Odin raised his glass at Patrick in a mocking manner before taking a sip. Patrick dug his fingers into his thighs, trying to ground himself. “The Morrígan’s staff. Where is it?”
“You expect me to know where something not of my own kind’s making is?”
Odin’s derision came through loud and clear, but Patrick pressed on anyway. “Medb left it in the mortal world. We’ve been trying to find it before the Dominion Sect does. Our intelligence says they’re in town, so there’s a good chance the staff is as well.”
“Your mistakes aren’t mine to care about.”
“They will be if Ethan gets his hands on that staff and turns himself into a god.”
Odin set the wineglass down, half the mead gone. “The Morrígan’s staff cannot turn someone into a god. You need prayers and sacrifices for that.”
Patrick bit down on the inside of his cheek before releasing it. “Ethan has the Dominion Sect to pray for him and control of Macaria’s godhead.”
“What is left of it,” Heimdallr replied.
Patrick turned his head to look at the other god. “You’ve seen her?”
“Years ago, when you were but a child still before Hades hid her from my sight, and again last summer.” Heimdallr looked thoughtfully at Patrick before shaking his head. “Macaria’s godhead has driven your sister mad. What’s left of your sister’s soul is not worth saving.”
Patrick’s lungs locked up, his ears ringing at those words. He’d known ever since the Thirty-Day War that Hannah was lost to him, but some tiny shred of him always thought there could be a chance to save her. That the sister he’d loved for eight years before Ethan did the unthinkable could be pried free of Macaria’s godhead.
But human souls were never meant to carry such power, no matter how weak a god was from lack of prayers and worshippers and being forgotten by the world at large. These days, Hannah was just a vessel for their father’s machinations, a battleground for a future no Fates of any pantheon could see.
Patrick forced himself to take a breath, air whistling past his lips and teeth. “You’re the head of your pantheon. Ethan has a known track record of coming after gods in your position.”
“Let him,” Odin said with a disdainful twist of his mouth. “I fear no mortal.”
“He stole a godhead and carries its power in a mortal body for his use. Few have been so bold in the millennia we have walked Midgard,” Frigg reminded her husband.
“And they will die because of it.”
“The Norns wouldn’t have sent me here to help you if they didn’t think there was a legitimate threat. If you know where the Morrígan’s staff is, that would be reason enough for Ethan to come after you,” Patrick said.
“If I knew where the Morrígan’s staff was, I would retrieve it and carry it home to my cousin.”
Patrick very much doubted Odin would be that generous. “If you don’t know its exact location, then do you know how to find it? General Reed seemed to think your human identity had information we could use.”
Odin smiled, his one gray eye reflecting the light shining down on them. “We are in Chicago. You must know a city such as this is built on favors and promises.”
“And money, I assume.”
Odin leaned back in his seat and gestured expansively with one hand at the empty restaurant around them. “A mayoral candidate is scheduled to hold a fundraiser dinner here this weekend. He will not be the only one to come into my abode and ask a favor. The name I am known by in this city is one that cannot be ignored if you wish to do politics here. The old way of tithing has been lost to history, but we’ve found other avenues to gain prayers.”
Patrick grimaced. “That’s blackmail.”
“It is only blackmail if you can prove it.” Odin pinned Patrick with a look that cut straight to his soul, making cold sweat slide down his back. “I do not fear the Dominion Sect. The Norns have not seen the future since Persephone offered you a choice, but the blindness runs both ways. The Moirai and those gods who ally themselves with Ethan will fight for a future that is not guaranteed, the same way we must. The only way to lay claim to it is to kill your past.”
Frigg pushed her chair back from the table and stood. “Let me show you to the door. I believe the rain has stopped.”
Patrick stood, tugging at Wade’s arm to get him up as well. “Let’s go.”
Odin’s searing gaze was one Patrick could not meet. “Remember what I said. You owe a duty to us.”
“I was dying as a child and didn’t know any better.” Patrick turned away from the table, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets to hide how they shook. “We all make mistakes.”
Frigg led the way to the doors of the restaurant, the front-of-house area now empty of workers. She came to a stop with one hand resting on the door handle, studying Patrick with kind blue eyes he didn’t trust.
“My husband believes nothing can touch him in this city that belongs to us,” Frigg said.
