Thea

“Mistress!” La’akea shouted. “What are you doing here? I have this completely under control without you.”

“Do you? Because it sure as hell doesn’t look like it.” Kai raised an eyebrow. “Do you have any idea how long that’s going to take to clean up?” She was pointing at the molten floor, but it was already repaired by the time I turned back to look at it.

“And you!” The goddess pointed at me. “Why are you out here heckin’ up the place?”

I kind of shrank in on myself, which was a perfectly reasonable thing to do after an angry goddess accused you of something that you’re absolutely guilty of doing. “I, uh, wanted to leave.”

“You didn’t think to just ask?” Kai shouted the question. “La'akea is the nicest dragon I’ve ever met. You didn’t need to go and attack her.”

“Thank you, mistress, but-” La’akea started to interject, but Kai silenced her with a wave while staring at me expectantly.

“I did ask! But she refused to let me go,” I explained.

“Did you try showing her the letter?” The trickster goddess asked. I just stared blankly at her, so she continued. “You know, the one I left on the desk in the room where I summoned you? I even put a rock on it so it wouldn’t blow away during the ritual.”

“A rock?” I stared at her wide eyed. “You mean that giant ass boulder that was crushing the desk in the office?!”

Kai scoffed. “That desk was forged 2,000 years ago out of mahogany from the planet Malchior VII, it’s nigh indestructible. There’s no way a pebble like that would have even scratched it.”

“That is a very fine material,” Ithnaa said. “Would you be interested in selling it?”

“Maybe, but it’s very expensive.” Kai narrowed her eyes at Ithnaa. “Also, who the fuck are you?”

“That’s Ithnaa,” I introduced her. “She's a djinn that was trapped in a bottle of Djinn’s Kiss, because a dragon thought it was funny.”

“Oh, that is funny.” Kai relaxed before snapping her fingers. Ithnaa’s eyes went wide and she disappeared only to be replaced by a familiar bottle of pink liquor. “I take it you didn’t read my letter then?”

“No, sorry,” I apologized. “I didn’t know it was there. I might have been able to find it if the very first book I tried hadn’t unlocked the door and let me out of the room.”

“Wait, the very first book?” She asked before slowly turning to a sheepish looking ancient celestial dragon. “La’akea, did you turn cheat mode on in the puzzle prison just so that you could sneak in and take a nap? Again? Seriously?”

“I would never,” La’akea started, but shifted directions when Kai’s glare intensified. “It’s the only place I can get any quiet with all of your kids running around unsupervised. Maybe if either of their mothers were ever around, then I-”

“Shut up!” Kai interrupted the dragon’s rant. “We can talk about this when we don’t have company. For now, go do something, I don’t know, dragon-y.” She waved her hand dismissively and La’akea disappeared.

The goddess sighed heavily before turning back to me. “Now, where were we?”

“The letter,” I said.

“Right, the letter.” Kai nodded once, then shook her head. “The letter doesn’t matter anymore. It just explained exactly why I brought you here, what I was doing to protect you from whoever killed Esme, and how to leave the prison if you wanted to.”

“That sounds pretty damn important to me!” I shouted.

Kai shrugged. “It might have been, if you had bothered to spend the 10 seconds it would’ve taken to find the damn thing when you first got here. But since you didn’t, the letter that I spent valuable time hand-writing went to waste.”

“Okay fine. What now? Can you send me back to Bryce?” I asked.

“Seriously, I pressed wildflowers into the paper,” Kai continued to complain. “I even used the last of my good ink.”

“Hold on, you did all of that and couldn’t be bothered to wait around the extra 10 seconds it would have taken after the ritual finished to explain everything to me?” I asked.

“After I spent all that time writing a letter? Are you crazy?” Kai just stared at me like I was the one being an idiot. “Salinthea, I’m a busy woman. I can’t just stand around all day talking to one of my daughter’s little friends.”

I exhaled slowly, trying to calm myself before responding. “I’m sorry that my actions made your letter go to waste,” I apologized through gritted teeth. “May I please go back to the mortal plane now?”

“I don’t know.” Kai tapped her lip with a finger. “Because I had to come back down here and sort all this out, I haven’t had the time to find Esmer’s killer and you were her closest friend. It could be dangerous for you if I sent you back now.”

It would be far more dangerous for me if Kai found Esme’s killer, because it was me. Of course, I couldn’t just tell her that, but maybe I could use it.

“What if I could find her killer?” I asked.

“And how would you go about doing that?” Kai asked.

I shrugged. “We could just ask her.”

“If that were possible,” Kai said. “Then I would have already done it, but she was killed by soul destroying-magic, so she never showed up here.”

“That’s not entirely true,” I said. Kai just blinked dumbly at me. So, I continued. “She was only mostly killed by soul-destroying magic. Somebody else did the rest of the killing, and that gave her a chance to retreat into a soul stone… which I used to have, but don’t anymore.”

“Do you know where it is?” Kai asked.

I shrugged my shoulders and made a wishy-washy motion with my hand. “Sorta? I think I know where to find it, but it could get complicated and involve trading a lot of favors that only I could perform.”

“You don’t think I could do it?” Kai seemed offended, but I still shook my head. I didn’t think she’d be able to convince Bryce to forgive me for handing Sami the soul stone. Besides, it was probably better if she didn’t get involved, mostly for my own safety.

“Like I said, it’d require me to make up for one of my mistakes,” I explained. “It wouldn’t have the same effect if a powerful goddess did it instead.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll send you wherever you need to go,” Kai conceded. “But! The moment you get your hands on Esmer’s soul stone, you better call me. Then we’ll kill whoever did this together.”

I nodded rapidly and gave her a big thumbs up. “Will do!”

The goddess lifted her hand to teleport me away. “Wait!” I screamed, before walking over to the bottle of Djinn’s Kiss and opening it, which caused a soaking wet Ithnaa to appear next to me. She smelled flammable and looked miserable.

“Why did you…” she hiccuped. “Tell her about the bottle? I thought we were friends… La’a-Thea.” Ithnaa laughed to herself.

“Oh whoops,” Kai cringed. “I may have forgotten to take the liquid out of the bottle before putting you in. Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” Ithnaa said, as she swayed where she stood. “It’s an easy mistake to make… even for….” She blinked a few times at Kai before burping quietly. “A goddess like yourself… Mrs… goddess person. Now, about purchasing that desk.”

“It might be better if I get Ithnaa home sooner rather than later,” I interrupted Ithnaa’s potential drunken business deal. The djinn nodded while mouthing something that was close-to-but-definitely-not ‘I’ll call you’ at Kai.

The mischief goddess was smiling, clearly amused by the djinn’s antics. “Alright, just don’t forget to let me know the moment you get Esmer’s soul stone.” I was about to respond, but Kai snapped her fingers before I could.

I found myself back aboard the Fury, standing in the open doorway of the med-lab. It was exactly like I remembered.

Okay, not exactly, because the djinn was new, and she reminded me of that by emptying her stomach all over herself and the floor.

“Oh, come on!” I shouted. “I’m going to have to clean that up dammit!”

“Sorry.” Ithnaa looked up at me with a pathetic pout. The poor girl looked miserable.

I sighed. “It’s alright. Here, let me help you to a bed.”

I could have just left her in the med-lab, but what she really needed was a shower and to sleep near a bathroom. So, I led her to a shower in one of the spare rooms on this level, where she could wash off while I found her some clean clothes.

Ithnaa was shorter than Bryce, but I figured her stuff would fit well enough, so I grabbed a simple pair of workout clothes from our closet. Then, ignoring the massive mess in the kitchen, I grabbed our largest glass and filled it with water. The djinn was already fast asleep under the covers when I arrived, so I placed the clothes on the nightstand alongside the water and took her dirty robe so I could clean it.

Our washing machine was in the engineering tunnels along with all of our cleaning supplies, which gave me a free excuse to go hang out with Sami anytime I got bored. But I wasn’t sure if she was around, since I hadn’t seen any sign of people on the ship while running my drunken djinn side-quests.

That question was answered pretty quickly as I walked down the steps and heard her music playing through the door in the cargo-bay. I knocked and wasn’t surprised when there was no answer. Sami liked to play her music really loudly while she worked, probably to drown out all of her own cursing. I opened the door to see a fluffy chestnut tail hanging from the center of the ceiling on top of a huge clear pipe.

“Are you back already?” Sami shouted her question without looking down. “I didn’t hear the ramp lower, and besides, I was expecting you to send me a message when you were coming.”

“Yep! I’m back!” I shouted. The music stopped, followed by the tail disappearing only to be replaced by a hopeful grease-covered face.

“Thea!” Sami jumped down on top of me with a flying hug, and the enchantments in my boots had to activate in order to keep her from bowling me over. I hadn’t expected this sort of response from the usually reserved mechanic. “I know you just got back, but are you planning on cooking dinner?”

Okay, that explained it. “I have a few things I need to do first, and there won’t be any cooking until somebody cleans up that kitchen. Where is everybody, anyway?”

Sami stopped hugging me and seemed to debate something internally for a long time before responding. “Fine, I’ll go clean up the kitchen while you do your things.”

I grabbed her shoulder before she could walk past me. “Wait, where are Bryce and Softie?”

Sami blinked at me as if she had to spend actual effort to remember who those two were. “Oh right, we’re docked with a Theocracy ship, and they’re aboard talking to a celestial or something.”

“What? Why? And which ship?” I asked. “Or more importantly, which celestial?”

“The Flaming Talon, and it’s complicated. Just have the captain explain it when she gets back,” Sami said, only somewhat helpfully. “I think the theocracy captain’s name is Ashaiya or something.”

“Ash? What’s that nerd doing here?” I asked, but then laughed when I remembered something. “Wait, does she still wear those fake glasses?”