“As in turning into nothing,” Anubis said.
“Nothing. LikeThe Neverending Story? You're telling me the Nothing is coming?”
“For fuck's sake.” Horus huffed. “Why must everything be a movie reference for you, Vervain? No, it's nottheNothing. We don't need a kid to believe in us and wish for shit.”
“So, you've seen the movie?” Pan blinked innocently.
“Everyone has seen that movie.”
“But that's it, isn't it?” I asked. “The realms are being consumed.”
“No, it's not a consuming nothing,” Odin said.
“Then what is it?”
“The machine is erasing us.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Odin's conclusion caused an uproar. I just stared at him through it, horror shivering down my spine. I had refused to bind myself to the machine, but if it came down to doing that or losing my husbands to the fucking Nothing (I don't care what they said, it sounded like the same Nothing to me), I'd do it. Odin must have seen it in my eyes, because he pulled me into an embrace.
“All is not lost yet, my love,” Odin whispered in my ear.
“Shut up!” Hades roared.
The room went quiet.
“It is not erasing us,” Hades went on. “Some places are vanishing while others are restructuring themselves. Souls are arriving half-formed; some get lost halfway. This is far more than an erasure. Even if our territories change, we will still survive.”
“But you don't know that for certain.” Blue, with his arm around his wife, stared down Hades.
“It's not breaking reality anymore,” I said. “It's replacing it.”
That sent a new wave of fear through the room, silencing even Hades.
“It is a machine!” A blast of light got everyone's attention.
I turned to see Amaterasu standing upon her chair, staring down the other gods.
“A machine,” she repeated. “We are gods! Have you forgotten that? Or have you gone soft in your centuries of dominion? This is war! Our authority is being challenged. Our territories are being threatened. This will not stand. We must use our wits, which are far superior to those of any machine, even a magical one. We use our centuries of experience and collected wisdom to figure out a way to destroy it!”
The room erupted in roars of approval and applause. As they cheered, Amaterasu climbed down, and I watched her. We had found the machine by following the bond between her relics. There was something there. What? Connection. Magical bonds. We'd gone this route before, and it had destroyed Amy's mirror. But maybe there was another way to use those bonds.
“We have the machine,” I murmured. “We don't have to search for it. It’s ours.”
“What's that, La-la?” Re asked.
“We have the machine,” I said louder. “Half the battle is won. We’ve captured Agwusi and have the machine. Now, we just need to destroy it, and I think the way to do that is through your links to your relics.”
“But we can't remove them from the machine without causing it to destabilize,” Shango grumbled.
“You don't have to remove them.” I leaned on the table. “You just have to connect with them.”
“And then what?” Hephaestus asked.
Odin looked at me, his expression going grim. “And then we destroy them. We destroy theminsidethe machine. We connect to our relics and destroy them together, all at once, killing it before it can malfunction.”
Again, the room exploded into angry voices. We let it go on for a few moments longer, and then I nodded at Odin.
