The fire had burned lower, casting long shadows across the old rugs and stone floor. Khaladore had already reached the doorway when Eva's voice broke the quiet behind him.
"I thought we'd need him," she said, addressing the boy with the directness of someone who had long stopped softening her words for appearances. "Why let him go?"
Little Mouse remained seated, small feet not quite touching the floor, white-gloved hands folded neatly in his lap. The child's face wore that same ancient, patient smile.
"I never let him go," he replied softly, almost cheerfully. "It's all going according to plan. With this… converting him will be no problem."
Khaladore paused on the threshold, one hand on the frame. Then, with a faint sigh of irritation at his own practicality, he turned and walked back into the room.
"Therefore a problem," he said dryly. "I don't know my way from here. So I'd need you to un-kidnap me the way you kidnapped me."
Little Mouse's dark eyes sparkled with amusement. "Promethea," he said lightly, "drive him back."
Eva — Promethea — inclined her head once, the silver pin on her lapel catching the firelight, and moved toward the door without a word of protest.
---
The black Mercedes hummed smoothly along the lake road, the grey evening light giving way to deeper dusk. Khaladore sat in the back seat again, this time without the element of surprise. He studied the back of Eva's white-haired head for a long moment before speaking.
"Do you truly have godlike powers?"
Eva's eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror, meeting his for a brief second. "Yes."
She said nothing more for several heartbeats, then added, "The name of my skill is Prometheus' Flames. Hence the name. Once, Little Mouse was bored. He called for me and gave me the power. No explicit reason. He simply found the idea… entertaining."
Khaladore leaned back against the leather. "And you prefer to be called Promethea."
"I do."
He scoffed, the sound low and edged with familiar disdain. "Polytheism is the last thing I would want to believe in."
Eva's voice remained calm, almost conversational, as the car merged into Geneva traffic. "I know about your research. Little Mouse told me about it. He has given you a hint already, Gottfaktor. It's what has been off in your calculations. The missing variable that keeps warping your quadratic curves."
Khaladore's jaw tightened slightly. "So he knows."
"He knows everything worth knowing," Eva said. "Gottfaktor heavily relies on the existence of gods, or at least the mechanisms that make them possible."
"I noticed it would be," Khaladore replied, his tone sharpening. "But I would never want to believe God exists. Talk of gods… no. I refuse."
Eva glanced at him again in the mirror. "While being an atheist is being safe from supernatural consciousness, being an atheist is also being ignorant. You think you're smart, Khaladore. But to Little Mouse and the other gods… you're simply foolish."
The car slowed and pulled to a stop outside a modest apartment building on the edge of the city. Rain had begun to fall again, light and persistent.
"You can find your way from here, I suppose," Eva said.
Khaladore opened the door and stepped out into the damp evening air. He did not thank her. As he closed the door, the Mercedes pulled away smoothly, red taillights dissolving into the grey mist.
He stood on the pavement for a moment, collar turned up against the rain, watching the car disappear.
---
In the manor, the fire had been fed fresh logs. Little Mouse sat alone now, the white gloves resting on a sleek black phone that looked absurdly modern in such an old room. He dialed a number with careful, childlike precision and waited only one ring before the line connected.
"For the award next month," he said, his voice still light and warm, carrying that unmistakable childlike cadence, "I want you to make sure the book Mirror for the Gods under the pen name Pandoros doesn't win first place."
A pause on the other end.
Little Mouse smiled wider, the expression innocent and terrible at once.
"After all… I'm the chief sponsor of this award ceremony."
He ended the call without waiting for a reply, set the phone down, and turned his gaze toward the dark windows where the lake lay hidden beyond the trees.