“Donatien,” Faust interrupted, “is Ganymede a murderer?”

It had to be asked, but all eyes, even Faust’s, flinched slightly in the silence before Jehovah’s slow and lifeless answer. “You are all murderers,” He pronounced, “you and your whole world. We had thought that, if humanity left the trees far enough behind, you could leave the war of all against all with them. We were wrong.”

I sobbed here. So did Caesar, once, the sob stifled stillborn in his throat like a too-hard swallow. He saw it too, I think, the specter of Apollo stirring in Jehovah’s words like a harmonic, played by no one but rising unbidden from the perfection of a chord. We will never be free of you, will we, Apollo? We had not heard these words since Death and I extinguished what we thought was the vital part of you, yet here we hear your voice again, the stronger since it rises from His lips. I choked.

MASON was stronger. “Mycroft, is Ganymede a murderer?”

Stares tortured me for three long seconds. “Yes, Caesar. Yes, he is.” Should I not have answered him? I have thought long about it. By law I must answer the Emperor, but it is by choice that we obey or break the law. It is not as if I think the Duke’s guilt would not have come out had I stayed silent. But the choice won me another enemy. Until that moment, Ganymede had thought all the Powers were equally my master, Caesar no more than he, all second to Jehovah. Now he knew otherwise. The Duke does not forgive in general, and certainly not me.

“Would you like a copy of the list, Princesse?”

Martin and Dominic had not brought a copy for the lady, but an aide had followed them in, sliding quietly around the back in a monk’s habit much like mine, dull as dust against the gold. Smiling her silent thanks, Danaë reached for the list, then screamed like a rabbit ripped in twain by hounds hot in the hunt, and slipped into that kind of lifeless faint which made Homer call Sleep and Death twin brothers.

“Danaë!” Husband and brother cried her name together, but Ganymede’s scream tasted of a special panic, as a conjoined twin might scream seeing his other half die first, knowing that he will follow.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” The aide’s hood fell back to reveal a red and seething face. “Danaë is my mother.”

“Carlyle Foster!”

I barely had time to throw myself between the Duke and sensayer before Ganymede seized a dagger-long pin from Danaë’s golden hair and lunged. “I’ll kill you!” he screamed. “Parasite! You stay away from my sister! Away!” The steely needle inched close to my throat, while the Duke’s other hand raked me with fingers fierce as talons—better me than Carlyle. “You planned all of this, didn’t you!”

I seized the Duke’s wrists, sleek as ivory, and forced him back until Andō could grasp him from behind.