by Jax Garren
Andromeda shot her a look of confusion, then stared back at the cave. Then she blanched, hand to her face in the first expression of disbelief Giselle had ever seen on the stoic woman’s face. “Oh my gods.”
Ishtar, blood-coated and smiling, emerged from the tunnel. Her eyes narrowed as she zeroed in on Andromeda. “You. I should’ve known you’d worm your way into her life.” A sword appeared in her hand. “Keep the hell away from my daughter, you two-faced cunt.”
Chapter 20
ANDROMEDA READIED HER bow and launched an arrow before anyone else could react.
Ishtar dove out of the way and sent her sword flying. Midair it transformed into a knife, spinning end over end toward Andromeda.
The woman dodged, but the blade sliced through her arm just above the elbow. “What have you done?” she demanded as the rest of the party scrambled to have weapons at the ready. Bryn re-formed into Hekate, Shawn readied a ball of lightning in his hand, Rawan flexed her claws, and Coyote dropped down to all fours, becoming a wolf.
Giselle looked around her at the chaos and froze. Did they expect her to fight her own mother?
Another zip of an arrow brought her back to the unreal reality that it was five on one against Sofia. “Wait! Can’t we talk this out?”
Ishtar laughed as the knife flew back to her. “Not with this one, darling. Try dragging the full story out of her sometime, how she betrayed all of us.”
Another arrow flew, and Ishtar somehow had a shield in her hand. The arrow thunked against it, driving into the metal.
“Turn over the stone, Sofia. You’re done,” Andromeda ordered.
“Not hardly. And you will pay for what you’ve forced on our kind.” The words spit with so much venom, Giselle knew there was honest belief behind it. Sofia truly believed Andromeda had wronged her in some way—but how? And did she have a real complaint, or was this the raving of an angry, entitled woman?
“Your kind?” Andromeda said with authority, her weapon tracking Ishtar’s movement from stalagmites to the striated rocks of crystal salt. “You’re human, Sofia. Just like everyone else in the room.”
“Except you, eh, Ande?”
Andromeda took a deep breath. “You know I’m human too.”
“But it’s human nature to perish, and you never will.” Ishtar disappeared behind a cluster of pink rocks, and her voice took on an odd echoing quality. “But I’ve already died. I’ve been to the other side. And now that I’m back, having checked that necessity off the list, I won’t be stopped by a little injection this time.”
The group gathered into a huddle pointing outward, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.
Was it true what she said? Had they created an undying human?
And was that how Ande had become immortal? Had she died and somehow been brought back, “checking off that necessity”?
“We didn’t know,” Giselle whispered in apology. “We were going to lose, and she offered us hope.”
“She always does,” Andromeda said. “It’s Sofia’s best weapon.”
A crack and susurrus of falling crystal sounded right beside Giselle as Ishtar broke through a thin wall of salt. The cracked rock sprayed in every direction, filling Giselle’s hair and coating her costume. Around her the party dropped to the ground, dodging whatever was coming their way.
Before she could fall, Giselle was yanked off her feet, snatched up by her birth mother, and dragged against the woman’s chest. The point of a knife pressed none too gently against her throat, causing a thin trickle of warmth.
“Sofia!” Bryn cried, her face full of terrified regret. “No. Our girl.”
“I am sorry it’s you, darling,” Ishtar said, voice harsh. “I would’ve grabbed someone else if I could’ve.” She dragged Giselle back toward the entrance like a hostage. Everyone backed off, unsure what to do. “You could choose to come with me. I’ll share the real story with you.”
“You murdered Pope Maui.”
“Yes. Yes, I did. And I admit it proudly, because I did the right thing.”
Giselle’s heart pounded at the easy calm in her mother’s voice. Coyote growled, and Ishtar glared at him. “Mongrel, I’ve seen the way you look at her. Don’t you dare think anyone a musical trickster would pick is worthy of my daughter. Not for one second.”
“Sofia, stop. Please,” Bryn begged. Giselle had never seen so much sorrow in her mother’s gaze. “It’s over. Please. Just let it be over.”
Ishtar’s voice turned triumphant. “You think it’s done? You think the seeds we planted haven’t grown and blossomed in the dark where you stuck us? No. I know what you’ve done, stealing the souls of our sisters and brothers. But for every one you took, three more saw your blasphemy and joined our cause. You have singlehandedly swelled our ranks, my love. And for that I thank you. For that you would be welcomed back—my wife, my partner.”
Bryn looked like she would cry. Andromeda still held an arrow at the ready, as if she’d try to thread one through the gaps between Giselle’s body and her target.
She probably could. The mental calculus of trajectory in Andromeda’s head was so good, she had an excellent chance of hitting.
So why wasn’t she?
Because if she missed—if Sofia jerked left when Andromeda guessed right—the arrow would go through Giselle. She wouldn’t let the arrow fly because, once again, she couldn’t bring herself to shoot Giselle.
Andromeda looked Giselle in the eye. “Dammit,” she muttered and put down her bow.
“Come with me, daughter,” Ishtar whispered as they reached the mouth of the cave. “I’ll take us far from here and show you a world that will blow your mind.”
It was weirdly tempting. Not because Giselle thought there was a good reason for doing what Sofia had done, but because her whole life Giselle had been questioning her own existence. First it was just wondering why Bryn had been killed. Then, after the bombshells on her eighteenth birthday, it was what Bryn had been hiding—Why had her birth mother chosen to do what she’d done? What was the real story of her family?
And if she went with Ishtar now, she’d find out.
“You’d be a princess in our cause.” The knife faltered just a bit. “I always wondered about you. What you looked like. What your skills were. If you were happy. I’m sure you’ve been taught to think I’m a monster, but every story has another side. You’d see me differently.”
Giselle shuddered as the offer shone so temptingly beautiful. In front of her, Coyote-wolf growled again, and she held a hand up, warning him not to attack.
“Is it my choice?” Giselle asked.
Sofia laughed like the question genuinely amused her. “Of course. I regret not seeing your childhood, but I recognize that you’re an adult. Once I’m free of them, it’s up to you.”
The sanity in her statement was incongruous with the knife at Giselle’s throat, but there was enough simple conviction in it that Giselle almost believed her.
“I’m not violent for the sake of violence, Aria.” She laughed hollowly as her voice turned wistful. “Or whatever your name is. I called you Aria before they took you away.”
The name slid through Giselle like a foreign object, and yet it was a piece of her history. So strange. “You can call me Aria,” she said, “but I’m staying here. I have too much to do.”
Sofia sighed. “Of course.” Her voice got louder as she proclaimed to the group, “We are on the same side, you and I. I have no fight with any of you—except the undying one. The tyranny the mortal government enacts over our kind is a shackle we all must strive against. If you long for freedom, come to me. I’ll be easy to find.”
To Giselle’s surprise, her mother let her go. With a powerful beat of her wings, she rose into the air as Giselle stared at the ground. The rest of the group dashed from the cave, passing Giselle by to watch Ishtar, but Giselle felt rooted to the ground and so very cold.
Then arms came around her, and she collapsed forward into Coyote’s embr
ace.
Chapter 21
WERE YOU SERIOUS ABOUT helping me with math? If not, that’s cool. I can hire a tutor.
Bleary as hell, Giselle stared at her phone, checking that the DM really was from Rafael. Yeah, verified account. He’d followed her on social media? Excitement woke her up just enough to be terrified again. What time was it in Malverde, where he was? Or what day was it even?
All she knew was that whenever she managed to forget about Sofia’s ominous exit, her brain fixated on the fact that she was in a plane—a metal barrel hurtling through the air—and would be for another fifteen hours. All the brain-dead movies offered on the screen in front of her were not easing the terror.
Beside her, Rawan slept like a person at peace with being thirty-five thousand feet in the air over an ocean. Or desert. Or wherever the fuck they were; they were in the middle section and couldn’t see out the tiny windows. They were missing all of their Tuesday classes too.
Rafael flew all the time to perform in concerts all over the world. He wouldn’t be terrified. But the shorter jaunt to—Doha? Was that the city?—had been the first time she’d ever been in the air. At their 4:00 a.m. takeoff, she’d been too exhausted to feel anything at all and had passed out in the seat before they’d rolled away from the gate. But now she was just alert enough to stew over how trapped she was.
In the air.
And Freyja didn’t have her wings.
She paused the action flick she’d half-heartedly selected and grabbed some chocolate stashed in the storage space beside her for a little pick-me-up. As the sweet goodness melted on her tongue, she reread the message as an excellent distraction, and that initial kernel of excitement built in her chest. If she survived the next fifteen hours, she could spend time with Rafael, just the two of them.
Hell, yeah. She would not freak out. She would be a graceful traveler, brave and deeply appreciative of Coyote, who was on some other flight as his real self.
Just a few hours ago, they’d reconvened at a safe house for a meal full of things Giselle had never eaten before—plus yogurt with cucumbers; she knew that one. Coyote had given her, and only her, the number to a bank account he’d set up for them in the Cayman Islands, like criminals... which, technically, they were. He’d suggested she select plane seats for herself and “Sekhmet” that extended out into beds for the long trip home. Using fake passports and visas—also like criminals—that Ande had pulled out of her ass or something, Rawan had walked her through the process of using a foreign bank account to drop an insane amount of money on plane tickets.
Coyote had claimed the upgrade to first class was a thank you to Rawan for using her Mercury ring to get them to Iran. But as a flight attendant was delivering Giselle’s and Rawan’s choices of fancy breakfasts—Giselle’s had freaking filet mignon in it—Rawan had given her a serious side-eye and said, “So, while I totally support your decision to keep things professional between you two, if I were going to have a fling, and I won’t, because that’s not my thing either, but if I were, someone who’d flown me and my bestie first class around the world would probably be my choice.”
Before Giselle could pop off with an indignant response, ordering her roommate to keep her hands off Coyote, Rawan had laughed and put her fingers across Giselle’s mouth. “I meant you, you dummy. I don’t think for a hot second he did this for me. He was so terrified for you yesterday I thought he was going to explode all over the motel room.”
Giselle had apologized—to everyone. Numerous times. Her emotions were a little out of control, which was probably why she hadn’t yet typed out a fangirl-level yes-squee to Rafael. Things were weirdly chill with him. Breathable. He was in love with someone else, which, even if she’d give her right kidney to date him, made him easy to be around.
So she took a breath and ate another piece of chocolate, and as the sugar kicked in, she typed back, Of course I will wuts the topic?
It took a moment for the response to appear: Wut wut wut is this spelling? Along with it was a tongue-out emoji. Then, I can help you with English if you want. I’m a writer. And a wink.
She laughed. For a guy, he used a lot of emojis. It was cute.
“Are we dead?” Rawan muttered, pushing herself up.
“No, we’re fine, but I’m freaking out. Rafael’s messaging me!” Her voice turned giddy with that.
Rawan’s face screwed up thoughtfully as she checked her phone. “It’s like eleven at night there. That makes sense. Hey, ask him if I can copy his math notes from yesterday.”
Giselle recoiled. “What? No! I can’t ask him that!” Her phone vibrated again, but instead of more Rafael, Coyote was texting to ask how the flight was. Awesome. So posh, thank u. U good?
“I just helped save your life! I need math notes,” Rawan groused.
“No! I can’t ask him that! I’m barely his friend. Like, hanging by a thread. I’m sorry.”
Vibrate. Coyote, again. Booooooooored.
Rawan, looking sleep frazzled, stole her phone and looked at it in confusion. “What? Oh. Heehee.” She typed something.
“What are you doing?”
“Entertaining our bored illustrious commander.”
“I’m our illustrious commander, not the canine. Don’t you—” She grabbed for the phone to see what trouble her roommate was causing, but Rawan juked away and, to Giselle’s horror, swapped back to Rafael.
“Ooh, you’re social media friends, and he doesn’t have that many of those—check that insane follower-to-followed differential. Congratulations. Now you need to start treating him like he’s a normal human being. Just talk to him like you’d talk to you-know-who.” Code for Coyote. Then she started typing again—to Rafael.
“What are you doing?” Giselle tried to wrest the phone back. “Stop! You can’t—”
“Shh! Don’t make a scene in first class! This is the fancy people section.”
“But—”
“I’m telling him it’s me.” She hit send, then skimmed back up their conversation. “Wait, he asked you for tutoring in math?”
The phone vibrated yet again, and Giselle tensed. “What did he say? Is he mad?”
“It’s you-know-who.” She clicked her tongue in frustration. “Darn it.”
Giselle snatched the phone away. S, give F her phone back.
“What?” Then she read what Rawan had sent. “‘You should wear the scarf next time we meet. You have a lovely posterior.’ Rawan!” She quickly typed out, That wasn’t me!!!!
I know. Tomorrow we should meet at the lair, talk going forward.
Sounds good.
Rawan’s expression turned impish. “You know, Rage Riot has a show in San Antonio next weekend to kick off the Whirlwind tour. Why don’t you tell Rafael you’ll tutor him for the semester in exchange for a VIP pass?”
“That’s... a really fucking awesome idea, but how much alcohol do you think I’d need to consume to get up the guts to ask for that, huh? I may end up in the hospital.” Rawan laughed, and Giselle wagged a finger at her playfully. “When did you become such a fan you learned their touring schedule?”
“Shut up! I’m going back to sleep until lunch. And if you start sexting—with either of them—there’s a privacy screen right...” She started to pull up the screen between their seats, and Giselle slapped her hand with a laugh before returning to her phone and checking to make sure she was talking to Rafael.
Sry about that. Me again.
No problem. Tell your roommate she can copy my notes. I just hope they make sense. And tell her to get her ass to class on Wednesday.
“He says you can copy them.”
“Huh,” Rawan said, settling back down.
“Huh what?”
“I guess he’s not”—she looked around them at the other passengers, none of whom appeared to be paying the least attention—“you know. I just thought, Rafael moves into town. You-know-who shows up. They’re both good looking, rich Hispanic guys who play guitar. Dude played a Rage Riot song
for Ereshkigal, and he didn’t sound exactly like the album—but it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, either.”
Speaking of Coyote... Giselle bit her lip and typed, 5 ok tomorrow? before answering, “I wondered that too. But we’re in south Texas—Hispanic majority by far—and there are any number of rich ranching families. And why not a Rage Riot song? They’re on every station nowadays.” Giselle turned over so she could look at her roommate, wishing she wasn’t so tired, so they could chat about this. “Plus they drive different cars—”
“He could afford two cars.”
“Yeah, but they also just seem really different, you know?”
Rawan yawned. “Yeah, they do.”
“I mean, Rafael’s so nice and sort of shy, and you-know-who’s all intense and social and kind of raunchy.”
Rawan snorted. “Have you read the lyrics to ‘Heresy’? Señor Marquez has at least a little raunchy in him.”
Giselle giggled. “Maybe the band helped him with that one.”
The phone vibrated. Five tomorrow for tutoring? Assuming you mean PM, that would be great. Thanks.
She slapped a hand across her mouth. “Shit!”
“What?”
“I just set up a tutoring date—er, not date, but, uh, a thing—with Rafael.”
“Why is that bad?”
“Because I meant to send a text to the other guy.”
Rawan raised a fist for her to bump. “Score! See, treat him like he’s you-know-who. He likes that!”
Nervous excitement ran through Giselle at the thought of seeing Rafael alone again. But now she needed to set something up with Coyote. She flipped to the right app this time and double-checked it. What time works for you?
5 works.
She stared at the screen in tired confusion. Oh, Coyote wanted the same time she’d just set up with Rafael—further proof they weren’t the same guy. I can’t then, sry. 7? After tutoring with Rafael. Heck, if she was at Rafael’s place, that was an easy walk.
Rafael’s place... How cool would that be to see inside his home? She’d been invited once but hadn’t gone in and had carried a little regret for that ever since.
