It was cold and overcast in Hangzhou much like the day before. I alighted outside the double doors of the People’s Clinic, nearly bowling over an old woman in a wheelchair in the process.

By the time she recovered, mumbling a string of curses in my direction, I’d already changed my appearance enough to no longer be recognisable, and by the time I reached the reception desk I was a tall, handsome woman dressed in a respectable suit and looking much less foreign than the first time this had gone down. The pressure on the pact was easing up a bit, it seemed.

“I’m here to see Executive Assistant Lien Yun-Qi,” I told the receptionist. “Tell him it’s Yang Yinzhu.”

“Mr Lien is in a meeting at the moment,” he responded, after tapping away at his keyboard for a bit.

“Yes. With me,” I lied. “I’m late. He knows I’m coming.”

“Oh,” he said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “My apologies. You’re with the licensing authority?”

“What else?”

“One minute, please. I’ll send someone down to collect you.”

Yun-Qi came down himself. “Yang Yinzhu,” he greeted me carefully, steering me away from the front desk. “You look different.”

“Do you speak Sanskrit?” I asked him, getting straight to the point.

“You came all the way here to ask me that?”

“It’s important.”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” he said, confirming my suspicions. “Bearing in mind that most of what I learnt was from written sources. How did you know?”

“Pattern recognition,” I said unhelpfully. “I need you to cancel your meeting, and any others you have booked for the afternoon. I have a job for you.” And a whole lot of questions.

“You made it clear that wasn’t on the cards last time we spoke. Have you reconsidered?”

He wasn’t batting an eyelid at my changed appearance, despite the fact I hadn’t provided him with any evidence I was who I claimed to be. Which might mean he was too trusting, or… he’d dealt with gods before. And not just Eris or Providence’s supplier reference manual. The more that I thought about it, the more I found it hard to believe I hadn’t suspected it earlier.

“I wouldn’t say that,” I hedged. “Not the long-term gig you have in mind, anyway. But I have need of your skills, and, more importantly, I know you’re involved in something shadier than a wheel of colour swatches.”

“I assure you that isn’t the case, Ms Yang.”

“And I don’t believe you,” I responded, smiling. “Just wait here a moment.”

The clinic foyer was littered with round chairs in several varieties of inoffensive green, where patients and visitors alike sat around low wooden coffee tables in the kind of tedious purgatory rivalled by the void itself. Picking a loiterer at random, I marched over, poked her on the scalp and shunted her off to a seat on the opposite side of the room. Other than the fact she started yelling as a magazine sank through her disintegrating hands onto the floor, the transition was smooth, and she reappeared mid-cry in a disconcerting audio effect that shared similarities with the doppler effect and surround sound without belonging to either camp.

It took about ten seconds all up, which further supported the theory the pact was mending. More to the point, I now knew I wasn’t going to get stuck halfway to limbo. Which was good, because bringing Yun-Qi into the office in its current amped up state didn’t seem like it would end well.

Most of the people in attendance had had ample time and motivation to witness the scream, though few had any idea what was going on. Almost everyone’s attention was on the other woman as she recovered into mere confusion, with the exception of the receptionist, who was squinting at me and trying to polish his glasses while they were still on his face.

Yun-Qi was staring at me with the eyes of the shell-shocked. “It’s really you,” he murmured.

“Aw,” I said, returning and clapping him on the shoulder. “You had me convinced you were a true believer this whole time. Yet when it comes down to it you’re just like most stuffy academics; you need to see the magic before it’s real. Right? So who are you really, now? Some kind of secret agent? A researcher trying to steal divine secrets, perhaps?”

He reached up and threw my hand off like it was a hot potato. “Please don’t insult me.”

“I’ve got bad news for you, then. But also good news, because you’re about to see a lot more where that came from.”

I held out my palm, then thought better of it and scrunched my fingers into a tight fist, withdrawing the arm. That had nearly been a disaster.

The action hadn’t escaped Yun-Qi’s attention, I noted, his eyes following my hand a little longer than I would have expected. I used the moment of distraction to reach out with my other arm and tap him on the chin with my index finger, transporting us both to a familiar shipping container in Singapore.

Tez and Parvati were waiting for us. The moment the new location finished coalescing around us and I finished changed back into Sørine for Parvati's benefit, the god of night calmly opened the door to my old apartment and beckoned us inside.

“Someone’s getting their divination back, I see,” I remarked, peering past him into the space and checking for murals of Apollo. There were none, but this wasn’t stopping Parvati from turning her nose up at the surroundings. We weren’t doing a great job of selling her on the future, I had to admit. So far it had been small, boxy rooms as far as the eye could see. And the time loop, I supposed, although out of context it probably resembled some kind of horrific perpetual torture device. Not a great first impression.

Tez ignored me, leaning forward to hold his hand out to Yun-Qi. “Nice to meet you, Mr Lien. You know me as Tezcatlipoca, but I realise it’s a mouthful, so Tez is fine.”

“You’re going to make him star-struck at this rate,” I murmured. From the devilish smile he aimed my way, it was obvious that was exactly what he had in mind.

Before Yun-Qi had a chance to enter worship mode, I cut between them and directed his attention towards Parvati. “See that one? She’s what you’re here for. Ask her why she isn’t dead.”

“Come again?”

I gave him the brief, omitting anything pact-related.

“I think I understand,” he said, when I was finished. “What are you going to do with her?”

“That depends on what she says. I’d like to get Durga back if we can.”

“So would I.”

I looked at him in surprise. Why would he care about Durga over Parvati? One of them was going to lose out either way.

“In all my years of study,” he clarified, “It did occur to me once or twice to wonder what happened to all the Hindu avatars when they weren’t in action.”

“How very kind of you,” I enunciated, letting the sarcasm drip off my tongue. Meanwhile, not one of them would even have known he existed in return, let alone cared.

“We know what happens,” said Tez. “What you should be asking is how they feel about it.” He nodded at Parvati. “This here is some bad blood.”

The goddess glared back at him. “Stop talking about me when I can’t understand,” she complained, fingers twitching at her sides. “It’s extremely rude.”

I gave Yun-Qi a nudge forward. “That’s your cue.”

Yun-Qi looked around at the scant available patches of visible floor, back at us, then pursed his lips and picked his way through the layers of detritus.

I sighed. I hadn’t intended the shipping container to be a place for hosting guests. “Tez?”

“I’m not your butler.”

“It’ll take you literally one second. Well, ten seconds, I guess.”

“You haven’t even paid me for the last service yet.”

“Add it to my tab, not that this is worth anything, and we’ll deal with it after this, okay?”

He looked at me reproachfully as Yun-Qi struck up a conversation in Sanskrit. “So I guess these people do mean something to you, then.”

I went very still, conscious we were still having this conversation in Mandarin in front of Yun-Qi. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well…” He waved a hand in a wide circle. “You put on a big show about using everyone around you for your own personal entertainment, and now you want to pretty up your dump for their comfort. We both know you don’t care about basic hygiene.”

“First of all,” I said in a low voice, “I would be careful about the next words you choose, if I were you. And secondly, those things are not mutually-exclusive. Thirdly, I can just wish myself clean, you goose – any time prior to yesterday doesn’t count.”

A mild cough interrupted my rant, and I glanced over to see Yun-Qi watching us with a patient expression. Parvati’s was less so, if by ‘less so’ you meant ‘actively hostile’. “I have answers,” the former said.

“Actual progress!” Tez exclaimed. “I like you. Loki chose well.” He waved a hand and summoned several plush French-style chairs, laughably mismatched to their surroundings, into existence around the book piles, then sat down.

“It’s not like there were many candidates,” I muttered, taking another chair. “So what’s the deal?”

For whatever reason, Yun-Qi decided to remain standing. “According to Parvati, Durga fought her and her sisters and trapped them in a state of dormancy for the last several centuries. Only now was she able to escape and regain control. She believes Durga was weakened by something.”

I had little doubt Durga was capable of something like that, even though Parvati was supposed to have been the dominant personality in their particular set. And I could understand why she might have done it – being faced with the prospect of one’s own imminent demise was a powerful motivator. But it didn’t explain how the consolidation hadn’t taken effect. And it didn’t explain the eerie vision Parvati had shown me of Durga’s ruthless side. True, perhaps she’d had a significant change of heart over time, but it was likely there was more to it.

“How about the edict?” I asked, addressing Parvati directly and drawing out my words to give Yun-Qi a chance to keep up with the translation.

“She says she wasn’t around to witness it.”

In that case, she might not be aware of the fate of her pantheon, and I was the unfortunate soul who got to break the news.

Tez beat me to the punch, however. “You might not recognise your friends anymore,” he said sympathetically.

“There are still bits of them floating around in there,” I amended, not to be outdone. “Just, you know, kind of mushed up. Like puree.”

“Don’t translate that. Not helping, Loki.”

Parvati’s lips set in a thin line. “We all knew it was coming. And I had some sense of time passing while I was out. I know it’s been a while. But someone’s going to pay for this.”

“If you waltz back into Providence on a vendetta, you’re going to get yourself captured and depowered at the very least,” I told her. “Be smart about this and let us help you.”

If I could convince Apollo to take his leash off me, we could use it to subdue Parvati. There were a couple of problems with that plan, though, the main one being that it didn’t guarantee Durga would be the deity to bounce back. There was every chance we’d get someone else who might be even harder to reason with. And it didn’t solve the underlying problem, which meant we’d still be condemning several goddesses to nonexistence through no fault of their own.

Ideally we needed a way to extract each of the personalities and house them in their own bodies. Or at least Durga. Then she could get back to work and the others could go off and do what they wanted as fugitives. But the fact they shared a soul made things difficult. Providence had the resources to accomplish it, I was certain, but what those were was outside my area of expertise. What we needed was an expert on souls. It was a good thing I happened to know one who was trustworthy.

“Then I’ll start with Durga,” Parvati declared, unfazed.

Yun-Qi gave me a sideways glance as he translated, but I didn’t need prompting.

“Whoa. Let’s slow down a fraction,” I said, gesturing for her to take one of the remaining seats. She didn’t. “This doesn’t need to come to erasure. I promise you we’ll find a better solution for your predicament as soon as we can.”

“Don’t try to trick me, Sly One. I hear your promises are worthless.”

“Your information is centuries out of date,” I retorted, not having to fake my irritation. “And you shouldn’t believe every rumour you hear. Give us – oh, forty-eight hours. We’ll get it done.”

Parvati scowled. “Every hour I leave that traitor be is an hour she might attempt to take back control,” she said. “She’s a danger to us all and needs to be removed.”

“Have you considered she might have been protecting you from the edict?” Tez asked.

It was the wrong thing to say. The goddess’ reaction was nothing short of incensed. “Protect? The edict would have been preferable. Death, even.”

Right, she didn’t know about the restructure, either. We had a lot of catching up to do.

“It worked, though,” I pointed out, as my phone buzzed at me at the same time as Tez’ went off. “Just saying. You’re here now, aren’t you?”

She pointed to her chest. “Don’t think I don’t know you’re angling to get her back. You might have been taken in by her lies, but we are the victims here.”

“I don’t doubt you are,” I said, and frowned, beginning to second-guess myself. I liked Durga, and couldn’t reconcile Parvati’s experience of her with the woman I knew, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t truth to it. “But I’m not going to let you erase her. There’s been enough of that already.”

Parvati’s reaction was one of utter incredulity. “She’s part of me. How dare you presume to make my decisions on my behalf?”

“And you’re not co-opting someone else’s? Obviously not everyone feels like you, or Durga wouldn’t have done what she did. Don’t you think she gets a say in this?”

My phone was doing its best to vibrate a hole in my pocket, drawing confused and suspicious glances from the unwitting time-traveller. “She gave up her right to a voice when she betrayed her sisters,” she said in a cold tone.

“And do your sisters even agree? Or are you just presuming to speak for everyone? Why don’t you bring them out and ask?”

“Time out,” said Tez, rising to his feet. “Do you want this to end in a fight?” he asked me, gesturing to Yun-Qi to hold off on the translation. “Because that’s where this is heading, and it doesn’t go well for you. I have a vested interest in keeping you in good working condition until I collect my payment.”

I rubbed at my temples. “I thought Parvati was supposed to be more compassionate than this. Did she swap personalities with Durga while she was out or something?” I’d seen stranger things.

“You ask that like I’m supposed to know the answer,” he replied.

“If I may,” Yun-Qi put in, inclining his head, “I’d like to talk to her.”

“Don’t let us stop you,” said Tez, shooting me a wink.

If he thought it was worth doing, I wasn't about to argue. My phone buzzed yet again and I relented this time, pulling it out to see what Mayari had to report.

[Grace dropped a bombshell in the media circuit,] the first message read. [Says he was saved from death by a messenger from God bringing tidings of the end times. Which are apparently due any day now.]