I sighed and waved a hand to clear some of the drifting smoke from my vicinity. It came right back. “Something has happened,” I said. “I was in Sky, yes, for a few days. The Arameri heir —” No. I didn’t want to talk about that. Better to get to the worst of it. “I seem to be” — I shifted, put my hands into my pockets, and tried to seem nonchalant —“dying.”

Hymn’s eyes widened. Ahad — I hated that stupid name of his already — looked skeptical.

“Nothing can kill a godling but demons and gods,” he said, “and the world’s fresh out of demons, last I heard. Has Naha finally grown tired of his little favorite?” I clenched my fists. “He will love me until time ends.”

“Yeine, then.” To my surprise, the skepticism cleared from Ahad’s face. “Yes, she is wise and good-hearted, but she didn’t know you back then; you played the innocent boy so well. She could make you mortal, couldn’t she? If so, I commend her for giving you a slow, cruel death.”

I would have gotten angrier, if my own cruel streak hadn’t come to the fore. “What’s this? Have you got a baby-god crush on Yeine? It’s hopeless, you know. Nahadoth’s the one she loves; you’re just his leftovers.”

Ahad kept smiling, but his eyes went black and cold. He had more than a little of my father still in him; that much was obvious.

“You’re just mad neither of them wants you,” he said.

The room went gray and red. With a wordless cry of rage, I went for him — meaning, I think, to rip him open with my claws, and forgetting for the moment that I had none. And forgetting, far more stupidly, that he was a god and I was not.

He could have killed me. He could have done it by accident; newborn godlings don’t know their own strength. Instead he simply caught me by the throat, lifted me bodily, and slammed me onto the top of his desk so hard that the wood cracked.

While I groaned, dazed by the blow and the agony of landing on two paperweights, he sighed and sucked more smoke from the cheroot with his free hand. He kept me pinned, easily, with the other.

“What does he want?” he asked Hymn.

As mys ev h vision cleared, I saw she had gotten to her feet and was half ducked behind her chair. At his question, she straightened warily.

“Money,” she said. “He got me into trouble earlier today. Said he needed to make it up to me, but I don’t need any of his tricks.”

Ahad laughed, in the humorless way he had done for the last dozen centuries. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt true amusement from him. “Isn’t that just like him?” He smiled down at me, then lifted a hand. A purse appeared in it; I heard heavy coins jingle within. Without looking at Hymn, he tossed it. Without blinking she caught it.

“That enough?” he asked when she tugged open the pouch’s string to look inside. Her eyes widened, and she nodded. “Good. You can go now.”

She swallowed. “Am I in trouble for this?” She glanced at me as I struggled to breathe around Ahad’s tightening hand.

“No, of course not. How could you have known I knew him?” He threw her a significant look. “Though you still don’t know anything, you understand. About me being what I am, him being what he is. You never met him, and you never came here. Spend your money slowly if you want to keep it.”

“I know that.” Scowling, Hymn made the pouch disappear. Then to my surprise, she glanced at me again. “What are you going to do with him?”

I had begun to wonder that myself. His hand was tight enough to feel the pounding of my pulse. I reached up and scrabbled at his wrist, trying to loosen it, but it was like trying to loosen the roots of the Tree.

Ahad watched my efforts with lazy cruelty. “I haven’t decided yet,” he said. “Does it matter?”

Hymn licked her lips. “I don’t do blood money.”

He looked up at her and let the silence grow long and still before he finally spoke. His words were kinder than his eyes. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This one is a favorite of two of the Three. I’m not stupid enough to kill him.”

Hymn took a quick, deep breath — for strength, I thought. “Look, I don’t know what’s happened between you two, and I don’t care. I never would have … I didn’t mean to —” She stopped, took a deep breath. “I’ll give you back the money. Just let him come with me.”

Ahad’s hand tightened until I saw stars at the edges of my vision. “Don’t,” he said, sounding far too much like my father in that instant, “ever command me.”