A little shriek would have been nice. Even a squeal would have been appreciated.

Alas, the Goddess of Life had too much self-control to let either one slip out of her perfect, lotus-pink lips. She sat behind her oversized rosewood desk as stiffly as a porcelain statue covered in sweet-white glaze. I glanced around for the vases that contained her lotus blossom and her willow branch, but neither was in sight. She must store them in a treasure hall, bringing them out only for formal audiences when she needed to grant boons or punish “wrongdoing.”

Since her main concession to the shock of seeing me pop out of Flicker’s sleeve seemed to be dead silence, I decided to speak first. Heavenly Lady, thank you for granting me this chance to thank you in person for all that you have done for me.

Not a hair on her arched eyebrows twitched. She needed more time to recover from her shock, did she?

Without Your Heavenly Ladyship’s gracious gift, I could never have learned to mend my ways, to treat those on Earth with kindness and humility, and to render unto Heaven the reverence it deserves.

(I.e., none.)

The statue moved at last. The lips parted, and the cool voice, devoid of compassion, that had pronounced Marcius’ doom, rang around the office. “‘The reverence it deserves,’ says the former nine-tailed fox who would bring Heaven to its knees if she could.”

Ah well, it was too much to hope for that she would have missed the double meaning. And “would bring Heaven to its knees if I could”? Given the Kitchen God’s desperation for new sources of offerings and the dilapidated state of the Bureau of Human Lives, which hadn’t obtained one, I had already brought Heaven to its knees. It just hadn’t toppled forward into a genuflection yet.

“Would have brought,” Heavenly Lady, I corrected her. I sketched an apologetic dip that I didn’t feel in the slightest. It is true, I confess, that once upon a time, I would have brought Heaven to its knees if I could have, and justly was I punished for it.

“You weren’t punished for attempting to rebel against the Jade Emperor,” she reminded me. “You were punished for destroying Cassius.”

Yes, and for killing Marcius, who should have become the next emperor, and Aurelia, who sought only to save them both. And for causing the deaths of a host of other innocents who were caught up in our games. What these centuries of reincarnations have taught me is that in my pride and ignorance, I misunderstood my mandate from Lady Fate. I perverted her intentions, which is itself an act of rebellion against Heaven.

(Thinking for myself – wow, what a rebellion. What a crime.)

Justly was I punished for it, I repeated more loudly, to drown out the commentary at the back of my mind, although I did not understand it at the time. It was the gift from Your Heavenly Ladyship – the gift of keeping my memories when I reincarnated – that allowed me to comprehend the tragedy of what I had wrought, and to repent and wish to atone for my deeds.

One eyebrow arched, which I took as an invitation to elaborate upon this plan for atonement and how it would benefit her.

In truth, I had hoped to repay you for your mercy by organizing the people on Earth to make more offerings to your Bureau, Heavenly Lady.

I tensed, expecting Flicker to gasp or snort or let slip some reaction that would undermine the narrative I was spinning. But he, too, had made progress in the centuries that we’d known each other. Neither his expression nor his posture changed.

Silently congratulating him on his excellent straight face, I went on, Alas, I was unaware that you had already been promoted away from the Bureau of Reincarnation, and that none of these offerings were reaching you.

I thought it sounded like a plausible tale, and I was hopeful that she would buy it. As long as she hadn’t been tracking my activities on Earth, she would never know about –

“And what of that raccoon dog? It is my understanding that you set up the Temple to the Kitchen God at her behest to enrich her patron god.”

Curses. A plague on goddesses who did their research! Or maybe it was that head clerk of hers who’d done the research for her. A plague on him too. Also, “that raccoon dog”? I got to call Anthea that, not some petty bureaucrat who couldn’t even wrangle the funds to keep her own department from falling apart.

I swung myself from side to side like a big head-shake. It is true that I allowed Lady Anthea to believe that I was aiding her in obtaining additional offerings for her patron god. However, as the Kitchen God is the Director of the Bureau of Reincarnation, and as he…normally resides on Earth, I believed that the flow of offerings would be directed to the Bureau itself and to those who run its day-to-day activities.

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(I.e. the clerks, led by Glitter, because you would never get me to believe that Cassius was capable of running anything, except into the ground. I entertained a brief fantasy of the whole Bureau of Reincarnation falling out of the skies and crashing into a rice paddy. No, not a rice paddy. It would destroy the farmers’ crop and possibly crush some humans, which would be terrible all around. Crashing into the Snowy Mountains, then. Or the Western Sea.)

I believed that it was Your Heavenly Ladyship who would be the true receiver of those offerings! I never imagined that you had moved to a different Bureau and that your access to them had been cut off entirely! Had I known, I would have proceeded very differently!

A finger lifted, cutting off my impassioned apology. Either the Goddess of Life wasn’t buying it, or she wanted me to get to the point. Well, good. I was running out of ways to express my “distress” anyway.

“Be that as it may, whatever your true intentions, you did establish a temple to the Kitchen God alone, which means that the offerings made in it flow to the Bureau of Reincarnation alone. Are you proposing that you set up a separate temple for each of the Bureaus – no, for each of the gods – in Heaven?” There was contempt in her voice for what she believed was my plan.

A separate temple for each of the gods? I repeated, not even needing to feign incredulity.

There were hundreds of gods! If I fragmented the offerings like that, each god would receive such a paltry amount that it wouldn’t be worth anything in their eyes. I wouldn’t get any credit for enriching their treasuries. What would be the point of that?

No, I would never do anything so – I was about to say foolish, but I amended it to: un-useful to you, Heavenly Lady! A temple to each of the gods, with no hierarchy among them, would lead only to chaos. It would be even worse than the great Serican Empire fragmenting into four petty kingdoms! The parts add up to less than the whole. No, I believe that I can best repay you by setting up a unified temple on Earth. And who better to oversee the offerings made in it by humans, and to distribute them in Heaven, than the Bureau of Human Lives?

“So that the metaphorical crossbows turn from the Kitchen God to me?”

That kind of small thinking was why she hadn’t gotten anywhere in Heavenly politics. I had the measure of her now. The Goddess of Life had delusions of authority without the courage to back it up or conviction to implement her advisers’ plans. That was the real reason that her Bureau was so small and shabby compared to the Bureau of Reincarnation. Glitter would have leaped at the chance to oversee the stream of offerings from the temples on Earth. I’d assumed that the Goddess of Life had run the Bureau of Reincarnation in the Kitchen God’s absence, but now I’d stake my next reincarnation in Black Tier that it was Glitter who was truly in charge. Which was why Cassius hadn’t managed to wreck the Bureau yet.

No, no, not so that the crossbows focus on you, Heavenly Lady! So that all gazes turn to you, full of awe and respect. Your name will resound throughout Heaven!

“The humans have a saying: ‘As a pig fears growing fat, so a man fears gaining fame.’”

Because a fat pig would soon be slaughtered for the New Year feast, and a famous man would soon be destroyed by jealous rivals. I could understand a human worrying about death, but she was an immortal goddess, the Director of a Bureau, no less. Did she seriously think that she might be cast out of Heaven? Did she seriously think that her position was as precarious as Marcius’ had been?

Scared that next time, you’ll be the one kneeling before a dais as one of your colleagues passes judgement on you? I thought. Karma has a vicious bite, doesn’t it?

The Goddess of Life’s features had returned to their porcelain stillness, but I thought I detected a flicker behind her eyes. She really did fear it, with or without justification. So I changed tack.

Instead of trying to convince her otherwise, I conceded, Yes, some of the gazes that turn upon you will be full of jealousy, but that is the price of glory. There will always be those who admire you for it and fawn over you in hopes that you’ll share a portion of your success with them. And there will always be those who try to tear you down in hopes of claiming your success for themselves. Sometimes they are even the same person. You alone can decide whether fame is worth its price. I floated up to her eye level, forcing her to look squarely at me. I can help you, Heavenly Lady. I desire to help you. But you are the only one who can decide whether you wish to be helped.

A slight frown creased her brow. The pressure of her stare struck me, surrounded me, held me in place, and I realized an instant before it happened what was coming. Raw pain scraped back and forth across the outermost layer of my soul, as if sanding it away. I braced myself, gritted my non-existent teeth, and clenched my non-existent fists. I will not cry out, I vowed.

The next layer fell away.

I will not scream.

And a third layer.

I can’t let her see my true intentions. I have to keep them hidden.

A fourth layer, and a fifth. I couldn’t help it. A shrill escaped me.

I have to keep them hidden!

I tried to feel around the core of myself, to strengthen it, to make it so hard that she couldn’t peel it apart. But what were my true intentions? It was so hard to think through the pain. I couldn’t remember what my true intentions were anymore. What did I want? Why had I come to this meeting?

More layers of me were sliced off. Aurelia’s face rose and fell away. Taila’s face rose and fell away. Anthea’s face rose and fell away. Lodia’s face rose and fell away. Dusty’s face rose and fell away. I thrashed and writhed, groping to hold together the shreds of myself. Who was I? At my core, what was I? I couldn’t hang onto it if I didn’t know myself!

Flicker’s face rose and fell away. Floridiana’s. Bobo’s. Stripey’s. There was hardly anything of me left now. Just a knot, no larger than a chestnut. A chestnut! A chestnut had a hard, protective shell! I clung to the image and fought to shield myself.

Not fast enough, not well enough. The last layer cracked and flaked off, and the heart of me crumbled along with it into darkness.