It was Mercy who said, “John,” in a tremulous prayer—all the metal gone from her voice, replaced with a shameless tenderness. “John, you’re wrong.”

“Don’t I know it,” said the Emperor, but those scalding white-ringed eyes raised to Mercy’s face.

“I will forgive you,” she said bravely, and she swallowed three times in quick succession. Augustine looked at her with an expression of growing bewilderment. “There’s one thing left—one last chance. If you can do this for me … if you make me believe you … I’ll forgive everything. Rinse my memory, if you want to. That idiot infant Harrowhark did it. I’ll work out how you can do it to me. I’ll let you rip out my brain if you want to. But I will forgive you, if you do just—one—thing.”

Augustine said blankly, “Mercy, don’t do this.”

“You never loved him as much as I did,” she said, without taking her eyes from John. “This is the moment. This is the chance for unlovable Mercymorn—critical Mercymorn—to show she is the most capable of her name … Every time you’ve said that I did not understand the human heart, that I was unfeeling, that I only knew worship without adoration … Watch me, Augustine. I am the second saint to serve the King Undying. I will teach you a lesson in forgiveness.”

“You don’t even know the meaning of the word,” said Augustine.

God watched this exchange. Then he rose to his feet, and he worried one temple with his thumb, his gaze on Mercymorn: her eyes were like soft bloody dust, some brownish, greyish, reddish substance, all stirred together.

“Mercy,” he said raggedly, “tell me what to do and I’ll do it. I’ll do anything. I would go to the ends of the universe, if you told me that I could suffer enough—withstand enough—learn enough—to be truly forgiven. Tell me.”

Thick tears pooled in those bloody, stormy eyes. Augustine looked at her, and then he quite abruptly pressed his back to the wall and slid down until he was sitting; a posture of absolute defeat.

“Look at me and tell me you loved Cristabel,” she said raggedly. “Look at me—look right in my eyes—tell me that you never wanted any harm to come to her.”

God took her hands in his own.

“I loved Cristabel,” he said.

“Tell me you never wanted any harm to come to her,” she said.

“I loved Cristabel,” he said. “I never wanted any harm to come to Cristabel. I’m so sorry. Mercy—I’m so sorry.” She was in an absolute storm of tears now; she pressed her face into his chest and gave way, as though struck with a rock from behind. He held her close and said, “I’m so sorry. I loved you all—I adored you all—I thought I was doing the right thing.”