The Assessment Hall was not what William expected.
He was not sure what he expected to see, maybe the floor was to be made of marble columns and surrounded by celestial light and perhaps a queue.
What he got was a vast circular chamber that looked like someone had combined a government waiting room with the aftermath of a divine symposium that had gotten slightly out of hand.
There were gods everywhere.
He knew they were gods because the administrator who had apparently teleported ahead of them and was now seated at a second identical desk in the center of the room had handed William a small card that read: UNDRIFT ASSESSMENT HALL: YOU MAY ENCOUNTER DIVINE ENTITIES.
DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT UNLESS INVITED.
DO NOT ACCEPT FOOD.
DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING.
The last point was underlined three times.
The gods were, without exception, arguing.
They were arguing the way people argue at a family gathering where everyone has known each other too long and nobody has the energy to actually raise their voice anymore.
A large man made of what appeared to be solid storm clouds was gesturing emphatically at a woman made of sunlight who was very pointedly not listening.
Two figures who might have been twins were debating something using what sounded like pure mathematics as a language.
A god who appeared to be entirely composed of fire was asleep in a corner, snoring embers.
In the middle of all of it, several of them had stopped and were looking at William.
He raised a hand. "Hi."
This was, apparently, the wrong thing to do.
"A mortal."
The voice came from a woman seated on a chair that was significantly more elevated than every other chair in the room, which William suspected was not accidental.
She was tall, severe and dressed in white so pure it was almost aggressive, with silver hair and eyes the color of a winter sky five minutes before it decides to kill you.
She was looking at him the way an accountant looks at an irregular expense.
"A mortal in the Assessment Hall," she said. "Luxara."
"Aeva." Luxara's grip on William's wrist did not loosen. "Lovely to see you. Love the chair. Very tall. Very you."
Aeva — Goddess of Order, William would learn later, first seat of the Divine Council, the reason divine bureaucracy existed at all — folded her hands in her lap. "You have filed a patron claim."
"I have."
"On a mortal with a karma score that should by rights be distributed across three separate reincarnation cycles."
"Finders keepers."
The entire room went slightly quieter. The storm-cloud god stopped mid-gesture. The mathematical twins paused their equation.
Aeva turned her gaze to William. It was the gaze of someone who had organized the fundamental laws of reality and was not impressed by much.
"You," she said. "William Park. You are aware that a patron claim binds a deity to your soul's trajectory for the duration of your next life."
"I was just told approximately forty seconds ago that I'm dead," William said. "So no, I was not aware of that specifically."
A beat of silence.
Aeva blinked. It was an extremely controlled blink. "Fair," she said, in the tone of someone for whom that word cost something.
"He's quick," said a new voice, warm and amused. "I like him."
The woman who spoke was seated cross-legged on absolutely nothing, three feet off the ground, with warm brown skin and eyes like candlelight and the loose comfortable posture of someone who had never been stressed about anything in recorded history.
She was looking at William with an expression of genuine delight.
"Mira," said Luxara, with the specific flatness of someone who has had this particular rivalry for several thousand years. "No."
"I haven't done anything."
"You're making the face."
"I have one face."
"You have the face you make when you're about to try to co-claim someone and I am telling you right now—"
"I am Mira," the warm woman said to William, ignoring Luxara entirely. "Goddess of Mercy. It is very nice to meet you. You have a lovely soul."
"Thank you," William said, because what else do you say to that.
"It would look wonderful in my portfolio—"
Luxara physically stepped between them. She was significantly shorter than Mira and blocked approximately none of her eyeline but the intent was clear. "He. Is. Mine."
Mira smiled. It was a very serene smile.
"You're very attached for someone who filed the claim twenty minutes ago."
"I have been planning this for fifteen years."
"That's not less concerning, dear."
The next hour, if time meant anything here, which William was increasingly uncertain about was an education.
Six gods made formal objections to Luxara's patron claim.
She shot down every one of them with paperwork she produced from various locations on her person with the confidence of someone who had prepared for this exact argument.
The God of War wanted William for his karma's combat potential.
Luxara produced a subclause.
The Goddess of Wisdom argued that an SSS talent was wasted on a patron of Lust's portfolio.
Luxara produced a counter-argument and also a receipt.
Through all of it, William stood to the side and watched.
He was learning things.
He was learning that gods argued like people — with history, with ego, with the specific frustration of someone who had been wronged two hundred years ago and had not forgotten.
He was learning that Luxara, for all her appearance of an eleven-year-old at maximum irritation, was frighteningly competent when she wanted to be.
William filed that away and said nothing.
The God of Fortune was the last to object.
He was a broad, laughing man in golden robes who seemed genuinely delighted by everything, which William found slightly suspicious.
"The boy's karma is extraordinary," he said, spreading his hands. "You can feel it from across the Hall. That kind of luck potential running through a Lust patron's portfolio is—" he caught Luxara's expression and pivoted seamlessly— "completely appropriate, actually. Never mind. Congratulations Luxara. Lovely claim."
He caught William's eye as he settled back in his seat and gave him a wink.
William had absolutely no idea what that meant.
When the last objection was dismissed, the administrator stamped something with finality, and the Hall resumed its normal background hum of divine bickering.
Luxara turned to William.
She had the expression of someone who had just won a very long argument and was not going to celebrate because celebrating would imply it had ever been in doubt.
"Right," she said. "Come with me."
"The orientation—" the administrator started.
"We'll do it in my wing." She was already walking. "He's my patron soul, I'll orient him myself."
"The standard procedure requires—"
"Aeva," Luxara called across the Hall.
Aeva, who had been reviewing documents, did not look up. "It's within protocol," she said flatly. "Don't push it."
Luxara grabbed William's wrist again.
He went with her.
"You prepared for all of that," he said, as they passed through a doorway that opened in the grey nothing just ahead of them.
She didn't answer immediately.
"You spent fifteen years preparing to claim my soul specifically," he said. "You watched me. You knew about the golf cart being 'not what you had in mind.' You had counter-arguments for six gods ready before they opened their mouths."
Another pause.
"You're observant," she said, in a tone that was not quite a compliment.
"You planned this."
"Obviously."
"Why me?"
The doorway closed behind them. They were in a smaller space now — still the grey-gold nothing of the Undrift, but contained, with the quality of a room even without walls.
It looked more personal somehow.
Luxara let go of his wrist and she turned to face him with her hands clasped behind her back, chin up, violet eyes steady.
"Your karma," she said, "is the highest I have seen in four hundred years. Not because you were great or powerful or extraordinary."
"Because for thirty-one years, in small ways, every day, you made things slightly better for the people around you. You noticed the things other people didn't notice. You did the unremarkable kindnesses that no one tracks." She paused. "And then you died for a child you didn't know, at the hands of the least dignified vehicle in human history, and your last thought was of course."
William was quiet.
"That," said Luxara, "is the specific kind of person I have been waiting for." She turned away, moving to a space in the middle of the room.
"Not a hero. Not a saint. Just someone who does the right thing so consistently it became reflex." She glanced back over her shoulder. "My domain is desire, William. Lust. Longing. The wanting heart."
Something shifted in her expression — old, for a moment, and genuine. "You'd be surprised how rare it is to find someone who wants good things."
Silence settled between them.
Then she clapped her hands together and the moment was gone, replaced by the specific energy of someone with a very long to-do list and no patience for sentiment.
"Now," she said briskly, "sit down. We have a lot to get through and I have a world to explain to you."
William sat on a chair that had not existed a second ago.
"You're doing me a favor," he said. "And you want me to know it's a favor."
"I am absolutely doing you a favor."
"But you also really wanted this specifically."
Luxara's eye twitched. "Sit. Down."
He was already sitting. He didn't mention this. He was learning when to push and when to let it land.
"Good," she said. "Let's talk about your next life."