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"Um..."
"I thought goddesses were supposed to be injury-proof."
The words quickly had me biting my lip, lest I ended up giggling like a silly schoolgirl. While what Mary Priscilla was saying was mostly true, and physical harm didn't come all too easily to immortals, it was a completely different matter altogether when it was another god hurting you—-
And real good, too, I thought dreamily.
But since I couldn't very well speak such truths to a kid...
"There's no need to worry," I told her as we entered the Underworld's dining hall. "I just had a bit of an, um, workout last night—-"
"I was just curious," Mary Priscilla clarified as we took our seats at the table. "Did I say anything about being worried?"
I tossed my napkin at her, but since the girl was still a ghost even as my handmaiden, the napkin simply went through the ruffles and lace of her pretty white dress.
"Horrible little brat!"
Mary Priscilla gave me her sweetest smile, saying, "It's not a crime to be honest."
"You know what else isn't a crime?" I growled. "Killing a ghost! Because guess what? You're already—-"
"Where art thou manners, child?"
I dealt Mary Priscilla a smug smile as Hadrian and his ARM came in to join us. "Did you hear that, kid?"
"I did," Mary Priscilla said right away. "And he was also looking at you while he was speaking."
My gaze snapped back to Minos, and the way he swiftly wiped the smirk off his lips told me Mary Priscilla hadn't been lying. "You—-"
"Good morning, my love."
Hadrian settled on the seat next to me, and I was right away distracted by the sexiest hint of a smile playing on his lips. "Good morning," I said breathlessly.
His head started to lower, and my heart skipped a beat.
"Cover the child's eyes, Rhadamanthus," Hadrian murmured as he cupped my chin.
"Yes, milord."
And then I was being kissed, and oh so thoroughly, too, that my toes remained curled even when Hadrian had finally lifted his head.
The first few minutes of breakfast were probably one of the happiest moments of my life. I had been too scared to let myself imagine what it would be like to have Mary Priscilla with me in the Underworld, but reality turned out to be more wonderful than anything I could ever dream of.
As much as it sucked to see Mary Priscilla and the ARM automatically bonding together in their mutual desire to annoy me, it was also kinda cute (but also slightly alarming) to see the girl's face glowing with happiness when Hadrian's men started talking about how impressed they were of her dedication to the art of haunting.
The ARM apparently first learned about Mary Priscilla way back in the eighties, and they had kept an eye on her since then, having enjoyed the way she would diligently re-enact her favorite horror movie scenes with her own creative twist.
"Remember what she did in homage to The Exorcist?" Rhadamanthus asked. "The way she twisted that guy's neck..."
The three men started to grin, and when I turned to Mary Priscilla, she smiled rather proudly, saying, "I managed to twist his neck three times under five seconds."
Three times?
In five seconds?
With all that neck twisting going on, didn't that mean the brat also ended up committing murder?
The thought had me squirming in my seat, and I was secretly relieved when Hadrian put a temporary end to their talk by asking for an update about last night's portal.
Apparently, the Council of Illusory Arts was the official department in charge for keeping track of portal locations. It was more or less the magical counterpart of the CIA, and per their latest findings, the Chinatown portal from last night had now moved back to its original location, which was at the empty parking lot of a foreclosed warehouse.
"The CIA has records of that portal going back as far as the 1700s," Rhadamanthus reported, "and last night apparently was the first time the portal had changed its location."
Hadrian's fingers drummed over the table. "Moving an entire portal to a different location requires an immense amount of power."
The kind of power, I couldn't help thinking uneasily, that a god like Yan Wang would naturally possess. And if it did turn out that Yan Wang was behind the portal's move...did that make the Chinese god of death my enemy?
When the conversation moved to legal territory, it was Minos' turn to share his own findings. He had consulted several oracles yesterday, but even the Oracle of Delphi, which was the best of them, had apparently drawn a huge, fat blank on what the future held for me.
"So where does that leave us then?" I couldn't help asking. "Is it really not possible for me to be a goddess without having my own dominion?"
"Not having a divine dominion of your own means you are a demigoddess at best, milady." Aeacus, as always, held nothing back with his reply.
