His skin tingled when she brushed her hand along the chain. She stroked the bronze links, lifted the chain, ran her fingers underneath it, a sensual motion. He closed his eyes.
Apollo, Zeus, Athena, Demeter, Hera, may all the gods protect me and have mercy on me.
She stepped away, and he felt so light that he thought he was floating. His shoulders were light, his neck, all of it, like air. He felt like he was going to fall.
He touched his neck. It was bare. He opened his eyes. Hera stood before him, the broken chain in her outstretched hand.
He felt his own body, his chest and arms, his face. He was still here. He was alive. The next sword he took in the gut would kill him.
Hera held his hand and placed the chain in it, closing his fingers around it. “Sometimes you do get what you want. You just have to wait longer for it than you expect.”
He marveled at the chain. It was dull, and trembled slightly with the shaking of his hand. Then it slipped from his fingers, and he fell to his knees.
“Zeus couldn’t do this for me,” he said, gasping. His life, it was over—No. His life could now continue.
“It probably didn’t occur to him to try,” she said wryly. She turned to Evie. “And now for you.”
“If you harm her—,” Alex said, as if he could still make threats after the goddess had defeated him.
Hera ignored him. Evie could only brace for whatever came next.
The goddess reached behind her back, turned her hand, and pulled an object out of the air. She offered it to Evie. “I’m finished with it. It’s done its work. Now I’d like you to keep it safe.”
It was the apple, sitting innocuously in her hand.
Evie’s mouth opened, caught on a disbelieving laugh. “You killed my father for this, and now you’re just giving it back?”
Hera said, “After all is said and done, I discover that you are still the Keeper of the Storeroom. As I said, I have no more use for this, now that I have the world the way I want it. I certainly don’t want it lying around to cause trouble. You must keep it.”
Yes, said the instinct, the voice that had spoken to her ancestors in an unbroken line across centuries. Keep it safe. Take a bit of Discord out of the world.
She raised her hand, and Hera set the apple into it. It felt massive, heavy as lead. Evie’s hand dropped to her side.
Hera started to walk away.
“Wait,” Evie said. “What now? What world is this? What happens next?”
Pausing to turn to her, to take Alex in with her glance as well, she shrugged. “You’ll have to figure that out for yourselves. A few survivors of the old world are scattered here and there. Seedlings, if you will. You could find them, start a village together, learn to herd goats or some such. I expect that’s what Arthur and Merlin are off doing.”
“Where are they?” Evie asked, hopeful. They had to be here, if she could find them . . . nothing would change.
Hera frowned. “Staying well out of my way. But you—if you say a prayer to me now and then, I may listen.”
Hera, poised and untroubled, walked away, over the hill, and was gone.
“Unbelievable,” Alex muttered, following with a curt laugh. “That beats everything.”
Evie went to him. He still knelt, his face creased with what seemed like anguish, or ecstasy.
“Are you all right?” she said.
He looked at her and laughed. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. But I think I am.”
She sat in front of him. His sword was within reach. “You can die now.”
“I know. But I don’t want to. The moment she appeared, I didn’t want to. When she said she knew what I wanted, she knew better than I did—because I was thinking of you.”
They didn’t have much. A sword, a box of hope, a leather sack. A broken chain. Each other. A happy ending, of sorts. Discord’s apple sitting in her hand, golden and warm. She tucked it inside the sack, where it lay inert and harmless.