by Holly Hook
"You two. Now," Ronin said simply.
"Why won't you tell me what's going on?" I asked.
Ronin bit his lip. He didn't want to say anything. Not yet. His eyes sparkled with desperate hope. A bit of uncertainty. And he was holding onto that as if it were a life preserver.
Maria got off her bed without a word, and all while avoiding my gaze. Wendy followed. The two whispered to each other about what Ronin must have meant, and Maria once again went quiet, retracting inside herself. She took another sip of her mug, which she had brought with her.
Ronin led us back through the main building and down the main corridor...towards the guys' dorms.
I rarely came over here, but as we crossed through the glass walkway connecting the two buildings, I took an invisible punch to the gut. Ronin remained quiet, and as we turned the corner to enter the guys' dorms, Cal met us, spreading his arms to block the way forward.
And Cal's inner sunlight seemed to have faded to a whimper.
"Girls," Cal said. "One of you needs to go in and check on Mikey."
Mikey.
He'd run back into the main building after our surprise fight with the gods.
And he'd been tinted blue.
"He won't let you in?" I asked.
"No. He refuses to unlock his door for me. And Mikey won't say a word," Cal said, rubbing his hand through his blond hair. "Please. One of you." He was shaking.
And I felt every gaze land on me. Ronin paled. Even Maria looked right at me. Either me or her could break the lock on Mikey's door and barge in.
I nodded and raised my hand. Maria had gone through enough today, and partly thanks to me. Checking on Mikey was my job.
"Thanks, Giselle," Cal said. "If he's done anything stupid...I would have come here earlier if I'd known they'd stage a divine fight..."
"Don't beat yourself up," I told Cal.
The fight with the gods.
Had it put Mikey over the edge?
The suspense built the farther I walked down the hall. Music played from one of the dorms. Around us, life was going on as usual, though the music clicked off when I passed the closed door. My presence always brought silence. Right now, I wasn't holding it back.
"Mikey?" I asked when I reached his dormitory door.
Maria came to stand beside me. "This isn't good," she whispered, shaking.
Cal was having the roughest time. "Giselle, you and Maria have to check. Please. Mikey won't even talk to me. What if he's--"
"I'll go with you," Wendy insisted.
I stared at the doorknob, heart racing. My mouth went dry. There was only one reason Cal would ask us girls to go in and check on Mikey.
"What do you want me to do?" Ronin asked.
I faced him. "Stay with Cal." Cal needed his friend right now.
And I needed to step up and take care of this.
Grabbing the door knob, I twisted it, and it easily gave way, breaking the lock with a single snap. I felt as if I'd broken a toothpick, not a fancy lock Cal had installed on Mikey's door last year without permission from the school.
Ronin pulled Cal away.
And I pushed the door open to a dark, quiet dorm. Mikey's bed was ruffled, his dresser thrown open, his closet a gaping mouth. My eyes adjusted quickly and everything, despite the darkness, snapped into focus.
Mikey sat on the other side of the bed, facing the window and the drawn curtains. "Hey," I said. "It's me. You can probably tell already."
He said nothing. Mikey shifted, hiking his black-robed shoulders higher than they already were.
"Mikey," Maria said.
"Tell Cal to leave."
Mikey's voice sounded like syrup, and its sway almost pulled me closer...almost. But the three of us resisted and stopped near the foot of his bed.
And I knew what had happened.
Mikey snapped his gaze to us.
And I saw everything I needed to know. Bluish-tinged skin. A pair of black eyes. My friend screamed from their depths, trapped inside a body that had betrayed him for good.
"If Cal comes near me," he said, "I want to attack him. And I could never live with myself if I hurt him."
"Shit," Wendy muttered.
I swallowed, knees shaking. If I hadn't chosen darkness back in the Sorting Temple, I might have been able to stop this. Cal hadn't reached Mikey in time today. And I hadn't thought anything when he ran away.
Maria held back a sob maybe only I could hear. If she broke down crying, everything would get worse. It would shatter the already fragile wall I had put up in my mind. "Mikey, this is just temporary. I'll fix this. We'll fix this. We can. When the gods go back to sleep--"
"What chance do we have?" Mikey burst, his musical voice making me dizzy for a second. "Zeus is powerful. We couldn't fight those gods earlier. And to fight their king? We're going to get crushed. But maybe it's better that way."
Maria backed away.
"I'm next," she choked.
"Hey," Wendy said to her. "We don't know that."
She was the last holdout among us.
Maria backed out of the room, slamming the door. My knees trembled. Everything was out of control and even I could do nothing to stop it.
"Just leave me alone," Mikey said. "Close the door and leave me in the dark where I belong."
I sucked in a breath, throat burning. "We're going to fix this," I said. "It wasn't fair, what Prometheus had us do earlier. He gave us a hard challenge on purpose. Now we have to plan. We've been through a lot. And we're going--"
"Leave me alone!" Mikey pointed at the door, showing a row of sharp teeth.
"Come on," Wendy said, tugging on my sleeve. "Maria. She's losing it."
A new wave of terror filled my chest at Wendy's tone. Mikey wasn't the only one who needed help. And the look he gave me...was that hate in those black eyes or an illusion? My choice had gotten all of us here. And maybe Mikey had just buried his true feelings until now.
I turned and let Wendy pull me out of the room. She closed the door.
Ronin and Cal were nowhere to be found. Somewhere, Ronin was comforting his friend, trying to put a bandage on an axe wound. I wanted to run out the doors and never come back. Wendy couldn't hold me here. Or drag me back in the direction of Maria's dorm.
"Come on," she said. "We can't let her go. There's nothing we can do for Mikey right now." Wendy's eyes were huge.
So I followed her back towards the girls' dorm. I should be able to pick up where Maria had gone if I focused enough, but I didn't need that. She always went to her dorm when she was upset, and hadn't broken from that tradition since our first year.
And there, we found her.
Maria lay slumped on her stomach over her bed, pale, and taking shallow breath after shallow breath. As I stood in the doorway, she dropped a vial of crushed white petals--the life-draining asphodel from the Underworld--letting it shatter on the floor and disperse the rest of its contents.
And there was little left.
Maria, in her panic, had taken most of the vial to stop her changes.
And now she might never wake again.
Chapter Fifteen
"Prometheus!" I shouted, carrying Maria in my arms through the glass walkway. She remained comatose, chest rising and falling. I'd overdosed on the asphodel once to stop myself from maturing. It hadn't gone well. And Maria wasn't a budding immortal.
What if this--
"I don't know what will happen," Wendy said, running behind me and barely holding back tears. "We need Cal. Maybe he can help heal her."
I feared he wouldn't be able to help her in his own tortured state. Maria was trapped in deep unconsciousness. I sensed it. No dreams fluttered behind her eyelids. No signs of any thought made her muscles twitch. What if she was just a hunk of flesh now?
Shoving the morbid thoughts from my mind, I darted past the dining hall, which was closed, and let Wendy bang on the office door.
Prometheus opened it a second later, eyes widening. "Maria?"
&
nbsp; "She overdosed on Underworld asphodel," Wendy said. "Mikey matured, and she freaked out thinking she was next, and now--"
"Underworld asphodel?" Prometheus asked. Clearly he didn't know about our stunt stealing from Hades. This was new. "It has life-draining properties. It's only meant to be a food for the dead!" Concern widened his emerald-flecked eyes. "We can't access the healers now and I don't know if they could help her anyway. All of Olympian's extra services are closed to us."
I didn't want to hand Maria over to the titan, but being in the arms of someone as dark as me wasn't going to help her. So I let him take her. Prometheus's eyes were wide with terror. He cared about his students. About people.
"What can we do?" I asked.
"I don't know," the titan said, looking up and down the hall. "I've never seen anyone do this before. She's alive, but I think it's only in body. I sense nothing here but her flesh." His voice cracked as he confirmed my suspicions.
Wendy swallowed, barely holding it together. "I'm feeling the same. Maybe it's a waiting game? My friends have been taking it to hold their maturity back, but it stopped working after a while, and Maria's been so scared--"
"I don't blame her," Prometheus said. "We can give her the cell. I can talk to Apollo and see if he can help her."
I breathed out, remembering. No longer could I heal, but Apollo could. He was an Olympian. A not-too-bad Olympian. And he was on campus.
Prometheus carried Maria into the basement while Wendy and I waited at the top of the steps. I listened as he placed Maria on the cot and left her there. She still breathed. What if her spirit had gone to the Underworld, leaving her body behind? The asphodel might do strange things. When the titan ascended the steps, he typed a hurried message on his phone.
"There is nothing further the two of you can do right now." He frowned like he had a lot more on his mind than just Maria.
"She's my friend," I said, not caring that my voice filled the corridor.
"Apollo might be able to help," Wendy said, but she sounded doubtful.
In the end, Wendy pulled me into the dining hall, which had emptied. It was getting late. We sat at the fourth years' table, the table of shame, and remained there in silence. Ronin didn't text me. He didn't know about Maria yet.
And when he found out--
He would do something without thinking. Something impulsive. I gripped the table, hating this whole system Zeus and some of the other gods had created. Their magic might have turned people into monsters and awakened powers in others by mistake, but they hadn't had to use that fact against the unfortunate. They hadn't had to beat humanity into submission with natural disasters and then shady business deals. I even hated Dominique for her mistake, but at least she was trying to fix it.
But at last, Cal and Ronin found us. Cal's eyes were red like he'd been holding back his own tears. Things were ruined. And now we'd have to ruin them even further.
"Maria overdosed," I blurted. "She's unconscious and Apollo is going to see to her."
Ronin stopped at the end of our table, jaw dropping. "On the asphodel?"
"She freaked out and said she was next," Wendy explained, standing. "It's weird. She's still breathing, but she's not there, and, oh shit. Oh shit." She sank back down on the table and stared at the floor.
"If Apollo's coming, there might still be hope," Cal blurted. I could read desperation in his eyes. Could Apollo help Mikey, too?
All we could do now was wait. Wendy was right about that. I watched the clock as I struggled not to get sick. And at last, close to midnight, Prometheus opened the door.
"Follow me," he said simply.
I didn't like that. Already I sensed the assessment wouldn't be good, and as I stood, I died a bit inside. Even though I sensed Apollo's invisible glow as I descended the basement steps, it did nothing to make me feel better. The god himself stood near the entryway to the secret room, dressed in shorts and a tank top, and for the first time, a grave expression took up his features.
"I cannot heal Maria," he stated, getting to the point.
Cal stepped forward. "What do you mean, you can't heal her?"
"To heal a body, a person's soul and life force must also be present." He turned his gaze to the floor. "I believe, as Prometheus does, that the asphodel has chased her soul to the Underworld. She is neither dead nor alive."
I didn't want to look past where Apollo stood and into the room Ronin had called home for a week, but I did. Maria was lying on the cot, breathing as if she were nothing more than a machine. The awful feeling I'd gotten earlier returned full force. This was just a biological collection of parts lying there that looked like my friend.
"We need to tell Elliot," Prometheus said.
"What do we do now?" I asked. Someone would need to tell Ted, too.
Prometheus looked at me with sadness. "There is a chance Maria will return to normal if we...if you take down Olympus." Tremors raced up and down his body, noticeable even under his wrinkled black suit.
"How will that help?" I asked.
Cal spoke. "Because Olympus is what holds all of this together. If the gods fall back asleep, so will the Underworld? All the souls there will be freed. At least, that's I think might happen."
"You've been reading?" Ronin asked.
"It's just a theory I have. I'd hate to lose my musical talents, but the sacrifice will be worth it if brings Mikey back."
Apollo nodded. "Yes."
"You're willing to go back to sleep?" Wendy asked.
"We never meant to wake," Apollo told her. "When humanity moved on from us a long time ago, Zeus ordered us to sleep, thinking they would never make it on their own. He meant to forsake humanity the way they turned away from him. And then, when Dominique's cult turned adoration towards us, they woke us by mistake, and some of my brethren could not stand what they saw." He ran his hand through his hair. "We don't belong in this strange, futuristic world. It belongs to humanity now. Zeus fails to realize that. We got to live long enough. After millennia, life becomes exhausting and you want to rest."
"Yes," Prometheus agreed. "Those I helped to sculpt from the mud are doing far more than Zeus ever anticipated. Someday they'll reach the stars if left to their own devices. But if Zeus has his way, that will never occur. A new dark age will follow."
He left those words hanging. The air in the basement turned heavy and still. Maria continued to breathe, absent.
The immortals were willing to slide back into dormancy. As the thought hit me, Ronin stepped closer, placing his hand on my back.
"What about me?" I asked. I had only had nineteen years. Was I really just here to destroy?
"We don't know, Giselle," Prometheus said. "We don't know. But we must attack very soon. Word has reached me that Zeus is strengthening Olympus's defenses, and if we don't move within a few days, we'll have no chance at all."
Chapter Sixteen
I could not stand the tension. And neither could the students of Cursed Academy.
Prometheus announced an assembly the next morning at breakfast, and also announced that all classes were cancelled until further notice. He pulled me onto the cheap podium. Apollo and the other rogue Olympians did not show up to breakfast. Simply having our conversation last night had weakened Apollo, pulling him closer to Tartarus, and we'd decided that it was best if only the two of us, plus the staff, led the assembly.
And Mikey didn't show up, either. The two bare seats at the fourth years' table stood out more than all the other assembled students, combined. Elliot was also absent and so were the Lower Order, as they had to be when Prometheus was around. I knew where Elliot was sitting.
The fourth years' table, I noticed, was quite empty. Serena sat alone and Wendy had taken the opposite side of the table as her.
"Students," the titan said, voice sweeping over the room. "The reason classes are cancelled for the time being is that there is a possibility that all of you will no longer be in need of them within a few days." He looked to me and stepped back, i
ndicating I was to speak as gasps of shock rose from the tables.
I stepped up to the podium, all eyes on me. Sweat broke out between my palms and I swallowed. I had to do this for Mikey and Maria and face my darkness already. Now was the time to prepare for what I was meant to do: destroy. "We need to take down Mount Olympus, which will force all the gods and everything associated with them back into dormancy. Only then will the gods' magic leave all of you and restore you and your families into normal human beings."
The dining hall exploded in noise and movement. First years huddled together and the second years all stood, yelling. The third years got up to crowd us, but I held up my hand, holding them back. Only the fourth years remained semi-calm. Tiffany looked at Serena and bit her lip.
"I know this is big," I shouted, commanding attention. "But if you all become regular people again, you'll have the freedom to do what you want in life. And that's what we all want."
Serena stood with her hands on her hips. "This wouldn't benefit all of us." She glared at her brother as if to say, why are you going along with this?
I'd been expecting that reaction from her. "No, it wouldn't," I said. "But it would make things fair. You know, the gods hate you and your powers, too." I glared at her so hard that she sat back down. "The best you can do right now for a career is answering to one of them."
And Serena said nothing to that. Grumbling under her breath, she studied one of the warrior statues and sat back down.
"We are asking any third and fourth years who want to fight to volunteer now," I said, letting hope rise. "We will need all the forces we can get to invade Olympus. And my job will be to destroy it. This is not without risk."
Quiet settled over the dining hall.
I waited for hands to rise. From Serena. From Tiffany. From anyone.
But...nothing. Students looked at each other, waiting for someone else to be the first, and no one wanted to take that step. Seconds dragged out. I shifted leg to leg, waiting. Surely someone--