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Blue nods and opens the cupboard, pulling down two glasses that he fills. He hands one to Tin. “Have a seat. I’ll stand.”

“You sure you can?” Tin asks.

“Oh, ha-ha. Is he always this funny?”

“He’s never funny.”

Tin lifts his brows as if challenging me but there’s no way I’m backing down on that. He’s as broody as they come.

There are only two chairs at the dining table so I take the one closest to the fire, the chill from outside still deep in my bones.

“I heard you landed here in a house?” Blue asks me.

“Yes. A cyclone brought me here.”

“That was the West. She loved a good windstorm. Suspect that’s why she named you Dorothy Gale.”

“Did you … and she … I mean … tell me everything.”

He laughs and sips from his rum. “I wish there was a great love story to share.” He looks off, thinking through the memories. “She was a force. Powerful and ambitious and sharp as a blade.”

He smiles. “I won’t lie to you, though. I never intended to have children. It’s something the gods consider … how do I put this … banal.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Ordinary,” he says quickly.

“Ahhh.”

“I mean, even rabbits procreate! There’s nothing special about it!”

“You’re truly overwhelming her with your love and respect,” Tin says.

“Hah!” Blue says again and points a finger at Tin. “He is funny!”

My face warms, not because Tin’s right, but because in a backward way, he’s defended me. He’s not wrong, though. Blue’s opinion of my very existence is leaving me underwhelmed.

And when Blue looks over at me, reading my expression, his face falls. “Oh. Not funny? I’m sorry.” He sighs. “I will not hide my inefficiencies from you. I’m not constructed of paternal material. I am a god. Meant to rule from the mountains and fill the earth with shiny veins.”

“And yet even that you cannot do,” Tin points out.

“Yes. Yes, well, after the South was murdered, we were terrified we might be next. Do you blame us? We decided we were through with the thankless life of the divine. So we left.”

“The South was dead,” I say. “You came here and drowned yourself in booze. What about the East and North?”

Blue flattens his palm and blows across it. “Scattered on the wind.”

“Are they also in hiding?” I ask.

“Who knows? Not me.”

Tin’s shoulders are a tense line as he asks, “How do you not know? You’re a god. I thought you were all-knowing? I thought that was the whole point.”

“Sure. Usually. But I separated myself from my power when we all decided we’d had enough.”

“What does that mean?” I ask. “Where did it go?”

“I sunk it into the earth in the Ancient Forest and I guess the trees absorbed it. But it’s started to go a little awry.”