Snow nodded solemnly. “Man gave Chaos the name Pandora.”
Pan,Pandora, it seemed so bloody obvious when it was all neatly laid out; Jo kicked herself for not seeing it before. As if, somehow, the demigoddess within her should have sent a quick memo to her brain summarizing all this from the moment she woke up in the Society.
“I take it Pan wasn’t too pleased?”
“Neither were you, at first.”
Jo blinked in surprise. “I wasn’t?” She didn’t really take herself for the wanting-to-go-back-to-being-a-goddess-bent-on-oblivion type. But with everything that had happened, could she really still say she knew anything about her true nature?
“You were split, unwhole, robbed of half your power,” Snow said solemnly. “Even if I never agreed with Oblivion, I understood how such a violent fate could leave one wanting retribution.”
“Don’t make Pan out to be the victim here.”
“No,” Snow said swiftly, so there was no confusion. “I can understand her position, but I do not agree with it.”
“So, what made my opinion change? Judging from your tone, from the way I feel, I can’t think I wanted to return to Pan and be Oblivion once more.”
Snow gave a nod of affirmation, accompanied by a small smile that was almost. . . proud? “You found your own place in the cosmos. And the pantheon made a demigod counter-balance to level your more extreme tendencies.”
“You. Creation. . . Why didn’t you tell me all of this at the beginning?” Jo demanded.
“Would you have believed it?” He had her there. She had struggled with merely accepting “because magic” as an explanation. If he had thrown in, “because you’re a demigod who almost destroyed the world,” she would’ve thought he was raving mad—even with all the incredible things that had happened. “Furthermore, I wanted time to assess your magic, to see what happened once your mortal coil was shed.”
“I guess I can forgive you for it. . .” Jo mumbled. “You said once, that the Society was founded because of a dangerous magic, a split goddess, and the bravery of someone you loved,” Jo repeated his words from what seemed like forever ago. “I get that the dangerous magic is me, a split goddess was Oblivion.” Jo paused, working together everything he had told her. “I was split a second time, made mortal. You destroyed the Age of Gods to destroy Pan . . . but it didn’t work. Why?”
Snow continued his story and Jo settled in for the final information she’d been seeking her whole life without realizing it. “Chaos’s actions grew more erratic, more severe, as she hunted for you. She began to throw the world into madness however she could. Nothing would stop her and, while my magic could shield your presence, it became only a matter of time before something must be done.”
“Why not just kill her?”
“To kill her would mean killing you.” Snow’s grip tightened some, his head dipped slightly in shame as his eyes searched for absolution for an ancient crime. “That was something I could not let happen. Not just because I loved you. But because Destruction is important for Creation. It is a cycle, Jo.”
“I-I believe you.” Jo nodded, unsure of what else to say to those pleading eyes.
“You gave me the majority of your power for safe-keeping, and with it, I brought an end to the Age of Gods. A world with no gods yielded an Age of Magic.
“We—you and I—thought it would be enough, that she would go with the rest of the gods unshielded and with you as a mortal, but it was not. Your magic lived, so Pan still lived. The world was new, and I was weak. . . I am so sorry, Jo. She trapped me with her in this Society, a place for two demigods to exist through the ages, protected. She invented the rules of inducting all those who made wishes with magic, knowing that… eventually, if given an infinite amount of time, we would walk enough realities that we would eventually find you.”
“And she would get what she’s wanted all along,” Jo finished grimly. “You had no choice but to keep feeding it, or stop existing entirely.”
“I have tried to find a way out. . . but when you made your wish, our time was up.” He finally released her and Jo made the motion to catch him, but Snow stumbled away.
He leaned against one of the columns surrounding the fireplace in the center of his room. The light flickered off his face, washing him in orange, as though he himself was being immolated by the crimes of ages past. Guilt sat on his back like a monster, so grotesque that Jo wondered how she’d never seen it before.
Jo looked around the room, the last remnant of a time completely vanished from the universe. “So much lost. . . because of her.” Jo thought back to the briefing room. She should’ve punched Pan while she had the chance.
The briefing room. Another memory came back to her, a sensation she’d begun to make sense of despite its horrifying implications.
“Nico.” The name was more of a demand than anything else. “Snow, Nico, he. . .” She knew what she wanted to ask, but Jo didn’t know if she possessed the strength. “On that wish, his magic, with the painting. I was there. I stood there, I felt his magic working. But then I felt something. . . Something like a fracture.” Now that she knew the truth of her magic, it all suddenly made sense. “Snow, did I—”
She didn’t have to finish her question. The expression on the man’s face told her everything with terrible clarity.
BTCOTS NOTES 6
DEFINE: OBLIVION
ob·liv·i·on
/?'blive?n/
