Page 7 of The Blood of Gods and Monsters

As if sensing my impending outburst, the backs of Theos’ knuckles brush against mine. He grabs ahold of my hand. My fingers feel cold in his grip, but I don’t pull away as he threads his fingers through mine. I shouldn’t let myself take comfort in the touch, but I can’t find the energy to pull away either.

I can feel eyes on me, familiar eyes—Regis’ eyes. Still, I refuse to look at him. He is not my friend. Still, a part of me wonders if he also told Ophelia about what happened with the Mortal God he killed. My eyes flash to her before returning to Caedmon. That’s something they’ll have to address later. First, I need to know why Caedmon is here and how he knew about me.

“Send your other assassins away, Ophelia,” Caedmon says, turning the glass and watching the liquid slosh about. “I would like to reveal this information only to a select few.”

“What?” Carcel’s shrill cry of anger rebounds through the room. I close my eyes and resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Why should I have to leave?” he demands. “As the next head of the Underworld, I have a right?—”

“You have a right to nothing,” Ophelia snaps, cutting him off. “You are not yet titled my heir, Carcel. Disobeying orders and showing your emotions too readily make me think you’re not at all suited for the position. Perhaps if you can prove to me that you can handle yourself adequately, I will change my mind. For now, I will have you and Regis leave.”

My lips press firmly together. Though it amuses me greatly to see Carcel snap his lips shut and purse them in a sour expression like that of a child who’s just eaten a lemon, there is nothing humorous about the current situation we all find ourselves in. Caedmon is part of the God Council. It’s his duty to report my existence. Yet, why hasn’t he?

Carcel growls his anger, but does little more than kick at the wall once more, sending more dust falling from the pictures, and then turns and stomps towards the exit. After a moment, Regis follows. His body slides through the room and I feel my muscles tighten, coiling as he grows nearer. Theos quietly nudges me further into the room and turns his back as Regis pauses alongside us. I wait, but Regis never says anything. Instead, the soft whoosh of air escaping his lips is all I hear before he strides from the room and the door closes behind him.

I release a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and pull my hand from Theos’. When he reaches for me again, I step out of reach and round the lounge to sit down in one of the few chairs stationed around the center of the larger room. I level a look at the God sitting there with a still-full glass of amber liquid.

“Well?” I prompt him with a gesture of my hand. “You said you would reveal all once they were gone. They’re gone. It’s your turn.”

The side of Caedmon’s full mouth twitches and curls upward. Then he says something completely unexpected. “You are so like your mother,” he murmurs, voice full of amusement. “Same eyes and same attitude.”

“My … mother?” My God parent? My breaths grow shallow and the drumming beat of my heart is all that fills my head. “You know her?”

“Knew her,” he corrects lightly, the humor fading as his lips thin into a dispassionate line. “I have not seen her since before you were conceived.”

“Is she…” I hesitate to ask if the woman—the Goddess—who gave birth to me is actually dead. Though it isn’t necessarily easy to kill a God, they can die. Somehow, I’d always assumed that she was out there somewhere, living her life and completely unconcerned with the fact that she’d left my father and me behind. Perhaps if she’s dead, though, then it wasn’t her fault that she’d left.

As much as I don’t want her to be dead, another part of me almost wishes for it since that would mean that she truly had no choice in abandoning us. In the next instant, however, Caedmon dashes that kernel of hope.

“I don’t believe her to be dead,” he says, almost picking the thoughts out of my mind as he understands my unfinished question. “I do not know where she is, but I do know that she hasn’t attended a God Council in twenty years and no one has seen her. Were she dead, however, I would feel it.”

“You would feel it?” Panic swells in my breast. Did the Gods know when any other God died? No, that can’t be true. If that were the case, then they would feel the deaths of each God I’d caused and they would’ve … what? Found me? Even Gods do not have the instant ability to transport themselves through space and time.

“In a way,” he says absently, his dark eyes going to the amber liquid in his glass as it sloshes back and forth with the movements of his hand. “Upper Gods, as you know them, as I am considered, all have ties to each other. There are many connections and even if some are cut—those ties dying off and removed completely—we can’t always keep track of them. Your mother, however, is—was—once a very close friend of mine. I often check to see if she’s still there, and as far as I can tell, she is.”

“Can you … would you be able to know where she is? How to find her?”

Caedmon shakes his head, lifting his gaze away from the glass clutched in his fist as he fixes his attention back on me. “No, I’m afraid not. All I can tell you is that I believe she still lives.”

Slowly, I nod. It was ridiculous to get my hopes up. She’s been gone for twenty years. Why would I ever expect that she’d return now?

“Fine,” I say, sitting back. “Then tell me why you put in a request for my services and why you never intended to send a target.”

Finally, Caedmon moves his glass closer to his face, places the rim to his lips, and downs the fiery liquid. I almost wish I was the one drinking it. His throat bobs as he swallows with a gasp and then sets the glass down on the table before him before focusing on me.

“Do you still have the book I gave you?” he asks, surprising me. The question reminds me, though, of the strange text that had changed—altered from the original title to a new one that I hadn’t understood.

I nod solemnly, biting down on my lower lip.

The corner of Caedmon’s lips lifts. “And did you notice anything different about it?”

I swallow and nod again. “It … wasn’t the same book the second time I read it,” I say.

“What book?” Ruen asks.

Caedmon ignores the interruption, never taking his eyes off me as he responds. “That book is special. It’s not from the library of the Academy but from my own personal collection. It informs the reader of something they need to know versus what they want to know. I spelled it myself.”

“It…” I glance away from Caedmon to Ophelia who watches on with a calm face. I know it’s a facade. She’s hard to read, but there’s no chance she’s as composed as she seems. “It said that the Gods aren’t Gods at all.”

Dark eyes flare. Caedmon sits forward. “Yes.”

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