Fate's Exchange (Twisted Fate, Book 1)

Epilogue

The Sisters of Fate

In The Void

It was too close a call.

Fate had always been ten steps ahead; this time they had barely managed one.

The Sisters gathered around their round wooden table and watched the hologram flicker to life once the girl had escaped Death's grasp for the final time. The lights flashed blue against the golden lacquer walls to refract spikes of light in the air as Alyssa's future once again became clear, yet limited. Just one more year until her eighteenth birthday, but it would begin so much sooner: the anniversary of her conception.

Acquiring experience didn't leave her protected though. Once the conception date passed, it would begin in earnest, and her uniqueness would start to be sensed. No chances could be haggled, and every choice could be her last.

"Did we do it?" Clotho asked, squirming in her chair, always eager and too impatient. "Did it work?"

Atropos twirled her golden-handled shears and then held them in front of herself so that she could admire her reflection in the sharp, life-ending blades. "I could cut another lifeline? Perhaps force another tragedy to unfold."

"That's all you do, isn't it?" Clotho rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers through the air in front of Atropos. "Oh, look at me! I'm so special. Snip! Snip! I can use... scissors!" She snipped her fingers closed a final time and then slumped back into her chair, sighing as she rolled her eyes. "You think you are so special because you can use those things? I've got a pair of crafting scissors that could do a better job!"

Atropos twirled to face Clotho with fire in her eyes. "I could cut your lifeline, you little—"

"You wish you could find it!"

"Enough!" Lachesis pinched the bridge of her nose. "You two are giving me a headache."

"We don't get headaches," Clotho said and looked to Atropos for confirmation.

"Well, if we did get headaches, I would have one." And she did. Lachesis's secret gifts, unknown even to her sisters, left her with a constant rage in her head that their bickering escalated into unbearable, it's-time-to-black-out-now proportions on a daily basis.

She wanted to crawl into bed.

But she had to check their progress with the girl, just to be sure. Fate had made sure that Alyssa Frank had died to gain the necessary experience she would need, and even though her life could be exchanged, no human could have died in her place. Not even Fate could change those rules. The death of an angel's mortal form satisfied Death's demands for a life without killing the soul within.

"What do you girls suggest?" Lachesis raised her gaze to meet her sisters. Collaboration was but a formality to hide behind, a way to keep her secrets hidden for just a little longer. Just as she had always known where the real David had been, she knew what came next.

Atropos and Clotho shrugged in response.

Lachesis sighed, growing impatient. Their time for action was too short to wait. "The girl has been saved but has been left unprotected. How should we solve this?"

It was like sounding out the syllables within a word to first graders. Atropos and Clotho were more like squabbling teenagers than powerful Goddesses who couldn't die, and a disgrace to the legacy of Fate.

"It is a wonder you two have any responsibility to the living at all. Go. Fulfill your duties," Lachesis ordered with a careless flick of her hand. Knowing what she needed to do would be easier done alone.