He stood there, waiting to be acknowledged, for an hour, perhaps two. Usually inactivity provoked his demon to act, creating some disaster or another. Maybe it was the ambrosia as he’d hoped, or maybe the demon was as afraid of the hags as everyone else in the heavens, but Disaster behaved, not even humming in the back of Kane’s mind, though that sound rarely ever faded.

“Why are you here, boy?” Klotho finally asked, her voice a cackle of smoke. She never looked up from her task.

Uh, what now? “I received your summons. My lady,” he added. Gods, he was such an ass-kisser. But a guy had to do what a guy had to do. He was wearing his cup, yeah, but that didn’t mean he should hang a sign on his nuts, requesting someone kick him there.

“Summon you? Why, that was thousands of years ago,” Lachesis replied. “I’m sure of it.”

“Sure of it,” Atropos echoed. “Yet you never came.”

“And so your summons was revoked.”

“You may leave the way you came.”

He could only gape at them. They’d summoned him thousands of years ago? Why hadn’t they decapitated him, then, for his failure to appear? “I mean no disrespect, but I only just now received your kind invitation.”

“Not our fault.”

“You probably weren’t paying attention.”

“Perhaps you’ll learn to pay attention.”

“You may leave the way you came.”

Reverence was one thing. Not having his curiosity assuaged was quite another. Besides, if they’d brought him here to impart words of wisdom that could save him and his friends, or to issue words of warning, he damn well wanted to hear those words. Therefore, he wasn’t leaving without them.

“May I purchase the information from you?” he asked.

“What information?”

“Who said anything about information?”

“You’re a dotty one, aren’t you?”

“You may leave the way you came.”

He flicked his tongue against one of his incisors. “If you didn’t wish to inform me of something, all those thousands of years ago—” he was careful to keep his ire out of his tone “—then why did you summon me in the first place?” The same question, asked in a roundabout way. Come on, take the bait. Tell me.

“Klotho, do you recall the last time someone tried to talk circles around us?”

“Oh, yes, Lachesis. We wove her into the never-ending.”

The never-ending what?

“Perhaps she’s learned her lesson.”

“Perhaps she hasn’t yet learned her lesson.”

“She didn’t leave the way she came.”

“Who is ‘she’?” he asked, standing his ground. A stupid move, perhaps, but he couldn’t leave the way he’d come, so what choice did he have? Flashing himself from one location to another with only a thought wasn’t an ability he possessed.

“She? She is your girl, of course,” Atropos said.

He blinked. “My girl, what?”

“The one in the never-ending.”

“No, no,” Klotho said. “She’s not his. The other one is. Or is it the other way around?”

“Mayhap they both are his,” Lachesis countered.

“She’s mine? They’re mine?” he gasped out. His what? Lovers? If so, no thanks. Been there, destroyed too many because of that. His women suffered, always. His demon made sure of it. Kane was better off alone.

“Of course she’s yours, though not the one in the never-ending. She belongs to no one. Unless she does, in fact, belong to you.”

The three cackled.

“Good one, sister mine. I’ll have to remember that for the warrior’s next summons.”

“Who does or doesn’t belong to me?” he asked, gaze darting from one hag to the other. Next summons?

“Irresponsibility, of course.”

“Irresponsibility,” he echoed. As in, the keeper of Irresponsibility? Kane knew the immortal was out there. There’d been more demons in Pandora’s box than naughty warriors, so the gods, desperate to contain the leftovers, had given them to the prisoners of Tartarus. Irresponsibility was one such leftover.

He’d even looked for…her. Shit. He’d always assumed the keeper was a man. His mistake, and one he wouldn’t make again. He and his friends wanted all demon-possessed immortals on their side. Which meant finding them before the Hunters did.

After all, Galen, keeper of Hope and the Hunters’ leader, could convince anyone of anything. And the last thing the Lords needed was for him to convince their brethren to destroy them.

“Didn’t I just say that?” one of them asked.

“You just said that.”

“You’re not too bright, are you, boy?”

“How do I get her out of the never-ending?” he asked, ignoring the question. He might not want a girlfriend, but he wanted to find this female demon-keeper. What could she do? What powers did she wield? “What is the never-ending, anyway?”

“How does he not know the answers to these questions?”

“Didn’t we tell him these answers already?”

“Perhaps our time line is off again,” Klotho said.

Again? How often did that happen? Better question—what were the consequences when it was off?

“Should we rewind?”

“Should we leap forward?”

Dear gods. Neither option seemed wise.

“Yes,” they said in unison, shaking the tapestry they were working on. A moment passed in silence, then another.

Then, “What are you doing here, boy?”

Kane found himself blinking again. Nothing had changed. Not his surroundings, not the women. Everything was the same as when he’d first entered the room, yet they’d forgotten he was here?

Had they rewound? Had they fast-forwarded? Shit. If so, what did that mean for him? “You summoned me,” he croaked out.

“Yes, yes. We summoned you.”

“Only this morn, too. Good of you to come so quickly.”

“Impressive.”

They must have rewound thousands of goddamn years. When he left this temple, would he return to ancient Greece? His stomach clenched.

“Such a worrier, you are.”

Could they read his thoughts then, as well as manipulate time? He really should have taken their advice and left the way he’d come. This was…this was as messed up as he was.

“As if we would disrupt the fabric of time for you.”

“You will return the way you came.”

Thank the gods. “You mentioned a female.”

“I didn’t mention a female. Did you mention a female?”

“Not me. I don’t mention a female to the keeper of Disaster for thousands of years.”

“Perhaps our time line is off again.”

Again, they shook the tapestry in their hands. He waited it out through several heartbeats of silence, his mouth dry, his knees knocking.

“I—I think I’ll leave the way I came,” Kane said, backing away inch by inch. He couldn’t take any more of this. They simply weren’t capable of giving him a straight answer, their minds unable to differentiate between the past and the future. “I thank you for inviting me, though, and for your hospitality. If you could just point the way out…”

Atropos, her eyes so white they resembled a blanket of snow, lifted her head from her scissors and seemed, impossibly, to be peering over at him. “Finally, you present yourself to us. After all this time, we had given up.”

He massaged the back of his neck. Did everyone who was summoned go through this? “Yes, finally.” He backed up one step, two. “I apologize for your wait and I thank you again for your time, but I really must—”

“Quiet.” Lachesis glanced up, as well, though her gnarled fingers never stilled. “We always know what happens, but never why it happens. You have made us wonder and wonder, and we would at last like an answer.”

“An answer to what?” he asked, pausing, unsure he wanted to know.

The third hag, Klotho, did not follow the others’ lead and glance at him. She simply said, “We want to know why you began the Apocalypse,” and continued spinning her threads without a care.

CHAPTER NINE

“LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT,” Kaia whispered fiercely. “When you said scout the competition, you actually meant scout the competition?”