Zeus’ expression hardened. He knew I was only joking and he did not appreciate my sense of humor.
I pressed my lips together in an effort to appear professional.
Isadora stumbled forward. “You can’t… you can’t do that. You can’t give up the greatest power this mountain has ever seen. You can’t just waste all of that potential!” Her voice was harsh and screeching by the end of her speech.
It made my decision that much sweeter.
I turned to face her. “I can. And I’m going to.”
“My queen?” Zeus asked Hera.
She regarded me pensively for a while. I was confident with my choice, but her intensive scrutiny made me want to fidget.
Finally she asked, “You’re willing to give up your powers? Truthfully? Or is this some kind of trick?”
“It’s not a trick,” I promised her. “I never wanted any of this. It might not matter to you, but every moment I’ve lived with these powers has been torture. I have no desire to keep them. I have no desire to live this life or to be a part of this community.” Tears wet my lashes and I tried desperately to hold them back, but a few fell anyway. With a voice hoarse with emotion, I told her the truest truth. “I just want to go home. I just want to take my mom and my boyfriend and go home. And Ineverwant to come back.”
Several minutes dragged by before she finally said, “I believe you. Take her powers and let her go.” The queen of the gods held my gaze for a minute longer, before nodding regally and sweeping from the room.
The rest of the crowd dispersed just as quickly. This meeting had become rather anticlimactic for them and they weren’t interested in watching me become less-than. Although, I had no doubt if I would have gone the opposite way and attacked them all, they would have stuck around for the macabre entertainment aspect.
I would never understand these people.
“You little bitch!” Enid screamed at me while gods filed out around them. “You horrid little creature! How dare you!”
“You’re going to die!” Veda added. “As soon as you’re human, we’re going to cut your thread and send you to the deepest parts of hell.”
“You will never get your happily ever after,” Isadora finished. “You won’t take one breath when you step off this mountain before youwither and die.”
Real fear had just started to take root in my gut when Zeus stepped forward. “I am sick and tired of you three,” he growled. “I see through you, even if my wife cannot. I willneverconcede this mountain to you. So when I say I never want to see you again, I mean it. I banish you to your cave for the rest of eternity. My word is binding. My word is eternal. My word is complete.”
Isadora’s eyes bulged from her wrinkly face. “You can’t-”
“I can!” Zeus shouted. “And I just did! If I find that you’ve set a toe outside of that disgusting hovel you consider home, I will kill you myself.”
Enid’s whimpering plea sounded as pathetic as she looked, “Zeus… my king... let’s be reasonable-”
“Be gone!” he bellowed and the three of them disappeared with a flash.
His shoulders relaxed after they left and when he turned to face us again, he seemed more Smith than Zeus.
He rubbed his temples with two hands and looked at me exasperatedly. “Stripping you of your powers… very clever, Ivy.”
I smiled again. “Thank you.”
“I’ll take them,” he said with his own smile. “But I’ll leave you with a gift. Something to remember me by.”
Unease made my stomach feel greasy. “A gift? What kind?”
“Don’t look so ungrateful,” he laughed. “I’ll bestow you with my seal. That way the Fates can’t follow through with their outrageous threat.”
“Your seal?”
“Granted it won’t save you from sickness or old age… or getting hit by a car or having a piano fall on your head or any other silly way that humans can die, but it will keep you safe from the Fates. It will protect you from anyone belonging to the Pantheon.”
“Thank you, Smith,” I told him sincerely. “Thank you for everything.”
“Thankyou, Ivy.” He winked at me. “For everything.”
