Young Writers Society

"I did," Hecate admitted. "It's hard not to - just like true death gods are drawn to ghosts and the places where the dead are buried, I'm drawn to magic. I can just feel it. It's hard to describe."

"I thought Hades was the death god in charge of your afterlife," Schadel pointed. She glanced back in the direction of the girl, still trying to understand how someone could have slipped under her radar so easily. Who - or what - was she?

"Oh, he is," Hecate replied. "I just work for him. We're also close friends, so I spend a lot of time in his underworld when I'm not here on Earth. By the way, if you hadn't guessed already, Hades was the one I was comparing you to - you remind me a lot of him."

"...Oh," Schadel managed to get out, a small blush spreading across her pale cheeks. She had guessed that once Hecate said that she worked for him, but she hadn't been prepared for the compliment.

"Crossroads are two intersecting roads," the still unnamed girl said. "The Greeks liked giving significance to what we would consider normal, mundane things. Crossroads were considered to be important, to some extent. Hecate was supposed to be in charge of them."

Hecate studied her for a moment.

"Oh, I know who you are now," the goddess said. "You're Sabrina Alden, aren't you?"

The girl nodded.

Ah, so Hecate was a deity on a planet named Earth; Eremia relaxed her shoulders and put on a faint smile. Granted, given her experience, she would not have minded if Hecate had said she was from Fayne. Eremia would've just poked at the whole "goddess" part.

"What makes crossroads important?" Mariol said, setting a hand on her hip. "You work with a death god, you can tell if someone uses magic, but what d'ya know about crossroads? It'd be kinda cool if you knew about all the crossroads. But I'm not sure how that'd work."