It took a few minutes for Anatole to finish putting away the meat and set about clearing away enough space for us to sit. The cave was goblin-size, which meant bending over for me, and squatting for Colson.
“I’ll wait outside the door,” he said after a minute of trying to maneuver his frame into a comfortable position around the bean bag chairs Anatole had gathered together. More than a dozen scented candles gave the place a soft glow and filled my nose with the smell of coconut and daffodils. In the back of the cave I could make out clothes piled together like a rat’s nest. The only thing that seemed remotely organized was the collection of ink-splattered parchment and old books taking space beside the fire pit we’d huddle around.
“Play a good host, Anatole, a good host,” I heard him mutter as he leafed through the parchment. “Can I get you anything to eat?” he said to us.
I glanced at the links of sausages he’d tossed on the ground beside the clothes. “I’m good.”
At last, Anatole finished scurrying around for whatever he was looking for and sank into one of the bean bags across from us. “So…I should have asked this before, but I knew I would know the answer regardless: what do you need to know?”
The others looked to me, and I scooted forward as much as the bean bag would allow. “What do you know about the Zukami, and severing the power of the gods?”
Anatole let out a delighted squeak, which was definitely not the reaction I’d expected.
“Finally, a query worth investigating! You know, I had wondered…the rumors, the rumors…so it’s true then, that the same being terrorizing the Academies of Magic and putting the Paranormal Coalitions on edge is one of the god eaters?”
“It’s true,” Asher said. “And we were told you may know a way to stop her.”
“Perhaps. Everything would be theoretical, of course. There’ve been so few Zukami, even in my lifetime. I suppose I should explain about what you think is the source of a Zukami’s power: You see, the Zukami can host—”
“Gods,” I said. “We know.”
“Is that so?” Anatole frowned. “And did you know that these gods get their power from a place called—”
“The Realm of the gods,” I said. “We also know that.”
Anatole gave a furious little blink. “You’re taking all the fun out of this. How is it you know so much…”
He trailed off as he looked at me properly for the first time. I didn’t think I looked that bad, but Anatole was gazing at me like I might be a walking corpse.
“Your eyes,” he murmured. “You’re missing something. You’re one of them, aren’t you? One of the god eaters.”
“I was,” I said.
“Were? You mean you’ve lost one? That’s…” It took a moment for him to form the words. “The very fact that you’re still alive now, surely it’s only your force of will that’s keeping you from keeling over on the spot.”
Mia cleared her throat. “Skylar is still connected to that realm.”
“Yes. Yes, I see…” Anatole held my gaze for a moment longer before turning back to the rest of us. “No more interruptions, please.”
“Talk faster, then,” Colson said from the doorway.
“Yes, yes. Gods gain their power from the Realm of the gods. While an individual god might have varying levels of power, it’s the connection to that realm that allows them to use that power on our plane. Without that connection, they would be powerless. Aimless. Lost.”
I recalled the few times I’d gotten to see the real side of the Dark Prince, when he had been stripped bare of his magic and influence. That’d been exactly how I would have described him. Aimless. Lost. Despite his threatening demeanor, he’d been searching as hard for a sense of belonging as the rest of us.
Anatole steepled his fingers. “Severing that power…What you’re asking…It’s not a pretty thing.”
“But we have to,” Mia insisted. “With Skylar still connected to that place…it’s killing her.”
Anatole inclined his head. “Be that as it may, you are still severing the bond her soul has to that other realm. If you do that it could help. But it could also do the opposite. Do you understand—”
His eyes flickered to me. “Well, perhaps one of you does.”
“I know what it means,” I said. “But we still have to do it.”
My voice was firm. I was proud of that. I couldn’t waver in this. “How can we do it?”
“I do not know,” Anatole said.
“Excuse me?” Asher said.
“We were told to find you,” Colson said. “You were supposed to know the answer.”
“I know a lot of answers!” Anatole said, hurt. “I don’t know exactly how to do what you’re asking, but I know someone who does.”
I let out a breath. “Maybe you should have started with that.”
“There is one known as the Sage of the gods,” Anatole said. “One who is connected between our plane and the plane where the Realm of the gods resides. The Sage can give you the ability to sever the connection tethering you to that realm.”
“Perfect.” Asher was grinning in a way I hadn’t seen him do in a while; his face truly alight with hope, eyes glittering at me. “We just find this person, learn the technique and bam! Your connection with the Realm of the gods is gone and you can start to heal.”
I touched my hand to my chest while the others discussed this new development in excited voices. The dull, persistent ache seemed to have lessened over the passing days; or maybe that was simply me getting used to its pain. Though my friends believed this could be the answer to our problems, I wasn’t so sure. Whatever I’d seen in my visions, whatever this Sage of the gods might be able to do, I wasn’t sure that severing my connection would be that easy.
I noticed Colson watching me and quickly dropped my hand, giving him a reassuring smile. He didn’t look reassured.
“Where is this Sage?” Mia said.
At this, Anatole leaned back, crossing his stubby arms stubbornly over his chest. “This being you speak of is one who is ancient, who has lived among this realm for many centuries. His ways are mysterious, even to me. His knowledge, I hate to say it, is far vaster.”
“And he lives…” Asher egged.
“Well I can’t tell just anyone.” Anatole fixed me with a sorry gaze. “Even though it is clear one of you is connected to the god eaters, I must have proof you are what you say you are. I must see the marks.”
“Oh come on!” Asher said.
But I’d stilled when he said marks. My right forearm throbbed, as though knowing exactly what I had to do.
I glanced at Mia, passionately berating an unwavering Anatole, then back at Colson. He was watching the proceedings with his usually heavy gaze, as though seeing more in it than anyone else could. Before I could chicken out, I rolled up my sleeve and unwrapped the bandages covering my right arm.
“You mean marks like these?” I said.
Mia gasped. Even Colson raised an eyebrow.
“Skylar,” Asher said quietly, and I knew, even though he’d known they existed, he hadn’t realized how bad they’d gotten. Even I was a little shocked at what I saw.
The inky black lines along the forearm had combined into a single mass, the darkness stopping at the wrist but reaching forward, lines of black curling around the knuckles and between the fingers. I couldn’t see up much past my elbow, but I imagined the grasping black had consumed my entire shoulder and spread into my center.
“They started about a month ago and have grown ever since,” I said. “Even when I lost my god they remained. I’m assuming it’s because I’m still tethered to the Realm of the gods.”
Anatole reached out, seemingly in a trance, then stopped, apparently realizing what he was doing. “May I?”
I held my arm out toward him. After a moment’s hesitation, Anatole brushed the rough tips of his fingers along the inside of my arm. “I believe that’s possible, that the connection you still have would be enough to cause this to continue to spread.”
“I sense a ‘but’,” I said.
“But,” Anatole said. “For a mark such as this to remain, it means…My hypothesis is that while a part of you is still tethered to the Realm of the gods, a part of your god remains in you, just as a part of your soul remains with him.”
A stunned silence met this. I opened my mouth to ask the first of probably a million questions, but none of them would come out. Mia’s face was total surprise, Asher’s lips pressed into a thin line. Though I’d known part of my soul was missing, I hadn’t realized that part had remained with the Dark Prince.
“But that is just my theory,” Anatole said. “I will need to check more. You will stay here tonight while I search. Then you will go find your Sage tomorrow.”
Without waiting for us to recover from our shock, Anatole stood and scurried over to his work table where he began leafing through sheets of paper at lightning speed, muttering to himself.
Asher was first to recover. He started to get up. “Wait just a—you need to tell us now—”
I grabbed his arm to pull him down again. I knew he was only trying to help, but I also knew when someone like Anatole was caught up in genius fervor. How much genius there was in it remained to be seen, but I doubted any amount of yelling or demanding would get us anywhere with him.
“I’ll go talk to him,” I said.
“Knock some sense into him, more like it,” Asher mumbled. “He’s making us run all over the place to find someone else. And…I don’t know. I don’t like it.”
“I think he’s telling the truth,” Mia said softly. “It won’t hurt to stay here a night and rest up."
I noticed she was staring at my marked arm. I quickly rewrapped it and pulled the sleeve back down. Mia looked up at me, eyes searching my face.
“No more secrets?” she said.
“No more secrets,” I said, meaning it for real this time. I had nothing left I could hide, nothing that I was or ever would be that I could keep from them any longer. They had seen the real me, the raw me, the ugly part of me and stayed by my side the entire time. They’d traversed incredible danger and sought me out no matter how lost or broken I was. I would never forget that.
My throat was tight as I hugged her, then Asher. “Go settle in. I’ll talk to Anatole. Maybe my charming personality will get more out of him.”
Mia cast me a humorous look. “No offense, Skylar. But if it’s charms you want, then you’re the last person among us who should go.”
I pressed a hand to my chest, pretending to be hurt, before stepping over the bean bag chairs and over to Anatole. He’d rimmed the table with an excessively large number of scented candles, so that it was hard to pick up the smell of crackling parchment and quill ink over the scents of lilac and what I could only think was ‘Home-Cooked Breakfast’, complete with pancakes and slightly burnt toast.
“You stay tonight,” Anatole said without looking up. “You are indeed marked, so I will indeed tell you the location of the Sage.”
“It isn’t that,” I said. I checked over my shoulder to ensure that Asher and Mia had joined Colson outside the cave. I could hear the rumbling ground as Dragon bounced at their return. “My friends think that severing my soul from the Realm of the gods will somehow heal me.”
“Miracles happen every day. Why, just this morning I found two socks that actually matched, so anything’s possible.”
“But you don’t agree with them, do you?”
At this, Anatole finally looked up at me. I resisted recoiling as his largely dilated pupils took a moment to revert to their normal size. “You don’t want to hear what I think.”
“Yeah, I kind of do. That’s why we came to find you. And I’ve heard a lot of bad news the last couple years,” I added. I looked down at my arm. Now it was throbbing along with my heart. “What’s a little more?”
Anatole looked at my arm, too, then sighed. “Very well. I will let you know more about what I find, but yes, it is unlikely that severing your connection with the Realm of the gods will do anything to improve your condition. In fact,” his long fingernails tapped a nervous rhythm on the parchment, “if what I believe is true and part of your god remains inside you even now, then yes, even by severing the connection it’s likely you’ll still die anyway.”
“Okay,” I said, suddenly feeling sick. “Right. Thanks.”
I left him to his papers, the feeling of hopelessness that’d stuck with me surging once again, threatening to consume me from the inside out.