Page 47 of The Fake Divination Offense
His smile falls. “That one.” He stabs his finger on the picture.
He might as well have stabbed that finger directly into my solar plexus for the way I stagger.
Of all the options, he chose this one?
It’s a room filled with religious statues. Not unlike the shelves I have at home, but whereas most of the stuff I collect are antiques, these are sculptures of various sizes depicting gods. It’s meant forfriendly competitionbetween customers with patron gods; one time when I was here, that room was reserved for followers of two rival gods of charity, and they were duking it out in a controlled, safe way before they were due to collaborate on a project.
I nod at the owner, smiling to cover the pitch of my nerves. “Is it free?”
She looks from the room picture to me and her eyes brighten with recognition. “Oh, you’re Orok, right? It’s been a while since we’ve seen you around. Heard you went and got famous on us.”
My smile is tighter than I mean it to be. I wasn’t sure if she’d remember me; it’s been about four years since I last came here. “Ah. Yeah. Moved away,” I say with a shrug.
She takes pity on my clear discomfort and lets it drop to check her computer. “The room’s free. Our records say you usually use a sledgehammer—would you like that again? We can get extra Urzoth statues set up to—”
“No,” I cut her off. “It’s, um, fine the way it is, I’m sure. But we’ll take a”—I look at the glass case—“fireball potion? And…”
I turn to Alexo. And I know I come across as pleading, hoping he didn’t connect several dots.
He smiles and points to the shelves of weapons. “I want a mace.”
My brows hitch up.
The one he’s pointing at is almost as tall as he is, a long black leather-wrapped pole with a gruesome spiked ball on the end. But I don’t question it, too busy picturing him swinging that weapon and decapitating a statue of Urzoth. Or, ya know, any of the dozens of god statues in that room, whatever.
I swallow, throat thick. “Yeah. Anything he wants.”
The smash room owner rings us up. She hands me a vial of fireball potion before hoisting the mace off the wall and passing it to Alexo. He takes it, his slender arms bulging with the effort, but his face is impassive as he hikes it onto his shoulder and stands there, waiting for me, other hand on his cocked hip.
The bright white light in here shows all the facets of his rose-gold hair, burnished and gorgeous, and his eyes are alight with excitement.
He sees me gawking at him and his bottom lip snags between his teeth.
I clench the fireball potion, suddenly grateful I’m wearing sweats for the extra room, but also horrified I’m wearing sweats for how little they do in the way of hiding my current problem. A problem that started in the car the moment he kissed me and is in danger of persisting the whole damn night at this rate.
“The room’s ready for you,” the owner tells us. “It’s warded to protect you from shrapnel as soon as you enter. I’ll activate an extra ward of fire protection as well. Have fun, boys.”
She sends us off with a knowing smirk, but I honestly don’t care. There’s nothing subtle about what’s happening. This is the kind of obnoxious sexual tension Seb and Thio always have, and wow, if this is what it’s like for them, it’s a wonder they ever get anything done.
I lead Alexo down a hall lined with shut doors, each one spray-painted with hints at which room it is. The one we head to is covered in religious symbols, and I push it open without looking at the Urzoth one right above our heads.
Inside, the space is long and narrow, the walls graffitied in an unbroken wave of more religious signs. Statues of dozens of differentgods fill the room. It’s a wonder no god or their group has gotten pissy about their images being used like this—although, maybe they have. Hell if I know what drama this place might be embroiled in. I wasn’t herethatoften in college.
Just often enough to have the owner recognize me years later.
The door thuds shut behind us, and Alexo prowls the room, examining the statues. He bypasses one of Urzoth. A few more for gods of the ocean, the sky, one that’s a god of wealth.
He stops near the back of the room at a statue of a winged being. From here, I see only concrete feathers on either side, so it might be a god of birds.
“Are we good to start?” Alexo calls without turning.
I wind my way toward him. “Yeah. Whenever you—”
He braces his legs, hefts the mace back, and fuckingclobbersthat statue.
It explodes in a shower of dust and rock chunks, the satisfying crash of his mace into the stone echoing off the walls. A piece of the statue comes rolling toward me—the head, its face in a vicious snarl.
Alexo follows after it and crushes it with the mace.
