“You what?”

Saia winced, inadvertently squeezing the head of the snake she was holding.

“Sorry,” Koidan said, lowering his voice, “but why risking your life when you can call me?”

She let the animal fall back into the tank.

“I just wanted people to limit the damage while I went home to wake you up. But, you know, it was working, so I stayed to help.” She put a hand into the water and wiggled her fingers to attract another snake. “Plus, some people needed to realize you can’t always be there for them.”

“I should be, though. It’s the reason I exist. What we're doing is,” he paused, as if looking for the right word, “irregular.”

Saia glanced at his sphere: it was on top of a heap of clothes on her bed, irradiating the only light in the room. It was getting dark outside and Saia had closed the shutters to enjoy the golden light without attracting attention.

“There was a bit of smoke,” she said, returning to the tank. “And the line of people with buckets wasn't exactly inconspicuous.”

She wiggled her fingers some more, looking at the snakes near the bottom. Feeding them had been a mistake: they were too distracted by the fresh fish to pay her any attention, and she needed to fill two vials of venom before ninthday.

“That's a problem. They'll send someone to check that everything’s fine.” Koidan's light was rotating faster than usual. “They'll probably look for me inside the statue, to make sure that I'm still in my place. Could you bring me back, tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

A snake caught sight of her hand. Instead of slowly swimming up to the prey and bite at the last instant, it jumped out, fangs bare, aiming at Saia instead of her hand. She was paying attention to its movements, so she managed to dodge by leaning to one side. She tried to catch the snake in mid-air with her gloved hand, but her movement was too fast and she punched it instead. The snake landed onto the table and started thrashing around, dangerously close to the glass beakers and the vials with the little venom Saia had already spilled.

She ran forward, water dripping from her hand all over the floor. Before she could get to the snake, its writhing shape went limp, mouth close.

Saia touched it with a gloved index and retracted her hand immediately. The animal didn't react.

“You killed it?”

“No, I used the same magic I taught you. It’s sleeping.”

Saia took the snake by the head.

“Thank you. You can release it, now.”

Koidan obeyed. Saia felt the animal try to open its jaws and attack. She let it bite the glass of a beaker.

“You didn’t need to touch it.”

“That limitation only applies to humans.”

“Why's that?”

“Deities are more powerful, our energy came from the mountain. You, instead, can only count on what your body produces, and it's not much.”

Saia nodded, letting the snake bite one last time.

“Can I make them fall asleep too?”

“You could, but it's dangerous. And yes, I know I'm saying this to a person who fishes sea snakes for a living.”

Saia smiled.

“The thing is,” Koidan continued, “if they were attacking you while you put them to sleep, they’ll try to bite you again as soon as you wake them up.”

“They always do that.”

“Well, keep it in mind anyway. Also, if you're controlling a snake and you fall asleep or someone knocks you unconscious, they'll awake immediately.”

Saia freed the snake and immediately caught another one. She closed her eyes and thought about the waves.

“Are you listening?” Koidan asked.

“Yes. I'm trying to use your trick on this young lady,” she said, raising the snake over her head.

“You have to touch her directly. Well, either her or one of her scales.”

She slid a glove off and touched the snake's body. She tried to recall the waves while the animal recoiled from her touch.

“You know,” Koidan said after a while, “I don't usually listen to people's conversations, but I couldn't help noticing that a lot of them are talking about thirdday as if they're expecting something to happen.”

Saia opened her eyes.

“Yeah, I wanted to tell you about it.” She dropped the snake into the water. “People are expressing their concerns about their god not helping them anymore.”

“So they noticed,” Koidan said.

His light dimmed. Saia approached the bed.

“Well, it was inevitable,” she said, sitting next to him. “If you expect someone’s help even to wash the sole of your feet, at some point you’re bound to smell something.”

Koidan laughed.

“You're a terrible person.”

“It's true, though,” Saia said with a smile. “They, we, were counting on you for everything. So I told them to come to the temple this thirdday at five.”

“And what are you going to tell them?”

“I don't know. I want them to understand that you won't be able to take care of us as you did before, but they're too used to the way things have always been.”

“You got them to help you with the fire, though.”

Saia shook her head.

“That was different. They feared for their houses, there was an immediate danger, they half-knew you weren't there for them and didn't want to take the risk. The sane ones, at least,” she added, thinking about the teacher. “Plus, I didn't exactly give a speech. I just splashed some water around and people decided to help me.”

Koidan’s light rotated faster.

“Talking in public isn't difficult, you only have to practice. I had a lot of problems too, at the beginning.”

“You mean two hundred years ago? Doesn't count. But we could use your experience in speeches.”

“What do you want me to say?”

Saia leaned back until her head rested against the wall.

“You could just tell them they have to take care of themselves. You're the god, they'll listen to you.”

The light dimmed a bit.

“I don't think so. They'll start to wonder why their god is the only one who doesn't function properly. Word of my announcement would spread, the other spheres will know about it and ally against me. And I'm too weak to fight them.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because none of us can outright refuse to do our job. Mistakes are allowed, provided they aren't too serious. And there's this unspoken agreement that if one of us isn't working properly but still manages to hide it to the monks, the others will let them be. But telling people I won't help them anymore? That's like declaring war.”

Saia raised her eyebrows.

“Are you guys really that mean with each other?”

“The people who observe us would punish everyone who isn’t.”

“So we have to explain the situation without attracting the other gods' attention.” She sighed. “Great.”

She looked at the snakes in the tank. Two of them were curled up on the mound of earth, to take in the remaining heath of the day. A third one got out of the water and tried to find a place beside them, but they threatened him with hisses and bumps of the head. Saia knew that they fought for everything: food, light, access to water. But every time they saw her approach the tank, they left the mound and swam deep, forgetting any dispute.

“We need something scary,” she said. “So scary that people won't even talk about it, for fear of attracting its attention. You'll tell them that this enemy requires all of your efforts, so you won't be able to listen to every single prayer anymore.”

Koidan’s light brightened a little.

“This might actually work. But what could this enemy be? Cloud people?”

She thought about it for a while.

“No, they don't feel dangerous enough.”

“Because you've never seen them attack. I can assure you they know how to craft their weapons.”

“Yeah, but people don't really understand that. We know the stories, but we've never had to fight because you and the other gods protected us. And it would be weird for you to require so much attention to drive them away, when it took you just an instant in the past.”

“I get your point, but they're the most dangerous thing I have to deal with.”

Saia kicked off her boots, then put the feet on the bed and hugged her legs. She thought of all the things that scared her. Most of them weren't the kind you could just fight, even using the powers of a god. They mainly had something to do with losing her family. Maybe she had already lost a parent or a sibling, but she didn't know because she lived away from them. What if they had tried to find her, but Vizena had...

She straightened her back.

“What?” Koidan asked.

Saia looked at him and smirked.

“I found the scariest thing in the world. Ready to hear it?”

The light dimmed, then started spinning faster.

“I'm not sure I like your expression, but I'm curious.”

Saia crossed her leg on the bed.

“An evil god.”

She waited for his reaction. The light seemed to slow down a bit.

“What do you mean, exactly?”

“You'll tell them there's a god like you who wants to destroy the village and that he's so powerful you have to spend all of your time fighting him.”

“I don't know. Why would that be better than the cloud raiders?”

“Because it would be here, not above the clouds. Plus, they know how powerful you are. They'll think the other god can hear everything, like you do, so if you warn them about saying something to people from the other villages they'll listen. I don't know how the other gods would react if something slipped, though. Do you think they'd attack you?”

Koidan rotated in silence for a while.

“I don't think so. But they know that there can't be more gods like us, so this could get them curious. I don't want them to alert the monks only because they think there's a new threat nobody knows anything about.”

Saia nodded slowly, staring at the woolen blanket.

“How do you feel about telling them what you're going to do?”

The light stopped.

“I mean,” Saia added, “you could say it's a, let me think, an experiment?”

“For what?”

She shrugged.

“I don't know.”

Koidan’s light moved again, dividing into streams that followed different orbits.

“Contacting the other spheres would be by itself something out of the ordinary. They'll assume I did it because my experiment could influence their territories in some ways. And if I played it down, I'd only make them suspicious.”

Saia lowered her head.

“Right.”

“Don't get me wrong, I like your idea. It's just that dealing with the other gods is a delicate matter.”

Saia put both hands behind her on the bed and leaned backward.

“It's weird: you'd think after all this time together you were at least good neighbors.”

“Our concept of a good neighborhood is not to interfere with each other.”

“What if one of you needs help with something?”

“We are omnipotent. If one of us needs help, it means their powers are fading and we need to report them to the monks.”

Saia looked at him.

“You would do that? Report someone, I mean.”

The light flickered.

“Well.”

It dimmed visibly, then regained brightness, and faded again.

“I'd like to say I wouldn't. I know for sure that two hundred years ago I'd have done it without even thinking about it. Even fought against a rebel, if necessary.”

He kept spinning in silence for a long time.

“But?” Saia asked.

“But at some point, I began to understand that rules can be harmful when taken to an extreme. If you micromanage your territory, for example, you're bound to waste a lot of energy for nothing. Some mistakes and oddities can be accepted without many consequences.”

He started rotating faster, in a vaguely clockwise direction.

“But now I'm weaker than ever, with more things to protect. I can't afford to have the monks suspect me of being allied with a traitor.”

“So you would.”

“Yes.”

Saia nodded. She turned towards the snakes, back propped up against the wall.

“Why?” Koidan asked in a thin voice.

“No reason in particular.” Saia smiled a bit. “I just don't know much about your relationship with the other gods. I was curious.”

“But you didn't expect me to answer that.”

“No. I find it strange that you don't have any god friends.”

“I don't. Besides, I can only contact Dore and Mivion because our territories border with each other. For everybody else, I need to send messengers.”

“Oh, really? That's great. I think it solves our problems pretty well.”

The light faltered.

“I don't understand.”

“Don't worry, I'll explain later. We have a lot of things to talk about.” She closed her eyes. “But now my body has just remembered I've been carrying buckets for the whole afternoon.”

She yawned.

“Move me somewhere else before you fall asleep. I could do it myself, but…”

“You’d waste energy. Got it.”

She reluctantly got up, wrapped the sphere in the blanket and hid it under the bed. Then, she laid down, the side of her face on the silk pillow.

“Tell me if there are weird monks walking around,” she mumbled.

“Sure. Good night.”