by Elle Lincoln
“She’s lost it.” I flutter my hands at the mad woman and head to the coffee maker. Yes, they have electricity. I always regret leaving when I come here and there is real coffee, not boiled shit. “Keeps going on about a man named Bob.”
I almost miss it, that slight flinch Flynn makes at the name, but I catch it out of the corner of my eye. What have you been up to, Flynn? I will learn your secrets.
“Bodb?” he questions, even pronouncing it right, though it sounds like bod.
“See? Even he knows who I’m speaking of. Well, he should at least.” She turns, giving Flynn that death stare that’s starting to frighten me. “I didn’t see his death. And this one here isn’t skilled enough to have looked.” She huffs at me like this is my fault.
“I’m sorry, how long were you a Death Goddess? I’ve been on this job for a month.” I sip the delicious black coffee. Smooth, slightly bitter. Perfect.
“And by your age, I was on battlefields,” she snarks.
“Okay, woman.” I slam my coffee down. “Enough with the medieval comparisons. Clearly this isn’t millennia ago.” What would that even be? The Sumerian age? Or just a fuck long time ago?
She sniffs, showing more character flaws in the last hour than I ever imagined she has. “Wisdom is dead, Flynn.” Hands on hips, she eyes him.
But it’s his reaction I don’t expect. That flicker of fire in his eyes and the statuesque calm that warns of a deadly realization.
“Gone?”
“Gone.”
“Who?” He rubs his chin as Rocco comes strolling through the kitchen with that lazy smile, but his tense shoulders tell me he knows exactly what’s really going on.
“Explain this to me, Rocco.” I wave at the other two gods, who are nothing but unhelpful. “These two are worthless.”
“Without ancient wisdom, what do you lose?” He pours himself a cup of coffee.
“So, wisdom is gone?”
“Not exactly.” He shrugs a lazy should, appraising my suit with a nod. “Being a goddess looks good on you.”
“Yet I’m an unskilled twerp.” I used to be so much more refined than this.
“You’ve always been that, dear granddaughter.” Now Gramps enters the kitchen with a bounce in his step. Muttonchops grow down the sides of his face, wrinkled from the grin stretching over his features. He pauses, kissing the top of my head. “I’m glad you came back.” Then he bounces off once more.
Yeah, I don’t want to know what put that there. It’s suddenly feeling crowded in here.
“You’ll get there,” Rocco assures me, before moving back to the point of all this. “The death of wisdom doesn’t mean wisdom dies, but the act of wisdom is dead.”
“What the fuck is the difference?” Riddles, they all speak in fairy riddles.
“Wisdom isn’t something you can just kill. You won’t suddenly lose the knowledge you’ve gleaned. And you will always have the power to learn more. There is, however, an act there. The small nudge to drive yourself. As a Goddess of Death, if you die, it doesn’t mean death no longer exists. It means the act of moving on does.”
“So, the act of wisdom, like if I learn something, I can’t act on it?” Why are gods so damn confusing?
“There is a reason the original deities are deathless. They hold that powerful act of keeping things in balance, without balance there is nothing. Without the drive to learn something to an expert level, it leaves so many just knowing a bunch of random shit.” Rocco slurps his coffee, leaving me staring at him like he lost his damn mind.
“The act of wisdom.” I rub my temples, trying like hell to understand this.
“Exactly, it’s already begun.” Morrigan huffs. “Mae, we must find wisdom in the veil. Now. Go.” She marches toward me and I duck out of her way.
“Stop right there, crazy!” I hold my hand up, spilling my coffee in the process of slamming the cup down. “I will go hunt wisdom down.” Whatever the hell that means. “But you stay.”
“I will not.” She places her hands on her hips, then eyes me like she’s mentally killing me.
“You will because if one god is dead, we need to understand who else is in danger.” I lick my dry lips. “What state did you find him in, Morrigan?”
“Slaughtered. Dismembered. Flayed.” We all make grunts of disgust at her blasé answer, while we to try and get her to stop. “What? Okay, he was brutally killed.”
This woman will be the death of me! “Who’s to say there isn’t a murderer out there hell-bent on killing gods?”
Her sharp intake of breath whistles through her teeth. “Impossible. There are few who can kill a god.”
“You didn’t think of this earlier?” I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter now, since there’s obviously a weapon other than me who can kill a god. I suggest you figure out what that is besides a scythe.”
She huffs but is gone in the next blink. My shoulders slump in relief.
“If that’s true then, Mae, you’re in danger.” Flynn’s tone is solemn, and I can feel the weight of his stare demanding I take this seriously.
“Honestly, I pulled that out of my ass to get rid of her,” I admit.
Rocco’s laugh is practically everything I need in the moment. “Doll, when we spout bullshit like that, it usually means we are right.” He taps his temple. “Gut instinct.”
“So, my gut believes this, even though I tried to think of anything to get rid of her.”
“How do you think psychic abilities works?” Rocco points out.
“Huh, that’s truly how it works?” Gramps pushes his specs up his face, intrigue written all over his features.
“No. No you don’t.” I point my finger at the curious old man.
“Oh, is she finally gone?” Gram pops in, attempting to look casual as she leans against the counter. Only she can’t, and she’s completely holding herself there.
I promptly ignore her.
“Okay, so what am I looking for regarding this wisdom?” Honestly, I don’t even understand this.
“No idea, I’ve never dealt with this before,” Rocco chimes in.
“Anyone else?” I stare at Flynn, demanding he answer me. He doesn’t, and it isn’t like I can take him along for the ride. Although, I do have another job for him. “Flynn, Rocco, what are you two doing right now?”
“Eating,” Rocco supplies around a mouthful of something sweet, sticky, and smelling a lot like cinnamon buns. The bastard.
“What do you need?” Flynn looks all too eager, and I haven’t even told him what I needed. Curiouser and curiouser. What are you up to, Alice?
“Come, both of you.” I wiggle my hands as they cautiously approach me. I grip their forearms, and before they can run away, I teleport them back to Ireland and the blizzard.
“What the hell is this?” Rocco exclaims, his cinnamon bun dangling from his lips.
“This is Ireland right now.” I frown as the implication that October is the new winter sinks in. “What the hell happened to autumn?”
“The Realm never had much of an autumn because the court wasn’t as large.” Flynn runs his hand along a snow bank.
“I thought the fae courts and the seasons weren’t related.” Now I stand with my hands on my hips, doing a perfect imitation of Morrigan.
“Eh, it’s indirect,” Rocco shoves the last of his cinnamon bun in his mouth. “If you ask me,” pastry flies out of his mouth with his words, “the whole court thing is ridiculous. Royalty my ass. They just want the old ways of kingdoms to return. Where they were worshipped by ignorant humans. The gods don’t even want that.” He pauses, turning to look at both Flynn and me. “Do you? Want to be worshipped, I mean.”
“Rocco.” Flynn’s voice cuts off Rocco’s monologue. “There are people under here.”
“Yeah, about ten feet down. Think you can melt this?” I bite my lip. This is an entire country, there’s no way can we save everyone.
“I can. Rocco, hunt down any immortals in this area. They are probably h
oled up somewhere.” His hands flicker into a burning flame as he spreads them wide to begin the arduous process of getting to the mortals beneath the snow.
“Flynn, what are we going to do if this is what our winters will be?” This is ridiculous. The amount of snow just isn’t possible.
“Something we’ll have to plan for. Or find a fae willing to help our cause.”
“They can control the weather?”
“No, they can control the element of weather.”
“Fucking word games. Never mind just... find the people and make sure they’re okay. I’ll be back.”
“You’re leaving us here? In Ireland? In the middle of a blizzard?” He looks up at me, his eyes wide as saucers.
“I’ll be back. I have to go find wisdom, remember?” I pause before entering the otherworld. “You know this could just be your father, right?”
“I’m aware, but Mae, how would he have gotten here? Not even I can travel the way you can.”
There is the million-dollar question.
Chapter 4
Mae
Otherworld—a spiritual cyclone with those who send spirits off to wherever they need to be. The serenity that overlays the space calms me. Relaxes me. Calls to me. Yet today the realm is silent as death herself enters.
Here, the dead can touch and be touched, a reminder that the land of the living takes those small little pleasures for granted. It would make sense that wisdom would lie here. And yet, nothing.
My mind flashes back to the shifter sisters as one lay in a bed, her magic stolen. I don’t think wisdom is gone, but perhaps stolen.
The most logical culprit is Neit. However, I pause in my willingness to ghost to his tower where he keeps watch over a city frightened of him—holed up on his room, hiding in his green house as the world below suffers. All he cares for is the expansion of his power.
That’s a true sin, but Flynn is right. Though he is a god, he cannot teleport. Not even I really teleport. I pull away the curtains of reality, stepping through and then pulling back the veil in another area. As loath as I am to say it, Neit might not be the guilty party.
“Dammit.” Now what? I ghost through the realms, depositing myself in the library.
The scent of leather and wood assaults my senses, wrapping around me like a lover. Dust moats float in the air with the slight disturbance of my arrival, accented only by the warm sunbeams that highlight ancient tomes and wonderous fiction.
Home. This place will always be my home. No matter how far I fall from my path, this place will always welcome me. My fingers graze the edges of the books, their spines tempting my mind with love and fantasy.
Fantasy I live. I call to my scythe, and the weight presses into my hand, a reminder I’m now fantasy.
“You waste time here, child.” My head lulls to the side as Rhia insults me.
“Who can travel like a ghost, kill a god, then steal his essence?” May as well make use of her presence.
“Riddles. Now you speak as though you are fae.” Is that pride in her voice? I can just hear the hint of a smirk there.
“Reality. Haven’t you been listening in on us?” Unusual.
“Morrigan was there,” she spits. “You may have her gifts, but she still sees us.”
I nod, assuming as much. “You fear her?”
“You don’t know her history, child, do you?” I pause, turning to look at the warrior princess. Her chainmail glistens in the light, and her circlet dips low upon her forehead while her long, blonde hair spills down her back from a high ponytail. “She is but one of our creators.”
“Interesting. Morrigan has her hand in many lives.” Again, I’m unsurprised. She will have to do better than that to shock me.
“Have you thought of a mortal?”
I cant my head to the side, peering off at the doorway in thought. “A human?”
“No, child. A mortal.” I blink my eyes slowly.
“Right, so you call them mortals, and we call them humans.”
“I mean mortals who can wield magic, much like your witch friend.” Her arms reach behind her as she clasps her hands there in a military stance. “You’ve much to learn.”
I roll my eyes. Yeah, tell me something I don’t know. “So, humans that can do magic.”
“I said...” She shakes her head, flustered with me. “Neit isn’t the one who figured out how to capture magical essence.”
“Can’t I just blame him and be done with everything?” It really would make my life so much easier.
“You can blame him, after all, he is the one who set all of this into motion.” She steps through a bookshelf, which is disconcerting. “Come. Learn.”
Well, I did show up here to figure some things out. “I have a theory that Bodb’s essence isn’t gone, but hidden. Why would Morrigan miss that?”
“Her mind is clouded by another.” Her bright eyes scan the shelves. “Yet they told me I was insane.”
“Alive, dead, you aren’t all there. You are definitely bloodthirsty,” I point out, before joining her search.
“I was trained to kill. It’s what I do.”
“Fine, who clouds her judgment?” Curiosity gets the best of me.
“Can’t say.” I swear I see the slightest upturn of her lips.
“You are useless,” I grumble.
“Helpful,” she corrects. “Here, read this book right here.” She taps her fingernail on a spine.
Changelings.
I raise a brow at her. Is this what she means by mortals with magic? I pull the book from the shelf, scanning its pages.
“Let me save you time.”
“Please do.” Why go through the charade if she just planned to tell me anyway? Insanity, that’s why.
“Up until the fall, the fae still stole human children.”
“Why?” I interject.
“Because the Realm was dying. Magic is linked in all things, when you remove parts of that, then the rest will wither and die.” She gives me that condescending stare once more. “That is why the worlds collided. But we aren’t here for a history lesson.”
I frown, kind of wanting a history lesson again.
“The fae sequestered themselves in the Realm, only opening deeply hidden portals where they could pop through and steal children.” She says this so matter-of-factly that I almost wonder if Flynn is even her son. It’s cold, ruthless, and calculated. I hate how she intonates the words. “They lost their ability to procreate. Magic has consequences if it cannot freely roam. That was the consequence.”
“What the hell was the consequence for stealing the kids then?” I swear, magic is a fickle bitch.
“There is no consequence when giving a child a better life, as the fae raise them as their own.” Again, with the factual statements, like this is just an everyday occurrence. Well, I guess for the fae it is. “We aren’t monsters, Mae.”
I want to debate her over the fae giving a human child a better life comment, but I don’t dive into that clusterfuck. Our mindsets are far too different. “You’re insane and losing your minds. That kind of makes you monsters,” I point out.
“You are misguided. Tell me, when a human cannot have a child, do they not adopt?”
I hate this. The way her icy gaze peers at me like I’m a science experiment. “Yes, they adopt.”
“How is that different?” She holds up a hand, cutting off my protest. “Think about it. What if they adopt a child from another country? You aren’t positive of that child’s circumstance. They may be perfectly happy where they live.”
I groan, flopping into my favorite leather chair. I instantly miss my jeans and leather jacket. I wonder if I can just fairy godmother it on me like Morrigan can.
“You see my point.” I refuse to answer her, because I do, and I hate it. “Mortals are not perfect. You should have seen the Dark Ages. It was a bloodbath.” Her smile is fucking chilling, and again I can’t believe she hasn’t killed me during one of our battle sessions.
“You
should really move on. Reincarnate.” Her ghost is just as bloodthirsty.
“No, not yet.” She faces me full force, jumping back to the topic. “Changelings are mortals raised as fae in a realm of magic.”
I thump my head back against the chair. “So why kill Bodb? And steal wisdom?”
“To become.”
I peek at her beneath my lashes. “Say what now?”
“To become,” she repeats. Seriously, she can’t speak like a normal fae? Human? Mortal? Whatever, I just want an interpreter for her weird ways. “A changeling knows our magic. Some learn to manipulate the elements. That knowledge can be deadly, that’s why they are kept in the Realm. Now there is no Realm.”
“Just Tír Na,” I reply, mocking the name of this Earth-Realm hybrid.
“Do not mock the name, there is much that is untold. Tír Na was a land to behold.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Home.”
I can get the concept of home, but their home was the Realm. Not this Tír Na.
The look on her face almost has me laughing. “Tír Na is the original magical being. Our creation story, just as the mortals have theirs.”
“Okay, we’ll leave it for another day.” My mind is halfway to exploding anyway. And I’m feeling restless. “You believe we’re looking for a changeling. If so, then it has to be one related to Bodb and perhaps Neit.”
“Of course, they are brothers, after all.”
Something shifts at the back of my brain—a memory, close but far away. I just can’t seem to reach it. “Brothers?” But the question is more to myself than to the fae in front of me.
“Yes. That is what I said.”
“How many siblings are there?” I wonder.
“Many now, but not always. The gods can be quite... randy.”
That’s it, I’m done. I pop up and walk to the front of the library. I need to spy on Neit, and I’m not going to stand here and listen to a dead fae chatter on about horny gods. Nope, I have a line. That’s my line.
“Fight with me for a bit.” Her voice sounds almost pleading, and I almost feel bad. Almost.
“Twilight,” I counter, compromising. Receiving no reply in return, I peek over my shoulder to find she’s gone. “Meet you at the bleachers after gym class,” I mutter to myself, pushing the door open to head outside.