Jo threw a glare at Wayne over her shoulder, but he ignored her. As much as she wanted Samson to be at ease, they really did need to know where he’d been. And more than that, why Eslar hadn’t shown up with him. That feeling that time was most certainly not on their side hadn’t abated.
When Samson seemed overtly reluctant to answer, however, Jo tried a different tactic. She reached across the couch to grab Samson’s hand. She gave it a comforting squeeze before speaking.
“Eslar’s not coming, is he, Sam?” Samson looked at Jo first in surprise, then with a mix of exhaustion and something that looked painfully like guilt. When he shook his head, Jo squeezed his hand a bit tighter. Still, as much as it hurt her to pry, they deserved to know. “Did he say why?”
At that, Samson’s hand twitched beneath hers, his back hunching further into the slouch he’d adopted. “He, um . . . No. He didn’t... didn’t say,” Samson managed after a moment, the fingers of his free hand fussing with a loose thread on one of the couch’s throw pillows. Jo could feel his magic stuttering out of him and recoiling as if he was physically preventing himself from altering the composition of the pillow into something easier to fidget with. “I tried to ask, but he . . . he just said he wasn’t coming.” He looked up at Jo with sad eyes and a strained half-smile. “I’m sorry. That’s all I could manage.”
Something about the admission seemed off to Jo’s ears, though whether he was stalling or hiding something or possibly just uncomfortable with the whole situation, she couldn’t tell. All she knew was that any mention of Eslar was making Samson increasingly distressed. Unfortunately, or fortunately for Samson’s sake, they didn’t have time to dwell on that fact—something Wayne seemed to pick up on at much the same time as Jo.
“Well, if the elf’s not coming, he’s not coming,” Wayne sighed. He’d taken to pacing, arms crossed over his chest and face stern in concentration. “We can’t force him to help if he’s determined to keep pretending we don’t exist.” Jo raised an eyebrow at that, but Wayne went on without explanation. “Nothing for it but to move on for now.”
Samson let out a soft, sad sigh, one Jo was sure no one was meant to hear, as he nodded in quiet agreement. They may have been willing to move on out of necessity, but for Jo, the curiosity surrounding Eslar only grew.
Chapter 4
A Brief History
“Thank you all for coming,” Jo started awkwardly. She felt like some half-baked manager at a company meeting, going through the motions while trying to hide her resentment for the situation. Pushing herself onto her feet, Jo crossed her arms over her chest and headed toward the large windows, speaking as she walked. “I know that we’re all in the same spot—waking up to lives that we have no recollection of having. But at the same time, being given a second chance at life without the Society . . .”
“The Societyreallyis gone, then?” Takako asked. “It’s not going to come back?”
“I don’t see a way it could’ve survived.” Given the way she remembered dismantling it . . . She had every faith. “If it had, we would know by now, I think.”
“Then why is Pan . . .” Samson started and trailed off, looking at Takako and Wayne to see if they had any insights he didn’t. When neither moved to provide an explanation, he turned back to Jo. “Why is she still a threat?”
Jo paused, placing her hands on her hips, looking out the window as if she’d find some easy way to tell them everything somewhere within the city skyline. She didn’t. “I realize that what I’m about to tell you is going to sound clinically insane.”
“Doll, we existed for hundreds of years granting wishes in a Society outside of time,” Wayne said, clearly amused as he slung one calf onto the other knee. “I doubt you’re going to shock us.”
Challenge accepted. “I’m a demigod.”
Their faces would have been hilarious in any other situation. Samson’s mouth dropped right open, his hands still for the first time. Takako squinted her eyes, as if trying to seeproof of the claim, and tilted her head. Wayne kept opening and closing his mouth like a gaping fish, but no words came.
“See? I told you it’d sound crazy.”
“I think you need to start at the beginning,” Takako encouraged gently.
“Yeah, go back, way back, because I must’ve missed something since I was there at the start. And while you’re one amazing broad, I’m not sure about godly . . .” Wayne added his unhelpful interjection.
“Well, I wasn’t a demigodthen—” Jo stopped herself, deciding to take Takako’s advice. She looked to the Japanese woman. “You’re right: start at the beginning. You have to believe me, first, when I say I have no memory of anything before my life as a human leading up to joining you all in 2057.”
“Of course we believe you,” Samson encouraged.
“Not exactly hard given how all of us just woke up this past year,” Wayne muttered.
“I was working to put it together, at the end. I’d come to some conclusions on my own, and then most of what I know was confirmed by Snow . . . and Pan.”
Jo took one more second to collect her thoughts, before launching into the explanation, deciding to over-share rather than under-shoot.
“We all know there was an Age of Gods, then Magic, then Man.” Nods all around. “Well, apparently, just before the Age of Gods . . . There was a goddess, Oblivion. She heralded a sort-of unspoken first age—the Age of Oblivion, before life and light.”
“I know that name,” Samson whispered.
Jo nodded at him. “It was in one of Eslar’s story books. You may have read it too . . . Like the lore of the Society itself, certain things carried throughout the ages and one of those things was mythology surrounding the story of Oblivion.”
“Kind of how magic lingered in us even in the Age of Man,” Takako reasoned.
“That’s what I think, too,” Jo continued with a nod. “Other gods came—and no, I don’t know from where—formed the world, and Oblivion didn’t like it. I’m paraphrasing, but I think you all get the idea. Needless to say, this created a rift among the gods, with Oblivion on one side and basically everyone else on the other.”
