Fenwick Nall had until the tea cooled to save the god's stolen light. The vial hung against his chest, warm as a coal, its golden glow leaking through his shirt. He wore it because he meant to boil that light into an elixir. One sip, and a mortal would never die. But a god now stood in his shop doorway, and gods always came to take it back. This one filled the frame like a stormcloud dressed as a man. His shadow slid across the floor and touched the cabinet where Fenwick kept his rarest work. The customer's bell had not rung. The god did not use doors that way. "You have something of mine," the god said. His voice made the jars rattle on their shelves. Fenwick smiled and set the kettle on. "You'll want tea first. It's a long road, wherever you came from." His ink-stained fingers shook, but he kept them busy. A busy hand hides a scared one. He poured while he thought. The god could crush him with a glance. Fenwick could not fight, and he could not run. So he did the only thing that had ever worked. He talked, and he stalled, and he counted the seconds. "Golden root," he lied, nodding at the vial's glow through his shirt. "For the joints. You're welcome to smell it." He lifted the cup toward the god. "But not while it's brewing. Ruins the blend." The god stepped closer. The floorboards groaned. "That is not root. That is the light I lit the first morning with." Fenwick's stall was failing. He needed the god's hands full and his eyes elsewhere. He pressed the hot cup into the god's palm and turned to the warded cabinet, as if to fetch a second gift. The wards on its doors were the strongest thing he owned. Old marks, carved deep, meant to hide what sat behind them. He opened the cabinet, slipped the vial from his neck, and set it inside among the small drawers. Then he shut the doors. The wards flared, then went dark. The golden glow vanished. The room dimmed to ordinary lamplight. The god's cup shattered on the floor. He reached for the cabinet and pulled. The doors held. He struck them, and the wards bit back with a crack of white sparks that threw him a step backward. "You cannot keep it forever," the god said. Smoke curled from his fingers. "No," Fenwick agreed. "Only until it's finished." The god's eyes narrowed to slits. "Then I will bring the others. All of us. And we will unmake this house around it." He turned and was simply gone, the doorway empty, the bell still silent. Fenwick let out his breath. The vial was safe behind the wards. But now every god knew where it slept. He had bought hours, and paid for them with the rest of his life.