SUNLIGHT CAUGHT ON the handle of Briar’s drugstore dagger, casting her room in hues of pink and silver, like a grotesque disco ball. She’d had the knife for years, an impulse purchase at the register. It was cheap, its handle made of resin mixed with glitter and delicate flowers, hardly the right choice to call on another God, but using a kitchen knife seemed even worse.
She sighed—and nearly choked on the heady fumes wafting from the marble bowl beside her. Soren had handed her the satchel the day before, saying he picked up the herbs from some overseas religious order and they would help clear her mind. Ten minutes in and Briar was pretty sure she was just burning drugs.
Fingers close to trembling, she picked up the knife and pressed the blade into the crook of her arm until it bit into her skin. Blood pooled and dripped, sizzling against the smoldering herbs. Words, ancient and harsh, spilled from Briar’s mouth and her body tensed. The dagger tumbled from her fingers and clattered against the floor.
She closed her eyes against the smoke, continuing to chant. Her power built until it was pressing on every inch of her skin, demanding to leave. She did not need to open her eyes to know she was glowing once again.
Now, she just needed someone to listen, to give her direction. The Gods had not answered their pleas in the weeks since the attack. They were lost, stuck watching the news every night, unable to help.
“Please,” she murmured into the empty space of her room.
The blood dripping down her arm ceased flowing and her skin stitched itself together. The air in the room grew brisk and an unfamiliar scent hit her nose. Mulled apples, fresh tilled earth, evergreen, and sandy beaches. Somehow it was not unpleasant. She opened her eyes.
The Deity was a vision of the highest order. Buds bloomed in the air around them, swirling and protecting them from Briar’s full gaze. The scene changed: autumn leaves, then summer rains that turned to snow and ice.
Briar’s green eyes locked on to those of molten silver. Their face was a work of art, golden skin, full sensual lips, and high cheekbones. All of it was crowned by flowing coppery-red hair. They smiled and Briar’s gaze dropped. The robe they wore was sheer, doing nothing to hide the swell of their chest or the strength of their arms.
The Deity opened their arms wide, a welcoming gesture, and Briar cleared her throat, feeling anything but pious.
Their nostrils flared and their eyes widened ever so slightly. The falling leaves turned green, and they chuckled and dropped their arms, one hand resting on a hip Briar had just been admiring. “Bold.”
Briar shrugged.
The Deity laughed again, and the buds of roses bloomed in their eyes. Their body changed, hair shortening, legs lengthening, but they didn’t seem to notice. “You requested an audience?”
Blinking to clear the haze from her mind, Briar nodded, enchanted by the beauty before her. “What’s your name?”
“Oh.” Their eyes flicked toward the ceiling as if it was a question they had to think about. “I haven’t spoken to a human in so long. Nilaja. Do you mind?”
Briar had no idea what they were asking but nodded. She’d give almost anything to them if they would help her find something she could use to send Eliana back to their realm, or even better, end her entirely.
With each passing day Eliana’s death seemed a better option. Tensions had grown between witches and fae; fights were breaking out, shootings and murders. The sudden uptick in violence had not gone unnoticed by the general population but no one knew what was causing it. And if anyone had suspicions they only whispered them, the footage of the dead Beishan president too raw in everyone’s minds.
Nilaja dipped a finger into the bowl of herbs and stepped out of the mist as though it was nothing, leaving behind the changing of seasons that had engulfed them. Briar’s breath caught in her chest, and the freshly healed cut on her arm twinged.
The experience of talking to the Gods was something she would never get enough of. Her life had been spent searching for them, and now she had the truth. But could she tempt one to help her? She hoped this God in particular would be the answer she was spending all her days searching for.
As though it was ordinary, Nilaja sat on the ground across from Briar, pulling their legs beside them, their robes fanned out around their body. They waved a hand over the marble bowl and the smoke disappeared. “That is quite vile and wholly unnecessary. It is blood the universe calls for, no drugs required.”
“I’m friends with idiots but I try to indulge them.”
Nilaja chuckled again, the sound like the crackle after lightning. They pressed their hands against the floor, eyes shuddering shut. Briar didn’t know what to feel looking at them. They were the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, and power radiated off them. She knew she should be afraid but she was intrigued by them, by how casually they interacted with her.
Power danced in Nilaja’s eyes as they slowly opened them, burning silver like flashes of lightning. “So, Briar Constance, why am I here?”
“We need help with Eliana.”
Nilaja tilted their head and coppery leaves fell from their hair, disappearing when they touched the ground. “You have already spoken to Ivian. You know how she was contained before.”
“There has to be another answer, something that doesn’t involve sacrifice. It’s barbaric. That’s not how the world is now.” She and Soren had gone over it so many times, they’d talked until their conversations were nearly scripted, but there had to be something else. The world, the universe, could not be so cruel.
“Oh, sweets.” Nilaja reached out and brushed their thumb across Briar’s exposed knee.
Her whole body went rigid, every nerve on fire with the power blasting through her. It was pure magic, sharp and hot and intoxicating. She swallowed to keep from crying out, from grabbing them and demanding more, more, more.
Unaware or unmoved by the struggle inside Briar, the Deity continued, “The universe does not care how far you have progressed. It will always be old, cold, and uncaring. You want to stop Eliana, you will do it as your ancestor Cordelia did, by blood and tears. Eliana is too far ingrained in this world for the echo of our powers still left in this place to pull her out. She is a horror, and you will become one if you wish to destroy her.”
Despair pooled in Briar’s stomach.
“Oh, don’t look like that.” Wilted flowers piled in their lap, their petals crumbling to dust. “Maybe there is another way. What would I know, tucked away for eternity? There is much knowledge out there, things you have not dreamed of. I will hope you find another answer, but it is not one I know. We have no knowledge that we are hiding from you.” They stood and the air seemed to go with them.
Briar stood as well, the reverberation of their shattering power still clanging through her. She had so many questions she wanted to ask them. Could all Gods change their form? Did they watch the humans? And was there please, please, another answer? “Can I summon you again?”
Nilaja paused, a feline grin pulling their lips upward. “Why?” They took a step closer, and Briar’s body urged her both to move forward and to run, far, far away from the Deity she had summoned, one whose name she had never heard.
Struggling for words, Briar gave in to her desire, her head still swimming with whatever Soren had given her. Her body ached with each movement, spent from the power but craving more. She stopped a breath away from them. “I don’t know.”
Nilaja pulled at the bottom of one of Briar’s curls. “Well, isn’t that fun. See you soon.” They winked and were gone.
Briar fell backward onto her bed. What in Ortus’s fiery hell had just happened?
*
“THIS IS DRUGS.” She walked into the living room and threw the velvet satchel at Soren who caught it with ease, looking up from his spot on the couch. She hadn’t bothered knocking and he never bothered to lock his door. She’d chided him for it enough to last a lifetime. But if he wanted to get murdered that was his business.
“Of course it’s drugs.” He opened it and sniffed, before shoving what remained into his pocket. “What did you think mind clearing herbs would be?”
“You said you got it from a religious order.”
“Anything’s a religion if you believe, Ry.” He grinned his stupid grin that made her want to forgive him nearly anything. “You’ve been stressed, and obviously I understand why, but…” He shrugged. “All wound up like that, what good are you going to do?”
Briar huffed. “I did summon someone. Not Ortus, someone entirely different. I’ve never even heard of them.”
“Really?” Soren sat up straighter. “What were they like?”
Briar sat on the couch beside him and took his beer from his hand. “Really hot. Different from Ivian, they were like…” She thought it over while she drank, the shimmering beauty who had sat on her floor like they were old friends. “Nilaja was like the changing of seasons. But they had no answers and I still want to talk to Ortus. He hid Eliana’s books. He might know more.” She handed his beer back and laid her head against the cushions.
The moment she stopped moving, exhaustion hit her. She’d been sleeping terribly, her nights plagued with either insomnia or terrible dreams that slipped into the ether the second she woke up. Sometimes both.
“I don’t think Ortus wants to talk to us.” Soren sipped his drink and scooted over, giving Briar more space than necessary on the couch.
She ignored the way he moved away from her. She didn’t know what to do with that; she’d made no promises to anyone but she’d been about to make them to someone else before Soren had pulled her from her bedroom to show them the carnage on TV. Trying to date had been stupid then but now it seemed grotesque. She already lay awake at night wondering what it would be like to drive a knife into someone she loved. How could she get closer to anyone now? And besides, when she thought about her feelings, it was never Soren who came to her mind. So if he wanted to scoot away she would let him.
Briar had always preferred letting others end relationships, and this one had never properly started. Even easier that he seemed to want to slip into the space she had hollowed out for his friendship. Except sometimes, like now, just looking at him made her remember things she wished she could forget.
The way Evaria had looked, lying on the hard floor of the temple. Ansel bleeding out. Eliana wearing Jenia’s skin like a costume. It made her sick to think of it, of everything she had done, the way she had believed she was special enough that someone good would choose her. How easily Bastianna’s words had eased the horror she had felt moving into the temple. And most of all the way she had dragged everyone she loved into her problems.
“Come back,” Soren said, giving up his attempt at space and putting his hand on her knee. “You can’t go there.” But the demons in Briar mirrored his own. “We aren’t to the point of panic, yet. We can’t even get close to her right now. We’re still in the planning stage.”
Briar dug her nails into her scalp. “I don’t even know where to begin. There has to be a way to stop her without killing someone. There has to be.” Lillia was still combing through the books, hoping to find something to help them.
“The authorities are still trying to figure out what happened in Beisha. The Vice President is competent though, and a witch so the country should be okay.” Soren leaned his head against the back of the couch. “My father hasn’t answered the phone in a week.”
“You called your father?” Briar regretted the words before they finished leaving her mouth, cringing at the accusing tone in her voice.
Before answering, Soren took a long drink. “She got into his head too. I wanted to see if he knew anything. She used him for the ritual. They have a connection.” His voice was clipped.
“I’m sorry.” Briar meant it. “Do you think something happened?” They assumed Eliana was going after fae, blaming them for being rejected by her lover, King Velorian, so long ago. Briar still didn’t understand how time and distance had not given her the perspective to see her own cruelty, to regret the curse she had placed on fae and witches.
There was a click as the front door opened, then the echo of heels on wood in the hallway before Lillia and Fauna rounded the corner to the living room. Their arms were loaded with paper bags; the leafy green top of a carrot poked out of one. Briar gave Soren’s knee a squeeze and stood up. “Dinner?”
“Plumping up the pig for the slaughter,” Fauna said, heading to the kitchen and dropping her bag onto the counter where it fell over. Its contents rolled off the marble and spilled onto the floor.
“Don’t say that,” Lillia told her. She flicked her wrist and golden strands of magic moved everything back to the counter. “It’s monstrous.”
“I know that.” Fauna pulled vegetables and plastic-wrapped slabs of meat out of the bag and busied herself putting them away. “Haven’t you heard of gallows humor?” Fauna had decided sometime after they had met with Ivian that if Briar must sacrifice the one she loved the most it would be her. Briar couldn’t even argue, though she wanted to. Gods, she wanted to, every time she saw her cousin.
The words swirled in Briar’s mind. Must it truly be the one she loved the most? Did the universe know or did it just want blood? She turned her hand over and watched it flow through the blue veins on her wrist. Was magic so specific or did it just need? She didn’t have those answers either, and it was still killing.
Wordlessly Soren helped put away the groceries, stacking cans of sparkling water in the fridge and sneaking glances at Fauna.
The four of them had been spending all their time together, so much that sometimes Briar longed for a moment alone. They were all frightened. They couldn’t tell anyone what they knew, how would they even begin to explain? And if they did, who would believe them? Sure, Jenia behaved a little differently, but she was Prime Minister now, the pressure would cause anyone to behave strangely.
“Briar managed to summon one of the Gods today,” Soren said, grabbing wineglasses from one of the cabinets. He dusted off the rims with his shirt before filling them.
Lillia hung back from the kitchen, watching the others. “Oh?”
Briar locked eyes with her and was surprised to find embarrassment creeping through her. Nilaja was beautiful, but that was just a fact anyone would have been able to see. She’d done nothing to feel guilty about, but the knowledge did nothing to change her feelings. “They said I could summon them again but they didn’t really have many answers. They were nothing like Ivian. I don’t know why I expected them to be.”
“Did you find out anything helpful?”
Briar shook her head and grabbed a beer from the fridge. “Not really. The same as Ivian said, we need a sacrifice. But…I just don’t believe it. I’m sure that works but they have to know another way. They’re Gods. Besides, who knows if they’re even telling the truth. They probably wouldn’t even feel guilt for lying to a mortal.” She pushed herself up onto the counter, letting her feet swing above the floor.
Fauna pulled out a cutting board. It was nearly a domestic scene, though Briar doubted the family dynamics were quite as convoluted in most households. “If we could bring even one back maybe they could handle her for us. What about Ortus? He has a connection to Lillia’s family.”
“He hasn’t answered yet,” Lillia pointed out. She leaned against the counter, watching Briar.
Things with Lillia had been confusing since…well, since they met, but especially since Eliana murdered the Beishan president. Briar had been about to tell her she was all in, that she’d waited her whole life to meet someone like Lillia but after Briar had seen the news, reality had come crashing down. This wasn’t a time for relationships or love but they were always together and she’d done nothing to stop what grew between them.
Each kiss felt like a death sentence. She knew eventually Eliana’s actions would become too much. One of them would be forced to act, just as Cordelia had, and make the ultimate sacrifice. If any of them were truly good people, they would have done it already. Eliana had murdered a head of state but they didn’t talk about that. Since then, she had been fairly quiet, giving friendly press conferences and going on daytime TV shows for interviews bookended by adorable animals. She’d even made a public statement absolving Soren, some story about an argument over his father. She said she knew he was a good man.
The Goddess was toying with them. Now, if they acted they’d look deranged. Any accusations would never stick. She’d been so kind to them how could they mistreat her twice? But there were rumors swirling, ones Briar had read in the far reaches of the internet when she’d been unable to sleep. People had noticed differences in her behavior, her strange, archaic speech patterns. No one knew what to make of it but wasn’t it odd, someone said. And if Briar’s mother had figured it out someone else had to. But who would guess the Prime Minister was possessed by the supposed Goddess Eliana?
Henrik had texted her a few times, asking questions about what had actually happened between them, why Jenia had been so strange since then. She’d responded vaguely. She didn’t want to lose him, not when he’d always believed in her. Henrik was the one person who always saw her the way she hoped people would: smart, charming, his equal.
“We have to make him answer us. This is their fault. They should be willing to at least brainstorm with us.” Briar let her knee press into Lillia’s side and the witch leaned into her touch.
Fauna kept cooking. She wasn’t terrible—nor was she great. But the food was fine, and they didn’t have to endure the looks they got out in the city. What had happened between Jenia Alvier, a Constance cousin, and Soren Savros? She could read the questions in their eyes. “How do we make him answer?”
“Blood.” Briar got down from the counter, letting her fingers trail across Lillia’s hip. She grabbed a knife from the counter and Soren cringed but she just started to chop onions, filling the room with their eye-watering scent. No one asked for clarification but she continued anyway. “I’ll do it. I’ll really bleed. I don’t think he’ll let me die.”
A muscle twitched in Lillia’s jaw and she closed her hand around Briar’s until she dropped the knife. “Like you said, he has a connection to me. I’ll do it.”
“No.” Briar and Fauna answered together. The three women stood in silence, tension spreading out and filling the kitchen.
Soren cleared his throat and took the knife from Fauna, gently nudging her away. He took over chopping the carrots. “You have the most power, Ry. We can’t risk you.”
Briar started to respond but Lillia cut her off. “If something goes wrong, and you’re right, I don’t think it will, but if it does, we need you. We know you have enough power to do the sacrifice if it comes to it.” A terrible grin twisted her face. “And hey, if I do bleed out in Soren’s living room—”
“Attic,” Soren interjected. “The rug in my living room is priceless.”
Lillia rolled her eyes. “If I were to die, maybe it would count—a sacrifice trying to stop her. The universe would have to see it like that.”
Briar didn’t like this at all. She wished she hadn’t said it. She never thought about what she was doing. Everything that was happening should have been a lesson, but nothing ever was. Nothing stuck. Truly, she was an idiot.
She turned away from the counter and took Lillia’s face in her hands, threading her fingers through the coils of her hair. “Lillia, I was offering to do it myself. Not asking for volunteers.”
“I know.” She put her hand over Briar’s again. “And I think you’re right. The Gods won’t let me bleed out. I’m not afraid. I’ll do it tomorrow. My place.”
“But I’m afraid.”
Lillia kissed Briar, the gentlest of kisses. It lasted only a moment before Lillia pulled away and pressed their foreheads together. “We have to try.”
“Okay,” Briar agreed though everything inside her was screaming no, not to let Lillia do this. She had to believe Ortus would respond. Lillia couldn’t die.
“Can we order in?” Soren asked, breaking the spell between them. “No offense, Fauna, darling, but the tone is already somber enough without adding this.” He gestured to the spread of chopped vegetables on the counter.
She smacked him on the shoulder. “Fine, but you’re paying.”