Page 118 of Until the End of Ever
"How are we going past them?" I whispered when we reached the back of a long, long, long line.
There was no way we had the time to politely wait our turn. This might take an entire year.
"We could, err, you know. Go through them?" Gideon winced as he suggested it, disgusted by his own idea.
"Nope, nope,pass,"Lucky said, shuddering."I do not need that type of curse on me on top of everything else."
"How about asking them to move? Hello, dear sir, would you mind stepping aside?" Ronan immediately tried, only to be thoroughly ignored by the shade.
Silver snorted. "Right. That was totally gonna work. Let's talk to the shades. Could you please let us go through?" The moment words crossed her lips, full of sarcasm as they were, every single shade moved—some to the right, others to the left, leaving a broad path forward in the middle.
We all stared at Silver.
She gulped. "I'm going to need everyone to shut up about this while I process."
"But how—" Gideon started.
Ronan kicked his shin. "Shh! We're not pissing off the scariest thing here."
52
KLEOS
I'd traveled to New York on my eighteenth birthday, Silver in tow, and we visited the Met, ate our weight in hot dogs and pizza, before riding to the top of the Empire State Building like good tourists.
I'd been wrong when I guessed the statues were as tall as a skyscraper. They stood at least three times higher, made entirely of solid gold.
The little bag at the bottom of my pocket felt ridiculous at this point. Had Cassius even ever seen this place?
Through the statues stood a platform, and right in front, one single golden throne, which would have been imposing if not for the great golden guardians. Beyond the throne, there was nothing but light on the right, and an unending darkness on the left. And upon the golden chair, legs thrown over the arm, sat the opposite of what I would have pictured.
I thought we might see an old man, possibly half canine on top, and certainly commanding. Instead, there was a woman, unfairly gorgeous, dressed in gold and white, set off against her flawless umber skin. She looked around Lucky's age. Her green eyes zeroed in on us, and she tilted her head, intrigued.
Great. Now the goldandthe bag of seeds were useless. This was not Osiris. Was it?
I cleared my throat. "Apologies for the interruption, ma'am?—"
The woman sighed, holding her hand up.
"Earthlings, hm? And live ones at that." Her accent was like nothing I'd ever heard, smooth as chocolate. "Well, what do you want? Bring someone back? Divine intervention? A midnight sun, perhaps?"
She listed those like they were common occurrences.
"Erm…actually, this." I pointed to the scales in the center of the round platform. "We need to borrow it. Temporarily? I'm prepared to pay, to negotiate..."
"Just that, huh? And I suppose the billions of souls awaiting judgement should continue to wait?"
I bit my lip. "Someone's about to be condemned to death unjustly. The one thing I could think of that would exonerate him?—"
"Look, you clearly don't care," Lucky interrupted me.
I glanced at her, frowning. She had a point; the divinity on the throne looked bored, already done with me, her decision made. But I had to try.
"So, how much?" the oceanid continued.
Did she truly think bribery would work?
"If you were completely opposed, you would have just called some monsters to dispatch us. So tell us what it'll take to borrow the scales for a day."
