51. Father of Abominations

Restless over Fulvir’s hints of paternity, Kinch rejects the notion and broods on how Fulvir knew details of his mother. Unable to sleep and pricked by the tattoo-book’s unease, he slips out while Norrigal sleeps and scales the bone-and-blood house wall, realizing the dwelling itself could move.

He skirts a yard full of war corvids, narrowly avoiding detection as one devours a mouse. Drawn to an ochre-brick, turtle-shelled building labeled “bollisi” (gods), Kinch forges a key with lock-magery and enters a pitch-dark gaol lined with barred cells named for Molrovan deities.

Inside, Kinch sees imprisoned blasphemies: Bolr as a small bear with an old man’s face, Sava’av as a great bird, Malmrana as a many-armed serpent. At “Fothannon,” he finds a fox-headed boy in leather pants with a tail—an image that mesmerizes him with childhood devotion to his trickster god.

The inmates stir; Bolr demands “Braathe ne byar,” and the commotion alerts the corvids. A clay man enters with a frog-lamp, turns to reveal Fulvir’s face on its backside, and blasts fire from its puckered mouth. Kinch, seized by invisible hands, burns as panic and sacrilege close in.

Suddenly he is in bed: Norrigal has dream-walked to drag him out and is swatting flames from his backside. She spent her last dream-walk to save him and angrily, then tenderly, admonishes his recklessness. As dawn glows, a hard knock strikes the door, promising immediate consequences for Kinch’s midnight trespass into Fulvir’s abominable menagerie.