Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Callistina bangs a broken broom handle on the floor like she still thinks it’s her gem-topped scepter and bellows her command again. “You shall call me queen!”
Pie cowers back, almost hiding behind me. “Please tell me this is an illusion.”
“It’s not,” I murmur under my breath. “We just wish it were.”
Callistina is… not a gryphon chimera. She is still human. In every regard. But she has dressed herself up as one like a child playing in an attic on a rainy afternoon. Picking up, and putting on, old clothes and jewels. Fashioning crows from tinfoil and wire.
She is wearing an old fur coat. Spotted leopard, maybe. And it looks like it has the mange. Underneath the coat she’s wearing some kind of… tunic… that may, in fact, be repurposed gold draperies. Her belt is a motorcycle chain and there is a ring of grease around her middle, like she actually ripped it off a fucking bike and didn’t bother to clean it. She’s not wearing any pants but the drapery tunic goes to her knees. On her feet are… I don’t know. Wooden blocks? Maybe? Like she’s trying to fashion hooves? But she never had hooves, she had paws. So… I’m at a loss for that.
But the icing on the cake that is Callistina are the antlers. A nice rack, too. Twenty-two points. Sloppily spray-painted gold and precariously affixed to her head with some kind of cord that is so tight under her chin, I wonder how she can breathe. They rock and jiggle when she takes a step forward.
She. Has lost. Her fucking mind.
“Oh, my God,” Pie whispers. “I did this to her.”
“You didn’t.”
“You shall—”
“Shut up, Callistina!” Eros bellows this from across the room.
Her whole demeanor changes. And when she directs her gaze to the god, I think she’s crying. “He said Apis! I heard him! He said Apis!” Then she looks at Pie and wails, “I want to go home!”
Pie almost falls over. I literally have to hold her up. She’s already beating herself up over casting her sister into a debt prison, and this… well, this is enough to shock her into a collapse.
“Again,” Eros says. “As I was saying.” He’s in a bad mood now, his eyes darting to Callistina quickly, and his gaze makes her slink back into the shadows. “You ruined Vinca by making Tarq king.”
“I don’t understand,” Pie says. “I don’t understand what’s happening here.”
Eros softens. It’s clear he does not hate Pie. Me, yes. Her… there’s something going on there. Guilt, maybe? Attraction? I don’t think it’s actually attraction. But I do think it’s fondness.
And this disturbs me. So I redirect the subject back to Tarq. “If you knew Vinca was gone, why did you send me to get Tarq?”
Eros sneers at me. “Because, obviously, I didn’t have any details.” He glances down at Tarq’s mangled skull, then over to Pie. His gaze locks with hers and they just stare at each other. “And now I do.”
“I don’t understand.” I hate to admit this. It gives off a sense of weakness. But I don’t have any choice. I need more information.
“I was locked out of Vinca. Not just Vinca, though. All of the realms but this one.”
“Wait.” Pie puts up a hand. “Hold on. Let me get this straight.” Her tone has changed from confusion to… anger? “You had Lisa grab me from my world, take me to the human realm, then you disappeared, left her in charge of me, and… and you were here the entire time?”
Eros says nothing. He doesn’t tell Pie to shut up. He just stares at her.
Guilty.
He really does feel guilty about this.
Pie scoffs. Because his silence tells her everything she needs to know. “You’re a piece of work, you know that? I fucking hate you. And you know what?” She pauses, like maybe she’s trying to talk herself out of what she’s about to say, but it doesn’t work. “The deal’s off.”
“Pie.” I squeeze her hand.
But she pulls her hand right out of mine. “No. I’m leaving.”
And then… that’s what she does. She walks out.
CHAPTER THIRTY – PIE
I don’t truly understand my anger right now. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. This Eros guy is nothing to me. I have zero feelings for him. Why do I care if he’s been in this world since he pulled me from my life and left me with Lisa?
I don’t!
But I do. So much. I don’t even know where to begin, there are so many feelings inside me right now. And they are all about him.
It has to be because he’s an eros. That has to be it. It has to be.
It’s just not. That’s not what this is. And now my chest hurts, and my eyes are watering, and my breathing isn’t working right, and I think I might be having a panic attack.