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“You can’t lose faith you never had to begin with.”

“Ah. So you never believed in the Bright at all?”

“Of course I believed. Even now I believe, in principle. But when I was sixteen, I saw the hypocrisy in all the things the priests had taught me. It’s all very well to say the world values reason and compassion and justice, but if nothing in reality reflects those words, they’re meaningless.”

There was no point in making myself suffer unnecessarily. As a mortal, there would be pain enough in my life, whether I sought it out or not.

I...regret...what I did. It was wrong. Very wrong. But regret is meaningless.

This was what I’d asked her to give me. I had no right to complain just because it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

I knew as well as anyone that the priests taught what they wanted us to know, not necessarily what was true. And sometimes even when they told the truth, they got it wrong.

I understand that mutual dissatisfaction is a factor in their collaboration. I imagine it isn’t a far step from mutual goals to mutual respect, and from there to love.

If they will not love me, fear is an acceptable substitute.

The child in her wanted to do as she pleased, cling to impossible hopes. The woman in her wanted to make sound decisions, succeed even if it meant sacrifice. The woman would win; that was inevitable. But the child would not go quietly.

Well. Adolescence is all about making mistakes.

I knew what it was at last—the visible manifestation of my will. My power, inherited from my god ancestors and distilled through generations of humanity, given shape and energy and potential. That was all magic was, really, in the end. Possibility. With it I could create anything, provided I believed.

It was the oldest of tricks, to sow dissension between groups that had common interests. Good for deflecting attention from greater mischief, too.

They live forever, but many of them are even more lonely and miserable than we are. Why do you think they bother with us? We teach them life’s value.