Promise of Shadows

by Ireland, Justina

  “The only family rule we have is to never piss off a Harpy. Looks like your brother was dumb enough to break that one today,” says a raspy voice from behind us. We turn. A woman stands on the porch. She has the same dark skin as me, but the locks piled on top of her head are forest green and tangled with bright green beads. Her eyes are golden, and she wears a purple sweat suit and running shoes.

  My heart soars when I see the giant emerald wings rising off her back. “Nanda.”

  The woman grins. “Well, don’t just stand there, missy. Come here and give me a hug.”

  I run up the stairs and launch myself into her arms, emotion crashing through me. I’m happy and sad and scared all at once, and it’s only the pressure of Nanda’s arms squeezing my middle that keeps me from bursting into tears. “I missed you so much,” I mumble into her shoulder. It’s strange to be the same height as her, but it doesn’t change how good it feels to hug her again.

  She smoothes the snarled locks of my hair and kisses my cheek. “I know, sweetling. I was sorry to hear about Whisper. I wish I could have been there for you.” There are a dozen unsaid things in her voice, but I file my questions away for later. We have a lot to talk about.

  I pull away and take a step back. Blue sends his sword away before climbing the steps and giving Nanda a kiss on the cheek. “Hi, Aunt Nanda. We brought some friends home for dinner.”

  She grins. “So you did.”

  I gesture to the lawn. “I’m sorry about your grass.”

  Nanda waves away my apology. “Don’t worry about it. Some nymph will be by before the end of the week offering to grow it back for me. This neighborhood is filthy with vættir. All of Ulysses’s Glen is.”

  I turn around when Tallon clears his throat. My anger has faded, and I watch him quietly as he moves toward me. He stops a few inches away. “I’m sorry. I let my temper get the best of me.” I’m so surprised that he actually apologized that I just stand there openmouthed as he walks past me and onto the porch.

  Tallon follows Blue’s lead and gives Nanda a kiss on the cheek. “Hi, Aunt Nanda. I want you to meet Cassiphone Pellacis.”

  Nanda’s expression turns stormy. “A Pellacis?”

  I turn to look at Cass, who hangs back. “What’s wrong?”

  “Pellacis are dangerous vættir. They’re liars and cheats, as dishonest as they are pretty.” Nanda’s eyes burn into Cass, who says nothing. Probably because Nanda’s speaking English, not Æthereal. I don’t translate because I want to know why Nanda is so mad first.

  Nanda crosses her arms. “Cassiphone Pellacis is the name of the Betrayer. If she is the woman who killed the last Nyx, someone had better tell me what she’s doing standing in my front yard.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  AFTER AN ARGUMENT, IN WHICH I assure Nanda that Cass is trustworthy and lay out several prime examples where she saved my life down in the Pits, Nanda relents. She grudgingly shows Cass and me to a spare bedroom, giving Cass a suspicious look as she walks by. I sigh. Nanda may have dropped the matter for the moment, but I know it will come up again.

  But before that, I need to find out from Cass what the hells is going on. All this distrust is getting old.

  After we’re in the spare bedroom, Nanda disappears for a moment before returning with towels and some clothing. “If you put these on, I’ll be happy to wash your clothes for you.” Her expression doesn’t show the least bit of her distaste, and I have to admire her restraint. Even after the dip in the pond, Cass and I still smell faintly like an outhouse.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  Nanda sets the clothes on the bed and pauses a moment. Her eyes are sad, and the scent of roses decaying floods the room. “They took your wings,” she says in a low voice.

  I swallow past the lump in my throat and nod. “It was the price I paid for passage to Tartarus.” A Harpy’s wings are her most prized possession, so losing them was a big deal. It still is. There are days when I wake up from a dream of soaring over treetops only to realize that I will never fly again. It’s like losing them all over again.

  Nanda nods, and gives Cass a pointed look. I know she’s wondering what Cass lost for her passage to the Underworld, but even though she’s in a mood, she’s still polite enough not to ask. “It’s good to see you again, dear,” Nanda says before leaving the room.

  Once the door has closed, I let out a sigh. “Wow, so that was intense, huh?”

  When I turn around, Cass stands in the middle of the room, examining the furniture like it might grow horns and attack her. She looks at me, and her expression is as blank as always. “It was to be expected.”

  “Ummm, maybe you could tell me why?” I don’t want to pry, but I’ve never seen Nanda act like that. All this talk of Cass being the great “Betrayer” is kind of making me nervous.

  Cass sighs, and crosses her arms. “Pellacis isn’t just my family name; it’s what I am. The Pellacis were once a great line of vættir, known for our beauty and power.”

  “Gee, that’s kind of vain.”

  Cass gives me a sidelong glance. “We earned that reputation. Some of the greatest heroes were Pellacis. Circe, Heracles, Theseus, Pereseus. Humans and vættir alike revered and feared us.”

  “So you’re from a long line of heroes, then?” It makes sense. As powerful as she is, it only seems right that her family would’ve done extraordinary things.

  “No, I’m from a long line of liars and cheats. It’s just a coincidence that the most dishonest vættir tend to make the best heroes.”

  I laugh, because I don’t know what else to do. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  Cass watches me. “Do you know why the Pellacis were so good at exploiting others?”

  I shake my head. I have a feeling she’s going to tell me.

  Cass stares at the ground, her shoulders slumped. “Like you, we Pellacis have a secret ability that we don’t usually share.” She looks up at me and shrugs. “But since you’ve shared your greatest secrets with me I feel like I should do the same.”

  I take a deep breath and let it out. “Okay.”

  Cass walks over to me, so that only a few inches separate us. “We Pellacis have the ability to read the heart’s desire. We can see down to the essence of any human or vættir and see what it is that they want more than anything else.” Cass pokes me in the chest a few times to emphasize her point. “Our ability to easily trick others has given my kind a bad reputation, one I’m afraid we’ve earned. It’s surprisingly easy to manipulate people when you can see what motivates them.”

  I want to ask her what she sees in me, but I know what the answer is. I have a desperate need to succeed, to atone for my past failures. It’s why I have to find Whisper, and make sure she gets to the afterlife.

  So instead of asking Cass what her ability shows her, I incline my head and smile. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

  She shrugs. “It’s the least I could do.” She pauses, as though she’s carefully choosing her next words. “Do you mind sharing why you lost your temper with Tallon?”

  I study my nails, because I’m not sure how to answer. I finally sigh. “I’m not quite sure what happened.” In the Aerie we’re taught to suppress our emotions. Harpies are vicious and deadly because we don’t get mad, or scared, or really feel anything. We just act.

  But I get scared all the time, and the anger I felt when I hit Tallon was so strong that I couldn’t even think. When we were kids, Tallon used to make me so mad because he always treated me like I wasn’t tough enough to hang out with him and Whisper. They were both older, and they always tried to get me to stay with Alora, Nanda’s daughter. She was more likely to play with dolls than go on an adventure. I hated getting stuck with her. Maybe some of that childhood resentment was what was fueling my temper.

  Or maybe it was something else. Was my anger a by-product of using the erebos?

  Cass glances away, and I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing. I decide it’s a good time for a change of topic. “You
know, you’re taking this being in the future thing pretty well.”

  Cass tilts her head to the side as she examines me. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I would totally be freaking out right about now. I did freak out when I got to Tartarus, remember? And I’m more than a little freaked out by the idea that I have some big prophecy to fulfill. Yet here you are, thousands of years from when you left the Mortal Realm, and you haven’t even batted an eyelash.”

  Cass sighs and settles down on the floor, cross-legged. “Zeph, I think it’s time I told you something.”

  There’s a weightiness to her words that gives me pause. “Oh. Okay.” I lean against the doorframe. I stay silent, letting her take her time. Even though I can sense from her tone that she’s about to tell me something very important, I don’t smell the burning-coffee smell of anxiety. It should bother me, but it doesn’t. Mostly because it’s Cass. I trust her with my life.

  “I have not been completely honest with you since I met you. My personal history was only a little piece of that. But since we are now in the Mortal Realm, I think it’s time I shared something that I could not share while we were in the Underworld.” She pauses, as though she’s carefully choosing her next words. “I’ve spent all of this time protecting you because the Messenger asked me to keep you alive.”

  I blink stupidly a few times before her words sink in. “What?”

  “Before you arrived, the Messenger asked me to return to the Pits and keep an eye on you. He knew who I was, since he was at my trial so long ago. I was living in the Du’at, searching for a way into the Elysian Fields, when he appeared and offered to take me to Elias if I could keep you alive until it was time. Once I saw you, everything made sense.” She looks at me, her metallic-green eyes flat. “I’ve escaped to the Mortal Realm before now. The last time I was here, I heard the Prophecy of the Promise, which is why I believed you were the Nyx. I suspected you were the one referred to in the texts the first time I met you, but it wasn’t until you survived Hades’s dark wave that I was certain.”

  “I . . . oh. So you escaped the Pits before.” My brain is trying to make sense of her words, to put what she’s telling me into the context of our friendship.

  All of a sudden I’m feeling less like Cass’s friend and more like a charity case.

  “Of course. But the Elysian Fields were where I wanted to be. I thought going there, seeing Elias, that it would fix me. That’s why I accepted the Messenger’s offer.”

  Embarrassment heats my face. Of course someone as badass as Cass wouldn’t really want to be my friend. “Okay. Well, thanks for keeping me alive,” I joke, but my hurt makes my voice crack.

  Cass shakes her head. “That wasn’t it at all. I had to get into the Elysian Fields, and this was before I met you. I had no idea what kind of vættir you even were.” She pauses and sighs. “Remember when I asked you what you smelled from me, and how I wondered why you never told me about your ability to smell emotions?”

  The conversation is too fresh for me to do anything but nod.

  “Well, everyone pays for their passage to the Underworld. You paid with your wings, and that satyr that came in a little after you paid with his horns, and so on.”

  I nod, because I remember when the satyr arrived. A couple of Cyclopes took him out during sleep time. The sounds of his screams still haunt my memories.

  I watch Cass, waiting. I always wondered what they took from her, but I never dared to ask. There was something about her that never invited much in the way of conversation, and I was so happy to have a friend, especially one as strong as Cass, that I didn’t bother prying.

  Now I wish I hadn’t trusted her so easily. Because Cass’s confession that she kept me alive because of a deal with Hermes makes me feel like I’m an idiot for thinking she could’ve wanted to be my friend.

  It’s not a good feeling.

  Cass looks down at her hands. She manifests a ball of fire and begins tossing it back and forth. “I thought at first maybe they’d taken my magic, but æther and the mortal elements can’t be used in Tartarus, and when I returned to the Mortal Realm, so did my abilities, so I didn’t think it was that. It wasn’t anything physical that I could tell. I felt perfectly fine. It wasn’t until the night a Mer tried to rape me that I understood what I was missing.”

  I swallow, because I didn’t know that Cass had gone through something that bad. Sure, she’d warned me that we needed to sleep in shifts, and the nights we were lucky enough to have some sort of shelter we barricaded the doorway. I never stopped to consider why she was so cautious.

  Cass continues. Her words reveal nothing of her feelings. “I managed to fight him off by hitting him with a rock until he didn’t move. And then, because his dead body was in the way of my sleeping spot near the dark fire, I dragged him into the tree line. Later that night when the basilisks came to feed, I threw a rock in the direction of his corpse to scare them off. Not out of some respect for the dead, but because they were loud and I was trying to sleep.”

  Horror makes my chest tight, and I take a deep breath. “Gods, Cass. That’s . . . I don’t even know what to say. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.” Emotion clogs my throat, and if Cass’s spine wasn’t so rigid I would give her a sympathetic hug. Instead she looks like she’s bored.

  “That’s the problem, Zephyr. You feel bad about what happened, and you weren’t even there. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t feel anything. I wasn’t angry that someone had tried to assault me, I wasn’t upset that I’d just killed a man, I wasn’t even disgusted that basilisks were feeding on a dead body a few feet away.”

  Something clicks in the back of my mind, and I finally get what Cass is trying to tell me. At least now I understand why I’ve never smelled her emotions. She doesn’t have any.

  Cass watches me expectantly, so I drop the last piece of the puzzle in for her. “They took your ability to feel when they sent you to Tartarus.”

  “Yes. I have no emotions, Zeph. I know that I like you, my brain can register the fondness that should be there, but the feeling is absent. I can’t feel anger, or guilt, or any of the other emotions that make us vættir.”

  I nod. So much suddenly makes sense. Her matter-of-fact responses to death in the Pits, her lack of frustration or any kind of judgment when I mess up, her flat green eyes. It all ties back to her inability to feel anything.

  Now that I know her secret, I feel like an idiot. I’ve never gotten the slightest whiff of scent from her. I always thought that maybe she was just able to control her emotions, the way good Harpies can. Or maybe she was just barely human, one of those vættir who are closer to the gods than to humans. But she’s neither.

  Cass stands. “My point isn’t to make you feel sorry for me, Zephyr. It’s to show you that you’re my friend, even though I might not be very good at telling you or showing it. I wanted to go to the Elysian Fields to find Elias, because I loved him. I thought maybe seeing him would fix me.” Her flat green gaze meets mine. “Emotions are very important to us as vættir. It’s what makes us better than the gods. It’s why we’re adaptable, and they aren’t. Not having emotions . . . I know it’s turned me into a terrible person. I did things while we were in the Pits that I never would’ve done when I could still feel.”

  I say nothing, and Cass continues.

  “My reasons for seeking you out were selfish, but I want you to know that I would never betray you. You’re my friend, and the Nyx. Your success is all that matters now, and I will do anything to make sure you fulfill the Prophecy of the Promise. I hope you will think of that before you decide to cast me out.”

  There’s a long moment of silence while I mull over her speech. I shake my head and snort. “Oh, Cass. You’re the best friend I have, and you know the old saying about beggars being choosy, right?” I force a smile, even though in the back of my mind I know that things will never be the same again. Still, I have to try to move past this. Cass is the only friend I have.

  I
sigh in frustration and push off the doorjamb and head into the bathroom, gesturing for Cass to follow. “Come on,” I say. “I’ll show you the shower.”

  I give Cass a quick rundown of how everything works in the bathroom. Her eyes widen and she almost smiles a little when I show her the commode. “That is amazing,” she says, running her hand across the furry toilet-seat cover. If she could feel emotions, I’m pretty sure she’d be jumping up and down like the big winner on a game show.

  “They didn’t have indoor plumbing the last time you were here?”

  She shakes her head. “Time passes strangely in the Underworld.”

  I think of my lost year and nod. “I know.”

  I run a shower for Cass and then retreat back to the bedroom to give her some privacy. I think about lying down on the bed for a hot minute before I remember the perma-stink that clings to me. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to wash the stink of Tartarus off me. Ugh, I hope so.

  Because my mother taught me that it’s rude to stink up someone else’s house, I opt for the floor instead of the lovely looking bed. Neither the hard floor nor my burgeoning doubts about Cass keep me from falling asleep.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I WAKE TO CASS KICKING my foot and her hair dripping water on me. “I like showers,” she says, and I laugh.

  “Yeah, they’re okay.” I climb to my feet and enter the bathroom, my muscles aching from my few minutes on the floor. By tomorrow I’ll feel good as new, but right now I feel every inch of my time sprinting through Tartarus. Weeks? Days? I don’t think we were on the run for more than a couple days, but who knows.

  I make my way to the mirror over the sink. I avoided it when I was in here showing Cass how to use everything, but now that I’m alone, I let myself study my reflection. I haven’t seen a mirror since the day Whisper was killed, and looking at my image feels like I’m breaking some ancient taboo. I’m surprised by what I see in the mirror.

  I look exactly the same.