Rome, 2008 – Pontifical University of the Holy Cross
The library smelled of old paper, polished wood, and faint traces of incense that seemed to cling to every stone building in Rome. Theo Aris, still using his birth name in those days before he fully constructed the persona of Khaladore, sat at a long oak table near the back, shoulders slightly hunched over a thick theological tome.
The book was Summa Theologica excerpts paired with modern commentary, Aquinas mixed with contemporary Catholic responses to atheism. His uncle's best friend, a wealthy Eritrean-Italian aristocrat named Signor Marco Tesfaye, had arranged everything. After the nightmare in Asmara, after the refugee camps and the desperate crossing, Tesfaye had pulled strings and opened his purse. "Education is the only prayer that works," the man had said with a dry laugh, funding Theo's passage to Rome and his enrollment in the college of education. Theo was grateful, in the detached way he was grateful for clean water or unbroken bones. He repaid the debt by studying harder than anyone else.
He turned another page, eyes scanning arguments for the unmoved mover, the necessity of a first cause. His pen moved steadily, underlining flaws with clinical precision. Not because he enjoyed theology. Because he needed to understand the architecture of the cage his mother had lived inside.
A shadow fell across the table.
"Still wrestling with Thomas at this hour?" The voice was warm, lightly accented, teasing without malice. "Most students your age are already at the bars in Trastevere."
Theo looked up. The man standing there was in his late forties, wearing a simple black clerical collar under a well-cut jacket. Prof. Giovanni Ventimiglia, visiting lecturer in philosophy of religion, known in narrower academic circles for his rigorous work bridging Thomistic metaphysics and analytic philosophy. Not a celebrity theologian, not a television personality, but respected enough that his seminars filled quickly among those serious about the intersection of faith and reason.
Theo gave a small, polite nod. "The bars are louder than the arguments, Professor. I prefer clarity."
Ventimiglia smiled and pulled out the chair opposite without asking. He set down a slim notebook. "I overheard part of your exchange with the seminarians earlier in the corridor. You dismantled their version of the ontological argument rather neatly. You're really good at theology, Theo. Is it a passion?"
Theo closed the book but kept his finger marking the page. His voice remained even, courteous, the same measured tone that would one day define Khaladore.
"I would not want to even believe God exists."
The words landed softly, yet they carried the weight of something final.
Ventimiglia leaned back, eyebrows rising with genuine interest rather than offense. He studied the young man for a moment, the premature seriousness in the eyes, the way the shoulders stayed squared even in relaxation.
"Then why bother arguing so reliably with me? Or with them?"
Theo met the professor's gaze without flinching. "Because my mother put me up to this."
A beat of silence. Somewhere in the library, a clock ticked.
Ventimiglia's expression softened, not with pity but with quiet understanding. "Must be tough."
Theo gave the smallest shrug, the kind that said the conversation could end there if the professor wished. But Ventimiglia did not move. Instead, he tapped the cover of the theological book.
"Your mother, did she send you here to convert the professors, or to test whether the arguments could survive a mind like yours?"
Theo's reply came without heat. "She sent me nowhere. The arguments survived her. They will not survive scrutiny. That is all."
Ventimiglia nodded slowly, as if filing the answer away like a difficult passage in a text. He did not launch into a defense of God's existence right then, though Theo could see the man had good points ready: the fine-tuning of physical constants, the intrinsic intelligibility of the universe, the way moral realism seemed to demand a transcendent ground. Points delivered not with bombast but with the quiet confidence of someone who had spent decades inside the tradition.
Instead, the professor simply said, "Then let me offer you this, not as debate, but as observation. Even the refusal to believe can become its own kind of devotion. The energy you spend dismantling the idea… it keeps the idea alive in you, doesn't it? Like a man who swears he no longer loves someone, yet still argues with their ghost every night."
Theo's pen had stopped moving. For a fraction of a second, the library lights seemed harsher, the incense scent sharper. He saw, unbidden, his mother on her knees beside Thea's cot, rosary clicking, voice rising in desperate song while a child slipped away.
He blinked once, and the image was gone.
"I argue with data, Professor. Not ghosts."
Ventimiglia stood, offering a small, genuine smile. "Then keep reading. But remember, sometimes the most dangerous believers are the ones who believe they believe in nothing at all."
He walked away.
Theo reopened the book.