They debated seven hours. The transcript, as I said, belongs to the Vatican, but what I can show you instead is the view inside the papal library not many doors away, where Raphael painted the sages of Athens and saints of Heaven eternally in this same dispute over the nature of Earth, God, soul, and Man. See there immortal Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Jerome, alive in paint, in their fat volumes, and in dialectic. Since the museum crowds are at the second reconstructed Vatican outside the city, these famous rooms serve as the pope’s personal library, packed with books on Great Questions, and here wait those who are not admitted to today’s debate: the King of Spain, a cluster of aides (who carried on their own debate while the masters worked inside), and Carlyle. Madame is at confession.

“Five minutes!” Faust howled. The king described this to me, a true howl of anguish as, four hours in, when he failed for a fifth time to hold his tongue, the Brillist Headmaster was punished with a ‘time out.’ “I’ll shut up! I promise!” He hammered on the inlaid door that slammed behind him. He had tried his best. I had watched him throughout the conference, fidgeting, mouthing attendees’ sets under his breath, then mouthing comments, then voicing them. His first interruption had been received politely, but that only encouraged more. “Shit!” He slammed the door again. “Five minutes! They could write ten commandments in five minutes!”

His Majesty confesses that he laughed. “Smart money said you couldn’t keep your mouth shut, Felix.”

Faust cannot glare; he finds insult, like every human act, too charming. “Carlyle Foster-Kraye?” He sat down opposite the lank but lovely figure. “Whatever are you doing out here, hiding under all that black and scowl? You should be in there, they’d let you in.” He cocked his head. “You know, you’re the spitting image of your mother dressed like that. Think of a number for me. Any number.”

Carlyle did not even raise her sparkling eyes.

“Now there’s some top-quality despair. If you won’t give me a number, look at these forty-eight pictures of things eating bananas.” Faust held out a tablet, since the ancient room contained no screens.

Absurdity awoke what charm could not. “Why?”

Faust stiffened. “I am Headmaster of Brill’s Institute and Steward of Gordian, the First Hive, which birthed the best age this planet has ever known. When I tell you to look at forty-eight pictures of things eating bananas, you do not ask why.”

Carlyle swallowed. “Sorry.”

Forty-eight pictures of things eating bananas later:

“Well?” Faust prompted. “What do you think?”

“I… I think sharks look really weird eating bananas.”

“Fine observation. Anything else?”

“No.”

“What types of creatures were there the most pictures of?”

“Let’s see… sharks… um… rabbits, monkeys, parrots, people…”

“There were twice as many pictures of each of the others than there were of sharks.”