“And almost goddamned killed herself in the process,” Siret muttered from nearby.
“Emmy is a god,” Pica trilled. Damn woman was so chirpy; she was making it really hard for me to cry in peace. “We don’t know what she’s a god of, yet, but we’re all expecting big things.”
I pulled back, then, to get a closer look at Emmy. “But, you look the same?” I questioned. “Shouldn’t you look different?”
Emmy shook her head, and the most breath-taking of smiles spread across her face. “You look the same. Becoming a god doesn’t change your outside, but I promise, I have never felt so strong in my life.”
“Cyrus?” I had no idea why he was the first name that came to mind, then, but the last thing I remembered was him being all bright and fighting Staviti.
My spine straightened. “He’s okay, right? Staviti didn’t kill him?”
Emmy’s cheeks went a little pink. “He’s fine. The moment Pica and Adeline showed up, Staviti must have realised he was overpowered, and he took off.”
That was great news, but … he wouldn’t have given up so easily. Jakan had been very clear in his message. Staviti was on the path to destroying all of the gods. All of them except his precious Originals. Only…
“Why did you help us?” This question I directed to the Goddess of Love, who was busy flitting around the room, rearranging the four billion accessories that were on every spare inch of space. “Staviti loves you, and you turned against him.”
She spun toward me, holding an ornate crystal lamp. “I LOVE lamps,” she said with enthusiasm, before smiling down at it fondly. “Don’t you love lamps?”
I flicked a side-eyed glance at Coen, who just shook his head. Okay then, crazy-pants it was.
“Lamps are … great, sure. I really enjoy their … light.”
“I know!” she shot back instantly. “I love light. It’s so warm. I just love it.”
“She loves everything, right?” Emmy said, her voice low, edged with laughter.
“Every-fucking-thing,” Yael said, low and derisively.
“Ask her the question again, Willa,” Coen encouraged. “She gets easily side-tracked.”
Right. “Why did you help us, Pica?”
The lamp was gently placed down and she gracefully crossed to be closer to the bed. “Because he killed my son, many centuries ago. I loved my son more than any of my other loves. More than I love the stars and moon and the air and breeze and the lamp—”
“We get it,” Aros cut her off, his voice rougher than usual.
“Your child is one of those in the imprisonment realm?” I asked her, my voice trembling as I thought back to those blank-faced children.
Some of the dreaminess left Pica’s face then, and she focused on me properly. “Yes, Judas, my one and only baby. Mine and Rau’s. For this, Staviti will be punished. He will suffer. I’ve been waiting for the moment another who could challenge him would come along. I knew the moment Rau found you that you were the one. I waited for you to ascend when you died, but you never did.” Her full lips pressed into a pout, and she blinked dramatically like she was going to cry. “I’ve had this room set up for you for so many moon-cycles.”
She spun in a circle, her face lighting up again. “Do you like it?”
“Am I allowed to … not like it?” I asked, thinking back to the still-unresolved mystery of how Pica had kidnapped us.
“No!” She replied, smiling—though I was pretty sure she really meant the ‘no’. “You’re only allowed to love it!”
She stood there, her hands held out to me, her smile wide and disarming. Holy shit, she was the most frightening of all the gods.
“Alright,” I acquiesced. “I like it. So much. It’s … so pink.”
“Pink is just so lovely!” she exclaimed.
“You scare me,” I muttered back, causing Emmy to choke on a laugh.
“What was that?” Pica asked, leaning forward a little, the smile still stuck in place.
“I said you have lovely hair,” I amended.
“And yours is just divine,” she shot back, pawing all over me, her hands wrapping in my hair. “It’s so yummy I could eat it! Num num num!” She mimed chomping down on my hair and then drew back, laughing.
I stared at her. Wide-eyed. Horrified.
“Num num num,” I repeated, in a daze. When I had recovered, I tried to speak again. “So ... it’s really nice in here and everything, but ... how long do we have to stay?” I asked, trying to be delicate about a situation I had no understanding of.
“Apparently, this is where you live now,” Rome muttered out of the side of his mouth.
“Oh, silly Willy!” Pica spun around, opening the door for me. “You can leave anytime you want!”
“How long has she been calling me Willy for?” I whispered to Emmy.
“For as long as you’ve been here,” Emmy whispered back.
I extracted myself from the bed and stood, my head swaying for a moment as I tried to gain my balance.
“And how long have I been here?” I asked this question a little louder, directing it to everyone.
“Fourteen sun-cycles,” Coen replied. “Pica took you after Staviti left the Peak. She told us she knew how to heal you, but she grabbed you and jumped through the same pocket as Staviti, closing it behind her.”
“I did do that,” Pica confirmed, smiling jovially. “It was time to bring you home, Willy.”
“Right.” I fixed Coen with a stare, widening my eyes a little. He cringed in response, and then answered my unspoken question.
“It didn’t take us long to find you. This was the first place we checked: Pica’s platform. She was having a tea party with you, right out in the open. Invited us to have a cup.”
“A tea party?” My brow furrowed in confusion. “I don’t remember that.”
“Oh yes!” Pica clapped her hands together beneath her chin, donning a whimsical expression. “It was so lovely.”
“You were unconscious,” Yael supplied.
“Oh.” I was officially terrified of Pica.
I made my way to the door and carefully edged past her, walking into the hall. Her residence was made of marble, as with most of the god-homes, but there was so much pink fabric hanging everywhere that it was a little hard to recognise our space as one of the typical marble houses that I had grown used to in Topia. Nonetheless, it wasn’t too hard to navigate my way out the pink nightmare. I opened the main door and stepped out into a small garden, surprised enough that I paused to look around. Soil had been piled into marble garden boxes, fruit and vegetable plants overgrowing from the sides. Everything looked so ... well-loved. I shuddered, hurrying out of the garden.
“Oh!” Pica called after me, causing me to turn around.
The Abcurses had followed me silently, Emmy right behind them. Pica pushed past them, making her way to me.
“I forgot to mention,” she said, linking her arm through mine and squeezing tightly. “You can go anywhere you like, just as long as you don’t leave my platform. I can’t protect you if you do, and I can’t let anything happen to you, Willy. I fear so badly that if I let you out of my sight, Staviti will snatch you up and destroy you as he did my beloved Rau.”
Suddenly, it made sense for Rau to have been with the Goddess of Love. She was just as crazy as he was.
“Staviti ... killed Rau?” I asked hesitantly, my eyes flicking to Rome for a moment. He shook his head, the barest of movements.
Pica doesn’t know.
“He has been jealous of Rau since the beginning of our creation. He created me, the perfect vision of love, but I did not love him, as he had intended. He made a few mistakes with me, being his first creation. He couldn’t understand why, but ...” she laughed, suddenly. “Whoever does understand love?”
“Right,” I agreed. “Nobody. Love is ...”
“Crazy,” she inserted. “It’s crazy, isn’t it?” She laughed again, the thought apparently delighting her.
“You said it. So, what happened when you didn’t love him back?”