The Helicon Muses Omnibus: Books 1-4

by V. J. Chambers

  But they arrived at the ball, and the atmosphere was too lovely to keep her from thinking about it further. The main fire pit had been completely covered over with a polished wood dance floor, and a tall tent enclosed everything. Its ceiling was as high as a cathedral, and long, slender light fixtures descended over the dance floor. The soft lights lit the whole area. There was wine and cider to drink out of fluted glasses and tiny, fancy hors d’oeuvres on elegant tables covered in silk tablecloths.

  “Oh,” said Nora, gasping. “I didn’t know it was like this.”

  “That’s right,” said Sawyer. “This is your first proper Harvest Ball. Last year was just a hodge podge, but this is what it’s usually like.”

  “It’s gorgeous,” said Nora.

  “It was always one of my favorite festivals when I was a kid,” said Maddie. “There’s so much dancing, all of it formal, with actual steps and things.” She clasped her hands together.

  “Oh,” said Nora, looking disappointed. “But I don’t know any of the steps.”

  “I’ll totally teach you,” said Maddie.

  “And now?” said Agler, offering to help her out of her coat. “It’s not your favorite anymore?”

  “Not really,” said Maddie, letting him ease it off her shoulders.

  “How come?” said Lute.

  “The alcohol selection is definitely lacking,” she said.

  And they all laughed.

  “Oh, Maddie, I love that dress,” said Nora.

  “Yours too,” said Maddie, taking in Nora’s dress, which was a deep purple. It was similar in design to Maddie’s, only the sleeves were puffed instead of belled. “Sawyer did a great job.”

  They both beamed at Sawyer, who was taking off his coat.

  Maddie had to grin. This was a subdued holiday, and it was funny to see what Sawyer thought subdued actually was. His dress was made of sheer black fabric, so that his skin was completely visible through it. There were a few strategically placed opaque spots, so that everything was covered, of course. But it was very revealing.

  Lute was wearing a suit jacket with tails and matching slacks. But beneath, he wasn’t wearing a regular dress shirt. Instead, he had on a black sheer shirt to match Sawyer’s.

  Maddie had to admit they looked good together, sleek and avant garde, very sexy.

  Still, she was glad of Agler’s normal suit.

  The group of them made their way further inside. They picked up some glasses of wine. They tried some hors d’oeuvres. Maddie even convinced Agler to dance with her for a few of the songs that were being played by the string quartet in the corner. He wasn’t great with the steps, but he was enthusiastic about being close to her, and as she spun around the room in his arms, she felt certain that he was the person she was meant to be this close to.

  And then she saw Daryl.

  She still hadn’t talked to him. She didn’t know what to say. But they were going to see Owen soon, and there was a chance that something terrible might happen to them, and she wouldn’t be back. So, she needed to talk to Daryl before she left.

  She told Agler to give her a minute. She said that she needed to clear things up with Daryl, and he let her go.

  Daryl was with a group of muses from the security enclave. They were all wearing dark suits, clustered in a corner at a table together, talking and laughing.

  Maddie approached and put her hand on Daryl’s shoulder. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Daryl looked up. When he saw it was her, he stood up. “Of course.”

  They went to another table, one that was behind a tall fern, and they sat down together.

  Maddie set her hands in her lap, and she twisted them together. How did she start talking about this?

  “This is the part where you let me down easy, right?” said Daryl quietly.

  She winced. “I don’t want it to be bad—”

  “No, it’s okay,” he said. “You’ve been avoiding me ever since you got back from Nysa. I took a hint. And I saw you dancing with Agler just now. You picked him. I get it.”

  “Daryl, what you and I had will always be special to me…”

  “But?”

  She sighed. “Well, I’ve changed since then. When I lost you, I grieved for you. I let you go. It doesn’t mean that I don’t still care about you, but it does mean that we can’t just start up where we left off. Too much has changed.”

  “Including Agler.” Daryl gave her a sad smile.

  Well, there wasn’t any point in denying that, was there? “Including Agler,” she agreed. “He and I have been through a lot together. He’s… I’m in love with him.”

  “And you’re not in love with me.”

  Geez, this was hard. She couldn’t meet his eyes. She twined her fingers together in her lap.

  “Maddie?” said Daryl. “Look at me?”

  She couldn’t. She shook her head. “I… I’m sorry. About everything. I know that you were suffering while I was happy, and I wish that I could do something to change that, but I can’t, and—”

  “I just need to know that,” he said.

  “Know what?”

  “I need you to tell me that you don’t love me,” he said. “I need to be sure of that.”

  Now, she looked at him. “Daryl, when we were together, we never said that to each other.”

  “So, does that mean that you never did love me?”

  “I was sixteen years old,” said Maddie. “I didn’t even know what that meant. You were the only guy who had ever paid attention to me. I was grateful to you, and I was enamored of you. And after you were gone, well, sure, I thought I loved you then. But it wasn’t…” Man, this was coming out badly. “I’ll always be indebted to you for saving me from Owen. And you’ll always have a special place in my heart. And maybe I do love you, but I’m not in love with you.”

  Daryl sucked in breath.

  She looked away again.

  “Okay,” he said.

  She looked up.

  He was smiling again, a soft, small smile. “You know, I always wanted to apologize for the way I was at the beginning. I only got involved with you because Owen made me do it, and you deserve better than that. You’re positively amazing, and I hope you know that.”

  Maddie smiled now. “You don’t need to apologize. You went through hell because of it.”

  “We all did,” he said, getting up from the table. “Trying to work with Owen is like trying to make an alliance with a thunderstorm. He does what he pleases, no matter what’s in his way.”

  Maddie blanched. This going-to-see-Owen thing? Yeah, she really hoped it wasn’t going to blow up in their faces.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Sawyer had a hard time getting away from Lute to make it to the meeting spot outside the tent. It was easy enough for Maddie. All she had to do was say that she was going to the bathroom or something. It wasn’t as if Agler could follow her. But Lute could follow Sawyer, so that option was out. Eventually, he told him that he’d left something important in the tent, and that he was going to run and go get it. Lute wanted to come along, but Sawyer convinced him not to. Then he got his butt down to meet the girls.

  “Where have you been?” said Nora. “We’ve been waiting for you for ages.”

  “Agler’s going to come looking for me soon,” said Maddie. “I’ve been gone too long.”

  “It was really hard to get away from Lute,” said Sawyer. “Do you have the dimension device?”

  “Of course I have it.” Nora opened her bag to show it to him. It gleamed in the moonlight. “Do you have the sunglasses?”

  “Yeah,” said Sawyer.

  Maddie shivered. “It’s cold. Let’s get moving.”

  “It’s going to be just as cold in the mundane world,” said Nora.

  “I just meant that moving our bodies would keep us warm, that’s all.”

  The three set off, going past the main fire pit and heading out into the darkness.

  “And just where do you think you’r
e going?” A figure stepped into their path, her voice booming out.

  They all stopped short.

  It was Phoebe. She was wrapped up in a blanket, and she stepped closer to them. She held up the decoy dimension device. “Coeus was telling me just how hard you three had been working to help out in the engineering enclave, and I wanted to slap him upside the head. I told him that no one is that altruistic besides him. You three had to be getting something out of it. Then I found this.”

  Sawyer’s heart sank. All their planning, all their work, had been for nothing. Phoebe was going to stop them.

  “It’s clever,” Phoebe continued. “It looks good. But it would never work in a million years. Which makes me think you’ve got the working one on you somewhere. Now, do I have to search you, or will you admit to it?”

  They all exchanged a glance, looking miserable.

  Nora sighed. “Phoebe, I know you don’t approve, but we have to do something. Nimue is out there, and we’re all just sitting in Helicon, throwing parties. She’s getting stronger. She has the other dimension device.”

  “She’s exiled from Helicon,” said Phoebe.

  “She found a way in before,” said Nora. “She’ll find a way again.”

  Phoebe pursed her lips. She surveyed the three of them. “So, I ask you again. Where are you going?”

  “To the mundane world,” said Nora in a defeated tone. “To find Owen. He knows something about this, and I need to know what.”

  Phoebe was quiet. She looked at each of them in turn, as if she was considering something. Finally, she seemed to make up her mind. “Nora, may I speak to you alone?”

  Nora looked confused. “Alone?”

  Phoebe nodded. “It will only take a moment.” She gestured.

  Nora furrowed her brow at Maddie and Sawyer. Then she shrugged. “Well, I guess so.”

  “Good.” Phoebe ushered Nora away.

  Sawyer and Maddie looked at each other. What the heck was going on?

  “What do you think she’s going to do?” said Sawyer. “Do you think we’re going to get in trouble?”

  “Of course we are,” Maddie sighed. “She’s really angry with us.”

  “She doesn’t seem that angry,” said Sawyer.

  “What do you think she wants with Nora?”

  “No idea,” he said. “You think we should get closer and try to listen in?”

  “That might make Phoebe even angrier.”

  “I don’t care,” he said, and he started off into the darkness the way that they’d gone.

  But before he made it very far, Nora came back. She nearly collided with him. She looked a little frazzled.

  “What?” he said. “Where’s Phoebe?”

  “Going back to the ball,” said Nora. She sounded a little out of breath.

  “You okay?” said Sawyer.

  Nora pushed past him and headed back to find Maddie.

  “What’s going on?” said Maddie.

  Nora looked at both of them. “She’s letting us go.”

  “She is?” said Sawyer.

  Nora nodded. “I told her once, back in the summer, that if there was any way to help out with protecting Helicon, I wanted to. She said that it made better sense for me to go to Owen than anyone else. She said that I’m the only one who has a chance of being safe with him.”

  “She really said that?” said Maddie.

  “Yeah.” Nora took another deep breath, as if she was trying to calm herself. “She, um, she didn’t want you two to go, but I said that there was no way to stop you, because I’d tried.”

  “Well, that’s the truth,” said Sawyer.

  “I can’t believe she’s letting us go,” said Maddie.

  “She said that if your parents found out, she would deny any knowledge,” said Nora. “She’s not responsible for what happens to us.”

  Sawyer felt as though a rock had settled in the pit of his stomach. He swallowed.

  They were all quiet for several seconds.

  Nora cleared her throat. “Well,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Owen Asher hated the mundane world. He’d been trapped here for most of his life. To him, it was a prison. Earlier this year, he’d had the dimension device, and that had made things better. He’d been able to travel wherever he liked, to any dimension he pleased. Most of them were empty now, of course. The power had faded from most of the gods a long time ago. Their old homes were simply empty shells.

  But Owen didn’t mind. He didn’t much like company, anyway, on account of the fact that most other people really annoyed him. They were stupid, you see. Every once in a while, he’d find someone who seemed promising, but rarely did they deliver on that promise. He’d try a few tricks, see if he could get them to do what he wanted. Once he found that he could manipulate them, he lost all respect for them.

  Now, his mother, Nimue, she wasn’t easy to manipulate.

  So, he respected her. But he also hated her, because she had been awful to him. Owen knew what mothers were supposed to be like. They were supposed to cherish their children, dote on them, make them feel special and loved. Nimue didn’t do anything like that. She despised Owen, and she had only ever sought to use him. At first, he’d been too young to understand what was happening, and he’d tried to please her. But now he knew better. He only wanted her dead.

  In their last encounter, she’d stolen the dimension device from him. She’d gone on and on about her plans to drain Helicon of power and bring back magic to the mundane world. That was what she cared about. Not her own son.

  Owen hated her for that. He hated her, and he hated himself too. Because when he was around her, he was stupid too. He knew that she’d never done anything but hurt him. Still, he couldn’t help but wish that she’d be good to him—just once.

  It was a weakness, and he knew it. But it didn’t matter. He still longed for his mother to act like a real mother. And every time that she didn’t, it only made him angrier.

  Sometimes he fantasized about different ways to kill her. He had tried shooting her. That hadn’t worked. So, he knew that these fantasies—of strangling her, drowning her, burning her alive—probably wouldn’t work either. Still, at night sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, he played scenes of Nimue’s death over and over in his mind. They soothed him. They made him feel like he had just a tiny bit of control over the situation. That was what Nimue had always taken away from him. Control. She always controlled everything.

  But that was going to change. He wasn’t entirely sure how, now. He had been expecting that Nora would come at Halloween. He knew when he sent Daryl back to Helicon that he wouldn’t bring her straightaway, as much easier as that would’ve made everything. If he’d had some way to get Nora there quickly, when he wanted her, then he would’ve done that. But his hands were tied. He was exiled from Helicon, and there was no way for him to get to her.

  He thought he knew her so well. He was sure that her curiosity would get the better of her, and she would come on Halloween. And even if she hated him, which he knew she did, there was still a bond between the two of them. Maybe it was arrogance, but he was certain that she would do what he wanted her to do. She always had, after all.

  But it turned out that he had misjudged her. He’d thought she’d come, but she hadn’t arrived. Now it was nearly a month past Halloween, and Owen didn’t know what he was going to do. He needed Nora. Nora was the key. Nora was the way that he would get control over his mother back again.

  Before he’d figured that out, he had to admit that he hadn’t given much thought to Nora whatsoever. And that… Well, that had been quite refreshing. Owen had spent so much of his life thinking about Nora all of the time. He had thought it meant he loved her. But, as it turned out, it only meant that his mother had placed a spell on him, making him obsessed with her. It was easier now that the spell had been lifted. He didn’t have to worry about Nora.

  Of course, some habits died hard. Though he no longer felt any real conc
ern for Nora’s welfare, he still had a nagging sensation when it came to her. It seemed to him that she belonged to him. He couldn’t shake that. Nora Sparrow was his. He was the one who’d taken care of her for all those years. He was the one who’d gotten her back to Helicon. He had put so much effort into her that it only seemed right that he’d earned his ownership of her.

  That was why it was doubly frustrating that she hadn’t arrived when he wanted her to. When he did see her, and he would, he would have to make sure that she understood the way things were between them. She didn’t know her place. And he needed to get that through her skull.

  Of course, at first it wouldn’t be wise to take that sort of tack with her. He didn’t think she would appreciate it. No, at first, he would have to pretend to be innocent and possibly even a little sad. Nora would eat that shit up. He knew that deep down she wanted to believe that he was just a very sad little boy who needed love. Anyway, he needed Nora to believe that he wasn’t a threat. Because before anything else happened, what he needed from Nora was her help to stop Nimue.

  Until he could get to her, he was stuck here in the mundane world.

  Owen had come back to this place, where he and Nora had been foster children and played with the goats, for no particularly good reason. He remembered it. It was there. He showed up. His foster parents remembered him. Not that it mattered. Owen was going to make them do what he wanted no matter what. So, he got them to take him in. He lived with them in their house for a month or two, but he began to get sick of them. So, he compelled his old foster father to help him fix up the old house out back. It didn’t have running water or electricity, but it was solitary. Owen appreciated that. People drove him insane with annoyance. It was amazing, honestly, that he didn’t run around strangling them willy-nilly.

  In fact, he often thought that if he didn’t have these issues with Nimue to focus on, that he might in fact start strangling them. Just for fun.