I know, reader. Undeserving as I am of rest, it is so tempting. And it would have been so painless this way—that is what the part of me that could still think thought in that dim hour. In the pitch black I would not even have to know at what moment darkness gave way to eternal darkness. But you would not let me quit, nor would my other masters, whose voices joined in chorus now to nag me back to life.

MASON: “Live, murderer. Live and serve and suffer.”

Papa: “Your sentence isn’t up.”

Reader: “Nor is thy task.”

Sniper: “¡Hang in there, Mycroft! I’m with you. ¿Can you hear me?”

Saladin: «Don’t waste the death of Mycroft Canner on something like this.»

Spain: «Our son needs you.»

Anonymous: “¡You’re my successor! ¡You may not die without passing the office on to safer hands!”

Faust: “You’re stronger than this, I’m afraid.”

Mercer Mardi: “Remember what you hear here, Mycroft. It’s important.”

Bridger: “You can’t run away, Mycroft, not you. I know it’s hard what’s coming—so hard I ran away—but you can’t. I’m sorry. I love you.”

Achilles: “He’s right. The gods will ask much more of you before they let you rest, old friend. They always do.”

Apollo: “You still have ships to board.”

He: 「“«Bleib… quedate… reste… μείνε… mane… mate… stay.»”」

Smell pierced the veil first after the voices: laundry starch and hygiene. Touch followed: cotton softness, mild wound pain, straps around my wrists and ankles (comforting proof that whoever had found me knew me well), and a warm hand holding mine, child-thin and clinging. Soft light showed me a plain ceiling, a small white room fastidiously bare, and Sniper sleeping, slumped against my bedside, diffuse white sunlight making its soft skin glow. Serene closed eyes and a hint of smile on its sleeping face gave it a doll’s perfection, while its black hair, just long enough to fall untidily, tempted one to brush the black locks back in place and pose the head straight. Someone had draped a towel in lieu of a blanket over Sniper’s sleeping shoulders, and its hand nestled in mine. To this day I don’t know whether, before its operation, the now-hermaphrodite was male or an Amazon, but if I had known, seeing Sniper beside me now I think my mind would have rebelled at assigning it a sex, as if I were asked to sex the sky, or fleeting clouds.

“Try anything and I will kill you, Mycroft, whatever Sniper says.”