Lu pressed her palm on the table, her fingers so stiff, her knuckles were white.“Why were you watching us?”
“Because I see all contracts.You recently entered into a contract with a god.You bound yourself to him, even after you denied me the same.”
“Again,” I said, “you tried to kill us.”
“You,” he said to me, “I would have killed.You,” he nodded at Lula, “I would have left exactly as you are.Why ruin a masterpiece?”
Pop him in the noseandpunch him in the throat.
“Atë and her monsters turned you into powerful tools that can find the spell book of gods, touch it, and unleash its power.It would have been better for…well, the mortal world at least…if I had killed you both.
“I was willing to take you off the chessboard…then.But now…now I think I might give you exactly what you most need to survive.”
Lula and I exchanged a look.Was he gonna give us the same sales spiel every god, devil, and monster had rolled out over the years?
The old—I see you have a problem, and I assure you, I am your only solution—pitch?
I couldn’t help it, I snorted.
“You think I won’t kill you?”he asked.
Yes, he was a god of immense power.There was no questioning he could kill us if he wanted.But from the time and effort he was putting into convincing us he had the upper hand, that he hadthesolution to all our problems, told me just the opposite.
If he’d wanted to kill us, we’d have already been dead.
He wanted us alive.
Because he wanted something from us.
“No, go on.What are you planning to give us so we can survive?”
It must have been my tone, because his eyes narrowed.
I leaned back and crossed my arms over my chest, waiting.
“I am the god of contracts, rules, and justice.Any contract made can be unmade by me.Anycontract.”
If he was waiting for some kind of big reaction he didn’t get it.
Lula shifted her grip on Lorde, encouraging her to lie down.“We know who you are.”She sounded as bored as I did.“What’s the offer?”
Again, the lines between his eyebrows showed his annoyance.
“I will release you from Atë’s claim.I will break the contracts with which Cupid has bound your lives, your souls to him.I will break the deals you have made with the demon prince and that useless excuse of a trickster, Raven.”
Time ticked.Lorde growled again, a low sustained warning.The people around us went on living their lives, as if we weren’t even here, as if they couldn’t see us.
In all likelihood, they couldn’t.
I knew my answer.It was the same answer I’d always had for gods in general and this one god in specific.
Hell no.
I thought Lula would be on the same page, but she had surprised me in the past, so I looked to her.
“No,” Lula said.
Okay, maybe we were on the exact same page.
