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“You don’t like me,” he answers. “You think the gods simply play games with mortals.”

I can’t help but nod. “I do.”

He reaches out to grasp one of the Eternal Tree’s leaves, then turns it so I can see the delicate beauty of its veins. “The truth, my Harbinger, is that it doesn’t matter if the gods care. You think we are all-powerful, that we have the ability to influence everything in the world. But we, too, are only part of the tapestry. If you are woven into the fabric of the universe, you cannot look down and see the fabric’s picture. Only the first light of the universe was ever powerful enough to shape the world, to create balance out of imbalance. To make and unmake gods. That power was too great and unstable to ever linger. It only existed in such a concentrated state because the beginning of everything was so imbalanced as to be impossible.”

“The first light was the Big Bang,” I say, the logical, scientific part of my brain pushing back against him. “It was the universe starting in a state of infinite density, a singularity. How could anything have been imbalanced when nothing existed yet?”

“It makes no sense to say that nothing existed yet,” he says, “because it implies that something existed before the first light.”

“No one knows what existed before it.”

“Time itself had not yet been created. There cannot be a before.”

I frown, my mind hurting, and look away from him. I hate it when our conversations devolve into these debates where his world and my understanding of it start to blend. “So the first light disappeared, because the universe became balanced?” I mutter.

“Bursts of life and light do not happen during times of balance,” he says. “Stars do not die because their cores are stable. There is no reason for the first light of the universe, that first thread, to exist in a world of equilibrium. It only exists in imbalance. Otherwise, its power could rip our universe apart.”

“So everything must always stay balanced,” I say. “And that’s why some people must die while others don’t, and some terrible things have to happen while others don’t.”

“Yes.”

“The natural order of things,” I snap.

I know he can hear the disgust in my voice, but he just looks away, his gaze distant. “The things I have seen humanity do, Rose. Were I the only force in the universe, I would ensure every death were a meaningful one, claim only the souls who deserved it. I would cleanse this world.” He looks away with a rueful smile. “But that isn’t the world we live in, is it?”

“Because of the other gods?” I say, thinking of the way Thorn had sneered at him.

“The god of Lies coaxes mistrust in mortals, and that mistrust rots into hatred. The god of War ignites that hate into destruction. The goddess of Earth births new mortals from the ashes, and they are called forth by Ambition and Wealth. Grief seeps from one generation into another, and the world changes.” He shakes his head. “The intricacy of the web that binds the gods together would drive you mad.”

“Is this what my challenges are for?” I ask. “To prove I’m capable of understanding this intricate web? That I’m worthy enough to become a god someday?”

“Your resolve will be tested,” Raven replies. “How willing you are to stand for your dominion. When you completed your first task as Harbinger, you pledged an oath to the sanctity of mortality. As Regent, your commitment to that oath will be tested to its limits. Thorn will push you, to see how loyal you are to Death. It’s one thing to become a Harbinger. Quite another to be the understudy for a god.”

I shiver, trying not to think about Laine. Because even though he doesn’t address it, we know the consequences of my failing. That our souls are bound to each other. That I hold her life in my hands.

My gaze returns to the tree, traveling down the mighty trunk to the side of the atrium where Étienne had been lounging against the wall when I stumbled across him. His lazy smile appears in my thoughts, cunning and secretive, so potent that for a moment I can almost believe he’s still there, staring at me.

We’re going to be together for a long time.

He was right. And now my fate is intertwined with his.

“Why did you choose me as your Regent?” I finally ask. “I’ve barely experienced the immortal world. How can I possibly step into your shoes one day?”

“Because you detest all of this,” he says.

“I don’t detest it,” I say, swallowing, but I have to look away from him in order to hide the lie.

But it doesn’t matter, because he can sense it anyway. “Your distaste of this world is precisely why you must be my successor. To be a god, you must question it. You must not be overwhelmed by your greed for the power it could grant you. It is the only way the gods can keep the balance of the world intact.” He stares at the sky. “You were always meant to be here.”

Was I? I try to understand what it must feel like to be wanted, and almost immediately, my logic flares up again. The only reason he thinks I’m meant to be here must be because I’m useful.

In this light, in this intimate moment, he looks less like a god and more like a mortal, flesh and blood and muscle and bone, a contemplative young man in a suit. Even his eyes seem softer now, and I find myself wondering if maybe this is the sort of expression he once wore. It is moments like this when I’m paralyzed by him—someone who looks human and yet is not, who had once been human and yet is no longer, who makes me want to both shy away and draw closer. He is a painting too realistic for comfort, a storm on the horizon telling you to run away, and yet you can’t, because you want to stare at those magnificent and terrible black clouds a little longer. My brain doesn’t quite know where to file him, and the unknowing leaves me feeling both unsettled and curious. I turn away, my heart hammering.

“Raven,” I ask, suddenly bold. “How did you get your immortal name?”

He looks down at me, and I feel a shiver along my spine, that tug between us, wanting with all my heart to linger near him, to spend just a few more moments in his presence. Our eternal bond of hate and love, Death and me. Is it because the mortal instinct to live is so powerful that every fiber of my being yearns toward his immortality?

For a moment, I really think he might tell me what his name means, that I might learn something about who he was as a mortal, how he died, how he himself first became a Harbinger. How he had stepped into the role of a god.