When the new week began, Nikola had as many new petitioners as ever, plus a backlog of appointments from the prior week. In response to Daphne’s complaint of Sunday, however, he had Shelby defend two and a half hours in his schedule each afternoon for the family dinners. “Family” was an expansive term at this season, and encompassed not only his parents, sisters, and brothers-in-law, but also a selection of aunts, uncles, distant cousins, and friends of all kinds.

One of the latter was to be Justin: Nik invited him to dinner Wednesday to reciprocate Friday’s supper invitation. At Anverlee Manor in the afternoon during the Season, they’d be lucky to have even a moment alone, much less any true privacy, but Justin’s note of acceptance pleased him nonetheless.

Monday and Tuesday passed in a blur of unfamiliar faces and misformed minds gently reshaped by the Savior’s power. When he finished the last Tuesday appointment after eleven in the evening, Anthser padded with him back to his room. “I don’t think I’ll go out tonight. I’ll just change out of this jacket and see if Nathaniel and Edmund are at cards in the drawing room.” Nik loosened his neckcloth as he spoke.

Anthser yawned. “Don’t you ever get tired, m’lord?”

Nik chuckled. “I sleep. Eventually. You needn’t stay on duty, Anthser.”

“I am off-duty. Harassing you is what I do for fun.” Anthser bumped his nose against Nik’s head, then licked his cheek with a broad raspy pink tongue while Nik laughed and pushed him away, making a face.

“Ugh, you brute, get off me.” Nik sidestepped the black greatcat to enter his suite, and washed his face in the adjoining bathing chamber’s basin.

“Hey, I just did that,” Anthser protested, craning his dark massive head around the door.

Nik dried his face and hands and hung his jacket and neckcloth on a peg for Shelby to deal with in the morning. “Humans wash with soap and water, not tongues. And I am not a greatcat.”

“Nobody’s perfect.” Anthser sat in the hall while Nik shrugged into the after-supper jacket Shelby had laid out for him earlier. It was a long, loose coat suitable only in the late evening at home among family. Nik stuck his tongue out at the cat, who tilted his head. “Wait, did you want to groom me now?”

Hurriedly pulling his tongue back in, Nik grimaced. “You are impossible.”

“Same to you. Seriously, Lord Nik, you work hours that you’d be ashamed to subject any of us to – you told Mr. Shelby and Mr. Coxleigh to knock off, what, five hours ago? And when you finally do finish up you’re up all night talking and playing cards or whatever.”

“I am fifty years younger than Shelby, and he has to rise earlier than I do for his duties. Besides, my part’s easier than yours. I just lounge about while the Savior takes care of everything. I’m not the one fending off unsatisfied petitioners and outraged parents and whatnot.” Nik straightened the wide cuffs of his after-supper jacket and strolled down the hall to take one of the side stairwells down to the drawing room.

“Mmf.” Anthser followed to rub the side of his head against Nik’s shoulder. “If you say so, I guess. M’lord.” He sounded so dubious that Nik had to smile. “We worry about you. It’s a lot more work than you’re used to. Are you sure the Savior’s not going to get mad at you for overdoing it?”

“Anthser. To the best of my knowledge, the Savior has never been angry with anyone, man or greatcat, for any reason. Including wilful retention of demons. I am fine. So is he. Trust me.”

The greatcat ducked his head, looking so pathetic that Nik turned to embrace him, stroking the wide furred neck and rubbing the side of his head against Anthser’s whiskered cheek. His liegecat sat, wrapping a paw around Nik’s back to hug him in return, rumbling with a sound half purr and half sigh. “All right then. Good evening, m’lord.”

§

The children were, of course, already abed, but the rest of his family was gathered in the drawing room. It was a large chamber furnished in seventh-century style, using the house colors of blue and silver. A long narrow couch was set against the wall opposite the picture window, beneath a stormy seascape painting. Two wingback armchairs bracketed the fireplace, alongside shelves full of antique leather-bound books his mother deemed too pretty for the library. To one side was a carved wooden parlor-game table, surrounded by four matching chairs.

Lysandra was at work on a portrait, sketchbook on a lapdesk while the Lady Striker sat for her in one of the armchairs, wearing her countess’s circlet and looking pleased with herself. A fire crackled in the hearth beside her: the manor had been remodeled with a furnace when Nik was a boy, but the quickgas heat had never been well-distributed and they often set fires in the most-used rooms rather than keeping the entire house warm. Daphne had a handkerchief in an embroidery hoop, which she occasionally tormented with a needle. Mostly she watched Lord Striker play cards with her husband, Captain Nathaniel Adonse, and Lysandra’s, Mr. Edmund Warwick. Both of his brothers-in-law were several years older than Nik and he knew neither well, although he found Edmund grating: the man had known Nik since he was twelve and had never stopped treating him like a child. Nathaniel, at least, always called him Nikola.

Nik offered a cordial greeting to all, giving a dutiful kiss to his mother’s cheek despite Lysandra’s admonition not to stir her model. He received welcomes in varying degrees of warmth, Lord Striker’s being the coolest. His father was still irritated with him: about the constant influx of petitioners in general and the Whittakers particular. No one had asked Nik about the Whittakers since Thursday; Nik suspected his mother of deflecting enquiries. Mr. Whittaker had sent for him to see Sharone on Monday evening, and she’d been calm and as coherent as a normal six year-old for a quarter of an hour. Sharone had acknowledged that she needed help, even said she wanted it, but when Nik went to take her hand she’d become unhinged again, as resistant as ever.

Nik had not told anyone about that yet. He wasn’t sure how long he ought to keep trying; he’d already far surpassed the requirements of the Code. But she seemed so close to consenting. Surely a little girl’s life and sanity was worth more than a few days or weeks of inconvenience?

“We’re just starting a new round, Nikola, would you care to join us?” Nathaniel asked from the game table. The captain was a broad-shouldered, heavyset man of about thirty, with a complexion dark even for Newlanture, and black hair that he wore clubbed, folded back on itself and secured with a ribbon.

“Certainly.” Nik took the empty seat opposite his father, who barely acknowledged him. They were keeping score with chocolates, Nik noticed with some amusement.

“So where were you off to on Sunday, Nik?” Daphne asked from the couch, while Nathaniel dealt. “I never did ask.”

“Bowracing with Comfrey,” Nik said.

“What, in lace cuffs and neckcloth?”

“Ah…” Nik reviewed the cards in his hands to hide the pause while he tried to work out an answer that didn’t involve with Miss Vasilver. He covered Edmund’s ten with a queen. “Right, I called on a gentlewoman before I went on to Comfrey’s.”

“Oh?” Daphne’s interest was wholly captured now. “Whom?”

His mind produced no practical diversions. “Miss Vasilver.”

His father gave him a sharp look from across the table, while Lysandra said, “Wisteria Vasilver? How lovely! Is she in town now then? How is she?” She missed her mother’s sputtering as she turned her attention to Nik.

“Very well,” Nik answered, surprised. “I didn’t know you were acquainted.”

His mother, red-faced and aghast, got out. “Nikki, you didn’t. Not that dreadful creature! Whyever would you call on her?”

Because I like her. Nik was saved from answering by Lysandra: “Mother! Whyever would you speak so about Miss Vasilver? She’s an excellent woman, generous and frightfully clever. We went to school together, Nik.”

“Then she’s changed since you met, because I have never encountered a woman so crass and uncouth.” Lady Striker shuddered in recollection.

“I can never believe that, mother, whatever did she do?” Lysandra asked.

Lady Striker raised one hand and shook her head. “It’s not fit for a lady to repeat or to hear.”

“Mother! You can’t tell me my old schoolfriend has done something dreadful and then not tell me what,” Lysandra cried in protest. Her mother was unmoved. “But you can’t have thought her unbearable, Nik.”

“Not at all.” Nik claimed the current trick and led with a deuce. Lord Striker snorted and muttered something under his breath that made Edmund smirk.

“Nikki, I can’t believe you’d call on that woman again,” Lady Striker admonished him. “Think of the ideas you’ll encourage.”

“What ideas?” Lysandra demanded.

“I have no notion what you’re talking about, Mother.” He trumped the next trick with a low spade and led with an ace.

“You know very well,” Lady Striker said.

“I certainly don’t,” Lysandra complained.

Their mother gave an exasperated sigh. “May we please speak of something else?”

“By all means,” Nik said, and asked Nathaniel how he was enjoying his holiday from the regiment. The man gamely stepped up to the diversion. Sulking, Lysandra returned to her sketching.

After a decent interval, Lysandra chose to retire. As soon as she was out of the room, Nathaniel grinned across the table at Edmund. “Shall we move to a more dignified stake than chocolates, gentlemen?” he asked.

Edmund chuckled. “One mark a point?”

“Suits me,” Lord Striker said, dumping his stash of chocolates into the candy bowl.

“You know, I’m for bed as well. Petitioners in the morning, you understand. Good night.” Besides, the sooner I go to bed, the sooner it will be tomorrow and Justin will call. After rising and offering a short bow to the room, Nik took his leave.

He met Lysandra again just outside her suite, two doors down from his; she’d stopped in the kitchen for a mug of warm milk with a shot of brandy. She was tall and as brown-haired as their father had been in his youth, with a narrow face; only her clear fair complexion was shared with her shorter and rounder sister and mother. Lysandra stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Oh, Nik – whatever did Mother mean about Wisteria? You’ll tell me, won’t you?”

Nik hesitated, but relented at Lysandra’s pleading look and gave a concise explanation.

His older sister covered her mouth with one hand, the mug in her other quivering as she tried to mask an expression of mixed horror and mirth. “Oh no, no, how…oh goodness, Nik. She was always a little too forthright, I suppose, but…you did forgive her?”

Nik tried not to smile and failed. “I honestly was not offended. Father and Mother haven’t, as you saw.”

“I think she’d make a splendid wife, Nik—”

Nik lifted his hands to forestall her. “None of that, Lys! ‘I wasn’t offended’ doesn’t change my disinclination for marriage. I wasn’t in favor of this whole business at the start. I just…did not want her to feel slighted.”

Lysandra made a face at him. “It would be a good match, though. And I would love Wisteria for a sister – you know I never should have learnt the first thing about accounts were it not for her. Anyhow, you’re not interested I know la la la.” She wiggled the fingers of one hand in dismissal of the concept. “Good night, Nik.”

He continued on to his suite, half of him irritated that everyone – Justin, his parents, Lysandra – seemed to think there was no possible reason he could call on Miss Vasilver other than to evaluate her potential as a bride.

The other half wondered if being outnumbered by everyone else was a sign that he was in the wrong. But I don’t want to marry her. And I’d have to be the first to know if I did. Besides, I am not alone in this view; I told Miss Vasilver and she thought it perfectly reasonable. With this thought in mind, he retired to his bed.

---

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Vasilver House gathered for breakfast at ten-thirty, which was a compromise between Wisteria’s father, who prefered to rise with the sun, and her mother and Byron, who felt that noon was more than early enough to awaken. Wisteria’s compromise was to filch food from the kitchen whenever she was hungry, but to sit with her family during meals and, if she didn’t feel like eating then, push small quantities of food about her plate while everyone else ate. After all, the ‘meal’ portion of the occasion was merely the excuse for gathering: the real point was to be with one’s family and guests. Wisteria wasn’t sure if food served an actual purpose in crafting bonds between people, or if other humans just needed excuses to group together and talk. But the experimental evidence of some years of timing her meals to coincide with others had shown that it didn’t have an impact on the way she bonded with people, so Wisteria had given up on the inconvenience of that aspect.

Several years ago, Mrs. Vasilver had forbidden business as a topic of conversation at the breakfast and supper table, a move Wisteria had supported even though Wisteria herself was one of the most likely to talk shop. The purpose of family meals was to communicate with the family, and neither her mother nor her youngest brothers had any real interest in business. Her father had held the line against barring talk of commerce at dinner, however: they had too many dinner guests who were businessmen, and the middle of the day was a convenient time to discuss issues that had arisen in the morning or early afternoon.    

Father and Mother were, as usual, at opposite ends of the breakfast table, with their children between them. Today, Mitchell and David bracketed father as they chattered away about a two-week hunting party in the spring they’d been invited to by one of Mitchell’s friends. They were still trying to persuade Father to let them accept. Byron devoted himself to coffee and silence. Mother contemplated her offspring as she picked at an omelet.

In an effort to connect with her mother, Wisteria had been reading some of the same novels she did. Her mother’s taste ran to tragic love stories, which Wisteria found by turns bewildering, absurdly implausible, and fascinating. The amount of information that normal people could purportedly transfer by looking into one another’s eyes was astonishing. Wisteria never saw anything but whites, irises, and pupils when she met a person’s gaze. The current story they were reading was set in the Abandoned World not long before Ascension. The characters tended to the insipid and Wisteria found the demon-possessed male protagonist rather horrifying even when he wasn’t outright assaulting the female protagonist. The story’s most intriguing facet was the author’s interpretation that the Abandoned World had once been a harsh but habitable place that, over generations, became almost completely inhospitable. The inhabitants of the story lived in the sunless, near-lifeless land of legend, but amidst the ruins of a dying civilization. They survived by breaking up old wooden houses for fuel, growing fungi for food in cellars and caves, and scavenging the remaining canned goods and preserved meat from an earlier and less-destitute age. Wisteria wasn’t sure that it made sense, but it gave the book a verisimilitude many Abandoned World stories lacked, and a grim urgency. Without the Savior, these people were sliding into a certain oblivion all the more convincing for the details behind it.

Wisteria had just decided to ask her mother what she thought about that aspect of the novel when Mother turned to her and asked, “Since Lord Nikola is…uninterested, dear, have you given any consideration to other matches?”

Wisteria blinked at her. “No?” She did have notes on at least a half-dozen other men of appropriate social status, age, and fortune. But those were all from before she’d asked her father about introducing her to Lord Nikola, and Lord Nikola had been far and away her first choice from among them. And…well, she didn’t have her heart set on Lord Nikola, but she’d thought to give other parts of her a chance to recover before she made another attempt.

“You ought to, Wisteria,” Mother said. “You’re not getting any younger.”

“Leave her be, Mother.” Byron glanced up from his coffee at last. “Last I checked – which would be about three hours ago – Vasilver Trading’s not so poor that you need to hawk offspring. Rest assured.”   

“Byron, this has nothing to do with business,” Mother told him.   

“Of course it has to do with business. Marriage is a business,” Wisteria said. “It’s an alliance between families for mutual benefit and sealed by flesh and blood. It is the most basic form of commerce, which is odd when you consider how stunningly complex it is in terms of the entanglement of lives and commitments involved. Byron is merely concerned that I do not possess all the requisite skills for it—”   

“I did not say that!” Byron jumped to his feet and planted his fists on the table. “I never said that!”

“—which is a reasonable concern, I am sure we all agree. Please sit down, Byron.” Nearly everyone gets married. Which is not the same as ‘everyone’. And I am as far from ‘everyone’ as one gets.

“Look, Teeri, you want to get married, that’s one thing.” Byron straightened his jacket and resumed his seat. “But there’s no excuse for Mother – or Father—” he directed a look at their father, who was engrossed by his breakfast “—to badger you about it at the breakfast table.”

“So when’re you gonna propose to someone, By?” David piped from his end of the table.

“No one needs to badger me, either. Shut up, Davey.”

“Mother isn’t badgering me,” Wisteria said. “Did you have anyone in particular in mind, Mother?”

“Well. That nice Mr. Worth is still single.”

“Do you have anyone new in mind, Mother?”

“What’s wrong with Mr. Worth?”

“Nothing is wrong with him,” Wisteria said. “But introductions between us did not prove fruitful a year ago and I don’t imagine a renewed acquaintance will have better luck now.”

“But time may change a man, dear, and perhaps, since he hasn’t found anyone else…you never know,” Mother said.

The last time we spoke, Mr. Worth called me an unfeeling cold-blooded lizard and said that he’d sooner wed a greatcat, Wisteria didn’t say. There were some truths even she’d learned not to repeat to her family. “Trust me, Mother. This time, I know.”

“She badgering you now, Teeri?” Byron asked. “Sounds like badgering to me.”

“What about Lord Comfrey?” Mr. Vasilver said.

Her younger brothers perked up. “Saints, marry Lord Comfrey!” Mitchell said. “Comfrey Viscountcy’s got the best hunting grounds in all of Newlant.”

Across the table from Wisteria, Byron grimaced into his coffee. Wisteria shook her head at her father. “That’s not a practical match.”    

“What? Why not? He’s a good mind for business, solid fortune, title, about your age,” her father said. “What’s the objection?”

“He’s much too far above me? He’d never consent to the match.”

“But Lord Nikola was a count—”

“A count’s heir. And Anverlee County may be much larger but it has not an eighth part of the wealth of Comfrey Viscountcy,” Wisteria pointed out.

“And he’s a bit…” Byron trailed off.

“A bit what?”

Byron rubbed the back of his neck. “Sarcastic. Don’t think you’d get on.”

“Oh, yes.” Wisteria nodded concurrence.

Her father harrumphed. “You might at least meet him first.”

“I should be perfectly happy to be introduced,” Wisteria said. “If the opportunity arises. But I think arranging an opportunity with the goal of betrothal in mind is unadvised.” Even her mother nodded to that. Wisteria nibbled at a crepe, contemplating the intractable difficulties of the marriage question. “This would be much easier if one wasn’t obliged to unite so many roles in a single person.”

“Beg pardon?” Mother said.

Wisteria fluttered the fingers of her left hand. “I am seeking one man who is well-bred, well-educated, of some consequence in society, whose own person and also his relations and connections will be a good fit for Vasilver Trading, whose personal holdings will be of value to us, who will be my companion and lover for a lifetime, who will be father to my children and guide them as they grow – this is an impractical amount to expect of a single individual.”

Byron snorted a laugh. “So ought to marry two or three men, one for each of the different parts?”

“Exactly,” Wisteria agreed, pleased that someone understood. “At least. Of course, they’d need two or three wives each – I cannot be all women for all things myself—”

“Numbers might get unwieldy,” Byron said. “What with each wife needing her own set of husbands. And so forth.”

“True. Perhaps we could arrange some overlap?”

“Wisteria…” Her mother covered her eyes with one hand, a familiar gesture of exasperation.

“Please don’t be facetious, Wisteria, Byron,” Father said. “Your younger brothers are at an impressionable age.” David stuck his tongue out at his father at this.

“But—” I am not being facetious. Wisteria realized before speaking that this would be ill-received. Instead, she tried, “Of course I don’t mean literally having multiple spouses.” Though now that Byron had mentioned it, it sounded like a good idea to her. “But you have to see how unrealistic it is to hope for one person to fulfill so many needs.”    

“No marriage is perfect, dear,” her mother said, not taking her hand from her eyes. “One must learn to compromise.”

“Of course, there will always be compromises. That’s what people do. But would it not be more rational to have a system that put less pressure on two people to be everything to one another?”

“That’s the way it’s done, Wisteria,” Father said.

“Not in all countries. In Myantia—”

Her mother cut her off with a little shriek. “I knew we should never have let her travel, Ethan.”

“It’s the way it’s done in Newlant, Wisteria, and we are Newlanters and will abide by tradition. Am I understood?”

“But—”

Father stood. “Just accept it, will you? Don’t question everything! Do you honestly think you, one woman a mere twenty-six years of age, can devise a better system than one that has stood the test of eight centuries?”

But it’s changed several times since the year zero; even in Newlant, current marriage contractual language is still being altered by participants. Wisteria held back the words. This must be another one of those topics she wasn’t supposed to talk about, or not talk about the way she was, or some equally maddening and pointless distinction. “Very well, Father.” She picked a few more bites off her crepe, then excused herself from the table.

---

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Nikola returned to Anverlee Manor in good time that evening, with enough to spare for a quick wash and to change for Temple. It was harder to school his thoughts into an appropriate frame of mind. More than anything else, he wanted to be able to hold Justin now, just hold him for an hour or two, long enough to convince himself that Justin was well and whole, to erase the memory of that terrible heart-stopping fall. To lie beside him and feel his warmth and hear his heartbeat and know that he was alive and safe. Why is this too much to ask?

But it was, of course. It was absurd and unmanly, particularly to crave that he be comforted because Justin had been in danger. As Shelby arranged a fresh jabot for Temple about his neck, Nik studied his own mind, hunting for the thousandth time for the fault or faults in it that made acting like a normal man so difficult. As ever, he couldn’t find it. Does this mean everyone else has the same problem, and we are all pretending? Horrid thought.

The Anverlee Manor property had its own temple, a large round building separated from the manor by a few dozen yards of lawn, with a wide covered pathway between the two. A sizable number of Striker relations had gathered at the manor for the evening: Nik, his parents, his two sisters, their husbands, their children (six between them), Lord Striker’s younger brother and his wife and their two youngest children. All of them were dressed in their Sunday finest: tailored suits of conservative cuts and jabots for the men, modest wide-skirted dresses in solid pastel colors for the women. Temple was one of the few occasions where everyone, not just the Blessed, wore gloves: lace for women and solid fabric for men. Both genders wore traditional jewelry: brooches or lapel pins, rings, bracelets, gold circlets on the brow of the Count and his Countess. Temple attire was less flamboyant in color and shine and more conservative in cut and fabric than the fanciful creations the nobility sported at formal balls, but it was no less cultured for that. Lord and Lady Striker were at the head of the procession from manor to temple, magnificent in ancestral jewels and embroidered clothing. The rest of the party followed in strict order of precedence; as usual, Nik looked sober and unadorned in contrast with his parents, suit with self-covered buttons instead of gold, fabric a common ivywool blend instead of one of the more recent and expensive creations of those Blessed for plants, his only jewelry a plain gold lapel pin of a monogrammed ‘F’. Daphne and her husband, a marine captain, brought up the rear of the gentleborn with their son in his mother’s arms. Behind them followed a small army of servants, both Anverlee’s own and those of their guests, in some cases with their own spouses and children. They were also in order of precedence, which meant that Anthser as the sole warcat led the section. Then came Mr. Bronson, the Anverlee head butler, and Mrs. Goslin, the Anverlee chief of staff, followed by Mrs. Linden as Fireholt’s chief of staff, then the Anverlee greatcats, and so on down to the scullery maids.

The temple facade was white stone polished smooth. Inside, the floor was likewise stone, but the rest of the interior was all sculptured wood, intertwined in shades from light blond to mahogany, carved in fanciful relief designs and elaborate cutouts layered over the windows. The Lord and Lady Striker had massive wooden chairs with velvet-cushioned seats and armrests. These were placed directly before the Speaking Circle, a ring of open floor some thirty feet across, with an ornate chest of iron-bound wood at the center today. Arranged to either side of these throne-like edifices were comfortable padded benches for the rest of the family members, surrounding the Speaking Circle but leaving wide gaps for aisles at each of the compass points. Behind those were plain wooden benches for the servants, apart from one section of raised platform at the back, where the greatcats sat. Nik took his place at the right hand of his father and waited patiently as the servants filed in and took their places behind the gentility.

When the last servant had taken her place at the back, there were few seats left in the temple. More guests still would be arriving next week; on the following Sunday, most of the plain benches would have to be removed so there’d be enough space for all the servants, though they’d have to stand.

Lady Striker rose from her seat to enter the Speaker’s Circle and begin the service. Traditionally, temple services were led by a titled noble, although most denominations now permitted any member of the gentry to do so. At Anverlee, family members had always taken turns. Lady Striker took more than her share, having more aptitude for it than any of her relations, and Nik took far less than his because he hated leading services. Because of his Blessing, people often looked upon him as some kind of theological expert, and he was uncomfortable with that role. He loved the Savior – he didn’t see how it was possible not to – but did not feel as though he had any profound insights on the divine. Nik wasn’t sure his mother had any either, but no one expected her to be a better temple leader than any other noble.

Now Lady Striker raised her arms, clad in pale yellow overlaid with white lace and made resplendent with jeweled bracelets and rings. “My family, my friends, my guests and my people of Anverlee and of Paradise, Savior give you welcome to his temple in this, the Paradise he has given to us his people.”

At the invocation, the Savior’s presence filled Nik’s senses with a golden warmth and light similar to when he healed minds, but different without that necessity: merely present, loving. Welcoming. “Thank you, O Savior,” he said in chorus with seventy-odd other voices, young and old, just as he’d said at hundreds of services before. It was rote, automatic, and no less heartfelt for that.

The Lady Striker lowered her arms and spoke in a clear, carrying voice as she turned in the circle to address the whole of her audience. “Let us reflect today on the Saints, the first-Blessed that the Savior gave unto his people.

“Nine centuries ago, our forefathers lived in the Abandoned World. The deadlands: a world without sun or stars, a world of eternal winter, harsher and colder than any winter Newlant has ever known. A world buried in snow, where plants did not grow and animals perished.” This story was familiar enough that Nik could have recited it himself, and had in years past. As a child, he’d questioned it. If there weren’t any plants or animals, what did people eat? If there was no sun, how could the Abandoned World have any warmth at all? Did they light a lot of fires? What did they burn if there weren’t any plants or trees? As an adult, he’d decided the story wasn’t meant to be taken literally. “It was a world ridden by demons.”

If you took it literally, it didn’t need demons to be terrifying. The Lady Striker beckoned to the boys in the audience – both noble and servant, of ages from eight or so to thirteen or fourteen, and including the nine year-old greatkitten son of their draycat Gunther. They swarmed from their seats to pile into the Speaking Circle. There was an inevitable amount of shoving and some squealing and shushing as they opened the chest in the center and seized demon masks and handfuls of black ribbons from inside. Meanwhile, the Lady Striker continued to narrate, loud enough to override their hushed scrabbling: “Humans – for in the Abandoned World, there were no greatcats – had no defense against the monsters that walked among them, striking down whomever they chose, maiming and slaying.” Now clad in demon-masks, the boys spread out from the circle, ‘assaulting’ the audience with black ribbons. No boy had ever dared beribbon Lord Striker, but today Lysandra’s grinning son Adamos headed straight for Nik. “I’m striking you blind!” the boy said in a loud whisper, while Nik cringed down in mock fear. Adamos tied a black ribbon around Nik’s eyes. While Nik held his hands out before him and turned his head this way and that in confusion, Adamos chose his mother for his next victim. His sisters were off-limits, which Nik knew from experience was a hardship. All around the assembly, adults pretended to be stricken as giggling boys tied black ribbons onto them.

“Even after the Savior led our people through Ascension and brought us to this Paradise where light, warmth, and beauty are so abundant, the demons and their afflictions remained among us. They hid in the hearts and minds of unwitting men who carried them here.” Some denominations quarrelled with that last, contending instead that demons had been smuggled intentionally by the traitorous humans Enson and Viar, or that demons had disguised themselves as men and followers of the Savior and tricked the Savior into Ascending them. “Seeing the suffering of his people, the Savior was moved to aid us further. He chose thirty-one of the Ascended to be Blessed as Saints. He gifted them with the power to cast out demons from mind or body, or to shape stone that they might create shelters against wind and rain for the people, or to shape plants that they might grow food for the hungry.”

A furry paw landed on Nik’s knee while another touched his face, and he dropped his arms to wait as an adolescent greatkitten perhaps half Anthser’s size worked the ribbon out of his eyes. “I’ll heal you, my lord,” she promised. After she’d pushed it up and out of his eyes, he could see his ersatz saint was Meredith, Gunther’s calico daughter. A wide circle of shimmering iridescent white satin was tied by a ribbon beneath her chin to form a crooked halo. She spread her whiskers in a smile and dropped to all fours.

“Thank you, Blessed,” he told her solemnly, and fished in his pocket: he had a couple of chocolates laid aside for the possibility, but those would not suit a greatkitten. He produced a silver half-mark instead and presented it to her: “A gift for a Gift.” With a nod just as solemn, she accepted the gift and tucked it into a pouch on her harness, before padding away to help another ‘victim’.

The Lady Striker was continuing, still pacing in slow circles to address each segment of her audience. “The Savior had work yet to do outside of Paradise: he Passed back to the Abandoned World, that he might help those who had been unable to Ascend with our ancestors. But a part of him remained with the Ascended, inside the persons of the Thirty-One Saints. Through them, he helped our ancestors still. And later, through their children, and the children of their children, and so on for all the centuries to follow.

“But as great as his Blessings are, and as magnificent as the Paradise he shared with us is, the Savior did not give us perfection. It is up to us – each of us, from the lowest servant to the highest lord, from the most unskilled child to the most potent Blessed—” the Lady Striker paused on that word, eyes on her son, and Nik wished she hadn’t “—to make of this world a more perfect Paradise. To honor the gifts of the Blessed with gifts of our own. To never forget all that we have been given, and all the ways that we may repay it.”

“Thank you, O Savior,” the assembly responded in chorus.

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