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“I broke your vase.”
“I didn’t like it anyway,” I tell her with a halfhearted shrug.
“Stop!”she shouts. A small concussive force sends me sliding backward, and several books fall from their perches. I probably would have been fine, but that same force overturns a chair, and I fall backward over it, landing hard on my ass.
Cat’s eyes are squeezed shut, and her whole body tenses. She doesn’t open her eyes until Essos throws the doors open and rushes toward me. I hold up a hand and stop him and get up myself. I have to show Cat that I’m fine, that everything will be okay.
“Stop what, Cat? Caring? Because I won’t. Nothing has changed between us,” I reassure her, walking back to where she stands.
She’s terrified, and I think she might actually be shaking. “It changeseverything. Is Catalina still my name?” She shrinks away from me when I reach for her.
I hold up my hands, showing her I won’t touch her. “Did it change anything for you when you found out I was the Goddess of Spring? Did it change anything for you when you found out Essos was my husband?”
“I just hurt you. I can’t control this. I’m going to go all Elsa on you and freeze your heart. Did I hurt the baby?” she asks in a panic.
“No, Cat. We’re both fine. My ass is going to be sore, but I’m less worried about that than I am about you. I asked Rafferty to come here to help you. I heard you screaming the other night.”
“I was in a bomb shelter in London. It caved in around me, and I couldn’tbreathe, and my body was on fire.” Cat lets herself drop, but I rush forward and catch her, both of us collapsing onto the floor. This time I have the foresight to summon a pillow to cushion our fall.
My back is to Essos, and I don’t look at him. I know he’s just as pained as I am at what Cat is going through. There’s nothing we can do to help her through this. I smooth her hair as she cries, her body shaking.
Essos moves around us and drops onto a chair, running a hand through his hair. We share a look, so much communicated between us. Posey was soft on me in comparison to what she put Cat through. My soul was trapped in a gem until she decided enough time had passed. I don’t know what metric she used or why she waited so long. Was it to ensure that Essos didn’t kill Galen on the spot? Was it her way of flexing her power over us? I was stuck in that stone for over a thousand years, but Cat never had a chance to become the goddess she was meant to be. Her soul was plucked from Fate’s tapestry and sent to the mortal realm. Cat lived and died over and over during the millennia I had to fall in love with Essos, wed him, and die myself.
“What do you want from me?” Rafferty asks. I don’t turn to face him, only glancing at my husband for his answer.
“We want you to help her, whatever that looks like. Burying the memories of her past lives or helping her accept them or muting them, or whatever it takes. She’s suffering.”
Hearing Essos’s impassioned plea, I want to squeeze his hand, but I settle for hugging Cat to me instead.
“Stop talking about me like I’m not right here,” Cat orders, disentangling herself from me. She stands and faces Rafferty, then offers me a hand up. Her gaze is critical of him, and I enjoy watching him squirm. He’s known the rest of us for millennia. Cat is an unknown entity. New blood in an incestuous pool of sharing lovers. It’s like six degrees of Kevin Bacon, only it’s three degrees of former partners.
“What do you want? Do you even know?” Rafferty sasses, and I want to throttle him.
“I know that you are clearly overcompensating for something with that shitty attitude. Does being the God of Memory mean that you alter memories to make yourself seem better in bed than you really are? Or better yet, maybe you just make your lovers forget? Because if so, I’d like to bring you up on charges for abuse of power.”
Watching Rafferty turn red is worth every second of frustration this morning. “If you’re not interested in my help…” he huffs, turning on his heel.
“Quit being a baby,” I order with a sigh. All the energy and anger that was keeping me upright has fled my body, and I am just so tired. I make to sit beside Essos, but he pulls me onto his lap instead, like we’re young again with no care about PDA and not the king and queen of a realm. Well, he’s the king of a realm, and I’m his…what? Mistress?
“I did not come here to be ordered about and injured by some cuckold and his whore,” Rafferty snaps, turning his attention back to Essos and me. Clearly, losing two fingers a few minutes ago had no impact on him.
“Perhaps you’ll listen to me, then,” a voice booms from the second floor of the library. I don’t turn, because I can picture Xavier with his shirtsleeves rolled up, bracing his hands on the banister so he’s looking down on us, just the way he likes it.
Essos slides me off his lap and stands up. As if the tired pregnant woman is going to be the only one sitting down. I get up and stand beside my friend. Cat hasn’t outright rejected Xavier, but she’s made it clear to me by staying here that she would much rather not face him or deal with anything that has to do with him.
Just to be a showoff, Xavier floats down to us on a dark little cloud. I want to take his dramatic flair and shove it up his ass.
“If you don’t have tacos, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” I cross my arms and jut out my hip.
“Do I look like a delivery boy?” Xavier asks, leveling me with a glare.
“No, you look like a bad guest who showed up at someone else’s house without food.”
Beside me, Cat shrinks back a little, placing herself closer to me and Essos, and Xavier sees it.
Hurt flashes on his face, but he’s never been one to let emotion get the better of him, so he buries it, pointing at Rafferty. “Why isn’t he speaking?”
“Because I removed his tongue,” Essos offers darkly, glaring at the insolent god. He slips his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels.
