‘It takes patience,’ I say softly.

She nods. ‘It does, but my mother and father did not think so. They thought it a waste of time. Something that filled my head with hope beyond our means. They forbade me from attending worship. The first few times, I slipped out anyway. After that they shut me in the store-nook every night and bolted the door.’ She shakes her head. ‘I prayed anyway, and kept waiting for my sign.’

Her face has softened now, something close to sadness.

‘One night, weeks later, I was sleeping in the store-nook when I felt a drop of cold water hit me,’ she says, and puts her hand to her cheek, where she bears the tattoo of the fleur-de-lys. ‘Here.’

She lets her hand fall away.

‘Another followed, and another. I got up and tried to move but the water fell wherever I looked to lie down. In my frustration, I tried the door and found that it was open. Thinking that my parents had forgotten to bolt it, I went out into our home and found that all was quiet, the candles extinguished. It was late. Too late for worship, but I found myself wanting to go anyway. So I lit a candle, and took the tunnels down to the oldest cavern. I knelt. I prayed. The cave-water fell across me like rain. I felt whole and hopeful, and then I went home.’

Eugenia pauses again, for longer this time. I can see the path that the story will take, but I ask anyway.

‘What did you find?’

‘I knew before I reached my home that there had been a collapse,’ she says. ‘I could tell because of the dust. It was everywhere in clouds, thick and choking. There were people everywhere, too. Other children. Some of the elders were there, called by the noise and the quaking that I had been too far away to feel.’

She has gone back to looking at her hands.

‘My home was gone,’ she says. ‘Buried beneath tons and tons of stone, and my mother and father with it. The elders were all weeping, thinking me lost as well until they noticed that I was standing in the dust alongside them. When they asked where I had been, I told them about the water waking me, and the unbolted door. I asked them whether this was what they meant by a sign.’

‘And what did they say?’ I ask.

‘That it was more than that. That I had been spared by the God-Emperor for a purpose, because nothing He does is without reason.’

‘And do you think you have found it?’ I ask. ‘Your purpose?’

Eugenia looks up from her hands. ‘I think I find it anew every day,’ she says. ‘And that when I have fulfilled it, I will be granted the glory of a martyr’s death.’

For a moment, I cannot speak. I came here to find the truth of Eugenia, but it feels as though all that I have done is find the truth of myself.