“Not exactly,” Quill said. “The Skaladin are heretics. They accept the existence of the Builder, but not the divinity of the Savior. He is a sorcerer, they say, with the power to subdue all other sorcerers, to bend them to his will, and use them to remake the world in the tyrant’s favor. As their book of Indictments puts it, ‘And so harnessed, he will remake the world. The cullborn shall know their place and shall toil without strife, and all shall be green and growing, and each man’s life will be blessed.’”

The Skaladin are blasphemers, vermin to be exterminated down to the last nit, growled Isabelle’s ancestral chorus. Primus Maximus had launched a crusade against the Skaladin and had died for his sins, but his loathing lived on. She checked her timepiece to make sure she hadn’t somehow missed a dose.

Bitterlich bestowed Isabelle a worried, questioning look, a silent offer of aid. She met his gaze and shook her head; she could handle this. It was just that her chorus was more sensitive to certain topics than others, like a stomach that rebelled at spicy food.

Bitterlich turned his attention to Quill. “What I want to know is what the Hand of Saint Cynessus was doing in Rocher Royale in the first place. Relics of such provenance are usually kept in the quondariums in Om.”

Quill pursed his lips but then said, “I requested the reliquary be sent to me for study. It has never shown any miraculous powers and as such is not amongst the most restricted class of artifacts.”

“If it has never produced a miracle, what makes you think it can open the Vault?” Isabelle asked.

Quill said, “The Prophecy says that the Savior will emerge from the Vault of Ages, but not all versions of the Prophecy are precisely the same. In the Fragments, which only sanctified clerics may read, there are mentions of the gatekeeper, the blind man by whose hand the last seal will be broken and the Savior emerge. That is all I have to go on.”

Isabelle shook her head. “I am weary of men who cannot wait for the end of the world.”

“The coming of the Savior is not the end of the world,” Quill said. “It is the end of strife, the beginning of Paradise Everlasting.”

“Show me your Paradise and I will show you my Torment,” Isabelle said. “But discussions of the hereafter are a harrow without a harvest. The problem you have laid at my feet to solve is entirely of your making.”

Quill hung his head. “I accept my responsibility. I have confessed it to the Builder and now to you, for I cannot solve it.” He raised his gaze to meet hers. “But if I may beg the use of an imperative, we must get to the Vault first.”