He gives a halfhearted laugh. “My dad.”
“Of course,” I murmur.
There’s a moment’s pause, and I’m worried we’re about to sink into silence. Then he speaks up again, obviously trying to move the conversation to happier places. “So tell me your big news!”
I snap my fingers. “Yes, thank you. Almost forgot!” I put down my fork and a gleeful look settles onto my face. “It’s the kids—they believe in me!”
“Of course they do! I’d buy you as a princess any day.”
“No, no, you don’t understand. They believe. It’s like I’m this kind of living proof their hopes and dreams are real, and when they realize that—when they have me standing there in front of them, proving them right—there’s this surge of reassurance and conviction from them. It empowers me, Nathan. It’s like gaining a tiny piece of a worshipper every time.”
“Well, go, you. But how does that even work?” Nathan asks. “They can’t know you’re actually Freya, so how—”
“I have no idea,” I say, shrugging. “She wasn’t praying; I know that. As long as it’s heartfelt, I can hear any prayer in my name, no matter the source, so it must be something else. I never really thought about how we get our powers, to be honest. All I ever knew was that the more believers I had, the stronger I’d be. You people … you’re magic on a very fundamental level, so deep you can’t even tell, but I know we wouldn’t exist without you.”
“Wild.”
“I just wish I knew more about it. How it works, why it makes us thrive or wither.” I pause. This line of thinking is leading somewhere I’ve never even cared to go, and I’m not entirely sure why. It’s the most obvious question, now that I think of it—yet it’s taken this long for me to bring it up? “How it gave me life,” I say, feeling my curiosity grow by the second.
“Hm. We need an instruction manual,” Nathan mumbles, thinking. “Well, here: What’s your first memory?”
“Now, that is going back a ways,” I say, screwing my eyes closed and trying to remember. After a minute of effort, I open them, sighing in frustration. “Nothing there. It’s all too ancient. When my strength fled, most of my memories went with it. I can barely recall what I was doing a few centuries ago, much less the moment of my birth.”
“Worth a shot,” Nathan says, nodding as if he didn’t expect me to remember. I get the feeling he can’t recall much about his first days, either. “Then let’s think about it from a different angle. People have to believe first. And it’s obviously not just about believing something is real even when it’s not. Cinderella’s not a god, after all.”
“Right,” I say, bobbing my head. “I’m with you so far.”
“So something in how they worship you matters. Whatever it is, it gives you the edge you need to survive, to fortify yourself—and that something is missing from other fictional creatures. For some reason, you and your kind are made to grow, to feed on our belief and—”
“Catch it,” I say. “That’s what I did today. They sent it out to me, and I caught a piece, kept it for myself.”
“It’s like you’re stealing the mail.”
“What?”
“Silly expression,” Nathan says, waving a hand. “It’s like they’re mailing care packages to someone they love—like Cinderella—and you’re opening them and nabbing a few cookies.”
“Pretty much.”
And those cookies, oh, how delicious they are. Even the vaguest promise of belief fills me with a ravenous hunger. We pause, digesting this analogy of Nathan’s, and I eat a few more forkfuls of the stir-fry. Maybe it’s just the vegetables he used. I’m more of a beetroot, carrots, and cabbage kind of girl, and there are water chestnuts and snap peas and all kinds of weird stuff in here. It makes me wonder what his background is—what kind of heritage he calls his own. Then my thoughts bounce from there to something far more interesting to me, and because gods are nosy things, I don’t stop to wonder if it’s a topic he’d rather avoid.
“Hey, Nathan?” I ask. He looks up, curious. “That ex of yours—what happened there?”
He blinks at my directness, then sets his fork down. “Uh, well, we broke up…”
“And some fire was involved…” I add.
“Ha, yeah, that—not my finest moment,” he says, looking uncomfortable. “She just—ugh, do you really want the whole story?”
I give him a look. It says, Duh. God of love, remember? I eat this stuff up.
He sighs. “All right, here goes. Her name was Hannah. We met in high school. She was also into design, and she was really, really good at it. We hit it off, turned serious, were together for a while.” He turns wistful as he speaks, and I get the sense the memories he’s unearthing are happy ones. “Then we graduated. She stuck with me, even though her parents would’ve sent her to college. Knew there was no way I could afford it and didn’t want to separate us. We both started freelancing, looking for work.”
Regret starts replacing the pleasure in his mind. “Remember how I said she was good? Well, she kept getting better. Got a great job in no time. Yay, right?”
“I’m guessing there was a catch.”
“Had to be.” He picks up his fork again, gives his food a halfhearted stir. “It was in another state. Dream job, of course. Couldn’t be anything less, could it? So there was no way I was standing in the way of that. I wanted her to take it, wanted her to kick ass and rule the world … but I had friends and job leads and an apartment and a life. I wasn’t ready to leave.”
“Long-distance relationship?”
He snorts. “For something like three months. All those leads fell through, friends got jobs or moved away, and here I am, with absolutely no good reason to stay.”
“Why did you?”
He makes a helpless gesture with his hands. “Right?” he says, exasperated. “I guess I wanted to make it on my own, just like she did. What, was I going to follow her to an even bigger city and fail there, too? What was she going to see in that?”
Ah, there’s a classic for you. “Felt like you wouldn’t be equal? Worried things would always feel off?” I ask.
“I loved her,” he says, and the quivering spear of pain that lances his mind in that moment tells me a part of him still does. “I couldn’t take the … the risk.” He groans. “Stupid. I didn’t want to risk losing her, so I lost her. So stupid. Couldn’t pick myself up, walk out the door, and take a chance.”
“She broke it off, or…?”
He frowns. “Sort of. I’m still not sure. There was a huge fight. Surprised the webcam didn’t melt. She didn’t get it, I didn’t get it, and we were both really mad about it. In the end, I convinced myself it was better for her if we weren’t together. She caught on, got furious I’d made that kind of decision for her. Told me I was treating her like a child.”
He looks up at me, embarrassed as I’ve ever seen him. “That was around where I burned her clothes. On camera.”
I wince. “Seemed like a good idea at the time?”
His eyes widen and he shakes his head. “I don’t know if there’s ever a time where that’s a good idea. I think I was riffing off the ‘child’ comment. ‘You want childish? Here’s—’” He rubs his face with his hands. “It went downhill after that.”
“I’ll bet.”
He gives his bowl an idle tap. “I hope she’s happy. I mean, the whole thing would hurt a lot less if she’d been a bitch and I hated her, but you can’t always be that lucky, I guess.”
I nod. “There’s always next time,” I say, smiling. Then a thought occurs to me. “Is that why you were so eager to toss it all away and follow some random goddess out the door?”
He laughs. “I’d like to think I played a little hard to get.”
“Really? I’ve had longer arguments with you over pizza toppings.”
That just gets me more laughter, and I’m glad for it. I’d hate to think I ruined a perfectly nice dinner with my prying.
“You might be right,” he says at
last. “I spent so long beating myself up about the whole thing maybe I was primed to take a chance.” He looks me in the eyes, and I see the gratitude there. “Whatever the real reason, Sara, I’m glad I did.”
Aw. Corny little sweet-talker. I hope I’m not blushing. “Me too, Nate,” I say, and we return to our meals. The conversation drifts back to idle thoughts and pleasantries for a few minutes, until I realize there’s another bit of important news I haven’t shared.
“Oh! Hey!” I say, brightening up. “Totally slipped my mind—got another bombshell for you.”
“What’s that?”
“When I was in the park today, I felt the presence of another god.”
He gets an impressed look on his face. “You get all the adventures! Could you tell who it was?”
I shake my head. “No, but he’s strong. I’m going back to look for him on my days off.”
“Are you going to try to team up?” he asks.
“I doubt it. Unless they’re from the same pantheon, gods don’t tend to ally with one another. We don’t play nice.”
He shrugs. “All competing for the same believers, I guess,” he says.
“Yeah, exactly,” I reply. “It’s literally life or death for us. But this god might know something. He’s clearly managed to hold on to his power all the way into the present day, so it would be a good idea to at least talk to him. Besides, I want him on my side. If he decides I’m a nuisance, well, I don’t want him to blow my cover and force us to move again.”
“Hell no,” Nathan says, seeming indignant at the thought. “Not after all our hard work. Plus there’s all that new belief you just found.”
“Absolutely! I had a handful of hour-long shifts today, and from those alone I feel like I managed to gain more strength than I did in years at Inward.”
“That’s great, Sara!” Nathan says, sounding pleased. “I wish I had some news of my own on that level, but all I’ve done so far is update my website and begin working on a few new designs for my portfolio.”
“You, my high priest, are doing everything I could hope for and more,” I say gratefully, pointing at him with my fork.
He grins at the compliment. Then the smile slides away, replaced by a rather serious expression. “Hey, Sara?” he says softly.
“Mm?” I say around a mouthful of stir-fry.
“That, um, kiss back at the restaurant? I’m sorry about that. I think I might’ve given you the wrong impression. I mean, I like you, but I’m not the kind of guy who tries to get into the pants of every woman he meets.”
I frown. “It does take two, Nathan.”
“Right, yeah, but it’s just—” He sighs, clearly trying to find the right words, and I decide to help him out.
“Look, Nathan, I’m over a thousand years old,” I say. “I’m not a pampered teenager, regardless of how I look. I actually did like the kiss, too. It’s been a really long time. But you’re right; it probably wasn’t exactly your decision.”
He gives me a calculating look. “You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?” he asks, smiling.
I offer a halfhearted shrug. “Comes with the territory. Look, it was a charged moment and that part of my brain was feeling frisky. I probably short-circuited your sense of restraint. Was nice at the time, but we are on the run and we did just meet—I know you didn’t mean for anything to come out of it, and neither did I. I’ve been meaning to bring it up, but then there was that thing with the phone and getting this job and … it kind of got lost in the shuffle.”
“So it’s okay,” he says, seeming relieved.
“Absolutely,” I say, a little taken aback. “What kind of cheesy romantic comedy do you think this is? ‘God of love’ does not mean ‘needs a date now.’”
“Can’t stand those movies,” he says. “I’m glad I don’t have to live one, either.”
“Careful, priest,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “Just because I don’t live by the rules of awful chick flicks doesn’t mean they’re not a guilty pleasure of mine.”
He quirks an eyebrow at that, then laughs. “Fair enough,” he says, still smiling. “You know what? I’m just going to wing it.”
“Most sensible thing you’ve said all night,” I say, eating some more of his stir-fry.
We both chew a few more bites in silence before he speaks up again. “I researched you, you know.”
“Oh?”
“Read everything I could about you online.”
Oh geez. I’ve been through a few of those sites myself. As you’d expect, they all get a few things right, but nobody has the whole picture. People seem to like thinking of gods as people with superpowers, but we act in some decidedly inhuman ways, and each of us is just a bit different in how we do it. Far too many, however, appear to dwell on the fact that I have a reputation for being beautiful and promiscuous. Really, Loki, thank you so much for that one. “Please tell me you didn’t spend much time on the more … risqué sites,” I say.
He pauses, then picks the safest—if unlikeliest—option. “Can’t say I found any.”
“Mm-hm. Well, what did you find?”
“All sorts of stuff. It’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not.”
“Big things are usually true,” I say, “but they tend to get the details wrong.”
“Actually, the big things were what I was curious about,” he says. “You’re the god of love, beauty, fertility, magic, and war, right? Those are the main things you cover?”
“Yes. Add vanity to the list, too, actually.”
“All right.” He stops, thinking that one over. I see a look of understanding in his eyes that tells me he realizes that particular specialization of mine is probably going to bite him in the ass one of these days, but then he shakes his head and dismisses the thought. “So two questions, then,” he continues. “First, what does ‘magic’ mean? I’ve read the myths, but what can you do with it?”
“Right now, not a whole lot,” I say, feeling embarrassed to admit it. “But in my heyday, I could enchant entire armies, raise the dead, bring down castles, invoke prophecies, curse my enemies … you name it. I’m a master of seidh, which is a kind of Nordic sorcery. Taught it to Odin, actually. He got more into the divination side of things—foresight, scrying, prophetic visions—but I was always the best at charms and enchantments.”
“Except you’ve been weakened over centuries, so you can’t use it as well,” he says, looking as if he sympathizes with my plight. I think he might be starting to get the barest inkling of what I’ve lost.
“Don’t remind me,” I say miserably, digging around in my stir-fry for more meat. “The only thing I have left is the concept to which I’m closest: love.”
“Lucky thing, too. I doubt we would’ve accomplished much otherwise.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” I say. “You’ve done a great job driving the car.”
“Should add that to my résumé,” he says, laughing.
I smile, glad to be reminded he has a sense of humor. It’s something of a requirement for spending time around gods (we tend to be jerks). “So what was your second question?”
“Oh, right,” he says. “Well, there are other gods out there who cover things like love, beauty, war, and so on. What do you do when you meet them? How do you divide things up?”
“We usually try to kill each other,” I say matter-of-factly. His eyes widen, and he seems a little taken aback by that. “I’m serious—gods from separate pantheons don’t really get along, but ones who share portfolios are instant rivals.”
“Have you ever—”
“Infuriating pretenders,” I hiss, mashing my stir-fry. Just the thought of it is bringing back all sorts of unpleasant memories. “I swear, I will wring Aphrodite’s scrawny, powdered neck if I ever see—”
“Okay, question answered,” Nathan says, holding up his hands. “Forget I asked.”
“Sorry,” I say, shaking myself. “Touchy subject.”
“I can see that,” Nathan sa
ys, a curious look on his face.
“What?” I ask. “What are you thinking?”
“Oh, just kind of interesting to watch the warrior side of you surface,” he explains. “Same thing happened back in the restaurant, with Garen. One moment you’re all sweetness and light, and the next you’re flying through the air with a steak knife.”
“You’ll probably see shifts like that happen a lot,” I say. “We’re all bad at regulating our emotions, though some gods are worse than others. Besides, the bastard made me throw away a perfectly good dinner. How else was I supposed to react?”
“Well, what do you say we make up for it, then?” he asks, leaning back in his chair. “Actually finish that dinner properly.”
“Nathan, are you asking me out on a date?” I ask, pretending to be coy. After our conversation a few minutes ago, I know he’s not, but it’s fun to try to push buttons.
“Believe it or not, two people of opposite genders are allowed to eat at a restaurant together and not be in a relationship,” he says, lowering his voice as if it’s confidential information.
“Teach me more of this modern land, oh great and worldly Web designer,” I say, chuckling.
“All good things in time,” he says, affecting a haughty tone. “So where do you want to go?”
“Actually, let me handle that one,” I say, a place immediately popping into my head.
“Got something in mind?”
“Well, there’s a steakhouse at Epcot that’s supposed to be amazing. Heard some cast members talking about it.”
“The universe does owe you a filet mignon.”
“Damn right it does,” I say with a fierce nod. “I should be able to get us both into the park pretty easily, but for the restaurant, you’re supposed to have reservations six months in advance.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Leave it to me.”
“Oh, I’ve got faith,” Nathan says, polishing off the last of his stir-fry.
I think back to the flare of belief he gave me the instant I told him who I really was, and smile. “I know, Nathan,” I say softly.
* * *
The next day, we head to Epcot late in the late afternoon, intent on doing some sightseeing while we’re there. The scent of divinity is here, too, and I think it might be even stronger than it was back at the Magic Kingdom. I’m immensely curious about this god. What could he be doing here? After spending a few hours touring the park, we arrive at Le Cellier Steakhouse, just in time for our seven o’clock dinner reservation. We are almost late, and would have been if Nathan hadn’t managed to drag me away from the Norway Pavilion. I’d been begging for just five more minutes, but he insisted, telling me the Canada Pavilion was still a good walk away. I swear I could spend the entire day in that little slice of Scandinavia; it’s just so delightfully kitschy. You have all these adorable shops and bakeries, a replica stave church, and even a cute little Frozen-themed ride in Viking longships, all of it staffed by Norwegians in charming folk costumes. I couldn’t stop grinning the entire time. Imagine if someone took your centuries-old home, added some of the most memorable aspects of its culture—aspects you had a direct hand in creating—and then made a theme park attraction out of them. I’m honestly flattered. Just thinking about it makes me want to go back. It’s great.
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