“You are in the bedroom, Sacred One.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
“You are a god. A Sacred One.”
I froze, almost believing it for a moment, because Iknewthat I had died, and now I was wearing robes ... but it was still impossible. I finally shook my head. Donald was malfunctioning again, that was all.
“Who’s bedroom?” I asked her, waving my hand around at the space.
“This is the secret dwelling of the Sacred Neutral.”
“The Sacred Asshole ...” I mused, narrowing my eyes.
“The Sacred Neutral,” Donald corrected me.
“The SacredAsshole,” I re-corrected her. “You’ve been saying it wrong this whole time.”
She gasped, a small mechanical-sounding noise. “I’m so sorry! I will go and apologise to him immediately!”
She rushed out of the room and I followed her, through a sprawling white living room, down a short white hallway, through a tall white door and straight into a—you guessed it—completely white bathing room. Cyrus was standing beneath a narrow rainfall of water directed from several little spurts in the ceiling. The whole space was filling up with steam; only half a white stone wall with several glass vials and selections of soaps lined along the top blocked my view of averynaked Neutral God.
“What the fuck?” Cyrus yelled, leaning forward and planting his hands on the half-stone wall. “How many times do I have to tell younotto barge into the bathing room whenever you need to apologise for something, Donald?”
He flicked his eyes to me as she cowered back a few steps, and I tried to force my eyes to stay focused on his face. I then had to force my eyes to narrow angrily.
“Don’t talk to her like that.” I pointed a finger at him.
“I’m so sorry, Sacred Asshole!” Donald was doing her little bow thing again.
I quickly pulled her upright. Cyrus sighed, his gaze still locked on me, apparently forgetting all about Donald.
“You’re awake,” he noted, his voice several degrees calmer, the tone deepening a little with some kind of message that I wasn’t receiving.
I swallowed. “You should … ah … I’ll just wait outside.”
I quickly turned on my heel, his chuckle floating out after me as I dragged Donald back into the other room and slammed the door behind me.
“Where’s Willa?” I demanded, as soon as we were back in the living room. “They said I could see her, didn’t they?”
“Yes, Sacred One. Willa is on Sacred Pica’s platform.”
“Where is that?”
Donald pointed a finger … apparently in the direction of Pica’s platform. I sighed, rubbing at my temples. I was going to have to wait for Cyrus. For some reason I expected him to stay in the bathing room for a long time. To make me wait on his ‘sacred’ presence. He was arrogant in that way: acting as though both of the worlds revolved around him. All gods were the same … except for the Abcurses. Their world revolved around Willa—conveniently embodying the only redeeming quality in any god I'd met to date.
“How are you feeling?”
The low voice startled me. The first thing to actually startle me since I woke up. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I must have heard him approach, but I had been too busy in my own thoughts. Turning, I found Cyrus a few feet away, wrapped in a towel. Sprinkles of water peppered right across his chest, leading down the muscled ridges of his torso to the angled lines dipping below his towel.Holy crap, the Sacred Asshole was …
Average, I lied to myself.
I forced my eyes up to his face, drawing on the discipline that had gotten me through my life as a dweller. I wouldn’t allow myself to cave to this bastard. Sure, we had kissed and it had shaken me to my core, but that was before. Before I died. I was a changed dweller, now. I was already in well over my head, and Cyrus was a distraction that I didn’t need.
“I’m fine,” I said shortly. “I want to see Willa. Take me to her.”
Cyrus didn’t seem to have the same aversion to looking at me as I did to looking at him. His eyes raked along my body, drinking in my features as though I were the most interesting thing to ever interrupt his bathing time.
“Nice robes,” he finally commented, ignoring my demand. “I’ve never seen any that colour before.”
