to give Jaden an ulcer judging by the grimace he made. It was nice to know his stupidity didn’t just annoy and offend his mom and teachers.
Jaden set the Eye down on a broken shelf. “Ananke is compulsion. She’s the goddess of inevitability.” He placed three more stones beside the Eye. “Think of her as a fixed point.”
“He knows what pith points are,” Xev said from between clenched teeth. He’s not an…” He glanced at Nick. “Well, he can be an idiot, but he’s a highly intelligent, high-functioning moron.”
“Thanks. Please, don’t attempt to bolster my ego. I can’t afford the therapy.”
Jaden cleared his throat to get their attention. “Again, not just a pith point. She is the formless, unseen force that pulls you to your inevitability.”
“So she’s like gravity for fate.”
“Exactly. She holds the time sequence together. She’s the order to the chaos.”
“But…” Nick paused as he considered what Jaden was saying. “Gravity has an escape velocity.”
“And so does Ananke.”
Nick’s jaw went slack. “Are you saying what I’m hearing? Or am I hearing what I want to because I want to believe it?”
“With the right application of force and counterbalance, even a pith point can be altered. Everything, and I do mean everything is subject to free will. But shifting a pith point can have devastating, unimaginable consequences.”
“As in unravel the fabric of the universe,” Kody said from behind him. “It’s what the zeitjägers guard against.”
“She’s right.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to do that. I unraveled my sheets once. My butt still stings from the beating my mother gave me. That taught me about messing with things I need to leave alone.”
Pressing his hand to his head, Xev groaned. “Tirade aside … it sounds to me like Ambrose came to that conclusion and screwed up something he couldn’t fix.”
“Maybe that’s what gave us this Cyprian?” Caleb scratched at his chin.
“Or maybe the Cyprian was always there.” Jaden jerked his chin at Kody. “Think about what an Arel is. What they do.”
Kody screwed her face up at him. “They track and record human history.”
“And?”
“They’re the powers who defend and dispense justice.”
Jaden nodded and rolled his hand as if they were all following along, but Nick felt as off-the-tracks as Kody appeared.
Once he realized they were all stumbling in the woods, slamming into trees, including Caleb and Xev who sent extremely rude gestures back at him, he made a sound of supreme exasperation, then extrapolated for them. “Sraosha’s original role as Arel was to set things in motion for that history that he kept, to ensure that it moved forward correctly and on time. He was also the judge of the dead, and one of the primary warriors who’d chase away the demons of violence and anger who preyed on mankind.”
“Hence his overwhelming love and adoration of me,” Caleb muttered.
Jaden ignored them as he used his powers to lift the stones around the Eye so that they hovered. “We’ve been assuming that Ambrose failed. But what if he didn’t? What if he succeeded?”
He set the stones down in different positions, then looked at them.
“Sraosha would still go crazy.” Kody breathed. “Because the order would be upset.”
Jaden nodded. “Especially if there was a second Malachai and Ambrose had found a way to break that curse.”
“You’re speculating.”
Jaden glanced at Xev and shrugged. “So I am. You have a better conjecture?”
“We don’t have enough evidence for any kind of conclusion right now.”
“True.”
“But I like where his head is.” Nick bit his lip as his mind whirled with the possibilities of it. For the first time, it gave him hope. “In his version, I’m not the jerkweed who destroys the world.”
“No, your son is.”
He rolled his eyes at Caleb. “Go stand in the corner until you learn to be more positive in your thinking. You need an attitude adjustment, Mr. Daeve!”
“My attitude is fine. What I need is an environmental change where I’m not locked in a hovel with an ass”—he cut a gimlet glare to Jaden, then Nick—“and a pimple.”
Nick scowled at Xev. “Why are you smiling?”
“I’m reveling in the fact he left me off his hate list.”
“So…” Kody spoke in the most diplomatic of tones to get their attention off the matter. “Can we use the Eye to reset the future like Ambrose wanted?”
“See … that’s what baffles me most. The Eye doesn’t really work that way and Ambrose had to know that. I’m sure Nick’s already been experiencing some of its side effects.”
“Are you talking about my spirit channeling?”
He nodded. “So you have been