Papadelias knowing, Thisbe’s betrayal, Carlyle breaking his word, these should have frightened me, but I could not feel fear. Jehovah knew at last. He had heard, not from me, but from a priest, an agent of This Universe’s God. The world seemed repaired, as if I had looked under a tattered bandage to find an old wound finally healed.

“It’s true, Caesar,” I affirmed. “I have no way to prove it to you here and now, but it’s all true.”

He seized the back of my collar, hauling me up until I had to face him. “I don’t care if they can bring toys to life or not, you had no right to give that book to anyone.”

“It was for them!” I cried. “Nothing in history has ever been so clearly meant for someone. Providence had me find Bridger, me of all human beings, this impossible child, no origin, no bash’, no parents, no explanation except… If you saw them, Caesar, you would think Apollo had come back to you: their eyes, their hair, precisely the right age to have been born at the moment of Apollo’s death.” I could not meet his gaze. “It is not strange for the deaths of saints to be accompanied by miracles.”

Caesar shook me, anger commixed with disbelief, as if he had not imagined this madman was quite so mad. “You think Apollo came back from the dead as this Bridger?”

In the downpour I could no longer tell if I was crying. “Bridger isn’t Apollo, Caesar. I hoped at first they would become Apollo, but they’re a different person, timid, kind. They want to use their miracles to create a perfect world, to save everyone, the living and the dead. But they’re also terrified. So many times leaders and governments have tried to use reason or science to remake the world, and so many of them, the first French revolution, Stalin’s Russia, they were disasters, killed thousands, millions. The risks here are infinitely greater, even one mistake!”

He shook me hard. “And with that excuse, you kept the power for yourself.”

“For myself?” I grasped Caesar’s wrists to steady myself. “How can you say that when you know what selfish miracle I would choose in an instant if I were to let myself abuse the power? I haven’t.”

“What?”

I did not look behind me, but even the hiss of rain against the statue made the old pain worse. “You built this statue, Caesar. Look at Apollo, ready to leap down off the pedestal and tell us about some great new future they’ve imagined. Every day, every hour of every day, I could have brought Bridger here to bring Apollo back, just one touch. Providence didn’t just make me kill Apollo once, I killed them over, and over, and over, and over. I kept them dead, every day, still, every day I choose to keep them dead.” I let myself look up into the Emperor’s eyes. “Do I deserve to endure this? Even me? Living knowing every day that I could give my life to bring Apollo back?”