“Yes, please. You’ve certainly improved in the kitchen,” I told her, taking the corkscrew she handed to me.
“One of the many habits I took up recently. I also knit,” she added proudly.
“You make for a convincing human, sister.”
Eris wasn’t strictly speaking my sister, but we’d been linked enough times through the ages that we referred to each other as such.
Technically, I’d also never actually met her, but thousands of memories said otherwise.
“I wasn’t sure you’d recognize me in this form,” she replied, her wrinkles melting as she grinned at me.
“Right back at you.” She’d interacted with the god whose energy I claimed twelve decades ago, and he’d looked nothing like me.
He’d been taller, more tanned, his hair, brown, not black, and his eyes, red like fire. Yet at the core, when we listened to our instincts, no matter what form we took, immortals always knew one another. I would have been surprised Silver couldn’t identify me, if she weren’t so very repressed, refusing any knowledge that came from her deeper instincts. She was so busy trying to deny who she was, she walked through life completely blind.
It might get her killed some day.
I filled two glasses and we ate her delicious dish in a silence neither of us was eager to break.
I was glad she went first. “I won’t ask what you’re doing here. If anything, I’m surprised you didn’t come sooner. This is just our kind of place.”
“Good. I can’t tell you.” I grinned.
I saw what she meant about Highvale. The city was a little world unto itself, filled with so many people who hated and envied each other. Any god would have found it rife with opportunity.
The immortals stopped paying attention to the doings of humans, bored with their short lifespans, but here, the majority of the population lived long enough to be worth placing bets on. No wonder Zeus wanted access.
“But you won’t get in my way,” Eris stated, rather than asked.
“I won’t get in your way,” I assured her. “From what I can tell, whatever you’re doing isn’t affecting any of my directives.”
“Well, let me know how I can help.”
“You could put me in touch with your interior decorator.” I wrinkled my nose. “Lavender wallpaper isn’t my thing. And what can you tell me about the major players in town?”
She rubbed her hands together. “Oh, I have all the dirt. We’ll need more wine for that.”
17
SILVER
Islept like shit, tossing and turning until Amavi crawled into my arms, her warmth slowly lulling me to sleep. That was when the dreams started again.
Running through the woods. The scent of magic and grass, rain and prey.
Then I dreamed of men I tortured for existing. Those I turned into deer for the sport of their own hounds. They’d dared look at me. They deserved it.
I woke up in sweat, panting, just as exhausted as I had been before falling asleep.
And to my confusion, I smelled bacon.
I sniffed, frowning.
Bacon and coffee.
My upstairs neighbor, the woman I bought this apartment from, wasn’t any more of a cook than I was. We subsisted mostly on takeout and barbecue in the summer. I couldn’t explain the smell—it seemed too strong to come from another building.
Tired, confused, and famished, I dragged myself up and out of my room, my bed sheet around my chest.
