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“And so, they never matured.Their power shielded them and, in the process, stole any opportunity to be better.”

I thought about my mother then and wondered if she’d learned anything in all those lonely years on Earth after her plan worked and the gods were driven out or killed.Leaving her to rule this universe as her personal fiefdom.Only to swiftly realize that the final battle had drained her more than she knew and that she was now the hunted one, with all her old enemies among the demons and the children the gods had left behind now stalking her.

“I don’t know,” Bodil said quietly, picking up on my thoughts.“And neither do you.”

“No,” I said, my mental voice cracking.“I don’t know much about her.Even after going back to the past to find her.I know it was wrong,” I added, noticing her surprise.“But I just wanted to see her…”

“And what did you see?”

I didn’t know why she bothered to ask, as I seemed an open book.But she was looking at me with those eyes glowing reddish again as if her power was up and surging.As if this mattered.

“Someone who was very good with the Pythian energy, almost effortless,” I finally answered.Just seeing her use it had taught me, oh, so much!It had been like breathing for her, like shifting was for me.So simple and natural...

“And what else?”Bodil pressed.

And I tried; I honestly did.But while I could have talked all day about my father, that mess of contradictions, talent, boldness, insecurity, and sheer goofballness that he’d been, with his bag-lady ghost and constant scrapes, my mother...

“Is a blank,” Boldil whispered.

I nodded slowly.I still didn’t understand her.I knew what she’d done, but who she was, what she’d wanted beyond power, if anything, even how she’d felt about me...

No.I didn’t know that.She was a blank, and she always had been.

“I don’t know if they can learn,” Bodil said after a moment.“The power stunts them, and even after they shed it, I’m not sure they shed its effects.But you and I were raised differently.We canchoose.”

And so we came to the crux of it.I looked at her and saw none of the serenity I was used to.She was still afraid, I realized.

She was afraid of me.

“Should I not be?”she asked.“The daughter of Artemis?”

“The very human daughter,” I reminded her.“And far weaker than you ever were.”

“Are you?”It was suddenly sharp.“You can feed as she did, and there are plenty of free-floating spirits here.You saw some of them before, and I saw glimpses of them in your mind.The remains of the billions the gods killed and did not consume, for they were not powerful enough to be worth the effort.But there are so many, and for you, they could form a veritable feast—”

“I can’t do that!”I said, staring at her in horror.“They’d fight me off!”

“For a while,” she agreed serenely.“Until you absorbed enough energy for it not to matter.Until you became too powerful—”

I had a sudden, absurd image of a giant-sized Cassie striding over the land, gobbling up masses of ghosts the way the mad gods had done to the mages until I became strong enough to cannibalize something more powerful.Until I started going after the gods themselves, first the weaker, crazed variety too stupid to run, and then the rare stronger ones who still resided here on Earth.And finally, after using another ability I’d inherited from my mother, to open the pathways into the hells, feasting and growing fat on everything I found there, demons and gods alike, until—

Until what?I wondered.Until I fulfilled her dream and became just like her?Or until a coalition of the leading gods killed me, and I became just another idiot demigod punching above her station?And left the world, all the worlds, of this universe to the ravages of a horde that never became satiated, never got enough?

I stared sickly at Bodil, and she stared back, saying nothing because she didn’t have to.We both knew it was possible; hell, after my recent experiences, maybe even likely.I wouldn’t have made it fifty years like Jonas, I thought with sudden clarity.

I’d have tried it.

Sooner or later, I knew I would have.

Maybe with the best of intentions, but how long until the hunger took me, and that was all I knew anymore?How long before I gave into it, as every single one of the others had, including my mother?How long—

Bodil grasped my wrist suddenly enough to make me gasp and break the spiral I’d been falling into.And whatever this was—a vision, a mind-invasion, a trick—it felt real.She felt real, gripping my skin hard enough to leave little indents from her nails in my skin.

“But you have an advantage they didn’t have, not even her,” she told me.“You get to choose.And can choose differently—”

“Can I?”I looked at her and didn’t bother to hide the despair I knew was in my eyes.It was echoing all through me, shuddering right down to the bone.Because I feared and lusted for that future so much it scared me.

I wanted to make them hurt; to see thembleed.I was tired of skulking in the shadows, of scurrying around, and trying and trying and trying and failing more often than not!Of being their victim when I’d never asked for any of this!