“Stop!”

“Thou falteredest because thou dost not truly believe, thou only wishest to.”

“I do believe!”

“Thou dost not, here’s thy proof: thy love remains unchanged to this day, yes?”

“Of course.”

“Yet today thou knowest thy Clockmaker does not exist. Thou hast seen Bridger, Bridger’s power, miracles. This Universe’s God does not sit back and let the world tick on its way. He intervened before thine eyes. Thou hast proof that thou wert wrong about the nature of thy God.” Dominic leaned forward, eyes alight with victory. “If that did not affect thy belief, then thou didst not believe to begin with. Tell me I am wrong.”

“I… I didn’t want…” Sobs wracked Carlyle’s frame, like storm waves lashing at a buoy tethered in harsh current. “It’s true. The Clockmaker, if… They wouldn’t…” Words failed. Sobs swelled. Carlyle dug her fingers hard enough into her scarf to cut the fibers with the dull remnants evolution has left of human claws, and, like an infant, screamed.

Thou art overtardy in thy rescue, Mycroft. Thy God, too.

I know, reader. I feel it worse than you, for you simply read, while I can hear the screams Dominic wrings from this shaking wretch. But what can I do? There are many doors between the study where I had been serving and Dominic’s distant cell. As for the tardiness of God, Providence must answer to its own unknowable design before it answers prayers, reader, even your own.

Hungry Dominic was not yet sated. “I saw the child in the shower, thou knowst,” he pressed. “I had been curious, after I watched him on the beach, why such a playful child swam fully clothed. Mycroft’s orders, I imagine.”

“Huh?”

“He has no navel.”

Carlyle choked. “What?”

“The child Bridger has no navel, no belly button. He wasn’t born, not from a human mother anyway. There is your final proof. The child was created, with no placenta or umbilical, miraculously by thy God, whom thou canst no longer call Clockmaker.”

Hopefully, reader, you can remember some fond day when you laughed so hard it hurt. You emptied your lungs, sprained the smiling muscles of your cheeks, and still the laughter forced itself from you, though you had no breath left to give it wings. Here Carlyle cries that hard, and Dominic watches, patient as his victim’s strength dims sob by sob, like failing fire.

“Divine intervention.” Carlyle was the first to say the words. “Real, undeniable divine intervention. This changes everything, for the whole human race, forever.”

“Still hiding behind thinking of the human race?” Dominic clucked, like a chiding mother. “What of thyself? For whose sake dost thou truly want This Universe’s God to be a Clockmaker? For thine own? Thou art His priest. All thy life thou hast wanted desperately to see Him, to have Him set a miracle before thee and prove His presence. Why then didst thou imagine Him a Clockmaker who never shows His face? That wasn’t what thou wantedest.”