by Aimee Carter
“I didn’t mean to sleep with him,” I said, and I paused. “That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Part of the test was lust, and Henry had me so well-protected that Calliope didn’t have the chance to kill me, so instead she sabotaged the test by giving us an aphrodisiac.”
Persephone clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “You’ve certainly had it rough, haven’t you?”
“What do you mean?” I said warily. Was she being sarcastic?
“Well, I assume you love him,” she said, and I nodded. “It’s good you’re there for him. He deserves to have someone who loves him.” She hesitated and said reluctantly, as if she were admitting some deep, dark secret, “I worry about him sometimes. It’s terrible that the one time you’ve been with him had to be because of an aphrodisiac.” She glared at Ava. “Aphrodite ruins everything.”
“It wasn’t me,” said Ava, her eyes wide. “I wasn’t even there.”
“It’s named after you.”
I started to retort, but Ava huffed and remained silent. After a moment, Persephone gestured at her dismissively.
“Regardless, with what you said earlier about Mother only having you because of me, and then all of this—well, I would imagine it isn’t easy. So you have my sympathies.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Maybe after an entire day of bickering with Ava, she was all argued out. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me.”
“Don’t expect me to keep it up,” she said with a snort. “To answer your question, yes. Once.”
It took me a moment to figure out what question she was talking about, and when I did, my mouth opened, but no sound came out. So Calliope had been wrong after all. Even though I’d known Persephone and Henry had been married, it was a punch to the gut to hear that I hadn’t been Henry’s only. The last thing I had that I didn’t have to share with her evaporated. Once again, Persephone had gotten there first, and all I had were her leftovers.
“It was awful,” said Persephone. Her hand lingered between us, as if she could sense how upset I was, but she dropped it back in her lap. “It was our wedding night, and we didn’t talk about it. It just—happened. It was expected, and both of us were too shy to ask the other if we wanted it. We both assumed.”
I was silent. I didn’t want to think about how badly things would have gone for Henry and me if there hadn’t been that spark between us. His guilt and anger had been bad enough the morning after.
Ava tactfully moved to the other side of the fire, taking a seat beside James. They bowed their heads together, and the soft sound of their conversation wafted toward us, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“When we—” I cleared my throat. “I would’ve waited if I’d had the choice. But I didn’t not want to. That was the point I realized I loved him, and—for what it was, it was nice. It was really nice.”
“Good,” said Persephone distantly, staring into the fire. “Hades deserves that. He deserves you.”
I shook my head. It didn’t matter what Henry deserved; what mattered was who Henry wanted, and so far that didn’t seem to be me. “It was the morning after that was so terrible. When Henry realized what had happened, he freaked out. Panicked,” I amended at Persephone’s confused look. “He apologized and took off, and that was the last I saw of him for days. The only reason he came back was because Calliope killed me, and he went to the Underworld to get me.”
Persephone grimaced, and she said in a small voice, “No, it isn’t.”
“No, what isn’t?” I said.
“No, that isn’t the only reason he came back.” She sighed. “When we consummated our marriage, I was the one to—freak out.” She made a face at the expression. “We hadn’t been married twelve hours, and already I’d run back to Mother. She talked me into staying and giving it a shot, and she must have said something to Hades, because we never tried it again. I slept in a separate room, and he never pressed the issue.”
On the other side of the fire, James and Ava grew quiet. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You shouldn’t have had to stay with Henry if you didn’t want to.”
So that was why James was insisting I acknowledge my choice to leave if I didn’t want this. He’d already told me it’d been because of Persephone, of course, but hearing it from her made the pieces fall into place. James was protecting me the best he knew how, exactly like he had the year before. When I thought I’d failed a test, I’d tried to leave Eden Manor, wanting to see my mother before she died. Henry had talked me out of it. James hadn’t known that I’d stayed out of my own free will, and it had been important enough to him to blow his cover.
“I was young,” said Persephone. “I thought love happened immediately. It was my first time living without Mother, and I hadn’t known what to expect. On top of that, being in the Underworld and away from the sun made me miserable. It was the perfect storm, and unfortunately Hades and I both got caught up in it.” She shook her head ruefully. “I never gave him a chance after that. He tried so hard—you wouldn’t believe the lengths he went to in order to see me happy. But it was never enough. He was never enough.”
It was dark now. The glow from the carnival and the pitiful fire were the only sources of light, and when I looked at Persephone again, it was hard to see her face. “He loved you anyway though,” I said. “He still loves you more than anything.”
“I’m not so sure anymore.” She sat up straighter and looked toward the sky. I followed her gaze, and once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw that the stars weren’t in their usual pattern.
“You said he went down to the Underworld to get you,” said Persephone. “Were you really dead?”
I nodded. “It was night, and I was in a park Mom and I used to visit back home. Mom traded her life for mine. Her mortal life,” I corrected. “But the body she was using was dying anyway.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Persephone. “He wasn’t supposed to do that. While I ruled with him, we only made a few exceptions, and even then there were so many caveats that no one ever really made it back to the surface. He violated everything he’s stood for since the dawn of humanity to save your life.”
Across the fire, James cleared his throat. “She’s telling the truth, Kate,” he said. “He shouldn’t have saved you.”
He had anyway. Smiling, I wrapped my arms around my body as the chilly night air settled over me. I didn’t know how that ranked as far as romantic gestures went, but I was pretty sure it was at least as high as getting me a puppy.
“Can you tell me how to control the visions?” I said to Persephone, feeling lighter than I had since coming down to the Underworld. Even if saving me hadn’t cost Henry much more than his rules and his pride, Persephone thought it was a big deal, and that mattered more to me than it should have. He would’ve done the same thing for her, I was sure, but he hadn’t. I still had some piece of him that she didn’t.
“It’s easy,” she said with a shrug. “You have to focus on where you want to go or the person you want to find.”
“You can find people?” I said, amazed. Persephone nodded.
“That’s probably how you’re doing it, thinking about Henry. It takes practice, but once you get it, it’ll come easier each time. Try,” she said. “Think of someone you want to see, and let yourself drift into it.”
As easy as Persephone seemed to think it was, I had no idea how to drift into anything. Still warm from discovering that Henry had broken the rules for me, I closed my eyes and pictured his face in my mind, and—
Nothing.
“It’s not working,” I said.
“Relax,” said Persephone. “It won’t happen right away.”
Apparently it wasn’t going to happen at all. I tried again and again, until all of my contentment drained away, leaving me with a depressing lack of self-wo
rth. My head pounded from concentrating so hard, and the more Persephone pushed me, the more out of reach it felt.
“It won’t come naturally at first,” she said several minutes later, which was about the most encouraging thing she’d said so far. “You’ve never had abilities before.”
Why that made such a huge difference, I wasn’t sure, though it was clear I wasn’t going to get it that night. “I’m going for a walk,” I said, and I stood. Along with a killer headache, my leg throbbed again, and I shook it out. “I’ll bring everyone back some cotton candy.”
Hugging myself for warmth, I headed toward the carnival entrance. Of course none of this was supposed to be easy—if it was, any girl could’ve done it and the test wouldn’t have been necessary. Still, I felt like a complete and utter failure, slinking away while the three of them undoubtedly whispered about how I couldn’t do it.
Resentment flared up inside of me, and I forced myself to suppress it. It wasn’t their fault I couldn’t control my visions, and if Persephone was telling the truth, I’d get it eventually. But I needed it now, not days or weeks or months in the future. If we didn’t know what was going on with Calliope—
A loud crash echoed through the cavern. Startled, I looked up toward the sound, and a sick sense of dread filled the pit of my stomach.
Stars were falling from the sky.
Chapter Ten
Fissure
“Kate!”
James’s frantic voice rose above the sound of crashing rock and ringing bells, and I darted out of the carnival, covering my head instinctively. The ground shook beneath me, but there were no signs of the fallen stars.
I smacked into James. “What’s going on?” I said, unable to keep the panic out of my voice.
“I don’t know.” He wrapped his arm around me, and together we hurried back to the fire. “Whatever it is, I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
The flames in the fire shook with each crash that echoed through the cavern, but the rocks weren’t landing in the field or the forest or anywhere near the carnival. Ava and Persephone stared upward into the sky, wearing identical expressions of alarm. If it wasn’t happening here, then where—
Without warning, the world dropped out from around me, and I was on the surface again. Instead of the dense forest that surrounded Eden, I stood on a cliff overlooking the bluest water I’d ever seen as wave after wave rolled to the white shore.
James and I had only spent a few days on this particular island, but the ancient palace in the distance and the sharp drop into the water were unmistakable. This was Greece.
“Did you feel that?” someone shouted behind me. “I told you this would happen. I told you.”
Dylan dashed past me, dressed in cargo shorts and a tank top. The other members of the council, all wearing similar outfits, clustered around something a few feet away. I inched closer to see.
Had I been transported back up here somehow without realizing it? Once I was close enough, I set my hand on Ella’s shoulder. It went right through her.
I was a ghost again, and this was a vision, but it wasn’t the one I’d wanted.
“He’s breaking through,” said Irene. She and several of the others held out their hands toward the ground, and a jolt of fear ran down my spine.
They formed a ring around a crack in the earth. It couldn’t have been more than a few feet long, but tendrils of fog slithered up through it, flicking like the tongue of a snake as if they were tasting the air itself.
Cronus.
The remaining members of the council held out their hands as they’d done back in the palace, and the tendrils twisted like they were annoyed, but they finally disappeared back into the ground.
“He’s done it,” said Irene, wiping the sweat from her brow. “He’s cracked the surface.”
“Are we sure it goes all the way down?” said Theo.
“How else could he come up like that?” said Dylan. “Honestly, am I the only one with half a brain here?”
Nicholas, Ava’s husband, gave him a warning look. Dylan rolled his eyes and kicked a bit of dirt back into the crack.
“Do you think Calliope found a way to release him?” said Ella in a frightened voice that didn’t sound like her at all.
“If she did, then this is pointless,” said Dylan.
“Then we have to assume she didn’t,” said Irene. Her red hair seemed to shimmer in the sunlight, and for the first time since I’d met her, it was a mess. They all looked disheveled and exhausted. “We have to keep going as planned.”
“So Cronus can obliterate us as soon as he finds out we were working against him?” said Dylan.
“So Cronus never gets the chance.” Irene waved her hand over the crack, and it filled back up with dirt. Seconds later, however, it started to empty like the top of an hourglass as the dirt fell into the Underworld.
“He’s really done it,” said Theo, and he set a protective hand on Ella’s back. “He has his way out.”
Irene grimaced. “Maybe so, but this also means we know for certain where he’s going to come out, and with any luck, we’ll have time to finish setting our trap up.”
“Setting it up where?” said Dylan. “Around the entire island?”
“If we have to.”
Dylan groaned and stalked off, leaving the others to mill about. Xander, who’d acted as one of my bodyguards in Eden and had been quiet up until now, raked his fingers through his hair. “We’re all going to die.”
“No, we’re not,” said Irene. “Not if we do this right and work together.”
“And if the others are already dead?” said Ella shakily.
Irene narrowed her eyes, and with an irritated gesture, she filled the crack with dirt again and turned away. “We have no way of knowing, so we have to keep going and hope they’re not. We don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, we do,” called Dylan as he sat on the edge of the cliff, his legs dangling. “We don’t try to fight, and we hope to hell Cronus doesn’t kill us, too.”
Before anyone could say anything else, Greece and the sunshine fell away, and I once again found myself in the darkness of the Underworld.
“It was Cronus,” I said as I struggled to sit up. James, Ava and Persephone all stared at me, but this time they weren’t hovering. We were back at the campfire, and the trembles and crashes had stopped for now. It would only be a matter of time before Cronus tried again though. “He broke through to the surface.”
Ava went white, and Persephone turned away from me. Exactly like Irene had turned away from the proof that Cronus was speeding toward victory.
“How far is the gate to Tartarus?” said James.
“I don’t know for sure,” said Persephone. “A few days away, at least.”
“We need to get moving.” James offered me his hand, and I took it long enough to let him help me up. As much as I wanted to stay angry with him, I could deal with it when we got back to the palace. If we got back to the palace.
“The others are setting a trap for him on an island,” I said. “They’re fighting about it.”
“But they’re still going to try?” said James, and I nodded. “Good. At least that’s something.”
We packed up camp, and as soon as we were on our way toward the spot where the sky had fallen, Persephone fell into step beside me. “Were you able to control it?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t have time to try.”
She made a disapproving sound in the back of her throat, but to her credit, she didn’t push it. “You’re definitely doing it subconsciously,” she said. “I had to work at it in the beginning, too, but you’re seeing what you want to see when you want to see it. You found out where the crash came from, anyhow.”
I didn’t a
nswer. No matter what I saw, it wouldn’t change what was happening. The best it could do was give us fair warning, and even that wasn’t important—we already knew what we were up against. The only thing we could do, like Irene and Dylan and the others, was try our best and hope to hell it worked.
* * *
We walked for days, but it felt like weeks. If I’d still been mortal, my body would have been so sore that I wouldn’t have been able to move, let alone keep up with James and Persephone’s brisk pace, but I managed. Every few hours, another crash would echo through the Underworld, growing louder each time and spurring me on.
“It’s the thinnest spot in the ceiling of the Underworld,” said Persephone as we trudged through the endless forest. “Hades opened it when they initially captured Cronus, and it was how they got him into his prison in the first place. Hades should’ve reinforced it when he had the chance.”
I bit my lip to keep from snapping at her. This wasn’t Henry’s fault. He’d had no reason to suspect that a member of his family would betray the others and awaken Cronus, and if Calliope couldn’t open the gate by herself, then he’d probably thought that was all the security he needed. It was, before Calliope had gone insane.
For the most part, we walked in silence. Even Ava and Persephone quit bickering, and when we had to stop, it was for no more than a few minutes at a time. I didn’t need to sleep anymore, but by the time the crashes were barely a mile away, all I wanted to do was curl up, close my eyes and never wake up again. That was exactly what would happen if Calliope got her way, plus a little blood and lots of pain.
Nearly every time we stopped, there was a flower waiting for me, and before anyone else could see it, I slipped it into my pocket with the others. They seemed to shrink as we went along, making room for the new ones, and each gave me hope that everything would be okay. Henry and my mother were hanging on. They would survive, and once we got there, we wouldn’t be alone in our fight to subdue Calliope and Cronus.
One afternoon, in the middle of the forest, Persephone held up her hand, and the four of us stopped. “It’s this way,” she said, pointing to her left. “It’s close.”