“Fit or not, Mistress wants to meet them to see what would possess our Mage of Gray to meddle.”
“It wasn’t my impression that Bastet had dominion over demons.” I raised my hands in defense.
“She doesn’t, which was why it was odd that he cropped up in the eye of Ra.” Lionel made an eye shape with his fingers in the air, mimicking Bastet’s scrying mirror made from one of her father’s eyes.
“I don’t remember that. My apologies to your mistress, once more.” Esmeray offered a slight bow of his head, his posture stiffening as I drew him to my side.
“You wouldn’t. He would.” Lionel pointed to Ausmius lurking up a wall, staring down at us with creepy intent.
I’d come after him with a broom a few times in the past two weeks and had earned a mote of respect from the demon. I glared up at him, and he hissed before sinking into the shadow of my bookshelf. Hopefully, he’d read something while he was in there.
“My shadow has no soul.”
“Your shadowisa soul. Something’s corrupted it, though. Odd thing, daevas. You know what they originally were in this plane, right?” Lune slid from the seat and turned, little curved bunny tail flicking curiously as he studied the shadow.
“A greater demon slain and cast into service of a family line?” Esmeray shrugged.
“No. They’re an attempt to preserve a half-demon child’s soul. The child gets sick, they go to pass, and a long time ago, no gods would take those souls. Thus, they were bound to a sibling.” Lune rubbed a finger against the shadow of the bookshelf and earned a tendril of darkness reaching across the wall to slap his hand’s shadow. “Rude.”
“He is quite the scamp,” I said. Lune gave me a soft nod in agreement.
“Which is why he stays here.” Lune snapped his fingers, and the world around me shattered, pieces falling away like chipping paint off a surface, and my stomach flipped. I clutched to Esmeray to hold him steady, and he tolerated the flip worse than I could have anticipated, lurching forward, eyes watering. He covered his mouth and swallowed hard, fighting the urge to gag.
Lune, for his part, came up with a solution in the form of a wastebasket that he snatched from beside my counter before the rest of my store melted away.
We all did our best to ignore Esmeray’s state until he breathed freely and groaned. “Never. Do that. Again.”
“I don’t get a say in it.” I patted his back and allowed him to hug the receptacle. “Maybe you’ll feel better once we’re back home and Vincenzo finishes our lovely fish dinner. Can’t have been comfortable on an empty stomach.”
His face paled, and he buried his face in the trash can once more. “Don’t mention fish. Please.”
As I patted his back and the world fully chipped away, the deic realm came fully into view, a bright landscape of space that hosted a city of palaces and beings striding around with familiars, servants, vassals, and avatars alike.
In this plane, I held a light glow to me, one that specified I held a god’s protection. In my case, two gods, their glows on my skin the same as Esmeray’s, a fluorescent violet and a soft green apparent only when I focused.
We shuffled along a pleasantly paved street, strangers in a strange land while the two avatars of vastly different goddesses led us toward a sort of park, the center of the extravagant place of which held a pond with an arching bridge leading to a small island topped with a gazebo. And from that gazebo radiated powerful energy of two friendly goddesses in their good-natured human forms.
Diana had the form of a rather maternal-looking Roman woman, hair a soft reddish brown as was idolized in her day. She had the plush hips of a woman who birthed easily, full chest of a mother who’d nursed well but not spoiled her form, and a face with full kissable cheeks rosy with brightness. “Mage of Gray.”
Beside her sat a woman of mixed heritage, pale of skin for her origin. Soft brown tones bore ample gold over thin armsand a graceful, angular face adorned with silken black hair and a headpiece of beads and enamel. “My child,” she said, her voice smoky and full, like I imagined a mother cat’s voice would sound like whispering stories of old to her children that she would soon turn loose into the world.
And like that ephemeral kitten, I’d be cast to the eternal one day, too.
“Mistresses. It is lovely to see you. It is definitively time that I introduce you to my mate.” I welcomed Esmeray to my side as Lune stole away with the trash can and offered him a tissue.
“I had to meet my precious mage’s mate. Strange circumstances, and all that. What was Draevus thinking?” Diana peered at Esmeray and then myself, tapping on her lower lip as something shrewd danced in her fanciful green eyes. “Ohhhh. I approve.”
Esmeray nodded in quiet unease, hand traveling to the mark on his hand to rub at it subconsciously. As a creature with no soul of his own, he’d inherently reject the marking, but it worked well.
“I don’t know if I approve just yet. Come, child of sin.” Bastet gestured with long, graceful fingers, drawing Esmeray to her with golden eyes hooded with interest. She patted the bench beside herself and Esmeray sat, hands folded politely in his lap. “You are afraid.”
“I am. My daeva has been left behind, and I have never traveled to this plane before.” Esmeray bunched up in his seat and avoided looking at Bastet. She drew her hand around and pulled his head toward her, looking at his face. She smiled, sharp catlike canines glinting as she took him in.
“It is sometimes wise to be afraid. Ausmius was.” She touched Esmeray’s nose as she said so, delighting in his sudden shocked expression. “How do I know his name?”
She chuckled. “He sat before me, and I had to weigh him against a feather. It was close, but he is a good soul. For a demon, he bears very little mortal sin. Comparatively.”
Esmeray’s eye twitched at the sentiment. “Ausmius, good?”
