In fact… I have no idea how much control I actually have over him anymore.
It’s a question that burns me and I vow to find out the answer, but for now, I need to tackle the dilemma directly in front of me: the Goddess of the Underworld and her backward attempts to ‘protect’ me.
Ahead of me, Halle bounces on the balls of her feet, her high heels clacking against the black stone. An impatient sound. “I really would prefer if you make up your mind quickly, Veda,” she says. “It isn’t safe to stay here much longer. The mouth of hell is its most vulnerable point.”
Again, so she says.
Although this time, Jonah gives me a short nod, as if to indicate that Halle’s telling the truth. As a jotunn, he is as old as Halle and would have spent his youth surrounded by old gods. It’s possible he has more knowledge of this place than any other member of my pack—even the keeper.
But if this spot is hell’s most vulnerable location, then that probably means it’s also the only place from which I could launch a successful escape.
Right now, I might prefer to take my chances with the snowstorm raging outside—if, indeed, it is a snowstorm.
“Answer me this,” I say to Halle, my voice harsh. “You said you were trying to get my mother to safety before she was imprisoned.”
Halle nods. “I was. And your question is…?”
There’s a growl in my voice. “How am I supposed to believe that you didn’t deliberately take her into danger?”
Halle immediately stiffens and a flush crosses her light-brown cheeks. “Because Galeia was a daughter to me!” shesnaps. “Because she called me ‘Mother’. And I called her ‘Daughter’.”
A powerful relationship.
“I would never betray her,” Halle continues with such force that her voice echoes around us with a hint of the magic she controls.
I want to believe her. I really do.
But my father taught me the meaning of distrust and Emil has only deepened it.
“If you’d succeeded,” I continue, quietly this time, “what would my mother’s life have looked like?”
As I speak, my eyes burn with unexpected tears. I fight them, refusing to shed them because I can’t allow myself to wallow in thewhat-ifsof how different my life could have been. Even if I need an answer to my question.
Some of the anger fades from Halle’s expression. “I was taking Galeia west,” she says. “If I could have trusted any warlock at the time, I would have paid to transport us there in an instant, but we couldn’t trust anyone.”
“Why west?” I ask.
“There’s a place in Portland,” she replies. “A supernatural shelter where women can be safe from those who mean them harm. Your father would never have been able to find Galeia there, let alone hurt her. That place is protected by the most powerful of old magic. Even I can’t breach its walls.”
Halle pauses to take a deep, shaky breath, her voice straining as she finishes. “You would have been born in a safe place, where you could have thrived.”
“That sounds like rainbows and sunflowers,” I say, wrinkling my nose. “Even if such a place existed, they never would have helped a dark creature like my mother.”
“It was certainly a risk,” Halle says, with an acknowledging nod. “But Galeia was adamant that they wouldn’t turn her away. She wouldn’t tell me why, but now I understand. In fact…”
She takes a step forward before she stops again, her eyes wide. “They couldn’t have denied her even if they wanted to. Not while she was carrying you.”
Her focus switches disconcertingly to the keeper, and there’s a question in her eyes.
His voice sounds from close behind my left shoulder. “Veda’s mother didn’t tell her anything.”
“I can see that,” Halle snaps. “Or Veda never would have torn through the book.” She rubs her eyes. “Oh, but Galeia didn’t warn me, either… The secrets she kept… Darkest of saints.”
I’ve had enough of their cryptic conversation. “Stop!” I snap. “Both of you.”
I have no explanation for their conversation. I don’t know why Halle was so alarmed to see the face Emil’s wearing or why the state of the book has worried her so much.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s a good thing the book seems as dead as a book like that could get.
