Mercy said, with less rancour: “You never liked Cristabel, even before what happened.”

“Bullshit I didn’t like Cristabel,” he said instantly, with the careful, measured reasonableness of a man you had personally seen get through two bottles of wine. “You know what I feel … you know I don’t think she was the best influence on Alfred … you know I thought they brought out the worst in each other, and I don’t think you disagree.”

God said, “They were very similar people.”

“No,” said Augustine. “They weren’t, John. She was a fanatic and an idiot—yes, she was, Mercy—and he … was a man who regretted that he wasn’t. It took surprisingly little to lead my brother astray.”

“Nobody could lead him where he didn’t want to go,” said God, and his patience took a solemn edge. “You know that.”

“Lord! Don’t tell me that,” said his Lyctor, faintly smiling. “I have built an entire myriad on the idea that I could’ve made him come around, given five minutes.”

His sister-saint said nothing to this. She flicked her eyes down to her own glass, instead, and he quickly filled up the awkward pause with, “Anyway, let’s drink to a woman who never divided opinion. Here’s to Pyrrha Dve.”

All eyes trailed fatally down the table to the Saint of Duty. Your gaze was among them. You grasped the stem of your wineglass in your hand, and you looked at the face of the man who had been necromancer once to a woman called Pyrrha: the inscrutable lack of expression that had greeted you in the bathtub, and the first time he’d walked into the Mithraeum’s chapel.

He said flatly, with a note of warning: “Augustine.”

“I mean it. Don’t you think that’s astonishing, after all this time? Even Mercy doesn’t have a bad thing to say about her.” (“Why am I constantly painted as a critical person,” came the inevitable critique.) “I say, here’s to Pyrrha, the woman I cultivated a smoking habit to impress—the cavalier, the legend, the stone-cold fox … John, please stop joggling my elbow, I have heard stone-cold fox from your own holy lips.”

The Emperor protested, “Respectfully! Respectfully.”

Ortus said, “Another topic.”

“Right,” said Augustine. He took another gulp of wine as though to fortify himself, and Ianthe suggested: “To our enemies, older brother.”

“Yes! Great,” he agreed heartily. “A classic. This is why you are my chosen apprentice, chick. To our enemies—the enemies of the Empire—to those safely in the River, that is. I won’t drink to enemies alive, but let’s drink to enemies fallen, as we can afford to be gracious. Let’s drink to the dried-up Blood of Eden.”

Both the Emperor and Mercy said, immediately: “They’re not gone.”

“Fine, pedants—I drink to the best of them, gone for absolute certain … not the remnant kooks, idiots, and zealots who think a nuclear missile could give us pause. The commander would never have settled for a nuclear missile … Lord, that was a merry dance she led us. It deserves something. Perhaps it’s a toast.”

Across the table, you noticed that the Saint of Duty’s knuckles had clenched, just slightly. You had a good sense for knuckles. The Emperor mistook your focus for puzzlement: “It was before you were born, Harrowhark.” (“Long before you were born,” added Mercy owlishly, “because you are three years old.”) “This isn’t really a story that deserves to be told after … three glasses of wine.”

“That was never three glasses of wine,” said the man to his left.

“Four glasses of wine,” amended God, which was probably still inadequate. “This is a good lesson for you, girls, not to underestimate anyone. A quarter century ago these fanatics found out about the Resurrection Beasts. Which are classified to the upper echelons of the Cohort, mind, so that was an intelligence effort and a half…”

“They knew about them,” said Ortus. “They just didn’t know what they were.”

“Finding out what they were didn’t stop them. They searched one Beast out … threw away half their ships separating a Herald from the pack … killed that Herald, let’s drink to that—” (“To killing Heralds,” said his two elder Lyctors, and they drank, and so did Ianthe, and you put your lips on the glass.) “Even a dead Herald can drive a necromancer insane. They took that thing apart. They made it into knives. They made it into axes. They made it into armour. I mean, extremely frugal, but honestly—that commander had Herald bullets.”

“Bullets,” said Augustine, “Darts. Throwing knives. Dead shot. Got me right between the eyes once. Mad as a cut snake, and three times as vicious. We nearly lost you to her a few times, didn’t we, Ortus? Should we drink to Commander Wake?”

The glasses rattled as the Saint of Duty stood, and said the most words you had ever heard him say. “Probably not. Excuse me. I’m tired.”

They watched him go in pursed-up silence. Teacher rose from the table, silently, as though thinking of going after him. When the door shut behind the escaping Lyctor, Mercymorn hissed, “Augustine, you ass,” and he protested calmly: “He’s fine.”

“You call that fine—”

“—sudden access of sympathy a little uncharacteristic when—”

“—not difficult to imagine that maybe—”

“Don’t,” said God, sitting back down with some difficulty. “Don’t. Not when you’re finally talking again. This is more amicable conversation than I have seen you two exchange in … it must be decades. Don’t. I’ve had a very nice evening. Harrow, you haven’t drunk too much, have you?”

You had drunk exceptionally too much, and were dying to purge your kidneys manually. “No,” you said, at the same time that your seatmate said, “Very obviously, yes.”

“Nobody asked you,” you said, but Ianthe was moving her chair over, and she was slinging her living arm around your bare shoulders—which made them feel less bare and less cold, which you resented—and she was saying, “There, there, Harry.” (God repressed a smile at this vile nickname, for which you once again assured Ianthe slow death.) “Let me introduce you to the special world of sisterhood—I will reveal everything you do, contradict you at every turn, and hold back your hair in the morning.”

You did not want Ianthe to reveal everything you did, nor did you want her to contradict you at every turn, and you especially did not want her to hold back your hair in the morning. But God said cheerfully, “Here’s to sisters,” and the other Lyctors reached for any glass that contained anything, and you had to take yours—Ianthe pressed it into your hand—and you drank.

Augustine said, “To sisters, and the women we’ve left behind.”

God’s mouth was cheerful as ever, but his eyes were not when he said, “Do I have to drink to that?”

For the first time, you were witness to the Saint of Patience discombobulated. “Apologies, John. Wasn’t meant as a jab.”

“It doesn’t hurt anymore—most of the time,” said God, and he was still smiling.

The Lyctor at his left was combing out her hair—it tumbled in a heavy mass around her shoulders, that curious heart-of-a-yellow-rose colour, that pinkish, reddish, goldenish shade that was not entirely appealing. Her glass still had wine in it, which seemed unrealistic, and she said: “Here’s a better toast.… To the Emperor of the Nine Houses. To the Resurrector. To my God.”

“To Emperor John Gaius, the Necrolord Prime!” said Augustine, and he drained his glass.

This was the only toast you were willing to drink to; you drank, because you held to your convictions, and also because Ianthe was looking at you with the mocking and faintly pitying expression of someone who did not expect you to drink. This made you drink twice.

“I’m not going to drink to myself,” Teacher was saying. “I’m not the best man who ever lived, but I’m not quite that much of a narcissist.”

The Saint of Joy said, with uncharacteristic ferocity: “You are the best man who ever lived.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Augustine.

You could not behold God’s expression for any great length of time. Augustine stood, and he refilled his glass, and he refilled Mercymorn’s. He clinked his wineglass against hers with a little crystal tinkle—she beheld him with dim and unfeeling eyes—and they drank in silence, at either side of the Emperor of the Nine Houses.

Eventually, she said: “I think I wish Cytherea were here.”

“I don’t,” said the saint on the other side. “We would have had to suffer her favourite conversation of Who had the hottest cavalier? And my answer hasn’t changed for anyone’s money. I don’t care that she was ten years my senior, Pyrrha Dve was hotter than the very fires of Hell.”

“Agreed,” said God.

“John, you dog.”