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“I don’t know…” His hand slips down his face as he stares at my jacket. “Try something for me.” Shrugging on the jacket, I return to his side and he holds out his hands. I place mine in his like before and close my eyes. “Try to imagine something new. Not something you’ve seen before. Make something up.”
Weighing my head side to side, I think of what to make. It would be nice to have a dagger again. Mine was in the bag I lost. Thinking of a new design, one with a twisted dragon handle and a curved blade. There’s no serration on it beyond a swirl that dips within the blade, making a secondary point. Something cool presses against my fingertips and when I open my eyes, I find the dagger I pictured. Asmo takes it, holding it up at eye level to examine my handiwork.
“You haven’t been able to summon objects before?”
“No. I can duplicate things I can touch, but that’s really as far as it goes.”
His eyes meet mine, one amber and one ghost white. “You’re not summoning these, Alice. You’re making them.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, taking the dagger from him when he holds it out.
“I wish I knew.”
12
Alice
Birds chirping and Asmo’s snores filter around me as light filters through my eyelids. It’s morning, which means tomorrow Finn dies unless I can stop it. Blinking in rapid succession, I let myself adjust to the brightness of the dawn, pushing up from where I lay on the marble ground. Luckily, thanks to my newfound ability, I was able to create blankets and pillows, something to make the unforgiving hardness of the stone floors a little more bearable.
Everything is covered in a thin sheen of dew, and in the light, I can properly take in this place. Thispalaceof a temple that’s now become a sort of enchanted garden. Blooms the size of my head wind the vines up the columns and stretch through the cracks of what remains of the walls. Even crumbling with the lack of ceiling, they still stretch up two stories tall.
This place must’ve been quite the spectacle before it crumbled. Still is, even in ruin.
Aphrodite’s temple… I’m standing inAphrodite’s fucking temple!I’ll admit it was never on my bucket list, but it would’ve been had I known it existed. There’s still a faint trickle of water from the fountain statue, and I decide to get a closer look.
Asmo is still sleeping, anyway.
Kai told me once about this place, though I didn’t think much of it at the time. When Lucifer and Persephone created the cavern beneath the tree of life, they planted crystals they acquired around the seven realms. A few of which came from here. Though I don’t see a single crystal pillar or stone in this empty room. Have they all been robbed, or is there more than meets the eye?
Stealing a glance at Asmo, he shuffles onto his side, eyes closed and still fast asleep.
It couldn’t hurt to explore, right? I’ll likely never come here again, so if I want answers…I don’t even finish the thought before opening my third eye. Colors swarm the space, so bright I’m forced to take a step back. I’ve never seen anything like it… sodivine.Magic threads the air, bouncing from wall to wall, connecting the statue fountain in the middle of everything.
Getting a closer look, I peer into the small pool at the goddess’ feet, looking for anything significant, only to find stone tiles. Surely there has to be a damn crystal crumb somewhere. Following the small stream, I weave through the overgrowth around the wall, looking out of the hole the stream travels through to get outside. What if it’s not in the temple?
“What are you doing?” a rough, graveled voice says, and the swirls of colorful auras and magic threads disappear as my third eye slams shut.
“Good morning.” I push up to my feet to find Asmo rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “I was looking for crystals. I thought they might be useful. My bag, the one I lost when I tumbled down the ravine, had some in it and since that’s gone…” I shrug my shoulders.
“Why don’t you just imagine the bag again or the crystals you need?”
My gaze zones out on the statue. “This is going to take some getting used to, isn’t it?”
He chuckles, turning to walk back toward our smothered fire. “I get it. It’s easy to forget.”
“There’s a cavern full of crystals in Hell Hold, though… The story says your father procured some of them from this temple, yet there’s not a single one here.”
“That’s because Aphrodite didn’t keep crystals. She kept the spring. Maidens would come here from all around, and the goddess would bless them. She’d dip her hand in the fountain and place a wet handprint on their chest. Just like that, they’d become irresistible to men.” He joins me near the fountain, staring up at the goddess’s face.
“Like a pheromone thing…” I whisper, thinking back to the way Kai reacted when I touched the fertility stone in the cavern. The one Lucifer said he acquired from here.
“Exactly like a pheromone thing.” He lists his forearm up, twisting it to peer at his metal cuff. Then holds his palm above the water, no touching, just hovering. Ripples roll across the surface as a bead of water the size of a grape rises into the hair, balancing in the space between the surface of the stream and Asmo’s hand. Slowly, it hardens, compressing in on itself until a small oval stone forms–the exact same color and texture as the one in the cavern. A fertility stone.
“Here. Don’t touch it, but find something to put it in,” he says, holding the stone in the air with his magic. “Quickly. The longer I hold it, the more magic I waste.”
Stuttering and forming unintelligible words, I search for anything I could place it in where it won’t touch either of our skin. Wouldn’t that put a damper on things… Grabbing my leather jacket, I hold open the right pocket, and he lets it fall inside.
“A fertility stone?” I ask, arching a brow.
