He trailed off here. Then he said: “She lived to see what happened at Canaan House. Not that she took much interest. My first Resurrection was not a normal human being, Harrow, and she struggled to pretend. Anger was her besetting sin. We had that in common. And when the cost of Lyctorhood was paid, when the emotions were at their peak … we found out the price for our sin. The monstrous retribution. To be chased for our crime to the ends of the universe, to have our deed stain our very faces and follow after us like a foul smell. She died after that first terrible assault.”

You did not say, I am sorry; you did not offer empathy. As with many mysteries, this one had turned out to be sad and dull: the Emperor of the Nine Houses had someone, and then, like all his Lyctors, the Emperor of the Nine Houses had lost someone. It was your story. It was Ianthe’s story. It was the story of Augustine, and of Mercymorn, and of Ortus. It was Cytherea’s story, and that of all the Lyctors who had died over that long dark sheaf of years.

“I understand why cavaliers primary carry their House titles,” said God. “It makes sense. But it is a corruption of the original. D’you know why you’re really the First? Because in a very real way, you and the others are A.L.’s children … There would be none of you, if not for her.”

And then the Emperor of the Nine Houses set down his empty mug of tea with the residue of ginger biscuit crumbs within. You had no idea, in those seconds after the gentle clink upon the table’s surface as the universe held its breath, that he was about to say the worst thing that had ever been said to you. The fine, forbearing lines at his forehead and at his eyes crinkled earnestly, and he said: “I like to think that she would like you. You’d make a hell of a daughter, Harrowhark. I sometimes indulge in the wish that you’d been mine.”

There had been a moment in your life when you were convinced that you were about to spoil your substance at the foot of Ianthe Tridentarius’s altar. You had been granted reprieve. There was no such reprieve for you in that moment. You had not sold the marrow of your soul for stolen eyes and a half-hearted kindness. What dismantled you—you bereft idiot—was not even the God who made the Ninth House, the Emperor All-Giving, the Kindly Prince; your end appeared in the form of a grown adult telling you that they might have liked you for their own.