“D’you have any idea who that was?” he says, giving me a look that feels like a mixture between astonishment and even maybe respect.

“Yeah,” I say, trembling a little.

It seems to take him a moment to master his incredulity, and then he says: “Rodolfo Graziani, the Marchese di Jöve.”

“I know. He told me.”

“He’s only the leader of the Order’s forces, second-in-command to Shinigami. And, more than that, a psychotic and mindlessly brutal assassin. He’s an evil bastard and a real threat to the multiverse. You’re goddamn lucky to be alive.”

Akuji comes towards us. Silently. She twirls her sticks once and then slams them home in their twin scabbards on her belt. She says nothing.

Vidhan, next to her, looks at the blood dripping off the ends of the fighting sticks and grimaces. “You kill me, Kuji,” he says. “Ya really do.”

Now he looks from Akuji to me and his face pales.

“What?” I say.

Vidhan takes a step towards me. “That sword,” he says. “It’s Graziani’s?”

I hold the sword tightly in my fist. “No. Mother gave it to me.”

Impossible! a voice cries in my head. Akuji.

“The sun-blade,” Vidhan says, straightening his glasses. “That’s the weapon she chose for you? Ra?”

“You know the sword’s name?” I say.

All three stand in a semi-circle around me and their gaze, like heat, falls on the blade in my fist and it feels like a blend of jealousy and wonder.

I clutch the sword more vehemently and make a promise to myself: I’ll never let it pass from my hands again.

“Why’re you all looking at me like that?” I ask, locking eyes with each of them.

Malik is the first to answer. “Something about you,” he says, “I didn’t know what it was, or why, but I knew you were important. And now this. The way you attacked him like that. Instinctively, without fear. And that sword, it’s—”

“What are you talking about? It’s just a sword.”

“Ana,” Vidhan says. “That is no ordinary sword. The sun-blade is an ancient Egyptian khopesh. See those seven symbols, running down the blade? They each represent a world.”

“That sword,” Malik adds, “was carried by Mother herself. It was her sword. And, before that, it was carried by the first Pathfinder. Thoth—the god.”

22

“God?”

“Yeah.”

“Do I believe in God?” Bea exclaims. “That’s your question?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a load of bull, Moon. I’m Jewish, you idiot. Course I’m supposed to believe in God. And of course I bloody don’t.”