“First, tell us what happened with Agwusi,” Odin urged.
I looked from him to Fenrir. “She chained me with Gleipnir.”
“Damn those chains!” Fenrir roared. “I would melt them into puddles if I could. To come after me with them is bad enough, but to use them on you is reprehensible.”
“Well, they didn't suppress my magic,” I went on. “So, when she left to steal Freya's cloak—”
“I knew it!” a woman shouted.
I looked down the table to see Freya standing with several Valkyries. It had been ages since I'd seen any of those women, so I couldn't help calling down to them, “Hey, ladies! Long time no see. And I'm so sorry about your cloak, Freya. I had to add it to the machine to keep it stable.”
“What?!” Freya shrieked.
“It was that or bind myself to the machine. I'm sorry, but I'm a person. I'm more important than your cloak.”
The room went eerily quiet.
Viper broke the silence. “Why would you bind yourself to it, starlight?”
“I'll get to that.” I looked at Ty. “While Agwusi was gone, I broke Ty's love for her. It freed him from her influence.”
Ty nodded at his father's raised eyebrow. “It was a toxic love. I see that now.”
“We bound Agwusi in Gleipnir and tried to force her to tell us how to destroy the machine.” I looked at my husbands. “I would have texted, but we were in Ala Mmuo, and there was no Internet. Anyway, Ty and I tried to remove Ereshkigal's keys.”
“Did you get my keys?” Ereshkigal leaned onto the table. In the seat beside her was Ninkasi.
“No, wires attached them to the machine. When I tried to burn a wire, strange things happened. I think time folded in on itself. Ty shifted to wolf, Agwusi became a skeleton, and I, well, I was different. The machine has merged with the items and woven itself into reality.”
They exchanged grim looks.
I continued, “I tried to leave, and the territory trembled. Not just the ground, but everything in it. Buildings flashed to ruins and back, souls split and merged, and everything vibrated. I felt a pull to return to the machine. At first, it controlled me, but Ty helped me focus. I went to the machine anyway, just to see what was going on. When I touched it, it revealed its purpose. It showed me visions of souls stuck in pockets of existence between the realms. I saw them misjudged and placed in the wrong afterlives. Some were trapped with no chance of reincarnating so they could feed the gods of the underworlds.”
“I would never!” Hades growled.
“I didn't see you, Hades. But there were other issues with the Greek Underworld.” I motioned for him to wait when he protested. “Mistakes happen. You may not be human, but you aren't infallible. Those mistakes prompted Agwusi's God to design the machine. But machines aren't infallible either, not even those infused with divine magic. They’re not alive, and so they can’t understand life. Machines function by rules. They must follow their programming. A living person must bond with the machine to ensure that it makes no mistakes.
“You?” Trevor's expression went horrified as he stepped up beside me. “No, minn elska. You don't know what it would do to you.”
“Yes, I'm who God chose, and I know what it would do to me. The machine showed me.” I looked from him to my other husbands. “It would consume my time. I would remain within its territory, unable to leave or share my life with any of you.
“Not gonna happen,” Viper vowed.
“No, it's not,” I said.
My other husbands shared relieved looks.
“Then we destroy it,” Thor said.
“We need to figure out how to do that,” Ty said. “We can't just smash the machine or remove the relics. It could have catastrophic results on the realms.”
“It's already having catastrophic results,” Re said.
“What's happened?” I demanded. “I told you mine, now tell me yours.”
Re glanced at his fellow Egyptian deities—Ma'at, Thoth, Anubis, and Horus. “The edges of Duat are vanishing.”
“Vanishing?” I frowned. “As in, turning into blank space?”
