“The yellow slice is what we’d call organic worship—that’s to say, souls available as a result of confirmed faith in Kos, priests and Alt Coulumb’s secular citizenry combined. The green slice represents missionary work, which produces a real, if variable, return on investment. Sometimes you get lucky and find fertile, troubled territory—we’ve had good success in the Northern Gleb since the struggle there began—but you can’t count on missionaries. You’re just as likely to lose your investment. And sometimes, God forbid, you suffer a disaster like the Southern Kathic expedition.”

“Those two slices are less than half the pie. What’s this big blue piece?”

“Transactional work,” Bede said. “My role. The reason this office looks the way it does. The reason, if you pay attention, you’ll catch Technical Cardinal Nestor giving me the side-eye at council meetings. This income relies on our partners’ faith we’ll remain stable and make good on future obligations. And the red element down here, the quarter slice, that represents specific promises to perform—cities that rely on Kos for power, our contracts with the Iskari Defense Ministry, that sort of thing.”

“This is way too simple. I’ve seen these contracts in person. They’re huge, complex. A breakdown like this—”

“My boy, believe me, I do not mean to elide the complexity of our work. You’ve seen the circulatory system firsthand, an honor I have not received. This merely indicates where the blood comes from, and where it goes. Some in this church overlook the importance of the Evangelate’s work, because it bears so little connection to their naive sense of a church’s role. But if our deals collapse, which they will if our partners lose faith, Kos will suffer effects comparable to those of a body deprived of half its blood.” The Cardinal closed the folder, returned it to his desk, and locked the desk. He sat. He laced his fingers together and watched Abelard over the lacing. “I hoped you could talk to God for me.”

Ash dripped from Abelard’s cigarette onto his robe. He brushed the ash away and stamped out the cinder, leaving a gray smear on the carpet. “Sorry,” he said.

“Overdue for a wash.”

He knelt and tried to scrape the ash out of the fibers of the rug. “You don’t have some spot treater? I mean, sorry, but it does stain.”

“You have an interesting way of ignoring questions.”

He stopped scraping, and stood instead, hands in pockets, weight shifting from foot to foot. Smoke drifted from his cigarette. “You want me to convince Lord Kos not to support Seril if She needs Him.”