“No,” Ryder said immediately. “No. Never.”
“Orpheus,” Veda sneered. Her tilted eyes flashed with lightning and danger. “He wasn’t supposed to be here,” she complained to her eldest sister.
“There is always a chance,” Isadora said quietly. “He might work in our favor.”
“Your favor?” I hated not knowing all of the sick twists and turns to their malicious scheming.
“We have a common enemy,” Isadora explained. “There is someone we both wish to end. We are willing to bargain with you, if you agree to certain terms.”
“Just say it,” I growled. I was tired of these games. I needed answers.
Isadora lifted her chin and said with both finality and simplicity, “We want Nix dead.”
My mouth went dry and more puzzle pieces clicked together. “And you want me to kill him.”
She canted her head to the side and launched into the explanation I had been waiting for. “Do you know that we don’t need patrons? We’re not even looking for a cult. We don’t have to. Every person on this planet believes in fate. Even the religious ones. Our powers have been bound to this earth for as long as it has existed and we have no intention of letting that go. Nix on the other hand… rather all of you that congest the Pantheon… you need patrons. You need prayers and thoughts and worshipping masses. And you have none of that. Time and progress have stripped you of your godhoods. Sure, your powers have remained, but your omniscience has disappeared. And that kills you. Or at least some of you.”
“But now Nix has figured out a way to make people worship again,” I concluded.
“And we don’t like it,” Enid hissed. “Imagine a world in which that sea serpent was in charge. Imagine the destruction and chaos. It sickens me.”
I saw through her. “You don’t want him to have more power than you.”
She sat back with a surprised smile, all pretense of her disgust gone. “Obviously. He doesn’t deserve power, not the kind we have. He wouldn’t know what to do with it anymore. Right now he’s a fly buzzing around my head, but given something greater… I don’t have the patience to deal with that.”
“So kill him,” I suggested. “Solve all of our problems.”
Veda made a choking sound in the back of her throat, “If it were that simple, we would have done it ages ago.”
“There is a contract,” Isadora explained. “We are not allowed to kill the gods. A long time ago, their threads were stolen from us in an effort to protect their immortality. We’ve searched for ages, but for now it is out of our sight and the gods are out of our reach.”
“So you need me to kill him for you,” I concluded. “If I kill him, you’ll give me my mother back.”
Isadora’s lips turned up again. I’d amused her. Awesome. “We are hoping you planned to kill him anyway. That is your objective for coming to the mountain, is it not?”
I stayed silent. I had stopped being able to guess where this was going.
“Our bargain is this. We have a common enemy and therefore we are temporarily on the same side of this battle. We both want Poseidon dead. You would kill him whether we interfered or not. That is your path. However, you would also like your mother in your possession, so we will give you this. If you kill Nix, your mother will be given to you.”
“And if I fail?”
“You will become ours. We will own you.” Isadora’s eyes flashed with lightning again and I knew without a doubt that if we were outside right now, lightning would light up the sky.
My heart raced in my chest and my fingers dug into the soft flesh of my palms. The Fates would own me. That’s what I was bargaining for.
“No,” I whispered, but it was firm. It was final.
They shared another look and Veda declared, “In four minutes you’ll change your mind.”
Chapter Twenty-One
I hated that child-thing. I hated her more than I hated the other two and that was saying something.
“She won’t do it,” Ryder told them.
“She doesn’t have to,” Isadora explained slowly. “She could kill Nix instead. Then it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“I would love to kill Nix,” I laughed. “Believe me, I would love to end that psychopath. But I will never bargain with my freedom.”
