“No,” I said out loud.
“No what?” Donut asked.
I sent another message to Osvaldo. I tried a different tactic.
Carl: Hey, Osvaldo. I know you’re not talking to me, but I wanted to message you anyway. This is just you and me. Sorry about Donut. She lashes out when she’s stressed. Look, I have a question, and I hope you answer. Did you have a quest with that memorial crystal? And did you fulfill that quest? Did you ever figure out how to use it?
He didn’t answer right away. We only had a few minutes before the race would start.
Osvaldo: I had a quest to collect a memorial crystal for Tupa. I didn’t get it until right at the moment that Imogen died, and my entire party would have gotten smited if I didn’t collect it, so I did. But then after I got it, he said that one was corrupted, wrong. Then I had a lead on a second one in the forest during Faction Wars, and we hunted it down, and then the god said that one was wrong, too, and now I have a new quest to find out why the memorial crystals aren’t working right.
Carl: Wait, so you had two memorial crystals?
Osvaldo: That’s why I gave that one to the goat. I was going to break it in front of him for killing Gimli, but I’m so tired of this. Tupa wasn’t sponsored at first, but now he is by some rich asshole. So I just gave the crystal to the goat. And then he was a complete prick about it and started yelling at me for not giving it to him sooner.
Christ,I thought. I had completely misread that situation. My intention had been to just get him talking, but now I was intrigued. Goddamn Prepotente had all the smarts in the world and still had no idea how to deal with people.
Carl: Who is the god you have the second crystal for?
I felt heat on my shoulder opposite Donut. It was Quemada.
“Uh, Que?” Finley asked from behind us. “You doing okay, mate?”
I turned to see the small fire fairy was just floating there. She was sobbing.
“I don’t know what is real anymore,” she said. “Is this real? Areyoureal? AmIreal? Does any of this matter?”
Osvaldo: Ysalte. The Vinegar Bitch. The one Paz killed. He was my friend, you know. Paz and Anton and even Sister Ines. It’s like everyone who ever comes in contact with you dies. Now it’s our turn, I suppose.
Ahead, the floating traffic lights turned from red to yellow. The race would start in twenty seconds.
Fucking hell,I thought.
[ 42 ]
The light turned green,and we were off.
“Deal with your friend,” I called to Finley as Olga floored it. We zoomed off down the dirt track. We were quickly outpaced by team Free Love, the bugbears zooming ahead of everyone else on their cushion of air.
“Donut, keep your shield ready in case the new shield doesn’t work!”
“Where are the rain-wiper things?” Olga croaked.
“We don’t have them,” I said.
“Now you tell me,” she complained. The shield was stopping the rain, but it was starting to fog up.
Thwum!I heard a heavy explosion behind us as we bumped over the road. Ahead, the forest loomed. We were going to take the middle path of the first split.
“What was that?” I called. I heard an engine rev, and the Lady Dominators team zoomed past us, hot on the tail of the bugbears. I could see Genesis in the passenger’s seat, scream-laughing, all four arms giving an obscene gesture behind us.
It was Olga who answered, looking in the side mirror. “The thorny-bush thing fired a gun. I think at the deformed humanoids, but their vehicle was too fast. Their gun blastedright into the side of the hairy-animal team, and the animal fell over, but it’s getting back up. The bush is now coming up fast.” Olga turned her attention forward. “Why is this thing so slow? Did you really come in first place last time?”
Carl: Osvaldo! You guys okay?
Osvaldo: I’m going to kill that fucking unicorn and rat thing! We good. Bruna is tough.
“No!” Quemada shouted, pushing away from the badger. She was in a full-blown panic attack. It was getting warmer by the moment in the truck. It had come on so suddenly. “Didn’t you feel it? Didn’t you hear what that elf mage said? Didn’t something in that small brain of yours break the moment you heard it? Because it broke in mine, Fin. Don’t you see? Don’t you now see what we are? We’ve been doing this over and over!”