A conversation we had with Evander finally forced Father to answer my questions. Evander had asked for my help in learning new laws, but I wasn’t sure why.

“Honestly, I don’t understand why you need my help,” I said when Evander and I entered Dad’s study. “Father doesn’t call you out for incorrect answers.”

“Yeah, because I learn at a faster pace than the other students,” Evander said, giving an honest assessment. Having known me since we were children, he knew better than to posture or brag. “I’m engaged for the first fifteen minutes of lessons, but after that it gets repetitive,” he explained, “so I’d like you to teach me at a faster pace.”

“That would just eliminate the interesting fifteen minutes,” I pointed out.

“Well, as long as you spend more than fifteen minutes teaching me, I’ll consider it worth it,” he reasoned, smiling at me. Eth preened.

I shrugged. “Okay,” I said, “summon your scroll and show me what law you want to know.”

Evander summoned the Nomos scroll and pointed to a law. I leaned over to get a better look.

“Tuck a tuft of hair behind our right ear,” said Eth.

“Why?” I asked.

“Just do it, it won’t cost anything,” pressed Eth.

“It’s a very strange request to make,” I countered.

“Eth is asking you to flirt with Evander,” interjected Id.

“So, what if I am?” Eth said defensively. “He’s nice.”

I tucked the hair behind our right ear as I leaned forward to get a better look. “This is the law regarding the force that’s made when an object spins,” I said, turning to look at Evander, who seemed flustered.

“Yeah, that one,” he stuttered. “Explain that one to me.”

“Don’t encourage him,” complained Id, “and take a step back we’re too close.”

“Give me one good reason why you don’t like Evander,” said Eth.

“He’s weak and a coward,” answered Id.

“He’s kind,” countered Eth.

“Precisely what I just said: weak,” retorted Id. “Gregory is so much better. Have you seen how strong he’s gotten this past year?”

“Have you seen how he picks on Evander?” asked Eth.

“You would have us marry a man who cannot even protect himself?” accused Id.

“Who said anything about marriage?” asked Eth.

“We are eighteen – well into our marrying years,” argued Id. “We need to be looking for a husband, and Evander would make a terrible one.”

“So, he’ll just be alone forever?” pleaded Eth.

“I will not marry a man out of pity, Eth,” Id said, a note of finality in her voice.

While Id and Eth had their argument, I explained the law to Evander. I was used to ignoring the bickering in our mind at this point.

“Do you find this strange?” he asked me.

“Do I find what strange?” I repeated.

“You, a woman, teaching me, a man,” clarified Evander.

“You’re the one who requested I teach you,” I pointed out.

“I don’t find it strange,” he said quickly. “I’m asking if you do.”

“No,” I answered.

Evander looked up and around at the ceiling. “So it would stand to reason then that you think women should be educated,” he prompted me.

“They are educated,” I said.

Evander refocused his gaze. “Just because you are being educated doesn’t mean the other women are,” he said.

“Just because the women aren’t learning the same things you are doesn’t mean they aren’t being educated,” I countered.

“What are they being educated in?” he asked.

“How to be good wives and mothers,” I answered.

“Why shouldn’t they learn things like history?” he inquired.

“Because it isn’t necessary, and their husbands would teach them if asked,” I explained. “I also doubt that most women would be interested in learning history. Learning how to weave and care for a child on top off history would be asking a lot from women.”

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“Yet it’s not asking a lot from you,” he pointed out.

I smiled. “I am the exception,” I told him.

Evander slightly narrowed his eyes. “You think you are particularly exceptional?”

“I know I am,” I shrugged.

He raised an eyebrow. “What makes you so exceptional that you alone, separate from womankind, deserve a formal education?” he asked.

“A lot, but my father is keeping me in the dark about the details,” I griped. “When did you first speak?”

Evander blinked. “When I was two years old,” he said. “Why?”

“My first words were when I was a week old,” I revealed.

Evander’s face was the very picture of disbelief.

To answer his unspoken objection, I added, “If you don’t believe me, ask my father. Or better yet, ask yours what I did when I was one month old.”

Evander left soon after that, claiming he needed to help his father. When the amateur lesson was over, I spoke to my other personalities. “Why hasn’t father married us off yet?” I asked them.

“No idea,” Id answered.

“Same,” said Eth.

I looked to Al.

“I just strategize,” she deflected.

“Can you think of any strategic reason why father would hold off on arranging our marriage?” I prompted.

“Perhaps Father hasn’t found the right match yet,” reasoned Al.

“There isn’t a man of quality in the whole city?” I countered. “That doesn’t seem likely.”

I immediately went to confront Father about this.

“It is perfectly natural for a father to be hesitant in giving his daughter to another man,” was his response.

“That’s a load of horseshit,” I challenged. “You’ve already betrothed Rhea and she is two years my junior. I am eighteen and you have yet to even allow a single suitor!”

“There has yet to be a suitor worthy of you,” asserted Father.

“Oh, please,” I rolled my eyes. “Not one man in all of Sofia is worthy of me? What about Gregory? You seem to like him well enough.”

Father nodded his head, but said, “Gregory is a fine young man, but he isn’t good enough.”

“He has been with his father and brother when training in the army,” I argued. “You say that an alliance with Polemos is your dream – would my marriage to a future military commander not aide that?”

“He isn’t good enough,” Father insisted.

I threw up my hands in exasperation. “Why?” I asked. “Why isn’t Gregory good enough? Explain to me how he is inadequate. Is he not smart enough? Then Evander. Does he lack piety? If we were having this conversation two years ago I would say Luke, but you have let the highest value bachelor in Sofia fall through your fingers without protest”

Father’s face hardened. “They are all unworthy,” he said.

“Why? How is it that I am so above mankind?” When Father refused to answer, I continued. “Why is it that I can do things that no one else can?” Father still refused to answer, “If you do not answer my questions, I will force Eth to peer into your mind and take them by force.”

“You will do no such thing. You may have me restrained, but You cannot force me to do anything,” said Eth.

“I know, I’m bluffing,” I assured.

I continued the attack. “I have tolerated you keeping the truth from me under the assumption that you know what’s best as my father. However, now you are obstructing my ability to have a family,” I told him. “You will do as I ask, or I will force the issue.”

For the first time in my life, Father looked powerless. There was a slight tremble in his hands and a great pain in his eyes. He looked at me as though I had just asked him which of his children should live.

“This is causing him a lot of distress Ego. Just drop it,” said Eth.

“I can wait for a husband, Ego,” Id added. “You don’t have to do this. You shouldn’t make him angry.”

“This is incredibly blunt,” chimed Al. “There are other means of finding what you seek.”

“No!” I shouted, pressing on all of them. “I have been patient for long enough.”

Father gave a defeated sigh. “There is one man who is worthy of you,” he finally admitted.

I relaxed our tense posture. “What’s his name?” I asked.

“You have never met him and I haven’t seen him since he was a babe,” Father said.

“What’s his name and where is he?” I questioned further.

“His name is Maximos.” Answered Father. “He is in Polemos.”

“Then let’s go,” I said, turning to leave.

Father sighed. “Before we go, it is required that I tell you why you can do things no one else can,” he said, pausing for a moment before continuing. “What makes a cat a cat and not a dog?”

Confused, I asked, “What does this have to do with – ”

“It is related,” Father cut me off. “In order to explain your uniqueness, we need to explore two concepts here. And this is the first one: what is a cat?”

“Well, a cat has whiskers,” I started.

Father then asked the prodding question. “So, if we cut the whiskers off a cat, does it then become a dog? Or at least something that isn’t a cat?”

“No,” I admitted. “Are you saying labels and categories are arbitrary?”

“No, I am not,” Father explained. “Just the opposite. I am saying there is some essence that a cat has that makes it a cat, beyond the material.”

“Okay,” I agreed, “and the same could be said of a dog?”

“The same could be said of anything,” He replied. “Humans, spoons, bread, walls – even abstract ideas like numbers and virtues.”

“Okay,” I said, accepting his premise. “What’s the second thing I need to understand?”

“It’s more of a question really,” Father said with a small smile. “Where does the blood go when we change a law?”

I thought for a minute before admitting, “I don’t know.”

“Summon your Nomos scroll,” he commanded.

I did so, and Father produced a rock and a piece of string. He tied the rock to the string so that he could hold one end of the string and the rock would hang from the other end. Father then lowered the rock into the page; it disappeared through the page like normal. Raising the string, the rock came up out of the scroll still attached. Lowering it a second time, after the rock disappeared, he said, “Now change a law, any law.”

I concentrated on changing friction. This time when he raised the string there was nothing; anything that had passed through the page was gone, leaving a cleanly-cut string.

“The rock existed somewhere before you changed a law – only after did it disappear,” Father taught.

“What are you saying?” I asked, wondering where he was going with all this.

“I’m saying that there is a place past the law scroll that you can go to,” Father explained. “You and I must now go there, but first go get the blood you’ve been saving.”

I left to retrieve the pitcher with my dried monthly blood. When I returned, he added,

“This will not be enough, go get your mother’s, too.” Finally, with the second pitcher in hand, he declared, “This is adequate.”

I consolidated the two and added water to turn the powder into blood again.

Father took my law scroll and placed it on the floor, and it expanded to the size of a small rug.

“Everything has a price, even knowledge,” Father explained. “The first few times I entered, I didn’t remember anything. I came back without hair and that statement in my mind: ‘everything has a price.’ The blood you are holding is to pay for the knowledge you are about to gain.”

He locked the door and came back to where we were standing. Stepping onto the scroll, he disappeared through it; after a brief moment of surprise, I followed after.