My mother would be included whether I filled out the paperwork or not, but without input from me, administrative strangers working for the Riks would be the ones deciding what her footnote in history would say. Would they call her a traitor? An unstable monster? Or leave it all blank, so no one would ever have a clue of the complexities of my mother?
"The paperwork can be a bit trying, and ordinarily I would go through it with you, but my hands are full with so many other things," Samael explained. "So I thought Quinn could help you, since she's done this all before."
"Quinn's made a report for the Hall of Records?" I looked from one of them to the other, but Quinn lowered her eyes when my bewildered gaze landed on her.
"Yes," Samael said, and now it was his turn to look confused. "When her mother died."
"What?" I asked, and glanced over to see that Valeska appeared nearly as shocked as I did, which meant that she most likely hadn't known, either. "Your mother is dead? When?"
"I'm sorry." Samael gave Quinn an apologetic smile. "I assumed that Malin knew."
"Eleven years ago," she said quietly.
"Eleven years ago?" I was practically yelling in my incredulity. "We were together for six months! How could you never tell me that? How could it possibly never have occurred to you to mention that?"
Quinn had avoided talking about her family as much as possible, and all she'd ever said about her mother was that they hadn't talked in a long time. True enough, I guess, but still a very hefty lie by omission.
"It obviously occurred to me. I just didn't want to." Her lips twisted into a scowl that vacillated between sheepish remorse and indignation. "When my mom died I was only eight years old, and it was this nightmare circus. She was killed by the widower of an immortal she'd returned. He was so angry that she took his wife away from him, he decided to take my mom away from everybody. And as if that wasn't bad enough, then the media got ahold of it."
She hadn't needed to tell me that last part. As soon as she mentioned the widower, I knew exactly who it was. The news had obsessively reported it, and I had become terrified that the same thing would happen to Marlow. But no matter how much I cried or begged her to stay home, she refused to let fear cause her to stop working, and she never missed a day.
"For a long time after, that was the thing that everybody knew about me," Quinn explained. "Other kids at school made fun of me or avoided me. Adults fawned over me and asked me inappropriate questions, like what her body looked like after she died.
"And I didn't want her death to define me anymore," Quinn went on. "I didn't want to spend another minute dissecting my mother's death with intrusive strangers. So finally, as I got older and time passed, people stopped making the connection, and then I stopped telling them.
"Whenever anybody asked me about my family, I always gave vague answers," she said. "And when you and I met, I didn't know that we would ... I didn't realize that things would get serious, so I lied when I met you, and then I never figured out a good way to correct that. I planned on it, someday, but ... that day never happened."
I swallowed hard and looked away from her. "I guess it's good to know that I wasn't the only one emotionally closed off during our relationship."
SIXTY-TWO
"How are you really doing?" Samael looked at me thoughtfully as we stood on the roof with the wind howling around us.
We'd had a few more awkward minutes of conversation with Quinn and Valeska before the two of them stepped away to say goodbye, Valeska spreading her wings to use as a shield from the wind and from prying eyes. Samael and I were sheltering from the wind near a smokestack.
I shrugged. "I'm fine. As fine as anyone could be, given the circumstances."
"That's understandable."
"I went to Marlow's apartment to start going through her things," I said.
"Oh." His eyes widened, and he cleared his throat. "Did you need help with that?"
"No," I said, then hurried to correct myself. "I mean, maybe. But that's not what I'm asking now. I was wondering if you knew that she was a prepper?"
Samael shook his head. "What's a prepper?"
"You know, someone who is overly obsessed with preparing for a disaster or--" I was going to say end of the world but I stopped myself. "Marlow had all kinds of weapons and a seriously ridiculous amount of lentils. Did you know about that or what she was preparing for?"
"No." He furrowed his brow, staring off in thought. "She never really invited me to her place, so I didn't know. She was a very private person."
"Yeah, that's putting it lightly," I muttered. "But she had four Valkyrie swords locked up in a safe."
"She had four swords?" he repeated. "That's ... I mean, there's nothing wrong with owning swords. The Riks still makes swords, and some get lost or stolen and end up at the Avondmarkt."
"What could someone do with four Valkyrie swords?" I asked.
"I don't know." He looked as baffled as I felt. "They don't work unless you're a Valkyrie, and a Valkyrie can only imprint on one sword at a time. So there really isn't a use for them."
Samael hadn't told me anything that I didn't already know, but I'd asked him because his experience and knowledge were so much more vast than mine. Vaster than Marlow's, even. Which meant that if he thought the swords were useless, they probably were, and Marlow would've known that too.
"She did have a lot of weapons," I said, striving to make sense of what my mother could have been thinking. "Maybe she thought a few more swords wouldn't hurt."
"Was there anything else that you found in her apartment?" Samael asked.
I debated not telling him. I considered keeping it to myself, so he'd never have to know, and if it was just between him and my mom, I would have. But with everything that was going on, I had to give Samael all the info I could.
"I found a burner phone," I said carefully. "She was seeing someone."
He frowned, a deep scowl that looked unnatural on his face, but he didn't appear surprised. "I thought she might be. The last few months, she'd been distant. Even by Marlow's standards." He paused before asking, "Do you know who it was?"
"Azarias Goll."
"That sounds a bit familiar. Let me check." He pulled his small tablet out of his jacket pocket and hurriedly tapped away at the screen, all the while muttering to himself. "Hopefully this won't raise any red flags. They're probably watching my search history."
"Who is they?" I asked, since he still hadn't given me a clear explanation about any of this. "Are you talking about Ereshkigal?"
"No." He shook his head. "Obviously, she probably has something to do with everything, but I don't know how. She's still trapped in Kurnugia, but that means there have to be people--maybe mortals or immortals or both--working for her and doing her bidding here on earth."
"You don't have any ideas?" I asked.
"I think I found him," Samael said, ignoring my question, and he tilted his screen so that I could have a look.
Sure enough, it was the guy I'd met at Sup D'yavola, scowling in a mug shot.
"Yeah, that's him."
Samael looked sharply at me. "You met him?"
"Yeah, but he didn't say much." I tried to brush this off, since I really didn't have much of note to tell him, but he tilted the tablet away from me, so I'd look up at him. "He said he dated Marlow, but she didn't tell him anything. He didn't seem to know that much about her at all, except that she loved to keep her secrets."
"That's not why I'm upset, Malin," he said. "Everything is very dangerous right now. You've got to be careful."
"I am!" I insisted, but even I wasn't sure if that was true.
He went back to scrolling through his tablet for any info on Azarias. "There isn't much here. Some petty crime. There might be more, but since he's a mortal Cambion, the Evig Riksdag doesn't keep very many records that would relate to him.
"The only thing that is interesting is that his father is a rather notable demon," Samael said. "He's the right-hand man for Velnias. But the
sins of the father don't always carry to the son."
"But sometimes they do," I said.
The sky suddenly lit up as a bolt of lightning danced across it, zigzagging through the dark clouds around us. Before the lightning had even faded, thunder clapped, and the wind picked up.
"I think the rain is coming again." Samael put his tablet away and glanced over at Valeska, who was still huddled with Quinn. "We should go before it gets worse."
"You know, just because Valeska flew you here, over all the chaos downtown, doesn't mean that you had to land on the roof. She could've dropped you at the front door," I pointed out.
"I know, but a lot of these places have security cameras, and I know there's CCTV on the streetlights along the canals."
"You really think someone is watching you that closely or that they'd care that you're visiting me?" I asked dubiously.
"Maybe, maybe not." He shook his head. "I honestly don't know anymore. What's happening at the Riks is unlike anything I've ever seen. All of the Eralim are being kept in the dark. No new missions are going out.
"And before you think, Oh it's only been a few days, it adds up very quickly," he went on. I knew everything that he was saying, but based on the frantic, irritated tone to his voice, he needed to vent.
"Right now, to keep the balance, we're supposed to ensure that point-zero-one percent of the immortals on the planet die every day!" Samael explained. "Whether that be the rare case of suicide or murder or we have to send a Valkyrie in to do it, it needs to be done. When you consider there are over six billion immortals walking on the earth right now, that's a hell of a lot of people in just three days that didn't die."
His expression grew more grave. "Now picture what it will look like in a week. Or a month. This is going to be a population crisis of epic proportions."
"That's why Odin's gone."
"Well, obviously that is the line of thinking," he said. "Immortals got sick of dying."
"Maybe it's more than that," I said, thinking of all the extra immortals that were still on earth, the ones who should've been returned to Kurnugia. "What could they do with all those extra bodies?"
With all those extra immortals still on earth, they could form an army large enough to wipe out humanity or turn us into slaves. I stared out at the city. Each of the lights shining in the windows belonged to someone. A human who could be killed, or an immortal who could be a soldier. Right now we were all neighbors. We were friends. But for how much longer?
"If they're not afraid to go after a Vanir god like Odin, I don't know how they can be stopped," I said.
"Everything can be stopped," Samael insisted emphatically. "Even death."
I smiled wanly up at him. "That's the problem, isn't it?"
SIXTY-THREE
After Samael left with Valeska, Quinn headed out as well, insisting that it was safe enough for her to drive the short distance to her place. Oona was waiting up for me, and I briefed her as quickly as I could, since we were both exhausted.
When I went into my bedroom, Asher was still asleep, but he woke up long enough to tell me that he was sorry about everything. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close to him, and that was more than enough for me.
In the morning, Asher insisted that he was feeling better, and while I believed him, I was still determined to figure out what was going on with him. Oona had been unable to find anything particular helpful in her own research, so she suggested we go visit her sorceress cousin Minerva Warren.
Asher wanted to come with us, but we managed to convince him to stay behind. I told him that I wanted to take my luft, since it was easier to get around in, and that only seated two. But the truth was that I wanted to be able to talk about everything with Oona and Minerva, without worrying about Asher or his reactions.
Especially if things got difficult and personal.
We waited until midmorning, when the news assured us it was safe to venture out, though they warned us to still use caution. But Minerva didn't live that far away. She was only over in Edison Park, a few blocks away from where Oona and I had grown up.
In this neighborhood, a lot of the brownstones were nearly identical, and the one Minerva lived in looked just like Marlow's, except the bricks had more of a reddish hue.
I had visited her with Oona a few times before, and she had a quaint little basement apartment--or at least as quaint as basement apartments go. Her building was a bit nicer than Marlow's, since we had to be buzzed in, and she raced up the steps from the basement to greet us.
"I'm so glad you're here!" she squealed as she hugged Oona, and even though she didn't know me that well, she hugged me, too. "The circumstances are terrible, I know, but I'm always so glad when you can visit."
"Yeah, me, too," Oona agreed with her easy smile.
Minerva was in her early thirties, with tightly coiled curls of dark auburn hair. Just like Oona, her skin was creamy brown and her eyes were the color of black walnut. There were a few differences between them, Minerva being taller, her limbs longer, and her lips thinner. She looked almost as if someone had taken Oona and stretched her out.
When I'd first met Minerva, back when we were kids, Oona had told me she was a sorceress, and I'd expected her to wear long cloaks or velvet gowns. But Minerva was not that kind of sorceress. Today she was wearing yoga pants with an old band T-shirt for Eden's Eternity.
"Ignore the mess," Minerva told us as we followed her down to her apartment. "I've been working on a few things."
As soon as she opened the door, the scent of sage and old books wafted out. Her place smelled exactly like Oona's grimoire.
The door opened into a small living room styled in a bohemian/thrift store kinda way that seemed to fit college students, nomads, or anyone on a tight budget. The back wall was exposed brick, with two small windows with a view of the alley. Not that I could see much of that past the potted plants that decorated the sill.
An overflowing bookshelf took up the entire wall that separated the living room from the kitchen. There was a long narrow bar made of reclaimed wood, and a wrought-iron trestle covered with all sorts of vials and herbs and pestles and mortars.
Several blankets were draped across an overstuffed couch, and two fat merle-colored rats were curled up sleeping at one end of it. They each had little pink collars with their names on them, and though I could never keep straight which one was which, their names were Victoria and Gussina, or Vicky and Gussy for short.
"So, you're here because something strange has been going on with your boyfriend?" Minerva asked.
"Yeah. He's been shaking, like he's having seizures, and he's had a lot of nightmares."
"And this all started after you came back from the underworld?" she asked.
Oona had already filled her in on most of our adventures, even before she called Minerva this morning to ask for her help. Oona had often told me that was the biggest difference between the Krigares and the Warrens: we liked our secrets, while they shared everything.
"Yeah." I nodded.
She pursed her lips. "And that's exactly why you shouldn't go down to the underworld."
"You know I wouldn't have gone if I didn't think we had to," Oona said in that irritable way she had when she'd already argued about something a dozen times.
"Anyway," Minevera said with a pained smile. "Why don't you two make yourself comfortable? I made some lavender iced tea, so I'll go pour us a few glasses, and then we can sit and get to the bottom of what's happening with your boyfriend."
Oona offered to help her, leaving me alone in the living room to peruse Minerva's cluttered space on my own. Most of her stuff appeared to be connected to her work in thaumaturgy, and there were several implements that I recognized from Oona's kit. Other than that, there were some rat toys, yarn and needles for knitting, and a few framed pictures on the wall.
The pictures were all of Minerva's family, and I lingered on one that showed Minerva as a young teenager, her very pregnant mother, Oya, and her mothe
r's sister, Rhona. All three smiling, standing together on a beach with their arms wrapped around one another. That was the only family picture of all of them, Minerva had explained on a previous visit.
Truth was that Minerva wasn't really Oona's cousin--she was her half sister. Their mother, Oya, had died in childbirth with Oona, and when her dad very quickly became overwhelmed, Rhona decided to adopt her sister's child. Minerva, meanwhile, had already gone to live with their grandmother.
Oona had always known this, or at least she had as long as I'd known her. But it wasn't something she thought about a lot. Rhona had raised and loved her, so Rhona was her mom. She was sad that she'd never gotten to meet Oya, but Minerva and Rhona told her stories about her. Sometimes that's the best you got in life.
I sat down on the couch, and one of the rats lifted its head long enough to blink at me before curling back up to sleep. A minute later, Minerva returned and set two mason jars of pale purple tea on the table. She grabbed a small pad of paper and a pen, then sat down beside me. The way she sat, with her knees tilted toward me, pen posed in her hand, reminded me of a reporter looking for a big scoop.
"So, tell me everything," Minerva said.
"Um, okay." I glanced over at Oona, who was walking around the room, admiring Minerva's things while sipping her tea. "When we found Asher, he was at Zianna, but he'd only recently been rescued from She'ol. And he'd been tortured pretty bad there, so at first I thought his nightmares might be PTSD or something--"
Minerva held up her hand. "Wait, go back. I want you to be as detailed as possible. Any little detail might help. And start back at the beginning. How did he get there?"
So I started with how Asher had gotten dragged down by Gugalanna, how it took us five days to find him but it had felt like weeks to him, how he'd been held hostage and had been bled by Gugalanna and Abaddon. Asher insisted he didn't remember much about what they had said or done, but I told Minerva everything that he'd shared with me.
When I got to the part where I started describing his wounds--the slowly healing cuts slashed down either side of his torso and arms--Minerva's eyes widened.