“I wish it were that easy,” Kitty answered. “Elus is taking huge risks with the amount of power he has been pouring into the mortal realms. He has managed to almost eliminate Somas and Tesseris Mageia.”
“Even as twisted as Elus has become, I never expected him to be willing to kill children,” Kate said, her eyes shadowed.
“Think of it this way,” Kitty said, pulling their attention to her. She held her hands up, a gauzy shawl in her hands that appeared to have a map of the world printed on it. I wasn’t sure where it came from.
“Think of this as your reality, your world,” she said. “When gods interject their power into the mortal realm, it pokes a hole in the fabric of your world. Imagine that this is the world. Every time the gods interfere, we damage your world.”
She pushed a single delicate finger through the shawl, leaving a small hole behind.
“Doesn’t seem too bad, right?” she asked. “It’s generally not. If it doesn’t happen that often, nature heals any holes. But what happens when the gods interfere over and over?”
Holes started appearing all through the shawl. Some began to overlap and small pieces of the fabric fluttered to the ground. Kitty reached down and picked up a piece of the cloth that had fallen. She smoothed it in her hand, the letters on it spelling out “United Kingdom”.
“I miss London,” she said, smiling sadly as she looked at it. It appeared to be part of a city. “And I miss English accents.”
Kate wrapped an arm around the younger woman and pulled her in for a sideways hug.
“Release the truth. All shalt be freed by the Sons of Hecate,” I whispered, the memory of the words I spoke to my father echoing in my bones.
“Sorry about that, sport,” Kitty said, a half-smile on her face. “You inherited some of my oracle blood. It can be damned inconvenient at times.”
“Understatement,” I muttered. It had almost gotten me killed. “So where is your third?”
“We don’t know, for sure,” Kate answered. “We were to meet with her to come here, but her chambers have been abandoned.”
“Abandoned? Like, she moved out?” Rhu asked. “Or was she taken?”
“We don’t know. Either way, her absence wounds us. We have lost a third of Our power. It makes interference like this even harder.”
“We will make this right. With or without Kathryn,” Kitty insisted.
“Kathryn is your Third?” I asked.
Kate nodded.
“Kathryn is our eldest, and She is missing.”
“We need your help to find Her.”
“How are we supposed to help? I get that Elus is fucking with the world, but why are Rhuyin and I here? Why don’t you just, I don’t know, get a bunch of other gods together and kick his ass?”
“I voted to kick his ass a long time ago,” Kitty muttered.
“We couldn’t do that, and you know why. And the reason you are here is because we believe in giving people choices,” Kate responded. “We need your help, but it must be willing. You and Rhuyin have the choice to Bond, or not, but you need to understand what that entails.”
I felt a little nervous tingle dash through my nerves. I had a chance to Bond with Rhu? I flushed at the thought. He probably wouldn’t want me. Especially if he knew everything about me.
Rhu squeezed my hand again, a shy grin on his face.
“Tell us,” he said.
***
I opened my eyes and shook my head in confusion, images of two women fading from my memory.
The explosion, or whatever it had been, had flung them both against opposite walls, the ground beneath them buckling. Glass shattered and the lights flicked off, leaving them in darkness, but my power, guided by instinct, flowed around me and pulled a protective sphere of metal around them.
“Shit!” I exclaimed as agony shot through my leg and my hands seemed to burn. I smelled blood in the air, coppery and strong, and automatically reached out to where the pain was arcing through me. My hands came away sticky with it.
