Page 24 of Right Hand Of The Reaper
Duskia waited with a wicked curl to their mouth. They could sense my deliberation and were taking amusement from it.
If I had any chance of finding Thane, I needed a moment when I knew where he’d be. But equally I knew Duskia could tell me something that would be stupidly unhelpful like Thane would be in the Mansion of Night, wherever the fuck that was.
“Where should I go next if I want to find Thane?”
“Now that,” Duskia said, pointing her finger at me, “is a good question. Go to the gates of Olympus tomorrow. You’ll find something illuminating there.”
“Thank you,” I said with a small bow. I still had more questions but at least I had some answers and something to look into.
“We will let you know when we want to call in our favour,” Dayna said as I turned to leave.
“It will be soon,” Duskia added. I was grateful for that. I wasn’t sure I wanted this particular debt hanging over my head for the rest of eternity.
I was just reaching for the door when the temperature suddenly dropped, and the light disappeared from the room. I looked back over my shoulder and the Fates were suspended in the air, their eyes glowing white and their hair whipping around them in a phantom breeze.
What the actual fuck?
“There is a darkness in you that is darker than the night,” they said in unison, which was a little creepy. “You are not what you seem, and you are not where you should be. When the door of secrets opens, he will find you and all will be revealed.”
A sonic wave of magic flew towards me, hitting me in the chest and I stumbled backwards into the door. Images flew through my mind but none of them made sense. Red eyes. Black diamonds. Stars and darkness. Fire and tears and anguish. I fell to my knees with the onslaught and just as soon as it started, it was over. The low lighting came back on, and the sudden silence was deafening in my ears.
I found the Fates watching me with an expression tinged with curiosity and fear. If something scared the Fates, that couldn’t be good.
“Um, what was that?”
“No more questions, child,” Dawn said, a slight tremble in their usually sure voice.
“But—”
“Leave us,” Duskia snapped. “Grab your friends and go.”
Dayna took a step forward, the only Fate with pity in their eyes. “They’re in the holding room at the end of the hall. They did it to themselves.”
“Did what?”
Dayna smiled softly. “You’ll see. Goodbye Roux.”
Then the three of them vanished into thin air with a pop.
What the fuck was all that about? And what was that weird premonition? What the hell did that mean? Maybe I should go and see Hades. I wasn’t overly fond of that idea but he might know what the Fates meant with all that weird mumbo jumbo shit.
I strolled down the corridor and stopped outside the door at the end of the hall. I could hear the three of them, so I at least knew they were all still alive.
“—can’t believe you’d think that. There was more at stake than you could possibly comprehend,” Magnus shouted.
“And we couldn’t possibly understand, could we?” Rafe snapped.
“It wasn’t that. I didn’t want to put you at risk,” Magnus added.
“That wasn’t your decision to make,” Rayne roared. A thud followed, a fist against a table maybe.
I felt a bit guilty about listening in to a conversation that was clearly meant to be private, but I wanted to know what had happened between them. What had caused such hatred to fester.
“You treated us like we were nothing,” Rafe said. “That Christmas meant everything to us and you just laughed in our faces.”
Gods, I could picture the twins now, arms wrapped around each other and matching expressions of rage and pain.
“And that’s not even the worst of it,” Rafe continued, his voice angry and trembling. “You went and did the same thing to Roux. You pushed her away like she meant Jack shit.”
