Dean nodded. “Yes. Close enough. But in Fae, it will be unique. Fae Magic is best understood by experiencing the external—your senses, for lack of a better term.”
I frowned. “Thinking too hard on Fae stuff has recently sent me into the fetal position, and that’s just when I think about it. You want me to hold it?”
“In Fae, you will no longer have that problem. The reason for your affliction lies primarily in the contradiction of your life. You sit here, in Chateau Falco with televisions, mobile phones, tablet computers, radios, and fast food. And you’re trying to force yourself to believe you lived in a world with none of that. You know for a fact you were born in this other place, but you have very little personal memory of it, so when you try to recall those memories, your…Earth mind…tells you you’re crazy and responds appropriately—shutting you down before you begin to believe your delusion.”
I almost fell over at such a concise, simple explanation. “You mean…all I have to do is go over there and live for a little while? And the flashbacks won’t bothered me?”
Odin scoffed. “Years, most likely. Hence, the Forcing. But yes, the flashbacks will not be a problem in Fae.”
“That actually makes perfect sense.” I thought about it some more. “And being over there won’t cause any problems with my Earth memory, because I already have that in my mind. There is no reason to disbelieve it. I remember it all.”
Odin nodded, looking reservedly proud. “In Fae, your senses will pick up on familiarities, helping you cope with the memories. Still, that will take significant time—which you do not have, for multiple reasons I do not need to explain,” he said, letting me know he meant the Bifröst, Mordred, and any other number of things I had spoken about to him as either my butler or Odin.
“Now, using a…significant amount of Fae Magic can send you into shock. A shock that might even fill in the gaps in your soul with an overabundance of Fae magic, making your mind more susceptible to accepting parts of your childhood as Wylde. Because over there, your instincts are on the edges of your soul—heightened. And shock is the moment when all your senses are overwhelmed and flooded with impulses from your body. Like striking a flint to kindling.”
“In this example, am I the kindling or the flint?” I asked, not liking the sound of his plan.
He ignored my question. “Hypothetically, this could shock you back to life, as it were. And look, who just broke the Bifröst and needs to suddenly use a vast level of magic? But you must immerse yourself in your emotions and senses. One shock may not be enough. And you will need help to repair the Bifröst. You are not accustomed to holding such power. Perhaps your parents may have left you items that could assist you. Hypothetically.”
I stared back at him, keeping my face blank. Could…that be true? The three artifacts from my parents were intended for this? But the level of foresight to make that possible…
“Forcing will get your body accustomed to the shock you will face when repairing the Bifröst. And between the Forcing and the Shock…perhaps your memories will no longer be a concern when you return.”
“Hypothetically.”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“Did you set this all up?” I asked, thinking of my parents. How else could they have known that I would need these random artifacts? Maybe Odin had used them, not the other way around. “Maybe you set all this up years ago. Told them to get the Hourglass in Fae, where you knew they would conceive and birth me. Then carefully concocted a plan with Anubis, Pan, and whoever the hell else is behind all these lies, to get them to raise me there. Then, you told Thor where I was going to be tonight. That I had his hammer. The hammer you had to have stolen and hidden years ago when you last saw him. Right before you came to work for my parents. Then, here you are, saving the day to tell me what I need right when I’m begging anyone I can for advice.”
I didn’t voice another thought. Pandora had told me I would need to listen to the Wanderer, and I suddenly remembered why that had tickled my mind. Odin had many names.
And one of those was the Wanderer. It hadn’t truly hit me until I saw him standing against Thor with his rippling robes and Gungnir.
Alex let out a long whistle, nodding his agreement. “Makes sense,” he said calmly, not flinching under Dean’s glare—which was a first, for him. He flinched from Dean, but not after learning Dean was really Odin? What kind of sociopath was Alex? Had he been a victim of this mad plan as well? Hell, maybe Odin had kidnapped and delivered him to Fae in the first place. Knowing I would rescue him, eventually.
Dean’s lips grimaced with mild anger, and I recalled him talking about sensing trouble in the air tonight. Then saying the same thing when he arrived—about how he wished he had known the events that were to transpire. As if he might have locked me up in the house to prevent them from happening, to keep his identity a secret.
“I did not know,” he finally said. “But…for the sake of argument, let’s pretend that I did set all of this up. What could you really do about it? Seems like if I am the mastermind behind this crazy scheme, I just gave you the solution to your fairy drama. So…unless you like curling up into a fetal position whenever you have a flashback, does it really matter? At the least, you would need to keep playing my game in order to find a way to overcome your handicap and turn it all against me later, correct?” he said as if reading a scientific journal on the mating habits of dung beetles.
I grimaced. He was, unfortunately, spot on.
Odin studied me thoughtfully. “The only explanation I have is that you are beginning to learn things that were hidden from you—for very good reason—for decades. This awareness and knowledge—and the fact that you keep whining about it to everyone who will listen to how unfair your life is—has perhaps caught the attention of the very ones your parents intended to keep you safe from—for you to one day fight. And now they are retaliating, to find the reason why you are so special—how and why they involved so many entities and pantheons in keeping secrets from you—and from each other.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Things have already changed from what I had anticipated—from what your parents told me to expect. You have painted a very large target on your head, and I think you have done it sooner than your parents hoped. You better…level up, boy. I no longer know what to expect, and even godlings can die.”
Alex narrowed his eyes at Dean, not appreciating his tone. I was still trying to process the casual admission that my parents had essentially recruited Odin—and lied to him as well.
Dean snapped his fingers, and a portal made of water appeared behind him, opaque so I couldn’t see where it led. “Now, I must go to Asgard to calm them down about the Bifröst and explain my absence.” My eyes widened in alarm, and he smiled. “I will have to get creative. I am quite talented at weaving fictions, if you haven’t noticed thus far,” he said drily. “If Odin can pass as a butler to the most demanding little shit to ever walk the earth—somehow managing not to drown Master Temple to death in his bathwater when he couldn’t follow simple, basic rules…” he grumbled, locking his eyes with mine. “If I—Odin—can maintain humility enough to not only act as butler, but to excel at it for decades without ever being discovered, by anyone…I’m sure I can come up with a convincing tale for my fellow Aesir.”
“I’ve had enough Aesir meddling with my life.”
He stared at me blankly for a moment, and I felt he was trying to impart something, but the look vanished was gone before I could decipher it.
“Destroying the Bifröst truly is a Ragnarok-level event. I wouldn’t waste time smelling the flowers in Fae. Forcing seems your best course of action. If not for the Bifröst, I imagine your foe, Mordred, requires expediency as well. And, take long enough and you might hear my favorite song.”
“Oh?” I asked.
“The Aesir are coming, the Aesir are coming…” And his tone made it sound like a funeral dirge, or a war chant.
Chapter 18
Alex cleared his throat, his hand
s clasped behind his back. “We should expect this fight to hit the news,” he said, gesturing at the destroyed dumpster, broken windows, two unconscious goats, chariot, and the piles of rainbow guts lying here and there.
“Dean will take care of the goats and chariot. Other than that, we should be fine,” I said.
Dean made a sweeping gesture with his hand, and the chariot and goats whipped past him into the portal of water. Sleipnir gave us one last glare for good measure before walking through the portal ahead of his Master. Then Dean nodded his head at me and stepped backwards into the portal. It closed behind him, and the dome above us dissipated into fog. Grimm let out a sigh of relief the moment Sleipnir was gone.
Helicopters hovered all around the parking lot, spotlights sweeping the area and buildings for any evidence of the cause of the explosion earlier—some smoking gun to point at.
Like us.
Alex suddenly gripped my arm. “What about that?” he asked, pointing at the ground near the pile of rainbow shards that had trapped Thor. A ten-foot tall message was scorched into the asphalt—actually carved into it in one-inch deep gouges. “Nate Temple was here.” Thor’s dagger—now broken—lay beside it, purpose served.
Or a smoking gun like that, damnit.
I growled, but a helicopter was suddenly angling right for us, and rather than let him get a sight of two dudes and a unicorn at a crime scene, I decided it was better to simply leave the message in the asphalt and get as far away as possible from the scene.
Alex cursed, walking backwards to keep an eye on the helicopter and stay out of the spotlight. “What about Gunnar and Achilles? Those people recognized you at the bar, and now this message. We can’t risk Gunnar and Achilles saying something—”
Grimm neighed aggressively at the helicopters. “How do you think I found you? Achilles used his Tiny Balls to drag Gunnar—who was unconscious for some reason—back to Chateau Falco. Dean looked at me and sent me to—”
Grimm jolted as if only just now considering what he had said. Alex had an equally surprised look on his face. Dean—Odin—had sent Grimm here to help me? But…why had he chosen to make his own appearance, then? Because of the Bifröst breaking? He realized he had chosen the wrong horse for the job?
Without Grimm breaking the Bifröst, I might not have learned the truth about Dean being Odin. Then again, Odin had seemed genuinely frustrated to come clean about it all—not just to me, but the world—to his own son.
What would he have to gain by orchestrating headaches for himself?
Maybe he was being played, too. Because someone—possibly this alleged mysterious group of people my parents wanted me to fight—had sent Thor here tonight.
And there was always the chance that they would send Thor after us again, no matter how far away Odin had sent him. Or the rest of the Aesir.
Either way, we had a new deadline. Literally. I glanced down to see I was squeezing the War Hammer in my fist. I didn’t remember even grabbing it from my satchel. But I didn’t feel like letting it go either. Probably when I was thinking about Thor.
“We’ll worry about that later.” I threw down my Tiny Balls and jumped through the Gateway back to Chateau Falco. Grimm and Alex followed after me, and the Gateway winked out right as a spotlight locked onto the crude message carved into the asphalt. I heard police sirens converging on the site.
I turned to the two of them. “My timetable just jumped up a few hours, so hopefully Gunnar isn’t still down for the count or I’m leaving him behind.” I turned to Grimm. “I need you to cut loose, Grimm. Kill as many fucking rainbows as you can find, as fast as you can. This is your moment to become famous. Because I need you two in Fae as soon as possible since we don’t know how badly the time-slippage will be between Earth and Fae. An hour here could be a week there. Or vice versa.” I let that settle in.
Grimm licked his lips. “No problem, Hope. No fucking problem. Hop on, pooper-scooper. We’ve got some rainbow shit to bag up.”
Alex grinned as he hopped up onto Grimm’s back like he had done it for years. Then again, he had been friends with Pegasus for some time, now, and had gotten used to riding horses. He looked resolved to the task at hand, holding out a hand for my satchel.
I handed it over immediately and was already walking backwards towards Falco as my mind raced with conspiracy theories—who to trust, and who not to trust. “Hurry,” I urged them, squeezing the War Hammer in my fist, “and keep an eye out for Thor or any other Aesir!”
“The shitty part about this plan,” Grimm offered, “is that rainbows typically appear after thunderstorms. So, the timing could suck less if Thor does escape wherever Odin sent him.”
He had a point. Pep-talk time.
“This is serious, guys. No fucking around. We already have enough to worry about. Just murder some godsdamned rainbows, collect their beautiful guts, and shove them in my magic sack. You know how to find me when it’s full.”
They both nodded, but Grimm locked eyes with me. “We’ll be moving fast and won’t remain long enough in one place to hear your call. We’ll likely ride the Night Currents to avoid any potential meetings with lightning boy or his fellow Aesir.”
I nodded, having no freaking idea what the Night Currents were, and having no time to really freaking care at the moment. I’d learned that ignorance suited me perfectly fine at times. I knew Grimm wouldn’t risk taking Alex anywhere that would inherently melt his face from his skull, and that was good enough for me.
I turned, sprinting towards my front door, thinking of anything else I might need to ask Dean to pack up for my trip—
My stomach suddenly roiled with acid. No. Dean wasn’t here. And he wasn’t my butler.
I could grab my own last-minute items. I’d already packed everything I needed. The essentials for survival, the Hand of God, the Hourglass my parents had stolen from the Fae, and the War Hammer currently gripped in my fist. A thunderous boom echoed through the night sky right as I reached out my free hand to tuck my satchel behind my back as I ran so that it didn’t slap me on the ass—
I skidded to a halt, swatting my ass in confusion. No satchel. None of my parents’ artifacts except for the War Hammer in my fist.
I sucked in a deep, calming breath, and shouted, “Motherfucker!” at the top of my lungs. The sound of Grimm’s thunderous departure echoed through the skies in perfect harmony with my shout. I panted a few times, muttering under my breath and squeezing the hilt of the War Hammer as hard as I could. “What the hell are the Night Currents?”
Chapter 19
I was as tight-lipped as possible as we wrapped up last minute preparations to leave for Fae, basically delegating any last-minute requests and reminders to Talon.
I was rummaging around in the pantry, stuffing items into my shirt—which I had fashioned into an impromptu bowl—when Ashley spoke directly behind me, making me jump.
“What are you doing in here?” She took one look at my stash and grinned conspiratorially. “You going to Heavyweights camp?” she teased, pointing at my items.
I scowled at her. “Just because you’re pregnant, don’t think I won’t cut you over a bag of marshmallows,” I warned, covering my stash by turning slightly away.
She rolled her eyes. “Good luck with that. I wanted to talk to you about Gunnar…”
I sighed, leaning back against the shelves of the pantry, motioning for her to go on.
“Keep him safe over there, Nate, and go easy on him. No teasing, unless he seems playful. But let him kill as much as he wants if he’s angry. He needs the distraction, and murder always improves his mood when he gets like this. Although I’ve never seen him get quite this…this,” she admitted, obviously having no idea what word to use to describe whatever was going on with Gunnar after his recent gender reveal surprise—both pink and blue!
Also, her suggestion was a little, oh, I don’t know, insane? It made me nervous to even bring him along, as a matter of fact.
My eyes had widened a bit, b
ut she rolled right over my silent surprise.
“Our children will know their father. And their godfather. If you let anything happen to you guys, I’ll kill you. Oh, and don’t forget to have fun.”
“You cornered me in the pantry to threaten me?” I demanded, but she was already walking away. I was entirely sure that she was entirely unaware of the contradicting advice she had just given me, but I didn’t have time to argue.
My first stop was the Sanctorum before anyone else got there. After my chat with Pandora—and now fearing that Dean might not necessarily be on Team Temple—I needed to protect the ichor in the Round Table. Just in case it was one of the pieces of Excalibur she had mentioned. Even if it wasn’t, it was dangerously powerful—somehow helping fortify my Horseman’s Mask—and I couldn’t risk it falling into the wrong hands.
I couldn’t leave it here, especially since I didn’t know how long I would be gone. I reached the Sanctorum and walked each of the upper levels, checking for Huginn and Muninn. I sensed nothing, so pulled the War Hammer out of my old Fendi satchel—my replacement after stupidly giving Alex my Darling and Dear satchel before taking out the artifacts—and studied it, making my way towards the Round Table on the main level. At least I hadn’t left the hammer behind, too.
I’d seen it absorb and amplify powers of several different flavors before, including Fae, Maker, wizard, some neat revenge action on an old dragon friend of mine, and even the ichor that had momentarily flowed in my own veins after I killed Athena. Now that I was certain that it wasn’t Thor’s hammer, I was betting it was actually some kind of container, like the other artifacts my parents had left me.
The Hand of God had also been a container—for a Maker’s power. And the Hourglass was quite literally a container of flowing sand, able to control the time-slippage between Fae and Earth—if one wanted to risk a Fae army hunting them down the moment they activated it.
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