“I don’t doubt it.” I shut the door behind me. “I just wish you had told me.”
“You would have stopped me, and I couldn’t let you do that.”
“How did you find her?” I leaned against the wood. “Did you know Ithas’s identity too?”
“I bought a relic at auction on a whim years ago. It was a small magic. Harmless. It only had one question left, and I finally spent its last drop of magic on a name. Her name. Lucia Silva.” Guilt chipped away at her posture. “I didn’t expect it to work, and when it did, I didn’t expect to find her. Not really. That’s what I told myself anyway. Maybe I was only justifying my actions with doubt. I know I told myself there was no harm in not telling you if I never located her, but that was a lie too.” She folded her arms across her abdomen. “I wanted to give you an ally. I wouldn’t have approached her if I didn’t believe she could be trusted. Her clients speak highly of her, and her fees reflect that. I convinced myself it was a safe precaution to have in place, and then Ithas took you.” Her dark eyes beseeched me. “I had no idea your father was a Titan. I didn’t know his name or the details of his past with Lucia. I wanted to protect you, but I shouldn’t have gone behind your back to do it.”
“I understand why you did.” I pushed off the door. “I’m grateful you did.” I crossed to her and brought her in for a hug. “But next time you get the genealogy itch, call me, and I’ll have a gig worker drop off some hydrocortisone cream.”
“I’ll do that.” She hugged me back twice as hard. “I love you,cher.”
“I love you too.”
Creaking boards in the hall betrayed footsteps I got the feeling were made louder to announce Lucia had finished her shower and was on the move. I stepped out into the hall, and she glanced up from her cell’s screen, unsurprised I had taken up her thumping invitation to join her.
“My handler,” she answered, though I hadn’t asked her. “I got a booking, but they’ll have to wait.”
As she entered the living room, two heads popped out of Josie’s room to watch Lucia drop onto the sofa.
“You must be in high demand.” I sat across from her again. “I hope this won’t cost you any business.”
There was no timeline yet, no plan. But I had Dinorah. And I now understood my purpose and my worth. That was plenty to bring both gods to the table.
“You’re worried about the wrong thing.” She grinned when she noticed my siblings’ attempt at stealth. “I would go bust for the chance to get my hands around that scumbag’s throat.” She sighed. “The thing is, I’ve killed a god blood or two in my time. They just respawn in Abaddon. Which you appear to know from experience. I’ve always assumed the same thing would happen to a god. That’s why I armed myself with artifacts. Most of them are weapons, but a few are of the containment variety. If I can’t kill him, then I would settle for locking Ithas in a box and throwing away the key.”
Thinking of Anunit, of the Alcheyvaha, I knew it was possible to end a god for good.
And I possessed a weapon that would do the trick, as far as Dis Pater went anyway.
Lucia was on her own with her treasure trove to sort Ithas, since he had immunity to Dinorah.
“We’ll have to act fast.” I met her determined gaze. “Ithas won’t let me go without a fight.”
“Now that I know where he’s been hiding, he’s got nowhere left to run.”
“Then it’s down to us. We’ll have to lure Dis Pater so he appears when and where we hold the advantage. We’ll only get one shot at taking him by surprise, so we have to make it count.”
“You’re not acting as bait,” Matty piped up, tumbling into the hall on his hands and knees. “You can forget that.”
Tangled in his legs, Josie fell against the opposite wall, smashing her shoulder. “What he said.”
A peculiar expression drifted across Lucia’s face as they shoved in front of each other to be the first to reach me. Nostalgia? Or maybe longing? I didn’t know her well enough to be certain. And I didn’t get a chance to think on it much before Josie and Matty plopped down on either side of me, each slinging an arm around my shoulders until I was in the middle of a Mary sandwich.
Less than a minute later, Harrow ambled out with Carter beside him, both of them done pretending they hadn’t been listening in the whole time too. Hand to the vibrant wrap covering her hair, eyes on the rug, Vi sashayed down the hall next, and then Jean-Claude exited the kitchen.
Oh, yeah.
They hadallbeen pressing their ears to their doors the whole time Lucia and I were talking. Sneaks. But I didn’t mind. It spared me from retelling my life story through the lens of Lucia’s trauma. It also put us on the same page, saving me time bringing everyone up to speed on what I had learned.
“Dis Pater and Ithas both want me.” I pictured Kierce, laid out on an air mattress. “I’m good with acting as bait if it gets us the desired result.”
“That’s why no one asked you.” Josie patted my thigh. “You just sit there, look cute, and keep your hero complex to yourself while the adults figure out how this should go down.”
From the corner of my eye, I clocked Anunit slinking toward me. She maintained her incorporeal form, and I noticed Lucia taking stock of those who saw her coming—and those who couldn’t sense her arrival.
I told myself it was strategic, that the knowledge could make a difference in the battle ahead, but it hit a sore spot started by Armie that continued to fester. I didn’t know Lucia. She might bepart of my genetic makeup, but I didn’t know for certain she was authentic, let alone if her revenge story had legs.
Call me paranoid, but my family had been through enough. We had had our fill of betrayals, and Lucia, as cool as her Lara Croft vibes were, was an unknown. Or maybe it was less suspicion of her and more to do with the twinge still pinching my chest whenever I remembered Vi hadn’t consulted me first when she knew how I felt about finding my parents. Nothing. I had felt nothing. Now I…I didn’t know.
