“I have,” Abbi said.“Me and Raven were up all night.”
“We all took shifts.”Pamela brought a pot of coffee over and set it on a trivet.
“Did you sleep?”Josie carried a tea kettle and a basket with several tea options.She placed those closest to a chair in front of Lula.
Lu sat, and Cardamom came in with mugs and a pile of muffins.
“We did.”I sat next to Lu and poured coffee.I offered it to Lu, but she had chosen a black tea.
“Hungry?”Pamela asked.“I have breakfast at the ready, but if you’d rather a lunch I can do that too.”
“Breakfast sounds great.”My stomach growled and Pamela grinned.
“It’ll be out quick.Lu?Anything?”
“Eggs, toast, and fruit, if you have it.”
“I do.Be right back.Don’t any of you talk about interesting important stuff without me.”
Josie dropped down and helped herself to a muffin.“So, what’s next?”she asked.“Do we just wait here for another god to attack?”
“We don’t,” Cupid said pointing between himself and Raven.“It is very kind of you to have us here, but we do not want to stay long.”
“Speak for yourself,” Raven said.“These muffins are amazing.”
“Not sure our welcome is going to hold out much longer,” Elmer said.“The longer you’re here, the higher the chance all those other gods and monsters and whatever else you’re mixed up with will come knocking on our door.”
“Agreed.”Cupid turned to us.“So, let’s get straight to the interesting important stuff.Lula, Brogan, the next choice you make will change everything.Including your lives and your deaths.”
CHAPTERTWENTY
“Dramatic,” Raven said.“But not wrong.”
He set his mug on the table and tipped his head to both sides trying to loosen sore muscles.“You remember us saying a lost god spell won’t cost as much as an existing god spell?”he asked.“The spell cost more than I expected.I think it’s because you used ittwiceand the second time youbroketime.What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I wanted to see Headwaters dead no matter what it cost,” I said around a mouthful of muffin.Raven was right.It was amazing.“Lu?”
“Oh, yeah.Same,” she said.“Mix magics?Break time?Good enough if Headwaters got dead enough.”
I finished off my coffee and poured another cup.If I was going to hear about my impending death—our impending deaths—I was going to get a couple good cups of joe down me first.
“How much did it cost us?”Lu asked.“What are we going to pay for casting the spells?”She’d decided the same as me, and was sipping tea, her shoulder leaning into mine.
“Ryt’s magic, the spell you cast, that’s a part of you now,” Cupid said.“You can probably tell.”
I waited for the feeling of panic, of horror, but I had been through too much for either of those emotions to ping.
“How bad is that?”Elmer asked.
Cupid inhaled, and sort of shook his head.“I don’t know.Ryt’s power is not mine, that magic is nothing I would create, and it is nothing that has ever been used by an earthbound, god-blessed mortal and athrawn.Mixing it with the watch, which had its own very unusual power…” He rubbed his hand over his bald head.
“It’s insanity,” Raven said.“Glorious, but insanity.”
“Let’s just say,” Cupid said, “that as far as I can tell, Ryt is correct.If it had torn the spell out of you, you would have exploded.Or worse.”
“There’s worse?”Josie asked.
“The spell is pressed like a brand into their souls,” Cupid explained.“It’s also in their flesh, in their DNA.Tearing out a transformation spell by force once it has transformed itself to fit seamlessly into every cell of your body…”
