Tempt the Stars

kind. And then I had to build the prototype, and then work out the kinks, and then demonstrate it—they were happy that day, at least. But eventually they demanded to see more, and of course two was all I had.”
    “But why make any at all?” I said angrily, because none of this made any sense. “What were you even
doing
there?”
    He frowned at me, maybe because I’d managed to wake the baby up, and stood to rock her. “I was there for the power, of course. I told them I couldn’t recruit ghosts without it, or support an army on my own. If they wanted results, they had to pony up. And they did.” He grinned. “Oh yes, they did. For years, I all but drained them dry—”
    “For
what
?” I demanded, wanting at least one true thing in this house of lies he’d built. “Why risk your life for power you didn’t even need?”
    He started to answer but then looked up. And his whole face changed. For an instant, he was almost handsome. He was looking at something behind me, in the doorway, and I knew even before I turned around what it was.
    Or, rather, I knew who.
    “I found a war mage bleeding onto the linoleum,” my mother said, coming in and taking the baby.
    “Bleeding?” I jumped up.
    “Healing was one of my gifts once,” she told me. “I have not completely lost the skill.”
    “Is he awake?” I didn’t doubt her, but I wanted to see that scowl for myself.
    “He will be soon.” She glanced at her husband. “Will you watch him?”
    “Of course.”
    “Without further incident?”
    He rolled his eyes but looked a little guilty. He left. Leaving me with a goddess I didn’t know, and a mother I’d barely met.
    For a long moment, I didn’t say anything. She was as beautiful as I remembered, and nothing like the legends said. She was a warrior—I knew that, and not just because of some old, probably half-mangled stories. But because I’d seen it with my own eyes. She’d turned a Spartoi to dust, trapped another in a time loop, run a third down in the nineteenth-century version of a chariot. And then, with a little help from me, she’d dumped most of the rest in time, stranding them forever in the fall of history, with no way to stop.
    But she didn’t look it. Her beautiful spill of coppery bronze hair was curling in damp ringlets down her back, her soft white dress was wet and dirty around the hem, as if she’d had on a coat that had ended just a little short. And her beautiful face was serene as she soothed her child.
    She smelled like lilacs, I thought blankly, the familiar scent circling my head like a caress. I remembered . . . from childhood . . . it was almost the only thing that I—
    “Cassandra.”
    Violet-blue eyes met mine. They were calm, like her voice. But suddenly, I wasn’t. Suddenly, I could barely breathe and my chest hurt.
    “Cassie,” I whispered. “Most people . . . they call me—”
    A soft hand cupped my cheek. I froze, not because the touch was unwanted. But because I suddenly wanted to turn into it, to hide my face, to tell her a hundred different things that I couldn’t seem to get past the swelling in my throat. I wanted—
    “You should not have come.”
    It was like a kick in the gut, even though I’d been expecting it. “I . . . I know,” I said, swallowing. “Agnes said . . . she didn’t want to see me, either. She said it let her guess too much, just the fact that I . . . I mean, she said not to come back. And I didn’t. But she couldn’t have helped me with this anyway. I needed to see you . . . to ask—”
    “I know why you’ve come.”
    “You do?” It brought me up short.
    “I am not what I was, Cassandra. But I am not human.”
    No, but I was. It hung in the air, unspoken, but palpable. I wasn’t what she was. I couldn’t see myself in her at all. I never had. I was a lot more like the bumbling guy downstairs, the one who dropped babies—hey, maybe that was what was wrong with me—the one who picked fights he couldn’t win, the one who stubbornly insisted on doing things his own way. It had gotten him killed.
    I wondered what it would get me.
    “I am glad to have seen you.” Her hand was soft, gentle on my cheek for another moment, before falling away. “You should go.”
    I stared up at her, angry tears obscuring the sight of her holding the now calm baby, and wondered why she’d had me at all. Why she’d bothered. Did goddesses get knocked up, too? Hard to believe it had been on purpose,