Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Izzy
I stare at the man across from me, analyzing him.
His hair is a steel grey color, but almost too perfectly grey.
Like a man who dyed his hair to look older.
His hands rest lightly on the knees of his perfectly tailored suit, and he radiates relaxation.
Like a man lying on a beach versus sitting in a car driven by a chauffeur, with a strange eighteen year old.
At last, his pale eyes lock onto mine. “Thanks for trusting me enough to come with me.”
“It wasn’t about trust,” I tell him honestly. “It’s that I have nowhere else to go.”
“And perhaps that you were intrigued by the brochure?”
I don’t want to admit it, but he’s right.
From the moment I opened the brochure, I’d felt that I was looking at a place completely untouchable.
The buildings, made of a perfectly pristine white material that looks like marble, were surrounded by lush gardens and well-tended grass.
It looked like a private college out of fantasy book.
Definitely not the kind of place I ever imagined going.
And definitely not like any reform school. I wonder why he even said that.
“I planned to go to a community college in the fall. I was going to get an apartment with some roommates, if my foster parents weren’t willing to let me stay longer. And a job. I knew I’d need one.”
“But all of that was before,” he says. “Before you learned that you weren’t human anymore.”
My stomach twists. “Look, buddy, I’m grateful you got me out of trouble. And if this school actually ends up being real, I’ll be even more grateful, but the more you talk like that, the crazier you sound.”
“Says the girl with the trickster god within her.”
I stare. “Pull over.”
He laughs. “Are you telling me nothing happened when you turned eighteen? Nothing strange? Nothing that doesn’t make sense in this world of black and white?”
I open my mouth to refute his implication.
“What about the god’s messenger? Hermod, with his eight-legged horse?”
The air rushes out of me. “That was a dream.”
“Was it? I guess the crown in your bag was too then? And the awakening of your powers? Did they come in a flash of light or a swirl of magic? I always wondered what would happen when the gods were reborn.”
I think of that night, of the brilliant stars falling around me. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
He smirks. “No, you’re not. You just have to let your mind open up to what your heart has already told you is true.”
I’m surprised when he turns away then, studying the world outside our window as if he’s dismissed me entirely from his mind.
“Aren’t you even going to convince me?”
He doesn’t look in my direction. He doesn’t even react.
I look out my own window. We’re at the edge of the city. The buildings are becoming more and more sparse, and soon we’ll have left my hometown entirely.
Normally, I’d say getting into a car with a strange man and driving toward a place that seems too good to be true was moronic.
Something completely out of character for me.
But then, I’ve never felt this lost before.
I always understood myself and my world, even from a young age.
I can remember bits and pieces of my time with my mom and my sister.
I knew when to stay quiet. I knew when my mother wasn’t doing well.
There’s a part of me that wonders if I was ever a child at all. Not short and helpless, but just so na?ve. Did I ever see the world as a safe place I didn’t have to fight to survive in?
“Do you believe in fate, Izzy?”
I glance at the man, but he’s still staring out the window. “No.”
He doesn’t react. “Most people do, even when they say they don’t. They feel it in moments they call déjà vu. Moments they realize that they’re exactly where the world wanted them to be. Have you ever felt that way?”
I felt that way when I met Noah, Van, Aiden, and Reid. But I don’t tell that to anyone, including this strange man.
“No.”
He smiles, but still doesn’t look at me. “Do you believe in ghosts, goblins, monsters, and miracles?”
“No. To all of that. I only believe what I see.”
Finally, those blue eyes of his lock onto mine once more.
He lifts a hand, and in his palm blossoms a flower that glows like a thousand stars.
I lean forward, mouth hanging open, and watch as the tiny flickers of light change.
The petals of the flower pull back, and in the center sprouts our earth.
The tiny planet spins and changes, as if moving through years in the blink of an eye.
“I am a time warden,” he says, his voice soft.
“I can go into the future and into the past. But every jump I make comes with a cost. To myself, without a doubt, but possibly to the world. In my younger days, I was more reckless. But now, I’ve learned.
I’ve seen an infinite number of futures. I’ve seen an infinite number of pasts.”
The world in his palm fades away.
“How?” I whisper.
“Because that world of darkness and light. That world of magic. It exists just as you and I do. And now, Izzy, you and your friends are a part of that world. And there’s no going back.”
My heart races. “I had a plan…”
His eyes are kind. “I know. I’m sorry.”
For some reason, I feel tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. “What does this mean? What am I?”
If anything, sadness seems to drape around him like a cloak. “You, Izzy, are a god. Within you is the power of Loki, and the echo of him.”
I stare in shock. “I’m a god?”
He nods. “In a world where gods are hated above all else.”
My stomach turns. “What does that mean?”
“That you and your friends are going to face some very dangerous things. And the only place I have any hope of protecting you is Godfire.”
I curl back and draw my knees up to my chest. Not knowing what else to say.
“But you’ll have the protection of the other gods. You won’t do this alone.”
Somehow, his words don’t bring me comfort.
“And you’ll find the answers you’ve sought for so long.”
I remember. Lifting my tear-filled eyes to him, I remember. “You said you knew something about my sister.”
“Yes,” he says, “but you’ll have to trust me for now. You’re not yet ready to know the truth.”
As silence stretches between us, I look back out the window. We’re headed to a whole new world. A world of wealth and privilege, but also, apparently, a world of magic and danger.
I can’t imagine that me, plain old Izzy, will be successful. But I do know I’ll survive.
I always do.