It took Carlyle a moment to recognize Jehovah’s Hiveless nickname. “I was hoping for the Tribune, yes,” she confessed.

The valet’s smile tried to ease the tremor in Carlyle’s voice. “No worries, you’re not intruding. TM said they hoped you’d come. I’ll show you upstairs now, if you’re ready.”

“Now?” Carlyle frowned confusion. “But… I’ll wait until the Emperor’s finished, obviously.”

Caesar shook his head. “I am the Emperor, Jehovah’s father, and ruler of one fifth of the world; I wait. You are a priest; you don’t.”

“This way,” Chagatai coaxed. “Unless you’d like a bite to eat first, or the bathroom.”

Carlyle’s feat dragged, leaden. “May… may I ask a question, MASON?”

“You may ask anything,” Caesar invited. “Asking does not guarantee an answer.”

“Why did you adopt Jehovah? Why let Madame’s son be so close to you?”

“Because Madame is that close to me.” Caesar’s eyelids sagged, as if he longed to close his eyes in brief retreat. “I need a companion in this world who is neither my subject nor my enemy. My bash’, what friends survive from childhood, are all Masons, my servants now, and all my colleagues are my rivals. Madame is not.”

“But Madame is horrible. Everything they do is totally manipulative and self-serving, surely somebody else—”

“All motives are self-serving,” Caesar interrupted, “and all people are manipulators around an Emperor. Selfish or no, Madame D’Arouet has done more for me and for the world’s stability over the years than anyone, even Kosala or O.S., but Madame wields sex and gender instead of socially acceptable tools of politics. I cannot free them from that stigma, nor give them the office or recognition they deserve. Their child I can.”

“Then you did it for Madame?”

“I cannot say power was not a factor. We all fought over Jehovah, hoping Madame’s resources would go to whoever was named father, or had most influence with the child. Until the influenced reversed.” MASON’s brows narrowed, subtly, a mild anger but chilling, like thunder whose softest rumble still threatens a storm. “Stop dawdling, Cousin. Your answers are upstairs, not here. You must finish with my son before I can begin with them, and today of all days my patience is finite.”

Fear more than Chagatai led Carlyle up the thin steps to the nave of the old church above. Its stone vault rose high, light and dim at once, like an overcast sky. Jehovah Epicurus Donatien D’Arouet Mason sat upon the front pew, facing the altarpiece where saints and angels crowded to watch as Christ in glory received His virgin Mother into Heaven with a crown of stars. Carlyle says that at first her eyes assumed Jehovah wore the same dark suit as always, but as she tiptoed along the center aisle she realized it was a bathrobe, black, barely enough to shield Jehovah’s body from the stone chill. Jehovah’s flesh was young, remember, just twenty-one, ten years younger even than young Carlyle, the structure of His face still smooth with childhood beneath His black hair—almost black, I should say, since it seemed as dull as graphite beside the true black of His eyes. Carlyle told me later of the thousand questions that schooled in her mind as she studied the impenetrable Figure who seemed more and more the center of this unraveling world, but somehow she could not fold her questions into words.