Page 38 of The Goddess is Fierce
“Baldur was beloved by everyone, even the man who killed him. He could have befriended the dwarves on Asgard and learned to blacksmith. I’ve known him longer than all of you and that just seems like something he would do. Just so, we know the arrow is important and two gods can’t figure out how it was made. Hephaestus was supposed to be one of the best. He could have taught an Erotes if they asked.
“Baldur might not be the only god using the campus forges. Or another theory is that if this god can manipulate memoriesand pull people away from moon orgies, they are somehow having Baldur do something with the forges and arrows when he’s blacked out. If someone reported they spotted a giant blond man without magic at the forge by the dodgeball field, I’d know who it was.
“I’ve only spoken to the caretaker a few times, but they are super paranoid and very in tune with the forest since they are Unseelie. If someone was messing with their memories, they couldn’t erase all the little details they’d been in that forest using the forge. They would have gotten spooked and ran by now. And because of their respect for nature, they would have notified the headmaster so we could hire a replacement to care for the plants.”
George and I both let out a little growl. I wasn’t into Baldur like she was but come on. He was a giant teddy bear. I was sure he also had some big, scary god powers but fucking with him when he was like this was like kicking puppies. I might be a giant cat, but I happened to really like puppies. Assaulting puppies was worse than assaulting kittens. A kitten would remember and grow into a cat who kept a grudge and shat in your shoes, so they weren’t completely harmless. Those little puppy brains had short memories and sometimes they didn’t get big and get their revenge.
“I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “It’s just a theory. Guys, the speakeasy wasn’t just put in place to give some of the more restless ghosts something to do. It was meant to be a reward and an exclusive club for students. The ghosts could see things the rest of us might not. Even the professors get invitations. I got one shortly after I started teaching here. Your mom and I go there to drink sometimes when it’s just the two of us. Some of the other professors were students here and are still waiting for their invites.
“The quests the ghosts give are meant to be personal and help the person doing them, but they also benefit the spirits. They are moving pieces as part of a bigger game the rest of us can’t see because we aren’t dead. I was content with just teaching, but my quest ended up giving me the idea that I might eventually want to be headmaster.
“You won’t just get a clue when you find the forge. The Academy of the Profane doesn’t have sororities or fraternities that would give some students connections when they graduate if their dorm didn’t the points and get a letter from the headmaster.
“The ghosts are going to give all of you a token once you do what they ask. It’s how you get the door to the speakeasy to appear and you’ll have to show it to the bouncer to be let in. The bouncer is the ghost of a massive bear shifter and?—”
“No one piss him off,” Church said. “Bethany is just a frail witch, and it hurts like a bitch when she assaults my nuts.”
“No, you really don’t want to piss Theodore off,” Gabriel said. “He takes his job very seriously. Anyway, that token isn’t just how you get in and out of the speakeasy. You’ll need to bring it with you on job interviews. There are a lot of Academy of the Profane graduates in the wild. If they don’t have a token, one of their friends might have shown them theirs and explained what it meant. They’ll ask if you did independent study, but some may ask to see your token. It’s going to put you a notch above with the other candidates.”
Everyone seemed excited about that but me. I was already doing my dream job. I didn’t want to be a CEO and make more money in one hour than some people made in months. I didn’t want responsibilities like that. All I wanted out of life was to sign for deaf people. I might not make millions of dollars, but I was happy, andit made me whole.
I was chosen by an amazing person to sign for him and try to help him learn to read lips and look what it brought me. I’d traveled all the way across the country to the Academy of the Profane, got to watchtheZion Skinner coach dodgeball, and I’d met my mate. I met my whole pride, and they were just as cool as Oscar and Ren.
Yeah, I’d take the token to get into the speakeasy with my friends, but I wasn’t going to be flashing it at rich people to get a job I hated. I hadeverythingI wanted. Well, except for a house for all of us with a giant bed where I could snuggle with George and make biscuits on her back when she wouldn’t notice.
But that would happen when they graduated.
“Ah. I just got an email from the caretaker. They’ll show you the forge, but they have conditions. His name is Hale and he would prefer it if only gods came out to look at the forge. Hale is aware of what’s going on at the Academy of the Profane even if no one knows who he is. He says it’s not really safe for anyone else to see his face if the Fae Court finds out where he is.
“Most of the Fae refugees who have direct knowledge of the Fae Court only give enough information to be given asylum because they are terrified of them. Hale is Unseelie and even though the Unseelie have been in this realm for a long time, they are super secretive of their actual abilities. I can ask Hale to give concessions for all of you, but helivedin the Fae realm until a few years ago. If he’s saying it’s probably only safe for gods to see his face, he’s probably right.”
“Dexter’s family has been here for generations, but I don’t want the Fae Court’s attention on him and thinking they want to steal him back,” Michael said.
Ah, yes. I wasn’t dating Dexter like I wasn’t dating Baldur. But Dexter was a cool little dude. He came out swinging when Kaylee messed with George after messing with him, too. He got his revenge and just kept fucking with her because she wouldn’tleave either of them alone. Dexter was also a total beast on the dodgeball field.
Dexter needed to be protected at all costs.
“I agree with Michael,” George said. “I don’t know much about the Fae realm, but Hale would. We can all go check out the forge by the dodgeball field and Azren, Odin, and I can check out the one in Shrieking Woods.”
Which was probably what we needed to do, but I was still butt hurt Azren asked me to sniff a dead body when they apparently could have shifted and done it themselves. Itraumatizedmyself taking one for the team fulfilling that request, so I had the killer’s scent. Matilda and Mags did, too.
I didn’t have magical powers and I wouldn’t know if the forge in the forest had been used to make some weird arrow. But I did have magicalsensesand I could smell if the killer had been out there. Ishouldbe out there with them.
I’d had a few good ideas so far, but I decided not to say anything about my sense of smell. God magic probably beat out a shifter’s sense of smell. My girlfriend wasmuchstronger than I was and I was okay with that. My boyfriend-in-law was a primordial.
They could handle the forest forge without me.
baldur
. . .
Iwasn’t expecting everyone to find me at the forge. Even with the Academy of the Profane having a dodgeball team now, no one ever went around back to the little closed-off nook with a blacksmith’s forge. I was out here because Zion asked if I could spruce up the scoreboard on the dodgeball field. It was generic since the field had been rented out for so long.
The Academy of the Profane students voted to have a team, and they chose a Hydra as their mascot. If Hydras were ever created by a god, they decided they were too dangerous and killed them because they didn’t exist today. Humans tried to wipe supernaturals out and sometimes, supernaturals gotspooked about certain races and tried to exterminate them. Nature always found a way unless the gods were involved. There were two men in front of me that witches and vampires nearly hunted to extinction, but I was looking at them clear as day.
I knew there were newer methods to making a Hydra for the sign, but some of it couldn’t be done without the forge and I really liked working with my hands. I was just finishing up when George and everyone else appeared in my little nook. I’d only just started to get to know her. I couldn’t tell you what her favorite book or food was, so I couldn’t explain the pull I felt to her. I just went with it.
I couldn’t help the smile that lit up my face as soon as I saw her. She walked over and tried to hug me. I stepped back. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to. I did.
