“Is what true?”
“Everything they once called me?” Her words came easily, even if they seemed baseless. Monikers far worse than “Shewolf” echoed from a past she’d long forgotten—names mortals had given her, like The Great Ender or Star Killer.
“You remember that?”
“I don’t know what I remember. . .” Jo confessed. “Like I told you, my memories, they’re all a blur.”
“Listen to me.” Snow pulled her closer and Jo wrapped her arms around him, holding on so that she could almost reach her elbows at the small of his back. He responded in kind, with an embrace so tight she could barely breathe. “Yes, your magic can bring an end to all things—unravellings, undoings. It is the momentum that pushes bodies to ash and stars to darkness. But the tree must die by fire for its seeds to fall, and the saplings need the nutrients from the ash.
“You—your magic—is one side of the coin, Jo. A necessary one, and what makes us counterbalances.”
Coin. Jo closed her eyes. Coins made her think of Wayne. Wayne made her think of the team he so treasured.
“Wayne said something to me the other day.”
“Well, this promises to be interesting,” Snow muttered.
“Wayne said that, since I joined the Society, everything has gone to shit.”
Snow stopped all movement for several breaths and when he answered her, it was with a cooling certainty. “I can assure you that such a claim is categorically untrue.”
The sincerity of his words combined with the delicate way in which he said them left no room for doubt. Regardless of any objective fact, Snow believed what he said to be true. That meant something to her, but little to the rest of the people she cared about. “That’s not an answer,” Jo continued before he could try to divert things yet again. “Tell me this: have the wishes become more. . . intense, since I joined the Society?”
“Well—”
“Yes or no?” Jo watched the lump in his neck bob as he swallowed hard.
A beat. A breath.
“Yes.”
“The wishes, are they decided by her?” Jo had assumed Snow’s room was a safe haven in the Society. Anywhere else, she would guard her tongue.
“They are somewhat random, I believe. But ultimately . . . yes.”
Jo’s anger flared, fresh and hot. It was her fault. Jo’s every suspicion was being confirmed.
“Why?” Jo demanded, pulling away slightly. It was difficult to be tender when her heart was racing in anger. “Why does she have that control? How are you ensnared in this death trap?”
“There was one age before the Age of Gods,” he began, his voice taking on a deep, almost storyteller-like quality. She couldn’t tell if it was to calm her or emphasize the fact that she should give him her attention. Either way, it accomplished both. “The Age of Oblivion.”
Oblivion. The word stuck out, echoing in her long after he’d said it. It was uncomfortably familiar.
“It was a time of chaos and destruction. The darkness filled every corner of the universe until, with a crack of lightning, the god of Light—Jupiter, as you may know him—tore apart the darkness. It made a path for other gods and goddesses to follow behind Light. The foundation for the land was built from the boughs of the Life Tree—called Yggdrasil by the early mortals—by the hands of the Maker, Ngai, on the back of the World Turtle. Growth—Demeter, I think they called her—harvested the seeds of life from Yggdrasil and planted them with the help of Life, Chimalma. . .”
Jo’s mind swirled with names of people and places that she once knew, but had long ago forgotten. Deities she recognized from her upbringing in modern times stood alongside those she’d never once heard of, all merged together in one giant painting that mirrored the art splashed across Snow’s ceiling. Every god and goddess had the name of what they were—Life, Death, Light, and so on—as well as the name seemingly given to them by mortal tongues.
“As you may be able to assume, Oblivion—or Rella as the mortals called her—was not pleased with all this order being brought into her void.”
“So she challenged the gods.”
Snow nodded solemnly. “The battle was fierce and painted across the heavens. But the pantheon won out over the lone goddess, and they split her.”
Jo knew what was coming next without him needing to say it. She almost stopped him, because she didn’t want to know. But at the same time, she knew she must hear it. She braced herself.
“Her two weakened forms, demigoddess, were called Chaos and Destruction.”
“Me.” Jo now recognized her ancient name as clearly as she recognized the true nature of her magic. Numbness tingled across her clenched hands. “And Pan.”
