Page 14 of Becoming Monsterous

I give her one, blushing and confused by my own reaction. I feel like the popular girl at school just acknowledged me as her equal for the first time. Lise is far from that—she's an outcast and loner among both the summonersandthe monsters—but for some reason it still matters to me what she thinks. Maybe because she's the first person around here to really show me the ropes, and her approval is proof that I've come far in just a short time.

"I'm just a gorgon deity for now," I tell Lise, feeling a little lame that she's so excited about such simple powers. "It's all the same abilities as before, just amplified. Well, and now apparently I can temporarily take the magical powers of anyone I turn to stone. It's not much."

"Are you kidding? It's fuckingamazing." She grins at me, then abruptly sobers up a moment later. "And I have the feeling you're going to need those powers. The Magistrate has been on a tear ever since the incident—he's calling a meeting of the summoners. I'm supposed to go... though I think it was close there for a while. He almost decided to keep me out because of my curse."

Lise summoned the god Midas when she was young and foolish. In exchange for her hubris of thinking she could control a deity, she was cursed with golden eyes and a monstrous lioness form that she turns into every day at noon.

I've seen the lioness once—she's beautiful, but terrifying. She'll attack anyone in her way, without any self-control. Lise has to stay in a special set of rooms with very strong walls and doors because of the curse, and many of the summoners, the Magistrate included, treat her like she's at least a little bit of a monster due to it.

It makes her immune to my gorgon powers, which is a bonus as far as I'm concerned. The other summoners have to cast special magic to keep themselves from being turned into stone at my gaze—though now that I have my powers under control, and I've ascended to godhood, I wonder if I could just push past those shields anyway.

"I don't know what the Magistrate is going to discuss at this meeting," Lise continues, "but it can't be good. He and his right-hand men and women triggered every contract they've let lapse. They're sending all the monsters they have under their control out on errands to fetch them magical artifacts and weapons. It's like they're preparing for all-out war, but I don't even know who against."

Us.

The monsters.

That's who.

Chapter12

Ellie

"We have to know more," Morpheus says, stepping into the conversation to snag Lise's attention. "Can you try to report back to us what's said?"

"I can, if he lets me into the inner circle meetings. But he may not."

A bell rings out overhead, the sound as clear and loud as if it were close by, though there's no bell tower in the whole of Occult House. Lise jumps at the noise, turning red and looking around warily as if afraid someone's watching her.

"I've got to go." She squeezes my arm, and nods to the men. "That's the meeting bell. I'll find out what I can... if I'm able to."

Then she's off, down the hallway again and gone. I listen to her fading footsteps, startled by how empty the halls of the house are suddenly. All the monsters must be out on their missions, just like Lise said.

Morpheus has a troubled expression on his face. "You know what this implies, don't you?"

"The Magistrate is readying his lackeys for war," Aleron bites out, a scowl etched on his face yet again. "He knows that we're close to our freedom. He'll do anything to stop it."

Angus wrings his hands together in worry. "Ellie, are you sure that it isn't best for us to just kill Aphrodite? We need her powers now."

"Yes, we do," Morpheus agrees, studying me closely. "A delay may not be wise if we don't have much time before war... but I have to wonder. Have you decided yet what you're going to do with those powers? Will you open the gates between our realms?"

Suddenly three sets of eyes are staring at me, and I feel the desire to lie gather in my throat. But I push it down, and decide to tell them the truth—at least, a version of it that won't hurt them.

"I don't know yet," I admit, which is true, after all. "I want the three of you to be free from your contracts. And I've seen how horrible the summoners can be—I have Medusa's memories to thank for that. But releasing all of the First Children onto Earth... it could be disastrous."

Aleron shakes his head, scowling deeper. "She's still more human than anything else. We should've seen this coming—I never should've let my guard down."

He's closing himself off to me again, turning into the bitter man that I found so hard to love, despite my attraction to him.

I hastily clarify, "No matter what, I'mgoingto free the three of you. I care about you so much—Aleron, youhaveto believe that after everything we've been through."

Instinctively, I find myself reaching out to grab his arm, afraid that he'll walk away and never leave.

Instead of brushing my hand away, as he would've done before, he grabs my fingers and locks them in with his.

Our eyes meet, his a sea foam green with specks of red. I exhale slowly, letting go of my gorgon form. Some part of me wants to see if the tender expression on his face will change once he's reminded that I'm human.

He just keeps on looking at me with that fathomless gaze. It could be tender, or it could be neutral—I can't tell the difference sometimes. His bitterness, anger, and joy are always right at the surface, but everything else is buried too deep to see.

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