Chapter 101

So, Zoey had finally managed an audience with her patron goddess. Unfortunately, she wasn’t prepared for it. Could she ever be? Even holding eye contact with the divine being turned her thoughts sluggish. If she’d had an airtight battle plan for this meeting, even then she might have struggled through it.

Had she really turned down an opportunity to be pleasured by a goddess of sex?

Some of Zoey’s questions were obvious, so she led with those. Hopefully as she talked, she’d organize herself.

“When we first met, you told me I couldn’t tell anyone about this. You and me, and ... everything.” She didn’t remember the exact wording, to be honest. “But what if I wanted to? Tell someone?”

Ephy gave her a flat look. “You’re supposed to be saving the world,” she said, “and you finally luck into a meeting with me. But the first thing you ask is if you can tell your girlfriend the truth. You are gross, you know that?”

Embarrassingly, Zoey blushed. She hadn’t expected to be chided by Ephy.

The goddess continued, “Romantics. You all are the worst.” She waved her hand. “You took that warning too literally. It was a friendly suggestion. You haven’t had many problems down in the Fractures, but it’s a brutal labyrinth filled with brutal people, let me assure you. Babbling on about being chosen by a goddess, coming from another world, and shouting out your incredible, so easy to exploit abilities ... I didn’t think you were an idiot, but it was a necessary warning.” She rolled her eyes. “You can tell your girlfriend, if you want, even if I don’t condone it, necessarily. I certainly wouldn’t punish you. I wouldn’t break the Compact for something so pointless. For that matter, there’s little I can do, to either help or hurt.”

That announcement came as a surprise. “You can’t? Does that mean it wasn’t you who...?”

Ephy quirked an eyebrow.

“Well,” Zoey said. “I figured you’d been meddling. It feels like things have lined up too perfectly, too often.”

“Such as?”

“Well,” Zoey said. “My skill, to name the biggest. Growth? Where we get bonus experience for waiting between shards.” It’d been given shortly after the dilemma with Rosalie wanting to push harder for advancement, giving them an excuse to slow down. It had smoothed over a rather unsolvable problem with almost divine timing. Zoey had been highly suspicious of it.

“That sounds useful,” Ephy said. “No. My actions in Ezariel’s world are limited. I picked your runes, and organized your first meeting with that delightful little pervert, but that was it.”

“Delightful little pervert?” That was an interesting way to describe Rosalie, and Ephy smirked. Zoey supposed it was somewhat of an accurate description.

The reminder of their ‘first meeting’ also had Zoey’s heart rate picking up. When she’d been introduced to Rosalie, it had been crammed together, naked, in the coffin of the first shard.

The forceful arrangement of that didn’t sit perfectly with Zoey, but she had bigger things to concern herself with. “Ezariel?” Zoey asked. “Who’s that? And you mentioned something about a Compact?”

“Heavenly politics,” Ephy said. “I could speak of it, but it’s mostly irrelevant. Ezariel in specific, with me having sent you to his world, is off limits. As I said, there’s much I can’t answer.”

“Can’t,” Zoey said.

“Can’t.”

Huh. Not wouldn’t.

“But I can tell them, then?” Zoey asked. “Whoever I want? About you? Earth, the danger they’re in, whatever?”

“Do as you please,” Ephy said. “Though I suggest discretion.”

Zoey considered that. One of the larger motivations behind her secrecy had been Ephy’s command not to tell others her origin and task. But it hadn’t been an order, apparently. With those restrictions lifted, who would she tell? Rosalie, certainly. Delta? Zoey trusted her, but telling her that the world was ending? And that she’d been chosen by a goddess? It would be a hard sell. And Zoey still knew too little about all of it, anyway.

“Why Rosalie?” Zoey asked.

“Did I arrange your meeting?”

“Yeah.”

“For convenience’s sake. A head start.”

“How so?”

Ephy quirked an eyebrow.

“Just because of her skill in wayfaring?” Zoey clarified. “Or other reasons?”

“Are you sure you want me to tell you?” Ephy asked.

Zoey hesitated. No, actually. She didn’t. To answer that, Ephy would have to explain who Rosalie was. Zoey had some suspicions—as did Delta, just by Rosalie’s behaviors—but she’d rather get confirmations from Rosalie herself.

“No,” Zoey said. “I’ll ask myself. It wouldn’t be right.”

Ephy rolled her eyes, though, oddly, she didn’t seem disapproving. Just exasperated.

“So. The threat to the world. What is it?”

Ephy smiled. “Finally, we get to the relevant material.” She took a deep breath, as if about to go on a monologue, then said: “I can’t tell you.” Another smile. “Obviously.”

Zoey had suspected as much. She couldn’t imagine a reason for Ephy having kept her in the dark from the start except because she either had to, or because it furthered her goals, somehow. It seemed it was the former.

“Why do you care, anyway?” Zoey asked.

“About the peril of a world?” Ephy seemed amused. “My, you do have a low opinion of me.”

“This one isn’t yours, though,” Zoey said. “It’s Ezariel’s world, you said.” Whoever that was. “So why do you care?”

Simple altruism? Or some other reason? Zoey didn’t actually think Ephy was ... what, genocidal, or something ... but she suspected ulterior motivations. This woman seemed conniving, to say the least.

“You’re mostly correct,” Ephy said, but didn’t expand on what she meant.

Zoey could intuit they’d bumped up on the edges of what Ephy was willing, or could, tell her about. “So I have to figure it out myself.”