos protects Seril—who tends to find Herself in sticky, fatal situations. Seril lacks assets or income. Her power’s tied up in the gargoyles and in Justice, neither of which is liquid. To our banker, Seril looks like a massive undisclosed liability—Kos has given tacit backing to a volatile, costly entity. Now that people know the gargoyles are back, they’re already wondering if Seril’s come, too. When she’s found, and she will be, we’ll see our first test of the tacit guarantee. Someone will try to kill you and your people.” She nodded to Aev. “If Kos defends you, an attack on him will follow soon after, through the courts.”

“We do not need Kos to defend us,” Aev said.

“You might. This isn’t a battlefield. Your enemies won’t announce themselves. They don’t want a fight. They want you to die.”

Nestor leaned forward in his chair. “Why are we just hearing this now?”

“You,” Cardinal Bede said, “are hearing it because the time has come for you to share the uncertainty Ms. Abernathy, Aev, and I have shared for the last year.”

The gargoyle nodded. “Why do you think we have kept such a low profile?”

“This is your idea of a low profile?” Nestor asked.