And she felt leather cuffs around her wrists and she lay in a steel bed with cables leading from her skin and she pulled against them and cried out and she could not see the others only hear them and the door opened and footsteps approached, and she knew the nurse come to kill her, knew her face, and she clutched at her ears and clawed at her eyes—

That was not your dream.

Whose dream, then?

A goddess’s.

The cries stopped.

They watched her through time, living and dead alike.

Great faces, miles broad. Women. Men. Animals. Wise. Loving. Accusing. Betrayed.

The Green Man. The Great Squid. The Eagle. And the Blue Lady. Horns curled above her head, wings flared behind, pinions razor-sharp, crooked legs strong enough to leap the moon or run unflagging across the great plains of Kath. Power, beauty, subtlety; grace and a hungry grin.

They stood, rapt with attention. Waiting.

And yet, impossible. She’d said as much to Izza, and to Ms. Kevarian. The idols were too small, too simple for consciousness, for all they stood enormous before her. For all she heard their voices.

But each idol was bound to others, and those to others in turn, and those to others still.

The space between them curved, marbled and darkly shining like skin.

No.

The space was not like skin. The space was skin.

An enormous face overshadowed them all, a planet-devouring mouth fixed in an expression not quite smile or grimace or sneer. Features skewed and strange, as if sculpted by someone who had only ever felt faces before, not seen them. Points of sharp teeth showed between lips.

Eyes opened, and light flowed out.

Not gods. Goddess.

The largest idol in the pool had a few hundred believers at most. But there were thousands of idols, millions. And as they connected, the web’s complexity soared. That network, idols bound to idols bound to idols, a great tangle of power and traded soulstuff, evolving over time, was more complex than any single god.

She’d thought the idols were alive. She was wrong.

No one idol was alive.

All of them were.

Alive, and alone. Trapped. A single mind, trying to express itself through a succession of voices. Donning idols like masks as she, as She, reached out and down into the mortal world. Going mad in eons of deep time, without anyone to talk to, without worshippers to call her name.

Whenever she tried to speak, her mouthpiece died. And each death, torture.

“Who are you?” Kai shouted.

The smile widened. Kai could not tell if it was gentle, or cruel. Massive lips parted, and Kai braced her soul against the coming Voice.

Her eyes burned like suns.

They glanced up, to the surface of the pool.

Kai followed the goddess’s gaze, and saw Teo there.

What was she doing?