"Mom?"

A sweet bell-like laugh.

"That might be a little weird, don't you think?"

He opened his eyes.

They were in a room with white walls and nine doors.

"Huh," Gwynn said. "My own white room."

A familiar face smiled down at him.

"h.e.l.lo, Sophia," he said.

This Sophia fit his memory of high school. Not those final days, where madness tattered her hair and sunk her cheeks. No, her cheeks were full and filled with a healthy flush. Her hair fell around her face in perfect golden circles.

"You can change the look if you want," she said. "Think of it as the default desktop theme."

"How'd I get here?"

Her smile was gentle and warm.

"You've always been here. Things just changed to match your experiences. You faced your soul and survived."

"That was facing my soul? You mean everyone goes through that?"

She giggled and shook her head, no.

"Your experience was...unique. But it's never easy. These doors will lead you to one of the nine remaining worlds. You just need to choose where you want to go."

"I really just want to go home...but that would be the running away choice, wouldn't it?"

"Only you can decide that," Sophia said.

"Right." Gwynn sighed.

He tried to let his body relax and block out even the noisy thoughts in his head.

Where are you...?

A faint melody came to his ears. He turned his head side to side, trying to sense where the melody increased in volume. Next, he let his feet move, bringing him to one of the doors.

He placed his left hand on the door. Vibrations matching the melody's rise and fall made their way through the surface.

"Sophia..." he said, "Thank you for everything. I never would've made it without you."

Her hand rested on his shoulder.

"Silly boy. I know. That's why I came. Say hi to everyone for me."

"I don't know if they'll believe me. But I will."

Gwynn turned the k.n.o.b, pulled the door open, and stepped through.

26.

Returning

Marduk sipped his tea, watching the young girl he knew was anything but young.

She'd shifted a number of book stacks to create a s.p.a.ce on the floor large enough where she could sit in a lotus position and meditate. He was certain she was not meditating. If anything, she'd used it as an excuse to ignore him. And moved the books? Those volumes had not been moved in near a quarter century. It didn't matter they were in a neater pile than their original placement, nor did it matter the care she'd taken in moving them. What mattered was she had come into his place after all these years and a.s.sumed there would be no affront if she just moved things at whim. Mother G.o.ddess or just spoiled girl with too much power, neither excused her actions.

"It's been nine days," she said, her eyes still shut and her body just as erect and motionless as it had been for the past four days.

"I do not think you should be concerned. By your own account, you lived seven years within the Veil. And I see no ill effects."

She slapped her hand on the ground, sending a small tornado of loose papers into the air. Her eyes opened and focused on him with a ferocity that made him wish they'd remained shut.

"I've also spent thousands of years practicing. You did what, spend a few hours talking then shoved him out the door?"

Marduk shrugged.

"A bird will only fly when it is shoved from the nest."

He regretted the words as soon as they'd left his mouth. She was in no mood for poetry, true or not. He expected his shop, and perhaps his own body, to suffer her rage.

Instead, she slumped, her eyes falling from his and turning inward.

"Forgive me," she said. "I forced my problem on you. I do not blame you for what you've done-universe knows we did worse in training you. I seem to have a habit of making you shoulder the burdens I can't myself."

Marduk couldn't suppress the smallest of smiles curling his lips. He gave a grandiose bow.

"And yet here I stand, alive, powerful, and near enough content."

She nodded slightly.

"I think that says more about you than it does us. Or maybe it says something about your father. Enkil was a good man. He deserved a better life than we gave him."

Marduk steadied his hand to keep the tea cup from dropping, managing to guide it to the desk with only a drop or two spilling. He came around the counter and slid two stacks of books so he could sit in front of her.

"Are you, the mighty Tiamat, scourge of Sumeria, consort of the demon dragon Kingu, actually apologizing?"

He laughed-a small chuckle at first, that quickly fell into his belly.

"Have I died already, or are you trying to end my life from shock?"

Adrastia drew a deep breath and let it out in a rush.

"I doubt anything shocks you," she said.

"Perhaps not to death. But I still find things that surprise me. It is probably why I have chosen to keep living."

"But yes, I suppose I am apologizing. Seven years in the Veil, which we both know seemed far longer than that, gave me time to gain perspective. I started this journey with a single goal. Over time, it's become muddied. Some days, I don't even know who I am anymore. But I do know I'm someone who should apologize, who needs to say the sorries I've left unsaid until now."

Marduk rested his hand on her shoulder.

"I accept your apology," he said. "Though I also know you weren't the true evil in that house."

"No, I was worse. I thought I could control him. I believed with enough council he would see his errors and cruelty. And when he didn't, I did nothing to stop him. I just tried to council him some more, or to lessen the evils he wrought. But I could've stopped all of it if I had acted. I had the power advantage at one point. All I had to do was end him." She drew a ragged breath. "But every time I looked at him, I saw my fa..." She shook her head. "I just couldn't kill a child. By the time the boy was gone, so was my power advantage."

"And now you have found another you hope can finish the job you could not."

Adrastia buried her face in her hands.

"What if I've killed him? I keep telling myself it was for his own good-so he could save himself when Cain came searching for him. But what if he's gone? Cain will still come, and who will protect his wife and child? Who will explain to them why their beloved husband and father never returned?"

"You will," Marduk said. "Because if you have become the sort to seek penitence, and Gwynn is dead, that will be your only choice."

She unfolded her legs and stood, stretching her body toward the ceiling with a groan.

"I should go check on them," she said. "If Gwynn comes back, you'll keep him here and tell him I'll return in a few hours?"

Marduk nodded.

A shrill, staccato ringing, broke the silence.

Marduk moved behind the counter, digging through piles of paper that exhaled plumes of dust into the air.

After a moment, he pulled a black lump of plastic with a corded handset and rotary dial from the mess.

He spewed a line of Arabic containing the name of the bookstore and asking how he could help the caller. Despite translating the words in her head, Adrastia still picked out the hesitant and unrehea.r.s.ed nature of the greeting.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Marduk said in english, "you've reached Ancient Ma.n.u.scripts of Iraq. How may I help you?"

He paused, waiting for the person on the other end to respond.

His face scrunched up and he looked at the phone as though it played tricks.

"Wait, who did you ask for?"

After a few more seconds, he stretched his hand with the receiver toward Adrastia.

"It's someone asking for you," he said.

"Sorry. I don't have a phone, so I gave a friend your number."

Marduk sighed, his whole body slumping.

He waved the receiver at her without saying anything more.

Adrastia put it to her ear.

"Jason? I was starting to worry about you."

Marduk suppressed a scoff. She'd been sitting in his shop for days, and there was only one person she worried about.

"Wait, wait," she said. "Quetzalcoatl agreed to what?"

"When Gwynn comes back..."

"You mean if." Marduk corrected.

"No," Adrastia said, "I can't think that way. He will come back. But something large is happening, and I need to be there. Besides, when Gwynn gets back, he'll probably need some time to recover before he moves anywhere else."

Marduk smiled kindly.

"I will extend him my greatest hospitality."

Adrastia hesitated, seeming unsure how to express grat.i.tude or to say goodbye. After a moment, she reached forward and gave his arm a gentle squeeze.

"Thank you," she said. "You have done more for me than I deserve."

The tinny jingle of the bell above the door broke the silence.

Marduk said, "I'm sorry, we're not open at the moment," before looking toward the door. Raising his eyes, his mouth dropped. "By G.o.d, you made it."

Adrastia released her grip on Marduk's arm and turned so quickly her head went light. But she pressed past it to see the man standing in the door.

Streaks of gray snuck into his black hair. His cheeks were sunken and sallow, and dark bags, more like bruises, hung under his eyes. But she barely registered these things.

"Your arm."

Gwynn mustered a weak smile.