Incredible, was the first word that came to Jo’s mind. But Jo didn’t share this assessment. She didn’t want to betray any emotion to Pan. The more she said, the more ammunition she gave.
“It’s certainly very different from my own time.”
Pan puffed out her cheeks, making a noise that expressed her discontent. “You’re acting so different from when you were in the Society. I think I might have liked you better as Josephina, Destruction.”
A jolt ran up Jo’s spine at the sound of her divine name. It was immediately followed by anger—anger at the notion that she was no longer considered Josephina. That, by gaining her power, she lost everything she had been.
“I am still Josephina,” Jo insisted to them both.
Nothing could ever make her give up the memories of her mother and grandmother. She would never stop missing the feel of breakingcascaronesover her friends’ heads during Easter and watching the confetti spill into their hair and onto their clothes. She would never stop loving the sight of luminarios lining the walkway to her mother’s house during the holidays or the perfume of rich foods and flowers lining herabuelita’sofrendaduring Dia de los Muertos.
Even after she’d grown and herabuelitahad passed, Jo had clung to those memories. Even as she’d joined Yuusuke in a life of hacking and lawlessness, those days, those memories, had made her who she was. Every moment from Juarez to El Paso to Dallas to the Society had combined to make her the woman standing before Pan, here and now.
And regardless of past lives, that woman was still Josephina Espinosa.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Pan said with a giggle as if she could hear Jo’s thoughts. “Tell me, whose face do you remember better: your own father’s, or the one the mortals called Odin?”
Jo refused to answer. At the mere name, Jo’s mind brought forth a clear image of a king among gods. But her father’s face? Hazy and shadowed.
Then again, she was never really that close to her father anyway. When was the last time he’d even come to visit? Her mother’s face, herabuelita’s? Those were crystal clear. Pan wasn’t getting into her head so easily.
“I’m not in the mood for games, Pan,” Jo said dismissively, trying to convey her clear displeasure.
“Then what are you in the mood for?”
“I want to see Snow.”
“Yes, yes.” Pan rolled her eyes. “I will take you to your precious Creation. But before then—on the way to him,” she corrected, with a placating smile, “there are things we should discuss.”
The hallway ended at a door, and on the other side was a sitting area. The decoration was so mundane that Jo was almost surprised. For some reason she had expected the entire interior of the castle to be the equivalent of a carnival fun house designed by someone high on LSD and pixie sticks. Pan led them to the other side of the sitting area, and through another door. This one led to a spiraling staircase and then a hall lined with windows.
“What is it that you want to discuss?” Jo asked, simply to break the uncomfortable silence. Pan kept staring straight ahead, an unnerving smile on her face.
“Our future.”
Jo barely bit back the remark that Pan had no future. Only she, or neither of them, would exist before the week was out—and the sooner the better. But for the time being, Jo tried to force herself to take a measured approach. There was no reason to arouse suspicion in Pan, or her ire.
“Well, go on.” Jo looked out the windows.
From above, the castle looked as it was one solid structure. In actuality, there was an inner courtyard—a great room, more like. The castle zigged and zagged around it, and Jo was reminded once more of a ring of frozen, black fire. Giant archways supported a glass ceiling that was barely transparent from above. The floor looked like compressed pebble or stone, and there was no furniture, no décor, and no indicator as to what the room’s function was.
“I’ll start with a question,” Pan said, smiling up at her like an excited child. “What age are we in?”
“The Age of Magic,” Jo answered as if they hadn’t talked about the fact already.
“Good!” Pan clapped her hands together. Jo enjoyed the brief reprieve of the woman-child’s hands being off of her. It was short-lived as Pan quickly grabbed her elbow again, pulling her in close. “And what age did we come from?”
“I came from the Age of Man.”
Pan huffed out her cheeks again. “You know that’s not true! Well, your body may have . . . once,” she clarified. “But what age did wereallycome from?”
“The Age of Gods.” Jo put aside her need to defend the history she remembered as Josephina Espinosa for the sake of getting Pan to her point faster.
“Exactly. I think you can see the problem,” Pan said. She opened another door, led them through a bedroom, into a closet, and behind a shelf that opened to a hallway eerily similar to the one they had first entered.
“Let’s say I don’t.”
“This is no longer the Age of Gods.”
