“In some form or another, yes. You’ll always survive.”
“You were made a god.”
“Those were very different circumstances.” Andrasta frowned sympathetically.
Diana’s shoulders drooped. “I didn’t really want to be made a god. But I didn’t want to die either.”
“I know. You’ll probably be reincarnated as you were before.”
“That’s it? That’s my best bet?” Wait another two thousand years to be reborn? Where would Cadan be by then?
“Yeah, I’m really sorry I can’t give you more. But you are the key to this, and it won’t necessarily end in tragedy. But I’ve run out of earth time and the other gods will notice my absence. I’ve got to go.”
“Thanks, Andrasta.” And she was grateful. She really was. But with everything looming on the horizon, it was hard to remember.
“Of course. It’s not often that I get out of Otherworld. Earth rocks.” The goddess looked away from her then and around the clearing. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
It looked pretty bleak to Diana, but maybe that was because she’d died here before. “The clearing?”
“Earth.” Andrasta reached down to pick up a handful of fallen leaves. She inhaled deeply of their fragrance, then let them flutter to the ground. Diana caught sight of a hint of green in the leaves, as if the life had returned to them after Andrasta’s touch.
“I suppose. But you’re from the land of the gods. Isn’t it beautiful there?”
Andrasta sighed. “It’s not home.”
The comment squeezed Diana’s heart. Andrasta had been mortal, after all. “Would you return here if you could?”
“I’d give anything.”
So would I. But how was she going to make that happen?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Diana opened her eyes in Esha’s flat. Esha lay sprawled on the couch throwing cat treats to the Chairman, who didn’t seem to be moving much but managed to catch them in his mouth all the same. Warren was pacing behind the kitchen island.
“Hey, warrior lady, how’d it go?” Esha looked up from the magazine she was skimming with the hand that wasn’t throwing treats.
“Neither as well nor as poorly as it could have.” Which was just another way of saying that she was in the same situation as before she’d left.
Screwed.
“You just can’t get a break with this.” Esha lobbed a high-flying treat at the cat, who snagged it out of the air.
“Too true. Where’s Cadan?” Diana asked.
“On an errand. He’ll be back soon.” Esha set down the magazine and looked at Diana. For all her joking and treat throwing, her eyes reflected the direness of the situation. “Are you going in? To get Paulinus?”
“Yes.”
Esha grimaced. “No other way, huh?”
Diana shook her head.
“Then you think you can do this? Kill him and all?”
“I don’t know. But I know that if I don’t try, then they’ll eventually find me and kill me. And if the portal opens to more harpies, then a lot of other people will die as well.” Her dreams of a tenure-track teaching position seemed silly in comparison.
There was a pounding at the door and Esha leapt up to answer it. Diana wasn’t surprised to see that it was Cadan. She was in his arms before she could blink. He lifted her face to his and kissed her hard on the mouth.