“Was he human?” Bathin asked.
“Does it matter?” I asked.
“Yes,” the demon said.
I made a short list of the people I knew who had touched the book: Stella who had hidden it in the little shack before she’d become a ghost. Hatcher, the monster hunter with the gun, who had stolen it. Lula, me. And Atë.
The only one of that bunch who had been purely human was Stella. But now that I thought about it, there was a chance she had supernatural in her blood and didn’t know it.
“Hands and voice,” Raven went on like he’d given this lecture a hundred times. “It takes two beings to use the book. One to hold it, the other to speak the spells. It was a safety feature, I think. I don’t remember who made it that way. One of the goodie-good gods, I’m sure.”
“That’s the information you thought we needed?” I asked. “That it takes two not-quite-humans to use the book?”
“Two not-quite-humans like you,” Raven said. “Exactly like you.Exclusivelylike you.”
His words punched the oxygen out of the place. And the hits kept coming.
“It’s why Atë tried to kill you, Brogan, and hold you, Lula. It’s why you were attacked a hundred years ago. It’s why your souls were shredded and a piece of each of your souls was stitched into the other. It’s why you were chained to the earth. To follow Route 66 so Atë could keep an eye on you.
“You were born for this, and then you weremadeinto this so Atë could find the book, keep the book, and use the book.”
I slipped my hand over Lula’s beneath the table. The ice of her skin stung against the heat of my palm.
“I don’t know why you two were chosen,” Raven said, as if we were talking about a shopping list, how the crops were coming in, if it were going to rain.
“It’s their souls,” Bathin said. “And their love.”
My hand clenched. What did a demon know about love?
Bathin grunted, reading my reaction. “Demons make the human soul our specialty—mostly to exploit it. It’s why we know the power of love. How it can destroy and be destroyed, how it can survive and even thrive against all hope.”
“So, there you have it,” Raven said. “Your souls and love have made you targets. Along with your stubbornness. Congrats.
“This is me putting all the cards I can on the table.” He spread his fingers across the table top like he was revealing a winning hand. “You need to find the spell book. Out of all the options, I’d rather have it in your hands than any of the others who want it and will use it.”
He leaned back. “I will help you in any way I can—without crossing the deals you have made with Cupid, and without him knowing, if that’s how you want to play it.”
“Generous.” My voice was distant in my ears. Shock, I thought.
“Not generous,” he corrected. “I’m offering to help you for very selfish reasons. That book is a terrible mistake. It’s a fucking universe-ending bomb waiting to go off. Gods are arrogant. They think they are untouchable, unbeatable. Unkillable.”
Abbi made a little sound indicating she agreed.
“Creating a book of magic, one spell from each god, might have been a lark, an experiment, long forgotten. But for those of us who still kick around this earthly plane? It is an absolute shit show about to happen.”
“Shit show already happened,” Bathin said.
“Because Cupid and Atë fought?” Abbi asked.
Raven tightened his arm around her. “More than that, Bun Bun. Did you hear the ruckus in the Underworld?”
“The King falling?”
He nodded.
“There was a dragon too,” Abbi said as if remembering something she’d seen in dreams. “Was the dragon a spell in the book?”
“No, that was Delaney’s angry pet. But the whole reason the showdown happened was because the Demon King tore a page out of the book and used the spell. If a demon can figure out a loophole to get his hands on that power, then anything can figure out a loophole.”
