Chapter 5

F or eight excruciating minutes, I held out, but my mouth conspired against my brain, and words tumbled out faster than I could snap my jaw shut. “What else have I been unconsciously doing to amuse you?”

Kierce shook his head, his glamour flickering. “I’m not laughing at you, Frankie.”

The clench of his shoulders, as if expecting a verbal hit to land, left me wishing I could wipe the question out of the air like an eraser across a chalkboard. And it convinced me there was more to his reaction.

Had Dis Pater laughed at him? Mocked him? Had other god bloods like Ankou?

Had they hurt him? Jabbed him through the bars of his cage? Yanked his feathers?

Worse ideas kept intruding on my thoughts, leaving dark footprints through my mind.

The second I cut into the parking lot at the shop, I had to get out. I needed air. I needed to not be confined. Fuck. Where was this rage coming from? This fury on his behalf when I had no idea if I was right about his response unnerved me.

Matty was the imaginative one. It came from living half in dreams. I was too practical by nature. And if not by nature, then necessity. But dark images kept bombarding me like fact. Like truth. Like memory.

“I believe you,” I said when I sensed his presence behind me.

“You’re angry.”

“Furious.”

A cautious note entered his voice. “Why?”

Because your god is a monster. Because he doesn’t deserve you. Because he’s twisting you to his whims.

Judging Kierce, how he got into this situation or why he hadn’t gotten out of it, was unfair. It wouldn’t fix anything. Only a better understanding of him and his circumstances would do that. I wasn’t sure why the edge of my temper cut toward him anyway. This—all of this—was Dis Pater’s fault. Not Kierce’s.

“It came on me so fast.” I held out my hands, and they trembled. “I’ll be fine in a minute.”

Fear I would have to lean into his quick fix for the spirits if I roused them made it slightly easier to calm.

“You always do that.” He circled my wrists with his fingers. “You brush off any concern for yourself.”

“Habit,” I muttered, knowing he was right but still unwilling to explain the root of my temper.

“You were remade. Some might say reborn. You’re new. You should have broken. Transformation would have broken anyone else.” He turned over my palms. “But your will is so strong, the urge to protect the ones you love so engrained in you, you’ve cut yourself off from your potential to protect them.”

From the gentling in his tone, I didn’t have to glance up to be wary. “Where are you going with this?”

Thumbs tracing patterns on my skin, he sounded torn between sharing or withholding. “I have a theory.”

“Hit me.” I squared my shoulders. “I can take it.”

“I suspect it ties into your difficulty in looking at me without a filter.”

“You’re gorgeous and celestial and…everything…all at once.” I started fidgeting. “Who could blame me?”

“You’re all those things and more.” His earnestness almost convinced me. “So much more.”

“Agree to disagree.” Once I started fidgeting, I couldn’t hold still. “Your theory?”

“You have a skewed perception of yourself. You don’t see yourself as I do, as everyone else does. You—” he shook his head as if struggling to find the words, “—don’t believe you’re worthy.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Of me.” He barely got out that last part. “You wish to appear as an equal in my eyes to bridge a gap you imagine exists between us.”

“I’m a peacock is what you’re saying.” I hid behind my palms. “I’m shaking my tail feathers at you.”

Males of the species were showstoppers, so asking Kierce to wear glamour, dulling himself, was the only way for me to be the flashier one.

Basically, I was jumping up and down while yelling pick me, pick me at the top of my lungs.

“Frankie.” He dragged my arms away from my face. “It’s just a theory.”

“No. You might be onto something. I wouldn’t want to run away and never look back otherwise.”

“A mirror can’t show your worth.” He tugged me closer. “A mirror can’t reflect your heart. A mirror can’t reveal your soul. You’re so much more than a trick of silver under glass.” He searched my face. “Your worth is so much greater than mine. I’m the one who falls short. Not you. Never you.”

“You’re worth more than your looks too. You’re a good man, Kierce. A kind man.”

“And, as Josie frequently reminds me, a weirdo.”

“That might be your best quality.” I pressed my face into his chest. “I like being with a fellow weirdo.”

“Then let’s be weirdos together.”

“Why are you two always making heart eyes at one another?”

The sound of Matty’s voice whipped my head toward him. “We’re not.”

“Josie has made me watch enough anime for me to recognize heart eyes when I see them.”

“That was hentai,” Josie clarified behind me. “And I gave you that DVD boxed set forever ago. As a joke.” Her eyes rounded. “Wait.” She spluttered a laugh. “You watched it? Ha. Loser.” She tapped her chin with a fingertip, her grin sly. “When you say you’ve watched enough , how much is enough cartoon porn?”

Pretty sure the soul—Matty’s actual soul—up and left his body upon Josie airing his secrets so publicly.

“Porn?” Kierce’s forehead pinched as he clued in to Matty’s embarrassment. “What’s porn?”

“I’m so glad you asked, Kierce.” Josie pressed her index fingers together, twisting them back and forth. “When one tentacle monster loves another tentacle monster, sometimes they shove their?—”

“Hey,” Matty shouted awkwardly. “What’s up with the repo?”

To spare my brother more shame, I brought them both up to speed. And then I told them about Vi.

“What I’m hearing is Matty’s extensive knowledge of tentacle monsters might come in handy.” Josie had an uncanny talent for twisting the knife. “Maybe he should take a few days off to be a special consultant for the 514. He has visual aids, after all, so he could educate the officers on first contact. You might want to bring travel-size lube to pass out among your new friends, though. I’ve heard things get slippery fast.”

“I hear Paco calling,” Matty said as he spun and powerwalked into the safety of the shop.

Never mind the fact that if Matty was here, Paco couldn’t be, or that The Body Shop was closed today.

“You can’t hear Paco,” she yelled, trailing after him. “He’s a ghost.”

I let her chase him a minute to get it out of her system, then I caught her by the ponytail and yanked her to a stop. Her growl would have been more menacing if she hadn’t also stamped her foot like a toddler. I cracked a smile where she couldn’t see.

Sweet relief coasted through me at their squabbling. Josie was a long way from healed from what Armie had done to her, to us , but she was a fighter. She had never met a challenge she couldn’t best. She wouldn’t give up on taking back her life or her home. She wouldn’t give up period.

Thank God.

With a feigned sigh, I ordered, “Let him go.”

“How about you let me go?” She turned within my grip to face me. “That hair is attached, you know.”

As much as I hated to hit her where it hurt, scalp notwithstanding, I was reminded of the task she had undertaken in her spare time. “Any luck finding Ankou’s tree?”

The question erased her earlier playfulness, and determination set in. “Not yet, but I’m close.”

No one stood a better chance of locating a specific tree than a dryad, and Josie had sources all over.

With her fully distracted from Matty, I released her. “Good work.”

“There’s a charged patch of soil on the edge of town I’m going to investigate later. It could be a grave, an unofficial one, I mean. Either forgotten or hidden. They can have peculiar energy plants don’t like.”

Peculiar energy sounded promising. “Do you want me to go with you?”

The afternoon stood wide open until dark, when Kierce wanted to try his hand driving on empty roads.

“Nah.” She waved off the offer. “I already told Carter she has to take me.”

Carter, who had a search to organize, was an unlikely choice. “She agreed to this?”

“I won’t say she agreed, but she’ll do it.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “I have my ways.”

“Ways I don’t want to know about.” I wrinkled my nose. “Otherwise, it’s going well between you?”

Rather than a snappy response, she fell silent, her chin angled away from me.

“I think she likes the company. Having someone to come home to,” she murmured. “That sort of thing.”

When she didn’t elaborate, which was unJosielike, I had to prod her. “How about you?”

“The distance helps as much as it hurts,” she admitted. “I want to be with you and Matty but…”

“We’re not going anywhere.” I folded her in a hug that left her wheezing. “Take all the time you need.”

Her eyes were glassy when she withdrew, but she refused to let her tears fall. “Since you’re clearly desperate for my company, I’ll be nice and let you go with me instead of Carter.”

Ankou’s tree aside, I was glad for the excuse to hang out with her. “When?”

“Now is as good a time as any.” She grinned over my shoulder. “Coming, Birdfriend?”

Warmth from Kierce’s nearness caressed my spine as he asked her, “Do you require my assistance?”

“I’m sure Frankie and I can handle it, but it’s not bad.” She rolled her eyes. “Having you around, I mean.”

From Josie that was a gold-star endorsement, and Kierce understood the weight of her approval.

Had I not long suspected she began accepting Kierce to spite Harrow, I would be more impressed with her invitation. As it was, I dared to hope Kierce was carving out his own niche with my siblings. Even this, a simple good faith gesture, was more of a welcome than Josie had ever shown Harrow.

And there I went, thinking about him again.

Harrow.

This whole cutting-people-out-of-your-life thing was harder than I thought it would be.

First Armie. Now Harrow. Small as my social circle was, I couldn’t afford to lose more people from it.

“I would be happy to accompany you.” He inclined his head to her. “I have a vested interest in the tree.”

“We all do.” A cold light entered her eyes. “Anything Armie planted is poison.”

Since he fed me its fruit, and he had made no secret he wanted me dead, her literal interpretation might not be far off base. He must have expected me to rise as a god blood, like him. But thanks to my parents, and Dis Pater being a homicidal glowworm, I woke as a demigoddess instead.

Dis Pater claimed I would have died young, for a necromancer, but that could have meant two hundred or more years. Had Armie’s fruit accelerated my demise? Had my episodes not been escalating with the passage of time but through an increase in my consumption? I didn’t know. I might never know. I wasn’t sure it mattered, in hindsight. He got his wish. I died. Now it was up to us to make sure no one else got a one-way ticket stamped to an eternity of servitude.

“I’ll text Matty,” I volunteered. “Let him know where we’re going.”

A pinch in my chest made it difficult to type the message. I didn’t like leaving him alone.

But if I smothered him, I would be clipping his wings when he deserved to fly for as long as possible.

We’re off to tree hunt.

I hope you lose Josie in the woods.

That’s not nice.

Josie’s not nice.

She has her moments.

Despite the warning voice telling me not to baby him, I couldn’t help but ask.

Will you be okay alone?

I won’t be alone. I’m going to see Leyna.

Should I know that name?

She’s a friend of a friend who invited me to a party tonight.

Teeth clenched against the urge to drill him for details, I restrained myself.

Sounds like fun.

I’ll check in.

Good luck tree hunting.

“He’ll be okay.” Josie picked at a fingernail until it tore then slung her hand. “He will be okay, won’t he?”

That it fell to me to reassure her was nothing new, but the weight of it tipped some internal scale.

Retrieving my keys from my pocket, I mashed my lips firm. “We won’t give him a choice.”

I had to come clean to my siblings. Tonight . Already I had lost my nerve too many times. Fear still tingled down my spine from what happened to Vi earlier. There was every reason to believe Ankou wasn’t done with me yet. And, when he came, my family deserved to be prepared for the chaos trailing in his wake.