Chapter 11 Silver
SILVER
I’d like to say I stayed at the manor solely because I’d missed Kleos during her week away and wanted to spend some quality time with my best friend.
It certainly was one of the factors. But the slightly annoying truth was that the lying bastard worried me when he fainted without explanation.
And maybe I felt a little bad about antagonizing him.
Up until this point, Cas had seemed so composed, so strong, the very picture of health and vitality, that his little amnesia routine seemed completely ludicrous. But healthy people didn’t pass out without any reason.
So yes, maybe I felt guilty. That was easy to recognize and explain to myself. But even I could see that the eagerness I showed when Kleos walked back into the kitchen wasn’t just guilt.
“How is he?” I demanded.
Worry. I was concerned about him. Concerned he’d slip back into his weeklong coma. Wondering if I’d been wrong after all.
“The phoenix? Settling in inside Cassius’s greenhouse.” Kleos levelled me with a knowing grin.
The dick wanted me to admit I was here to hear about Cas, damn her. Instead I glared.
Leaning in to stroke the fluffy ears of the puppy on my lap, my best friend chuckled and gave in. “Cas is just fine. He’s in the shower—he’ll be here in a minute.”
Zazel, the white demon cat who rarely ventured more than a few feet away from her, hissed in distaste.
He’d taken well enough to Phobos, Lucian’s black fox, but apparently, he didn’t feel like sharing his witch’s attention with another critter. His disapproval might be less relevant if Zazel weren’t able to enlarge himself to the size of a truck.
“Don’t eat the puppy,” I firmly told the feline.
His tail swished behind him, red eyes fixed on my lap.
“I think he’s wary,” Lucian said. “If Cas was right and it’s a hellhound, that’s why.”
“She’s just a tiny little adorable pup,” I argued, lifting her up to hug her close to my chest.
I frowned, noticing the change in her weight, first. She’d been featherlight to me moments ago. I could still carry her without any issue, but her weight had easily tripled in a few minutes.
“Did you grow in just a few hours?” I asked her, perplexed. The hound licked my nose, and my heart melted on the spot. “I adore you, you pretty, wild thing. Yes, I do.” Her name came to me out of the blue, jumping from my mind to my lips, as though I’d remembered it rather than made it up. “Amavi.”
“That’s unbearably adorable,” Lucian asserted.
“I loved,” Kleos translated, sinking to her husband’s lap. “Who knew you could be so sentimental?”
“I’m not sentimental,” I grumbled. “That’s just her name. I didn’t choose it.”
Even as I spoke, the little pup kicked my boobs to get closer to my face and I laughed against her precious face, somehow undermining my entire protest. “I’m losing all edge, aren’t I?” I bemoaned.
“Sweetheart, I hate to break it to you, but you’re five foot nothing,” Lucian drawled. “You never had an edge.”
“Five foot one.” I huffed. “And I remember actually making you work for it when we fought, oh great dark sorcerer.”
“I’d drained myself of most of my power, already fought my brother, and the only thing you actually managed to defeat was a tray of roast potatoes.” He paused, tilting his head. “Which was a tragedy. I haven’t made you pay for those yet.”
Kleos sank onto his lap. “You’re not adding Silver to your list of feuds because of roast potatoes. You like Silver.”
I was fairly certain that Kleos was the only person in the universe capable of making his face soften into a pout.
My hearing caught approaching footsteps, and I made myself stand. “Well, lovely to see you guys, but I’d better get going.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lucian drawled. “You’re staying for dinner.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he played a dirty game.
“Homemade pasta. The truffle sauce is quite literally out of this world. I get them imported from the fae realm.”
I was no fool, so I sat back, grumbling something about having to feed Amavi.
Lucian scoffed. “We have a demon and an angelic fox in the manor already; you really think we aren’t prepared for another set of fangs?”
He proceeded to prepare bowls for all three critters.
By the looks of it, he fed Zazel fresh tuna, and Phobos, a mixture of freshly cooked vegetables and raw steak.
The third bowl he found was made of pure gold, and encrusted with pearls.
Apparently, that was the kind of thing gathering dust at the back of the Regis cupboards.
“You’re going to spoil her,” I said as Amavi cheerfully jumped off my lap to wobble-hop where he put it down for her. “I don’t even eat that well.”
“You can afford to now,” Kleos reminded me.
Our afternoon trip to the bank hit again.
I had a brand-new, freshly printed pure gold card and checkbook in my wallet, and the banker informed me that a thousand golds per week would be delivered to me for daily expenditures.
That was the policy for clients with a balance like mine.
I could refuse the allowance or return whatever I didn’t spend at the end of the month, but the banker shrugged and informed me that this was just part of the interest I earned and wouldn’t in any way affect the extent of my vault.
“It’s the bank’s policy to invest ten percent of its long-term holdings—unless the client wishes otherwise, naturally. Your account makes gold every day.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I would never have to worry about money again. I could catch a plane to the Champs-élysées and shop in Chanel rather than buying vintages on eBay. I could quit the Guard and be a woman of leisure.
I had no desire to do that. Either because being a protector was my vocation, or because it truly belonged to me, was earned by me, Edith Silver—not Artemis.
I still didn’t understand what it meant to have an ancient goddess’s power inside me.
Whenever I dreamed of long-past lands, people, the echoes of wars and hunts, it felt removed from me, like watching a movie I couldn’t fully make sense of.
“It’s weird,” I admitted with a wince. “The vault, the gold, all of it.”
“But not the hellhound or the arrows?”
I wrinkled my nose. While I’d been confused enough about having a third account, all surprise disappeared the moment I entered the safe.
Bloody Apollo. I had no idea what game he was playing, but I knew, to my marrow, that this was exactly his style. Moving in the shadows, leaving gifts and curses alike. He was a schemer to the core.
“No doubt there’s a reason, and we’ll find out soon enough. I’m not worried about Apollo.”
Cas was another story entirely.
Kleos shivered. “You’re literally insane.”
I remembered that in the cave near Delphi, she’d had a healthy amount of fear for the god.
I hadn’t, even from our first meeting. She’d thought that made me completely reckless at the time, but I was no Gideon.
I’d felt a healthy dose of terror of Python just before.
Later, I was bloody petrified by Zeus and the other Olympians, with good reason.
But Apollo never scared me, even when I caught the flame in his eyes when he wanted to be dramatic.
“And the sky’s blue,” a voice boomed, seconds before literal sunshine entered the room.
I groaned, averting my eyes.
Lucian had to turn, visibly recoiling at the golden aura surrounding Gideon. “Keep it down in my house, you lunatic!”
“Sorry, sorry.” The brightness dimmed, though he remained rather shimmery. “I don’t control it well yet.”
I didn’t understand how Kleos had shared her power with her cousin, but the result was one smug-ass giant with far too much power.
Kleos hid hers, appearing as normal as she could make herself. Gideon wore it on his sleeve.
Splitting her energy in two should have weakened her, but if it did, I couldn’t sense it. If anything, she seemed stronger, particularly when Gideon was around. I smiled as I watch her cousin kiss her cheek before tapping Lucian’s back.
“Where’s your guest? I have a proposal for him.”
“Showering,” Kleos replied. “He shouldn’t be long.”
“Good, good.” He sat at his usual place around Lucian’s kitchen table, to my right. “I don’t know what I smell, but I know I want it.”
“Truffles,” Lucian replied. “As usual, you managed to arrive just for dinner.”
“Well, it’s not my fault if you keep a table worthy of kings. Speaking of.” My eyes widened as he vaguely waved over the empty table, materializing a bottle of red wine.
Gideon didn’t use to have much magic. His skin was naturally impervious to spells thanks to his dragon heritage, and though he couldn’t shift, I’d seen him growl, shimmer a little, and glow on occasion.
Watching him use magic so easily now was strange.
I couldn’t deny I felt a bit sorry for myself, too.
Kleos had always been the mage amongst us. Gideon and I were the muscles back in the day. I missed the days when we were both more or less useless.
“I picked it up in France earlier this week.”
“Good man. I suppose I can make another sheet of pasta.”
Lucian didn’t even need any word or movement, wielding magic with so much skill it was as easy as breathing to him.
I watched, mesmerized. On the countertop, eggs, flour, salt, and olive oil mixed and shaped themselves into a ball, before sliding in and out of a pasta machine to be flattened, and cut into neat even noodles. Tagliatelle.
“You’ll have to teach me how to do that.”
Kleos huffed. “While Lucian makes it look easy, that takes a lot more finesse than you’re capable of. You have to focus so every step is done precisely. I tried, and mine came out all lumpy. You have no chance.”
“Hey,” Gideon protested. “I could totally do it.”
“Not even in your wildest dreams,” Lucian drawled. “Kleos is a baker; she understands how to actually make pasta, and she can’t do it by magic.” He kissed his wife’s bare shoulder, right on a red rune. “Yet. It takes more practice and patience than you possess.”