of it.’
‘I’m coming too,’ Hannah blurted. ‘My mother’s still hiding out there somewhere, I can feel it.’
‘Yes, you are,’ said Jethro.
Hannah was about to start arguing when she actually processed the words and gawped in amazement at the ex-parson.
‘Going will be no less dangerous for you than staying here,’ said Jethro. ‘Alice wasn’t holding onto the two active pieces of the god-formula because she wanted to use them. She was keeping them in case the Inquisition needed to develop a counter-weapon against anyone who actually tried to use the code to attain godhood. She was murdered to stop her doing that, and her killer came after you on the mere chance that you had seen what was inside your locket. There is a ruthlessness and coldness to these acts that is rare to see, even by such as Boxiron and myself with the cases that we have worked on. That peril still holds true. In fact, it now holds true for all of us. Each of us is in terrible danger every day that we stay here.’
There was something in Jethro Daunt’s voice that unsettled Hannah. ‘You’re not coming with us, are you?’
Jethro shook his head. ‘There’s something about sitting the church’s exams – you’re already thinking in the manner of a Circlist priest, Hannah. You are correct. I must stay here in the capital with Boxiron. I was sent to Jago to uncover Alice’s murderer, and that is what I intend to do. We have a great advantage over her killer, or killers, now. We know that William of Flamewall and your mother both travelled into the island’s interior. They don’t. Alice’s murderer is still here in the capital and this is where I must stay to uncover them.’
Hannah was surprised to find the ex-parson was right – insights did seem to be forming more quickly ever since she’d sat the cathedral’s exams. It was as if the grease in the Entick helmet had lubricated the cogs of her mind; her brain running so much faster, with a diamond-sharp clarity. Hannah stopped. Jethro Daunt wasn’t saying everything. He—he didn’t trust himself with the god-formula.
Jethro fixed her with his sad eyes. ‘If you find the third piece of the god-formula, you must destroy it. We are all weak, Hannah. A dead child or a sick wife, which of us wouldn’t be tempted to change such a misfortune? You’d just bring them back and then instantly relinquish your power, that’s what you’d tell yourself. Do that one small thing and then you could go back to the way things were before. Except—’
Hannah thought she understood. ‘Until the first time you saw a hungry urchin in the Lugus Vaults, until you saw an act of cruelty you knew you could stop, a war you could halt, a leader elected to the senate you didn’t agree with.’
‘There would be no end to it,’ agreed Jethro. ‘Everything fixed to your will, more and more to be rectified, growing angrier and angrier with those that defied you. Until you started acting as a real god, and then you wouldn’t be able to stop, not without abandoning your absolute grip on your perfect, burning world. The first two parts of the god-formula will have to be enough for us to preserve in case the Inquisition ever needs to develop a counter-weapon. The third part must be destroyed forever.’
Hannah nodded. It had taken both her parents from her, Alice too. The god-formula deserved to be destroyed. Unless, whispered a nagging voice from somewhere deep within her, she could use it. Use it to bring Alice back, to right all that was wrong with Jago.
‘Alice’s killer,’ said Hannah, ‘they want to be become more than just human. They would use the god-formula to gain ultimate knowledge and ultimate power.’
‘Just human,’ sighed Jethro. ‘And they would be wrong. Infinitely folded in on themselves and out into the universe, the ultimate paradox given living expression. But lacking the wisdom of an infinite lifetime. Just human with ultimate knowledge. What an angel of fire that would be, and what a hell they would make of Earth if they chose to stay here.’
‘But a truly good person might be able to control it?’ asked Hannah, hopefully. ‘Couldn’t they change things for the better?’
Jethro smiled grimly. ‘It’s a temptation, isn’t it? Thousands of years ago, Bel Bessant thought she was pure enough to survive it and still be human enough to end the dark reign of terror the Chimecan Empire and their bloodthirsty