26. Sandro
Sandro
T he journey back to Earth was similar to the journey to the Underworld, only this time, the River Styx took us all the way to the front door of my next destination.
I wasn’t sure how this magic worked or whether it was even magic at all because I had a sense this went beyond that, but I kept my questions to myself. I had far more important things to worry about than satisfying my curiosity for things unknown.
“We could take you inside if you want,” Thanatos said.
I shook my head and rang the doorbell.
“I know your jobs are a little more intrusive, but that’s an invasion of their privacy.”
The young brunet man, who was probably more ancient than this whole world combined, nodded. “My lord, do you think we can be excused?” he asked, looking to his brother for support.
And just when I was beginning to think they were turning over a new leaf.
“Are you in a hurry, Thanatos? Is helping your master not a worthy cause?” I crossed my arms and waited for them to grovel.
“O-of course it is, my lord. I didn’t mean to insult or offend you.” He was a little more apprehensive than I anticipated.
He was hiding something.
“Then, of course, you won’t mind staying with me.”
“No, of course not, but…”
“My lord,” Hypnos said, and I turned to look at him. “We’d love to stay with you and help you on your cause, but we…we have a job to do.”
Thanatos nodded.
“The longer we stay with you, the longer someone who shouldn’t be alive is roaming around, being hounded by the Wraiths,” Hypnos said, pointing at his brother.
“And the longer Hypnos is with you, the more people will be dying in their sleep.”
What a way to make me feel stupid and insignificant.
Of course they had a job to do. A purpose to fulfill. Every waking moment of their lives.
“Gods, I forgot. I… When do you guys sleep? Aren’t there billions to keep track of?”
Thanatos shrugged.
“Millions. We all have our domains.”
I hadn’t even wrapped my head around the concept of Greek deities being real. I didn’t know if I had the bandwidth to grasp how the world even worked with multiple gods running around. Of course I knew about Loki, but I didn’t know the specifics, so my brain hadn’t exploded at the revelation. Tomasz kept calling him a demon anyway. Apparently, god and demon were the same thing.
“I understand. I-I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Yes, go. Of course.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Hypnos said, and they stepped away from me almost in unison.
“We’re just a call away if you need us,” Thanatos told me before they both disappeared and the door behind me opened.
Chloe pursed her lips into a thin smile and raised an eyebrow.
“Hello, darling. I knew you’d be back.”
It was still impossible to wrap my head around Chloe Warren being one of the Moirai. A world-renowned model being a goddess? How many more were hiding among us, wreaking havoc on witches, nightcrawlers, and humans alike?
“You could have saved me a trip and told me everything I needed to know the first time, but I guess you like your games.”
She shrugged and ushered me in.
“Eternity is such a drag. We’ve got to entertain ourselves somehow .”
I entered the same living room we’d been in before, where everything had gone down, and her sisters joined us, looking ready to shoot a fashion cover.
I didn’t know why they felt like dressing up in their own home, but I wasn’t stupid enough to ask.
However they felt more comfortable, I guess. For me, it was PJs and my ink pen in front of the TV. For them, it was high heels and designer clothes.
“So what’s the deal? What am I?”
The Fates exchanged glances, and Lacey stepped forward in a beautiful, yellow lace top with white trousers that probably cost more than my soul.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
I huffed.
“You know what I mean. Hades has been treating me like I’m the most precious thing that’s ever existed?—”
“You are to him,” she said.
“I know. I’m his mate. I understand how that part works, but…why does Hermes treat me like I’m the biggest threat that’s ever walked the Earth? Who am I? What am I?”
“You’re a god, of course,” Aisa said and reached for my hands. She was dressed in pink from head to toe, like a Barbie come to life. I knew Barbie had held a lot of jobs, but I doubted Controller of Fate was one of them.
“Yes, you’ve told me that. But a god of what? What’s he so scared of? Why is he more scared of me being alive than Hades?”
“Because,” Chloe said. She was like a dominatrix covered in leather, with her ponytail so high and tight I could only imagine the migraine she must be putting up with to look this pretty. “You can snuff him out like a candle.”
“So can Hades. If he had his powers, he could kill him with a snap of his fingers.”
“It’s not that simple,” Lacey said.
I frowned.
“Why?”
“After you left, we checked all our other threads,” she continued.
“I imagined that took a few thousand years.”
“We can be very efficient,” Aisa added.
“Where was that efficiency when you let my thread get stolen?” I could feel the anger rising in me, and I stopped to take a breath.
“Yours wasn’t the only one he stole. He stole his too.” Lacey gave her sister a death glare as if she had spoken out of turn.
I almost burst out laughing at the absurdity but didn’t.
“So that means Hades could never kill him while he had his own thread.”
“Exactly,” Aisa said. “But you could.”
“How?”
“Because you’re the god of reincarnation. Reincarnation and fate are so interwoven you have the power to undo whatever is fated.”
I had the power to undo fate?
What?
What were they talking about?
“My power is death. I can see when people are going to die.”
“That’s the power of the witch you were. The power of the god hiding inside is dominion over life.”
I didn’t know how to process that. There was a part of me I knew nothing about. A part of me that was super fucking powerful.
“When your mother found out about your relationship with Hades, you blessed yourself with many lives in the hope of being reunited with him in a different time when she wouldn’t be alive,” Chloe said.
“See, that’s why he’s terrified of you. You’re so powerful that you can control your own fate. No one can do that. Not even us.”
It was almost impossible to believe, considering I’d spent the first twenty-four years of my life a subject to a mysterious disease.
They said knowledge was power. Now I understood why.
“So if I come back to life, if I can by some miracle take back my thread?—”
“You can end Hermes’ reign,” they all said in unison, giving me the heebie-jeebies.
Despite that, there was something in my gut, something new and wonderful and growing.
Hope.
There was only one tiny problem.
“You wouldn’t happen to know how I can take it back from him, would you?”