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He had never had much patience for religion. What was it, really, but superstition with money?
He might know it was all flimflam, but to believe a lie was as comforting for the believer as to know the truth. For an instant he could not but wonder—is it truly better to be a woebegone cynic than an ecstatic dupe?
“You’re a vampire,” snapped Brother Diaz. “Of course you hate the Church.” “On the contrary, I am a great admirer of the tenets of your religion. I merely find it a shame that the Saved are, as a rule, so little like their Saviour.”
Every step was painful, but every step had been painful for two lifetimes, now. Jakob kept taking them. The paces don’t have to be quick, or long, or pretty. They just have to keep going.
Lying was a sin, apparently, unless you did it outrageously and persistently enough, in which case it qualified as scripture.
Sunny would’ve liked to ask her if she was all right but there was no way now and probably it would’ve gone wrong somehow. She’d practise in the mirror for hours but her face was all pointy and just wouldn’t twist the same ways as everyone else’s. When she tried to be sincere, she’d come over sarcastic. When she tried to be generous, she’d come over superior. When she tried to be friendly, she’d come over as a dirty elf bitch.
She had this way of talking that made people like her somehow. Always seemed much more like magic to Sunny than just disappearing.
Perhaps, as Cardinal Zizka said, one must sometimes use the weapons of the enemy against them, but if the righteous will stoop to any depths, what separates them from the wicked? Where was the line? Was there a line?
She was furious, and no one noticed, and she was terrified, and no one noticed, and she was miserable, and no one noticed, or would’ve cared if they had.
Which left Jakob, one more time, where all men will ultimately find themselves. Alone, with the consequences of what they’ve done.
An owl hooted somewhere, off in the trees, low and lonely. “I never can make friends.”
“I trust you,” whispered Alex. She regretted it right off. It’s the moment you trust someone they shit all over you.
But Alex had a soft spot for hard-used, unlovely things. Came from being one, maybe.
“You need to stop clinging to the notion that there’s only one right path. You’ll waste half your time panicking you’re not on it, and the rest backtracking to find it.
The moment she got her fingertips to something halfway good she had to ruin it by grasping for more.
“Happy endings are just stories that aren’t finished yet.”
“I believed in destiny, once.” Jakob made a fist of his own, all scar and twisted knuckles. “That I was bound for great things. An instrument of God’s purpose! That every obstacle must be swept aside, and any method used to do it. There were trials along the way. Tests of faith. Tests of commitment. I told myself I couldn’t waver. What kind of great purpose, after all, is easily realised? So I sacrificed everything and everyone. I covered myself in glory and steeped myself in blood. And there, at the summit of a hill of corpses, I reached my destiny, and passed through it to the other side…”
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“She was a savage, vindictive, paranoid tyrant. Her efforts to save Troy brought it low. Her efforts to build a dream created a nightmare. She shunned her failures, whether they were her experiments, or her students, or her sons. But she could not stop making the same mistakes, right to the end. Admired her? No. But understood her? We all have our reasons, do we not? We are all the prisoners of our own flaws.”
“My greatest battles I fought against myself, and they were all defeats, and I’ve suffered far less than I deserve.”
Had things always been bad? Had she always been bad?
He supposed once you have usurped an Empire, fused humans with animals, and capped it off by stealing the body of your lady-in-waiting in a heretical crime against God, a little light incest does seem rather a paltry misdemeanour.
Jakob took the icon from her, in both hands. “Perhaps evil men can do good, still.” “If they do enough, don’t they become good men?” “Maybe,” said Jakob. “Maybe one day.” Because she wanted to believe it. He wasn’t sure he could.
