My breath hitches with surprise.
Markanos is breathing a little quickly, but I don’t think it’s from exertion.
“Got you, squid,” he says with the manner of a man trying to exert strict control over himself.
“I did not think spirits could be affected physically.” I’m struggling not to sound breathless.
Vesuvius has frozen in place, his eyes narrowed as they flick from Markanos to me and then back.
“By a normal weapon, no, but this trident belonged to Vesuvius himself and it had a storied reputation. I told you before: It was said he could pin the souls of the dead to the mortal plane.”
“How charming,” I say stiffly.
“It really was. I was the toast of the night at dinner parties,” Vesuvius says, but his voice is tight. I do not know if it is tight with pain—for can a spirit experience pain?—or simply with fear of what Markanos might do next, for the God of War is no longer blind to him. I see it in the sparkle of Markanos’s eye.
Vesuvius cannot escape his weapon. He thrashes hard against it and the trident shudders, making a small snapping sound. It doesn’t matter. The dead god is still pinned in place.
“I think you’d better tell Markanos what he needs to know.” My tone is grim. I feel that is justified.
Vesuvius waits a beat, looking through slitted eyes at both me and Markanos, but I know he’ll find no softening here, and eventually he seems to realize that, too.
“Do you remember the plane where the Resurgence took place?” He directs his comment to me with an innocent look in his widening eyes. “The one where you chose to become a murderer?” My belly flips guiltily at those words. “I am very proud of you for that, by the way.”
“Get on with it,” I murmur, and Markanos, taking that as a cue, twists the trident.
Vesuvius flinches and his voice sounds strained. “That’s where he’ll be. He likes how malleable it is there. And how impossible it is for mortals to survive long without direct sponsorship from a god. The combination appeals to him when he is in distress.”
“You broughtmethere when I was still mortal,” I say without inflection. “And no god was watching over me until Okeanos arrived.”
“Yes.” He smiles and I could almost swear there’s blood in his mouth, staining his teeth. “Wasn’t that fun?”
“The Resurgence?” Markanos asks. “I suppose that makes an odd kind of sense.”
“What if he’s lying to us?” I ask Markanos.
The God of War shrugs. “What if he is? We’ll try somewhere else tomorrow. We’re gods. To us the centuries are as days.”
He pulls the trident out of Vesuvius with a tug. Hurriedly, I wipe my tears from the pearl. The last thing I want is an angry Vesuvius near me. I hope those wounds don’t last in him forever, but given the wound in Oke’s chest, I feel like such a hope might be only a salve to my own conscience.
Vesuvius meets my eyes, panting and tense. I wipe the pearl on my clothing again, hoping to dismiss his spirit now that the trident is out of him. Perhaps I am too damp, or I’m missing a droplet of water, because he is still here, staring at me.
His eyebrows lift. “Is that a portent in the sky, God of War?”
Markanos turns to look, and I shove the pearl into my belt pouch instead—best to be thorough—and when I look up Vesuvius is gone as he should be.
How very odd.
“Just a Hunter’s Moon,” Markanos says as he turns back. He jams the trident into my empty hands. One of the prongs is broken off, a finger’s width of metal missing. It looks like the jagged edge of a broken tooth.
Markanos clears his throat.
“I’ll shift us to Treseano,” he says firmly, and before I have time to protest that I’m not ready, he’s taking my hand again, forming a bowl, and slashing his sword through the air.
Chapter Thirty
Iam not overly fond of Okeanos’s friend and his overbearing demeanor, but I will say this for him as an ally—he does not treat me as disposable. Before I’m even blinking back to awareness on this new plane, he’s already sprung in front of me, sword drawn in a defensive posture.
“First we’ll try where Treseano stays when he is here,” Markanos says, already moving.
