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If I could ever imitate those odd squirmy lines and loops.

I probably could.

I could faithfully imitate almost any script I had ever read, even if I wasn’t sure what the letters meant.

Wait.

Wait.

Imagine the moment it came to me.

My finger in the air tapping as if at an invisible wall.

Or tablet.

Wait, wait, wait.

My eyes wide, and mad.

Fucking wait.

What if.

What if tomorrow.

No, really.

Fucking wait.

I put the knife down.

My hand was shaking.

I was smiling.

You’ll think me a monster for it later, when you learn, but I was smiling.

Did you ever fall into despair, get up out of it, fall harder, then rise up a king, and glorious, and on the cusp of great and terrible—the most terrible imaginable—mischief?

PART 4Apocalypse

38The Revelation

The king of the half-giants wasn’t really a bad geezer, as slavers and opium smokers who like to upchuck their oats go, so I was of two minds about what was about to happen. I looked at him for a good long while at the ceremony of Apocalypse, trying to take him in. His bad half wig was, on this particular day, secured with a fine golden chain from which dangled golden rectangles, in the middle of each sat an emerald, with a diamond below. He was wearing a robe of pale green that put me in mind of fresh shoots breaking forth into spring, and not much else. It was spring now, and proper hot. Fine sandals showed a fair bit of his oldish feet, the right one with a little toe that sat funny, like it had been broken once and wouldn’t behave. He bore a frown while the Praxeter spoke his holy speech, as did most of the Erydoni. I looked about, and, no, I saw no smiles. Maybe they were smiling and laughing in the three cloud-ships that hovered over the Halfmoon, as they would not be burdened with holy folderol about whatever the beardy, wild-eyed nutter was saying. The high priest was a good bit more feared than loved, if he was loved at all. The stands were full, as they always were, since keeping the goddie under the mountain merely discontent rather than angry was seen as vital to the city’s health. Like the Praxeter, Thumos didn’t give a toss if you loved him, but he would have your respect or else.

Of course, a big part of showing respect is not falling asleep while someone talks, and I was having a hard go of it this morning. I’d not had a lick of sleep.

“Kitch!” Princess Renata said, pinching me on the arm as my chin went chestward. I’d say she pinched me hard, but that would suggest she had ever pinched me gently, so we’ll just say I was pinched.

“It’s Kinch, you cow,” I said.

“What?”

“KINCH. And COW,” I said, too tired, and too tired of everything to much care what followed. I braced for a tooth-rattling slap or a foot-stomp that would change the way I walk, but instead, she screamed laughter.

“KINNNNCH,” she said. “I like that better than Kitch.”

“That’s good, because it’s my name.”