I didn’t want my brother to know about this. Not yet. Never if I could help it. Cass and I had a good relationship and telling him I was part Goddess was bound to change the way he viewed me, and I wasn’t prepared to lose him. Wasn’t ready for the cavernous chasm that would erupt between us and separate us further than the Atlantic currently did.
Archer snorted. “No. He won’t want anyone finding out about you. But he will have made a valid excuse to halt the project for the time being and to come up with a reason you’re not in touch with your brother.”
No loose ends. Hunter would want this swept under the rug. The last thing he wanted was for there to be an unexplainable blip in his neatly planned project. A project that was meant to restore faith in the Gods rather than having mortals question how they didn’t even know what was going on in the heavens.
“He’s still planning to finish the project?” I asked.
E.L.I. had slipped to the bottom of my priority list. For once, there were more pressing matters in my life than work.
Archer’s hand pressed against my back, forcing me to keep walking. “He spent years devising it and setting everything up. Hunter won’t abandon it for something he deems an inconvenience.”
The insult washed over me as I processed his words, formulating a plan that could buy me some more time.
E.L.I. was my bargaining chip. Hunter wanted to continue the project, and I was the scientist who could help move it along at a faster pace. Without the real need for sleep, I could give all my hours to the lab. It bought me time, took me back to Earth and proved my worth to the council.
All I needed to do was get to Hunter and convince him I wasn’t an inconvenience, but his most valuable asset.
Bexley had told me about the gifting ball days ago. My entire estate was shrouded in black for the rest of the afternoon. Erik stopped me from descending to the lower heavens and ripping Quen away from Archer. Several fissures appeared in the flooring, and the surrounding walls crumbled as the rubble hit the floor. My vision blurred while an obsidian rage pulsed through me.
Archer was hosting her gifting ball? What right did he have to organise one of the greatest honours a God had? He was nothing to her. Those plans should have fallen into our hands—myhands—once we knew she was safe from death. Quentin wouldn’t want to celebrate when the guillotine hung inches from her neck. The sheer tactlessness of the move sparked further fury in my chest.
In the hours as the anger dissipated, I made a decision. I wouldn’t tell Hunter just yet. There was a chance that he would find out before the ball happened. Our benevolent leader paraded as omniscient, but ignorance clouded his vision more often than not. If that was the case, then I would deliver the news on the night. To do so beforehand would allow Hunter to calmly descend to lower Elysia, and Archer to expertly craft a lie. If I wanted to sever whatever deal they’d struck and bring Quentin home for good, the party needed to be in full swing.
Erik’s eyes followed me as I paced the room. “I’ve never known you to be so patient.”
“I am exercising a lot of self-control.”
“You would know if she’s in any distress,” he said. “Your bond would allow you to feel it.”
I grunted in response.
“You’re not feeling pain. You aren’t feeling affliction. She’s okay,” Erik continued.
“She’s good at hiding things,” I snapped.
Erik snorted, and I glared at him.
“She’s not exactly the most agreeable person,” he pointed out. “As a mortal, she’s prone to indignation. As a demigoddess, those feelings would be amplified.”
I chewed on his words. There were times throughout the day where a sudden wave of unparalleled rage hit me, but I thought nothing of it. After all, that pure sense of chaos was what I was built on. Now I wondered if it was Quentin who added to the blinding fury. The thought both satisfied and aggravated my soul. What was getting under her skin enough to spark that delicious temper of hers?
“You can’t guarantee he’ll bring her back here before the vote,” Erik said from my sofa. “Your time might be better spent trying to convince the others that she won’t be a threat.”
“And Archer—"
“Will play his games, but you need to trust her.”
“I trust her. It’s him I don’t trust. His fascination with her is to get back at me.”
“Gray,” Sloan called.
I turned my head to see my sister-in-law in the room's doorway. Dionne stood behind her draped in a gold dress that shimmered under the lights. Lower Elysia would be a sea of gold tonight, and it seemed fitting that Quentin would herald the colour of our blood. She was what beat through my veins from the moment I laid eyes on her and would continue to do so until fate saw fit that I no longer existed.
The only issue was that the wrong section of Elysia was celebrating tonight. She didn’t belong to them. She didn’t belong to upper Elysia. Quentin was solely mine, and it should have been my right to welcome her into my world.
“She just got dressed,” Dionne said, gaze darting around the room. “He won’t want to wait to introduce her so I would go now.”
“You’ve left her alone?” I asked through gritted teeth.
