Page 19 of Edge of Stars

But I’m wrong. My pounding senses tell me so. My pulse throbs harder, driving home the point. My own eyes stab me with the admission, forcing me to return the goddess’s iridescent gaze.

The fact that it is a gaze, not a glare, should tell me even more. But I fight it, no matter how loud the thunder in my ears and the horror in my blood.

“How?” I finally stammer, though it’s past a cacophony of mental chaos. I jog my head left and then right, trying to dim the assault of colors, shapes, and noises from the magic queen. But she’s relentless. Merciless. Full speed. Nonstop. “Wait. No. It—it can’t be the—”

I stop myself in the nick of time, though my effort is wasted.

“The grimoire.” Hecate sashays forward as if preparing to simply offer us some tea. “That was your intent, my darling, yes? You’re still wondering about the volume of spells—my spells—that you took from Hades’s library?”

“With your blessing,” Maximus bites out. “You already knew what happened to it. Hades all but accused you of guiding Kara to it in the first place so it would expose the magical elements in her blood, and you defended her actions. You were proud of her for getting it back.”

He shifts forward, planting feet on the two lower steps of the altar, in order to loom closer over her. Hecate readjusts her proud stance. Or is that a smooth cover for a gut-deep flinch?

“You asked us about it again, when we were staying with you at Iremia. We told you the book was safely hidden. That we’d never let it fall into the wrong hands.”

He’s barely done before the goddess jolts again. This time, not because of him. At him.

“That was before you became the wrong hands!”

Her half-hissed attack has me flinging my bouquet toward Kell and forcing myself to ignore its loud fwish at her frozen feet. It takes another surge of self-control not to rub my stomach in reassurance during my frantic rush to my husband’s side. Instead, I labor to send comfort to my middle in another way.

It’s okay, Twiglet. Mommy’s here. Please stop fussing, my love. I’ll let you dance all you want…later. After we’re done figuring out what the crazy witch lady is up to…

“What are you talking about?”

Hecate confronts my sharp demand with her severe glower. The depths of her eyes are like piles of diamonds, each poised to shatter a different window of this place.

“Oh, do not even attempt it, sweet one,” she snarls. “Not with any of that nonsense. Not with me. Especially not now.”

I force down a deep breath. Still, because I really am still dunked in confusion, I mutter, “Not with what nonsense? What are you even getting—”

“Stop. Just stop.”

Her violent enforcement of the command, with a hand flung up like she’s about to unleash the gems in her eyes along my throat, has me backtracking so fast, I trip on my train and fall backward. The headpiece comes loose, bunching enough to cushion my gawky plunk—but not fast enough to assuage my spike of fear. With one hand, I brace against the rush of the floor against my ass. With the other, I’m spreading protective fingers across my navel.

Luckily, Maximus falls to my side with ideal timing. His form blocks Hecate’s sightline in the barest nick of time. I use the advantageous moment to shake my head at him in a silent mandate.

We’re fine. It’s okay. Just help me up like I slipped a little, and nothing else.

Fortunately, the goddess seems to believe us—if she bothered to notice my fall at all. Once back on my feet, I’m able to see that her angry arm slash wasn’t just for shutting me up. It was actually a summoning signal, ordering a figure forward from the shadows behind her.

The member of her team who struts forward, his arms outstretched, the glowing grimoire couched between them.

“Namazzi Wood.”

More than anything, I yearn to sound more surprised by the man’s arrival—assuming he’s remained a man at all. Since Persephone told Maximus and me about the true identity of the Pendry Hotel’s mild-mannered night manager, I expected him to show up again at some moment. Just not this one.

But there’s no time for dissecting expectations and actuality. This juncture of real life and forced limbo… Isn’t it the perfect crossroads for something like this?

My mind’s emphatic answer becomes my tongue’s inflection of courage.

“Or perhaps you’d prefer Hermes from this point on,” I challenge, despite knowing it won’t alter his derisive smirk by one iota.

Sure enough, the shapeshifting snake seems to relax a little further, exposing fast glances of the actual creature beneath the physical shell that he used for our first meeting. Like “Namazzi Wood,” his true self has dark-umber hair in nearly uniform ringlets that surround his face, and his sienna gaze is like a pair of dipping suns on a smog alert day. Pretty but filthy.

Indeed, even when he was fully disguised as Namazzi, the sneaky cretin didn’t miss a thing. All his affected manners couldn’t cover up that part. Though right now, I’m desperately wishing they would.

“Darling girl, I don’t care what you call me at this point,” he answers with cool but vicious ease. “As long as it’s one of the key helpmates for our Queen Hecate.” He turns a worshipful gaze toward the goddess. “The one who shall soon defeat Zeus and Hera and become ruler of Olympus’s rebirth in all ways.”