The Kindly Prince craned his head over his shoulder and saw that you, the infants, were awake. He stood and, horror upon horrors, came down the aisle to you; he looked you both over, as though he were glad to see you, as though he were glad to see Ianthe, some nameless softening in his face and in those white-ringed, primordial eyes. He reached out for your hands. You could not refuse him, and in any case had no choice of doing so; your body reacted long before your mind did, and the meat of your meat and the flesh of your flesh belonged to God. And so, with your hand in his left and Ianthe’s in his right—Ianthe had arranged herself so that she had given him her left hand, rather than her less-favoured right—he said, “Welcome home. Come closer—we’re just saying goodbye … we’re used to saying goodbye.”

Both you and Ianthe were led like sacrifices to the bier, to kneel where the other Lyctors had on the black-and-cream tiles. Mercymorn did not deign to look at you, but the strange Lyctor they had both called Augustine did. He looked down his long nose at you both, and he remarked: “Well, which one of the kiddies did her in?”

The Emperor said sharply, “That doesn’t matter.”

“It’s not like I hold it against ’em—I couldn’t. Believe me, if she went she chose to go. Well, I’d hate to guess … Two of them! What a funny old world,” he added bracingly.

The Lyctor came away from Cytherea’s bud-covered feet and dropped to crouch in the transept before Ianthe. He said, “My name is Augustine the First, the Saint of Patience, Lyctor of the Great Resurrection, first finger on the hand that serves the King Undying—and your eldest brother, for my sins. Who are you, my doves?”

Ianthe said, lifelessly: “I am Ianthe Tridentarius, Princess of Ida,” and you said in the same automatic way, “I am Harrowhark Nonagesimus, the Reverend Daughter.”

Augustine laughed in a glassy and elegant way that had no relationship with mirth. He reached over and shook both your hands—you were befuddled; you had always considered a handshake the action of a misfit—and he said, “Not any more. Your obedient servant, Ianthe the First—you’re the one who ascended first, didn’t you? So you’re counted as the eighth saint? Your obedient servant, Harrowhark the First—ninth saint, then, looking at you I can tell that’s appropriate. Your allegiance is to one House now, and one House only. Behind you is your eldest sister.”

“We’ve met,” said Mercy impatiently. “Can we not do this right at this moment?”