This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2)(27)

“Wait,” I said, my heart crashing in my chest. “What are you talking about?”

“She is one of the Moirai,” Circe said. “One of the Fates. Clotho, if my theory is correct.”

Dr. Kent smiled wide. She laughed, and the sound echoed off the high stone walls. “You’re right, but you give me too much credit. I am not the great goddess I once was. My loom gathers dust as we speak.”





CHAPTER 8

What did I know about the Fates, and why was everything I could think of from Disney movies or Broadway shows? I tried to quiet my racing heart enough to think clearly. Dr. Kent studied me carefully, and as she leaned forward in her chair she seemed to grow a head taller. I stepped back. My gut had been trying to tell me something, and I was kicking myself for brushing it aside. Now we were in a cave somewhere deep underground and in the presence of another living, breathing goddess. I didn’t understand how I’d missed this. Dr. Kent had been helpful, even kind. Now she seemed amused but distant. I didn’t know which version of her I was supposed to believe.

Circe lifted her chin and spoke in a calm, steady voice. “You knew the Medea story. You’d seen the document. It’s the real story of Medea, and no one in all the years it has existed could pinpoint where it came from.”

“Maybe you hadn’t figured it out, but I guarantee the Vatican knew what it was,” Dr. Kent said. “Your family had been in possession of the document for a long time, my dear Circe. And then it fell into the hands of the Church. Why would they care so much about it? Why should they?”

“It’s—I don’t—it’s very old,” Circe stumbled over her words.

“They wanted it because it is written in the hand of a goddess.” Dr. Kent splayed her hand out in front of her, then curled her fingers like she was holding an imaginary pen. “It was a very foolish thing for me to do. I can admit that now. But you must understand that I have found myself oddly intrigued by your family and its long memory. I gifted that parchment to Medea’s eldest child, a girl called Eriopis. I wanted her to have an accurate record before mortals got their hands on it. That any part of it still remains is a miracle in and of itself.”

“Briseis said that you are a friend of her mother,” Circe said. “That you’ve known them since before Bri was born. Did you know this entire time how this would play out?”

“That Selene’s life would be cut short?” Dr. Kent asked. “That Thandie’s would as well?”

Hearing their names rocked me to my core. I took another step back.

Dr. Kent stood and went to her loom. She let her long fingers trace the filaments of golden thread around the wheel. “When I weave a mortal’s life, I see it like a moving picture. I see how they enter the world, how they exist in it, and how they depart this mortal plane. That is the extent of my terrible gift.”

She turned to me, and then her gaze flitted to the ground. I followed it and saw a network of lacy green moss had blanketed the rocks around my feet.

Dr. Kent rested her hand on the loom, and again sadness pulled the corners of her mouth down and made her shut her eyes. “I wove the thread of predetermined events, Lachesis determined the thread’s length, and Atropos cut it at the appropriate time. Together my sisters and I see a hazy picture of the life we’ve helped usher into existence.”

“You knew what would happen to my mom?” I asked. “And you knew what was gonna happen to Selene, too?” A white hot rage ripped through me. “You’ve known Mo since before I was even born. Why didn’t you help us? Why didn’t you step in?”

Dr. Kent walked toward me. The moss at my feet puffed up and began to spread out all around me.

“Do you know how often I’ve been asked to interfere in the lives of mortals?” she asked in a way that told me she wasn’t expecting a real answer. “When some lustful god falls in love with a mortal they come to me begging for insight to their fate. How long will they live? How will they die and what can be done to keep it from happening? We knew all, my sisters and I. But we were not tasked with judging these fragile lives. We don’t write their fates, only see them, and bring them into being. And we do not interfere in the lives of mortals.”

“Why not?” I asked, anger still burrowing its way through my chest.

Dr. Kent returned to her chair. “I don’t have an answer that you can understand. It’s just the way things are. Some ancient covenant—the specifics of which have been long forgotten. What I know now is that interfering in the lives of mortals creates chaos each and every time. The potential for disaster is never greater than when a god intercedes in mortal affairs.”

I didn’t like her answer, and I was so tired of everything being a riddle. “So why are you interfering in my life? Why were you talking to Mo? Why were you giving me the information about Medea?”

Dr. Kent’s expression darkened. “I’m not interfering. I’m assisting. There’s a difference.”

I crossed my arms hard over my chest. “So you can step in but only when it works for you?”

She smiled politely but not genuinely. “As it turns out, I owe a debt to Hecate. I’ve always taken up my loom for her and showed her the threads of her mortal family.”

Marie stepped forward. “You say gods are forbidden to step in, so why would she bother keeping tabs on anyone?”