Page 109 of We Were Eternal Once

You made me, but I can unmake you.

You are somewhere in the world, and I am going to find you.

PART SEVEN

Present Day – Cologne

Forty-Five

You close your hand over my trembling one, steadying the stake I have pressed against your chest.

“That is how you remember it?” you say.

“That is how it was,” I say. “So you see now why I must do this. Why I cannot move on until I am rid of you.”

“It is my fault,” you say, and I am unsure if you are mocking me. My fingers tighten on the stake, trying not to trace your hand over mine.

I will not be talked out of this.

“Dione once asked you a question,” you say quietly.

“Don’t change the subject⁠—”

“I am not. She once asked you a question, when she learned about our power to compel. Do you recall what she asked?”

I scour my memory for that night she followed me to hunt. At first it was to watch, unaware that I’d seen her. The tavern where I found a human and compelled him to follow us. The reverent look on her face when she realized what I could do.

The final question.

“Does it work on others like us?”

“Does it?” I ask.

“Would you like to remember?” you ask.

“How dare you? How dare you⁠—”

“Remember Delphi,” you say.

I am a temple mouse among many others.

We laugh and cry and clean together. At night we sneak food, huddle close, keep each other warm in the winter. In the summer the humid breeze rolls through the open windows, and sometimes we sleep outside.

They were my friends, my sisters and brothers, as we are all orphans.

You find me in the garden. I know of the goddess that walks the halls of the temple. I know not to look at her. But she is quiet, sneaky, and sometimes I do not realize she is there.

Like now, as I sing in the garden, trimming the flowers.

“Your voice,” you say, and I quickly stand.

“Don’t stop,” you tell me.

I sing and you listen.

You come back the next night as I am finishing up my chores.

“Sing, little mouse,” you say.