by Aimee Carter
A murmur rose from the other members of the council, but no one objected. I didn’t blame them. As much as it pained me to admit it, Walter was right.
“You will remain with Calliope until given further instructions,” said Walter. “You will carry on as normal, with no sabotage or acts of ill will toward her. She must believe that your intentions are pure.”
“But you haven’t even discussed it!” cried Ava, and Walter raised his hand, cutting her off.
“There is no need. Two of our own are now at the mercy of Calliope and Cronus, and we cannot upset the balance until we are ready for a fight. We will heed Cronus’s deadline, though we already expected it. Any further information you acquire will be useful to us, but do not give it at risk of the prisoners.”
“I don’t count as a prisoner?” she said, her eyes watering. “Because I don’t fight the way you do, I’m not worth saving?”
For a fraction of a second, Walter’s expression softened. “My dear, of course you are.”
“I’ve done everything you asked me to,” said Ava. “I’ve risked my life, my integrity, my friends, all for false promises. Turns out you’re just as bad as Calliope is, Daddy. But at least she doesn’t pretend to be something she isn’t.”
Stunned silence. Was she telling the truth? Had he really asked her to do all of those things? Walter paled, but he didn’t argue, and that alone was an admission of guilt.
So it wasn’t entirely Ava’s fault, after all. She wasn’t blameless, not by a long shot, but she wasn’t alone in this either. Henry had been right. Walter had known I was pregnant. He’d known where I was and what was happening. He’d known, and he hadn’t done a damn thing to stop it.
And the things he’d made Ava do, knowing how it would affect everything, knowing how the rest of the council would see her—how could he possibly hurt his own daughter like that?
“I’ll agree to return to Calliope under your terms as long as you agree to fulfill one of mine,” said Ava. “I want to talk to Kate. Alone.”
A murmur rose from the other members of the council, and my eyebrows shot up.
“You know that is not possible,” said Walter. “It is draining enough for us to maintain this method of communication without Calliope and Henry.”
“Then she can come to me,” said Ava.
“Out of the question.” My mother’s voice rose above the others, and they fell silent. “I will not have her risk herself again. It is a miracle she managed to get out of there in the first place.”
“I know how her visions work,” said Ava. “I know she can see me and hear everything I say. I don’t need her to talk back to me. I just need her to listen. And I won’t agree to your terms until Kate agrees to mine.”
Whatever she wanted to talk to me about, she couldn’t say it in front of the others. Which meant she thought she couldn’t trust them—or at least couldn’t trust her father.
Something about Henry? About Milo? Had she found a way to smuggle him to me somehow?
Hope surrounded me, so fragile and delicate that a single word could have shattered it into pieces. It was possible, and because it was possible, I would do it.
I nodded once, and Ava deflated, as if she’d used up everything she had to make it to that moment. “Tomorrow at sunset,” she said. “In the nursery. I trust you to be there.”
She had no way of knowing if I would be, but she was smart enough to know that she had me hooked, and I wouldn’t miss it.
“I love you,” she said, and this time it wasn’t directed at any one person. Instead the words whispered through the council, touching each of us as they passed. “Goodbye for now.” The golden light in the sunset floor flashed, and she was gone.
For nearly a minute, no one spoke. Not to talk about Ava, not to ask James and me what had happened on the island, nothing. Finally Ella and Theo rose. “We must return,” said Theo. “Thank you for including us, Father.”
Walter nodded, and confusion washed over me. They weren’t here to fight? “What about the war?” I blurted. “I thought—”
“We are doing what we can on earth,” said Theo. “We’ve made overtures to many of the minor gods, but not even Nike will support us, not without Henry.”
“And the twins?” said Walter. “I thought you were making headway with them.”
Ella frowned. “Lux was receptive until you turned down his terms. Now they’ve disappeared again, and it was hard enough tracking them down the first time around. I’m not going through that again.”
James’s expression grew distant. “They’re in Paris.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” said Theo. “We can’t force them to help. Even the Fates have gone into hiding. Everyone’s scared, and nothing we say or do can smooth things over. They’re convinced if they don’t help us, Cronus might spare them.”
“Fools,” muttered Walter. “Very well. Keep me updated as you can.”
Theo and Ella nodded in unison. A split second before they disappeared, her eyes met mine, and I swore I saw pity.
“Come,” said my mother, and we both stood. “You’ve had a long day, and I’m afraid it isn’t going to get any easier. You need to rest.”
“You, too,” I said, taking her hand. As we walked down the hall, her shoulders slumped, and she paled with the effort it took to make it to her room. I wrapped my arm securely around her. After all she and I had been through together, after all we’d managed to survive, how long would it be before Cronus took her from me, too?
Chapter 14
Chains of Fog
I told my mother everything that had happened in Calliope’s palace, and though she didn’t confirm my fears, I knew I was right. She’d known about Henry’s plan—maybe she’d even helped him. And from the way she kept touching my face, it was easy to tell she was glad it was him Calliope had taken, not me.
“We’ll figure it out,” she murmured as we curled up on her bed together. “We’ve made it this far, after all.”
I wasn’t sure who she meant. She and I? The council? Did it even matter? This would end one way or the other, and no one, not even my mother, could reassure me that everything would be okay. Not this time.
It took me ages to fall asleep, and when I did, I dreamed of Henry whispering words I didn’t understand. Dozens of questions swirled through my restless mind, but that voice offered no answers. Why had he gone through with this, knowing what it might mean? Had he done it purely to protect Milo? I’d had it handled, more or less—I hadn’t anticipated Calliope interrupting, but Henry couldn’t have possibly known she would either.
He should’ve stayed behind. He would’ve been much more useful as a weapon Cronus and Calliope didn’t know about. He might’ve been the weight that tipped the balance away from them and toward the council instead, and he’d given that up to turn himself over to Calliope.
I wanted to be mad. I wanted to be furious, to rip the room apart until there was nothing left. It wouldn’t accomplish anything though, and the best I could do was exactly what James had asked of me: to focus my efforts on thinking of something that the council hadn’t.
Right. Wasn’t pride the very thing that had nearly lost me Henry and my mother and immortality in the first place?
But the members of the council weren’t exactly angels either. They could do whatever they damn well pleased, and if they could cheat, so could I. Pride it was then, along with a side of wrath for good measure. If there was a way out of this, I would find it.
After a restless night and an even more fitful day, the sun set on Greece, and at last it was time. As the council disappeared from the throne room to battle against an enemy they no longer had a prayer of defeating, I closed my eyes and slid into my vision.
Ava was waiting for me in the nursery, exactly where she’d said she would be. Milo wasn’t in his crib, though. Ava’s arms were empty, and Cronus wasn’t standing in the shadows rocking him either. Henry must have had him then.
Peering anxiously out the d
oor, Ava pressed her lips together, oblivious that I was waiting. I glanced over her shoulder and followed her gaze to a window in the hallway. Through it I saw half a dozen small shapes attacking an opaque fog. The evening’s battle had begun.
“Kate?” said Ava, turning so suddenly that I didn’t have time to move out of her way. She walked right through me. “Are you here?”
I didn’t bother to reply. She wouldn’t be able to hear me, so it was useless.
She stared into the empty nursery, and her shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s true. I swear to you I didn’t know what Calliope was planning.”
This was it? Another round of apologies? I huffed and closed my eyes, ready to return to Olympus. I’d come. I’d listened. I wasn’t going to waste my time with this any longer.
“I know the last thing you want to do is trust me,” echoed Ava as I slipped back to Olympus. “But I need to show you something.”
I snapped back into the nursery, hungry with hope. Glancing around as if she wasn’t sure I was there, Ava exited the room, and I followed on her heels. She led me down the hallway and the narrow staircase I’d used the day before. We stopped on the same level that held my prison, and my stomach exploded with butterflies. Where was Ava taking me? Calliope couldn’t possibly be holding Henry down here, could she?
Ava paused at a door. Nicholas’s room. The clang of metal against metal ripped through the silence, mingling with his screams. I flinched, but Ava pushed the door open and stormed inside. I hurried after her.
“You swore you’d stop,” she said, and it took me a moment to realize she wasn’t talking to me. “I did what you told me to. Now you hold up your end of the bargain.”
Calliope stood in the middle of a dank room with shelves and worktables along the edge. Discarded scraps of metal and dozens of weapons—some glowing weakly and others nothing more than lumps of steel—littered every surface.
Nicholas’s forge. This was where he’d made that damn dagger.
Right beside the dying fire in the center of the room, someone had welded a metal chair to the floor with opaque fog. Nicholas slumped against it, bloody and broken in ways gods should’ve never been. He was half-conscious, his face slashed and purple and his body a mess of cuts and bruises.
“Your side of our deal hasn’t been finished yet,” said Calliope. “Kate is still alive.”
Ava scowled. “That has nothing to do with—”
“I don’t care.” Calliope’s voice sliced through the air like a scythe. “You will do what I say, or I will kill Nicholas. That is all there is to it.”
He groaned, his eyeballs moving underneath his swollen lids, and Ava reached for him. Calliope stepped between them.
“I don’t think so,” she said with girlish delight. “You know what happens if you touch him.”
“I don’t care anymore.” Ava darted around Calliope and knelt beside the chair. “Nicholas? I’m here. I’m so sorry, baby.”
Nicholas tried to mumble something through his cracked lips and broken jaw, but it was unintelligible. To me, at least; Ava’s eyes filled with tears, and she gently took his hand. When her skin touched his, a hissing sound filled the tiny prison, and Ava winced. But it wasn’t until Nicholas grunted that she let go. Where she’d touched him, her palm turned scarlet, as if she’d handled hot embers.
“I will release him once I have won the war,” said Calliope. “No sooner.”
Ava’s face twisted with barely contained rage, and she shifted her stance as if she were about to throttle her. Calliope must’ve noticed, too, because in the blink of an eye, the dagger appeared in her hand, and she held it delicately to Nicholas’s throat.
“I wouldn’t if I were you, my dear,” she purred.
It was a damn shame I was insubstantial, else I would’ve happily punched her lights out. Ava clenched her fists, apparently having the same idea, but she made no further move toward Calliope. “You monster,” she hissed. “He’s your son.”
“We all make sacrifices. Surely you of all people must understand that.”
The room trembled, and like she had the night before, Ava began to glow magenta. “No wonder Daddy never loved you. There’s nothing lovable about you. All this time I thought he was in the wrong, treating you the way he did, but you deserved it. You pervert love and family until they’re unrecognizable, all for your own twisted sense of satisfaction. No one, not even Cronus, deserves to burn in Tartarus more than you do.”
“Is that so?” said Calliope in a dangerous voice. “It must be such a pity for you then, knowing we will win and you will never escape me.”
“Oh, I will,” said Ava. “First chance I get, I’m getting the hell out of here and—”
“What’s going on?”
Henry stood in the doorway, cradling Milo. I moved toward them so fast that I could’ve sworn I created a breeze, but Henry looked straight through me, his focus on Calliope.
A knife twisted in the pit of my stomach, but he couldn’t see me. He had no idea I was there. Even if he did, he’d still be looking at Calliope like she was the most beautiful thing in the world.
“Hello, darling,” said Calliope. “I was just coming to see you. How’s the baby?”
“He’s fine.” Henry gave Ava a curious look, and she averted her eyes, her hand hovering half an inch over Nicholas’s. “What’s going on?”
“Ava here seems to believe that despite his crimes against us, Nicholas is entitled to leave now,” said Calliope, and she giggled. “As if we could afford such a risk. We can’t have Nicholas rushing back with our secrets, now, can we?”
Henry eyed Nicholas the way he’d looked at Calliope after the brothers had captured her in the Underworld and tied her up in chains. My stomach lurched. The Henry I knew and loved had to be in there somewhere, but right now, this wasn’t him. No matter how badly it hurt, I had to remember that. Whether it was Ava’s influence or Calliope’s power to cut the ties of loyalty between Henry and the rest of the council, it didn’t matter. He was the enemy now.
No, not the enemy. As much of a prisoner as Nicholas and Milo.
“Of course, my dearest love,” said Henry, and I gagged. “We will do what we must to ensure victory.”
Crossing the room, he gave Calliope a sensuous kiss. I shielded my eyes and scowled. But despite my best efforts to ignore them, I couldn’t resist a glance, and that’s when I saw it.
Henry’s eyes were open, and he was staring right at Ava.
In his arms, Milo stirred and reached for me. He knew I was there. Did Henry know, as well? He wasn’t Cronus—Calliope would never kiss him like that if he was. But could he sense me?
To my astonishment, Ava nodded once, so slightly that at first I wasn’t sure if I’d seen her right. Henry closed his eyes again, however, and I was certain. Henry and Ava were working together.
Against Calliope? For Calliope? To save Milo? Or had she told Henry that I would be here and listening in on everything that happened?
I couldn’t be sure unless Ava told me, and whether or not Henry knew I was there, he was still kissing Calliope. Maybe he had to. Maybe he wanted to. I didn’t have the answers, but that didn’t matter. He wouldn’t have been kissing her if it was up to him, and I had to hold on to that.
At last Calliope pulled away and touched her swollen lips. “Perhaps we should retire to the bedroom.”
Oh, god. Were they sleeping together? Nausea overwhelmed me. Knowing he’d been with Persephone eons ago was one thing, but this was too much. He was my husband. My Henry, not hers.
“Yes,” said Henry quietly. “Allow me to take care of the baby, and then I will join you.”
With a giggle, Calliope kissed him once more and glided out of the room. For a split second, Henry deflated, his arms tightening around Milo protectively, and he met Ava’s gaze again. Neither spoke. At last Henry turned and left the room, leaving Nicholas bound to the chair.
I closed my eyes. This wasn�
�t him, and if we had any chance of getting through this without our relationship being irreparably damaged, I had to remember that. Just like I’d offered myself to Cronus in exchange for Milo’s safety, Henry had done the same with Calliope. I had no right to be upset with him. With Calliope and Ava and every single member of the council who’d let him do this, yes. But not Henry.
“Kate,” said Ava once he was gone. I opened my eyes. Nicholas was unconscious again, his chest rising and falling shallowly, and Ava stood beside him. “Now do you understand?”
I understood. It didn’t excuse any of this, and it didn’t fix our friendship. But I understood.
“Henry still loves you, you know. I didn’t take that away from him. I never could.”
She’d made him fall for Calliope, though. Artificial or not, it was still love, and it wouldn’t erase what happened in that bedroom.
I shuddered. I had to stop thinking about that. I’d seen enough. Ava had apologized so many times that the words were meaningless now, and I had to leave before the hurt dug so deeply inside me that I could never get it out.
I was halfway gone when Ava spoke. “Cronus is going to escape on the winter solstice.”
She’d already told the council that though, and she knew I’d been right there with them. I sank deeper into oblivion, already on the edge of ending this vision.
“And,” said Ava, her voice so distant it was little more than a whisper, “the first place he’s going to attack is New York City.”
Chapter 15
Breaking Point
I snapped back to the island so quickly that the room spun around me. Dizzy, I waited for Ava to finish, but an explanation never came. She knelt beside Nicholas again, murmuring words meant only for him, and I turned away.
There was only one reason Cronus would specifically attack New York City when so many others—London, St. Petersburg, even Beijing—had to be closer. And that reason was me.