I didn’t have time to think or breathe or worry about whether or not Milo would remember this moment. All I did was close my eyes. Time was supposed to slow down in the seconds before death—and I would really die now, with no Underworld to catch me and no Henry to save me—but nothing changed.
This was it.
A great crunch of metal against metal echoed throughout the palace, and for one horrible second I thought Henry or even James had been stupid enough to jump in front of it. My eyes flew open, but they both stood several feet away on either side of the door.
And floating in front of me, half an inch from my neck, was the dagger.
“I believe in the midst of forcing the Lord of the Underworld into your alliance, you have forgotten one important fact,” said Cronus in a deadly voice that seemed to be everywhere at once. “Your fate is tied to Kate’s. If she dies, so do you. Surely you are not ready to fade, my dear daughter.”
Calliope’s arms trembled so badly I feared she’d drop Milo. Henry gently took him from her, and for a moment I was sure she’d fight. He could disappear as soon as he touched the baby; all it would take was a blink, and Henry would be gone, safe back in Olympus with our son. But she willingly let him go.
I held my breath, waiting for Henry to leave. He stayed put though, a strange smile on his face as he gazed down at Milo. My heart sank. She had Henry now. She really, truly had him.
But the way he looked at the baby, the way his shoulders relaxed as he held him—Henry loved Milo. Ava hadn’t taken that away from him, which meant a small piece of him, no matter how buried, still loved me, too.
“Here I was thinking you no longer had any interest in the little traitorous bitch,” said Calliope to Cronus, her words choked with fury. “How silly of me to think you wouldn’t fall prey to human emotion.”
“I am King of the Titans,” said Cronus coldly, and he straightened to his full height, drawing me with him so my toes barely grazed the floor. “I have fallen prey to nothing.”
“Yet here you are, protecting a mere goddess, and a brand-new one at that,” said Calliope. I glared at her. Not very formidable, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. “What has she done to deserve your loyalty? Was she the one to free you? To stand by your side as the gods lined up to fight against you? All this time, she has been working for the enemy, discussing the secrets you have shared, planning a defense based on the strategies you have so willingly shown her.”
Terrific. Now she was trying to get him to kill me. Calliope had it wrong though—Cronus was the one who’d fooled me for so long. He was the one who’d gotten me to spill the council’s secrets by making me think he was Henry. And without realizing it, she was confirming what their arguments had already implied: Cronus didn’t care about her. She was a pawn, exactly like the rest of us. Whatever his plans were, he wasn’t sharing them with her.
Unlike the council, Cronus and Calliope weren’t partners. They were barely allies. In Calliope’s desperation to escape from Walter, she’d managed to stumble across the only being in the universe who treated her even worse than he had. And judging by the look on her face, she was finally beginning to realize it.
Cronus was quiet for a long moment, and darkness filled the hallway until I couldn’t see an inch in front of me. “I have shown her and told her nothing.”
“There is no other explanation,” said Calliope. “The battles we have fought—they are always two steps ahead of us, circumventing my traps and plans, and they could not possibly know these things if you were not telling Kate our every move.”
He wasn’t though, which meant there was a traitor in Calliope’s household. I glanced into the darkness where Ava was standing.
Not possible.
“Silence,” said Cronus, and he dropped me. I stumbled, and his hand caught my wrist. “I will hear no more of this. If there has been any leak, it is not from me. Therefore I can only assume it is you who is the traitor, my daughter. And I do not suffer treason.”
He yanked my hand until my fingertips touched another—James’s. No one else was standing in that direction.
“I am finished with this pointless debate. You have what you want, and my bargain with Kate is fulfilled. However, because I cannot ensure her safety, I cannot allow her to stay.”
At last Cronus let go of my wrist, and I understood. The inky clouds, his argument with Calliope—he wanted me to leave. I couldn’t though, not when Henry and Milo were in danger. I couldn’t abandon them again.
The air crackled with a different kind of power, but the darkness around us muted it, and Calliope let out a frustrated cry. “You can’t do this to me! She is nothing—”
“Then tell me,” said Cronus, “if she is nothing, why do you care?”
Calliope blustered, and James gripped my hand so tightly that I thought my fingers would fall off. If I had any chance of getting him out of here alive, we had to go now. I couldn’t be responsible for anything happening to him, but I couldn’t leave either.
And then, in the emptiness, a midnight voice surrounded me.
Go.
Tears stung my eyes. Henry. There was nothing I could do and he knew it. If I stayed, Calliope would kill me. Like our picnic in the woods when she’d revealed herself to be the traitor, she was too emotional, too irrational for me to depend on her thinking clearly. She’d known then that she would out herself as a murderer to the entire council, and she hadn’t cared. I had no guarantee she wouldn’t call Cronus’s bluff now.
I focused all my energy on Henry and pushed my thoughts toward him. I love you. Don’t ever forget that.
Without giving myself a chance to change my mind, I clutched James’s hand and disappeared.
We landed on an abandoned beach as the sun dipped into the ocean. I sank onto the sand, and James gathered me up, letting me cry into his shoulder without complaint.
I’d left them. I’d sworn I would never abandon Henry, and the first chance I’d had, I’d done it anyway. If I’d talked to him before Cronus’s deadline, we could have come up with a plan together. We didn’t need the council’s permission to act, and I’d leapt without thinking once again. This time it had cost me my family.
“I’m never going to see them again, am I?” I said. The tide washed up inches from our toes, and we didn’t have more than a few minutes before we’d miss our window to return to Olympus. The thought of going back without Henry and Milo ate away at me until there was nothing left but skin and bone. Walter and Dylan were right. The entire council was right. I wasn’t ready to help them, and the more I did, the worse things got.
“What happened to you?” said James.
“What do you mean?”
He pulled back enough to look at me, his eyes searching mine. “You’re not the girl I met in Eden. She didn’t break down into tears every time something didn’t go her way.”
“I’m not—” I started, but then another tear rolled down my face. “My family’s gone. No one’s letting me help, and every time I try, I screw things up even worse.”
He threaded his fingers through mine. “Since when did you ever need anyone’s permission?”
I wiped my cheeks and squinted into the sunset. “So what else am I supposed to do? I’ve already tried everything. My deal with Cronus fell through, and even if it hadn’t, all it would’ve done was secure Milo’s safety. It wouldn’t have changed anything in the bigger picture, and the only way I’m ever going to see them again is if we win this war.”
“So help us win.”
I sniffed. “How?”
“Think,” he said. “You know Cronus’s weaknesses better than any of us. You know his strengths. You know him.”
“Bullshit. The original six fought him for a decade. I’ve never so much as arm wrestled with him.”
“No,” agreed James, “but you’re the only one who’s ever stopped him in his tracks.”
That moment in the Underworld, as Cronus had chased us through a desert. I’d thought I was going to di
e then, too. Would that have made any of this easier?
No, it wouldn’t have, because the original six would’ve never escaped that cavern in Tartarus. They would still be there, unconscious and slowly dying while Cronus and Calliope figured a way out. Everything would’ve been different.
But even my one act of courage had been a supreme act of stupidity. Cronus was free because I’d walked into his cavern when Persephone had specifically told me not to, and I’d given Calliope the leverage she’d needed to get Henry to open the gate.
“Think,” said James. “Why didn’t Cronus kill you then?”
“Because he didn’t know me. Because I—”
“Because you were kind to him when the rest of us were doing our best to keep him chained.”
“Because I promised I’d open the gate.”
“Yes,” said James. “And he stopped because he trusted you.”
“Look where that’s gotten us,” I said disdainfully.
“Yes. Look where your stubbornness and refusal to give up got us. We have a fighting chance now. It wasn’t the way we imagined, but Calliope would’ve discovered a way to free Cronus eventually. She had damn near close to eternity, just like the rest of us.”
I drew my knees to my chest. “What happens if Cronus wipes out all of humanity and you all lose your purposes?”
James hesitated, and fear sparked between us. He drew me closer. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe you won’t fade,” I said. “I mean, there’s always going to be love and travel and music and gardens and—and everything. Maybe—”
“Kate.” James’s voice rose above the crash of the ocean, and I fell silent. “Don’t worry about the worst-case scenario. Come up with a way to make sure that never happens. Focus on doing what you do best and fight for the people you love.”
He stood, and I rose with him, my knees shaking. “No pressure or anything,” I said, and despite everything, he gave me a boyish grin.
“On the contrary, you’re a diamond. You shine under pressure.”
I half laughed, half choked. “And you’re a smelly block of cheese. Take me back before the sun sets completely.”
James clasped his hand in mine, his grasp firm and unwavering. “Promise me you’ll fight. No matter how bad things get, you won’t break down and let Cronus and Calliope win.”
I shook my head minutely. I couldn’t promise that. I would fight for as long as I could, but Calliope had my family, and after two failed bargains, Cronus would undoubtedly be hell-bent on destroying humanity and everything that had ever been familiar to me. How long before my mother faded? James? The entire council?
I couldn’t fight if I had nothing left to fight for.
Then do not let that happen.
Henry’s voice echoed through my mind, and I looked around wildly, searching for any sign of him. Of course he wasn’t there, though. He was Calliope’s prisoner now—a willing prisoner who didn’t know that when he kissed her, when he caressed her, he didn’t really feel any of it. He didn’t know it was a trick, but I did, and I couldn’t leave him to suffer through an eternity of her sickening games.
I won’t, I thought in return, hoping like crazy it reached him.
“Promise me, Kate,” said James, and I blinked. “Promise me that you won’t give up on your family.”
Steel slowly wrapped around my spine. He was right. Henry needed me. Milo needed me. Whatever it took, there was no way in hell I was going to let Calliope win. “Fine, I promise. Now let’s go convince Walter to stop being an egotistical bastard.”
James snorted. “Your words, not mine.”
We arrived in the center of the throne room. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but the full council—minus Calliope, Henry and Nicholas—wasn’t it.
Everyone was there, even Ella with her silver arm. Her face was pinched as if she smelled something disgusting, and she stared into the center of the throne room, where James and I stood.
“What’s going on?” I said, turning to Walter. He, too, stared into the center of the circle with a stony expression, but James pulled me aside, and Walter’s gaze didn’t waver. He wasn’t staring at us.
Instead, exactly where we’d been standing, was Ava. Or at least a version of Ava. Her form looked substantial, but only seconds before, we’d occupied the same space. She wasn’t really there.
James let go of me and sat down, and I followed his lead, trying to ignore the pain in my chest when I saw Henry’s empty throne. When I settled in mine, my mother took my hand.
“I’m sorry,” said Ava in a choked voice, as clear as if she were really standing there. Golden light flowed from four of the thrones—the remaining original siblings, including my mother. Each ran into the center of the circle, meeting where Ava stood. The council was doing something that made her being there possible. “I want to come home.”
“You cannot come home,” said Walter in a painfully neutral voice. I had good reason to never want to talk to her again—and after what she’d done to Henry, that stabbing hatred at the very sight of her returned to me, and this time I was positive Calliope had nothing to do with it. Walter was her father though, and she was his favorite. Why didn’t he care?
“I can’t do this anymore.” Ava’s voice broke, and she turned to look each council member in the eye. When ours met, she winced, and I held her stare.
“Can’t do what anymore?” It wasn’t my place to speak, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Can’t assist a mass murderer in getting his way? Can’t do laundry for someone who steals innocent babies?”
Her lower lip trembled, and I scraped my nails against my throne. I’d had to risk my life, my family, everything to earn a spot on the council, to prove I was worthy of ruling over the Underworld with Henry. Yet they were allowed to hurt as many people as they wanted so long as it meant they got their way. I was sick of it.
“Please,” she begged, her hands shaking as she stepped toward me, but the golden light wouldn’t hold her, and she was forced to return to the center. “Kate, I love you— Calliope made me— Please understand, I never wanted any of this—”
“There comes a point in your life when you have to make a choice,” I said. “You can keep going down the easy path no matter where it takes you, everyone else be damned, or you can fight for what you believe in.”
“I am fighting!” she exploded. “I’m doing this for Nicholas and Milo and Henry and all of you—don’t you get that? Do you think I wanted to walk away from my family like this? I have a son, too, Kate. I know what it’s like to love someone as much as you love Milo. Do you think if I had any other choice—”
“Enough.” Walter’s voice, low and anything but neutral now, echoed through the throne room. “You have said your piece, daughter, and now you must allow the council to—”
“Screw the council.” Ava didn’t so much as look at her father, and if she’d been more than an illusion, I had no doubt the room would have crackled with power. As it was, no one dared to speak. Even Walter looked as if she’d slapped him across the face.
“I want you to listen to me, Katherine Winters,” she said. “Everything I have done, every word, every look, every betrayal, has been to help our family. Doing the right thing doesn’t always mean acting like a saint. Sometimes it means getting your hands dirty and doing the thing you hate most so other people might have an easier time of it. So other people might not die.”
“If that’s your excuse, then how do you justify dragging Milo into it?” I snapped.
“He was never supposed to be part of it. He was never supposed to exist.”
“But he does. He’s here, and now Calliope has Henry, too. All because of you.”
The council remained silent, and not even my mother reacted. So I’d been right. They all knew exactly what he’d planned to do, and none of them had stopped him.
Ava took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said in a measured voice, and it was such a change from seconds before that it took m
e a moment to understand she was sincere. Something ugly surfaced inside me. I didn’t want her to apologize. I wanted her to fight. “None of this should’ve happened. No matter what stupid mistakes I’ve made...I’m sorry for those, Kate. I’m sorry to all of you for leaving you. I never wanted to, but like I said, I didn’t have a choice—”
“Ava.” Walter’s voice reverberated through the throne room.
“You’ve done enough, Daddy. It’s my turn to talk now,” she said with inhuman quietness. “I’m sorry for everything. I love you all, and I did what I thought I had to do. But Henry’s here to protect the baby now, and I can’t do anything more to help Nicholas.”
Around the circle, several council members glanced at Nicholas’s empty copper throne. “You are willing to abandon him, knowing it may mean his death?” said Walter.
“I’m more of a danger to him if I stay and give Calliope the chance to use him to keep controlling me,” said Ava. “He wants me to go, and the only way I can help save him is to return to Olympus. Cronus has decided he’s going to escape the island on the winter solstice, and given what he’s shown himself to be capable of, I believe him. I want to help.”
In that moment, she didn’t sound like the Ava I knew—the selfish, simpering goddess of love who couldn’t prioritize what others needed before what she wanted. She sounded old. Haunted. Like the other members of the council did when they were so deep into planning that they let their masks slip. It was one more reminder of who and what they were—ancient. Powerful. Wiser than I could ever imagine, but shortsighted and close-minded, as well. Cut off from the real world, from the humanity they struggled to defend. Stubborn and as passionate about protecting their own interests as they were about doing their jobs.
That was Ava. Stubborn and passionate, and now lost to me as completely as our father was.
“I am sorry, daughter,” said Walter, but he didn’t sound very sorry at all. “We cannot pretend to know Calliope’s intentions, and we must act cautiously. It is possible that Nicholas remains alive only because Calliope believes he is the key to controlling you. If you abandon her, there is no telling what she might do to him.”