I unloaded the duffle onto the dresser.
“Two twin beds,” I said.“You telling me something, Lula Gauge?”
She threw me a look, then shoved one bed over to the other.“You think I want to sleep alone after all these years?”
“I tend to snore.”
“So do I.”
“Well, I don’t mind,” I said.“Never have.”
She drew her hand back through her hair, then rubbed her forehead.“Today’s been a lot.”
“Too damn many gods,” I said.“I mean, Thor?Really?”
That got a smile out of her.
“Want some rest?”I asked.
“No.”She sat and patted the bed.“Sit with me a minute though?”
“As long as you want.”The bed springs made some noise as I lowered myself beside her, but they were stiff and strong.I put my arm behind her back, pulling her into me.
She tucked her head into my shoulder, just like she had out in the garage.The events of the last day, hell, the last months and longer…the events of our entire damned lives…seemed to pile up all at once.
It was exhausting.
“How the hell are we going to figure out how to use the book, Brogan?”she asked.“God power?You and me?”
I hummed and stroked my thumb across the back of her hand resting on my knee.
“What if we just don’t?”
“That’s not an option.We’re killing Headwaters.”
“Even Raven said there might be other weapons that can kill Headwaters.”
Her eyes, when she tipped her face up, glowed gold.“How long would it take us to find another weapon—if there even is one close to the Route?How much time do we have before the gods hunting us find us?And out there?”She waved at the wall.“They will find us in an instant.”
“We aren’t wizards, Lu.We don’t wield magic.Do you really think we can just pick up the spell book of thegodsand use it?No.It’s smarter—and a hell of a lot safer—to find some other damned weapon.”
“Is there one?We don’t know.Two gods couldn’t tell us if there was another weapon that would kill Headwaters without killing us.Remember?Killing Headwaters means we die too.”
She shook her head.“We have the book.The lost god spells are our only chance of surviving this.We use the weapon at hand.”
“How?”I asked, frustrated.“Even the gods don’t know how to use it.Just because our souls were torn apart and stitched back together to make us into tools to use the book, doesn’t mean we know how.There are no instructions for the damn thing.”
“Ricky said she’d look for instructions.”
“She’s not going to find anything.Even the gods forgot that book existed.”
Lu shifted in my embrace, drawing closer, sensing my racing heartbeat, my instinctive panic over the very idea of using the book.That book had already been the reason I had been killed, and Lu turned into athrawn.
I hated everything about it.
“We’ll take it slow,” she said.“Small steps.Small spells, if that’s possible.Trial and error.We can do it.We’ve figured out hard things before.”
“We don’t have time for that.”
