Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
I am one of a kind in these times.
“Godmakers, you say?” I speak to break the silence that has befallen the shop because clearly, she’s not going to.
“I wouldn’t lie.” She says this softly. “They all come with the brand stamped on the bottom.”
“Do the godmakers have names?”
The tern-woman finally looks at me again and a small smile lifts up the corners of her lips. “Not ones they would share with me. But look.” Then she points to the wall where an official-looking document is framed and hanging. “I’m a certified seller, see? I grew up in those buildings. I’m Third Daughter of Saturn born in the thirty-seventh year of the Age of Fire.” Then she bows her head again, looking down at her feet.
Third Daughter of Saturn in the thirty-seventh year of Age of Fire.
She is a fucking royal beast!
Well, maybe not officially, but she is, quite certainly, my ancestor!
Whoever made her was part of my beginning. She is not as grand or as refined as me, but she is lovely.
I’m in such a state of shock at this sudden and unexpected disclosure that I’m not sure what to say. This feels important. It feels… significant. Like everything she just told me matters.
“It’s true what I say,” she whispers. Probably worried I think she’s a liar.
“I believe you,” I say back. “And,” I continue, “I would very much like one of these quicksilver bottles. I’m doing important magic.”
“Of course, my lady. And I’m sure you’re capable and legitimate, but I must warn you, you have to be very careful with them.”
My lady. I haven’t been called that since my first year in Vinca. It causes me to blush. So I rush to say, “How so?” so she doesn’t notice that the skin underneath the velvet covering my cheeks is turning red.
“They cannot be left in the sunlight, or the moonlight, either. Not once they are capped.”
She goes to the window and takes the bottle I was looking most closely at, the one that was calling to me, and I notice that there is no cap on it. The tern-woman brings it back over to the wooden counter and then pulls open a drawer and takes out a topper made of silver wings.
“Once you cap it,” she says, handing me the topper, “the magic expands when exposed to celestial light. If you must heat your potions, you must do it over flames and not leave it outside in the sun. It amplifies everything, the sunshine does. And if you must cool it, you must use ice. You must not leave it out overnight with the cap on. Starlight, moonlight, sunlight and”—she looks down for this last part—“and godslight too, my lady.”
“‘My lady.’” I whisper this out loud this time.
She looks up, black feathered cheeks puffed. Like she’s embarrassed. “Sorry. But you are one of them, right?”
“One of who?”
She blinks at me, probably trying to work out if I’m some kind of trap. It’s always a trap, I’d like to tell her. But I would like this information more, and admitting the truth about traps would surely shut her up.
“One of the royal beasts. The pretties.”
And there it is. Confirmation.
She nods her head towards the door of her shop, but I know she’s indicating the Science and Glory buildings. “In there. They make us. But you’re different. I’ve never seen one like you. With such short fur.” Her gaze wanders down my naked body, covered only in the soft, golden, velvet. “You don’t come from here though, do you?”
She is a royal beast. One of the very first. And I’m so stunned to be experiencing this moment in the long history of my creation that I don’t know what to say. So I just… shake my head.
“Where do you come from?”
“The gods,” I say. “Like you.”
I should stop there. I should not tell her anything because I’m going to leave here and go about my business with my god-friend, Eros, and our magical beast, Ire, and I’m going to forget all about this bird-woman the same way Pie forgot all about me.
But she will be left here, in her shop, thinking about me for the rest of her life. The same way I thought about Pie for the rest of mine. And she will play back every word I say, trying to piece it together and force it to make sense.
I’m going to ruin her life if I tell her any more.
But there is a hunger in her eyes, and she is beautiful, and now I am certain that this humble little shopkeeper in front of me selling magic quicksilver bottles is most definitely my ancestor. And perhaps my visit here is a necessary step in my own evolution.
So I add, “I come from the House of Fire. Where they make gryphon chimeras of the highest caliber called the lioness.”