When God and Their Commission lived, there were no gravestones for heretics. Now, in East Bexgate at least, that is changing. A tailor and a demon stand in the rain, hand in hand, by a recently-erected stone.
Celia Maythorpe: Friend, Dreamer, Inspiration. You deserved better.
'I'd… never had a friend, before her,' Amnity at last admits. 'My family didn't really talk. I was so lonely, until she came along. She was so curious. About people. About ideas… I wish you'd been able to meet her.'
'So do I,' says Thrl, 'She sounds extraordinary.'
Two other figures approach the grave beside Celia's. Gerard Lex, and Miriam, from the Commission Archives. The grave is Morgan's. The four of you share sad smiles, and stand, in companionable silence.
Amnity hears the gentle beat of the wings and catches the play of stain-glass-light on surfaces even when she isn't facing Thrl, now. She smiles.
'Dinner's ready,' they say, and she can hear that they're also smiling. It's been years, now, and the joy they take in every ordinary moment together hasn't dwindled.
'Thank you! I'll just finish this row,' Amnity says. She leaves her work, kisses them on the cheek, and follows them through.
Afterwards, Amnity takes a break from the orders she's preparing, and the two sit talking on the sofa for hours. They somehow never run out of things to say.
It relatively soon becomes public knowledge that Amnity is living romantically with a demon, albeit one who shows every sign of having changed. Customers are inevitably lost over this, but not so many that the tailor shop cannot get up and running again. There are rumours about their involvement in the death of God, but nothing definite is known. Thrl - open about who they are - attends community forums, but never seeks any higher political office. Nobody trusts them with a paying job, but then, they don't need food to get by, and they suspect they wouldn't take well to one. They divide their time happily between helping her keep the shop running and participating in various political, intellectual and creative pursuits. There is not enough trust around for their idea of making a business out of offering people custom dreamscapes to get off the ground, but they continue to do this for Amnity. Mostly, they try to channel the myriad dream-images they've encountered in their existence into concrete creations in the physical world, finding ever new ways of experiencing beauty, generating ever-new kinds of thrilling uncertainty. They become a regular at Lucy's pottery classes, and any discussion group that will have them.
The world changes in complex ways; in some places, demons cause more harm than they were able to before (as a result, heretics are keen to point out, of God's action in creating the rift). But in others, there is no danger from demons at all. And in most, even in places that do not become democracies, there is nothing like the totalitarianism of the Commission: never a world where speaking uncertainties aloud to a friend will instantly lead to your death. In Bexgate, certainly, the people Amnity interacts with seem happier. Faithful and heretic alike work, not without friction, to build networks of mutual support and kindness, of a kind previously unknown. Amnity helps how she can, providing instruction in tailoring, and producing clothing free of charge where it's needed. Alex and Sincerity, as well as those Amnity knows less well, achieve much during their first council, as do those elected after them.
Wren and Thomas's visits are for Amnity the highlights of the years they take place. The two write frequently, Wren's spelling (but not their handwriting) improving over time, but sometimes their visits are still a surprise. Sincerity has come to trust Thrl over time, although there remains some awkwardness between them for a long time. She visits frequently, and when Wren and Thomas stop by, your shop becomes the centre of activities, as the group of battle-forged friends remember how they changed each other's lives, and the world, in the process. Thrl usually leaves Amnity and her friends together for much of these visits, slipping out to visit Alex or Winston, but returning for a conversation around the dinner table (they partake of food on special occasions, despite not needing to).
The time comes for the monthly dinner and book club with Alex, Winston and Gerard. This week Gerard has selected Glory to the Real God!: Theodore Thistlethwaite and the New Gnosticism. Amnity finds the theological arguments the book sparks go over her head rather, but this is more than outweighed by her continual amusement and surprise at Theodore's new life as a religious hermit.
Gerard has visited Theodore frequently, and seems close to having been convinced by his beliefs. Like Thomas and Wren, he went travelling after God's death, but unlike them, he had permanently re-settled in Bexgate again. He had been working with Jamie, Sincerity, Teresa, Abius, Uriel and Miriam on making information about both demons and the Commission publicly available. Thrl had been providing them some covert assistance.
Alex, Thrl and Winston behave something like a real family, now. Alex still lives with the Greens, who sometimes invite Amnity and Thrl over to dinner too. Winston divides his time between the fens and fenland advocacy work and socialising (something, despite the pleasure he took in solitude, he is clearly hungry for) in Bexgate.
One cold winter's night there comes a rap-tap-tap at the tailor shop door. Thrl gently awakens Amnity, and the two go downstairs. They are each wrapped up in woolen clothing made by the other, Amnity's outfit made far less competently, but no less lovingly.
At the door stands Sebastian Marlowe, looking not a day older than when the two had last seen him. A scowling nineteen-year-old in hoodie and scuffed jeans. Beside him stands a child, eyes lost and defiant and achingly familiar.
He addresses Amnity more than Thrl.
'This child is yours to protect. My debt to Wren Kalen is here discharged, and with it, the last loose end stitched up. This is the last time you'll see me.'
With that, the architect of God's demise turns, and slouches into thin air.
Sincerity and Jamie permanently adopt the child brought by Slzlth, and they grow up happy, and cared for, and safe. But Amnity and Thrl's shop becomes a place of refuge to others, over the years, until permanent homes can be found for them, a part Sincerity helps with. They work to ensure what Wren and Alex went through never happens again. They are convinced that God's safety had been a lie, built on undeserved trust, and always intentionally snatched from the jaws of risk. The chain of care that began with Winston Lay's act of kindness to a demon continues unbroken. Amnity and Thrl's shop never stops providing refuge for the lost and the abandoned. There are months where there is no child in need of aid, or where others - for of course it is not only them who care - are providing it. They enjoy those times of quiet as much as they enjoy the noisy times, or find meaning in helping the children through the difficult ones, but no more.
As Amnity grows older, the two begin a ritual. Every few years, Amnity will fall asleep thinking of her partner, while they discorporate themself, returning to Hell. In thinking of them as she slips into dreams, Amnity will re-summon them. They will manifest each time with a few more wrinkles and grey hairs. Together, human and demon grow old.
Eventually, after Amnity suffers a particularly nasty fall, their attention turns to the future. Thrl haltingly introduces a possibility: there are webs of demons who owe them favours, from long ago, that they have never called in. Somewhere along the chain of debt and obligation and mistrust, so different from the chain of kindness and compassion and openness that brought Amnity and Thrl together, there lies a demon with the ability to turn Amnity into a Damned. Her friends can instantly summon her back from Hell, and she can live with Thrl forever.
'Only if this is what you want, of course,' they say, 'immortality is not for everyone, I know.'
'It… is for me. If it's with you,' Amnity replies.
The two embrace.
When the time finally comes, some of Amnity's human friends gather to perform the ritual. 'It's ok,' Thrl says, stroking her hair, dredging the words up from long ago; from the moment this relationship really began, 'Your friends will bring you right back. And you can pray to me the whole time, so you won't even have to be alone. I'll never get sick of hearing you.'
Amnity Thorne (true name: Amnty Thrn) steps back into the world, and spreads translucent butterfly wings of her own. She and Thrl share a kiss, and it seems to go on for an eternity.