"I thought you said this world had a different afterlife that was basically the same as being alive."

"Yeah. Then the Friends on the Other Side tried to steal people's souls for the other afterlife."

"I guess if I got here from Earth then demons could get here from Hell. You said tried, did they fail?"

"We stopped Dr. Facilier and the Friends from the Other Side dragged him off to the Other Side. Then we resurrected him because we decided that being tortured forever wasn't good and he should be on the Isle instead."

"And they haven't successfully dragged off anyone else?"

"Not ever as many people as New Orleans would have been, and we resurrect all the ones we know about."

"This world's magic is really something. Raising the dead is an extremely rare miracle on Earth, and it only happens right after someone dies, before their soul goes anywhere."

"Well, that's because your world is ruled by an evil god."

He has to fight some old habits before he can nod. "Do you think it would be possible to try to resurrect someone who died on Earth into this world?"

"Yes, if you had access to resurrection magic and approval from the king."

"I think I'm more on board with talking to the King now that it sounds like he could--do something. Like he might not be totally doomed."

"--although we're going to have to figure something out because it looks like people do know what sodomy is."

"As in we'll have to pretend not to be--whatever we are to each other?" He can probably do that. He has a lot of practice pretending not to be things.

"Also it might possibly be evil?"

"Which, resurrecting people out of Hell in general or just ones who died on Earth in particular?" If it's the latter he can see the point; resurrecting someone who had a chance to accept Christ and didn't is probably a different sort of thing from resurrecting someone who hadn't heard the Good News at all.

"No, I mean, sodomy, resurrecting people out of Hell is definitely good."

"Yeah. I guess we shouldn't do it again." He really wants to do it again though.

"Um. I mean. If you don't want to."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"Well, if I didn't get to... do that... with you ever again I would be really sad? And I am probably going to be evil either way."

Bruce is only relieved to hear that because of how evil he is; if he was less evil he would want Kaleva to be happy and good. "I'm. In the same boat there, on both counts. But even if we're going to be evil no matter what we can at least try to be less evil?" That argument felt much more convincing when it was about paying for the books they were stealing.

"...I'm also not sure that people are... right? About what's evil."

"But if people and God agree they're probably right. Even if it feels like--like they ought to be wrong."

"Well, people here say that homosexuality is wrong because two men can't love each other, and I love you, and-- if there's even one black swan it proves that black swans exist, right? And your god is evil himself so I don't think he is much of an authority on the subject."

"It just seems weird to think that we know more than everyone else. But maybe it's like how I know more than anybody about, uh, what I ate for breakfast yesterday? We wouldn't be saying we were better at telling right from wrong than everyone else, just that we got information nobody else did."