No.
“Sure.”
Then he got up, and opened the door for all he gods of Ordinary.
It had been awhile since we’d had them all together in one place. And honestly, the hospital room, though fairly spacious, wasn’t quite up to the task of containing them all comfortably.
That didn’t stop them. Every god and goddess of Ordinary filed into the room, uncomplainingly standing as close together as they could around my bed.
I couldn’t see them all from my vantage, but the gods closest to me: Aaron, Than, Odin, Zeus, Frigg, were familiar faces.
“Hi,” I said. “How are you all doing?”
Aaron was the first to speak. “You just cancelled our vacations. How do you think we’re doing?”
“Don’t,” Ryder, who had somehow made his way through the crowd of bodies to stand at the head of my bed said.
And surprisingly, Aaron listened. I must really look a mess.
“We’re leaving, Delaney,” Odin said. He had the growler full of power hanging from the crook of one thick, scarred finger. “For one year, as we must.”
“Leaving? But…” I looked at a few faces trying to make sense of this. “Why?”
“You died a bit.” Odin scowled, angry at me for revealing that little failing of mine. “Enough that the bridge was gone, and so all of our powers returned to us. Since it was either pick them up, or forfeit them to some random mortal, we picked them up.”
“All of you?” I said, still not following as quickly as I’d like. “All of them?”
He flipped the latch and uncorked the growler, then tipped it upside down. He didn’t actually have to do that to prove to me that the powers were no longer stored there, were no longer in his keeping. I could, if I focused right, see the powers flowing through the flesh and bones of the people around me, could hear the songs, the rising chorus and sheer magnitude of influence, force, and will.
“All of us,” Odin said, and that was when I realized it wasn’t just my friend Odin standing there. It was Odin the god, wise and weary, his one eye already set on a distant horizon, the power drawing him forward into the world and universe as surely as a sail in the winds of a storm. “All of the powers.”
Those words were final, a hammer on the stone of this moment, inexorable, inescapable.
And then all of the gods, all of the goddesses, people I had known all of my life, shopkeepers and artists, business owners and hermits, volunteers, almost-uncles and aunts, do-gooders, do-nothings filed past my bed and said goodbye. A touch of a hand, a brush of lips on my temple, a wave of power, power, power, moving and flowing like a river I could not stop, sliding through my fingers, racing toward the sea.
It seemed only fitting that when they had all left the room there was only one god remaining.
“Hi Than,” I whispered. My chest was tight with the effort to not break down completely. Tears ran hot and silent down my cheeks, and the collar of my hospital gown was wet.
“Reed Daughter,” he said as if this was the first time we’d met. “This was a most interesting experience.”
I winced. “I’m sorry you only got a couple months here. I’m sorry you have to go. This is all my fault. I promise it will be better the next time you come back. Please come back.” That last was so small, I wasn’t sure if he’d heard it.
“Dear child.” He reached out, his arms long, his fingers, slender like pale blades. He cupped my hand in both of his, and his touch was warm, comforting. “I did not say it was an unpleasant experience. Nor am I unhappy with how these events have played out.”
He paused, those eyes, endless, cold, filled with the power of the ultimate end, flickered with something else. Warmth. Humor.
As if he had a say about how the events had played out.
Wait. Had he?
“All the gods leaving?” I asked.
He waited.
“Lavius’s death?” The cables cinching my chest loosened. “You wanted him dead, didn’t you?” My brain moved sluggishly, trying to put the pieces together through the muzzy painkillers. “You planned this? You came here…did you send that stone to Dad? Did you…” The enormity of it, if it were true, knocked the words out of me.
Had Death sent Dad that demon-filled stone? Had he known Dad was going to die, and thrown his lot in on the chance Dad would negotiate with the demon, who would in turn negotiate with me?
