their innovations compassionately. You cannot give them the choice of morality. You must force them.”
“And that’s what you want to do?” asked Sancia. “Reforge Valeria, and have her, what, rewrite human nature?”
“She would grant me control,” said Crasedes. “Control over the boundaries of human morality, and actions, and deeds…” He raised his face to the sky. “I would ensure that there would be no more slaves. No more empires. Not ever, ever again.”
“You…You want to do that to all of humanity?” she said, horrified. “To make us all slaves to your will?”
“If the children of men cannot rid themselves of their predilection for slavery,” said Crasedes, “then the children of men shall be made slaves themselves. If they cannot make the right choice, then it’s better to just remove the choice entirely.” He cocked his head. “A permission, a privilege that I would simply…revoke. It’s better than the world your merchant houses would build. And it’s certainly better than what the construct wants.”
Sancia felt a flicker of fear at that—for Valeria had claimed her contradictory commands meant she’d be forced to destroy herself.
Unless, she thought, she lied about that too…
“It wouldn’t be so bad,” he said. “You’d get to keep the best bits of your civilization—the ability to innovate, to progress, to build and remake the world…It would simply all be subject to my review. I would act as the conscience of our species—something we’ve been missing for a very long time, I think…”
“You just killed hundreds of people!” shouted Sancia. “You made them kill themselves! God! How in the hell could you be our conscience?”
“Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “Perhaps I do need to have a check on my powers. So—why not help me? You could help guide me, help me check my worst impulses. You could help me build this world anew.”
Sancia stared at him, stunned. She’d expected to hear many unusual things from him tonight, but not this.
said Clef.
Yet as she stared at him, she suddenly wasn’t so sure. Could he actually mean it? Could he genuinely be making this offer?
she asked.
said Berenice.
Sancia glanced to the side, at the Michiel clock tower. Still just a little past eleven.
said Clef nervously.
She shook herself. “I barely understand what you and Valeria are. How could I help you?”
“Well, you are aware I can’t reforge the construct all by myself,” said Crasedes.
“You need Tribuno’s definition,” said Sancia.
“Yes,” said Crasedes. “Yet you’ve unwisely given it to the construct. And she has rearranged the nature of reality here”—he leaned back slightly, as if surveying some invisible architecture—“so that I cannot approach her. But…I believe you still possess a solution to this particular problem?”
said Clef.
He cocked his head. “You do still have Clef, yes?”
“Why would he help you here?” asked Sancia. “It’s not like Valeria’s put a big locked door between you and her.”
“Hmm,” said Crasedes. “To put it in terms you might understand—the construct has created a wall. But Clef would give me permissions to slip through your reality like a minnow through river reeds—and ignore the alterations of the construct.” He raised his right hand. “Permissions that he can only access with my touch.”
Sancia stared at his hand with her scrived sight, her gaze fixed on the bright little red star buried in his palm—the hidden bone that allowed him to persist in this world…
“He belongs with me,” said Crasedes. “So do you. So do all slaves. And then you and I can reforge not only the construct, but the whole of human civilization. For the better.”
She glared at him. Then, to Berenice:
Berenice cried.
“This is all bullshit,” said Sancia. “I know you need