Page 30 of Incarnate

"They have abundant lives to use. The real question is whether she told anyone else before coming in here. I doubt it—she couldn't risk letting it out that she had the Dominus's mate and let her go."

I scrub my face with the charcoal paste almost immediately, the stuff gritty and acrid, stinging my lips. In the small mirror above the basin in a wash room, my face looks the same with dark dyed hair framing it, turquoise eyes; a woman running out of places to hide.

"We may need to enact my plan sooner rather than later," Judica says from behind me. Her expression is harder than I've seen it.

I don’t know what to do with my hands, my nostrils flaring again as I breathe heavily through them. “What plan?” I ask, my voice cracking.

It brings me back to what Kallúm said, about the Godless. About possibly risking my own life.

“Let me close things down, and then we’ll talk.”

"The Godless," Judica says, setting two cups of tea on the table. Have gatherings, deep underground. They've been learning to open passages between Realms. Crude ones, unstable, but functional within their own framework. It's how they've been pushing into the lesser pantheons. We discovered this at our own border, at the bottom of the ocean.”

“Okay…” I start.

"I want you to attend a meeting. There's one tomorrow, in fact. If the Godless can open passages between Realms, then we can use one to get you across the border and back to our pantheon."

I stare at her, gripping the mug tightly, finding myself pressed against the back of the chair as if moving far from her. How did Kallúm know this?" You want me to walk into a meeting of godless fanatics, people who are actively threatening the pantheons, and use their own magic to escape?”

"Yes."

"That's insane."

"It's risky,” she corrects. "There's a difference."

"Is there?"

"Margaret just found us. A creature was in here sniffing for humans this morning. The decree is tightening. We don't have the luxury of a sensible plan, Penelope. We have a narrow window, and the Godless are the only ones with a door. Even if it’s a crude door, it’s still one we can walk through.”

I sit with this for a long moment. "What,” I begin, knowing I need to ask. “What happens if the godless get too close while my bind is weak with Kallúm?”

Her eyes harden, her lips pressing together. “Did he tell you to ask that? That’s a very specific question for a novus.”

“Answer me.”

Her head sharply turns to the left, her nose crinkling in a snarl.

“I’m not going to say that the bind doesn’t offer you protection.” She glares at me like she can’t tell if scolding me is worth it. “He was never happy that you wanted to come save us. To come to us meant risking your life, sure, but it was an incredibly manageable risk. For you, it was even lower with your bind to him. He was selfish about that. It’s not as if it was a suicide mission, just merely… not as safe, as usual. You ended your life in this Realm, so you could reincarnate and leave his confines. This is what you wanted, Nara. I’m not making that part up.”

My gaze immediately lowers, because no matter what, I have considered that I clearly, at some point, did leave this Realm and become a human. From what I gather, it does not seem like it was a natural cycle.

I died, one way or another. That much is true. “Then what do you want from me?”

"I need you to attend just one meeting. You need to be present for me to leverage their magic. Your soul carries enough power to anchor a crossing, even in its dormant state."

"And if it goes wrong?"

Judica doesn't answer immediately. She looks at me with the kind of expression I've only ever seen on doctors who are about to deliver news they've been holding back. "Then we improvise."

"That's not comforting."

"I'm in the business of keeping you alive long enough to do what needs doing, which was your request before you left this Realm.”

P E N E L O P E

It didn’t seem to help when I badgered Judica, because no matter what, nothing she told me could be proven. It’s as if I somehow need to speak with myself, gain the truth from my own soul.

I barely slept that night, focused too heavily on trying to connect to Naramere, who is possibly the only person I can trust right now. Who is apparently me, and yet not.