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Okay, to be fair, getting dunked in the river just outside my hut did me a world of good. Or it could have been the incredible power of that little coconut and its naturally occurring electrolytes. Long story short, giving myself a good scrub, toweling off nice and dry, and running a comb through my hair for good measure actually did make me feel a lot better.
Sometimes you just need an extra nudge to get off your butt and do something about your situation. That, or get thrown in a river by a gorilla in a pink apron.
Artemis was nowhere to be found when Florian and I were making our way out of the domicile, which probably meant that she was secreted in one of the many wooden structures she’d made me put up since we started construction.
She’d designated a bunch of buildings and named them things. “Here’s the clubhouse, and that’s – I guess that’s the toolshed.” But for the most part, the structures were just places for her to stuff her alarmingly useless collection of human junk.
And junk food, too. One shed was packed to overflowing with chocolate snack cakes, but the holy grail was the tiny hut where Artemis kept all the Snacky Yum-Yums. I gulped as we walked past it, making a mental note to replenish her supply as soon as possible. Don’t ask why I developed a craving for cheesy puffs while I was hurling my guts out. It probably didn’t help me recover any faster.
“You go first,” Florian said, gesturing at the shimmering portal in the domicile’s nexus, a large, green doorway in the shape of a leaf.
“Happily,” I said, passing through, no longer as nervous as I once was of interdimensional travel.
I just had a fussy stomach, I guess. I puked my guts out the first few times I experienced teleportation, and entering the domiciles of supernatural entities always made me feel a little queasy. Looking back, I should have known that flying would have had a similarly nauseating effect. I thought I was pretty fit when it came to physical stuff, but supernatural methods of transportation tended to expose a surprisingly delicate other side to my constitution.
But it was still Raziel’s fault, damn it.
The ambient warmth and humid heat of Artemis’s home fell away as Florian and I entered the actual reality of Valero, California, right where the goddess’s tether was situated. Gods liked to keep multiple doorways to their realms, and the one we used just happened to be located in the Nicola Arboretum, tied to a small, mossy statue of a fox.
I sipped in the fragrant, verdant air of the botanical gardens, relishing the satisfaction of stretching my arms as far as they could go. Yeah, that was the ticket. Nothing like a good stretch. Granted, it wasn’t as satisfying as that time I got to stretch my wings, but I wasn’t kidding when I said I wasn’t sure about flying ever again.
And those wings conveniently vanished when I landed back on terra firma, receding back under the sigils on my skin. They could stay hidden, as far as I cared, at least until I learned how to fly without needing an air sickness bag strapped to my face.
“We should just walk it,” Florian said.
I nodded in agreement. “Great idea. Nice day for it, anyway.”
We were getting a decent stipend from Artemis for our work. Nothing life-changing, but just enough for me and Florian to save up a little for some luxuries here and there. Priscilla kept us nice and fed, so that was a bonus, but us boys knew that we weren’t out of the woods yet as far as finances went. If hoofing it to Silk Road meant that we could save on a little chunk of change, then so be it. Not the shortest walk, but I figured a little exercise and fresh air would be good for me.
“Tell me again why we’re off to see your girlfriend,” I said, managing to keep my smirk mostly to myself.
“It’s – she’s not my girlfriend,” Florian said, blushing. With a deep tan, moss-green eyes, and hair in tight curls like tendrils and vines, his features clearly took subtle cues from the less human half of his physiology. That included his height, too, and it was fun pushing his buttons, seeing this six-foot something slab of meat get all flushed and flustered. “I just think she’s cute, and it’s fun to flirt with her. And why am I even talking to you about this, anyway? Like I said, she agreed to lend us her purse.”
I cleared my throat, kicking at a pebble, suddenly feeling playful and cocky now that I wasn’t two coughs away from turning my body inside out. “Lend us her purse. Is this some sort of euphemism for something? Is that how you kids talk nowadays?”
“Mason, I swear. Plan B was us being nice. We could have gone all the way to Plan C.”
I cocked an eyebrow, studying his face. “And what was Plan C?”
Florian’s eyes narrowed into slits. “You don’t want to know. Now stop teasing me. Beatrice’s purse is like one of those, whatchamacallit, bottomless bags.”
“Hmm?” I snapped my fingers in understanding. “Oh, I’ve heard about those. They’ve got a little dimension hidden on the inside. You can put tons of stuff in them and they never get heavy.”
“Or bulge up, or anything,” he said. “Right. And since we don’t exactly drive and neither of us is up to paying for a service to haul fifty jars of wine all the way to Dionysus, I figured we could borrow the purse and save ourselves a ton of effort.”
I nodded at him and grinned. “Very smart, Florian. I’m impressed. How’d you know she had one of those sitting around?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t, but it’s the nature of her business. Enchanted tailoring and stuff. She was bound to have one somewhere in her shop. Turns out she has several, and she’s willing to lend us this one for free.”
“And how’d you swing that?”
The corner of Florian’s mouth hiked up into a little grin, and he winked. “A gentleman never tells.”
I scoffed as we went down another block, cutting into a side road sandwiched between a pair of residential buildings tall enough to keep the street shadowy, dim, and cool. I lifted my head, noting how both of them seemed so sparse, their apartments either empty or with curtains drawn across the windows.
“Huh,” Florian said, spotting the same thing. “Everybody must be at work.”
Just then, the fluttering of wings far too large to belong to any bird came from somewhere behind me, followed by the clicking of heels on asphalt.
