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CHAPTER NINE
KARA
“Should I go back in and get some meditation mats?”
I’m already chastising myself for not thinking about the offer sooner. When Hecate suggested we take our afternoon session outside, I was too pleased about the novelty of it—sunshine, flowers, and a warm breeze—to think of practical details.
“You have such an observant and generous heart,” the goddess replies. She links her elbow through one of mine. “Thank you, sweet one, but I thought we’d take a walk instead.”
“Oh. Great.” I glance back to the sala anyhow. “Should we wait for Circe, or will she know where to go and catch up?”
“We don’t need Circe this time.” She folds her other hand across the place where mine rests along her forearm. “I want a chance to talk to you by myself.”
At once my senses are slammed with the earnestness of her proposal. It’s swiftly followed by the warmth of her affection. Still, my guard shoots up. Not by a lot, but by enough. I can’t help the instinct, nearly woven into my DNA as a Valari by this point.
“Talk?” I lift a sketchy smile. “Ermmm… About what?”
Maybe this is the moment where she gives me the full tea steep about things. The actual things she was referring to before sweeping Maximus and me out here.We have so much to do.She surely meant more than enjoying bleu cheese flowers and honing my levitation game.
That must be what’s pressing so notably on her mind—and what I tell myself to listen for now. Nothing in life comes without a cost. Some are higher than others. Some are more of a joy to pay. I wonder what the goddess’s will be, but a fast probe of her energy reveals nothing beyond the constant chamomile she sips. Not exactly a telling conclusion. Hers is an ancient, almost timeless power. If she wants to shield herself from me, she’s likely got a dozen variations for the task.
“Do you need an agenda?” Hecate says with a laugh that’s also oddly comforting. “Haven’t you ever just walked and talked with a friend before? Chatted? Chin-wagged? Perhaps there’s some new idiom I haven’t yet heard for it.”
I enjoy the chance to chuckle. “I just…” I shrug. “The truth is…Ihaven’tever done this before.”
Not without it being staged for some media thing, with a reporter by my side and two cameras in my face. Certainly not with someone who ever just wanted tochin-wag.
“My goodness. Well, that’s a shame.”
I want to halt in my tracks but don’t. I also refrain—barely—from blurting that out.
I’m not ashamed.
Right now, I’m just a little uncomfortable. But I mentally shake it off while letting Hecate lead the way over a simple footbridge, onto a packed dirt path that bisects a meadow of dry grass and wild flowers.
“So where are we headed?”
Sunlight hits some bronze lowlights in her curls as she flicks a fast look over. “Come now. Most certainly you and Kell decided to play hooky from time to time and just jumped in the car with nowhere specific to go?”
My chest pangs.Kell. Though my sister and I have exchanged a few messages since everything that happened at the mansion, it’s not the same as getting to see her every day. Or having the certainty of her smirk and snark during all theuncertainty I’ve been calling my life lately.
Despite all that, I’m able to level an answering look that’s backed by complete conviction. “If Kell ever did that, it definitely wasn’t with me.”
Hecate’s brow furrows. “I thought you two were close.”
“Of course. But we’re also different.” In a lot of key ways. But I don’t say that part aloud. “Being our own selves, and having lives outside of each other as well as the family, is probably a factor that keeps us close.”
“Lives outside the family,” she echoes, almost like an incantation. “I imagine that’s not easy for either of you.”
“It takes some doing,” I admit. “But it’s not impossible with the right logistics. And, in the case of college courses, some basic humility. Once we have the chance to show others that we’re just like them—I mean, aside from Kell’s obsession with fried pickles dipped in peanut butter—people start to relax once they see that we’re no more special than—”
“But youarespecial.”
“There are parts of me that areunique,” I argue gently. “But there are other parts that are normal, and I like them too. It feels good to let them out from time to time.”
“Why?”
As easy as it was to detect her curiosity, it’s simple to sense her puzzlement. “You’re…serious?” I say with matching surprise.
