Dark Harvest (Darkling Mage 2)

“Yes. I heard. You couldn’t have known, really. Who knew that it would have been that same madwoman who killed all those other gods?”

“Yeah. Speaking of which – pretty bold of you to just go gallivanting outside of your domicile, isn’t it? Risky enough to do that half-and-half thing with your bar, and now this?”

Dionysus grinned and tapped the side of his nose. “Ah. It’s not really me. This is just an avatar. An aspect of myself that I’m sending out to do my dirty work. Think of it as a meat puppet.”

So that must have been the same deal with Hecate. Still didn’t answer how she managed to enter the Dark Room, though. Dionysus put my arm down at last. I rubbed my wrist gingerly.

“The whole situation with Enrietta Boules is very unfortunate. As for the Dawn, it turns out that someone on the inside was responsible for all my missing toys. One of my maenads. You might have met her that night you came to visit, in fact.”

“The waitress? Wow. She seemed so, I don’t know, loyal to you.”

“Well, yes, but she was still only human in the end. Greed took over, and all that. Which is funny for me to say, I suppose, considering my people aren’t exactly above greed and other petty emotions. As you may have noticed yourself.” He winked. I grimaced.

“So I assume the maenad’s getting the axe.”

“Yes. You might say in a very literal way, even.”

Yikes. Considering how Dionysus’s followers were so bloodthirsty by default, I decided not to probe further on the matter. “But about my arm,” I said, lifting my wrist to my face, the breath catching in my throat when I realized the death brand was gone.

“It’s done. Shame, really. I thought it was a good look for you. You should consider getting a tattoo.”

“Not for a long time, no. And I think I’ll avoid accepting food and drink from entities from now on, thanks very much. I don’t like the idea of being poisoned again.”

Dionysus looked at me and blinked, somewhat bemused, when something clicked. He chuckled softly. “Oh. Of course. The poison. Right.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood. Wait. Was it a trick? “You did poison me, didn’t you? The tattoo wasn’t just a ruse? I was going to die when the last petal fell?”

“Oh, yes, of course. It’s just that it’s hard for me to think of it as a poison. This is what happened. You swallowed a very tiny little seed. So small, you couldn’t possibly have noticed it in your wine. I didn’t poison you, really, so much as planted something inside of your body.”

“Wait. What?”

“Yeah. You wouldn’t have dropped dead.” Dionysus grabbed his throat, eyes bulging, and he made an exaggerated choking sound. Then he laughed. “Nothing like that. Here’s what would have happened if the timer had run out. That thing inside you would have grown all at once, and brambles would have burst out of every orifice in your body.”

My mouth fell open. Dionysus pointed at the carrion-stalk.

“Kind of like that, actually. Which reminds me.” He held his hand out, and the noise of something whizzing through the air sounded through the night. A speck of gold leapt from the tip of the spire, flying at high speed towards his open hand. His thyrsus. We’d totally forgotten about it.

“Curious how that woman – your old master, I mean – was able to create something so massive. I suppose she used the power from the Codex to perform the trick. That’s what the Viridian Dawn was planning, you know? Vines everywhere, across the whole city, then the world.” He tutted. “It’s why they wanted my precious little baby.”

He pointed the thyrsus at the twisted mass of vines. There was no flash of light, no grand display of magic, just a sigh, as of the wind shifting. The tower disintegrated into a storm of flowers, falling all about us in a hail of petals.

I couldn’t help holding my mouth open as I stared. Even the battle-hardened men and women of the Lorica gaped at the sight, some reaching for wands and defensive devices in case it was some kind of trap. I felt like I was in on a small, sacred secret, that I was the only person in the arboretum who knew the phenomenon for what it was: a god’s favor.

“Awesome, isn’t it?” Dionysus said, chuckling. “Anyway, I should be off. You should come by the Amphora for a drink one of these nights.”

I frowned. “That’s a terrible joke.”

Dionysus laughed. “I know. That’s what makes it so funny.” He clapped my shoulder – the uninjured one, like he knew where I’d been hurt – and winked again. “Don’t be a stranger, Dustin Graves. The gods don’t forget those who have helped them.” And before I could answer, the wind sighed again, and the god had dispersed into a cloud of petals.

The craziest thing of all was that no one seemed to notice, not Asher, who was being treated just an arm’s length from me, and not Bastion, though I suppose I understood considering how exhausted they both were.

Ah. But Carver? Trust Carver to be on top of everything.

“Making friends in low places, I see.” His suit was still ripped where Thea had returned his spear, but he looked all right otherwise, apart from the occasional smudges of shrike blood on his slightly rumpled clothing.

“I’m just glad that’s over,” I said. “I’m just glad that this is all over.”

“Not quite.”