The goddess sighs deeply. “Oh, how you disappoint me, mortal child. I thought we had something special between us, but here you are, throwing it all away.” She closes her eyes for a moment, and her body starts to glow. It looks like LED bulbs have been switched on under her skin.

“There’s one thing you have to understand.” She advances toward me, her frame elongating, her once soft face hardening. With each step her dowdy clothes are gradually being replaced by a flowing gold gown. “You cannot compare your lives to ours. My sisters and I are Mago Halmi’s divine children. If mortals must perish to suit our needs, then so be it. It is the law of nature.”

That’s all the fuel I need to stoke my fire. If she doesn’t respect mortal lives, then she has no right to roam our realm.

“Auntie O!” I scream, releasing the metal rays of the compass behind my back. “Do it now!”

Auntie Okja might not know who I am anymore, but she still knows the plan. At my command, she rubs her wrists together and starts chanting the threading spell. Before our eyes, tiny silver ropes start appearing between my auntie and the goddess. They look like spiderwebs touched by morning dew, glistening under the lights of the sanctuary.

“What is the meaning of this?” the goddess asks, looking between herself and Auntie Okja.

“You are the patron goddess of service and sacrifice,” I start. “Yet the only one you serve is yourself. You don’t deserve the Gom. You don’t deserve this realm. You want the Godrealm’s last fallen star? Well, here it is. Let us show you what we mortals are truly capable of!”

And with that, I run toward the threads with the star compass in hand. I run with all my might, and with Hattie in my heart. I channel all my anger and grief into my arms, and I slash at the threads with both hands. I attack them with everything in my being, desperate to sever the link between the goddess and the Gom clan.

The goddess watches me with surprise, momentarily stunned into silence. Then she looks at the compass and cackles. “Stupid mortal child, that is not the Godrealm’s last fallen star. How dare you test the patience of divinity?”

“But it…it…it has to be!” I stop slashing and look at the threads between my auntie and the goddess. I expect to see them cut and drooping like wilting flowers. But they’re still connected, firm and taut, as intact as they were when they first appeared.

“I don’t understand,” Auntie Okja breathes.

“It should have worked,” I murmur.