Chapter 30
Seth’s agreement shattered the tension. I dissolved my magic and dropped into a chair, ready to hear him out. None of us really wanted a war between temples anyway. Joseph slid down beside me, and, after a beat, Pyra backed off, though she continued to pace the space between the chairs and the rows of windows at our backs.
“What would that be, Seth?” I asked. “You’ve made so many requests over these past few days that I’m having trouble keeping up.”
At some unseen signal, Oron walked over to the wall and propped a shoulder against it, his owl mask following Pyra’s constant motion with steady patience. The other members of Davos stood and exited, seemingly unconcerned now that a deal was basically brokered.
“I have a contact within the Order.” Seth shuffled some papers until he came up with a page so dense with layers of writing I wondered how anyone could interpret the scribbles. “She has expressed discontent among the councilmembers regarding the actions Geoffrey has taken. I’d like to reach out to her and see if there might be a way to negotiate an end to this all—peacefully.”
Finn scratched his scruffy jaw and shrugged at me. That actually wasn’t a terrible idea.
“How can we trust your contact?” I asked.
“She used to sit at this very table, an esteemed member of Davos from decades ago,” he said with force. “She transitioned to Order headquarters for this very reason, to monitor the Council as a spy for us. When she’s done in Rome, she will return to the Lost City. With Geoffrey gone and the Gods restored, her job would be complete.”
Pyra grumbled as she passed behind me, but I couldn’t make out the words.
“What could it hurt?” asked Joseph. “Geoffrey already wants to kill us all. If we reach out to the Council and they want nothing to do with us, it’s a scratch for everyone and we move forward with our plans. I bet Geoffrey is even anticipating we contact the Council, just so we can all pretend to abide by diplomacy.”
“Call her up.” I motioned at a state-of-the-art computer at the other end of the room. A projector screen was draped along the length of the wall. It hadn’t been there before, and I wondered exactly what it was Davos discussed in my absence.
“Now?” Seth asked, startled.
“I want to see with my own eyes that you aren’t trying to trick us in some way,” Pyra said, collapsing into a chair and throwing her feet up on the edge of the table. “Call it an act of faith. We’re giving you a chance to do things your way, as long as you’re willing to meet us halfway.”
My attention remained fixed on Oron. I understood that he didn’t speak, but he should play a larger role in all of this. However, he seemed content hanging on the edges and staying out of the drama. I wondered about his upbringing at the Earth Temple and realized it must have been a very lonely existence.
“Alright,” Seth said, drawing out the word. He rose to grab the laptop and tapped a few buttons. A program launched on the projector. I didn’t recognize the name of the video conferencing app, but the set-up was familiar enough. “Please allow me to speak with her first. We’ll bring all of you in if it appears this is something the Council will seriously consider.”
I had no problem with that. I elbowed Pyra when she opened her mouth.
The computer hummed a few times in the soft trill of a ringing phone. There was a click and a woman’s face filled the screen. Long, blonde hair tangled with tight curls bracketed her face, setting off her soft, blue eyes. She wet her lips as she tapped something on her screen, then smiled broadly.
“Seth, it’s so good to see you,” she said. “Did I forget a meeting? I didn’t think we were supposed to touch base for another month.”
“No, you’re right, Lydia. This is completely unplanned,” he assured her while adjusting the angle of the camera pointed at his face. “I have an interesting idea I’d like for you to consider.”
The screen shook and she raised one elegant brow. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with three Gods showing up at your doorstep, now would it?”
Pyra snorted.
“You always were astute,” Seth said. “They’re actually with me now, all four of them.”
“Oh?” Her grin tightened, becoming more sinister as he spun the laptop around to show our faces. “Yes, so I see. They are all there, aren’t they? What exactly is the nature of this call?”
“We’d like to negotiate removing Geoffrey from his position as Hand,” I said, despite what I’d told Seth about leaving this to him. “We hear you may be interested in making that happen.”
Lydia ran a slow finger down the column of her neck, her expression distant as she stared off-camera. When she finally glanced back at her phone, her expression was intense and direct.
“Yes, I believe we can reach an agreement on that accord,” she said.
Chapter 31
The office chair squeaked as Ryder spun a slow circle with his toes.
“Would you knock it off?” Pyra snapped. She was applying another layer of crimson polish to her blade-like nails. “You’re obliterating my concentration.”
“And I’m tired of waiting,” he replied, increasing his speed defiantly. “What’cha gonna do about it?”
She blew on the backs of her hands. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
I scratched my arm and rolled my own chair back and forth, shrugging off the creepy stares of the animal heads mounted on the walls. I was starting to wonder if Earth had any other conference rooms in this massive pyramid. I glanced at the analog clock on the wall again, while trying to avoid the heavy gaze of the predatory animal nailed next to it—one with lots of black fur and large fangs.
Across from me sat Seth, Oron, and a third member of Davos named Lim who handled community relations. He bore the mask of a hawk with an extended beak. They neither spoke nor fidgeted. It seemed to be a trait the temple valued highly.
“I still don’t understand why we’re wasting time negotiating with the Order anyway,” Pyra said to no one in particular and removed a roll of black tape from her pouch. It was probably the twentieth time she’d asked that question in the past two weeks. “You know the Council doesn’t mean it, there’s no way this is actually going to work. So why give them more time to plan an attack? We could be raining ash and lava down on their heads instead.”
“Because I’m tired of killing people,” I answered for the twentieth time. “They’ve also been pretty amicable up to this point, they seem to want him gone. I think we’ll be able to find some common ground.”
Pyra snorted and wound tape around her thumb.
This was supposed to be our third meeting with the Council. True to Lydia’s word, they were definitely interested in negotiating a resolution. Half of the members seemed tired of Geoffrey’s reckless behavior and the other half… I had a feeling wanted him out of the way so they could go about their nefarious deeds without his interruptions.
For the first time, though, the Council was late to our teleconference. I glanced at the gold-rimmed clock again. Eighteen minutes late.
My stomach curdled.
“You and Joseph may have a solid plan,” Pyra muttered, “but they’re definitely about to back out. I guarantee it.”
She finished winding the tape around her middle finger, snipped it off, and snapped experimentally. A small flame sprouted from the tip of her thumb. She’d done something similar yesterday and informed me the tape was a Fire Temple secret. Its sandpapery texture created the right friction to create flame whenever she wanted.
I envied her the ingenuity and vowed to create my own clever devices once this whole mess was over. Though I still had yet to reveal to her or the Earth Temple that I could also manipulate fire, so I still had that little trump card handy.
I flinched when sparks danced across my vision. Kaleal was rarely so aggressive with her entrances, choosing stealth over flashbangs. The ugly twisting of my insides increased. What are you—
Something’s wrong, she panted unchar
acteristically. Geoffrey isn’t there, his assaults have stopped. It’s the first time he’s deviated in—
I nearly jumped out of my skin at the tinfoil crackle of the speakers starting to life. Pyra grumbled and Joseph’s frown deepened as he stared at the blank, black screen of the projector. Seth rose to check on it when the image flickered to life. I’d grown so used to the bland conference room in which the dozen or so councilmembers normally congregated, that the Robin’s egg blue of the sky outside startled me. The horizon bobbed, the wispy clouds and reaching fingers of pine trees blurring. Whoever carried the camera stopped and set it down, the sudden stillness jarring.
Geoffrey stepped into view and a roaring filled my ears.
Too late, Kaleal shrieked, as highly strung as me.
“Good afternoon, Gods.” He squinted over the camera at what I assumed was some sort of monitor. His body filled the screen and it was difficult to make out much behind him. “Yes, it appears that you are all there, assuming the one in the mask is Oron. I’d like to start this official meeting with a quick word of thanks for making this easy for me. It’s much easier to talk to you all when you’re in the same location.”
He paused, his head twitching as he wrung his hands. I hadn’t so much as spoken to or seen my Hand since I’d blocked him from my mind, and it was incredible how these past few weeks had treated him. Geoffrey had never been a particularly handsome man, despite the scars on his cheeks and brands on his brow, but his newly healed burns added a monstrous, mottled quality to his ashen skin. His bi-colored eyes were wide and bloodshot, possessing the unfocused, glassy quality of someone on the fringes of insanity. His curly, dark hair was shiny with grease and tousled by unsteady hands.
I leaned forward. “Geoffrey, what’s happened to you?”
My words seemed to ground him again, and he flashed a quick grin. “Zara, how wonderful to hear your voice. I’d so hoped we could resolve our differences peacefully, between the two of us, but when you locked me out, you forced me to take more drastic measures.”
I sensed Pyra and Oron turning to look at me, but my attention was riveted on the man on the screen. “What measures would those be?”
“Ah, ah, ah.” He wagged a finger. “Not so fast, wouldn’t want to skip the pleasantries. Joseph, how are you faring?”
Joseph ran a hand over the table. “I was fine until you showed up.”
Geoffrey nodded. “My sources tell me you’re the most intuitive of the four Gods. Would you agree with that assessment?”
“I believe that to be accurate,” Joseph said unapologetically.
I flipped my Iridescence and bit back a gasp at the riot of colors exploding from Geoffrey. Magic swirled around him, hot and fast and uncontrolled, a chaotic mosaic I didn’t understand. As the Hand of the Gods, he was supposed to possess some of our magics. It helped him connect with us and, to some extent, control us, but this seemed like the opposite of control.
He’s gone insane, Kaleal reasoned, shrugging as she relaxed into the wall of my mind as if that made all of this somehow ok. Sometimes it happens.
“Very good,” Geoffrey said to Joseph. “Have you realized what the others likely haven’t?”
Joseph’s eyes narrowed and he drew a long breath in through his nose. “You’re broadcasting this signal. We’re hardly alone.”
My limbs locked and I swore I heard my knees and elbows crackle with ice.
“Very good,” Geoffrey repeated. “When I realized the treachery going on beneath my very nose, I thought it best to take my case before the people themselves. I felt it was the best option, because—Zara, you’ll want to listen closely to this in particular—people,” he punctuated the word with a jab of his hand, “aren’t terribly pleased with you all.”
Here we go, Kaleal rasped. I wanted to strangle her with my bare hands.
“You aren’t supposed to exist and yet somehow you do,” Geoffrey said. “And you do so unchecked and unaccounted for. You operate under your own set of rules without the guidance of your leaders or the Order. You run rampant through cities and neighborhoods, destroying homes, businesses… and lives. Turn on the news now, if you dare. I know if I were a teenage God with unlimited powers, I probably wouldn’t have checked the networks once.”
I bristled. His one green and one gray eye seemed to bore into my soul. Things I’d wanted to forget, people I’d hoped to bury in my past, all rising to the surface.
Lim located a remote and a panel opened beside the projector. On the television screen revealed behind it was a news station I didn’t recognize playing footage of me wiping out an entire city block. The next clip was of a house—my house—up in flames, the fire spreading down the street as people ran screaming. In quick succession came any number of natural disasters: the devastation from a hurricane, rescue crews scouring the wreckage left by an earthquake, firefighters battling intense forest fires, and a trio of tornadoes roaring through a downtown area at night.
Slowly, I stood. By juxtaposing those images, Geoffrey was creating a damning case against me and the other Gods. It didn’t help that we’d remained silent for so long because there wasn’t much we could do to save face. To deny it would be futile, no matter how insane Geoffrey appeared.
Oh this is tricky, isn’t it? Kaleal said with glee. What to do, what to do? How do you respond, knowing the world is watching?
“And now, after my multiple attempts at contacting you and the other Gods, trying to reach peace and understanding, to call you in to account for your crimes, I discovered you’d turned my Council against me.” His face twisted sorrowfully. “You not only conspired against me but sought to bring me down.”
I moved toward the screen. “What did you do, Geoffrey? Where are they?”
“Oh, the Council is safe, for now. But they won’t be. The consequences for treason are harsh.” He locked his hands behind his back, appearing for the first time sane and absolutely serious. “Speaking of consequences, do you have any idea what happened to Phenex Allard? You know, the man the world better knows as the mastermind behind the investment firm Senet.”
His name was like a punch to my gut, completely out of left field.
Nope, I didn’t see that one coming either, Kaleal said, spinning smoke between her hands. Denial is your best bet.
“I don’t know who that is,” I said, pressing my lips into a firm line.
Geoffrey clicked his tongue. “Don’t lie, Zara, you’re not very good at it. Besides, there’s footage I’ll release to the media shortly showing you entering his home, then leaving it again with him. After that, he was never seen again. Ring any bells?”
He could be bluffing, Kaleal said, almost to herself.
“Nope, no clue.” I realized the vial containing the djinn was in my hand as if it had moved there of its own volition.
“How peculiar. Because little fey sources of mine tell me that you, Zara Ramone, destroyed him in a storm of your making.”
I’d gone stiff. Maat. The other nero. My pulse throbbed in my ears, but I couldn’t ask, didn’t dare ask about their well-being. If Geoffrey were talking about them, they were already in grave danger. And if he weren’t, bringing them up would only land them there.
“That’s not true,” yelled Pyra, launching herself up as Joseph yanked her back down. “She didn’t destroy him, she—” He silenced her before she could dig us all into an even deeper hole. What I’d done to the djinn was basically destruction, and even though he wasn’t dead, I couldn’t risk letting him out.
My knuckles went white around the vial that I couldn’t seem to release. Geoffrey smiled coyly.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Time is up, Zara. You and the other Gods have had your fun… and your destruction. Now it’s time to account for your crimes and atone for your sins.”
Joseph moved to stand beside me, his hand curling around mine.
“For their treason, my entire Council is sentenced to death. Before you protest, that is the punishment spelled
out by the charter of the Order.” Geoffrey stepped back, nearly out of the shot. “But there are a few friends of yours that you might still be able to save, should you make the correct choice.”
He had the nero. If he didn’t have Maat, he had some of them. How he’d apprehended the fey, I had no idea. But I was certain that Geoffrey wasn’t bluffing.
“Turn yourselves in, Gods. All of you.” He moved out of frame. “You have seventy-two hours. You don’t want to find out what happens one minute past that.”
The screen went blank and Lim severed our connection, his mask bowed.
I clenched my teeth so hard I thought they might shatter.
“I told you we should have gone in and wiped him out,” Pyra said after a beat. “Can we do that now?”
Chapter 32
Ryder’s hand circled the small of my back as we waited for the other Gods on the limestone stairs of the pyramid. He was preparing to teleport us to Rome where we would meet with Geoffrey.
“I can’t believe he executed them,” I whispered. I felt strangely detached from my body as if my spirit weren’t fully connected. “No jury, no trial. None of it. It’s…”
“Horrific,” Ryder finished for me, gripping my side and tugging me flush against him. His cheek rested on the top of my head. “And that’s why he needs to be stopped for good.”
You can’t allow that evil to fester and rot any longer, Kaleal said tightly. You know what you have to do, and that isn’t stripping him of his powers. He deserves to die.
A cord in my chest panged and I closed my eyes against the hazy, purple hue of dawn. The executions of the Order’s full Council yesterday had not been publicly broadcast, but Geoffrey had allowed five neutral people—some government leaders and others reporters—to witness their deaths and share what they saw with the various news networks. I didn’t understand how the world couldn’t see him for the monster that he was. Why weren’t people calling for an investigation? Why were they ok with this?
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