We meet the other Fates in the room I first woke up in. The girl, Airlea, has disappeared and I'm quite glad about that. Three ageless women are enough trouble already. Especially as I have no idea about what they want.
Somehow, woven white armchairs have appeared in the room that definitely weren't there before. What a strange, magical place. I'm not sure I like it.
Lachesis bids me to sit down and instinctively, I choose the chair closest to the door. I'm not feeling comfortable around them. And it's worrying that I'm having to do this on my own, without my guys.
To reassure myself, I think of how I've been on my own for most of my life and have managed to survive. If I managed to deal with my uncle for over ten years, I can get through an hour or so with the Fates.
"I believe Airlea has filled you in on the bear situation?" Lachesis begins without preamble.
"If she's the one who wrote a note in the back of the book we got from the trading ship, yes. But she only said something about a guy having his thread detached and that you need to reattach it."
Atropos chuckles. "I told you it wasn't a good idea to send Airlea. She's good in bed but not much else."
She looks at me as if it's my fault I don't know more. "Let me tell you the full story. About two hundred years ago, a man called James Van Deen found out that bear shifters existed. Jealous of their strength, he searched for all the material he could find on them. There's not much written down on bear shifters for exactly that reason, but he managed to amass quite a bit of knowledge nonetheless. Enough to make the connection between the Little Bear star system and bear mythology."
"Somehow, he managed to coax Calisto's son back down to Earth," Lachesis continues the story. "By then, his thread was already frayed so even we don't know all the details."
"How did he manage to fray his thread?" I interrupt.
Clotho's pearl white cheeks redden. "A moment of distraction," she mutters.
Lachesis picks up the story, ignoring her sister. "He forced Arcas to bond with him, effectively becoming the human's slave. Van Deen became a bear shifter just like he'd wanted – but he didn't stop there. He'd noticed that just because he was stronger than humans now, they didn't listen any more than they had before. He didn't automatically get the power he hungered for. So he decided that if there were more of him, he'd be able to take respect by force. He wanted to be in charge, he wanted to rule. His solution were children."
"He started to rape women, dozens, hundreds of them," Atropos says quietly, to my surprise. She sounds sad, regretful. "Some killed themselves before it was time to cut their thread, but most bore his children. New bear shifters. But instead of the children of natural bear shifters, these were feral. They could shift as soon as they were born and their human side was only half-developed. Some killed their mothers. They killed each other. It was carnage. But Van Deen carried on, fathering more and more children. The ones who survived, he trained. With Arcas inside of him, he managed to control them. They had no choice but to do what he said. When the first boys reached maturity, he told them to find their own women to rape. It was a massive operation and Van Deen was no longer able to keep it a secret. So to cover his tracks, he started a compound in the East of Canada, pretending to be the leader of a religious cult. That gave him the privacy he desired, as well as curious people coming there from time to time that he could brainwash or capture, depending on their gender."
Atropos' eyes are filled with tears now. I'm having trouble holding my own back. What a monster. How many lives did that man destroy? How many people did he kill?
"So many threads marred or cut…"
I'm starting to suspect that she's not crying because of the people, but because of her precious threads.
"There would be no life without our threads," Clotho admonishes me, clearly reading my mind again. "You better start having some respect for our work."
I sigh. "What happened next?" I ask tiredly. This is emotionally exhausting. I want my guys, I want to be home in our cottage.
"When we wanted to stop him, his thread snapped. It was too damaged to be manipulated. So suddenly he was cut loose and we couldn't reach him. We sent some servants but none of them managed to neutralise him."
If they were as competent as Airlea, I think I can guess why. But I don't say that aloud.
"We only had one other option," Lachesis continues. "We had to prevent more bear shifters being born. But there was no way to distinguish between Van Deen's abominations and natural bear shifters."
"Which is why there are no more shifter cubs," I conclude. "But you said this happened two hundred years ago. My mates are in their twenties."
"We didn't start stopping new bear cubs until two decades ago," Clotho explains.
"But…"
"But that means Van Deen is still alive, yes," Lachesis confirms. "The combination of losing his thread and having Arcas as his slave means his lifespan has dramatically increased. I don't think he's immortal, but he's still got a lot of life left in him."
"Is he still a danger to humans?" I ask and Lachesis nods.
"He's refusing to believe that there will be no more new shifter babies. He's continuing to make his sons find women to impregnate. And he's still doing the deed himself. Women are continuing to suffer and enough is enough."
Her voice has turned hard. Finally, I'm seeing a glimpse of humanity in the Fate's expression. She's angry at Van Deen, sad for the women, desperate for a solution.
Just like me.
"How can I help?"
My mind is racing. What the Fates want from us, from me… it's impossible. And I can't make that decision myself, which is why I asked to talk to my men. This time, Clotho was a lot more accommodating. Airlea has been sent back to Inchbrach to bring Finn and Torben here, while Clotho is waking up Húnn and Ràn. Properly, this time. I don't know why she didn't do it that way the first time. It would have saved a lot of back and forth. I would have been a lot more prepared to listen.
As soon as Húnn wakes, he shifts.
"Out!" I tell Clotho, not wanting her to see my men naked. She snickers but leaves us alone.
"Húnn?" I ask hesitantly, hoping that this time, he'll be himself.
"Isla." He opens his beautiful eyes and looks at me with a smile. "I had the strangest dream…"
I can't help it, I lean down and kiss him. I've never been so happy to feel his lips on mine. I almost lost him. My Húnn. He's never going to be allowed to leave my side. I'm going to get a rope and tie him to me.
I kiss him harder until Ràn clears his throat.
"Do I get a kiss, too?"
With a last little nibble on Húnn's bottom lip, I pull back, turning to Ràn.
"Of course."
I wrap my arms around his neck and he pulls me close. I'm so happy, I could burst into tears. He kisses me hard, his tongue entering my mouth from the start. I let him in, relishing in the feeling of his lips on mine.
"I see we're missing out on something."
I whirl around and screech in relief as Torben and Finn are entering the room together. I throw myself at Torben, then Finn, giving them both a quick kiss. It's so good to have them all here with me.
"How did you get here so fast?" I ask and Finn shrugs.
"We'd found the Portal already and were debating whether to go through when that creepy girl appeared and told us to follow her. So, what's going on? I take it we're at the home of the Fates?"
"Yes, and they're having big plans." I sigh. "Let's sit down for this. Anybody got some spare clothes for these too?"
I point at the bear brothers who are still naked.
"And how come you're wearing some?"
The last time I saw Finn and Torben, they were in their bear forms, which means that they should be naked as well.
Finn shrugs again. "When we stepped through the Portal, we suddenly had these on."
He looks down at himself and I follow his gaze. He's wearing tight black trousers and a white shirt. He wouldn't look out of place at a formal event. Same goes for Torben, except that he's got an added tie. I smirk as I think how he looks like a suited Viking. It's still our little joke. I cringe when I remember how I asked him once where he had his longboat stashed. Worst question ever.
"Does it bother you that we're naked?" Húnn winks suggestively.
"It's distracting," I complain. "We've got some important things to discuss and you having your… dicks hanging out is making it hard to concentrate."
Sometimes, I still stumble over words I would never have been allowed to say on Salvation Island. But I'm making progress.
Without warning, Húnn reaches up and pulls me onto his lap. On his naked lap. Any other time I'd welcome that, but right now, I can't enjoy it.
I wait until they've all sat down around me, then ask the big question.
"Have you ever killed? Not prey. People."
As soon as I've said that, I could slap myself. Of course Ràn and Húnn have. Their father. Do the other two know?
"People you don't know," I add quickly to make it easier for them.
Torben growls. "Are the Fates accusing us of killing humans?"
"No…" I cringe. "But they want us to do it."
"What?!" Finn jumps to his feet, outraged.
"Not humans. Shifters. The bear shifters that have gone rogue. If they are all gone, the Fates can allow cubs to be born again."
"That's idiotic," Finn fumes, "if they want to kill people, they can get themselves assassins. Not us."
"Yes, why us?" Torben asks. His frown is deeper than I've ever seen it – and believe me, Torben frowns a lot.
"Because we can give them a choice. Those shifters have an option: they can either choose one shape, human or bear, and stay in that forever, or they get killed."
"How can they expect anyone to make such a decision?" Húnn asks in confusion. "If I chose to stay human, I'd condemn Pelja to a life of being trapped inside of me, never running free again. I could never do that to him."
I'm beginning to wish one of the Fates was here to do the explaining. It's as if I have to play devil's advocate.
"They're not like you, not like us," I explain. "They don't have their own bears. They're both at the same time, which is why most of them are feral and crazy. But the Fates think that a few of them may be lucid enough to make a choice. So they want us to go there and find those shifters. They don't want to kill them all if there's a chance for a few of them to be saved. And if they take away their ability to shift, there will be no more babies."
"Babies?" Ràn asks in confusion and I quickly tell them what the Fates told me about Van Deen.
There's only silence after that. They're all equally as speechless and just as horrified as I was when I heard the story about an hour ago.
"Van Deen is still alive as well," I continue. "The Fates can't reach him because he no longer has a thread. So that's our task. But we can't just kill him. That would kill Alis's son, Arcas. We have to convince him to set Arcas free."
Torben laughs mirthlessly. "Convince a lunatic to give up the source of his power? I think the Fates overestimate our abilities."
I grimace. "They think that if he suddenly stands alone, without his shifter army, that he'll give up."
"Unlikely," Torben grumbles and I agree. Van Deen doesn't sound like someone who would simply capitulate.
"I guess the alternative is to capture him and hold him somewhere safe," I think aloud. "Abandon him on an island, perhaps? But we'd have to make sure he survives. Alis would go mad if her son died, now that she knows he's still alive."
Alis? Did you hear that?
Still no reply.
"Alis hasn't been speaking to me since we went through the Portal," I tell the guys and they look at me with worry.
"Has that happened before?" Húnn asks.
"She generally leaves me alone when I'm… ehm… with one of you, or if she's annoyed. But never when it's important."
"Think the Fates have something to do with that?"
I sigh. "I thought so at first, but now it's clear that they need our help, why would they do that?"
Húnn puts his hands on my shoulders and starts to knead them. I sigh again, this time in contentment. If I'd known he could give massages like that, he'd be on shoulder duty every evening. Well, that's what's going to happen from now on. He just doesn't know it yet. I've always wanted to have a personal masseur.
"I'm sure there's a good explanation," he says while working on a particularly tense spot on my neck. "Is it safe to ask them or will they see it as a weakness?"
"They can read our minds, I'm sure they know exactly what I've been thinking about. They probably know what we're talking about just now, too."
"Back to the killing thing," Ràn says slowly. "I don't think I could do it. Not unless you or one of us were threatened. That's not what we do. These people... shifters... whatever, they didn't choose to be like this. If they've done bad things, sure, they need to be brought to justice, but us going there and killing them randomly... no. No way."
I nod. That's exactly what I've been thinking. If the Fates know us so well, why would they suggest such a thing to us? They should know that we're never going to do that.
"I agree," Torben says in his deep voice. "I'm happy to go there and find that Van Deen guy, but I'm not going to kill any shifters. There's too few of us already. Even if some of them are feral, there seem to be others who might be like us."
"I've killed before," Húnn half-whispers, before raising his voice. "But that was in defence of my brother. I'm not a brute. Those women might think that just because we're shifters, we're like animals. But we're not. We have ethics, we have laws. In the shifter community, if someone breaks the law, they don't get killed. They get a trial, they may go to prison or pay a fine, but we don't have a death sentence. So why would we suddenly go against all our principles?"
"Seems like we're all in agreement." I'm relieved that they're all saying what I've been thinking all along.
"But what do we do now?" Finn asks. "I'm sure the Fates would have come up with something else if there was another option?"
"Let's ask them."
I climb out of Húnn's lap, but before I can reach the door, it opens and the three Fates enter. Of course, they were listening in, what did I expect.
"Well, well, well," Atropos smirks, "Beauty and the beasts have found each other again."
Torben looks like he's close to saying something, but he manages to stay quiet. But the struggle is real. How dare she call my men beasts!
"We're not going to kill," I say through clenched teeth. "You'll need to find someone else for that. Or even better, do it yourself. I think you could do with some real-world experience."
"Don't you think that if we could leave this place, we'd have already done something?" Atropos asks furiously. "We're trapped here and all we can do is watch."
Oh. That explains a lot. Like why they sent Airlea rather than getting us themselves. Why they need a Portal on Inchbrach. One mystery less, so many more to go.
I can't resist asking though, "How long have you been trapped in this house?"
Clotho shrugs, but I can't help getting some sad vibes from her.
"Ever since our father cursed us to be the Fates." She looks at her sisters questioningly. "Two millennia, maybe? It's hard to keep track of time."
Wow.
"Who looked after the threads before you?" I ask, unable to hide my curiosity. Let's hope curiosity doesn't kill the bear.
"The old Fates, of course," Atropos says dismissively. "It's a job description, not a name."
So many questions... Who was their father? Why did he curse them? Who were those other Fates? If only we'd met them in different circumstances. I'm sure I could persuade them to tell me their story. If they've been unable to leave this house for two thousand years, they must be incredibly bored. It's a miracle they've not gone crazy. Oh. Make that crazier.
"We won't kill anyone in your name," Torben announces, repeating what I already said. "We can try and capture Van Deen, but there will be no killing."
Lachesis suddenly claps her hands, as if she's applauding him.
"Well done. Seems you're not beasts after all," she laughs brightly, showing her sparkling white teeth.
I glare at them when I realise what this means. "This was just a test? You never meant us to kill them?"
"We may be the Fates, but we're not completely heartless," Clotho says disapprovingly.
"You could have fooled me," I mutter under my breath, gaining another stare from her.
Atropos steps forward and somehow, I know it's not going to be good news, despite the fact that we won't have to kill all those shifters.
"The ferals all have the same origin: Van Deen and Arcas," she explains. "While his thread is no longer part of the fabric of the world, he still has one, and it's wrapped around his children. Cut the thread and they'll lose their ability to shift. They won't be able to breed and we'll be able to lift the ban preventing all shifters from reproducing."
She pauses and I'm waiting for the bad bit. I'm pretty sure I can guess where this is going.
"There is only one way to do that. Kill Van Deen. Kill Arcas."
Noooooooooooooooooooooo, Alis wails in my head and I instinctively put my hands over my ears. Not that it helps tune out my bear friend's anguish.
Before I can do anything else, I feel my body shift and am pushed away into darkness.