Designed by Death

by Melody Rose

  I opened my eyes and looked at the spot where Ansel had been before, and to my heart’s delight, my soldier still stood there, strong and back straight. He waved up at me while the other hand stayed in his pocket. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling but the fact that he was still there, let me know that he would be there for me when I got back. There wasn’t really anything else I could ask for.

  With my heart full, I looked at Kiley and finally answered her question. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

  14

  Kiley jumped up to the raised section of the boat where the ship’s wheel stood proudly, taking the steps two at a time.

  “Okay, things are about to get really weird for you, Fotia,” Kiley said with a sly smirk.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked as I whirled around to face the head of the Nero branch.

  “It means that I hope you don’t get seasick,” the soldier replied, her smile only widening. “But if you do, this should help.”

  Just then, the Nero soldier threw something in my direction. I reacted instinctively and caught it with a low two-handed catch. After I straightened up, I noticed it was a small glass vile of a pink liquid.

  I held up the vile between my pointer finger and thumb. “What’s this?”

  “That there is a vile of lotus juice if you want to knock yourself out,” Kiley informed me. “There are cabins downstairs, but I mean, if you want to crash up here, that’s your choice. It is a long journey, so I won’t judge you if you decide to drink the juice.”

  “Uh,” I said, not quite sure how to respond. “Thanks for the suggestion.”

  “No problem,” Kiley said after offering me a salute. “Now, prepare for takeoff!”

  I expected her to spin the wheel dramatically or release the masts after an enthusiastic comment like that one. Instead, Kiley closed her eyes and held her arms out at shoulder length to either side of her. She took another breath in, looking like a yoga instructor, as she slowly raised her arms over her head. As she did so, there was a tremendous rumbling, and the boat shook. I quickly raced to the side so I could grip it for support.

  As I did so, I got a good look at the lake water below. It bubbled like a pot of water on the stove. Then, out of nowhere, the boat began to sink.

  “Uh, Kiley?” I barked out over the rumbling, which intensified until it became as loud as a thunderstorm. “Kiley? Is that supposed to be happening? Kiley?”

  I saw that the captain of this ship seemed completely serene and unperturbed by the fact that her boat was sinking. She held her pose, though her hands lowered slightly, like the arms of a clock. She seemed to be pushing the boat down with her powers, the timing of the sinking ship lining up perfectly with her movements.

  In a panic, I looked out to see if Ansel was still there on the shoreline, and he might be able to offer me some encouragement. But my boyfriend was nowhere to be found. He must have left after I offered him that final wave.

  Why had no one warned me how this was going to work? Did these branch leaders get some sick pleasure out of freaking out the students with their modes of transportation? Ansel had done the same thing to me when we first took his father’s chariot back to school for my second year. I had joked about preferring to take the Argo then, but now I wasn’t so sure.

  The water rose slowly but surely, freaking me out as the edge of the water inched up the side of the boat. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Soon, very soon, in fact, we would be completely submerged. Wasn’t a boat supposed to float? This seemed like the very opposite of what we should be doing.

  I couldn’t get Kiley to respond to my shouts. She continued to stay in her Zen-like state, moving her arms lower and lower. I reached up to my locket and popped it open, thinking that Erich might know something I didn’t about how the hell this ship actually worked.

  The Eternal Flame zoomed out and immediately took the shape of my half-brother, with his glowing blue skin matching the color of the Flame.

  “Hey sis, long time no see,” he said, clearly irritated. “I’m looking forward to getting to Italy, so I don’t have to hide out in the locket all the time.”

  “Yeah, but we have to get to Italy first,” I said as I gestured wildly to our surroundings. “We might drown before then.”

  Erich swiveled his head around to see where we were. His eyes flicked from Kiley on the upper deck to me down below and then to the rising water. Suddenly, he let out a burst of laughter.

  “Oh, my gods!” Erich cried through fits of laughter. “You actually thought we were sinking. That’s hilarious!”

  I put my hands on my hips and stuck one of them out to the side, not appreciating his mocking tone. “Care to enlighten me?”

  “As much as I would love to watch you panic some more,” Erich said, coming down from his high, “I guess I can tell you that the Academy’s version of the Argo works more like a submarine.”

  “How?” I gestured upward. “There’s no ceiling! No cover, the water’s just going to come in around us.”

  Erich rolled his eyes. “Come on, Cheyenne, you know by now that magic exists, right?”

  “Duh,” I replied, instantly annoyed.

  “Well, it’s magic,” Erich said in a sing-song voice as he splayed out his hands like jazz hands. Then he pointed up and gave me a wide smile. “Watch.”

  I took a deep breath and put a bit of faith in my half-brother. Even though my panic told me I was going to die a watery death, I thought about how Kiley and the Academy and Erich wouldn’t let me drown. There had to be some magical explanation, even though it defied all logic. Despite the fact that I had been in this world now for two years, the fantasticness of the powers never ceased to amaze me.

  This moment was no exception. Because just then, the Argo dove into the center of the lake and was completely engulfed by the water. All of a sudden, we were surrounded by the lake. However, it never dipped past the edge of the boat. It was as though we were floating in a bubble as it traveled down into the depths of the lake.

  It was a gorgeous sight. I had never been scuba diving in my life, but I could only imagine this is what it felt like. Water surrounded us on all sides, crystal clear and blue, like an aquamarine gem. The sunlight from the morning drifted through the water, waving about like streamers. It twinkled and blinked as we drifted forward, like beacons in the dark.

  A school of long silvery fish swam past without paying us a lick of attention. It was as though we weren’t even there. As we ventured forward, at a stable speed that made me feel as though we weren’t moving at all, two water nymphs swam alongside the boat. They had green skin and hair like seaweed. Together, they smiled with pointed yellow teeth and waved. Even though they were trying to be friendly, their supposed smiles were rather terrifying. Nevertheless, I waved back, keeping my smile as true and bright as possible.

  I watched the scene under the lake travel by. I stood in the center of the boat, not brave enough to get too close to the edge. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, my stomach was not handling the journey all too well. It might have been slow and easy-going, but the thought of being underwater with no way of escape, stuck with only Erich and Kiley, made my breakfast churn uncomfortably.

  Suddenly, a thought occurred to me that hadn’t before that moment.

  “Uh Erich,” I said, my voice stalling in my throat. “We just descended into a lake.”

  “Yeah,” Erich replied, “So?”

  “How are we supposed to get to Italy from a lake?” I asked, feeling rather stupid even as I asked the question.

  Erich rolled his eyes at me in complete annoyance. He put his hands on his hips and stuck out his neck at me. “Why do you ask such questions? Don’t you know by now that my answer is always going to be magic?”

  It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Look, I get that, but seriously? What’s going to happen? Is the Argo just going to teleport into the Atlantic Ocean or something?”

  “Something like that, yeah,” Erich said with a matter-
of-fact tone.

  I closed my eyes to try to process his words, but the minute I did that, the swaying in my belly sped up. It was as though I could feel the motion of the boat as it ventured through the water. My eyes popped open, and I rushed for the closest thing to hold on to.

  I wrapped my arms around the center mast and bent my knees a little, squaring my stance. I caught the eye of my old and dead half-brother, who looked at me with wide eyes. It was a clear expression of how pathetic he thought I was.

  “Oh, come on,” I snapped at him, pushing some of my frustration out through my voice. “You can’t possibly tell me that you didn’t hate this when you were alive.”

  “I mean I did,” Erich admitted with a slight shrug. “But that doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s hilarious to watch you struggle now.”

  I released a puff of air through my nose. “I think I’m going to take Kiley up on her offer to go down and rest with the lotus juice.”

  “You mean go below deck,” Erich corrected.

  I shot him a violent glare accompanied by a snarl. Ignoring me, Erich added, “It’s a nautical term.”

  “Do you want to go back in the locket?” I threatened with my words and my eyes.

  Erich held up his hands in surrender. “Fine. You do what you want. She wasn’t wrong when she said it was going to be a long journey.”

  My knees knocked together as I crossed across the deck of the ship and descended into the depths. Luckily there were some pre-lit lanterns down there. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to see a thing. The swaying was better below deck, but still, my stomach sloshed about. I bounced back and forth along the narrow hallway, using my arms to brace myself against the walls.

  There weren’t that many doors, so I quickly managed to find one that led to an open cabin. There was a set of solid bunk beds built into the wall. I tumbled towards one and fell into it. The padding was thin and stiff, but I didn’t care. I just wanted this misery to end, so I unscrewed the lid to the lotus juice and instantly chugged it.

  Immediately, I felt the effects. My eyelids grew heavy, pushing to stay open while my body fell still. Unlike the other two times that I’d been infected with some form of the lotus drug, I was expecting it this time. As such, a final beat of relief sang through me before I was plunged into darkness.

  Unfortunately, the darkness didn’t hang around for long.

  At first, I thought I was dreaming, which had never happened before on the lotus drug. Then I thought that the drug might not have worked at all because I still felt queasy. But as I looked around at my surroundings, I knew that couldn’t have been the case because I wasn’t on the ship anymore.

  My surroundings resembled my mom’s living room in her apartment. Her old gray couch had two handmade crochet blankets, with brown and orange yarn, draped across it. The throw pillows were on the floor, and a half-finished puzzle sat on the coffee table.

  Everything appeared to be normal, from my mom’s clogs by the door to her keys in the bowl on the end table. For a second, I wondered if this whole scene was happening in real-time. Was it possible that I had somehow transported to my mom’s apartment? How was that even possible?

  Erich’s mocking voice resounded in my mind. Magic, he would chorus, complete with jazz hands. I groaned at the thought. As if she were summoned there by the sound in my throat, a figure appeared on the arm of the couch.

  It was a young woman I instantly recognized with her long black hair, always braided tightly and hanging down to the small of her back. She smiled at me as my gaze landed on her, brightening her flat face.

  “Finally, you fell asleep!” the woman said as she slapped her thighs and stood up.

  “Temperance?” I balked at my fellow Fotia soldier. “What are you doing here?”

  “I have a message for you,” she replied with a very official voice, as though she was only there on business, and she wanted to get it over with.

  But I wasn’t going to let her get away with that. “Okay, that’s great and all, but what’s going on here?” I held out my finger and gestured around the room with a skeptical look on my face. “What are we doing in my mom’s apartment when I’m supposed to be on the Argo headed to Italy, and you’re supposedly back on campus?”

  “I should have known you would want an explanation,” Temperance said with a forgiving half-smile. Her tone instantly shifted to one of sympathy and understanding. “You’re asleep, and I’m communicating with you through your dreams.”

  “You can do that?” I said with a slack jaw. “I mean, I knew you were the daughter of Hypnos and could put people to sleep but damn, dream walking? That’s powerful.”

  “I don’t really like to do it,” Temperance admitted, her arms flying up to cross over her chest protectively. “It feels invasive, and I know that if the General and the other Olympic Officials found out about it, they would make me use it against people.”

  “So, why are you doing it now then?” I asked as a sliver of fear snaked down my spine.

  “Because I owe you one. You helped me get reinstated into the Academy,” Temperance said plainly, as though that fact were obvious.

  Even though it was technically true, I never thought about what I did for Temperance as something that she owed me for. When Love Struck spread around campus last year, she had been one of the first people infected by it. The General and the other Officials threatened to kick her out for her infraction. That is until I was able to figure out that she wasn’t really acting of her own accord and had been infected by Eros’s lust powers.

  “You really don’t,” I tried to assure her, but my fellow soldier cut me off.

  “I’ll never be able to repay that, not really,” Temperance said. “So this is the least I can do, and dream walking was the only way I felt like I could give you this message without anyone else overhearing.”

  “Gotcha,” I said, picking up on her cautious demeanor. Whatever Temperance had to tell me had to be important enough for her to use a gift that she was clearly uncomfortable with using. Suffice it to say, she had my curiosity piqued.

  “You won’t tell anyone, will you?” Temperance asked. “About my ability to dream walk? When you get back to campus, that is?”

  “You have my word,” I agreed to keep her secret. After all, she wasn’t the only one with powers she wanted to keep from the majority of campus. “So you’re dream walking… into my dream. But why?”

  “Like I said, I have a message for you,” Temperance said as she lowered her arms. She pushed her shoulders back and seemed to regain her soldier demeanor. “It’s from your mom.”

  “My mom?” I repeated her words. That was the last person I thought would be delivering a message to me from Temperance. “Is she okay? What’s wrong with her?”

  “Nothing like that,” Temperance assured me as she held out her hands, as though she were stopping a charging rhino, rather than tempering my panicked questions. “She’s fine.”

  “When did you see my mom?” I wondered, jumping on another thought.

  “When I went to deliver your letter,” Temperance answered.

  “Oh,” I said, pinching my eyebrows together. “I would have thought they just mailed that.”

  “They can’t trust the mortal postal system,” Temperance reasoned. “Anyway, when I handed her the letter, she had a warning for you.”

  I took a step back and eyed Temperance wearily, wondering how much she knew. “What kind of warning?”

  “A prophetic kind of one,” Temperance said with a raised eyebrow.

  “So…” I blew out a puff of air. “You know?”

  “I know,” Temperance said with a slow nod. “I’ve seen a prophecy or two, and there was no mistaking that.”

  I squinted as though she’d just pinched me, releasing an accompanying wince. “Okay. Lay it on me. What did she say?”

  “I’ll let the memory speak for itself,” Temperance said as she gestured towards the front door.

  All of a sudd
en, the scene around us shimmered. The lighting changed to something dimmer, like twilight. Figures of Temperance and my mom appeared in the doorway. My heart leaped at the sight of Mom. She was wrapped in her favorite faded pink robe and snowflake pajama pants. A steaming mug of tea was on the coffee table next to the puzzle, and I knew that Temperance had interrupted her nightly relaxation ritual.

  They stood as still as statues across from one another, the threshold between them. Each of them held a letter in their hands, connecting the pair. They looked into one another’s eyes when my mother’s mouth began to move.

  A familiar tune filled the room along with my mother’s bright singing voice. As much as I didn’t want to hear it, I knew that I needed to listen intently. Who knew how many times I would get to hear this warning, direct from my mother’s mouth?

  “Oh la de dah de dah de dah, la de dah de dah

  Oh my daughter dear

  Overseas you are bound

  Lessons of defense

  Are set to confound

  But while you are there

  You need to be aware

  A threat is on its way

  To the Cyclops lair

  Oh la de dah de dah de dah, la de dah de dah

  This decision will start

  A series of events

  An open box overturned

  Spilling all its contents

  Charge forward

  Only ahead you will go

  Trust in those around you

  Rely not on only what you know

  Oh la de dah de dah de dah, la de dah de dah

  If you don’t do this

  Death will come swift

  Your quest will surely lose

  All your goals adrift