“It’s been rough all day, Headmaster.” The nurse brushed fluff off Jehovah’s miniature jacket, black mourning silk fresh from the tailor’s, since my murders were the first time He had needed mourning dress, and at the tender age of eight He had not yet started to demand that His clothes always be the color most different from the Light of This Universe’s God. “We just had the most frustrating failure to converse with Papa Andō, didn’t we, young Highness?” the nurse prompted.

“Hola, Uncle Felix.” Jehovah tried to stop there, but His nurse’s expectant frown commanded that He try again. “Vale… Ohayō… Bon… Guten Tag?”

“Guten Tag, Donatien.” Faust patted his lap. “Come, sit on my Lap.” The master Brillist used German with the boy, that modular, semielastic tongue that gives all nouns the capitalized dignity which its bastard cousin English reserves only for names, Gods, concepts, and the selfish I. “It’s not your Fault, we’ve all had a hard two Weeks.”

The Headmaster says he felt Jehovah shiver as He settled into his lap. Fatigue perhaps? Or something subtler? I cannot confirm, for at this moment I was still in my cage in Papa’s prison van, dreaming of execution. “It makes no Sense that Things stop,” the Child began.

Jehovah’s uncle mussed His hair. “I miss Mercer and the Others too.”

“How will you stop Caesari burying Appollonem in Pantheon?”

Faust tapped Jehovah gently on the shoulder, the barest pantomime of a slap. “You’re Latinizing again. And why would I want to keep Apollo Mojave out of the Pantheon? It’s a reasonable Suggestion, even if Cornel is still thinking with their Dick.”

“You need them to be conspicuousment Outsiders,” the Child answered, “to distract Everyone from noticing ut you’re also Rivals for the Trunk.”

Faust gave his Nephew a reassuring squeeze—back then Faust still thought Jehovah’s physical detachment might someday develop toward some second stage. “Slow down, Donatien, one Idea at a time. What is this Trunk?”

“Of the Evolution Tree. A Tree has many Branches but one Trunk. When it’s still young you can’t tell which of the top Branches will become the Trunk, and which will branch off and lose Momentum. The Dinosaur Branch got as far as Birds, but only Mammals achieved Sentience. Humanity’s Tree had many Branches too: Tribes, archés que, nationesque, religionesque. Some persist in Reservations, but yappari Hives turned out to be the Trunk.”

Faust recorded all of this, and wants me to warn you that a mere transcript cannot capture the pauses as Jehovah hunted for elusive words, or the shifts in His tone and body language, almost absent, which Felix Faust, alone of all men, claims that he can read. In the original transcript, Faust also corrects Jehovah’s German strictly after every line, but I shall omit this, since you, reader, are not attempting to raise a heptalingual Child.

“I’m not sure if Trees actually grow that way,” Faust answered, “but I think I understand.”

“Itaque, every via… Branch… worries it might not be the Trunk.”