Page 28 of Becoming Monsterous

"There's one way: we kill the girl before we kill Aphrodite." Kincaide's frown seems to go for ages. "If she can't agree to—"

"Enough already, old bat." Dorian rolls his eyes and makes a dismissive motion with his hand. "You've gotten your chance to speak."

Jean Kincaide falls silent, but I'm growing nervous already. Maybe Team Don't-Kill-Ellie is at risk of changing sides.

Dorian turns towards Renoire. "What is it that you said, Madame Renoire? Are there conditions to be met for the mortal girl to receive Aphrodite's powers?"

Morpheus raises his voice to point out, "She has the powers of the Goddess of Vengeance already. Medusa's abilities have passed to her. Ellie is no mere mortal now."

"Apologies." Dorian shoots me a thin, cold smile. "Just a slip of the tongue."

I decide to ignore him, since I know he's just trying to rile me up. I look to Madame Renoire instead. She seems to know things that no one else does, and something about her seems inherently trustworthy.

"It's true that Ellie will receive Aphrodite's powers when she dies, mostlikely,but it's also more complicated than that," the half-summoner half-monster says. "Every god has a requirement that must be met to receive their powers. Aphrodite's no doubt has to do with love.

"If the god dies without the requirement being met, then the powers either die with them, or go up for grabs. The latter would be very dangerous for us if they fall into the wrong hands." Her wise gaze falls to me. "Do you know what the requirement is?"

I don't.

That's hard to admit with all these eyes on me, so I spend a while thinking it over.

I have so many of Aphrodite's memories within me. You'd think one of them would be about her powers. But when I scan them, I find only violence and heartache, anger and disgust.

Whatever she did to receive her powers from the previous goddess of love, she's kept that locked away. And now that she isn't possessing me, I can't access anything more.

So I pose an internal question to Medusa.Doyouknow anything about receiving her powers?

I don't,she admits.I had to commit myself to vengeance to receive my powers, but as for the goddess of love, that's before my time. Considerably so. I'm sorry.

Well, there's no helping it. I have to turn towards Madame Renoire and admit, "I don't know the requirement for receiving her powers. But I'm going to figure it out. I'm sure my triumvirate can help me."

Morpheus nods decisively in agreement. "Can, and will."

Dorian frowns. "Well, that's disappointing. The point of keeping the girl around is to use those powers, after all, and we can't exactly use them if they die with Aphrodite. Speaking of, where is—"

He's interrupted by the doors to the combat room squealing open.

The doors are large and heavy, meant only to be opened when the room isn't being used. We weren't supposed to be interrupted once they were closed.

So it's not very surprising when a summoner slides through them the instant they've opened enough to let her in.

It's Lise, arriving ahead of the other summoners who were having their own meeting. She walks into the room faster than the others, her pace jittery, and makes eye contact with me.

I instantly sense that something is wrong.

Whatever that meeting was about, it isn't good news that she has for me.

"We've been interrupted," Dorian says, sounding bitterly irritated. "How lovely."

The Magistrate arrives, languidly striding into the room in the midst of all his lackeys. He smiles slowly at Dorian, stops a few feet into the room, and motions lazily for Dorian to come meet him.

I'll give the cold, dead-eyed monster this: he doesn't move a single inch.

While the two of them are locked in the middle of a battle of wills, Lise slides up to me, a nervous smile on her face as she winds her arm around mine and leans in conspiratorially. She giggles a little, the sound strange and high-pitched.

I get the sense that she's play acting for the others, though I don't know why. The summoners won't buy it for long, if at all.

Everyone in this room knows that a war is brewing. They're just all too tense to admit it aloud and be the ones to start it.

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