So I decided not to tell him anything about Alex or Sir Talon. Or Thor, for that matter. All he knew was that Talon had shown up earlier to warn us about Knightmares attacking Chateau Falco. Thor had shown up later.
“How is your lady wife? Does she have everything she needs?” Pandora asked politely.
Odin dipped his head. “Yes, thank you. Freya has never been one to let destiny remain unchallenged,” he admitted with a faint smile.
Pandora’s lips thinned. “The Seiðr.” It sounded like SAY-der.
Odin nodded. Noticing my thoughtful frown, he turned to me. “Freya was one of the Vanir, and when she came to me as my wife, she introduced us to a new magic—the Seiðr.”
I didn’t immediately comment, because I’d heard all sorts of stories on exactly how Odin had taken his wife but calling him out on it wasn’t going to get me anything useful. “What is it?”
Odin thought about it for a few moments. “It is best described as an original form of witchcraft. Freya can use rituals to divine futures, heal the sick, control the weather, find hidden things,” he said, waving a hand. “It can also be used for more nefarious purposes, of course, much like any power.”
I thought about it, nodding. That did sound an awful lot like witchcraft. Divining futures, performing rituals, making potions…and he wasn’t lying about those practices working just as well for nefarious purposes.
There was a reason witches got a bad reputation several hundred years ago. Not all were bad, of course, but enough of them had used their powers for all the wrong reasons, attracting all the wrong kinds of attention.
“You are no slouch at Seiðr, Odin,” Pandora said, and it wasn’t a question.
Odin shrugged. “True, but Freya is definitely the stronger between us. I know enough to help her do as she must. I wouldn’t know where to begin without her.”
“That is because you have a tiny man-brain,” Pandora muttered. The best part of her jab was that I knew she hadn’t even meant it snarky. That was just how Pandora was. “It must have been your brilliant idea to take Ashley to Niflheim. You understand that it almost killed her, yes?” she demanded, and there wasn’t even a hint of civility in her voice this time. “Gods hiding out in Niflheim. What a genius idea,” she snapped.
I arched an eyebrow, turning to Odin. “Excuse me?”
Pandora nodded. “The mist dampens a god’s power, potentially nullifying their abilities. The very atmosphere is toxic to them. It has lesser effects on mortals, but it definitely didn’t help Ashley.”
And the hair on my arms jumped up. “So that was why Thor was such a chump!” I cursed, pounding my fist into my palm. The ichor in my veins flared brightly, drawing Odin and Pandora’s attention.
Pandora snorted incredulously. “That would be like tying up Thor’s arms and then pointing a gun at his forehead!” she hooted. Odin grimaced, averting his eye. Pandora’s laughter died down as she glanced at my glowing veins. “Be careful how open you are with that, my Host,” she warned. “It is best to hide it. No use announcing you have the power to kill a god before you get close enough to actually do the deed.”
I frowned at my veins. “How do I turn off the light show?”
Pandora smiled warmly and turned to place her hand on my shoulder. “Take deep breaths,” she murmured, closing her eyes. I followed her direction and closed my eyes. “Relax and think of something other than killing a god. Remember a happy thought.”
It was a lot harder than it sounded. Kind of like when someone told you not to think of a purple elephant.
After a few moments, I focused on my childhood memory of playing pirates with Gunnar in our old treehouse, Chateau Defiance.
“Good,” Pandora breathed, gently squeezing my shoulder. “Strong emotions pertaining to a god makes your ichor glow. You must remain in control at all times, because even the presence of some gods will make it shine. You do not want to announce this power until you are ready to use it.”
I slowly opened my eyes, nodding in understanding. It was only when I’d been actively hating on some gods that my blood had begun to glow. When I was pissed about Thor and also when I’d been pummeling Odin in Niflheim. “Just being near a god will make me light up?”
“Without you dampening it, yes. If you are in control of your thoughts, or engrossed on some other topic, your veins will not glow. Once you gain proper control, you will be able to turn it off and on at will,” she said, answering my next question. “Just practice.”
I slowly loosened my restraint, thinking back on Thor. And my arms immediately began to glow.
I turned to Odin. “I’m sure you were just about to tell me all of this. It was on the tip of your tongue, right?”
He stared back at me, lowering his brow. “I don’t often go about telling irrational young men how best to become more irrational. There are consequences to killing a god. Having the ability is only a fraction of the story. Knowing when and how best to kill a god is the real power. Because killing a god stains your soul, marking it indefinitely. Remember, gods judge your soul when you die, so killing one of them doesn’t just wash off after you take a shower. Why do you think Anubis was so interested in you? Why do you think we are all so interested in you—both your enemies and your potential allies?”
I grunted, having figured as much long ago. “The Catalyst. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? My parents somehow saw this coming and prepared me for it.”
Odin was silent for a few moments. “Perhaps. Not in any clear way, though. You’ve…rather made a mess of things while somehow still managing to stay on track.”
“I believe he’s done an exemplary job, given the associates he was forced to work with,” Pandora said, staring directly at Odin.
I remembered that both of them had made promises to my parents—things they would do to help me, but that they were not allowed to tell me about.
Pan had also made promises—and he had made good on them, sacrificing his life to help me regain my Fae magic. Were these two also tasked with such thankless, bleak jobs?
I didn’t currently have the empathy, let alone the mental endurance, to ask them directly. I already had enough to worry about with Thor. Knowing that he really was as powerful as everyone claimed, and that I really should have killed him in Niflheim when he had been weakened by the mist only made me angrier, and my arms began to glow.
Gunnar entered the room as if summoned by my desire to kill Thor.
Cowan and Alice walked a few paces behind him. As one, they all froze, noticing my glowing forearms. Their eyes flicked to Odin, assuming the glow meant that I’d been beating him up again.
Not for a lack of desire, I thought to myself.
Pandora cursed loudly, suddenly staring down one of the distant hallways—the opposite direction from Ashley. Then she spun to me. “Why is Callie Penrose inside the Armory?” she demanded.
My eyes widened, caught entirely off guard. “I have no fucking idea!” I hissed, turning to stare at the hallway in question. One thing I knew for certain, I didn’t want Callie finding out that we were all here—that Ashley was on the verge of giving birth, and that Gunnar and I were about to go hunt down Thor.
I didn’t want to risk bringing her into my world of trouble, because if she had any idea how crazy things were here, she was the kind of person to offer her help—and she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“You have to get her out of here, Pandora,” I urged, not even caring how Callie had found her way inside my Armory—or how she’d done so without using the front fucking door.
Pandora had gone very still, her eyes distant. “I think she wishes to speak with you…” she said absently.
I shook my head adamantly. “No way. Not with all of this going on,” I hissed, blindly whipping my hand out to indicate the buffet of problems already on my plate. I think I flicked Odin in the eyeball because he suddenly cursed.
Pandora glanced down at the leather strap over her arm, nodding after a moment. �
��I can stall her for five minutes, but I cannot deter her.”
I cursed, trying to think of an alternate location. Somewhere remote— “Fae. Send her to my mountain in Fae!”
Pandora nodded, already walking away to intercept Callie. “As you wish. I would hurry, though, because I believe she came here to murder Hope. And she brought a friend.”
Alice gasped and Gunnar growled.
I blinked incredulously, trying to process her words.
Then I snatched up my staff as I spun to Alice, ignoring the stark frown on Gunnar’s face, and prepared to use my magic to open a Gateway. But I hesitated, realizing how stupid that would be. Callie would sense it.
Talon had once explained how easy it was to hop back and forth between Fae, and I had cursed him for how easy he made it sound.
But I’d practiced it a lot with Alice on my mountain in Fae. I still preferred using Gateways, but I had the ability to will us to the mountain. So, I motioned for Alice to join me as I raced past Gunnar towards the door to the Armory, where my unicorn was standing guard.
I motioned for Alice to grab the wrist holding my staff as I tugged the door open with my other hand. Grimm’s horn was suddenly an inch from my face as he gave me a warning snarl. I open-palm slapped him on pure reflex, making him snort in shock. Before he could do anything else, I grabbed him by the horn and willed us all to my mountain in Fae.
Grimm was cursing the moment we arrived.
“Payback, you majestic jerk,” I muttered, alluding to my no-trust-fall down the mountain earlier. I rounded on Alice. “Hit the music,” I said, pointing at the bluetooth speaker beside our igloo, “and make a big loud distraction—something that will give us a good idea of where her head is at. It needs to be in full swing in about five minutes. Got it?”
She pursed her lips, thinking furiously. “I have an idea.”
“Good. Catch Grimm up to speed. I’ll be right back. I need to go get a feel for Callie.”
“I literally have no idea what we’re talking about right now,” Grimm muttered, “but even I know that was wildly inappropriate.”
“A feel for her state of mind,” I snapped. “I’ll come back to join you right there, so keep that space clear,” I said, tossing my rainbow staff to mark an area on the far side of the igloo—our home for the past year.
They nodded, and I willed myself back to the Armory.
Gunnar jumped as I appeared right beside him. “What the hell?”
“No time,” I muttered. “I’ll make this quick, but we can’t risk bringing Callie to St. Louis. We have enough people to worry about as it is, and if she sees Ashley in her current state, she will want to help.”
Gunnar opened his mouth to say something stupid like that would be great, Nate!
“I’m not going to let that happen,” I said sternly. “Now hide.”
Gunnar motioned for Cowan to join Odin around the corner and out of sight. Then he studied me silently, as if trying to read my thoughts.
Because I knew part of him was very agreeable to Callie watching over his wife while the two of us went to deal with Thor and Mordred. But he was smart enough to also know that Callie would not stand for sitting around in the make-shift hospital.
She would want to join in on our fight.
And he knew me well enough to see my true purpose—that I didn’t want Callie risking her life for our fight. He knew this, but the reaction on his face troubled me. It was not a smile of understanding.
It was a grimace of understanding. Of disappointment.
I didn’t have time to wax philosophical, so I turned my back on him and ran to where Pandora was intercepting Callie. Maybe I could overhear a snippet of conversation to give me an idea on how best to deter Callie Penrose. And what Pandora had meant about her coming to murder Hope.
The last time I had seen Callie, she’d stepped out of some silver glowing door—a door that hadn’t been there a moment before—to visit me in Fae. And she’d been an entirely different person than the Callie I knew—hopped up on some kind of crazy power that rivaled most gods, and she’d been looking to acquire more. Maybe I was about to find out what that had been all about.
There was every chance that Callie was no longer Callie.
And I wasn’t about to bring someone like that near Ashley and her inbound pups. The look on Gunnar’s face was probably a result of him thinking I was being overprotective of her.
He had no idea that I was quite possibly being overprotective of his kids.
Chapter 33
I followed the distant sound of voices until I came to an intersection with a longer, wider hallway. I knew if I stepped around the corner, they would see me. This was as close as I could get without being detected.
I was careful not to bump into any of the tables or shelves full of priceless artifacts lining the walls as I found a narrow spot between two—likely highly dangerous—chests. I nestled myself into this cozy cleavage of carnage and tried to steady my breathing so I could hear the faint conversation.
I craned my neck so that my ear was as close to the corner as possible. The voices were obviously a ways down the hall, but the echo effect on the sandstone helped. Since echoes worked both ways, I resigned myself to listening in silence.
Maybe Pandora would dissuade Callie from this murdering Hope business. Knowing Pandora, I didn’t count on it. I hardly ever took her words at face-value anyway. That phrase could mean any number of things, no matter how ominous it sounded.
She chose to word things in ways that were designed to get under your skin. Or, hell, it could be literal. I was about to find out.
One of the voices was male, but I recognized the other two as Callie and Pandora.
“Did you help Nate’s parents do this to me?” Callie asked in a tone that sent a chill down my spine. My parents?
“I always do as I’m told,” Pandora replied.
Silence answered my librarian.
Pandora finally sighed. “Know that Calvin and Makayla Temple did their best—what they thought was best,” she said, obviously talking to me just as much as Callie. “Always. No matter the cost. They always took the path less traveled, and that has made all the difference…”
“Yes or no, Pandora?” Callie repeated, sounding annoyed.
As much as I wanted to jump out and demand an explanation about my parents, I knew this would be my only chance to hear something like this. Perhaps since I wasn’t the one asking questions, Pandora was able to speak more openly than usual.
“Yes. I helped Calvin and Makayla…after they helped me. Gave me new purpose. Gave me shelter. Protected me from the world of embers and sparks. I had hoped those would fade away one day, but I was wrong. So, so wrong…” she said, sounding haunted and afraid.
Back when I had first met Pandora, I’d granted her freedom as payment for her help. But she had returned very rapidly, terrified of embers and sparks.
I had come to assume that she had been referring to the Syndicate—a shadowy group of black hat wizards—but she’d mentioned it a few times after I had eradicated them, turning their members over to the Academy of Wizards. I gritted my teeth upon thoughts of the Academy, for entirely different reasons.
Pandora continued. “I’m not sure Nate ever caught what I meant when I told him Excalibur was around here somewhere. It’s almost like he forgot I ever said it…Solomon’s Temple, Nate Temple’s Armory,” she explained. “Kind of obvious they would be connected, right? It’s amazing no one saw that coming.”
I frowned because Alex already had Excalibur. And then I processed the rest of what she had said. Was she implying that the Armory’s neighboring landlord—Last Breath Holdings—was Solomon’s Temple? I knew that Callie had recently discovered she was an ancestor of King Solomon, but how had my parents gotten tied up with him?
“Anyway,” Pandora continued. “I’ll keep this here until you’re ready to deliver it yourself. After you finish murdering Hope.”
“I don’t put much stoc
k in fortune cookies,” Callie said firmly, and I let out a soft sigh of relief. “I need to see Nate.”
“Why do you seek Nate Temple?” Pandora asked after a long pause.
I smiled as Callie considered the seemingly simple question, not falling for Pandora’s bait. “I fear for my friend.”
“Fear…” Pandora mused. “What a delicious sentiment. But remember, Callie, if we leave our toys on the shelf too long, sometimes they get picked up by others. Or wither away under a blanket of dust and broken dreams of what never was.”
Something about that last comment tugged at my own memories, but I couldn’t place it.
“I would never leave Nate on a shelf. Not willingly,” Callie said.
“What do you call leaving your toy alone on a shelf for a year?” Pandora asked softly.
“I learned the secret of life. The meaning of it all,” Callie finally said. “It cost me a year.”
I frowned thoughtfully. Callie had also been gone for a year? Coincidence or design? And if by design, who was the architect?
“That’s a slippery piece of knowledge isn’t it? How long did you grasp it?” Pandora whispered eagerly.
“An eternity. A heartbeat.”
“What did it look like?” Pandora pressed, almost too softly to hear.
Callie sounded sad as she answered. “A broken man and a vapid little girl, holding hands before the end of the world,” she whispered.
Pandora clucked her tongue. “Ah. That’s a good one.”
“What did it look like to you?” Callie asked, sounding curious.
“A box,” Pandora said, her voice strangely flat.
My eyes shot open at that. Pandora had seen the secret of life, and it had looked like her infamous box of horrors. Good lord.
“I told you…” Pandora said. “Yours was a good one.”
“I thought I came here for advice, but now I grow concerned for Nate, which is—”
“You came here for love,” Pandora said, cutting her off.
Callie thought about that for a second. “I guess you’re right.”
My heart may or may not have done a flippy-floppy thing.
Knightmare: Nate Temple Series Book 12 Page 20
