by Anne Ursu
“Hey, look,” she said to Zee, who was tinkering with a bow. “This one makes you sleep. Maybe that’s what he used on Maddy.”
Putting down the bow, Zee came over and read the label, then shook his head slowly, muttering, “I just don’t think you’re supposed to go around giving middle schoolers poppy. Anything interesting?” he asked, motioning to the wall of herbs. She shook her head.
They looked around the room for a while more, hoping that some secret would reveal itself to them, until finally Zee whispered, “We should go. There’s still another room.”
“Well, at least we know where to go if we need to break out of this place,” Charlotte said, motioning to the weapons.
The last door in the hallway led to a vast library, filled with books from top to bottom. It looked as if it had once been very well organized but someone had stopped trying—there were piles of books, scrolls, and maps on tables, in carrels, and on the floor. Charlotte walked around the shelves, studying. “They’re in all kinds of languages,” she told Zee, who was looking through one of the carrels. “English, French, Spanish, Greek, Arabic, and lots I don’t recognize.” She picked up a Spanish book and began flipping through it, wishing suddenly that she’d paid attention in class after the first week.
One section was devoted entirely to books on the Underworld. Picking one off the shelf, Charlotte flipped through the pages, frowning when she saw an illustration of Charon, the Ferryman of the Dead, staring back at her. He was much better dressed in the picture than in real life. She skimmed the page. “See,” she said to Zee, “it doesn’t say anything here about his love of Fruit Roll-Ups. That’s the sort of thing we could teach these people.”
“Perhaps you should make a note,” Zee said. “I’m sure the Prometheans would like us writing in their books.”
There was a whole section on different gods (Persephone’s Promise), and another on monsters (The Riddle of the Sphinx), and a wall of books about herbs (The Gifts of Gaia). And then Charlotte found herself in front of a large section with books on Prometheus. She motioned to Zee, her eyes skimming the spines. It was too much to hope that there was a Prometheus’s Weapon for Dummies, she mused—but then she noticed something that made her stop: On one of the spines was an illustration that looked very familiar.
“Zee!” she whispered, taking down the book and handing it to him. “Notice anything?”
He looked at the book and gasped. “That’s the cave painting!”
The cousins stared at each other. On the spine of the book and again on the cover was an exact replica of the symbol of Prometheus holding a torch from their dream, above the title: La légende de la flamme de Prométhée.
“It’s in French,” Charlotte said. She might not know any French, but she was also not an idiot, and the words were easy enough to read. “Does that mean…?”
Zee nodded slowly. “What it looks like,” he whispered. “The Legend of the Flame of… I assume that’s Prometheus…”
Zee trailed off, as the cousins exchanged a momentous glance. “The Flame of Prometheus,” Charlotte repeated. “Prometheus’s fire…”
Zee opened the book and began concentrating hard on the page before him while Charlotte looked on, her heart racing. “I think…it’s the fire that Prometheus gave to humans, the actual Flame,” he said. “There’s a legend that Prometheus hid it somewhere, that it’s still going, and this book is about someone’s attempt to find it.”
“Did he?” Charlotte breathed.
“Um,” Zee said, flipping to the back of the book while Charlotte waited, listening for approaching steps. “No. He says it’s just a legend; it doesn’t exist.”
Charlotte closed her eyes. She was so close to understanding everything; the truth was right in front of her, if only she could see it. She called up the image of the cave wall from her dream, the story of Prometheus told in pictures, unfolding under the flickering firelight—
She gasped. “Zee,” she said, “what if it does exist? What if what the girl is showing us isn’t the cave paintings at all? What if it’s the fire?”
A chill passed over Charlotte. She was right, she just knew it. The whole dream hadn’t been about finding those paintings at all—it was about discovering the fire.
Zee had bowed his head again and returned to the book, brow knotted in concentration. “It says the fire of Prometheus would give humans knowledge of the gods again,” he said, translating slowly. He stopped reading and looked up at Charlotte as the import of what he had read sank in.
“That’s the weapon,” she whispered, her voice thick with excitement. “That’s Prometheus’s secret. The Prometheans must have found it. And they’re going to use it.”
Silence while the cousins took this in. Charlotte could not believe it—what would happen if everyone knew about the gods again? Well, it was clear, wasn’t it? They’d know them for who they were: criminally irresponsible toward the living and the dead at best, murderous at worst. There were so many humans now, led by the Prometheans, that they’d put up a good fight. They’d have a chance at least, unlike now.
Still, something was nudging at her, some inkling of doubt. There was something wrong, something she was missing.
“Do you remember what Mr. Metos said when he told us about the weapon?” she said, speaking slowly, thinking aloud. “He said they had something that would give them power over Zeus. What if they’re not planning on using it at all? What if they’re planning on, like, holding it over Zeus or something?”
Zee frowned. “How could they do that?”
All this thinking was making Charlotte’s brain hurt. What did the Prometheans want? Mr. Metos had said that their mission was to protect humanity from the gods—did that mean they would overthrow them if they got the chance? Or something else? What would they do with power over Zeus?
“We should ask Mr. Metos. Tell him we know what the weapon is. Get him to tell us what they’re going to do with it. And if they’re not going to use it, well”—she took a deep breath—“we will.”
As she said the words, she was hit with the weight of them, and she felt something shift inside of her. For so long they had been passive, reacting to events, waiting for the next step in their story to unfold. They had had all the will in the world, but no ability to act, no knowledge about how to proceed. Until now. They’d wanted something to fight with. Well, now they knew what it was. Not the Flame, but all of humanity, by their side.
At that moment they heard a loud yell coming from the hallway. Charlotte peeked out of the door to see Timon in the doorway of the room with the security console, talking seriously to the man inside.
“We better go,” she whispered.
But just then Mr. Metos emerged from the stairwell. There was a very odd expression on his face. Charlotte ducked her head back. Now was not the time to get kicked out—not when they were so close to the truth.
“Come on,” Zee whispered. “There’s an emergency exit at the end of the hallway.”
Softly the cousins crept out of the library and ducked around the corner. Charlotte grabbed the emergency exit door, and they slipped inside the stairwell.
“Let’s get back to our rooms,” Zee said. “We can pretend we were sleeping or something.”
Charlotte nodded, and they hurried down the two flights of stairs to the floor with the residences. But when Zee pushed on the door, it wouldn’t open.
“Locked,” he mouthed to Charlotte, whose heart sank.
“I don’t suppose…” She got out Hector’s key and tried to put it in the doorknob, but it didn’t even come close to fitting.
It didn’t seem likely that any of the other doors were unlocked, and when they went up to the office level they had no better luck. They ran back down the stairs, trying each door as they passed it. And then finally, at the very bottom, one opened.
“This should either lead outside,” Zee said, “or…”
He didn’t need to finish. They emerged into the parking lot underneat
h the building, the exit door closing behind them with some finality. Charlotte whirled around and tried the knob, but it wouldn’t open.
“Great,” she said.
Zee exhaled heavily. “There must be a way back in,” he muttered.
“Yeah, because the reason they leave everything unlocked up there is so people can wander in whenever they feel like it,” Charlotte muttered.
“You know, you’re awfully sarcastic sometimes,” Zee said.
Sighing, Charlotte banged her head against the wall. “I suppose they’ll come looking for us.”
“I suppose they will,” Zee said darkly, pointing at a security camera on the wall above them. The camera was moving slowly back and forth.
Charlotte swore. “Think it saw us?”
“I’m not sure,” Zee said. “I think we can duck under it, though. Come on.”
Charlotte, feeling altogether like an idiot, bent down and moved underneath the camera’s gaze, toward the alcove that held the elevator.
“I guess we could go up to the lobby,” Zee said, “and see if there’s a way in….”
Just then they heard a pinging sound from the elevator, and the door began to open slowly. Zee grabbed Charlotte and they ducked out of the alcove and pressed up against the wall outside the elevator lobby, next to the door marked HAZARDOUS MATERIALS.
It was not a very good hiding place, given that whoever had come out of the elevator was about to come upon them. Charlotte eyed the fleet of cars, looking for one to hide behind, and Zee went up to the door and tried the knob. “I guess they locked up the hazardous stuff,” he mumbled.
A man in a business suit—too blond to be a Promethean—emerged from the elevator alcove and strode across the parking lot. A look of relief passed over Zee’s face. But Charlotte had completely forgotten the danger.
“Zee,” she whispered, her voice full of portent. “Hector said, ‘Don’t do anything hazardous.’ It was a clue.” Zee blinked at her. “Do you know what’s hazardous?” she continued, nodding toward the door. “Fire!”
Zee’s eyes widened. Breathlessly Charlotte slipped him the key. Zee took it and tried it in the door.
The door opened.
The cousins looked at each other. “Thank you, Hector,” Charlotte whispered under her breath. How much trouble was he going to get in for this? Why had he done it?
But when they entered the room, Charlotte’s heart sank. There was no Flame at all in the room, just a boiler and some equipment and shelves and shelves of chemicals that were probably hazardous.
“I don’t get it,” Charlotte said.
Zee began to walk around the room, looking closely at the objects on the shelves. “There must be…” he murmured. And then he stopped and turned to his cousin. “Look!” he said, pointing at the wall behind him.
There was a door cut into the back wall, barely noticeable in the dark of the room. Zee grabbed for the knob, shook his head, and motioned to Charlotte for the key. The door opened and she followed him in, heart racing.
There was no fire in the room. And no hazardous materials. What there was was a bed, a sink, a chair, another doorway, and, sitting on the chair looking surprised, a teenage boy.
The cousins gaped. The boy gaped back.
“Who are you?” Charlotte finally asked.
“I’m Steve!” he said, as if it should be apparent. “Who are you?”
“Um,” Charlotte said. “I’m Charlotte, and this is Zee.”
The boy blinked. “Did they kidnap you, too?”
CHAPTER 17
Steve
QUITE A NUMBER OF ODD THINGS HAD HAPPENED TO Charlotte and Zee over the past few months, but none surprised them quite as much as going through a door in the Prometheans’ parking garage and finding a boy named Steve living there. As he gazed up at them with some combination of confusion and hope, Charlotte and Zee could only gape and stammer.
“Uh…kidnap?” Charlotte repeated dumbly. She stared at the boy. He was skinny and pale, with wide-set brown eyes and a thick head of curly black hair.
The boy frowned. “Are they holding you, too? Are we all going to live in here? Aw, jeez.”
“Holding you? Who’s holding you?”
“I don’t know! They didn’t, like, introduce themselves. Tall guys, dark-haired, surly, you know…”
“The Prometheans?” Charlotte asked incredulously.
“Who?”
Charlotte rubbed her forehead. “What do you mean, they’re holding you here? You’re staying here for a while? They’re keeping you safe?”
“Yeah, they’re keeping me safe,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He lifted up his hands, and for the first time Charlotte noticed a slender chain linking his wrists to the floor. “I’m real safe here. Look, do you guys know a way out, or what? Do you have any idea how worried my mom must be?”
Zee spoke for the first time. “They’re holding you prisoner?” he asked. “Do you know why?”
“No, they didn’t exactly sit down and explain why they were kidnapping me.” Steve was eyeing them like he had real concern for their obvious mental problems. “I went to sleep in my bed one night, next thing I know I wake up here.”
Charlotte had never been so confused in her whole life. Was this boy evil somehow? He didn’t seem evil—a little touchy, maybe—but that didn’t mean anything. Boys, in her recent experience, were all either she-vampires in disguise or pretending to like you just so you would help them turn their sea-god dads into toads. “Do you know anything about the Greek gods?” she asked.
The boy now obviously thought she was completely crazy. “Huh? The Greek gods? Like Hercules and stuff? Can we talk about this another time, maybe?”
“You don’t have any idea why you’re here,” Zee said, his eyes narrowed. He didn’t seem to believe him either.
“No!” The boy sighed, resigned to their stupidity. “I heard them say something about me being somebody’s son, but my mom is a schoolteacher. She’s never done anything wrong in her life!”
“I don’t think that’s it,” Zee whispered, eyeing Charlotte, who had frozen at the boy’s words.
Somebody’s son, he’d said. Could this be Mr. Metos’s secret son? And if so, why in the world was he locked behind the storage closet? Wasn’t that taking secrecy a little far? He wasn’t the most pleasant guy in the world, but still…
“What about your dad?” asked Charlotte carefully.
The boy’s face darkened. “I don’t have a dad,” he said, crossing his arms sulkily—or trying to. The chains pulled back on his arms, and Steve let out a gargled scream, so loud that Charlotte jumped. “Can you get me out of these things?!”
“I—” Charlotte didn’t know what she was about to say, but it didn’t matter, for as soon as she started to speak there came the sound of footsteps pounding down a staircase, then the door in the back of the room flew open and Timon and the man from the security room burst through. Charlotte looked up and noticed a small camera in the corner of the room. It’s all the parking garage, Zee had said. And one bedroom…
“What are you doing in here?” Timon yelled, his face looking murderous. Charlotte’s stomach turned, and she found herself taking a step backward.
“We—,” Charlotte started as Zee looked at her helplessly. “We were looking around, and—”
“How did you get in here? How? Have you been spying on us? Did someone send you? Who are you working for?” He took a great step forward and seemed suddenly to be the biggest person Charlotte had ever seen. She took another step back as the other man grabbed his arm. “Timon, they’re just chil—”
The Promethean turned on his colleague. “Then how did they get in, Alec? Huh?” He looked back at Charlotte and Zee, his voice cutting into them. “What do you know and how do you know it?”
Timon was almost trembling with the force of his own anger, and the very furniture in the room seemed to cower in his presence.
“Why don’t you let Metos talk to them,”
the other man whispered, grabbing his arm again, more gently this time, as if to transfer calm to him. “He’ll sort it out. Come on, you’re upset. We’re all upset. This isn’t the time….”
There was a moment of tense silence as Timon stopped and glared around the room. Meanwhile, the air around him hummed ominously. Charlotte half realized she was not breathing, but it hardly mattered if Timon was going to kill her anyway. Then, with almost a snarl, he backed off. “Fine,” he spat, still looking murderous. “Metos can deal with them.”
A few minutes later Charlotte and Zee were sitting in stunned silence in Zee’s room, Charlotte’s arm still aching from Timon’s grasp.
“Are you all right?” Zee asked finally.
Charlotte nodded slowly. “That guy and Poseidon could be in the same anger management class,” she muttered. She exhaled loudly; it was difficult to shake off the echoes of Timon’s rage, but there were pressing matters before them.
She did not know what to think. The Prometheans wouldn’t lock up a teenage boy in a basement without a very good reason, and it was certainly possible that he was not a teenage boy at all. He could have assumed that guise just to get their sympathy. But if he were a shape-shifter, you’d think chains wouldn’t be that effective….
“Zee, why would they be keeping a boy? Is that Mr. Metos’s son?”
Zee frowned. “Mr. Metos is pretty socially malformed, but I don’t think even he would lock his own son up in the basement.”
Charlotte pressed her lips together in thought. “But maybe he’s evil. Or dangerous,” she said. “I don’t know how, but…Maybe there’s a prophecy about him, or—”
Suddenly the expression on Zee’s face changed. “A prophecy…?” he repeated slowly.
“Yeah, maybe he has some kind of destiny, or…”
But Zee wasn’t listening. He had gotten up and gone over to his bag, where he pulled out a library book and handed it to Charlotte.