[ Naturally. Naturally Gale would retreat back into cool reticence. He'd baited Godfrey into reacting, and react he had. Gale had no reason to persist in the facade of emotion any longer; one small concession, a sweet taste of superiority, and he could go back to being the cool and reasonable half of the conversation. He could pantomime that pedestal as much as he wanted - it couldn't change the nature of him. He could do nothing for his own bloodlessness; he'd been dead too long. Bloodlessness and callous manipulation was all that he knew.

Anger wells up in him then. Anger with himself. He should have been better. Never again, he had told himself - and he had engaged again. Godfrey should have kept his silence, and he had not. He had been fool enough to engage with him on his own battleground.

No more.

He feels it just as he most needs to; the white-hot love of his God, brewing in the bottom of his chest, beginning to well up into something he can use. Thunder in his chest. He lifts his chin to look at Gale in his face, closer than he's been since-- ]

I adjure you under penalty, Ancient Serpent. In the name of the Judge of the Living and the Dead.

[ It's a low, simmering thing. No warmer than a campfire to combat the dead chill in the room, centered in Godfrey's very lap.

A deterrence. ]

In the name of your Creator. In the name of Him who has power to consign you to Hell.

[ Before long, the simmer grows to a boil, its temperature rising steadily with his voice. ]

To depart forthwith in fear, along with your savage minions--

[ Godfrey pulls his arms and feels the magical chains wither.

And he stands. ]

--from this servant of God.