“What happened to her?”
“I think they killed her. But I don’t actually know. She’s certainly not in here with us.”
“How did you get in here?”
“Juno. Well, it started with Ostanes banishing the gods from the sanctuary. Then Saturn got the eros involved and made sure they could get inside—that’s how I got caretakers. But then Juno countered with a spell to lock up the tombs so only I could get inside. Then Saturn hid the doors from me.”
“Oh.” It suddenly makes sense.
“Right. So we got ourselves a paradox.” He picks up the dragon scale and the flower. “This is the only way around that curse.”
I run his explanation back and forth in my mind for a few moments, then decide I have one more question. “Where does the Book of Debt fit in? And all those pleasure tasks?”
“Juno cursed the caretakers and came up with the Book of Debt to fuck them up.”
“That was her doing?”
“That was all her. That’s how I know that Book of Debt is real.”
“And the pleasure stuff?’
He shrugs. “I really don’t know. Payment? For me being stuck here?”
“Or”—I point at him—“a way to bond you to the caretaker?”
“Why would Juno want that? It makes it more likely that I would help the caretaker get inside the tomb, not less.”
“But that’s not what happened. You never liked them.”
“They were just not my type.” He’s grinning when he says this. So I know he’s making a joke. But he’s missing the most obvious part of this whole thing.
“Pell?”
“Hmm?”
“Don’t you think it’s odd that I show up? A woman. A woman you like. You don’t swoon over me, you get angry. Then, over the course of a week or so, we do bond. We bond so well, we have sex. And then, right after that, you’re ready to hand over your secret.”
He lets out a long breath. “I know.”
“So. Maybe this is a bad idea? Maybe I was sent here to steal this secret from you, only we don’t know that yet.”
“Here are our choices, Pie. We do nothing and hope the sheriff doesn’t come back—”
“That’s not likely.”
“Nope,” he agrees. “Or we could go into town and kill the sheriff, I guess.”
“If there’s a secret family of eros living in Granite Springs, don’t you think they’d retaliate?”
“I do. So our only choice is for me to send you into the tomb to get the book from Tarq and we banish him.”
I reluctantly agree. But then I have another thought. “What happened to them?”
“Who?
“The gods. After the whole battle of Saint Mark’s.”
Pell shrugs. “I don’t know. I was in here, remember? I’m sure more happened.”
“They are gods,” I say.
“Vengeful ones too. It’s highly unlikely that they just gave up. Maybe Saturn gave his caretakers more power? And that’s why Grant didn’t age when he left? But I’m not buying it. Every caretaker before him left, right? And they all got old and died. So. That’s new.”
I sigh and lie back down. “I don’t have any room in my head for that stuff. It’s confusing me.”
“That’s OK. I’m gonna let you rest while I cook up the spell.”
“Don’t you need my help?”
“It’s not that hard, actually. Boil the flower, extract the oil, rub it over a scale, then you put the scale on and wear it like armor and boom. You can walk into the tombs.”
“I’m having mixed feelings about that.”
Pell chuckles. “This is the easy part. Tarq’s a cool dude. You’re gonna like him. And you’re so cute. He loves cute. He’s gonna help. I know he will. Then we’ll ward off the sanctuary, none of those townie assholes will be able to get in, and then…” He sighs. “Then.”
“Then what?” I look over my shoulder so I can see him.
“Then… back to normal, I guess.”
“Normal?” I snort. “OK.” It’s not normal. Nothing about this place is normal. But… on the other hand, it’s not bad, either. I don’t mind it here. Hell, who am I kidding? I had a chance to leave yesterday and I put the damn ring back on.
The truth is, I don’t have a home. Have never had a home.
Until now.
And maybe, just maybe, this place is worth all this trouble. And I get it. Pell and I aren’t even the same species, but there are forests and party rooms upstairs that kinda smooth out all those wrinkles.
We could make this work. Couldn’t we?
I must fall asleep after that because the next thing I know Pell is shaking me by the shoulder. “Wake up, Pie. It’s time to go.”
I sit up. I’m topless—and don’t have all the extra hair I did in my wood nymph chimera form to cover my tits—and Pell is handing me a new shirt. It’s not the red one that said Come Hell or High Water. That one must’ve burned up. This one is a too-big baseball jersey that I bought to wear to bed.