Chapter Twelve
“Well, well.” Alessia grinned, voice still every bit the familiar cadence of a winsome politician. “Take a seat, won’t you?”
Her room was nothing like the sad, blank-walled prison we’d been corralled into. The walls of books, the velvet draping over the windows, the wood paneling, the plush carpet, the glittering chandelier, and the mahogany desk made me wonder if this was the sort of office a conductor might have inPhantom of the Opera.
I looked into my paper cup at the water within to reassure myself I hadn’t been drinking something else entirely. Maybe the imaginative spiral stemmed from writer brain. Maybe I’d been so disconnected from reality that I was ready to allow any nonsensical thing to make sense. I’d need to figure out a grounding exercise before I went wholly insane.
I would have forgotten what was expected from a polite exchange if Duchess Vapula hadn’t physically shoved me.
I stumbled forward, a cat landing on its feet, hand extending on instinct. “It’s an honor to meet you,” I said, and I meant it.
She shook my hand with the firm reassurance of someone expecting her bill to be passed. “And I, you. Please, please.” She gestured to the seat across the desk as she relaxed into her own. She crossed her legs and leaned back into the chair, propping a single finger on her chin as she appraised me. “Merit Finnegan. Do you want to know what I like aboutyou?”
I frowned. “Is it the whole…Prince’s human thing?”
Her jovial posture collapsed entirely as she rolled forward in her chair, propping both elbows onto the desk. “For fuck’s sake, no. I like your name.”
“My name?” I repeated, hating myself for how tongue-tied I became in every situation that mattered. Give me a computer and I was a wordsmith. Set me before an immortal being and I was a child looking at her mother, thrust back into powerlessness.
“Merit,” she repeated. “We choose our own names, you know. I chose Alessia so I might be seen for what I am: a defender. I intend to spend every day living up to my name. The one you chose for yourself… You want to be seen for what you’ve earned. You worked for your books. You were in the trenches in your other modes of employ. And now here you are, earning your merit in something else entirely. I suspect I know why you’re here.”
How was I supposed to explain that I needed something from her yet didn’t know what? Would she respect strength, even if it meant bluffing? Would she prefer honesty, even if it made me look like I’d been shuffled around without agency?
I took a stab somewhere in the middle. “Heaven’s angels would like to see me burn, and they’re not the only ones. I believe you have something that could save my life—mine and my friends’—and I’d like to know what I can do to be worthy.”
Green velvet crinkled under the dim, flattering light as Alessia relaxed once more. “I’d like to help you, Merit. You stand for inversion: something long overdue. And you’re right. I have what you need.”
“Is it a weapon?” I dared the question.
She chuckled, then reached into her blazer, fetching an ornate mirror from the breast pocket. She popped it open, surprising me with a tiny, plastic bag of white powder and a little metal straw.
Alessia cracked open the bag, poured the dust onto the mirror, and used a credit card to organize the substance into a thin, white line.
Her eyes glimmered as she passed the mirror toward me. “Care for a bump?”
Holy shit. I was about to do hard drugs with Medusa.
“Oh, um, no thank you,” I hedged.
No cocaine for me, thanks. I don’t need to pop into a k-hole right now, but thanks for the offer. No crushed Adderall, thank you for offering. I’m just here to save humanity.
She made a face, put the straw to her nose, and inhaled the powder. After a quick pinch of her nostrils, she said, “You’re recruiting gods. Well and good. You’ll need as many as you can get. However, you’re going about this wrong.”
I swallowed, speaking through a desert-dry throat as I asked, “And what would you have me do?”
I needed a solution to the axe hanging over my head, not nose beers.
She got up from the desk, carrying the pocket mirror to a terrarium in the corner of the room that I hadn’t noticed before. She tapped on the tank and an electric-green snake slithered toward the glass. Alessia lowered the mirror into the tank with one hand, stroking the serpent’s head with her free fingers.
It opened its mouth as if poised to strike, venom sparkling on menacing fangs.
“You know my lore, Merit. What do I do to my enemies?”
I watched the venom drip onto the mirror one sparkling dew drop at a time. I swallowed. “You turn them to stone.”
“Mmm.” She considered the familiar answer. “And if a god wants to save you from your fate, how might he find you? How might a god help a stone, if they are looking for something alive?”
“He—they—would struggle,” I said. I didn’t totally follow the conversational pivot, but as long as Duchess Vapula remained calm, I stayed the course. I pictured Zeus scanningthe mountains for his faithful warriors, seeing only stone where a man should be. “Maybe they couldn’t.”
