Chapter 7

DAISY

The studio had a different atmosphere when I walked in this time. Maybe the mixer had made more of a difference than I first thought.

"Hey, Daisy," Carlos said as I made my way over to the drinks stand.

"Hey." I pushed the button to make myself a coffee, already looking forward to it. I'd have drunk some at home, but when there was a fancy machine here, I didn't see the reason to.

"Did you hear about Mike?"

"No, what happened?" I asked.

"He was disqualified. Told last night over the phone. Something to do with the mixer."

"Wait, what?" I looked over the stations, noticing that the one over from mine was in the dark, indicating that the person inside it had been knocked out. Except that I'd have remembered if that had happened. "Do you have any idea why?"

"No. He was taken off-guard by it. I asked him what could have caused it and he said he didn't know."

"That's odd, I wonder what happened?"

"We'll probably never know unless the producer tells us. What's her name again, Mel something?"

"Melpomene," I responded, looking over at Thor's station and seeing him already there and setting up. Maybe he knew something about Mike. He'd talked to Mel last night.

I supposed it didn't matter. Mike must have done something in order to get knocked out.

Without properly thinking about it, I pressed the button for a second coffee, intending to take it over to him. I was glad I'd paid attention to his coffee order when we were on a break, though it wasn't difficult to get a black coffee right.

I pulled the cups off the machine and said goodbye to Carlos, heading over to where Thor was already warming up. Without meaning to, I ended up staring for a moment, enjoying the way his muscles rippled beneath his shirt. With his shirt sleeves rolled up, it revealed a lot of his toned arms too. He really could lift me with one arm, and I was no slouch when it came to muscle strength.

He turned around, his gaze catching on mine. "Enjoying the show?"

"Only because you're showing off," I responded, hoping it came across in a teasing way.

"Always." He leaned against the wall. "Need anything lifting?"

"I can't tell if that's a genuine offer or just a chance for you to try and flirt?"

"That depends on if you want to be flirted with," he responded. "I still don't even know your real name."

I frowned. "Daisy. Hence Daisy Chain ," I waved to the sign with my name on it.

Understanding dawned on his face. "Well now I feel better about the fact I've been thinking about you as Daisy."

"Just how much have you been thinking about me?" I asked, setting his coffee down. "This is for you, by the way."

"Thanks, I was about to go get one."

"Sorry if I stopped you from going and talking to the others."

"I don't mind," he responded. "The most interesting person is right in front of me."

"So you've decided you're flirting for sure, then?"

He grinned. "If you want me to stop, say the word."

"And if I don't want you to stop?" This was stupid, I shouldn't let myself get mixed up with a god like this. But I couldn't help it.

"Then say nothing," he responded.

I laughed. "That's easy enough. Hey, did you hear about Mike?"

"Who?"

"The guy one over from me." I gestured to the newly dark station. "Apparently he got called and disqualified last night."

"Huh, no idea. He must have done something Mel or one of the other producers didn't like."

"Must have."

"He's lucky it was them trying to get rid of him, a lot of the other gods would have gone for much more extreme measures."

"Oh, and what would you do?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "Strike him down with a thunderbolt?"

He chuckled. "I'm not really able to do that." He lifted his hand and some sparks that looked a bit like lightning lept from it. "That's where that came from."

"Oh." I frowned. "But that just looks like normal witch magic, I can do that." I held up the hand not holding my coffee and made the same kind of sparks appear.

"That's because I am a witch," he responded. "Kind of."

"Right, because you used to be mortal."

He nodded. "I probably can't do much more than you can, magic-wise. So nothing to worry about in the competition."

"You say that, but you also have two thousand more years of experience than I do."

"Well technically, one thousand, nine hundred and seventy-five," he responded.

I snorted. "Your flirting went too far, no way do you believe I'm twenty-five."

"Twenty-six?" From the twinkle in his eyes, I had to assume that he was joking.

"Try adding ten years," I responded. "But I'll take the compliment."

"You should, you look great. And if it helps, a lot of the beauty gods like to stay looking in their thirties."

"So you get to choose your appearances?" Without meaning to, I raked my gaze up and down him. His clothing was practical but did nothing to hide the strong physique beneath.

"Not really. But as far as I know, most of them are able to do a few wrinkle removal spells."

"Ah." I had to admit that wasn't what I expected him to say. The stories of the gods made them sound so powerful and like they had a lot more magic than the rest of us. Maybe Thor shouldn't have been telling me about the way it worked, though he didn't seem to be acting in a way that suggested anything he was telling me was actually confidential.

That only confused me more.

The bell sounded that signalled we were about to start filming. Thor smiled at me and downed the rest of his coffee, throwing the cup into the bin at his station.

Knowing that I'd already lost valuable time, I headed into my own, finishing my coffee and checking over the equipment so that at least the basics were in place. Without knowing exactly what the challenge was, there wasn't much else that I could do. There were a few things I was expecting but hadn't come up yet, including a challenge where we had to team up with one of the other competitors.

My gaze slipped over to Thor's station next to me. I supposed that could be worse. From what I'd seen of how he worked, I don't think I'd mind being paired with him. But it hadn't come up yet, so it wasn't something I should be giving much thought to.

"Could all of the competitors come down to the floor?" Rosie called.

I took a deep breath and straightened out my shirt so that I looked the part.

"As you might have noticed, we've lost one of our competitors," Duncan said. "Mike has had to withdraw from the competition for personal reasons."

Thor scoffed beside me, clearly not believing the blatant lie. While Carlos looked confused, probably because he'd heard from Mike and knew he'd been dismissed.

"We wish Mike all the best," Rosie said. "But it's not going to stop the competition. This week, we want you to make flowers."

Excitement rose within me.

"It's up to you how you do it, but you have to use a technique that you've never used before," Duncan said.

I looked over at Thor who had a pleased expression on his face. I knew exactly what he was thinking, and I was going to be trying the same thing. It turned out that our impromptu swapping of techniques was about to pay off. There was no way I was going to be able to make anything as good as he did with his cloud, but combined with everything else I knew about creating flowers out of metal, it was going to make a big difference to my chances in this round.

"What are you waiting for?" Rosie asked. "Your time starts now!"

Six hours appeared on the countdown timer behind us and I took a deep breath. It wasn't a huge amount of time, but I could work with it.

"I hope you don't mind me trying what you showed me," Thor said as we made our way back to our stations.

"Of course not, because I'm going to do the same," I responded. "And I look forward to what you do with it."

He snorted. "I might not go that far, I'm probably going to butcher it."

"You're not," I assured him. He was far too talented for that. "But if the metal is resisting, a little bit of magic can do the trick."

He raised an eyebrow. "I'm surprised you do that."

I shrugged. "I don't like to, it feels like it goes against what the metal wants, but sometimes, the situation calls for it."

"Good note." He paused by his station. "If your hammer doesn't shape the metal like you want, move on, if you hit it too many times, it loses the lightness."

"Got it." I smiled at him and headed to work, knowing exactly what I was going to make.