It took Carlyle some seconds to gulp enough air to speak. “The Clockmaker is most fair, most universal. It wouldn’t be right for God to be just one God, to reveal Themself to just one people and let the rest be wrong. A Deist God, Who answers to every name people call Them by, is… would have been… the only just God.”

“Exactly.” Victory fire surged in Dominic’s eyes. “It was for the others thou preferredest the Clockmaker, not for thyself. Thou dost not want the others to be wrong, dost not want their God not to exist, their universe to be unkind to them. They need the Clockmaker, not thee. Deep down thou hast always wanted to pray for a miracle, for proof, but thou couldst not ask for it. Thy God must be perfectly fair, and a fair Clockmaker would not violate His own rule to show Himself to an unworthy fallen priest. Am I right?”

“I don’t—”

“Am I right?”

“Yes!” Carlyle shrieked out. “Yes, of course I always wanted God to make an exception for me, to show Themself. I wanted it more than anything else in the world. But I couldn’t ask for God to be so unfair, to come to me when They didn’t to so many others. I didn’t deserve it, not after what I did. I still don’t.”

“Yes, thou dost.”

Every inch of Carlyle trembled. “What?”

“Thou thinkest thy fall makes thee unworthy? Just the opposite.” Dominic leaned close, his calm brows suddenly more grave than cruel. “Thou hast fallen from thy God and yet thou servest Him still, even though thou no longer considerest thyself ‘special,’ or ‘chosen,’ or worthy of His Love. Thou art willing to devote thyself to a God whom thou expectest to hate thee, and before His wrath thou declarest, ‘Damn me if Thou wilt, Lord, I shall love Thee still!’ That is a far stronger loyalty than the placid worship of the pure who expect Salvation or Enlightenment; they get a bribe, while thou, for all thou knowest, gettest Hellfire, and still thou lovest. It is not hubris to call such devotion special.”

“I… hadn’t thought about it like that.”

“Few do.”

Carlyle raised her eyes anew to her tormentor, who sat with his crossed arms buried in his habit sleeves, contemplative. It is strange to see Dominic’s face without aggression, passive, but it happens from time to time, as when, after feeding, a serpent knots itself up to sleep, and squirrels and monkeys play freely in the branches around it, sensing by instinct when the hunter is benign. Snakes sleep most of their lives, you know—they stir only to feed.

“Dominic,” Carlyle began with trembling lips, “have you also fallen?”

“We are talking of thy faith, not mine,” the monk interrupted quickly, “but it does seem that thou and I are both among the rare creatures that have recognized the necessity of hypocrisy. Thy fall saved someone’s life; surely thou believest thy God intended that. Thy God, like us, knows that oaths must sometimes be broken, but that doesn’t mean the oaths meant nothing; in fact, to we who agonize again and again over the choice of when to break and when to follow, oaths mean more.”