“They must have found Zeus’s storeroom.”
Aggie gasped. “You mean...”
Vulcan nodded. “They have Pandora. And my other creations. Shit, they probably even have my golden dogs.”
“I’m not sure we understand,” Aida said, glad for the calm spell Sophie had given her. The lasers were still trained on them, and Vulcan’s response to the news was terrifying. She could feel Yumi trembling next to her.
“Pandora is an automaton,” Aggie explained. “She’s a husk waiting for instruction. The first robot, you mortals might say. It is near impossible for humans or gods to see the difference between an automaton and a human. They behave just as humans do, react in all the same ways, and are even as fallible.”
“I made hundreds of them, but she’s the jewel in the diadem.”
“And if she’s like a robot, that means she could be programmed,” Yumi said in a low voice, understanding tingeing her words.
“Exactly!” Vulcan boomed.
Aglaea sighed. “They’re using her to store the world’s happiness.”
“Has she just been sitting in the storeroom for millennia?” Yumi asked, her voice halting at first but steadier the longer the gods let her speak. “And if so, how could the other gods bend her to their will? I thought she was curious, not malicious?”
“After she unleashed all the evils upon this world, her purpose was complete, and she was rendered immobile. Zeus hid her and the other automatons away.” Aggie looked thoughtful. “My bet is that Oizys or Apate have been looking for his storehouse since he left, and finally found Pandora.”
Vulcan sighed. “And that’s bad.”
“Why didn’t the gods just keep all their items? Why were they locked away?” Aida asked.
“What we make on Earth is specific to Earth. The gods that went with Zeus during the Age of Stars wouldn’t have been able to take them. They would be useless. But they can’t be left lying around. So Zeus locked everything up for safekeeping until the day when the gods may decide to return,” Aggie explained.
“As for Pandora, if they found her, all they would need to do is change the meander and give her a new purpose. She was already unlocked,” Vulcan said. “But I’m sure they have since locked her up tight so other gods can’t access her.”
Aida didn’t understand what he meant about a meander, but in her mind, he was glossing over the most important part. “What does that have to do with Effie going missing?”
“If they’ve imprisoned Effie somehow, she can’t replenish the world with happiness as they remove it,” Aggie explained, her voice low and tinged with anger.
“And if they have found the storeroom, they have the means to detain a god. They could do it with any number of items. The necklace I made for Harmonia. The throne I made for my bitch of a mother.”
“We don’t talk about that,” Aggie told him, her voice sharp.
“We have to talk about it!” Vulcan boomed. “If they have the throne, you can bet that’s how they’ve trapped Euphrosyne.”
A shadow fell across Aggie’s features. “It’s how he forced Hera to give him Aphrodite as a wife,” she explained to the young women.
“Ahh...” Aida breathed, remembering that the god had first been married to Aphrodite. “But that means they also have your net?”
Vulcan’s features darkened and Aida wished she hadn’t asked the question. “No, it was destroyed when I released them.”
Yumi threw up her hands. “Net? Can someone explain all this to me?”
“Go ahead,” Aggie said, turning on a heel and going toward a door opposite where they had entered the forge. “But I’m not going to listen to this.”
“Don’t try anything funny in here. All it takes is one squawk from Bubo there, and those lasers will be happy to take care of you.” Vulcan looked toward the corner of the room where a little golden owl with ruby-and-silver eyes sat on the edge of a cabinet. It twisted its head toward them.
Aggie looked back. “Join us when you are done telling the wretched story.”
Vulcan followed after his wife. When they had gone, Aida explained to Yumi how Vulcan had made the throne in revenge for being thrown out of Olympus by Hera when she saw that her child was deformed. Years later, Vulcan returned to Olympus as a skilled blacksmith, bringing a golden throne with him as a gift for his mother. She was so delighted with it that she sat on it immediately but was trapped by unbreakable chains that wound around her body. Vulcan agreed to release Hera in exchange for being allowed to marry Aphrodite, and Zeus agreed.
But Aphrodite had an affair with Ares, which Vulcan didn’t take kindly to. So he created a net with fine golden chains that were so delicate they could not be seen. Then he pretended to leave for a trip. When Aphrodite lay on the bed with Ares, the chains sprang up and trapped them both. At that moment, Vulcan revealed himself and called the other gods to come and witness the humiliation of his unfaithful wife. Vulcan demanded his dowry back, then kicked her out of his bed and his life. It was said that Aphrodite, out of guilt, later encouraged the relationship between her ex and Aglaea.
“No wonder she didn’t want to talk about it,” Yumi said, shaking her head. She looked around the room. “Aida, what have you gotten us into?”
