My Life From Hell (The Blooming Goddess #3)

Picking Fights With Gods (Part 2)

I got myself under control as best I could. Got ready to face Theo and Festos. I opened the bronze gate that served as a door for the old cage elevator, squeezed myself in, and pressed four.

The elevator began its slow, grinding ascent with a hum, bumping to a none-too-gentle stop when it reached its destination.

Festos had the only apartment on the fourth floor. In fact, he had the only apartment in the building, keeping the rest of it, which he owned, empty of other tenants—supposedly for safety's sake in the event of unwelcome beings. But I figured it was just an excuse since he tended to irritate easily. Also he wanted as much room as possible to spread out his various metalworking and technological experiments.

I creaked the cage open, stepped out into a small concrete foyer, and opened the door to Festos' place. My home sweet home these days. Much as I'd complained about being shipped off to Hope Park as a child, I couldn't believe how much I missed the place now. Even going to class. I'd been keeping up my coursework through online correspondence but that meant me being 100% self-motivated. And I'd learned I was more the "have teachers ride my butt with deadlines" kind of student.

Also, it was sort of hard to care about high school classes when the fate of the world was on the line.

My body drooped in listless sorrow thinking about how I'd kill to be getting ready for bed check with Hannah and not running back like a scared puppy after I'd experienced a crazy, scalding vision of the end of the world.

Nothing I could do about it. It was what it was. And I was grateful to Festos for taking me in. He was loyal as they came, once you proved yourself. I had, back on a mission to stop Hermes, now a multi-media mogul, from making Bethany famous. Being the best friend of the god he'd been in love with for ages hadn't hurt either.

I saw just how much Festos loved Theo as I slipped through the apartment door and found Fee washing windows. Festos had a lot of areas of expertise as a god. Housekeeping was not one of them. He'd actually had a cleaning service until about a month ago, when Theo had turned the living room into our war council. Since humans couldn't be made aware of gods and their battles, the service had been cancelled.

Festos had sucked it up with remarkably good grace and only three tantrums as the cool furniture in his hipster pad got shoved aside to make way for a giant conference table, where Theo now sat, sharing space with a large 3D relief map of the final battle site in Eleusis, Greece. The map was marked up with various entry and exit points, and a huge pile of books teetered precariously off the edge of the table next to it.

Large aerial photos of Eleusis were tacked up along the walls, next to whiteboards containing the ritual words, and various possible battle strategies. The room was in total disarray.

As I silently pulled off my dirty socks—I hadn't grabbed my boots in my bat-out-of-hell flight from Jennifer's cabin—I watched Festos clean the floor-to-ceiling windows at the far end, his back to both me and Theo. "You like how zee manservant, keep zee charming view so crystal clear?" Festos asked Theo in a horrible French accent.

At Fee's words, Theo shot his boyfriend a fond smile before returning to whatever dusty tome he was studying. "You're cleaning windows at night. You're an idiot."

Theo was combing through all kinds of ancient texts looking for anything that might give us the edge in this battle. I knew this because I recognized his hunched-over pose. All he'd been doing for the past few weeks was sitting and researching. Yeah, he lived here too now. Which made it very cosy. Theo had been a student with me at Hope Park since grade two—intending to keep an eye on me until I was eighteen and the memory spell around my goddessness lifted. But since Kai's kiss had jumpstarted my powers and Felicia had removed me from school, Theo left as well, in order to stick by my side.

His faith in me was touching.

And upsetting after what I'd seen. Which was why I didn't draw any attention to myself as I came in and saw them.

The incredible normality of the scene helped calm me down and push my fears away.

A bit.

Theo's usual garb of black, long-sleeved T, and baggy skater pants looked more rumpled than usual. He propped his head on one hand, his fingers crushing some of the tiny spikes in his shock of dark hair.

Festos rose up onto his tiptoes to wipe at a spot. "Oui, bien sur. I am an idiot of love, n'est-ce pas? And I clean for zee pleasure of your—Oh, hello, young Sophie." Festos grinned, catching sight of me as he turned to face Theo.

Theo looked over at me and scowled. Not an uncommon occurrence. "Sit."

He pointed at the chair beside him, then pushed his black, thick-framed glasses back up his nose in a familiar gesture.

I couldn't face him. Not tonight.

"Magoo," he sighed, reverting to his nickname for me, "now is not the time to be keeping stuff from me."

He was right. Theo was my friend, and my mentor. He absolutely deserved me coming clean.

And I would. I just needed to sort out everything I'd seen in my own head first. "Tomorrow," I promised.

I walked through the open concept living space toward my bedroom. All I wanted was to curl up and obsess until I finally got so tired that I crashed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Theo stand up and I also saw the head shake Festos gave him.

"Tomorrow," Festos murmured.

I went to my room and shut the door.