Page 28 of Until the End of Ever (To the Cruel Gods #2)
KLEOS
“ I will never get used to Workplace Ronan,” I whispered as Professor Night spoke to the two dozen assembled students, his voice loud and clear. They took notes, dutifully listening to the stoic man. “It’s as weird as if it were Gideon.”
“Gideon gets serious, occasionally,” I reminded her. “I’ve seen it, like, three times in last half year. Usually when someone messed up so much it endangers his team.”
I nodded. My cousin was pissed at me just last week for hiding my runes. It rarely lasted with him. Ronan seemed able to maintain the persona of earnest adult for an extended amount of time. It must take up a lot of his energy; he seemed so utterly someone else.
“Any questions?” the professor asked.
Four hands shot up in the air.
“Phoebus?”
I struggled to keep a straight face. Had someone truly named their kid Phoebus? The poor boy was also blond, with golden eyes, to perfectly complete the image of a young Apollo. Or it would have, if I hadn’t met the real deal Monday.
“The runes on the victims’ skins—you gave us a list of all of them, and another one including those we assume are the most important. Can we reject that information and treat all runes as being of equal importance?” he pressed, reluctantly impressing me.
“If you’d like. But that theory is considered a fairly established fact for this project, so you might be at a disadvantage if you go off an incorrect tangent. Vesna?”
An obsidian-skinned woman with green eyes and purple hair spoke next. “The target is human-born but re-forged? And that’s an existing cold case of the Guard?” She sounded highly skeptical. “Wouldn’t we have heard of that, if it had happened in living memory?”
For that one, Ronan deferred to us. Thankfully, Lucian either had an answer ready, or managed to think of his feet faster than me.
“The Guard does keep some sensitive information private. Valesco happened upon the knowledge in the archives. Which is why Ronan had you sign that you’ll keep this case to yourselves.”
“Yes, Aristeia?”
The name, unusual in itself, caught my attention first. Then I noticed the blue-haired girl who’d ridden Gideon’s back at the Silvervine. They’d introduced her as Lucky last month, if memory served.
I noticed she tested Ronan’s persona. He couldn’t help a smile.
It must be difficult for them maintain the appearance of professionalism when the two were basically siblings.
“Are we allowed to summon someone for a tip?”
Ronan opened his mouth, presumably to refuse, but I beat him to it. “Who would you summon?”
The kid shrugged. “I mean, you say the three marks on the target’s skin mean Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus, right?
I’m not dumb enough to go hang out at their temple and shout for an answer, but say we call, I don’t know, Charon?
Nereus? Even Ganymede. Gods or mortals, people gossip.
If there’s something going on, someone will likely know. ”
I was…at a loss. And feeling extremely dumb.
Why in the ever-loving fuck didn’t I think of that the moment Lucian theorized that I could have the names of Olympian gods on my skin? And I had an in with at least one of them, too.
“We’re imbeciles,” Lucian gritted between his teeth.
“Complete morons. Give her the hundred golds immediately.”
“Oh, hells no,” Ronan protested. “You’re not ruining my study session’s plan. The kids have four hours. Let’s see if they can solve the rest of your lives.”
We left them to it, although one of the twenty-something geniuses occasionally took breaks from scribbling in their notebooks to throw a question or two our way. While they worked, I erected a sound barrier between the desks and us, to speak in privacy.
“Silver,” I told the two men. “She was fostered by scions—like, the kids of gods, not yet ascended to a divine status.”
“We know what scions are, darling. That guy is one,” Ronan pointed out, gesturing to Lucian.
Oh. Well, that made sense. Technically, Cassius also qualified.
“Right. Well, Silver’s foster mother is a daughter of Hades and Persephone.”
I rarely paused to think of it. For one, Demetria was rarely in Highvale, or on Earth, and secondly, I’d never so much as seen her use any of her powers. But I still should have thought of asking her immediately after Lucian translated my runes. I must have been too shocked to think straight.
“Great! You can pop by and ask if her daddy’s been naughty,” Ronan drawled, all the while keeping the appearance of professionalism, as we were still within view of the kids.
“I cannot reconcile your face with what comes out of your mouth.” I shook my head.
“And it wouldn’t be that simple. Demetria and Grey might have raised Silver because no one else could handle a kid stronger than Hercules, but now that she’s an adult, they’re often gone.
She’d have a way to contact them if needed. ”
“ Erm ,” I heard, just behind me.
I turned to see the petite blue-haired nymph, holding up an elegantly scribed paper.
“Lucky, this wasn’t a race for time. You still have an hour before presenting your findings.”
“Please.” The kid rolled her eyes. “We all know I’m going to win. I have plans for that money.”
Ronan sighed, and reached out, but the nymph handed the papers to me. “Blah, blah, long story short, a simple lineage ritual should figure out who created you.”
She spoke like we’d told her the “cold case” happened to me.
“It’s theoretical ,” Ronan hissed.
Lucky snorted. “Please. I saw her rune yesterday night, and I’m not a complete idiot.
Anyway, the ritual is called the Perthro Root.
Think of it as a magical paternity test. As for your runes, Phoebus is an idiot.
The Futhark are the only ones we should pay attention to, as they respond to your initial three. ”
“Paternity?” I repeated. “I mean, I know who my father is.”
“Your initial, fleshly sperm donor, sure. But that flesh was remade from scratch by a magical daddy. A lineage ritual ought to take your spirit to that entity. And the rune thing is the start of a marriage ritual. A forced marriage ritual,” Lucky added with a sneer.
“Back in the day, people weren’t so much into letting girls pick, if you know what I mean.
I cited three sources; I’ve seen the details on bondings in a book, and it’s one of them.
Can’t quite recall which. Also, I want in.
” She said all that in a bored, detached tone.
“In?” Lucian echoed.
“The Perthro Root. I’ve seen one performed a few times.
There are street kids with no clue who fathered them.
It makes the child connect with their magical root.
It was one of Pan’s kids, so we were all meandering through a forest, super high.
When it was over, we all gained a fair bit of wisdom when it comes to nature—and some skills, too.
Whichever one of the three gods rewrote you? I’m not missing that.”
“How—” I was about to waste my breath asking how she’d come to any of those conclusions, or perhaps even how she’d managed to walk in my privacy barrier without alerting me at all, but after a second, I knew better. “How are we going to get it right without you?”
I glanced between Ronan and Lucian, wondering if they’d protest. The former sighed, the latter shrugged.
The nymph beamed. “I knew I liked you. Now, my cash, if you please.”
Lucian paid up. At the gasps and mutterings from the kids who noticed the exchange of gold, he stepped out of my shield and announced, “Everyone, Aristeia was indeed insightful, but Professor Night misconstrued the prizes: I’m offering a hundred to the three most inventive viable theories.”
I snorted. He’d averted a riot and resumed his status as a richer-than-Midas posh git in one fell swoop.
We remained in the auditorium until the end of the study session, and some of the students came up with half-decent ideas, but none came close to Lucky’s guesses.
That kid was something else. Especially considering that she spent the rest of the study session snoring in the back while the other students glared.
A shifter with cat eyes, Juliette, gave us another golden opinion that, once said, seemed rather obvious.
Her own presentation glossed over the how to figure out who could have recreated a brand-new person, but she said, “Whichever god is responsible for the target’s change, it stands to reason that the one responsible for the offensive ritual eleven years later would be that god’s direct enemy.”
On a blackboard, she wrote all three Olympian names, ignoring how the chalk seemed to sizzle a little by the time she was done.
“Zeus was king in Olympus after defeating Chronos. To his two most powerful brothers, he gave the two farthest domains to ensure he wouldn’t deal with their rivalry.
By all accounts, Hades and Poseidon were rivals, and envious of each other.
When Poseidon got the sea and Hades the underworld, no one was satisfied.
” She drew a line between Poseidon and Hades.
“But then, Hades got Persephone, who literally everyone desired. He won.” The line was completed with an arrow, pointing at Poseidon.
“If Hades recreated the target, Poseidon is the most likely enemy. Hades’s resentment might not be directed towards the sea, but he’s still pissed that his queen has to leave for half a year, isn’t he?
” Another arrow pointed from Zeus to Hades.
“And the king of Olympus insisted on that to placate Demeter. So if Zeus saved the girl, it’s probably Hades?—”
“Stop, stop with the names!” Lucian snapped.
The girl was literally half on fire.
“Oh.” She looked down at herself and waved indifferently. “That happens all the time in theology. Bless Hera, queen of the heavens!” she called.
All the smoke died instantly.
“As I was saying,” she continued. "This leaves Poseidon. Frankly, I’m not certain here. It seems like everyone hates him equally—just not enough to directly bother him.”
The presentation was messy, not logical enough to be called fact, but the reasoning behind it was worth considering.
Lucian himself had pointed out that knowing who created me could give us an idea about who wanted to control me, but Juliette’s reasoning made us realize one thing.
Whatever god had remade me, the one trying to control me wasn’t just my enemy. He was his .
Lucian paid her, and Phoebus, for complex rune translations that didn’t lead anywhere.
Still, in four hours, they’d moved everything along more than Lucian and I had in a week.