I would’ve worked harder.
And this leads me back to my forgetting, and my apathy, and my… submission.
What if Pie wasn’t sent to me as a caretaker slave? What if Pie was sent to break the spell someone put on me? And what if I am supposed to save Tarq the same way Pie saved me?
Maybe Saint Mark’s really is a sanctuary for monsters?
It could be right. But I’m worried about this crazy queen. How does she fit into the picture? “If you leave, and take her precious wood nymphs, won’t the queen come after you? And us?”
“She can’t open the door to your realm. Only Pie can open that door.”
“Why is that? Why is Pie the only one? It makes no sense.” And it’s actually not true, either. I can open doors. This whole thing—the sanctuary, the curse, the doors, the debt—all of it is starting to become suspicious. I feel like I just fell into a mountain of clues, but I will need lifetimes to figure them out.
Tarq shrugs. “Ask Ostanes. This is all her doing. I would kill that bitch if I ever saw her again.”
“Seems to me the bitch you should be killing is the queen.”
“Yeah, no shit. But…” He pauses again.
“Now what?”
“She doesn’t just have nymphs, Pell. All the monsters here, all of them. She has opened doors, and conquered worlds, and taken slaves. They are all her slaves. She uses every one of them for something. There are millions of us who live under her tyranny. If I killed her, they would suffer.”
“Suffer how?” I snort. “She’d be dead.”
“She has us all working against each other. The water nymphs have put curses on the satyrs. The gorgons have put curses on the cyclopses. The satyrs have put curses on the minotaurs—”
“Hold on. Are you saying… everyone here is pure?”
“No. Not all of them. Hardly any, actually. But all the purebloods, like me, we’re being blackmailed. She’s using us to get to each other.”
“So again, just kill her and end it.”
“We can’t.”
“Well, why not?” I’m losing patience with him. I don’t understand anything and it’s starting to piss me off.
“Because if she dies, the magic dies. It’s the queen’s magic that binds the purebloods. It’s the only thing stopping them from destroying everything. Trust me when I say this—they would torture me for eternity if they could. And maybe I deserve that? He sighs. “And if that’s what happens, fine. But before I die, I’m gonna save my woman.”
“Who is this stupid queen, anyway?”
“You think Ostanes is powerful?” He scoffs. “Just wait until you meet her daughter.”
Daughter! The word echoes in my mind. “But… Pie is her daughter.”
“Yes. Pie is Ostanes’ daughter. One of them, anyway. Ostanes did big magic on us, Pell. Big. I’m still trying to unravel it.”
“You and me both.”
“I’m pure, you’re pure, and Pie—she’s pure too.”
“How does that work? That would mean she comes from a pure wood nymph too. And Ostanes was not a wood nymph.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. The queen isn’t a wood nymph, yet she is Ostanes daughter too. I don’t know what you were told about the ‘big divorce’ but she told me that I’m Saturn’s son. That I am powerful and I am pure.”
“She told you that, huh?”
“What did she tell you?”