“This has been troubling you for a very long time, then,” God said finally. “A.L. always did bother you two the most … If I’m such a liar, why didn’t I lie to you about her? I told you the truth about Annabel’s resurrection, and in the end you killed her for it.”

“My lord,” said Augustine formally, “you told us the truth about Annabel—about Alecto—because she knew the truth about it too, and you never could control her. Even after two centuries, I’m not sure she ever managed to lie. That was what stayed my hand for such a long time. How would you have asked Alecto the First to lie—how would you have persuaded that mad monster into even an unsophisticated con?”

God said, “Don’t call her that.”

“A monster, John!” Augustine barked. “She was a bloody monster in a human suit! She was a monster the moment you resurrected her, and you went and made her worse!”

There was silence in that room. The air had cooled, somewhat, but it was still hot and sticky and it smelled like everyone’s sweat. It smelled like hot perfume, and cigarettes, and fear.

After a moment in that silence, the Saint of Patience said: “Raised my voice. Apologies.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said God quietly.

Mercymorn was grinding her back molars, making a sound like ball bearings fed into an industrial mincer. She stopped, and said pensively: “But you see, we all thought you were just sentimental over that horrible thing—even though she was bad in every single way, we all hated her—”

“I didn’t,” said Gideon Zero.

“Oh, do shut up, Gideon—Lord, you and she went through all the early days together; it made sense that you didn’t want to kill her. We came to you, back then, we came to you and begged you to get rid of her. We said she was too dangerous … We knew the Beasts were coming, and we knew they were partly coming for her. She was going to get us all eaten alive.” Mercy’s eyes had gone almost distant, as though she was living the argument over again. “So eventually you gave way. You killed her, for us. But we never knew how you did it.”

“Annabel Lee … was not the dying kind,” said the Emperor. “It might be more accurate to say that I switched her off.”

“You came to us and we asked, Is she dead?” said Mercy. “And you said, As dead as I can make her … I remember, Lord, that you wept.”

“Well, I was very sad,” said God reasonably.