The Helicon Muses Omnibus: Books 1-4
Page 116
“I don’t understand,” said Phoebe. “I didn’t think that you particularly wanted Owen around. I thought you were done with him.”
Owen didn’t understand either.
Nora took a deep breath. “Well…” She gazed into Owen’s eyes, and she seemed to be searching his expression for some answer to that question. “I guess I’ve just been thinking about him a lot lately.”
She had? She’d been thinking about him? That made him glad, he had to admit it. He wanted her to think about him. He wanted to matter to her.
“When I saw him,” Nora continued, “I realized he was different.” She continued to gaze into his eyes, and she gave him a small smile. “I think he deserves another chance.” She turned back to Phoebe. “While we were in the mundane world, I absorbed a good bit of Nimue’s power. I used to be afraid of Owen, but I’m not anymore.”
Phoebe looked Owen over. “And you? Do you wish to be back in Helicon?”
“More than anything,” said Owen.
Phoebe stood up. She took Owen by the chin and gazed into his eyes as well. “I loved your father, you know. Perhaps because of him, I could make an exception.”
Could this be true? But they’d hated him. Hadn’t they hated him? Still, Owen knew that the muses were quick to forgive. They didn’t hold long grudges, and they always underestimated threats.
Not that he was a threat. He wouldn’t hurt them. He had to prove that to them.
Phoebe let go of Owen’s face and turned back to Nora. “He was exiled on suspicion of murder as well as other things. That’s not something I can just wave away.”
“He didn’t kill Dirk,” said Nora. “Dirk did it to himself.” She looked sidelong at Owen.
“I was always sorry about that,” said Owen. It wasn’t a lie either. The experience with that boy had been… distasteful. He hadn’t liked the way the body had seemed afterward, all the life gone from it, just like meat.
“Sorry?” said Phoebe. “Nora says it wasn’t your fault.”
“I didn’t help him,” said Owen. “I didn’t stop him.” He looked down at his feet. “I was mad then, you see. I’d lost Nora, and she was the only thing I cared about. I would have done anything to keep her, even hurting others.”
“But that was Nimue’s spell,” said Nora.
“Yes,” said Owen, “it was.” Nora was defending him! Maybe she truly did see something different about him. After all, she’d always believed in him. And before, when she was under the influence of the truth candle, she’d admitted that she still cared about him. Maybe she’d simply been waiting for him to come back.
Yes, that had to be it. He was the boy she’d grown up with, after all. He was her protector. Her childhood sweetheart. She couldn’t turn her back on him. Not truly.
Owen felt a surge of happiness. This really was happening. Now, all he had to do was play nice for long enough that they stopped suspecting him. After a bit of time, he could begin his work to make Helicon better. Everything he’d planned could begin again.
“Just a spell?” said Phoebe.
“Just a spell,” he repeated.
* * *
Sawyer paced outside Phoebe’s tent. He and Maddie were waiting outside while Phoebe spoke to Nora and Owen alone. They couldn’t believe that Phoebe would allow Owen inside the tent, let alone that she would speak to him.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Maddie. “I just don’t understand what’s going on.”
Sawyer couldn’t even speak. He was too angry. The whole day had taken quite a toll on him. He’d nearly see Nora die. He’d nearly punched someone. Both of those things where things he’d hoped never to experience in his entire life. And now, Owen was back in Helicon. Apparently, Nora’s theory had been right. With a different power signature, Owen was able to waltz right back in, as if he’d never been exiled at all. Sawyer could only hope that Phoebe was exiling him again, creating a new block against the new power signature. But they had been in there for a long time. Sawyer wasn’t sure what was going on, but it didn’t seem like it should take so long to exile someone, even if you were exiling someone again.
Maddie hugged herself. “It doesn’t make any sense at all.”
Sawyer looked at her sharply. “Look, it’s got to be like I said. Owen’s controlling Nora. You saw it, didn’t you? Right after he took that potion, when he was hugging her, he looked deeply into her eyes. Did you see that?”
Maddie bit down on her bottom lip, looking worried. “Well, if that’s the case, then Phoebe will set him straight. He can’t control Phoebe’s brain. Remember, even the time that he tried to do it before, he wasn’t able to get Phoebe.”
Sawyer knew she was right. Phoebe had pretended to be under Owen’s thrall, but she actually had been working to stop him. “That’s true. But who knows what he’s capable of now? He’s got all this extra power that he didn’t used to have.”
“But Nora has it too,” said Maddie. “In fact, Nora seemed to get more of it than Owen did.”
“Yeah, but Owen is half-god. He’s already very powerful as it is. He didn’t need any more power. Nora was only a muse. Who knows if the power that she got even brought her up to the level that Owen was before he got hit with Nimue-juice.”
Maddie looked even more worried. She toyed with the hem of her shirt. “What are we going to do, then? What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” said Sawyer. “But—”
He was interrupted when Nora, Phoebe, and Owen came out the Phoebe’s tent. They were all smiling.
Sawyer shook his head. He couldn’t believe it. “You didn’t exile him again did you?”
Phoebe’s voice was warm. “Sawyer Snow, you should understand that here in Helicon, we believe in second chances. It’s come to my attention that Owen did the things that he did under the influence of the spell. If you had done horrible things under the influence of the spell, I would not punish you for them. Therefore, I don’t feel as if it would be right to punish Owen either.
Sawyer felt cold all over. Owen had found a way to get to Phoebe, hadn’t he? It was the only explanation.
* * *
Agler was stunned. He almost made Maddie repeat what she had said to him for the third time. He couldn’t believe this. Owen back in Helicon? That didn’t make any sense. In fact, he was so bowled over by the news, that he didn’t even have a chance to be angry at Maddie for running off to the mundane world without him. He would’ve been positively livid about it otherwise, really given her a piece of his mind, but he wasn’t even thinking about it now.
“Where is he?” Agler asked. “I want to see him.”
“Sawyer’s keeping an eye on him and Nora,” said Maddie. “Sawyer said I could come and find you. But we don’t want to leave Owen alone. We have no idea what he might be up to.”
“Let’s go,” said Agler. “If he’s up to anything, I’ll stop him.”
“We think he got into Phoebe’s head,” said Maddie. “He might be very, very dangerous. We have to be careful.”
Agler didn’t care about careful. But he knew that Maddie wouldn’t take him unless he agreed. So he nodded. “Of course. Careful. Now where the hell is he?”
Maddie started to lead him out of the enclave. “I think they’re still at the main fire pit.”
But before they could make it under the arch of the tweens and rebels enclave, they saw Sawyer, Nora, and Owen standing next to Nora’s tent.
Agler stalked over to them. He caught the tail end of the conversation they were having.
“…in the security enclave like last time?” Nora was saying. “Or will you want to say here?”
Owen scratched the back of his head, looking a little overwhelmed. “I… I really have no idea. I just—I can’t even believe that I’m here.”
Agler stepped forward, crossing his arms over his chest. Owen was taller now. They stood eye-to-eye.
Owen raised his eyebrows. “Oh. Agler Thorn. How are you?”
Agler glare
d at Owen. “You may have Phoebe and Nora wrapped around your little finger, but you haven’t convinced all of us. Whatever it is you’re planning, we’re going to stop you.
Nora turned, putting her hand on Agler’s bicep. “Hey, you don’t understand. If you could’ve heard what he said to Phoebe—”
“No, it’s okay,” said Owen. He smiled at Agler. “I can understand why you’d say that. When I was here before, I did some pretty messed up things to you. I’m really sorry about all that. I’m sorry for everything.”
Agler narrowed his eyes. Owen apologizing? He had never heard Owen apologize for anything. Ever.
Owen stuck out his hand to shake. “Maybe we could just start over? Fresh start.”
Agler glared at Owen’s hand.
Nora gave Agler a pleading glance. “He’s changed.”
Agler eyed Owen. Changed? He highly doubted it.
* * *
Sawyer leaned close to Lute as they sat together around the main fire pit. Over a month had passed since Owen had come back to Helicon, and everything was exceptionally weird. It was now the Winter Solstice. They’d eaten their meal, and their bellies were full. But amongst his friends, they were all on high alert, waiting for something to happen.
They weren’t sure what to think.
They were certain that Owen had taken over the minds of both Phoebe and Nora, but the strange thing was that he hadn’t seemed to do it to anyone else. There was lots of dissent over his being back in Helicon. In fact, the first council meeting afterward had been hours long, with lots of muses getting up to give long speeches about why Owen didn’t belong there, not least amongst them Alexander Night, head of the security enclave. He blamed Owen for his son Dirk’s death, even though Sawyer had seen that it wasn’t so cut and dry. Dirk had done it to himself. Owen hadn’t helped, but he wasn’t entirely responsible.
Phoebe had been firm on her resolution, however. Owen would stay in Helicon, and she said there would be no more discussion about it.
So many people were upset.
Sawyer couldn’t understand why Owen didn’t just zap their brains as well. Of course, Nora claimed that Owen hadn’t zapped anyone’s brains. She said that he couldn’t do it in Helicon. The only way he’d done it to muses before was by calling on the power of Dionysus, and that was what had given him away. If he tried that again, Phoebe would boot him out faster than they could blink.
But Nora wasn’t the same. She was spending a lot of time with Owen.
For instance, now, they could all see her on the other side of the fire, talking to him, smiling and tossing her hair. Almost as if she was flirting with Owen.
That turned Sawyer’s stomach. He and Nora might not be dating anymore, but that didn’t mean it didn’t sicken him to see her with someone like Owen. He’d tried to talk to her about it, but she always brushed him off. She said that there was nothing wrong, and that Sawyer should stop worrying. She was fine.
Sawyer couldn’t stop worrying. Especially because they saw her less often than they’d like. She claimed it was because they excluded Owen. “I’ll come eat breakfast with you guys if Owen can come too,” Nora would say.
But that was crossing the line. This was Owen. He was the enemy. He wasn’t coming to eat breakfast as if nothing was wrong.
Sawyer didn’t buy the idea that the only thing making Owen do bad things was that spell Nimue had done on him. He’d watched Owen shoot his mother over and over again. He’d watched him taunt the suffering woman, taking pleasure in her pain. There was something very wrong with Owen, and it didn’t have a damned thing to do with that spell.
Sawyer just wished he knew what to do.
Lute’s arm tightened around his shoulders. “Hey, you doing all right?”
Sawyer looked up at Lute. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. I just…”
“I know. I see you watching them.”
“It’s wrong,” said Sawyer. “I know it’s wrong. He shouldn’t be here.”
“Well,” said Lute, “he hasn’t actually done anything or hurt anyone.”
“Yet,” said Sawyer.
Maddie and Agler sat down next to them. Their faces were red from dancing. Sawyer didn’t know how they were managing that. He couldn’t concentrate on anything fun right now.
Maddie made a gagging noise. “Eew. Why are you sitting here staring at Nora and Owen?”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Lute. “Why don’t we go dance?”
“You go,” said Sawyer, watching as Nora laughed at something Owen had said. Apparently, it was extremely funny.
“It’s okay,” said Agler. “We’ll take it in shifts from now on, okay? Let Maddie and I watch and worry for a bit. You really should go out and have a little bit of fun. It helps.”
Sawyer sighed.
“I don’t even think we should watch them,” said Maddie. “We’re all going to go insane doing that. If he does something, we’ll know.”
“Will we?” said Sawyer. “It seems like he already did something to Nora.”
“Yeah, but we can’t prove that,” said Maddie. “She hasn’t been hurt, you know?”
“You aren’t starting to believe the story that he’s different now, are you?” said Agler, glaring through the fire at them.
“Of course not,” said Maddie. “But watching him isn’t going to change anything. And it’s the Solstice. And we deserve some time to enjoy ourselves after everything we’ve been through.”
Sawyer sighed. “It’s only that Nora…”
“We can’t do anything for her.” Maddie reached out and took his hand. “Sawyer, we’re with the people we love. And we’re home. We have to celebrate that. Even if it’s only for a few minutes.”
Sawyer rubbed his chin, considering.
“Just a little bit of dancing,” said Lute, smiling at him.
Sawyer peered out at the meadow ahead of him. It was late afternoon, and the entire area was dotted with dancing muses. The grass was green, and the air smelled of the delicious food that had been cooking all day, of smoke from the fire, of the eternal summer of Helicon. It was hard to believe, looking out at such a paradise, that anything here could possibly be other than perfection and beauty. He looked into the beautiful face of his boyfriend, and he melted a little bit. He did want to be happy with the man he loved. He did want to celebrate. He nodded. “Okay. We are home.”
Lute pulled him to his feet. “And I don’t want you leaving me again.”
“Hey, ditto for me,” said Agler, wrapping his arms around Maddie and pulling her into his lap.
She giggled. “What are you doing?”
He rested his chin on top of her head. “Keeping you close.”
Lute tugged Sawyer’s body against his own. “That sounds like a good idea.”
Sawyer shut his eyes.
Lute’s lips were on his.
And for a moment, just a moment, Sawyer forgot that anything was wrong.
Not ready to leave Helicon yet?
Echoes, The Helicon Muses, Book Five
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More ROMANCE by V. J. Chambers
Table of Contents
Contents
Welcome to Helicon
The Helicon Muses
Copyright
Main Table of Contents
DANCING DAYS
Synopsis
Acknowledgements
Title Page
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIR
TEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
GOODBYE BLUE SKY
Synopsis
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
COME TOGETHER
Synopsis
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY
Synopsis
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY