“THE GODS DON’T EXIST,” I said, my mouth numb.

“I don’t? And what do you think you are, half-one? I felt what you were trying to do to me. Tell me, Nirrim: What do you think I can do to you?”

I stood, ready to run from the room. He smiled, and the strength left my body. I slumped to the floor, banging my face against the chair as I went down. It clattered on top of me as I lay, and he stood to look down upon me, the hem of his red robe brushing the skin of my arm. I willed myself to move. I couldn’t even twitch my fingers.

“I am being a good god,” he said. “I haven’t stolen your sight, for example.”

Though my eyes were open, they went suddenly blind. I cried out. The bird answered my call. I heard its wings rustle.

Nothing was as dark as this. Not night, not the orphanage baby box, not even when I closed my eyes and light shone through my eyelids. The world looked entirely black and empty.

The fabric of his robe skimmed over me. I heard him walk around my prone body, pausing by my head. He could do anything to me. He could crush my face beneath his heel. He could do worse.

“Or I could steal your breath.”

And it was suddenly gone. I strained for air. My heart panicked. I felt myself choking, dying, paralyzed and alone in the airless black.

“That’s the fragile human in you,” he said, and air came rushing back into my lungs. I sucked it in, my breath a horrible keening rasp.

“God of thieves,” I said.

“Yes, little one.”

“Let me up,” I begged.

“No.”

“Give me back my sight.”

“No.”

“Please, let me go. I’ll do anything.”

“Anything?” His voice was ripe with amusement. “Such a dangerous word. I haven’t even yet caused you pain. I can slowly steal the blood from your body. The warmth from your skin. The tongue from your mouth. All the water within you, so that you desiccate into a tortured husk.”

“There must be something I can do,” I sobbed. “Something I can give you.”

“There is,” he said. “It happens to be the one thing that even I cannot steal.”

“What? Tell me.”

“You will lie there, and you will listen, and when I am done I will make you a bargain, my child.”

One should never bargain with a god. But I did not know that then.

“Should you accept,” he said, “you will leave here just as you were when I met you, save for one thing. Am I not merciful?”

“And if I say no? Will you murder me?”

His silence was thoughtful. “To whom do you belong?”

To Sid, I thought. Then I buried the thought, terrified that he might steal it from me.

“Perhaps you don’t know,” he mused. “Who bore you?”