“Neither do I.” I tried to sound soothing.

“I—hic—I know you don’t, but—hic—at least you can help me think about it.” This was a new phase, I thought, the child learning to suppress sobs into hiccups, almost more mature. “A President—hic—can cause famine and chaos just by making the wrong economic policy, so how—hic—can we possibly protect the world from the changes I want to make?” He leaned his brow against the bars, eyes closed, as if the pressure against his temples let him feel like he was hiding. “I need you, Mycroft. You know more about the way the world runs than any ten people. You know about politics, and history, and economics, and people, everything.”

“I don’t know everything.”

“I know you don’t—hic—but you know as much of everything as anybody can, especially about power.” He glanced sidelong into the gilded dark of the salon. “You say there are important people in this house who you’re working with, who need you, well, I need them. I need you to get them on my side. I need the Emperor’s power, the Utopians’ skills. I need Chair Kosala to organize hospitals and aid workers to distribute the stuff that I create. I need Felix Faust to pick the right people to put in charge of things. I need the Censor to track the impact I’m having, and predict disasters. I need the Anonymous to convince everyone to cooperate. I need the Humanists to get excited about it as a big achievement and work for it, and the Europeans and the Mitsubishi to warn me when what I’m doing sounds like something that went hideously wrong when their nations tried it in the past. I need all that, but I wouldn’t know I need all that if I hadn’t had you to teach me about it.” His gaze seized mine. “I need you, Mycroft. No one could possibly need you as much as I do, and I think you need me too, more than anyone.” He stroked the thick hem of Apollo’s coat, his fingertips disappearing as they slipped beneath the Griffincloth. “Providence gave us to each other.”

I tried to keep my sobs as quiet as I could. “Yes. Yes, it did. There is a reason it was me of all people who stumbled on you all those years ago, and there’s a reason you grew up outside Thisbe’s bash’s house and no other. But there’s a bigger question besides ‘Why me?’ and ‘Why there?’ There’s ‘Why now?’ Why did this miracle come now?” I caught his hand, making my lecture gentler with a squeeze. “There must be a reason you were born in the year twenty-four forty, not thousands of years ago when people first started praying for immortality, and not a thousand years from now when we might have the technology and resources to support all the dead people you can resurrect. I’ve been working on that question, why now, ever since I met you. I think the answer is a person called Jehovah Epicurus Donatien D’Arouet Mason.”