When Death left them, Loki and Eros felt very, acutely alone and stranded.

The sunken gray sky seemed to be closing in on the ground. The edges of the world on which they stood crumbled into the abyss. They could hear it fracture around them like glaciers splintering off into the frigid deep.

“What do you three want?” Eros asked with flippant annoyance.

Loki chimed in, “We don’t want any of your Girl Scout Cookies…”

Eros closed his eyes and pressed his lips together.

“-unless you have Samoas,” Loki amended.

Eros shook his head and looked at him. “Really?”

“What?”

“Samoas?” Eros sighed, and his lips tilted ever so slightly, “Thin Mints are so much better...”

Loki blinked, slack-jawed, “I can’t be seen with you anymore.” Loki gestured wildly to the Fates, “Tell him Samoas are the best, and Thin Mints are for the birds… which is funny because he has wings.”

“So do you!”

“No. I cut mine off. So what say you?” Loki turned to the Fates again, “Thin Mints or Samoas?”

There was silence.

Then Lakhesis, standing in the middle said, “I like Savannah Smiles.”

The other two sisters whipped their heads to scowl at her.

Then Atropos, the eldest Fate, retorted, “No. The best are the Peanut Butter Patties.”

“I wouldn’t have thought…,” Eros started.

Loki finished, “Nor I. I thought maybe the shortbreads-”

A hiss brought their musings to a halt.

The youngest and tallest of the Fates, Clotho, stepped forward. “Eros, you have been tried thrice before. At this final hour we say no more.”

“Loki, conspirator, defector, trickster-”

“You’re only stroking his ego.” Eros folded his arms.

Loki gave a confirming smile.

“-your scheming against us has been traitorous, and now the two of you shall be sentenced to Tartarus.”

Loki and Eros shot each other a perilous glance.

Loki said, “Now hold on just one minute-”

Eros added, “You can’t just do that!”

“We have done so since time untold. You, Eros, once called Tartarus your home.”

Loki looked at Eros in surprise.

Eros only blinked at the Fates. “Mmm. No. No I haven’t.”

The three women stared quietly.

“I haven’t,” Eros persisted, but he took a step back.

"Uh… Eros,” Loki leaned in. “They don’t look like they’re kidding.”

“Uh... Loki,” he mocked, his tone incredulous, “I think I’d remember being locked in Tartarus.”

In a chorus, the Fates began to laugh.

“Tartarus is where you forever belonged, primordial god.”

“Dangerous.”

“Manipulative.”

“Deceiver.”

“I am not! I’m not any of those things!” Eros exclaimed.

“Your ineffable power was enough to make your fellow gods cower. They were insistent on your imprisonment. But Dream freed you from your,”

“...prison.”

“From your-,”

“...mind.”

“From the,”

“...red Room.”

Eros and Loki exchanged a startled look of recognition. Josanna had been right?

“A mistake we will not again make.”

***

Thanatos turned the key in the lock and opened the basement door. The wooden steps creaked as he descended. The open door lit his way, but the basement itself was still as dark as pitch. Death reached with pale boney fingers to pull the thin chain just above his head.

The incandescent bulb came flickering to life with an electric tinking, and in the light he saw the boy sitting against the stone wall with his knees to his chest. He was dusty and stained red with blood where he had been scratched by teeth and claws, but the two monsters responsible for his wounds lay unmoving at odd angles on the floor.

“You killed the baubas,” Thanatos noted.

He placed his hands in his pockets and gazed down at the boy who was evidently not a boy.

“Baubas? You mean the monsters you put down here to kill me?”

“Not to kill you,” Death said. “To inspire you.”

The boy glared up at him.

“So, you are as I said.” Death took a step closer. “Even you must recognize by now that you have magick.”

The boy looked away.

Death took another step and crouched down next to Damien. “I need your magick for reasons I cannot explain. We can do this the hard way or the easy way.”

Damien felt annoyed with this cliche threat, as if he had heard it a thousand and one times.

But then, Death creased his brow and said, “But, the hard way will take too long.”

Damien blinked, and when he opened his eyes, he found himself back on the stainless steel lab table.

Panic hit him instantly. He pulled at his trapped wrists and tried in vain to access his magick.

“What’s the hard way?” Damien tried to calm himself.

“To persuade you. To teach you. To reawaken your memories and guide you. All while keeping you safe from gods who would either lock you away or rip you apart like hungry vultures if they knew of your existence.”

“So, what’s the easy way?”

Thanatos laid his icy fingers again on the boy’s temples. “Unlocking your magick and ripping it out along with your soul. Such a procedure would kill anyone else, but you have no Death date. You cannot die, so you’ll most likely go mad.”

Damien gritted his teeth and tried to stir up the fire from within. “We’re all mad here,” he quipped.

Death let out one sardonic chuckle, “Yes. We are.”

Damien heard a memory whisper from within. Okay, here we go.

Death’s fingers pierced into his mind like scalpels, and Damien did not scream.

***

“This is a bit rash don’t you think?” Loki began to meander, to walk the space, and own his stage. “I mean, look at him. Does he look dangerous to you? He’s not exactly what one would call intimidating, or threatening, or imposing.”

Eros looked self-conscious.

Loki strolled two steps forward, one step back. “What damage could he even feasibly do? He’s so small, and adorable, and pretty… like a cherub.”

Eros’s eyes narrowed. He gritted his teeth and let out a low growl. He tried to ignore the slight and maintain his composure.

Loki ran through various gestures and faces, trying to produce his next defense. “So what, he can make one fall in love with anything, anyone?” Loki leaned casually on one elbow against the Romanesque pedestal that held the floating Book of Fate.

The three ladies let out a tense gasp as he did, only now recognizing the misdirection they had fallen prey to.

“Isn’t that what makes love thrilling? I’m getting tingles just thinking about it.” He smiled devilishly over at Eros. “I’m sure he’d be willing to find a lover for you lot if you just asked nicely.”

Loki was closer to their book than any other creature had ever been, and their fear of what he might do made them growl like stray cats.

"Desire is so much more than love’s consuming fire.”

"It is the intention behind all creation and destruction.”

Atropos stepped forward, ”Step away from the pedestal.”

“My apologies.” Loki took his weight off the marble, and they each gave an instant sigh of relief. “Why? Is this book important?” Loki snatched the book from the air, and there was another collective gasp. Even Eros flinched.

The book was dense and leather bound in an unknown hide. The pages were time weathered and stained with ink and dirt. The book was a timeless piece.

The Fates were helpless to act, because using magick to retrieve it could destroy it.

In a few long strides, Loki was handing the book to Eros. “Here you go, darling. I stole this for you.”

“How thoughtful!” Eros’s eyes melted, and Loki bent down to receive a peck on the cheek.

“I thought it would go well with that Bowl of Fate I got you.”

“It’s the perfect accessory.”

The eldest stepped forth, "You have our Bowl?”

“He’s had it for quite some time, actually.” Eros said.

"Yes," Loki added, "found it at an estate sale. They let it go for a song. They had no clue what it was."

Eros wetted the tip of his finger as he leafed through the pages. He could skim the ancient Greek scroll infinitely faster than Loki could.

"That Bowl is ours by divine right!”

“Well,” Loki said, with a flourish of his arm and an air of haughtiness, “if you can ever make it into my home after you’ve sent us both to Tartarus, have at it. But you won’t make it in the front door without destroying everything inside. I have it rigged to go off like a nuclear reactor, and all the objects inside would go on the fritz. It would be a big deal.” He chewed on his lip. “It might even make the papers. And why is it divinely yours? Rightly yours? If you don’t mind me asking.”

"We have birthed it.”

"It is of us."

"It is our bone and our flesh.”

Eros became hyper sensitive to the leather binding of the book, but continued nonetheless to flip through the thin, crinkly, flesh-colored pages.

“It is of you.” Loki didn’t miss a beat. “Therefore, it belongs to you. I am of myself and Eros of himself. Do we not belong then to ourselves and not to you and your whims? Is it not within our divine right to lay claim to our free will? Our free will is of us. It’s of our nature.” Loki snorted, “You might say we were fated to be this way, and if that’s the case you fated us to conspire against you, which must mean you’re completely terrible at doing your job.”

The weight of the universe came down on Loki as it had come down on Thanatos. The giant collapsed and struggled to breathe.

Loki was not Atlas. He was not Death. He was not meant to bear the weight of existence. He was meant to send existence spinning and crashing in a miraculous storm, which left everything pretty much okay and a little better off when the clouds cleared.

He wasn’t built for this.

The pressure compounded on his head as spots and lights overtook his vision.

He tried to give Eros a glance to say they were running out of time, but all he could see in that direction was a glowing, swirling mass of red and pink light, from which Loki could not look away. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Eros flipped faster through the endless pages, adrenaline and anxiety both fueling and hindering his concentration.

"The webs we weave are complex things, like a spider’s string. Beautiful, intricate, strong, crafted with intent by our harmonious song-”

Eros perked up. “Their song,” he said to himself.

With the Fates still proclaiming their omnipotence and the universe still crushing down the giant, Eros ran to him, skidding through the dirt.

Loki looked at him in agony, but still emanated strength. He was trying to push himself up but couldn’t.

The glowing red swirling nebula said unto Loki in Eros’s voice, “It’s their song. Their song will activate the bowl of Fate. Listen, Loki, you have to fight this. I need you. Get up!”

The giant’s elbows wobbled and gave, as did his mind, and he fell unconscious.

Eros shook him but the slumbering giant did not wake.

"Shit!"

***

Thanatos was getting very tired of being repeatedly thrown across the room. He was only able to get so far into the boy’s mind before being literally thrown out by the boy’s mental blocks. He had never played video games, but he likened his situation to one. Every time he lost the unbeatable level, he’d have to start all over again at level one.

The immensity of this strange god’s magick, when extracted in the raw form of his soul, just might be powerful enough to stop the Fates in their tracks if Death was lucky. If he was really lucky, he might even be able to use it to rewrite reality so that those damn women had never been this powerful in the first place. Eros, and other gods like him, would have never been sent to Tartarus aeons ago. Death would have never been used as the Fates’ personal hitman, and the Cosmos would be free to operate on its own free will.

But, Thanatos couldn’t even break through the boy’s defenses. He had been able to sense the boy’s power immediately, had even suspected he might have been a Djinn somehow, in a former life perhaps, because Djinn magick was the closest thing to what Thanatos assumed this boy had- phenomenal Cosmic power.

It was the way this boy could essentially rewrite his being. The way he could lock away his memories and his soul behind thick walls of magick. It was the way that when Death entered his mind, and stood before this towering fortress of mental power, an unseen force began to push him out, his feet scraping for stability in drifting sand. Death couldn’t extract this boy’s magick if he could never reach the distant blockade where most of his soul had been locked away.

But, he was out of time for taking the boy’s power by force. Loki couldn’t stall forever. Whatever magick this boy had, Djinn or otherwise, was beyond Death.

It seemed he was the one who was likely to go mad. What made it worse was the boy acting as if this whole thing was the game that Thanatos likened it to be. Damien was actively trying to throw Thanatos out of his mind before the mental blocks got the chance. Damien began to laugh every time he kicked Death out of his head, because that meant he won that particular round. And this strange, powerful boy was getting better and better at this game of keepaway. Death was losing ground. When they started, he might have made it to a metaphorical level five or six, but now he was only making it to level three.

The only other option was to call upon his brother and ask him to go in the back way, extracting his soul and magick through the subconscious. But Hypnos would be high on something, and difficult to work with, and Thanatos would never live it down if he had to ask his twin for help.

So this time, when Death picked himself up off the floor and shuffled back to the table where the boy lay laughing, he slammed his palms against the metal with a clang.

The abrupt noise jolted Damien into silence.

Thanatos hovered over him with a hand on each side of his head. He took in a hissing breath. “I can’t believe I’m going to do this, but let me bargain with you.”

The boy peered at Death with striking green eyes.

Thanatos let out a breath. “There are two people I need to save from three very powerful women.”

The boy’s voice was questioning but kind. “You mean the Fates?”

“Yes.”

Damien’s brow creased. “Are these two people your friends?”

Death snarled and said flatly, “Friends? I don’t have friends. Friends are liabilities.”

Damien arched an eyebrow.

“So, will you help me or not?” Death asked.

“By willingly allowing you to extract my soul so you can save two people who aren’t even your friends? I don’t think so.”

Death sighed. “I’d be willing to try the hard way...”

Damien laughed. “Only because your easy way didn’t work, and you’re out of options. You’re not doing me any favors.”

“It would be doing you a favor. I would protect you. I’d teach you how to use your powers. We could find out together what you are, and where you came from. I could teach you everything I know. And that’s no small favor. But, if this is going to work, first we have to save my… friends.” He conceded the last word with a cringe.

“Okay,” Damien paused, considering this, “but, I don’t even know how to help you.”

Thanatos took an aggravated step back. “Try. I can sense your power, and it is immense. Try. Try, and I will honor my end of our bargain, even if you fail.”

If he failed, Loki and Eros would end up in Tartarus. It would take longer, but Thanatos would still need help saving his friends, destroying the Fates, and granting the Cosmos freedom.

“Even if you fail at first, the aim here is freedom. You would be free and so would your powers,” Death added, “and so would I, and my friends, and the entire Cosmos.”

Damien gathered himself and closed his eyes. Free was a word he liked. Though he couldn’t remember why, it was a feeling he longed for. Freedom.

He tried to imagine the Fates. He imagined their world would be veiled in shadow, no doubt. He saw it was hidden behind webs of gossamer. It was small and gray, but the Fates themselves were huge. They were towering over giants and gods, ensnaring them in a twisted design which could not be unraveled. Even with the playbook in the hands of the gods, the Fates were winning.

They were winning because the players didn’t know how the game was rigged. The beautiful god in the suit was still thinking on a linear timeline, and he couldn’t see the field.

Damien knew this god had to embrace the hungry howl inside of him. That was the key. He could be weightless and limitless if he gave into it, but the god couldn’t remember any of it. He had locked it away inside of himself, and there was no map to get back in. But, you have to go in to get out, mate.

The god standing down the Fates, and the god laying on the stainless steel slab in Death’s basement, were the same. There was something they had both forgotten- or was it a place rather than a thing? They would both have to remember in order to save themselves.

But, Damien couldn’t breach this wall inside his head. When he looked directly at it, it redirected him to think about something else. Each time he thought about what he must have forgotten, he’d suddenly be thinking instead about the Fates or the blond man in the suit currently scrutinizing him. He opened his eyes. “Hey.”

The blond man was pacing around with a worried face, and looked up when Damien spoke.

The boy readjusted on the table.

“What is it?” Death hissed back more menacingly than intended.

He responded as quickly as he could. “I need you to electrocute my brain each time I get distracted.”

Thanatos blinked. “Is that a joke?”

“No.”

“Alright then.” Thanatos resumed his position at the top of Damien’s head, and slowly this time, his fingers pierced into Damien’s brain. “This is going to hurt.”

Damien shrugged. “I’ve had worse. Ready?”

Death nodded.

“Okay,” said Damien, “here we go…”