Page 24 of Amber Gambler

Hopefully, theitin question wasn’t my sister, but I wanted to avoid nightmares, so I wasn’t going to think too hard about it. Carter was likely still hunkered down with Harrow, discussing what he learned tonight, so Josie should be safe from her own bad decisions. For now.

“Never hesitate to call me, Frankie. I owe you. Even if I didn’t, I like you. You’re good people.”

“I like you too.” I blinked away the afterimage as the tree extinguished itself. “Later.”

After I ended the call and got my vision squared away, I approached Charity, who gawked at the trunk.

A loud caw brought my attention swinging up to Badb, who sailed down to land on my shoulder.

“I can’t believe this.” Charity spread a glittering substance across her fingertips. “I’ve never…”

“…seen anything like it?” I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad one. “Any theories?”

“This tree appeared here?” She let my question roll right off her back. “Overnight?”

“The tree’s always been there.” I stroked down Badb’s spine. “It was struck by lightning from a clear sky.” I shifted myweight, uncomfortable sharing the information. “It caught fire, as lightning-struck trees do, but it burnt itself out before our hoses could get more than the crown wet.”

“Do you see this?” She lifted her hand, which glittered under the moon. “It’s not sap, it’s ichor.”

Ichor, in my limited experience, was black and viscous. Not gilded and syrupy. “Ichor?”

“This tree will bear fruit,” she marveled, her eyes wide with wonder. “Ambrosia.”

“I take it you don’t mean the fruit salad kind.” I studied the tree with renewed interest. “This is an elm.”

“Not anymore.” She reached up to tug a limb down a couple of inches. “That flower? Looks like an apple or maybe a pear.” She released her hold, watching it snap back in place. “Of course, just because it looks like the earthly equivalent doesn’t mean it is one. Its power will depend on its divine origin.”

Divine.

Not a total surprise, given the events of the past month, but this was one more mystery to solve.

Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I searched my memory. “Gods eat ambrosia, right?”

“It’s called the food of the gods, yes, but it’s a catch-all classification.”

“You mentioned the fruit’s power will be determined by its divine origin?”

“Yes.” Her keen intellect sharpened on me. “Do you know who blessed this tree?”

“Not for certain.” I read her disappointment and admitted, “But I’ve got a hunch it was a death god.”

Or one of their personal assistants.

“Then this will become a pomegranate tree.”

That was an area I was well versed in. “The fruit of the dead.”

Hades and Persephone came to mind first, followed by the claim the fruit sprung from Adonis’s blood.

“This complicates things.” She couldn’t clean her hand off fast enough. “We’ll need to contain this tree.”

The tree wasn’t mine, and neither was the land, but I was curious. “How do you plan on doing that?”

Josie had quarantined it by withdrawing any nearby root systems from the area to avoid contamination, but I got the feeling Moore had a more tactical containment idea in mind.

“We’ll ward it until it produces its first fruit. Then we’ll test it, classify it, and decide its fate.”

A tree that may or may not grant eternal life, which ambrosia was said to do, would only cause strife.

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