“You don’t need my help,” a deep voice came from behind her.
She whipped around to see a young man leaning against the wall with dark eyes and wiry silver hair hidden underneath a straw hat. He held a pipe between his teeth that he lifted to speak. “You helped create the spirit world, it is yours to command,” he said.
She was confused. “I didn’t intend to summon you.”
“Yet you cannot move past the crossroads.”
Morrigan frowned, an old irritation she hadn’t felt for days suddenly rising within her. There was only one thing she abhorred more than the sensation of being trapped, and that was a man she didn’t know acting as if he knew better than her.
“Calm down, Mama Snake,” the man chucked. “A lot has changed since you last been here. This is our land now, so you will have to be putting up with us.”
Morrigan crossed her arms. “Who are you?”
“The humans call me Legba,” the man lifted his hat to give her a short bow. “I stand at the crossroads between the living and the spirit world, similar to the job your son once held.”
“How did you manage to survive the Purging?” she asked him.
“We are not gods in the way most humans think,” he told her. “We are vodun, the intermediaries. The priests and the priestesses serve us and we serve them. As a human, your son was one of the most powerful bokor in our time, responsible for killing every corrupt king that took charge of her western kingdom even after a dead woman turned him into what you are.”
“A bokor…”
“One who uses both the darkness and the light. Your son used his power to help his people, still does.”
Morrigan felt a twinge of maternal pride before she refocused, starting to connect things in her mind. “We were told the astral plane is overcrowded and that only Heaven and Hell remain.”
Legba laughed, his booming voice reverberating through the space around them. “Just like there is more than one up and more than one down, there is more than one middle. You should remember, you used to travel through them, hiding from your husbands.”
Morrigan frowned, realizing he was right. “Do you know the chaos goddess Discordia and her actions against us?”
“I am the one who told Anubis.”
“Has she tried to destroy your world too?”
Legba smiled, revealing tall teeth that seemed to overwhelm his skull. “The Holy Watchers do not pay us any mind. They gave her the ability to jump in and destroy realms, not the spaces in between them.”
Morrigan considered his words. “Does this mean you remain neutral during this war?”
“I can’t speak for us all.” Legba shrugged. “We stay out of things, but we favor those birthed in our land, not the gods of those who murder and enslave our people.”
Morrigan’s thoughts returned to the matter at hand, gazing back down the hallway and wondering if she should head back to Anubis to ask for a room. She could just wait and tell the others when they woke.
Legba’s booming laugh interrupted her thoughts again. “You still have to make a decision.”
“You seem to have the answer—why don’t you enlighten me,” Morrigan said shortly, feeling her anger resurface.
Legba shook his finger. “I need payment if you want the answer.”
The chamber suddenly filled with a hissing sound. Morrigan looked down to see several black asps materialized, rising up from out of the ground like sprouts. She stared at them in surprise, their smooth black bodies strangely familiar to her, until she realized with an incredulous laugh that they were hers—Lilith’s snakes from a time before she’d ever heard a crow call. She looked back up to see Legba had promptly abandoned her, and she shook her head with a smile. The snakes gradually wiggled away when they discovered they were unneeded, one finding its way up the wall to wind itself around the spirit’s statue.
“At the beginning, there was you and there was he,” a voice boomed in her head.
She startled, whipping back around, but he had long retreated. She watched the remaining snake twist around the god’s likeness, staring at her with shining black eyes as her small tongue flitted in and out of her mouth. Morrigan took a deep, steadying breath, and headed down the hallway to her left.
She kept her footsteps light as she moved down the long corridor until the scent of bonfires and spiced tea overwhelmed the brackish sea air. A dim light peeked out from underneath his door, causing her to hesitate. She braced herself, and gently pushed it open.
He was seated on the floor in the center of the room, cross-legged and surrounded by dozens of burning candles. Although the windows were open far enough to send the curtains flailing with wild abandon, the flames did not flicker, casting a steady glow across the serene expression on his face.
She was taken aback, unsure of what to say, when his eyes drifted open to greet her.
“Hello.”
“Forgive me for disturbing you.” She edged back towards the door.
“You never disturb me.”
“What are you doing?”
“Attempting to stay calm.” He gently chuckled. “Would you like to join me? It’s a technique I learned long ago from a friend who lived amongst the Buddhists in Japan.” His features looked soft in the candlelight, alluringly youthful without the tightness of his perpetual scowl or the heat of his simmering anger.
She bit the inside of her lip. “I wanted to speak with you, but I can come back tomorrow evening,” she said quickly as she headed back out the door, but he had already risen to his feet, blocking her way.
“Please don’t go.”
She sighed, letting him shut the door behind her. She turned back to observe the room, discovering it was actually a suite, heavily accented in black, from the onyx statues and the charcoal pottery to the obsidian arrowheads nailed to the wall, as if Anubis had personalized it especially for Lucius in anticipation of his arrival.
She wondered absently what he’d put in her room, swallowing when she realized he hadn’t shown her one. Her suspicions were confirmed when she noticed the display of avian skulls artfully arranged on the back wall, with a vase of white orchids on the table.
