Chapter 364 Book 7, Chapter Twenty-eight – Bonds of Hareitage

Keros’s offended expression only made it worse, but when offense shifted to genuine misery, Pandy was able to pull herself together enough to place a comforting hand on his. He was stiff with indignation at first, but then relaxed and said, “I know.”

That acknowledgement was all Pandy needed. Keros was, after all, a god of death, or at least after-death. His literal job was to send certain select people on to their just reward – whatever that turned out to be – and here he was, having an existential crisis about, yes, dying.

He waved his hand, sitting up in a way that made the chair give another warning creak. “I’m not worried about what happens after I die. I’m not certain if I’ll go to one of the afterlives or be reborn, but either way, it’s… Well, it just is. But-”

Small beads of sweat gathered along his hairline as he leaned forward again. “Dying hurts. And not just dying. I mean, I’ve had a few interesting experiences since I was, ah, incarnated, but I stubbed my toe yesterday, and Geraldine had to reassure me that it was just normal.”

He looked utterly horrified. “Do you know some of the things I’ve seen happen to people? Falling from cliffs to lie, broken and trapped, for days. Anthills, bananas, crabs, drowning, electrocution, fed through fans, gangrene, heat stroke, immurement, j-”

Pandy cut him off before he could finish the alphabet. As someone who was becoming more alive by the day, she really didn’t want to think about it. Which was, of course, the answer. “We don’t think about it.”

Keros stared at her. “You don’t… think about it?” He raised his hand, staring at a tiny papercut on his thumb. “How can you not, when everything around you is constantly trying to murder you? This cut could easily become infected, causing me to lose the thumb. Without the thumb, I’d never be able to pull plums from pies. Without plum removal, I’ll probably choke to death on a plum. I give myself a month. Maybe two. I’ll probably freeze to death. Unless-”

Pandy squeezed his hand. “Don’t. Think. About it.”

The god drew in a shuddering breath, closing his eyes. “That’s all there is. What else am I supposed to think about?”

Normally, Pandy would have found him a slice of pie. No one could have an existential crisis while eating pie. Unfortunately, they were locked in a pie-free space, so she would have to do the distracting herself. “My System has been behaving very oddly. And not, like, the messages I get from VitalLink. Augustus thinks Zhery, um-” Okay, maybe don’t use Keros’s girlfriend’s pet name for the enemy god in front of him. “He thinks the other god may have… hacked it?”

That seemed to do the trick, because Keros straightened up, much of his depression vanishing. He’d been left here with nothing to do but worry, and that was never good when you actually had something to worry about.

“I’ve told you before that my spell basically created your System to make your experience of this world as close to the game as possible, ” he said. “Though someone – probably Ismara – has gained access to it as well. But I’ve been watching Clara – she looks so good beside Dorian, by the way. I don’t think all hope is lost there. Yes, she might be an elemental servant of our enemy whose presence has led to thousands of deaths through the years, but who hasn’t been stuck in a dead-end job? She’s really blossoming with all of the-”

“Kappa,” Pandy said, though honestly, she wanted to debate this topic so much it made her teeth hurt. She still didn’t think there was any way this Clara could possibly end up with any of the original love interests except, just possibly, Bastian. The rest of them all knew too much, and by the time they were really thinking about romance, they wouldn’t even look at a formerly demonic girl from the country.

Keros sighed. “Fine. But Pandy, she definitely has some kind of System. She didn’t want to talk about it, but I’ve seen her staring into space the same way you do. It’s not all the time, but whenever someone asks her to make any decision more important than what she wants for lunch, she takes a second. She usually ignores it, at least as far as I can tell, but there are a few possibilities.”

Holding up a finger, he said, “First, if she incarnated at about the same time you did, then it’s possible my magic has been acting up since the very beginning. Rather than focusing solely on you, it may have also located the original heroine and attempted to push her into repeating the plot of the game.”

“But she’s been doing things Clara would never have done,” Pandy protested. “Pushing Kaden off Celestine Point is the most obvious, but from what she and her parents have said, there’ve been other instances, too. Insulting Clara’s friends, stealing, even ignoring Geraldine – the real Clara never would have done any of that.”

“No, but,” Keros’s jaw flexed as he forced out, “Zhery-wery would. If Clara is Asparagus, then he definitely would have noticed when something happened to her. I don’t think he actually knows where she is, or someone definitely would have tried to capture her by now, but he probably maintained some kind of connection to her afterwards.”

“Which might have allowed him to affect her System,” Pandy said.

“Correct,” Keros nodded. “Which brings me to the second thing. The Dark stone.”

Pandy shifted involuntarily, feeling the box containing the stone pressing against her hip. Saskia had tailored the pants so they fit perfectly, but the boxes were all sharp corners and hard edges. Reminded, Pandy half-stood and fished both boxes out. When the one containing the Dark stone emerged, Preston’s necklace came along with it.

Keros, of course, recognized it right away. He’d been in Pandy’s head when she first saw the pendant, and he’d been as interested as she was. Reaching out, he hesitated only briefly before nudging it with a finger. When it didn’t bite or zap him, he picked it up, the chain trailing across the wood of the table with a soft rasping sound.

“Tell me everything,” he said, turning the golden disc over in his hand.

Pandy did, and as she did, she realized she’d left out a few more details of what she’d experienced in Avington House. Her conversation with Ismara, for instance. That felt… private, and while she would happily talk about it with Augustus, she didn’t want to say anything about it or what it might mean for her when everyone else was around. Well, other than the nosey Dragon, and that was fine, too.

The last of Keros’s angst fell away as she spoke, and by the time she reached the end, he was fully invested, his eyes almost as full of divine light as they had been when she first met him. Except rather than literal divinity, this was the light of an avid gamer who had just discovered the Ultimate Easter Egg.

“She confirmed that your soul is from this world? You’re certain. Not just guessing?” he pressed, tapping the edge of the pendant against the table in his excitement. Pandy nodded, and Keros all but exploded from his chair, leaving the necklace behind as he threw his hands into their air with a shout.

“Then all of this – the case brought before the Deific Court, my having to hide inside your… my having to hide, getting turned into this,” he gestured to his very physical body, “it was all pointless! More, there’s no way Zheraphon didn’t know it!”

Pandy stood, too, waving her hands as she tried to get him to calm down. “I thought we weren’t supposed to say-”

“We’re inside that Dragon’s domain. Besides, maybe I want him to hear me.” Raising his face, Keros shouted, “Zheraphon, Zheraphon, Zheraphon!”

The windows went black. Always before, even at ‘night’, they showed an indistinct but lovely pastoral vision. The sky was baby blue, with fluffy clouds, or navy with distant stars twinkling beside an uncertain moon. Now, they looked like they’d been painted black, and as Pandy and Keros watched, an enormous, horned head turned to look at them, eyes of pure silver glaring fiercely at the fallen god.

//STOP.//

That was it. A single word that echoed in Pandy’s mind and, judging by the way Keros’s eyes bugged out, his as well. Stiffly, the god sat back down, folded his hands neatly in front of him, and explained, “You belonged here all along. I didn’t reincarnate you without Ismara’s permission, because she obviously intended for you to come back. Zher… y-wery filed a case he knew he couldn’t win, based on the absence of a goddess he knew was trapped, in an attempt to distract both of us so that we couldn’t free her. And it worked.”

Looking up again, he shook his fist at the theoretical sky – though Pandy wasn’t entirely certain that this place actually existed in any physical way, especially when it was cut off from its door – and said, “But he went too far when he involved my Aggie.” His expression suddenly crumpled. “My beautiful… Sweet… Precious Agla-hii-hii-a.”

Quickly, before he could start to cry – though Pandy was very tempted to allow a few tears to fall, just in case they gave her as many Corruption Points as Aglaea’s – she said, “So you really think I was Grace Conroy?” She felt like she’d sucked on a lemon. The idea of being Bryan Conroy’s wife was physically repugnant. Though, to be fair, the idea of being anyone but Augustus’s wi… wi…

“Of course not,” Keros said, swallowing hard as he forced back the tears. “You’re obviously either a reincarnation of the original Pandora Avington – unlikely – or Grace’s daughter.”

Pandy’s hamsters fell off their wheel. Not because she thought he was wrong, but because this was the one idea that felt right. Pandy had shoved it down, over and over, because life had taught her that daring to hope inevitably led to greater disappointment. Every time it seemed like something good would happen, every time she believed things might actually get better for her, life swatted her down like an annoying insect with pretensions of grandeur.

“I’m Thaniel’s sister,” Pandy whispered, feeling her own eyes begin to well with tears. “I have a family.”

Behind her, someone made a sound, and Pandy turned to see absolutely everyone staring at her. Augustus, the Reedsleys, Edgar and Dorian, Isidor, Geraldine, Abbington, Eleanor, all of the elementals, and, right in front, Thaniel. Thaniel, who was staring at Pandy with blue eyes that were almost as bright as hers felt.

“You can’t be,” he said, but there was excitement in his voice. He looked around. “She’s big.”

Keros, entirely unperturbed by his audience – though he’d probably been able to see them coming up the stairs – said, “No, it makes complete sense. Time is… unchangeable, yes, but also not as linear as most mortals believe. It also has a bit of a tendency to speed up and slow down, especially when asked to do so by someone it likes.”

“Time can like someone?” Edgar asked, adjusting his glasses and looking far too calculating for Pandy’s comfort.

Keros stood, waggling his hand. “Mostly only the people who spend enough, ah, time with it.”

Pandy nearly groaned, but Keros didn’t seem to notice the pun.

With a mildly apologetic grimace, Keros added, “In the grand scheme of things,” here he looked a bit uncomfortable for some reason, “mortals are like sparks. They appear, then vanish, more or less instantly. They might be pretty, or they might land among tinder, starting a larger conflagration, but for the most part you don’t focus on any individual one. Certainly not long enough to like or dislike it.”

He snapped his fingers, making everyone jump, then drew a line in the air with his finger, moving it around so it crossed itself several times. “But gods, we last a bit longer. Sometimes, the greater forces of the universe… notice us. When they do, we gain what you might think of as ‘elemental’ powers. Gods of fire, gods of earth, gods of time.”

“But Ismara is the goddess of Light,” Lady Reedsley said. She was holding Clara and Geraldine’s hands, with Captain Reedsley at her shoulder.

Keros grimaced, rocking his hand back and forth. “She is a goddess of what you think of as Light, yes,” he said. Focusing on Pandy again, he said, “It is entirely reasonable to me that at the moment of her death, Grace Conroy called upon her goddess for aid, and Ismara chose to answer. She returned Thaniel and Killian to their father, along with her Touchstone, but the infant would be at risk every moment of every day, especially now that the enemy had made his move. Bryan Conroy was in no condition to watch over such a child, and Ismara herself couldn’t protect the baby, because she and her servant had to remain within her Touchstone in order to keep Thaniel alive.”

Thaniel, who had been edging closer and closer to Pandy, paused, going pale. “It took a whole goddess to save me?”

Keros started to answer, stopped, drew in a long breath, and crouched down to Thaniel’s level. “That was Ismara’s choice, not yours. And I suspect there’s still more to her decision that we don’t understand. In fact, the safest place for her might have been in hiding, especially after she expended so much power in sending your sister somewhere she would be safe.”

Thaniel nodded and turned to Pandy. “You’re my sister.”

She was standing by now, as well, and she held up her hands as if his words were dangerous weapons. “We don’t know that-”

He took a step forward, his eyes locked on her, but Augustus cleared his throat softly, drawing their attention to him. Reaching into his cache pocket, he pulled out a piece of paper that had been folded and unfolded so many times that it was falling apart along the creases. Handing it to Thaniel, he said, “This is what Pandora really looks like. Look familiar?”

Thaniel unfolded it, then pulled the locket Ismara had given him at Squawkward Spire from the front of his shirt. He hadn’t been wearing it when Pandy healed him, so he must have had someone fetch it from his room while the library was attached to Falconet. He opened it, then held the paper Augustus had given him up beside the small faces of his parents.

“You have Daddy’s hair,” he said. “And Mama’s eyes. Nobody else ever had eyes as pretty as hers.”

Avington green. Pandy had noticed it too, as she wandered the halls of the house, passing through time and memories of a family that had nearly vanished into history. It was yet another thing she’d been avoiding thinking about.

“I don’t have any dimples,” she told him, her voice shaking.

He took a step forward. “Maybe you just never smiled big enough.”

Pandy’s tears finally overflowed, and Thaniel dropped both locket and picture as he launched himself into her arms. Behind him, Augustus picked the picture up and folded it before putting it away, but neither sibling noticed. A moment later, Geraldine and Abbington joined the hug. Pandy’s Corruption Points soared.