Fire & Flood (Mythverse #1)

Book 3 Chapter 22

22

It’s sad when the highlight of my day is listening to my boyfriend’s voice come out of an ugly bird’s mouth.

At least Kevin was delivering good news. An entire army’s worth of volunteers will be coming on the day of Mavis’s trial. If they can free her…

I stop that thought. If the monsters come through, I will cheer them on. But the only person I can truly count on saving Mavis is myself.

With the sword.

If only I could get it into one piece.

“This sword is killing me,” I cry out in frustration.

“At least it's not literally killing you,” Cassie replies.

It just doesn't make sense. It doesn’t even look like if should fit together, the teeny blade and the massive gem.

“I don’t know, Edie,” Cassie says, her eyes roving over the three pieces—hilt, blade and jewel. “It just won’t… stay.”

She’s right. Cassie’s wearing a pair of heavy duty gloves, borrowed from Fern and the healing ward. Apparently they use them to work on porcupine shifters. Cassie is holding the blade cautiously, trying not to get sliced while pushing the other end into the hilt, me pushing back, both of us red in the face. It falls out when we let go, both of us jumping back for fear of getting cut when the blade slips.

“Any ideas?” I ask Cassie.

“Maybe try putting the gem in the hilt first?” she says. “Like there’s an order of operations. If the gem is in the hilt maybe it’ll hold the blade in place?”

“Worth a try,” I shrug, pulling the gem from my pocket. It’s impressive, large and blood red in my palm. It should be beautiful. It should take my breath away. It doesn’t. There’s no sparkle inside of it, even though it’s infused with ichor, the blood of the gods. And not just any god—Zeus himself.

Even so, it doesn’t catch the light. Doesn’t shine with any life at all.

Still, it does fit inside the hilt perfectly, falling into place with a click. The blade then slides in easily, catching under the ruby and staying solidly mounted when Cassie takes her hands away.

“Got it!” Cassie says, relief in her voice, but nothing like the victorious tones that should be there. We just re-constructed a blade that can kill a god. But I don’t feel anything other than tired as I lift the weapon.

It’s small but heavy, the weight of it difficult to wield. How is a person supposed to fight with something like this? It would take both my arms and all my strength just to take a single swing.

Something is wrong. Something isn’t working. I just don’t know what.

Cassie feels it too, her brows coming together as she watches me take an experimental stab at an invisible foe. The weight throws my balance off and I stumble forward, falling to the floor with a thud. The sword flies from my hands, stabbing the wooden floor where it sticks for a second before slowly falling over.

Cassie pulls me up, and I retrieve the sword. Holding it up again, it feels awkward, heavy and oddly…dead. Or like a willful toddler playing dead.

The summer after eighth grade I ended up babysitting a monstrous two-year-old neighbor who had a constant runny nose, liked to bite, and threw temper tantrums loud enough to make his whole house shake. But the worst part was his parents’ insistence that all naughty behavior be followed by a trip to the thinking chair. Most of the time I had to carry him there. And every time he would go limp, letting his weight sag in my arms. It was a relief when I got fired after accidentally dropping him on his head.

I can see my own misgivings on Cassie’s face.

“Well…” she says, eyeing the sword dubiously. “It might look nice hanging on the wall.”

“Nonsense,” Metis says, eyeing me over her desk with something close to disgust on her face. “What do you mean it’s not working? It’s a sword. It doesn’t have to work, only the hand that holds it does.”

“See for yourself,” I say, pulling the blade out of my bag.

I put the sword on her desk where it rests, heavy and cold as it was yesterday in my room. Metis takes one glance, her confidence slipping when her instinct tells her the same thing mine does; this is no weapon. It’s only ornamental. But her face changes as she looks down at it, a flicker of understanding lighting up her eyes.

“Watch this, girl,” she says, and closes her hand over the hilt.

Everything changes.

The gem sparks, a fiery light taking hold deep inside of it that continues to grow, its life spreading out into the metal of the blade and hilt, suffusing it with a warmth I can feel even from where I stand. The blade grows, lengthening into a broadsword. Metis lifts it deftly, and I somehow know it’s not her goddess’s strength that lets her do it. With the ruby alight, the blade is lighter, easier to wield.

Almost like it wants to kill.

Metis swirls the sword around her, slicing the air with practiced moves that whip too close for comfort. I back away, stumbling into my chair as she lowers the weapon, her eyes as bright as the ruby.

“What happened?” I ask. “What changed?”

Metis lays the sword back down on her desk, where it falls dead again, light diffused, once more a piece of heavy, unwieldy metal.

“It’s like I said,” Metis answers me. “It’s not the sword that has a job, it’s the hand that holds it. Zeus was a horrible husband, and Hephaestus forged this sword for vengeance. It comes alive to my touch because I have a grudge, the will to see Zeus struck down. You…”

Her eyes go to mine, clearly disappointed.

“You do not.”

“I told you that from the beginning,” I say. “I don’t want to kill anyone, ever again. I got all the pieces, just as you asked. I put them together. It’s not my fault I’m not a cold-blooded murderer.”

Metis shrugs. “Then it was pointless. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. You lack the first.”

“It’s not pointless,” I insist, reaching for the sword. It falls heavy in my hand, dragging down my shoulder as I pull it off her desk. It shortens back to its stubby knife form. “I wanted to have this blade so that we could use it as a tool, not a weapon. I can still take it to Mr. Zee, tell him that I am his Moggy child, and convince him to leave the school.”

Metis’s gaze goes to my hand, where the sword hangs, its ruby dead and dull.

“Of course, you may try,” she says, emphasis on the last word. “But remember, though these days Zee comes off as a doddering old fool, he still remains the king of the gods. You might want to let a sleeping bear lie, unless you know exactly what you’re going to do with him once he wakes up, and how you’re going to protect yourself.”

“It’s not me who needs protection,” I tell Metis, my hand on the door. “It’s Mavis. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for my sister.”

“Oh yes,” she says. “The trial starts tomorrow, doesn’t it?” Her eyes go to the sword once again, a barely concealed glint of mocking humor in them. “Best of luck.”

I didn’t need the reminder from Metis that my sister’s trial starts tomorrow. I haven’t seen her since I wore Fern’s face, and Mavis told me that I’d have to choose between killing Zee or letting her die.

She’d been down then, and I can’t imagine what she feels like now.

My own optimism is flagging; can the ragtag remnant of the monsters’ resistance army really help my sister? Can I?

Even though I lack the resolve to kill Zee, I’ve tried to stick with the plan of showing him the sword and telling the truth about my bloodline. I wasn’t even going to ask him to leave MOA anymore, just to give me my sister and let us leave quietly.

But fear has a deep grip on Mr. Zee now; he never leaves his office and won’t allow anyone to see him—other than Themis and Hepa, who is continuing to bring him his tainted ambrosia.

Themis managed to convince Zee that the trial must have some semblance of seriousness, given the seriousness of Mavis's crimes, and that she could be sentenced to death. Apparently Themis had bargained with Zee—he could have his Hawaiian luau theme, but only if the jury was comprised of Mavis’s peers. If students filled the benches instead of gods, it might at least appear to be something less than the celebration of murdering a teenage girl, traitor or not.

Zee agreed.

And that, unfortunately, puts Cassie on the spot. As in, the stand.

“I want to help,” Cassie tells me now, as we sit huddled together on my bed, an extra blanket across our legs for warmth. “But if I lie, I don’t think I could hold up to Zee’s questioning.”

“No one is asking you to lie,” I say. “Besides, I don’t even know if you can, if Themis has her scales of justice.”

The first time I’d seen the scales on Themis’s desk, she’d been using them to track the progress of the gods’ war against the monsters. When they make their appearance tomorrow at the trial, they’ll be doing something altogether different—deciding the fate of my sister, along with the students selected for the jury.

As Mavis’s former roommate, Cassie is coming forward both as a character witness, and to be examined by the prosecutor—Zee himself, of course. And Cassie’s right; she won’t be able to lie. While she might not have outright known that Mavis had been spying for the monsters, she’d had her suspicions. And those will all come out into the light tomorrow.

“Try not to worry,” I say, wrapping an arm around Cassie’s shoulders. “Remember we’re not going to be able to prove her innocent; everyone knows what Mavis did, and I hear that Nico is even returning to testify. With that empty eye socket, he’ll make a compelling witness. She doesn’t stand a chance of not being convicted; we’re just trying to get the jury to agree not to kill her.”

“Fire or flood,” Cassie whispers, her voice thick with tears.

My own eyes fill as well. If the jury decides against her, Zee will kill Mavis on the spot. I press my palms over my eyes, knowing I’d rather rip them out than watch Mavis die. “By the end of the day tomorrow, it will be all over,” I say. “No matter what happens, nothing will be the same.”

Cassie grabs hold of both my hands. “Edie! Ever since touching the Seer Stone my visions have been stronger and more focused. Do you want me to try and see some of tomorrow? Nothing is set in stone—if we know it will go badly—”

“Then we can maybe change it,” I finish for her. “Yes, if you think you can handle it.”

I grab the Seer Stone from where I stashed it in my underwear drawer. Getting down on the floor, Cassie sits in lotus position. Her chin sinks to her chest as she takes deep breaths and then slowly releases them. I hand her the stone.

I wait, quietly, watching her and resisting the urge to ask her “Anything yet?”

Suddenly she gasps. Her eyes pop open and meet mine. She looks...horrified.

“Cassie, is it Mavis—?” I ask, as she shoots to her feet.

She shakes her head wildly, like she’s trying to get something out of it. “No, no, no.”

I put a hand on her arm. “What is it? Please, tell me!” She jerks away from me so hard that she stumbles into the wall. It seems to knock some sense back into her, because she looks at me this time as if she actually remembers who I am. The stone drops from her hands and shatters on the floor.

“It wasn’t Mavis. Or it had to do with her, but I’m not sure. I think she’ll survive. Maybe. I don’t know.” She is weeping now, but when I again try to reach for her she scuttles sideways until the door is at her back. “There’s nothing you can change. You wouldn’t want to anyway. It’s all how it has to be.” The door flies open and Cassie slips out in the hallway. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

And with that she’s gone.

I sink onto the floor, not bothering to hold back my sobs.

Whatever’s gonna happen tomorrow—it’s definitely gonna be bad.