“That you live with a bruja?” I asked. Was that why Alana seemed so chill about all of tonight’s supernatural weirdness?
“Whatever you want to call her,” Alana said, “she for sure won’t be looking for us.”
“What if she calls the cops?” I asked. “Reports you missing?”
“She won’t.” Alana sighed.
“How do you know?” Ren asked. “Wicked people can’t be trusted.”
“Because if she does,” Adrik said with a perfectly timed sneer, “she’ll end up in jail.”
Adrik said the words like he’d been practicing the lines forever.
Okay, so there was a lot more to these godborns than I’d thought. They were like those puzzle boxes that are impossible to open and after hours of failed attempts you just want to bust the things open with a sledgehammer.
“Jail?” Ren asked.
Alana lifted her chin. The firelight cast dark shadows under her eyes. “She’s our aunt.”
“What about your parents?” Brooks asked.
“There’s only our dad,” Alana said. “He’s in the military. Got sent somewhere secret and—”
“Alana,” Adrik warned, “why don’t you just give them the four-one-one on everything!”
“They should know our dad won’t be coming home for months, can’t even call us, and our aunt is an evil, greedy hag who won’t care if we never return. She’ll probably throw a party.” Alana folded her arms over her chest with an angry pout. “All she cares about is the money…” Her voice trailed off, but I’m pretty sure she said, “and the houses, cars, and servants.”
No one else seemed to catch it, but I wanted to shout to everyone except the twins: Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Why would a couple of rich kids break into a store and steal something?
“So, where’s the god in charge of all this?” Adrik asked.
Hondo smirked. “No gods—just us. Did you say ‘servants’?”
I said, “So, you guys know…? I mean…”
“That our mom’s some goddess?” Alana said. “Yeah, Dad told us that much.”
“You knew?” Brooks repeated, sounding even more stunned than I felt.
“He also said someone really important would come for us someday, but…” Adrik stopped there, eyeing us like we were scrappy pirates.
“Then you’ll come to the World Tree and learn how to defend yourselves,” I said.
I reminded them about the ceremony where their godly parent would claim them and they would come into their godborn powers. Once I got started, everything spilled out of me like I just had to tell someone what being on the road with a traitorous demon for three months was really like.
Brooks brushed my arm with hers. Good idea. Make them think they can trust you.
They can trust me.
That’s what I said.
Alana knit her eyebrows together. “So, the whole time you were sleeping next to a demon who was plotting to kill you?”
TH
ERE WERE NO SIGNS! “Something like that,” I mumbled.
Adrik played with his jacket zipper, pulling it up and down. “You think we’re just going to go to some magical tree and what, meet our so-called godly mom and say, ‘Hey, thanks for dumping us’?”