The mortal's dwelling smells of burnt coffee and loneliness.

I materialize between his kitchen and what appears to be a sitting area, though the distinction is unclear. Everything here is so small. So cluttered with objects I do not recognize.

He stands by a window, silhouetted against the city lights below, a glass of amber liquid raised halfway to his lips. He's frozen mid-celebration, which tells me he has already sold my property.

"You have something of mine," I say. My voice comes out strange in this mortal air, thinner than I expected. Less resonant. "I would like it back before something kills me."

The glass shatters on the floor.

He spins, and I get my first proper look at him. Dark hair that falls carelessly across his forehead. Sharp features that would not be out of place among my siblings. Eyes that are currently very, very wide.

"What..." He presses himself against the window. "How did you get in here?"

"Through the threshold. Your door was closed but not warded. A troubling lapse in security."

"My door is locked. I have three locks."

"Yes." I tilt my head. "That was the closed part."

He stares at me as though I've sprouted additional limbs. I check. I have not.

"Look, lady." He holds up both hands. "Whatever you're selling, I'm not buying. Whatever you're taking, I want some. And whatever you're doing in my apartment at two in the morning..."

"You stole the Orb of Dawn from my temple. Four nights ago. You bypassed three guardian wards, disabled the eternal flame lock, and took what was mine."

The color drains from his face.

So. He does remember.

"I don't know what you're..."

"Cassian Mercer. Twenty-eight mortal years. You grew up in seven different foster homes before aging out of the system at eighteen. You've been stealing ever since, though you prefer to think of yourself as a 'specialist in relocation.' You favor rooftop entries and never take jobs that might hurt anyone directly."

His mouth opens. Closes.

"How," he manages.

"The Orb contains my divinity. When you touched it, I learned everything about you. Your name. Your history. Your current emotional state, which I would describe as 'terrified but pretending not to be.'"

He laughs. The sound is high and thin. "Okay. Sure. Your divinity. Because you're, what, a goddess?"

"Was. Currently I am mostly mortal, which is why I need the Orb returned. Without it, I cannot reclaim my godhood when this body dies. I will simply... cease."

"You're insane."

"I am many things. Insane is not among them."

He edges toward what I assume is a communication device on his cluttered table. "I'm calling the cops."

"That would be unwise." I lift my hand. This takes more effort than it should, the mortality is settling into my bones faster than anticipated, but I manage to summon a small sphere of light. It hovers above my palm, warm and golden, casting the room in gentle dawn.

He stops reaching for the device.

"That's..." His voice has changed. The bravado is cracking. "That's not possible."

"It's not possible for mortals, no. I am the Goddess of Dawn. Or I was, until I traded my divinity for one mortal lifetime." The light flickers. Dims. I close my fist around it before he can see how weak it's become. "The power is stored in the Orb. I need it back."

"You're actually, you actually think you're a..."

"I do not think. I know. And you, Cassian Mercer, are the only person who can help me retrieve what's mine before something far worse than me comes looking for it."

He drags both hands down his face. The gesture is familiar. I've watched mortals do it for millennia when they're trying to process the impossible.

"Call me Cass," he says finally. "Only bill collectors use Cassian."

"Cass." I taste the name. Short. Sharp. "Very well. Where is my Orb?"

He's quiet for a long moment. I watch the calculation happen across his face, the weighing of options, the consideration of lies, the ultimate resignation to truth.

"I don't have it," he says.

My remaining power flares before I can stop it. The lamp beside him bursts. Glass rains across the floor.

"Then where is it?"

"I sold it! Okay? I sold it three days ago to a guy named Dominic Vance. High-end antiquities dealer. The job was a commission, I was never going to keep it."

Sold. My divinity, my essence, my only way home, sold like a trinket.

"You did not know what it was."

"I knew it was worth a lot. Some collector wanted it, paid well, I did the job." He crunches through the broken glass to retrieve his drink, then seems to remember it's in pieces on the floor. "That's what I do. That's the whole deal."

I should be angry. Three thousand years ago, I would have reduced him to ash for this transgression.

But three thousand years ago, I couldn't feel. Now, standing in this cramped dwelling that smells of coffee and isolation, I feel everything.

Exhaustion. That must be what makes my knees weak.

I reach for the back of his couch. Miss. The floor rushes toward me.

He catches me before I hit.

"Whoa. Hey." He's stronger than he looks. "What's wrong with you?"

"I am... mortal." The word tastes like ash. "More mortal than anticipated. The separation from the Orb is accelerating my transformation."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning if I do not retrieve it soon, I will die. Permanently. No return to godhood. No continuation of any kind." I try to stand on my own. My legs do not cooperate. "I will simply end."

He's still holding me. I cannot remember the last time someone touched me.

Actually, I can. It was never. Gods do not touch. We exist adjacent to each other, parallel lines that never intersect.

"This is insane," he mutters. But he guides me to the couch, sets me down carefully. "You're actually serious. You're actually a goddess who traded her, what, immortality? For a human body?"

"One mortal lifetime. I was supposed to experience everything. Live. Then die, and the Orb would return my power. A century at most."

"But I stole it."

"Yes."

"So now you're stuck."

"Dying," I correct. "Stuck implies potential for movement. There is none, unless I reclaim what's mine."

He stands back. Studies me. The calculation is happening again, but this time it's different.

"Why?" he asks. "Why would you do that? Give up immortality?"

It's the first question he's asked that isn't about logistics.

"Have you ever watched the sun rise?"

"A few times. Usually after a bad night."

"I painted three thousand years of them. Every dawn. Every color. Every moment of light returning to the world." I look at my hands. They're shaking. Mortal hands shake. "None of it touched me. I watched mortals weep at sunrises. Laugh. Fall in love under them. Nothing stirred in me. Endless time, endless beauty, endless nothing."

"So you wanted to feel."

"I wanted to live. Even if it killed me." I laugh. It surprises me, I've never laughed before. The sound is strange. "The irony is not lost on me."

Cass doesn't laugh. He's watching me with an expression I have no context to interpret.

"Okay," he says finally. The word sounds reluctant, dragged from somewhere deep.

"Okay?"

"I don't believe half of what you've said. But that light trick isn't something I can explain, and neither is you knowing my entire life story." He rubs the back of his neck. "So either I'm losing my mind, or you're telling the truth. Either way, you clearly need help, and I clearly owe you."

"The Orb. You'll help me get it back?"

I try to understand. "Why? You do not know me. You have no obligation to..."

"Because you came here ready to threaten me and ended up explaining why you traded immortality for the chance to feel stuff." He shrugs. "That's either the craziest thing I've ever heard or the saddest. Either way, I'm in."

Relief. That's the sensation flooding through me. I've read about it. Experienced it now.

"Thank you, Cassian."

"Cass."

"Cass." I nod. "We must move quickly. The Orb creates a signature that others can trace. Others far less pleasant than me."

"Others?"

I look toward the window. The city glitters below, ignorant of the divine forces that move through it.

"There is a god who collects power from dying divinities. If he learns what I've done, what you've made possible, he will come for the Orb. And he will not negotiate."

Cass's throat moves as he swallows.

"Tell me where the Orb is," I say. "Or I will find out another way."