Three
Ieventually moved from Rome’s lap, walking around to Siret’s place beside Yael and claiming his lap instead. I had used the excuse that Rome needed to eat—an almost impossible feat with me standing as a barrier between him and all of the food that moved past my face on the way to his mouth. The real reason, however, was considerably less altruistic.
“Hypothetically speaking,” I whispered to Siret as the others all busied themselves with eating, “if you disguised one god as another god—would that god’s friends and family be able to tell?”
He quickly gripped my chin, pulling my head back from where it had been craning to whisper into his ear. He fixed me with his mischievous eyes, and I knew that he was about to clue everyone else at the table in to what I had said, so I quickly spoke again.
“I mean … I was just thinking about Fakey and her friend, and how they managed to trick us—but then you all said that they wouldn’t be able to do it again. That you would recognise her energy. But nobody could tell the difference when I was disguised as Aros before we were sent to Champion’s Peak. Shouldn’t the others have recognised his energy?”
“The difference between Aros and that sol back in Minatsol is that he’s a god,” Siret answered. “Her power was elementary compared to ours. There are holes and weaknesses in every sol’s power—but not in ours. Our power is fully evolved, fed by the energy of Topia itself.”
I nodded, stealing his fork as it moved past my face and quickly swallowing the delicious savoury biscuit before he could stop me.
“That makes sense,” I said, as he watched me with amusement. “Maybe we could walk back to Pica’s residence, and you can show me?”
I mentioned Pica only as a distraction so that none of the others would ask about the plan.
“I don’t know whether to admire the fact that she’s managed to come up with a plan without thinking about it at all,” Aros muttered, “or be annoyed that she didn’t think about it at all, so now I don’t know what it is.”
“It’s a little bit impressive.” Rome shrugged, but there was a slightly annoyed look on his face, too.
“It won’t end well,” Coen promised. “Will, think about every time you’ve ever tried to cook up a plan with Trickery. Someone usually gets hurt.”
I kept my mouth shut and my mind blank, but I quickly leaned back up to Siret’s ear to whisper one last thing.
“Stand up and switch us.”
He grinned, securing his arm around my waist and rising to his feet, taking me with him. When he set me down again, I stepped away, hoping that the Abcurses were seeingSiretstep away instead of me.
“Maybe Siret just needed a second chance,” Siret said, turning and winking at me.
Game on.
“Iamthe better brother.” I nodded, finding it very strange that I still appeared as myself and sounded like myself—though from the looks on the faces before me, they were seeing and hearing Siret instead. “It would make sense that she would pick me to come to for help. The rest of you are too responsible.”
I made a face that was supposed to convey something along the lines of:yuck, responsibility. I caught Siret subtly rolling his eyes.
“What the fuck, Trickery?” Rome pushed his chair back, rising to his feet. “Don’t let it all go to your head.”
I stalked over to Rome, trying to embody the cocky swagger of a god, even though that wasn’t how Siret walked.
“Didn’t you think that maybe she was trying to get me alone so that we could sleep together tonight without the rest of you?” I asked, stopping in front of him.
I just needed to anger him enough that he would hit me, or crush me, or do whatever Rome did when he was angry. I needed to prove that I could take it. I needed to prove that I was equal to them—not a thing to be wrapped in a bubble and protected from everything, including their own powers.
Rome was looking at where he thought I was still standing, his brows arched at the real Siret. “Is that true?”
“He told me you were all wanting to back out of the deal,” Siret said, pointing at me. As usual, he had caught on to my plan almost as quickly as I had formed it.
The fist was flying at my face before I’d even had a chance to confirm or deny the allegations. I had meant to stand there and “take it,” but my instincts kicked in at the last moment. I ducked to the side, the fist passing right by me. As I dodged the assault, I realised that there was a better way to prove my point after all. I curled my own fingers up into a fist and drove it into Rome’s stomach. I had expected it to hurt, as it usually did … but I was a god now. I didn’t trip or accidently headbutt him. My fist connected with one of his ribs and I felt the give of bone as the airwhooshedout of him and he stumbled back. He only knocked into the chair behind him and barely stumbled before stepping forward again and reaching for me, a curse slipping from his lips.
He paused when his hand was only an inch from my neck, his eyes widening. He glanced back to the real Siret, and then to me again, shock slowly descending over his features. I assumed that Siret had dropped the illusion to protect me, which had annoyance niggling in the back of my mind, but I pushed it aside to run back to him, planting myself in front of him. As expected, it didn’t take long for the other Abcurses to figure out what had happened; they started to advance on Siret almost immediately.
Surprisingly, it was Aros who finally pulled Rome back. He shouldered his way through the wall of angry muscle that had fanned out before Siret, coming to stand in front of me.
“I understand,” he muttered, his hands finding the sides of my face. “Weallunderstand.” He shot a quick, narrow-eyed look over his shoulder at the others. “You aren’t weak. We don’t need to protect you. I think we allheardyou snap one of Rome’s bones just then. We’ve been telling you that you’re special for a long time, but you’re also different now. Different to how you were before.”
He trailed off, his eyes tracing over my features. He seemed to be in awe of me, somehow. I waited with bated breath as the tension slowly filtered out of the room, a heavy, breathless quiet taking its place.
