Thanks to Baige Liaoluan for gifting Neph ten Oscars

No one objected. Everyone felt that ending the gathering now was a good idea. Audrey took the lead in standing, and the others followed. Even Emlyn suppressed his trembling and joined them in paying their respects.

Neph did not stand. She sat quietly where she was, waited for the others to disappear, then looked at Mr. Fool and raised an eyebrow.

"Did you want to talk to me?"

"Were you really angry?" Klein asked, looking at her for confirmation.

"A little." Neph nodded. "But not really that much-thirty percent genuine, seventy percent acting, I suppose. Mostly, his tone was just begging for a lesson. Mr. Fool, don't forget that I'm posing as a Child of God. If I could put up with even that, it would be utterly ridiculous."

"Then that's a relief." Klein relaxed. "I thought so. You've said worse yourself. Something about how, if you'd been there when he fell-"

"That's different," Neph protested. "At least I wouldn't actually-fine, even if I really did throw myself at the Lord's corpse and start gnawing on it, I would definitely have had permission."

Klein sucked in a breath and could not help reminding her, "I think even asking for something like that is pretty blasphemous."

"..." Neph sank into thought.

"Still," Klein added after some consideration, offering a compliment, "your acting was very convincing. You really startled me. Hmm, the only flaw was that you calmed down too quickly. If you were genuinely that angry, perhaps you shouldn't have calmed down so fast?"

Neph pressed her fingers to her brow and said, rather speechlessly:

"I think, if you really wanted to discuss acting, perhaps we should have kept Miss Justice here too. Oh, right, we'd better invite an actual Child of God as well. Amon, for instance-"

"No need!" Klein