They don't know.

No one knows, and no one understands. They think I'm mad.

I'm not.

My father, leaving me a bastard at a common boy's school. Left me nothing but a name and a face. Face like an angel, they said.

My mother was no better—weak. Mortal. The nuns told me she wasn't much more than a child herself. They told me that I should be grateful that she made it to the orphanage before she bore me. That I should be more grateful still that I must resemble my father. She was no beauty even before she began to rot and fester in that patch of land they bury the unwanted stragglers that die. They took me to her grave on Sundays, tried to make me say a rosary to her memory. By the time I was seven they'd given that idea up.

They were too busy saying the rosaries for my soul.

Let them. If it pleases these already decaying husks that were once called women to finger their beads and beg some vague notion of God on my behalf, let them. Perhaps their God listens to them.

I don't care.

They see madness in me, and I let them. Once you're considered mad, you're free to do as you like. And I always do as I like.

I've read their books, you see, and I know who I am, even if they don't. Who else must I be? If I bear an angel's face, but I can hear the voice of the serpent himself? What must I be, if I can move things without laying hands to them? When each one of them obeys my every command, either out of fear or because I want them to? When I can make them hurt if they disobey?

I'm not mad. I'm more sane than any of them.

Sometimes I think they suspect, but I won't let them. When one of the orphans falls suddenly ill, or has an accident, they think it's God's will, and don't connect it with the beautiful, disturbed bastard. I'm sane enough to know that death isn't meted out by some benevolent, removed God. Not when I can dole out death just as easily. They'll eye me askance for bruises, for pranks, for things they categorize under the shoddy heading of "bullying," but it is their nature to forgive. And if I was doing anything more serious, then surely someone would have caught me?

But no. No one would do that to another student. He must have been mauled by some wild creature of the night. Certainly no one would suspect Tom of that kind of brutality. A broken arm and a stolen pocket-watch perhaps, but not murder. Not here. And when they ask if anyone saw anything, the other children look up wide eyed and say no, of course not.

Because I've already asked them. Did you see? Tell the truth! You did, then? Are you sure? Are you sure now? Tell the truth! That's better, I didn't think you saw anything! When I'm done, they haven't seen a thing.

I can do anything.

Anything but leave. Not yet.

I'm just a boy, yet. I can't break free of them. But I can feel it getting stronger. If I can do this now, then by the time I've come to manhood, I can find him.

Riddle. I vow here and now I'll solve that Riddle once and for all, if he still has breath in his body. And then, then…

Then they can beg their mockery of a God for mercy, because I won't show them any. When the serpent speaks, they will all listen. They've long ago forgotten that Lucifer was an angel too. They'll feel the power that even now grows stronger, and perhaps in that last blinding moment they'll understand that I am not a madman. I'm neither mad nor man, for no mere man wields that which is in my very hands.