Palamedes cocks an eyebrow, his lips moving just slightly as he replays the question in his head. “Oh, bollocks. I really need to work on my delivery, don’t I?” He huffs quietly. “And you’re quite correct; the reliability of the Lord our God, Emperor and kindly Prince of Death has been thoroughly discredited.” The words come out with more bitterness than Pal intends. He had never been a devoted believer—in fact, he tended to be vocally skeptical, even by Sixth standards, of the Emperor’s infallibility—but he had always believed on some level that their God was an imperfect but loving Father who had humanity’s best interests at heart. Now, the very last vestiges of that assumption of good faith have been stripped away, and Pal is afraid of what other beliefs might come tumbling down as a result.

“But there’s an original sin at the root of it, isn’t there? An original lie. She—“ Pal can’t bring himself to say Cytherea’s name, still— “she didn’t say it, exactly, but she was so angry, Cam.” He stops, taking off his glasses and pressing his thumb and forefinger against his closed eyes, unsure for a moment if he can get out the rest. It’s important, he reminds himself. “Like she’d discovered a person she loved had been killed for no good reason.”

Glasses still off, he meets Cam’s gaze again. “It’s obvious when you think about it. The Lyctoral theorem as it currently stands isn’t only ghastly—it’s a mess. And the King Undying is a lot of things, but He doesn’t strike me as sloppy.”

Then he asks what surely must sound like a non-sequitur. “Have you managed to speak to Gideon recently?”