“She told me. Often. A lot.” Lu rolled her eyes. We’d stopped, and she opened the bathroom door. “I’ll be in the kitchen.” She pointed down the hall, lifted up on her toes, and kissed my mouth. “I love you.”
Then she swayed down the hall, my everything, my today, my forever.
“Your truck’s up and running,”Eunice said as she handed me a mug of coffee. Lula was right—her coffee was delicious. “Lawrence Hobbs got a hold of me this morning. Said the mechanic’s done with it, and even threw in some body work and paint. It’s solid for the road again.”
I wrapped my hands around the mug, enjoying the heat. I’d already downed one cup, several fluffy biscuits covered in butter and peach jam, and a plate of ham and potato hash with enough pepper to make my tongue sting.
Lu sipped her coffee at the table to my right, Abbi perched on a bench window seat where she could peer out the window at the Oklahoma morning. Hado was back in his tiny kitten form, curled in Abbi’s lap.
Cupid sat across the table from Lu and I. He’d draped his leather jacket across his chair and was giving occasional attention to the mug that gave off the scent of hot apple cider and cinnamon.
“Thank you,” Lula said. “We’ll pick it up.”
Eunice stood at where I thought was her power position in the room, leaning her hip against the sink. She crossed her arms over her chest, beads whispering. “Come on now,” she said. “No use brooding. Let’s talk this out.”
“Don’t know that there’s anything to say,” I said.
“Not you.” She tipped her chin. “Cupid. You need to say your piece or all the gears of possibilities are gonna rust up.”
“I agree with Brogan,” he said. “There isn’t much to say.”
“No,” she said. “That’s not at all the truth. It’s not evenyourtruth. Say it out, Bo. Talk to these young souls. They just might be what you’re hoping for.”
“Ooooo,” Abbi said, “is this an omen? A fortune telling? How long is my lifeline? No, wait. Do I have a lifeline?” She held both hands toward Eunice, but Hado mewled a complaint, so she dropped them and went back to petting him.
Cupid scowled at his mug, then picked at the tabletop and brushed away an imaginary crumb.
“This is your moment, Old One.” Voices behind her voice layered a song, a chant, a power as inexhaustible as the heartbeat of the universe. “This is your chance to shift the stars. Even Fate cannot stand in your way.”
Cupid turned his scowl on her, then decided something, his shoulders rolling back. He ran his hand with the owl tattoo over the top of his head, fingers pinching the jewels in his ear before coming to rest on the table.
“If you want,” he said, addressing Lu and me, words measured, “I will release you from your contract with me. Before you ask, I will not return you to spirit, Brogan. If you want, I will simply dissolve from you the burden of finding the spell book and of doing any of my bidding.”
Lula held her breath, studying him, trying to see things not visible to the human eye. I grunted and set my mug down.
“Why?” I asked. “Why now?”
“I didn’t expect Atë to be involved. I should have.”
“Who is she?” I asked, which sounded strange. “I mean, what power does she have?”
“She is the god of ruin, mischief, blind folly. She has been banned from many realms of the gods and seeks revenge upon those who ostracized her. She has hunted the book for centuries. What better way to sow her chaos among the gods than with their own spells?”
He drummed his fingers on the table. Lorde moved closer and plunked her head on his lap. He scratched behind her ears and her tail thumped the floor.
“Illusion is one of her favorite tricks,” he said. “That, and leading the gods to destruction. In finding the book, she now has a weapon. Deadly in her hands. This is not what either of you signed up for.”
So Cupid hadn’t been able to take it from her back at the house. I wondered how she’d gotten away from him. If she was injured.
“Finding the book is what we agreed to,” I said.
“You found it,” he said. “That fulfills your contract.”
“We were supposed to return it to you.”
“Not anymore. Lula and Brogan, I free you.”
“We don’t accept that,” I said.
