I brushed my knuckles gently against Milo’s cheek. He may have had my eyes, but he had Henry’s dark hair. And his ears. “Whatever happened on the island between you and Calliope...”
He tensed. “Kate, I—”
“It doesn’t matter.” I looked at him. “You did what you had to do to protect Milo. I know that.”
His hand slid up my back, and he squeezed my shoulder. “Nothing happened. Ava never used her powers on me. I was pretending the entire time.”
I leaned forward and kissed him. His lips were sweet against mine, and I didn’t let him go until Milo whimpered between us. We both knew pretending meant he’d somehow had to convince her he loved her. Part of me burned with the need to hear everything, but none of it mattered, and I wasn’t about to let Calliope hurt us from the grave. Whatever Henry had endured, we would get through it together. One day, if he wanted to talk about it, I would listen. But until then, I would pretend I believed him. To protect and love him the way he protected and loved me.
We were a family, and no one, not Calliope, not Cronus, not even death itself, could take that from us.
Chapter 20
Eternal
Sometime during the night, I untangled myself from Henry and slipped out of bed. He slept soundly, clearly exhausted after the battle, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fall asleep.
Reaching into the cradle, I touched Milo’s forehead to make sure he was still there. Reassured by the rise and fall of his chest, I padded out of the room, closing the door behind me. Even in the dead of night, the ceiling glowed brilliant blue, and the magnificent sunset swirled underneath me.
I didn’t consciously decide where to go. One minute I stood in the hallway, and the next my feet carried me into the throne room in search of someone else. After the evening we’d all had, chances were slim anyone else would be awake, but it was worth a shot.
In the entranceway, I stopped cold. The sky wasn’t blue here; instead the ceiling was dark as night, and the stars twinkled above us. The thrones were gone, and in their place a glass coffin rested on a raised platform. Inside, dressed in a white gown with roses in her hair, lay Ava.
Without thinking, I crossed the room and pressed my palm against the glass. Her lips were the color of cherries, and in the dim light, I could almost see her smile.
A lump formed in my throat. I opened my mouth to say something—to apologize, to promise I’d never forget her, to forgive her again and again until the universe had no choice but to believe me—but I couldn’t force out the words. She couldn’t hear them anyway, and I’d said it all in her last moments. She already knew.
“She isn’t really there.”
I scowled. “Leave me alone.”
A rustle of fabric, soft footsteps, and Walter stood by my side, looking every bit as aged as he had on the rooftop. “It’s a reflection of sorts, but more realistic than a simple picture.”
I pulled my hand from the glass and shifted half a step away from him. “Where’s her body?”
“Gone,” he said. “Back into the universe.”
“Then why is this—this hologram here?” The empty throne, the empty bedroom, the empty hole in our lives where she’d once been—as if all of that wasn’t enough to remind us she was gone.
Walter inhaled deeply, and as he exhaled, faint thunder rumbled through the throne room. “She lived a very long time, and her life touched many others. Those who wish to say their goodbyes will have the opportunity to do so.”
“Yet you aren’t doing the same for Calliope.”
He winced. “My wife chose her path. She chose to separate herself from the council. Ava did not.”
“No, she didn’t,” I said. “You chose it for her. You’re the reason she died.”
Walter stared into the coffin. “I have made many mistakes—”
“Mistakes?” My snarl echoed from one end of the room to the other. “Ava’s dead, and all you can say is that you made some mistakes?”
Walter faltered. Though he tried to draw himself up to his full height, tears spilled down his face, defeating any intention he had of intimidating me. “It is not your place to say—you could not possibly know the circumstances—”
“I know Ava’s dead. I know she only joined Calliope because you told her to.”
“For Nicholas,” he said. “For the greater good.”
“Is this worth the greater good?” I gestured to the coffin. “Is this worth knowing that if it hadn’t been for you, Ava would still be alive?”
“She would not be alive,” he said hoarsely. “None of us would be. Henry would have never joined the fight, and Cronus would have won. It is as simple as that.”
“Rhea won the war, not Henry. He wasn’t even fighting on our side for most of the battle.”
“Yes, he was,” said Walter. “On the rooftop, he was countering Calliope’s abilities. A difficult thing for any of us to do, even more difficult without being discovered, but he managed. When he came to us with your plans to surrender to Cronus, we knew what he intended to do, and with Ava aware that Calliope wanted to take Henry as well, we set up the ruse. All along, he was feeding us information about her and Cronus’s tactics. We would have never stood a fighting chance without his help. Or without Ava’s help. She is the reason—you are the reason he agreed to fight at all.”
“There had to be another way to keep Ava out of it. There’s always another way.”
“If there was, do you think I would have risked her?” said Walter. “Do you truly believe if there had been any feasible alternative to draw Henry into the war without her—”
“You could have asked. You could have given him time. You didn’t have to play Calliope’s games and risk everyone’s lives.” At last I faced him. “We’re not pieces on a chessboard, but that’s how you treated us, and now you’re paying for it. We all are. So I hope whatever lies you’ve told yourself keep you warm at night, because no one in their right mind is going to bother with you once everyone knows what you did.”
He touched the casket, and all the fight drained out of him, leaving a husk of a man where the King of the Gods had stood only moments before. “I know what I deserve. I do not need anyone, you or the Fates or the universe itself, to detail the mistakes I have made. I am paying for it now, and I will pay for it throughout the rest of my eternal existence. If that is not the hell you wish for me, then I do not know how much more I could possibly hurt to satisfy your desire for vengeance, daughter.”
“I am not your daughter.”
Walter bowed his head. Every instinct I had screamed for me to leave before he retaliated somehow—emotionally, physically, it didn’t matter—but my feet refused to move. This was the longest conversation I’d ever had with the man who was supposedly my father, and this was what it’d come to.
“You are my daughter, as surely as Ava was,” he said quietly. “She was the only one of my children who ever bothered to see me for who I really am. The others only ever saw power. Calliope only ever saw a philanderer. But Ava understood the love I have for you all. She understood that a man can feel things he does not express, and that lack of expression does not deplete that love.”
“I know that.” She’d been the one to insist Henry loved me no matter what. “You realize if you’d never cheated, none of this would’ve ever happened?”
“If I’d never cheated, you would have never been born.” He looked at me with lightning in his eyes, and I held his stare. “James would have never been born. Ella and Theo, Irene, Persephone—I loved my wife. My misdeeds are not her fault. But I will not apologize, to her or to any other, for bringing my children into this world. Including you.”
“Then you’re no better than she is. Love doesn’t give you a free pass to hurt your family. You do remember what family is, right?”
He tilted his head. “And what do you mean by that?”
“You never came to see me.” I dug my nails into my palms. If I could draw blood, then maybe the fury
trying to claw its way out of me would have some release. “You knew what I was going through after Mom was diagnosed, but you didn’t care.”
“I have many mortal children,” he said slowly. “There was no guarantee you would pass the test, and I did not want to risk forging a connection with you in case you did not.”
“Why, because you were worried about your precious secret being revealed?”
“Because after everything your mother told me about you, I knew that if I came to see you, I would love you instantly. The pain of losing children I have never known is hard enough. But to lose one I love...” He stroked the edge of the glass coffin.
My shoulders shook with silent sobs. “I needed you. I needed someone to tell me it would be okay. I needed to know I wasn’t alone, and you couldn’t bother with me because you were too afraid to love me?”
“The council has watched over you from the beginning, playing bit parts in your life. Loving and protecting you as we did in Eden. You were never alone, Kate, even in your darkest of days.”
“But I didn’t know,” I burst. “It doesn’t make any difference if I never knew.”
“I am sorry.” His voice broke. “I am sorry for never being the father you needed. I am sorry for not being the king my people deserve. And I am so sorry for letting my daughter make the ultimate sacrifice. I do not expect you or anyone else in this world to forgive me now that she is gone, but I hope one day, for Ava’s sake, you will allow me to be your family. To be your father, as I should have been when you were growing up. It is what Ava would have wanted for us both.”
I wanted to spit in his face, to tell him to go screw himself and find another daughter who was willing to love such a manipulative creep, but the truth of what he was saying froze me in place. He was right. This was what Ava would have wanted. Not only because I needed a father, but because Walter needed a daughter who loved him despite his flaws, who understood him and gave him a chance. I’d done my best to show everyone, even Calliope and Cronus, that compassion and understanding. Ava would’ve wanted me to do the same for him. To not fail Walter like I’d failed her.
“You’re asking for more than I know how to give,” I said quietly, and all of the fight drained out of me. I focused on the image of Ava’s face again. “You hurt me. You hurt my mother, and you hurt our family.”
He set a tentative hand on my shoulder. “I know. And I will spend eternity doing what I can to make it up to you. I cannot promise much, but I do promise that you will always have me—you will always have all of us. As it should have been from the beginning.”
Pressing my swollen lips together, I nodded. After all the pain he’d caused, I couldn’t forgive him as we stood there side by side, but someday I would try. For Ava.
* * *
The glass coffin remained in the throne room for three days, and the image of Ava was never alone. At first only the council members came to see her, each of us wanting to be alone with her. After we’d all had our turn, Walter opened up the portal to Olympus, allowing others to come through without assistance.
As the hours passed and news of her death spread, gods I’d never seen before appeared in Olympus to pay their respects. Some of the names were familiar, but nothing prepared me for the sheer number Ava had touched in her life. The throne room was always full in those three days of mourning, and the veil of sadness only grew heavier with each new face.
A boy with blond curls kept vigil by the coffin, never speaking a word. Both Nicholas and Dylan joined him at different times, and while he sat stiffly at Dylan’s side, the boy seemed to relax in Nicholas’s presence.
“Eros. Eric now,” said Henry as we lingered near the hallway and watched. “Her oldest son.”
My vision blurred, and I had to excuse myself. I knew how deeply Ava had touched the rest of the council, but seeing the paths her long life had forged, the family she’d formed in the millennia she’d lived—it only reopened wounds I was sure would never fully heal.
On the third day, dawn crept across the starry ceiling. Walter called us all together, and we stood in a circle with the other gods, watching as the glass coffin filled with light. At last, as the sunrise blended away the last vestiges of night, the casket disappeared.
While the rest of the earthbound gods left one by one, Eros remained. The thrones returned, circling the spot where Ava’s reflection had stood only moments before, and we each settled into our proper place. I cradled Milo, who slept soundly, and tried to ignore the empty seats on either side of Walter. Nicholas, the worse for wear but healing, set his hand on the armrest of the seashell throne that had been Ava’s. As he brushed the tears from his cheeks, I looked away.
“Brothers and sisters, sons and daughters,” said Walter into the silence. “While we will forever mourn the loss of our own, the time has come to acknowledge that their positions among us must be filled.”
I glanced at my mother. Replacing Calliope made sense—like Henry couldn’t rule the Underworld alone, surely the same was true for Walter and his realm. But Ava?
She patted my hand. All in due time.
“I will handle the replacement of my queen,” said Walter. “In the meantime, I ask that Diana take the role temporarily and assist me as needed.”
“Of course,” said my mother. “Whatever I can do to help.”
Walter inclined his head. “Thank you. As for Ava’s place, we must once again scour the world to find one who is worthy. It will not be an easy task. Ava was...” He paused. “She was irreplaceable. We cannot pretend otherwise, but we must continue on. Kate.”
“Yeah?” I said, and my mother’s hand tightened around mine.
“I think it appropriate that you take Ava’s place. Temporarily,” he added. “Until we find someone capable of filling her role.”
“What of her duties in the Underworld?” said Henry before I could protest. “I need her by my side, especially now, with the kingdom left unattended for so long.”
“I am not asking for a great commitment on her part,” said Walter. “Only enough to tide us over until we have found a new goddess. She can handle it during her summer months away.”
I shook my head. “I’m staying in the Underworld during the summer now. I don’t want to leave Milo.” Or Henry, but that wasn’t the sort of excuse Walter would understand.
“It would be no great thing for you to focus on helping us with Ava’s duties in the meantime,” said Walter. “Of us all, you are best suited for the role, at least for a short period of time.”
A short period of time to Walter could have easily been a hundred years. “I can’t,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t replace her, and I can’t leave my family.”
“I’ll do it,” said Eros—Eric. Even though his voice was high and boyish, he’d featured prominently in a few of the myths I’d learned, which meant he couldn’t be that young, after all. “It’s what my mother would have wanted.”
“As generous an offer as it is,” said Walter, “you are not a member of the council. You do not have the ability.”
Eric’s face fell, and seeing his disappointment on top of his grief was a punch to the gut. “I’ll help him,” I blurted. “He can report to me, and I’ll make sure everything goes according to plan. Just as long as I don’t have to leave the Underworld for extended periods of time.”
Walter turned to Henry, who nodded once. “That is acceptable to me, so long as Kate is not forced into any position she does not feel she is ready for.”
“Very well,” said Walter. “In addition, I ask that Kate and Eric be in charge of finding a suitable candidate for a more permanent role.”
A goddess. He wanted us to find another goddess. Or a mortal to take the test and earn immortality the way I had. “How?”
He shrugged. “I do not particularly care how you handle it, only that it is done. Henry is familiar with the process. He can help you.”
Henry murmured his agreement, and just like that, it was up to me and Ava’s son to f
ind someone who could take over her role on the council—someone who couldn’t possibly exist.
Then again, Henry must’ve thought the same when he began his search for a new queen. If he could overcome his fears and hesitations, I could do the same. “Okay,” I said softly. “I’ll try.”
“I know you will,” said Walter. “And you will do wonderfully.”
That may have been stretching it, but I would do Ava justice. She deserved that much. Across the circle, James smiled at me, and I managed a small one in return. Even if I wasn’t up to the task, he would be there every step of the way. They would all be.
The council wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. Dylan would probably never like me. They would always give each other knowing looks I would never understand. Walter and I would probably spend most of forever butting heads, and it would be a long time before he saw me as an equal. But despite the fights, despite the lies, despite the frustration and secrets and eons of history I would never catch up on, they were my family now. And I wasn’t letting them go for anything.
* * *
Henry, Milo and I returned to the Underworld the next morning. Despite the gloominess of the caverns, there was nowhere else I would’ve rather been. We were home.
As we entered our red-and-gold bedroom, I stopped in the doorway and gazed around, swallowing the lump in my throat. Ava had decorated it before I’d arrived the year before. How long would it be before everything stopped reminding me of her?
Never, I hoped. I’d keep my promise to remember her always even if the guilt and pain killed me.
Henry bowed his head until his face was only inches from mine. “It will get easier.”
“Promise?” I said.
“Yes.” He pressed his lips to my forehead. “I cannot tell you it will ever go away, but that pain is part of you now. It is part of all of us. And because we know it, because we have had to survive it, we will do what we must to make sure we never have to experience it again.”
I exhaled. “I miss her. I don’t know how Walter expects us to just replace her like that.”