Octavian glanced at me. “Thank goodness Leda hadn’t been born yet, or the two of you would have destroyed the house too.”
Punch snorted, and thumped me cheerfully on the back. I took it as a good sign that my godly teammates were including me in their banter; it meant they’d accepted me.
“I try to make a habit of not antagonizing houses,” I said brightly. “It hurts like hell when they land on you.”
“Well, let’s refrain from blowing up houses or furniture at this Choosing,” Devlin said over our chuckles. “It’s our job to keep things civil.” He leveled a commanding look on Punch. “Not to contribute to the mayhem.”
“Of course, boss.” Punch’s words were contrite, but fantasies full of mayhem sparkled in his eyes.
The gala was just getting started when we finally reached the castle at the end of the very long, very meandering path from the estate’s rear gate. The wide, open, straight path from the front gate was apparently reserved for the party guests, members of the gods’ exclusive lower nobility.
“How does a god become a member of the lower nobility?” I asked as Stash and I took up our positions at one corner of the large stone terrace.
The Lords’ Gala was taking place outside, right at the castle’s doorstep. The stone building front was lit up like a stage backdrop. Soldiers stood guard on every tower, staring out across the dark plains that surrounded the castle. But not our team. We were supposed to stay here, on the ground level, and look out for trouble from within the gods’ ranks.
“Alliances and intrigue,” Stash told me. “Some gods are born into the lower nobility, but whether they stay there is entirely dependent on how well they can maintain and expand the alliances of their forbears. The Seven are more complicated. A god requires considerably more support to ascend to the council, but even the most powerful god can fall. As we are seeing with Valora right now.”
“I can’t say I will weep for her lost crown,” I said. “But her losing it was Faris’s doing. And now he’s been rewarded for his plotting and scheming against the other Seven? It just feels wrong.”
“The Seven chose Faris because they believe him to be the most capable god to lead us to victory over the Guardians. And he has already shown he will do whatever it takes to do that, even allying with the demons we’ve fought for millennia.”
“We?” I arched my brows at him. “It’s only been a few months, but you already talk like you are one of them.”
“I am one of them. I always have been. And so are you, Leda. Stubbornly denying it might make us feel better about ourselves, but it won’t change reality. We have to work with all that we’ve been given, not cut off our good arm in protest of other people’s suffering. Crippling ourselves to soothe our conscience doesn’t help those people. It only makes us weaker and less able to help them.”
“You’re right.” I sighed. “I know you’re right. It just…grates on me sometimes.”
“Just remember who the enemy is.”
“It’s hard to remember who the enemy is when it changes every day.”
He flashed me a grin. “One catastrophe at a time, Pandora.”
“I like to multitask.” I returned the smile. “The Guardians are the first on my list, but they aren’t the last.”
I looked out across the gala of gods. There they were, the members of heaven’s lower nobility, dressed in their finest, surrounded by thousands of bright flames. There were candles everywhere—on all kinds of surfaces, and in all shapes and sizes.
A pleasant scent, fragrant yet not overwhelming, danced on the air. Actually, I realized, it was many scents, a bouquet of the senses, all combining seamlessly, melodiously, into one flowery aroma. The subtlety of the party’s perfume surprised me. It was so delicate, so subdued. And so unlike the flamboyant gods. Whoever had cooked up the evening’s aroma palette was as skilled as the person who’d designed the artful lighting.
A few weeks ago, I probably wouldn’t have noticed any of these details. But ever since my sister Tessa had started her event planning business, she’d been burying me in design sketches, idea scrapbooks, and color collages. I’d never known there were so many varieties of the color pink, or so many ways to fold a napkin.
The gala’s lights and aromas weren’t the only elements that had been designed to perfection. Even the temperature was just right, not too chilly or too hot. The starry sky looked like a painting on the ceiling, almost too perfect to be real.
Tiny bottles of Nectar hung from the trees like fruit. When a god or goddess wanted a drink, they plucked one of the bottles from the branches. When they were hungry, they picked a shell from a flowering vine. The oyster-like shells were iridescent white, and tucked inside of them were bite-sized appetizers, elegantly prepared. Many of the party decorations were either edible, or edible things hung from them.
Water lilies floated inside immense fountains. Pink and white, purple and bronze, blue and silver, red and gold, black and platinum, orange and yellow—the lilies’ petals glittered with magic. The flowers were all edible, each color a different dish. The fish that jumped between the flowers were edible too, but they weren’t really fish. They were desserts that had been bewitched to look and move like fish. As soon as someone caught one, it transformed into a tiny cake, cookie, or some other sweet treat.
Beside me, Stash chuckled softly.
I looked at him. “Is something funny?”
“I’ve just had a delightful little daydream about you.”
“I’m a married woman. And you and I are cousins, remember?” I scolded him.
“Not that kind of daydream, sweetness. I just had a fleeting thought about you grabbing Valora’s crown and throwing it to the ground as you berated her for her misbehavior.”
“That never happened.”
“After that, you picked up her crown and put it on your own head.”
“And that won’t ever happen,” I declared. “I am not going to take Valora’s place on the council.”
His brows drew together. “Why not?”
“Well, to start with the obvious, only gods can sit on the gods’ council. I’m not a god.”
“Your father is. The king of the gods, in fact.”
“And my mother is a demon. So what does that make me?”
“Versatile?”
I nearly laughed. “An outcast. It makes me an outcast, Stash.”
“You enjoy playing the outcast.”
“Sure I do. Sometimes. But no one wants an outcast to sit on the gods’ council. And I don’t want it either. In that, the gods and I are for once in complete agreement.”
“It was just an idea.” Stash looked at me, his head tilting slightly. “You’d make a great evil queen.”
“Well, thank you for the vote of confidence.”
“If you ever change your mind, you have my vote, Leda.”
I set my hand on his arm. “Thanks.” I appreciated the sentiment, in any case. “So…” I shifted my gaze back to the dressed-up gods and goddesses. “Which one of them is Lady Saphira?”
His eyes scanned the crowd. “There,” he finally said. “She’s the goddess in the sparkling blue gown, the one wearing a decorative comb in her black hair.”