by Heloise Hull
“Knock, knock,” I called as we went inside. It was mostly quiet, but I heard voices in the bedroom. “It’s Ava and Aurick,” I said. “Is anyone home?”
I knocked again on the bedroom door, and it creaked open. Thessaly hissed and backed against the headboard. Coronis wrapped her arms around the siren and murmured something in Latin.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“This pretty much started after you left,” Mak said.
“Which is what exactly?” Aurick asked, his eyes fastened on the demon.
“The siren curse is coming back, stronger than before,” Mak said. “Coronis and I have tried everything. To be frank, I’m stumped.”
Coronis had by now calmed Thessaly, and she was rocking her gently on the bed. I’d never seen my friend so afraid. Not at the Arch, not when facing a vengeful necromancer. Never.
I couldn’t help but feel it was my fault somehow. “I can fix this, too. I can fix everything. I just have to get to Thoth.”
“Where?”
Tiberius popped out of my shirt pocket. “Nibiru.”
Thessaly jerked at the word and jumped on top of the headboard, balancing on the balls of her feet and her fingertips. She looked terrified and terrifying as her electric blue hair stood on end.
Honestly, though, it could have been Tiberius that scared her. The mascara war paint was something to behold. I patted his head, forcing him back in my pocket. “Let me handle this,” I whispered.
I opened my mouth and closed it. Explaining the whole goddess thing was going to be a lot harder than I’d hoped.
“Ava, what’s going on, dear?” Coronis asked, her eyes knitted together.
I puffed out a short breath. Anticipation churned through me. What would they say? Would they throw me out of Aradia? Surely not. We’d formed bonds here that couldn’t be so easily broken.
“Nothing is wrong, per se, but I want to preface this by saying I had no idea I was anything other than a suburban soccer mom before I got here. Also, that I love you all dearly and I don’t want that to change. No matter what, I will find Thoth and I will figure out how to kill him.” I paused, shoring up my courage with my friends’ love. “I’m apparently the goddess Tefnut.”
I waited for the explosion, but my announcement was met with silence.
“Sorry, what?” Mak laughed.
“The Egyptian Eye of Ra. Chaos. Magic. Rain drops. Lion-head. Etc.”
“Etc.?” he repeated.
“Yeah. You know. Other stuff, too. I don’t quite recall all of my memories yet.”
Actually, I wished I could pry them from my brain with a fork, but I was counting on Thoth to help with that. Once I half-strangled him.
“The tattoo,” Coronis whispered. “And the crystal room. Dio mio, Ava. This is…”
“I know. I know. It’s a lot to take in, but I swear my loyalties are to Aradia and all of you over anything else.”
“Are you sure you want to kill Thoth?” Coronis asked. At my look of horror, her face fell. “Darling, I’m sorry, but it had to be asked. You are one of them. Thanks to the honey...” Here she looked to Mak. “I remember the wars. They were fierce and you were not on our side, even in a mortal body.”
“I would never hurt you,” I swore.
“It’s not always black and white. That’s all she’s saying,” Mak said in what he probably thought was a soothing voice.
Aurick was silent altogether, but he slipped his hand around mine and squeezed. His quiet strength buoyed me for a moment. Or perhaps it tricked me into thinking I could control this.
“I swear, I feel more Ava than Tefnut,” I promised, but again, they were silent.
Nobody had to say anything. I knew the thought that was beating steady in their minds: I felt like Ava for now. But my powers were clearly growing in this body. For now, the scales of Ava to Tefnut weighted heavily for Ava. How long before the weights were thrown in the other direction? Where would my true loyalties lie then? If all of my memories came flooding back to overwhelm my senses, would the grain of sand that measured the time I spent as Ava Falcetti matter at all? Maybe they were right to be cautious. To fear me. Maybe I should have a bit more proper fear of myself.
“I swear…” I didn’t even know what to say. I swear to not betray them? To still care about them? They were words without actions. As inconsequential as if I weighed a dandelion seed.
“Did you hear that?” I asked, straining my ears. It sounded like someone was shouting.
“I think it’s Rosemary,” Coronis said.
“And Marco,” I replied at his tell-tale roar.
We ran to the window and peered out of the white curtains. Billowing cloaks and angry faces stalked through our quiet town. At every entrance to the square, guards with long sarissas stood at attention. The tallest one by the fountain peeled back his hood. His head was shaved with glowing runes.
My mind went blank. Not again, not now.
Manu was at the head of a small army of Council members. And they didn’t look like they were here for apertivo hour.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A familiar voice boomed across the square. In our brief time apart, it didn’t appear that Manu had acquired a new perspective regarding how fabulous I was, and I doubted he was here simply to say, “I told you so.”
“Ava Falcetti,” he thundered, his voice magically amplified to shake even the floorboards. “You are under arrest by the Council of Beings. Come quietly or face the consequences.”
“Don’t say anything,” Aurick told me. “I’ll handle this.”
“And if they try to arrest you?” I asked.
“The Council is not a lawless bunch of rogues. They’ll listen to reason.”
Coronis and I exchanged a look. While it was admirable how much faith and loyalty Aurick had in them, it seemed a bit much for liars.
“How do they know you’re a goddess?” Mak asked. “You just found out.”
“They took my blood when they arrested me, and clearly they’ve been running tests on it. I don’t think they liked what they found.”
“No, I guess not.”
Understatement of the century, as Manu ordered hooded Council bounty hunters to secure Marco’s taverna. Even from here, I could see a pair of Gordian Knot cuffs dangling from his waistband. The sun had barely risen from what had to be the longest night ever, but I could hear the town begin to stir from the amplification of Manu’s voice. Shutters creaked open and something howled.
Aurick pulled the curtain closed, one hand in his jacket pocket. I knew he was rummaging through his grave goods, rolling globules of glass and crystallized wheat through his fingers as scenarios flipped through his mind.
“Let me go down first,” he offered again. “I’ll explain it all logically, and we can come to an agreement. We’re all adults. There’s no need for violence.”
I cupped my hand to his smooth cheek and tried to drink him in as deeply as I could. He put a heavy hand, calloused and hard, over mine. “I swear I won’t let them hurt you,” he said softly.
“Are you sure it’s me you’re frightened for?” My tone was light, but the guard I’d transformed into a beetle and almost crushed hovered in our collective memory. He hadn’t seen me kill Mestjet in the women’s bathroom, but he had seen the aftermath.
“Of course not. I trust you to the end of the realms and back.”
He moved his hand to the back of my head and dipped me. Despite the imminent danger—or maybe because of it—my belly flip flopped at his touch. He was warm and strong. I sank deeper into his touch as his teeth grazed my lower lip, his arms supporting the rest of me. He was all-consuming, and for that precious, infinite moment in his arms, I forgot that I was doomed—or worse, that I had doomed my friends. It was the purest sort of acceptance.
“Ahem,” came a voice behind us.
We turned to see Coronis and Mak standing there, not even trying to hide the awkward. Mak waved.
“Sorry,” I said. “I needed a moment.”
The clang of marching boots pulled us the rest of the way out of our little planet. Aurick brushed a last kiss on my forehead. “I have no doubts about you whatsoever. I swear it.”
My smile was salt as tears slid down my face watching Aurick stride into the square, as if demons, shifters, and a very angry-looking mage weren’t staring him down.
From my spot at the window, I strained to understand what Manu and Aurick were saying, but all I could hear was the manic rocking of Thessaly as she thump-thumped back and forth on the bed.
Manu pointed, gesticulating wildly in my direction, then indicating the spot next to him. Aurick put his hands to his hips and shook his head. So, the conversation was going great.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Oh, hell. This is crazy. I’m going down there.”
Mak, Coronis, and even Thessaly moved as one to join me, but I stopped them.
“Please stay here. This is about me. I deserve to know what they’re discussing, but I don’t want anyone else near that man. It’s too dangerous.”
“Darling, it’s our decision,” Coronis began, but I cut her off with a look.
“I don’t want to risk it. Watch over Thessaly. Hopefully we’ll all be sipping espresso martinis in an hour and discussing how I’m getting to Nibiru tomorrow.”
I left before she could stop me but paused at the top of her stairs, just outside her door. Part of me really, really wanted to lock the door shut with some sort of protective mother magic, but I held back at the last second. I drew the line at taking away others’ free will.
As I descended, the air pressed down on my body like the heavy feeling before a storm. Nothing moved. No one stirred. Even the warm trade winds mixing with the January air were stilled as both sides measured the other.
Manu took a step in my direction, and Aurick put a hand on his chest to stop him. “I told you. Ava acted in self-defense. Look at the bites and scratches on her arms.”
“So?”
“Are you seriously going to stand there and try to feed me lies that Mestjet didn’t have the ability to summon a horde of scarab beetles?”
“There were no witnesses,” Manu said plainly. He kept his arms tensed at his side. “Our jurisdiction is infinite. Any being deemed a threat to MILFs or supernaturals falls within our domain. You are dangerously close to forfeiting your rights accorded to you from the Council of Beings. Step aside or you will face punishment as well.”
“I am doing exactly what the Council is supposed to stand for,” Aurick responded, his voice curt and measured. “It is you that hides archons and secrets from our supernatural community.”
The air was as strained as a bad back. It was thick with muscles that itched to strike. The guards’ sharp exhales were hisses, and their scarred, calloused fingers knew exactly how much pressure to apply to gut us. And then it happened.
Manu didn’t answer with words. He lifted his arms, his runes blinking black, and a crashing thunder followed as all of the guards lunged forward, their twenty-foot sarissa spears pointed in a semi-circle.
Aurick opened his mouth to protest again, but the talk was over. White hot lights shot from the tips of their spears, and I barely had time to deflect a direct shot at my face as Aurick did the same. “What the…” I cried. “Nobody told me those things could shoot!”
Rosemary screamed, and quicker than I could react, Aurick threw out a shower of globules of glass that absorbed the rune magic around us and bought some time.
The shortest hood threw off their cloak. It was the garden gnome from my first meeting with the Council. Mossy eyebrows and sharp teeth snarled at me. Then he dove headfirst into the ground. With a great gnashing, the creature tore apart cobblestones, ripping away earth as he burrowed. As if the stone was nothing more than soil. In seconds he was gone.
“Aurick?”
He pointed to a rolling bump that grew closer and closer until it disappeared into the earth. I waited, hoping Aradia would do its part and spit him out like a grisly piece of meat.
No such luck.
Beneath my feet, the earth wobbled, and a moment later, the gnome burst into the air like a demented bowling ball. I avoided his teeth, which was good since they looked like they could’ve taken my head off and given me a staph infection, but he got me with a roundhouse kick that felt like a bag of rocks slamming into my chest. The gnome hit the ground and spun, unleashing two bruising knee cap hits.
I slumped to the ground, winded and sore. I was eye-to-eye now, and the gnome grinned at the level playing field. His mistake.
From here, I could feel all the living things growing between the cobblestones. I dug my hands into the wild grasses and let a surge of mother magic ripen the blades. The pavers shattered in earsplitting, cracking sounds that reverberated through the square as the grasses grew upwards, surging to tangle around the gnome. One strand tied his mouth shut, neutralizing his jaws, another pinned his arms to his side. Delicate wildflowers snaked and bloomed, burying the creature in an avalanche of color. “There,” I said, wiping the dust off my hands. “Now, you look like a true garden decoration.”
By now, the entire town had spilled onto the streets. Every side street and alley way was choked with residents in their pajamas, most of them shocked to see Council members on their island. None of them tried to interfere, however.
Hooded, red-eyed guards lunged at the ones fighting back. Rosemary soared into the air on harpy wings as Marco swiped and snarled at anyone who got within striking distance of his beloved. Coronis had also joined, shifting into a crow and diving around Rosemary. They would’ve been overwhelmed already if it hadn’t been for Mak, who stood at the center, puddles of magic at his feet and golden smoke pouring from his wrists.
Still, the guards had crowded us in a ring around the fountain. We were outmaneuvered and unlike the sphinx, unwilling to kill on purpose. Kill once, and it ruins you forever.
Aurick’s face was gritted with determination, but I could feel how he was holding back. “Ava, what do you want to do?”
I faltered. What was a good person supposed to say? Because the chaos inside me wanted to decimate everything and everyone. “No blood,” I cried.
I could control this. I wasn’t like Thoth. I was nothing like Thoth.
Until a slim, hooded figure emerged from behind Marco’s taverna and the blood behind my eyes began to boil. Bruno.
The vampire towered over the rest of us, moving forward as if gliding on air currents, and when he pushed back his hood, his fangs extended past his lips as they curled in distaste at the sight of me. The square pulsed with renewed tension.
“As I suspected,” he said. He didn’t shout, but the whole square could hear him. “A monster you were born, a monster you remain. Will you put this whole island at risk for yourself?”
“We are protecting Ava from you!” Rosemary shouted. Her frizzed hair stood on end as if she’d been struck by lightning, and her eyes snapped with that same energy. I knew in that moment, she was willing to sacrifice everything for me.
I could not let that happen.
“The gods have never needed protection from us,” Bruno answered. At Rosemary’s quick, confused glance, his lips curled up. “Ah, didn’t she tell you? Ava is indeed a goddess. She could destroy us all if she chose. The question is, what will she choose? Do you think it will be you?”
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed, my heart breaking at the sight of my betrayal written across Rosemary’s face. I wanted to tell her. I was going to. I just didn’t have time.
What else could I say to make this better? That I didn’t know? I clenched my fists at the look on Bruno’s face. He was delighted to spill my secret before I could and give me no chance to explain myself.
The guards used our moment of hesitation to sweep us in a circle, as simple as tightening a noose.
My chaos magic tugged at my belly. It was like a fish hook, yanking me towards my destiny. Use me. Its whisper was seductive. Nonna had said it was uncontrolla
ble. I had certainly felt out of control when I used it, and it had frightened me. But this? The Council spinning out its dark magic, and Bruno hissing his fanged mouth at my friends? That was infinitely more terrifying.
I had no choice. At least, that’s what I told myself.
The chaos felt different from my mother magic. It wasn’t warm and comforting. There was no sense of a greater good or altruism to it. There was only raw power. I could bend it to my will or let it twist me to its own.
The frenzy grew as I stoked the inferno. It was a tightrope strung between two towers. If I lost my balance, I lost it all.
With unsteady nerves, I took the first step. The chaos bubbled inside my chest like the pit of a volcano. Molten and unpredictable. It still felt wrong and bad, but it was all I had.
Bruno glided closer as Manu dangled the Gordian Knot, ready to slap them on me and everyone who lived here, just because I lived here, too.
I roared and let the inferno fly.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chaos soared from my body in a jet of agony. I cried and fell to my knees, but no one dared get close. My head snapped back as my magic sought out every Council member and their guards in the square. The only thing I could feel, besides frenetic fingers of chaos drumming across my skin, was Tiberius. He’d hopped onto my shoulder, yelling in my ear, something about stopping now before it was too late.
If I was capable of speech, I would’ve told him it was far too late already.
Thin, gold bands of magic trussed my enemies like wild boars. They even rooted out the gnome who had tried burrowing underground again. A whistling of humid air wrapped its damp arms around them and bunched them together in a wet heap, all of them struggling.
Curls of steam rose from Manu’s smoking runes, but his power couldn’t put out the tempest of my chaos. Not even mine could. Like kite strings in a hurricane, I yanked on the threads, willing them back to me, but I’d lost control the moment I let them loose. I watched in horror as every Council member fell to their knees, their eyes as white as risen cream.
