Still

by Camilla Monk

  “Are you afraid?” Palombara asked.

  There was no point in lying to her. “I don’t want to touch him,” I said, my skin crawling at the idea of coming in contact with the dark mass I’d seen swarming around Montecito.

  Faust shifted closer to me, his arm brushing mine in silent reassurance. “You won’t, Emma.”

  “I will,” I murmured, hating the certainty coiling in my belly. “The only way he can be stopped is if he butts against the Omega. The black hole just wouldn’t be in me, right now, if it weren’t meant to stop Perses.” I shook my head as I tried to work out my thoughts coherently and clutched my middle. “Otherwise, it’d make no sense that it’s in me.”

  Faust’s hand skimmed up my arm to rest on my shoulder. “Then it means everything will be all right.” He smiled at me then, that soft, radiant smile that melted the heart of gullible Chinese tourists and thawed mine just a little. “I’ve always been very lucky.”

  Except there was no luck—only that mysterious path we followed blindly without knowing where it led—or even why we were walking in the first place. A future was written already, by someone who had decided my purpose for me, and I had never felt so powerless.

  “It’s quite the opposite, really,” Lady Palombara remarked. It took me a second of puzzlement to figure out that she had fricking done it again and read my thoughts. My lips parted to plead her for the umpteenth time not to do that, but she swiveled around to go search her shelves before I could start my sentence.

  Her fingers fluttered up and down a series of identical wooden drawers, pausing on each painted label before stopping to open a specific one. “I have a magical artifact for you, too, Emma. Something very powerful.”

  Holy shit—magic that would work even in my hands? My shoulders hitched in anticipation, and I had to clasp my hands to prevent their fidgeting as she returned with a black object. A cap. She handed it to me with an infinitely benevolent smile. Faust’s curiosity prickled my nape as he bent to me, obviously expecting me to describe the precious gift to him.

  I sucked in a sharp breath, my fingers playing on the black visor. The sinister masked figure embroidered on the front of the cap was sadly familiar. Ha ha ha . . . Fucking hilarious. No, really.

  “It’s not magic,” I stated, each word wound with offense. “It’s Kylo Ren. You gave me a Kylo Ren cap.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth to suppress a giggle. Ryuuko grinned. Grinned.

  Faust had the good grace to say, “I liked him in the movies. He’s a very interesting character.” And a high-maintenance emo literally no one likes, I thought.

  My gaze snapped up to Lady Palombara, loaded with reproach. “Thank you. I’m sure it’s gonna help. Like, if it rains.”

  “It may,” was her reply.

  I considered the cap, my nostrils flaring. When Ryuuko’s mocking gaze met mine, I shoved the cap on my head defiantly. “If you say so.”

  Palombara sighed, one of her hands reaching out. Without touching me. “Emma, the truth is, I have nothing else to give you, no help, no advice. Never in my existence have I stood so close to the Omega; I never even considered the possibility that it might exist inside a human being. I don’t understand your power, and to tell it all, it frightens me. The only certainty I have”—she looked at Faust fondly—“is that there is a path.”

  A path to Faust, a path back to Lily after all those years spent resenting her . . . I looked deep into the stars swirling in Palombara’s strange eyes. “But you have no idea what it really is.”

  Her lips twitched. “Do you want to know what I see?”

  “Well, yeah!”

  “An Uber.”

  Lady Palombara was an okay psychic. When Ryuuko walked us back to the wall and the Porta Alchemica turned to glittery Jell-O to let us through for the second time, the first thing I noticed was that night had fallen over Rome, and the second was a red Honda minivan conspicuously parked in the street. Silvio stepped out of the van, wearing a camo tracksuit and coordinated Air Max. Yup, we were going to war, indeed.

  Once Ryuuko had disappeared behind the walled gate, I darted an anxious look around the deserted street. “Can they find us now that we’re outside Lady Palombara’s dimension?” I asked Faust.

  His lips curled. “I don’t think so.”

  As he said this, Silvio unzipped his jacket, revealing a most unusual piece of bling hanging from a golden chain around his neck. The winged dick guarding Faust’s bathroom door—and a crucifix too, just to cover all bases, I figured. “I’m the sacred ground, now,” he announced.

  Faust raised his palm for Silvio to high-five. A complicated routine ensued during which their fingers twirled, hooked and unhooked several times before Silvio concluded the ritual with a bro punch to Faust’s shoulder. “Nice vest,” he noted soberly, lowering his sunglasses to check the crocheted golden fleece.

  “Have you been able to locate Lily?” Faust inquired.

  Silvio pulled out his phone and checked a GPS map. “She’s back at the Malespina, working late.”

  Shit. I’d hoped she’d stay at the Residenza—out of the way. I glanced at the screen. Past midnight; working unusually late, indeed. “The lab is underground,” I explained. “If we can get inside the villa, I know the way. But it’s probably heavily guarded, and Dante is basically glued to Lily . . .” And I couldn’t call her to try and get her away from him because I no longer had her number. I kinda wished Faust hadn’t smashed my phone two days ago—admittedly to make it impossible for Katharos to track me. I asked Silvio, “Do you think you could find the lab’s extension? Katharos probably listens to the calls, but I just need to bullshit her to get her away from the lab.”

  He nodded, and his thumbs rapped on the screen, texting someone, I gathered. “Can try to find that.”

  “Once Lily is out of the way, Dante and the guards won’t be a problem either,” Faust replied, patting the hilt of his new cane.

  “The shadows will be another matter,” I reminded him. “You can’t still them.”

  He thumped his chest with a wink. “But this will stop them.”

  Silvio’s mustache twitched in appreciation—he definitely liked Faust’s disco vest. “Then jump in. Once you get the girl out of there, I’ll take her to safety.” He adjusted his glasses as he climbed into the driver seat. “Fast.”

  I settled next to Faust in the backseat, gripping my door handle to brace myself. Silvio’s right hand slammed on the gear stick, and the minivan took off. We bulleted through empty streets and squares, ripped along the ribbon of centenary trees and elegant buildings lining the Tiber. We crossed a bridge, drifted right so hard the tires screeched, and within minutes I recognized the dark pines canopy overlooking the brick wall, the cameras sitting atop and watching everything . . .

  Silvio pulled the brakes and pulled out his smartphone. His thumb repeatedly flicked to type in a phone number, and he handed me the phone. “Lab extension. See if you can get her out.”

  I waited as it rang. Over and over, until a voice in Italian greeted me. My lips parted, but before I could speak, I realized I was listening to a voicemail asking me to leave a message. Shit. “Voicemail,” I said, giving the phone back to Silvio.

  Faust turned to me. “Then we’ll have to improvise that part.”

  Silvio glanced at Faust in the mirror, expecting what came next. Faust nodded back as the rear doors slid open. He unbuckled and raised his cane. When it hit the floor mat, I wondered how it felt for Silvio to know what Faust could do without ever being able to experience it himself. When time restarted, he’d have a split second to come to terms with a whole new reality and act on it.

  The shockwave washed over me. Silvio went still. I swallowed the lump in my throat and stepped out of the minivan, into the eerie silence.

  “Follow me.” I guided Faust down the street, to the iron gates. In the security booth, a pair of guards I didn’t recognize sat frozen as we walked past them. Night team, probably. I tried to describe our en
vironment to Faust in tight whispers as we entered the park, should he need to find his way out . . . alone. He picked up on the tremors in my voice, my unsteady breathing. “We can do this, Emma.”

  “There’s a path,” I murmured back, sweat beading under my Kylo cap.

  “There is,” Faust reassured me.

  There was. I mean, literally. Once we’d climbed the stairs leading to the terrace, I saw that the glass doors of the palazzo’s first floor were open. The lights were on, bathing the courtyard in a soft golden hue. The Villa Malespina awaited us.

  “Everything is open,” I told Faust. “I-I think they know we’re here.”

  “Lady Montecito never disappoints . . .”

  “Please tell me again Ouranos’s magic nut will work,” I hissed, setting a trembling foot on the lobby’s multicolored marble pattern.

  “It will.”

  Yeah, it better, because already shadows glided across the walls, detaching themselves from frescoes and columns. “There’s a welcome committee,” I gasped.

  “I feel them,” Faust replied, his eyes closed. “We must follow them.”

  I gripped his hand tighter and let him take the lead. His stride was steady, strangely attuned to the ghosts slithering and whispering all around us, shrouding statues like smoke veils, snaking through rooms where Katharos employees’ glass desks stood empty.

  I recognized the dramatic flight of stairs, the elevator tucked away in a corner. The shadows crawled down the steps, inviting us to the underground level. The lobby’s bright spotlight became a dim glow sculpting familiar stone walls. Faust’s cane clattered against a final marble step before meeting soft gray carpet. Like the rest of Katharos’s building, the floor was empty, its glass and steel curtains wide open.

  I drew a shaky breath, watching the shadows glide along crowded bookshelves to disappear down the hallway leading to the lab. “They’re taking us to the table,” I told Faust.

  His mouth curved into a wry smile. “Of course they are . . .”

  I readjusted my cap with trembling fingers. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  We stepped into the dark through a gaping steel doorway and took a few steps along the windows encircling the lab. I saw the table first, resting a few feet above the ground on its giant platform, a sleek black curve painted by the glare of the surgical lamps above.

  Then I saw her.

  Paler than ever, Montecito stood near the table, one hand casually resting on its menacing granite edge. Behind her, Lucius loomed in the shadows, frozen, as were Lily and Dante, caught by Faust’s spell while they’d been gazing at the table. Like the lights reflected on the table’s surface, the white of their lab coats was almost blinding.

  As I feared, Montecito moved, her soft smile freezing the blood in my veins. She gave us a scornful glance over. “By every titan in Othrys, you two look more and more pathetic every time I see you . . .”

  Faust waved at her, an easy grin cracking through his beard. “Are you surprised to see me, my lady?”

  The corner of her mouth quivered into a sneer. “No. He whispered to me you still lived.”

  I contracted the muscles in my legs to stop my knees from buckling. “Perses?”

  She shrugged an eyebrow, the movement creasing not a single wrinkle in the pearly skin of her forehead. “He knows what you know too,” she breathed, like a secret.

  Each word crawled under my skin, and I couldn’t help but dart a look around the room, wondering if unseen eyes were watching me right now. “He speaks to you in your head, right?”

  “We’re bound,” was her reply. But she wasn’t looking at me; she was looking at Faust.

  He gave a slow nod. “So I see.”

  She took a single step forward. “You’ve come to unseal the table. He knows.”

  My heart stopped and became a rock that plopped down directly to the pit of my stomach. No plan, no path—just a fucking trap. I shot a desperate look at Faust, who clung to his enigmatic smile like a shield. “And he’s so smart. But then, he also knows we’re here to trade our services in exchange for Lily’s freedom.”

  Montecito damn near rolled her eyes, which looked supremely weird on her waxy features. “Must we absolutely drag human concerns in matters of immortals and titans?” she huffed, flicking an imaginary speck of dust from her skintight black turtleneck.

  “Then let her go,” I managed. “We have a car waiting outside. I’m sure he knows that too.”

  Faust confirmed. “Emma will take Lily with her. Once they’re in the car, I’ll unseal the table for you.”

  I looked up at him, renewed fear roaring in my skull. That wasn’t the plan. If Montecito was fighting with Perses’s power, I needed to stay here. Leaving Faust to face her alone sure wasn’t the fricking path.

  The bitch crossed her arms, allowing a beat of unbearable silence to drift our way. She shook her head. “Emma stays with us. He knows exactly what you have in mind . . .”

  “Does he?” Faust asked. “Then how about we throw a little chaos in our plan?”

  She understood before I did, and the quiver of her eyebrows was my only warning. Faust’s fist curled tight around the gem encrusted in the hilt, and he hit the floor once. The second after was a bang as time roared back to life. Lucius, Dante, and Lily came alive in the same instant. Anger flashed in Lucius’s eyes, while in Lily’s I read shock and, almost immediately, fear. Dante’s eyebrows, on the other hand . . . they barely twitched. He took in Faust’s and my sudden presence with supreme self-control, resting a proprietary hand on Lily’s shoulder—out of habit, maybe. My calves tensed from the urge to leap at her and shove him away.

  Montecito switched to damage-control mode faster than me, shifting closer to Lily with a compassionate smile. “Allow me to explain. You must be so scared . . .”

  But Lily said, “No.” Her entire body shook like a leaf, and she wouldn’t stop blinking in obvious panic, but she found her voice and gritted out that same word a second time. “No. I am . . . not scared.”

  Renewed tension whipped across the room, painted on Montecito’s smooth features, thrumming through Faust’s rigid posture. I saw the shadows swirl and gather around them . . . flying to Lily’s tightly curled fist. I’m not sure if it happened incredibly fast, or if time stretched and thickened as Lily’s hand moved. I recognized the terrifying edge of Perses’s hissing spear, but I couldn’t process that it was now Lily wielding it.

  Montecito’s eyes went wide. Her lips parted in a silent gasp. A tremor zinged up my legs in response, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t lift a finger as Lily stabbed her straight through the heart.

  For the first time, I saw wrinkles appear on Leonora Montecito’s skin, spreading fast like a disease around her eyes and mouth, painting a mask of agony.

  Montecito reeled as the spear plunged deeper and eventually dissipated in Lily’s hands. The moment it was gone, Lily staggered back into Dante’s arms. They closed around her, as tender as his eyes were cold.

  Faust seemed just as shocked and lost as I was—likely even more so since he couldn’t see them. When his cane rose to shield me from whatever was happening, I managed to croak out. “Lily . . . what the fuck?”

  A grimace of pain clawed at her features. Tears came, rolled down her cheeks, pooled at the corners of her lips as she struggled for air, but she wouldn’t answer. She watched Montecito collapse near the table and clutch at the gaping hole in her chest. In the second that followed, Lucius snapped out of his own shock and lunged to his knees to catch her. I noticed for the first time that the arm I’d torn off in the morning was still missing, replaced by a dark prosthetic.

  The shadows reappeared, slithered out of the darkness, and hissed toward Lucius like snakes, ripping through him from all directions like arrows. He didn’t scream, only coughed a surprised groan, before his skin, too, started to lose its smooth texture. Inexorably, deep wrinkles ravaged their faces, and their hair became sparse silvery strands.

  “Lily!” I screamed,
this time. “What’s going on?”

  Her head lolled against Dante’s shoulder. He pressed a kiss to her temple and left her side to move closer to Montecito and Lucius’s rotting embrace. His lips stirred. Not quite a smile, the expression of an icy kindness. And his eyes . . . I thought they were brown, but now all I saw were dark pools where stars shimmered faintly. Two galaxies swirled in his pupils, same as in Lady Palombara’s, and I was afraid to understand what it meant. His voice turned my spine to brittle ice as he told Montecito. “You’ve served your purpose, but now you must pay for what you did to Lily’s grandfather, Leonora. Go now. I set you free.” He gave the slightest flick of his forefinger, a twitch really. It was all it took for Montecito and Lucius to sizzle to pitch-black dust that scattered across the lab’s floor. Returned to nothing.

  I tried to ball my fists, but I was so fucking petrified, my fingers wouldn’t even curl. Oh God. Oh . . . shit. It wasn’t just a severe case of douche boyfriend. He was . . . he was seriously . . .

  “Perses,” Faust stated, a tremor belying his cordial tone.

  I sent Lily a pleading look. “Did you know? Lily, did you know from the start?”

  She managed to sniff her tears back long enough to gasp out a brittle answer. “I found a letter in his book. He knew . . . and she left him no choice but to kill himself. It was her fault!” Her face twisted in rage and I no longer recognized her. “Em, she was a monster!”

  She’d known. From the moment she’d introduced him to me, every time he’d nuzzle her neck when we had talked in her bedroom, when they’d whisper to each other and speak with their eyes. She knew, and I saw now, as blinding evidence, that none of this had ever been about Montecito.

  Dante—no, Perses—drew her back to him, combing damp bangs away from her eyes. “You were stronger in the face of evil than I ever imagined you could be.” His features softened as he hypnotized me with his inhuman eyes. “Your gifts have no equal.”