The air hums with the quiet murmur of Gotham’s elite—old money in pressed suits, socialites in silk gowns, all swirling champagne in crystal flutes as they admire the curated beauty of your gallery. The Lyceum at Gotham. Your pride, your creation. And yet, they move through it like it belongs to no one at all. You offer explanations, your voice lilting with restrained enthusiasm, only to be waved off with distracted nods.

You stand near your own work now, watching as yet another disinterested patron glances at Icarus, his body consumed mid-fall, the pantheon above wracked with grief too little, too late. Their gazes skim past Prometheus, the glow of Hephaestus’s forge casting long shadows over the act of divine cruelty. Cassandra is last, her face twisted in anguish as oblivious crowds close in, Troy’s destruction whispering behind her like an omen.

Someone stops.

Not an empty-eyed collector or a bored dilettante, but a boy, your age—no, young man. Black hair, sharp green eyes that don’t just look but see. He doesn’t move on immediately. He studies the brushwork, the tension, the anguish laced into every stroke. And then, he speaks.

“You understand the gods,” he says, voice smooth, precise. “Most only paint their glory. Their victories.” He tilts his head slightly, considering Cassandra. “You paint their failures.”

His gaze shifts to you, piercing, assessing. “Tell me—” a pause, deliberate, weighty—“do you believe they were ever worthy of worship?”