by Aimee Carter
“He’s never been important.” As far as I was concerned, he never would be.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said James with a wry smile. “He is King of the Gods and head of the council, after all. We’re all his children. You know that.”
“So what, are you saying I’m stupid for not figuring it out sooner?” I said, and though James shook his head, I still felt like an idiot. He was right. He and Ava had told me that every younger member of the council was one of Walter’s children.
“You’re not stupid,” said James. “Not at all. Walter, he’s the stupid one for not stepping in to act like your father when Diana told us her mortal body had cancer. Your mother wanted him to,” he added. “So don’t be pissed off at her for this, all right? She fought hard to get him to show up. Phillip even volunteered to step up as your uncle, but in the end, Walter decided going through that alone would give you a better chance of passing the tests.”
“He’s a bastard,” I whispered, half expecting a bolt of lightning to tear through the sky and knock us out of the air.
“Most of the time,” agreed James. “He doesn’t understand emotions well, I guess. Wasn’t a great father to any of us, except for maybe Ava, and she was adopted. Can’t blame him too much, though. He didn’t exactly have the greatest role model either.”
That didn’t make up for abandoning me when he knew I’d needed him, but it did help to know that I was part of the rule rather than the exception. “Good to know I didn’t miss out on anything,” I mumbled.
James snorted. “Hardly. He makes Henry look like a clingy, doe-eyed schoolgirl.”
At least I knew Henry was a good father, and in the end, that was what mattered—that Milo had a dad. My childhood was already over. His was just beginning, and I wasn’t about to let him go through the same thing I’d endured. He would have a father, one who loved him, one he saw every day. I would make sure of it.
“We need to talk about your visions now,” said James quietly. “Will you let me go with you and see?”
“Go with me? It’s not like I travel, you know. I’m still here when I have them.”
“You can take someone with you if you want, though. Persephone did it with me sometimes.”
“I’m sure she did,” I said, rolling my eyes.
He groaned. “Not like that. I mean—you can slip into it now, right? You’ve gained control?”
After nine months of nothing else to do? “Yeah, I’ve got it down.”
He set his hand over mine again, and this time I didn’t pull away. “I don’t know how Persephone did it, exactly, but she described it to me as swimming through nectar. Instead of breaking the connection so she was alone, she took me with her.”
Right. Wasn’t helping. “If you need me to get there, then how did you manage to talk to me when I was there before?”
“That’s different. I did that mentally.” Like this.
His voice echoed in my head, louder than it’d ever been before, and I jerked away from him. “What was that?”
“Shh,” hissed someone in the seats behind us.
James laughed quietly, but there was nothing funny about this. “That was me, of course.”
“But how—” I stopped short and lowered my voice to a whisper. “How did you do that?”
“It’s easy. We can all speak mentally one on one. Not all at once, of course, because that would get crowded and very, very loud, but if we focus our thoughts on one person, we can do it.” He offered me his hand again. “You try.”
I hesitated. “How?”
“Just think of something, and push that thought my way.”
I closed my eyes and concentrated on the feel of his skin against mine. His hand was warm, his fingers impossibly smooth, and there was something comforting about it. Familiar.
This is crazy.
“We’re all a little crazy, when you think about it,” said James, and my eyes flew open.
“It worked?”
“Congratulations, you’ve mastered the art of thinking. Now let’s take this connection one step further. Go into your vision and take me with you.”
Apparently it was too much to hope for that he’d forget about invading my privacy like that. “It isn’t going to work. Why do you want to go with me anyway?”
“Several reasons,” he said in a cagey way that meant he was hiding something from me. Then again, I was fairly sure he always was.
“Like what?”
“So I can get a good idea of what the layout of Calliope’s fortress is like,” he said. “So I know where Calliope and Cronus spend their time. So I can see where—”
He stopped, and I frowned. “So you can see where what?” I said, and his expression turned distant.
“Did you ever meet Iris?” he said, and I shook my head. “She was another one of Walter’s messengers.”
“Was?”
He cleared his throat and stared at his fort of fries, but his heart didn’t seem to be in it anymore. “Calliope killed her the day Henry rescued you.”
My mouth opened, but for a long moment, nothing came out. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t known her; James’s pain crept through me as surely as if it were tangible. “I’m sorry,” I said at last. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through.”
“She was one of my best friends,” he said softly. “It’s different when you’re immortal—you always take people for granted. I mean, they’ll be there in a century or two, right? No need to tell them how you feel, because there’ll always be another opportunity.”
I squeezed his hand. “I’m sure she knew, even if you never got the chance.”
“Walter should’ve never sent her in the first place.” James took a shuddering breath, and at last he looked at me. I pretended not to notice the redness in his eyes. “I want to see where she died. But I also need to get an idea of what’s going on so the council can form a strategy. If we’re going to rescue Milo, we need to know where he is.”
“You’d really do that?” I said.
He gave me an odd look and smiled. “Of course. He’s your son.”
That was all I needed to hear. Tightening my grip on his fingers, I closed my eyes and concentrated on his hand, all the while sliding into my vision. He held me back though, as if we were moving through quicksand. This was impossible. “I can’t do it.”
You’re almost there. Keep going.
I pushed on. Milo’s warmth lingered in front of me, waiting, and I couldn’t disappoint him.
Finally, as if emerging from an endless ocean of mud, we surfaced together. I planted my feet firmly on the floor of the nursery, but James stumbled, and it took him a moment to right himself.
“Whoa. Forgot about the aftershock.” He glanced around the sunset nursery. Henry stood in the corner, feeding Milo with a bottle, and James’s eyes widened. “Pretend I’m not here.”
“What—” I began, but Henry turned toward me, a blank smile on his face. Anxiety pooled in my stomach. Was he fading? Was that why he was barely there anymore?
“Welcome back, Kate,” said Henry, his quiet voice somehow reverberating through the nursery, as if he were speaking in a deep valley. “Milo began to fuss.”
“Right,” I said, glancing at James. Wasn’t Henry going to say hi? “Sorry about leaving like that earlier. Something came up.”
Henry nodded once, his eyes unfocused. He barely seemed to notice he was holding Milo. “Nothing terrible, I hop
e.”
I shook my head. “Just lunch.”
James moved toward Henry, one slow step at a time, until he was barely half a foot away. Henry didn’t so much as blink. How could he see me and not know James was there?
Without saying a word, James slipped out of the nursery. Did he expect me to follow him? Or was he memorizing the hallway Milo was in? With luck he’d look out the window, too, else there was no way he’d know which level we were on. Unless Calliope hadn’t fixed the massive hole in the floor yet.
For the next several minutes, neither Henry nor I said anything. Instead I moved to his side and watched Milo eat. It wouldn’t be much longer before I would be the one holding the bottle for him. We were almost to Johannesburg, and from there it was a much shorter flight to Zimbabwe. As soon as Henry was healed and Rhea was on our side, we would end this war.
Movement near the doorway caught my eye. I looked up, expecting James to come sneaking back into the room. Instead a girl walked in, carrying a pile of blankets that obscured her face, but I would’ve recognized her anywhere.
Ava.
She set the blankets down on a dresser shoved in the corner, a new addition since Milo’s arrival, and she jumped. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
My mouth dropped open. She could see me? “What do you think I’m doing here?”
Instead of answering me, she hurried toward us, her arms outstretched. “If Calliope finds out you’ve been in here again, she’ll be livid. Give him to me.”
Without warning, she stepped right through me and took Milo from Henry’s arms. My insides turned to ice. She could see Henry, but she couldn’t see me.
And she was holding our son.
“Give him back,” I said, reaching for him, but of course my hands went straight through them both.
Henry held on to the bottle, and devoid of his meal, Milo began to wail. His cries were louder and healthier than they’d been the first few days, but as reassuring as that should’ve been, they fueled every instinct I had to help him.
“Henry.” I grabbed his hand. “Don’t let her take him away. He’s still hungry.”
Finally Henry blinked and shook his head slowly, as if pulling himself out of a daydream. “I am doing what has been asked of me,” he said to Ava, ignoring me. “I am taking care of my son.”
“He is not your son,” hissed Ava, cradling him to her chest and turning her back on Henry. Hot fury washed through me, replacing my astonishment.
“You bitch,” I snarled, advancing on Ava. I didn’t care that she had no idea I was there. I’d tried to see things her way, but if she was going to take Milo away from his father, if she was going to insist Calliope was his real mother—
“Kate?” James’s voice cut through my rage. “Don’t move. Don’t say anything.”
“Not this time,” I said, but my footsteps faltered. Ava hunched over Milo, as if she were shielding him with her body. From what? His own father? “She stole Milo straight out of Henry’s arms.”
“She’s only trying to protect him,” said James.
“Protect him?” I exploded. “That’s his father, and she’s stealing Milo—”
“She isn’t stealing him.”
“Look at her! Henry, why aren’t you—”
I whirled around to face him, but his expression was as blank as ever. Like he was nothing more than a lifeless wax model. “Henry?” I said uncertainly. “Henry, what’s—”
James stepped between us, and he glared at him with such hatred that I stopped in my tracks. “I’m sorry, Kate,” he said. “That’s not Henry.”
Chapter 6
Rhea
Not Henry.
The words rattled around in my head like they were stuck in a labyrinth and couldn’t find the way out.
“Of course that’s Henry,” I said. Who else would it be? He’d touched me. He’d stayed with our son. He’d done everything Henry would have done.
He hadn’t kissed me, though. Some of the things he’d said hadn’t sounded right—they hadn’t sounded like Henry. Something had felt wrong this entire time. I’d dismissed it as a consequence of my vision, of him barely hanging on to this world in the first place, but what if it wasn’t?
Cold horror filled me. The only person capable of mimicking him so completely—
Cronus.
Of course. Of course. I was an idiot, and all this time he’d played me. He’d taken care of Milo. He’d fed him when he wouldn’t take a bottle from anyone else. He’d rocked him to sleep. He’d stood with me for hours, watching Milo’s chest rise and fall steadily.
“Come on,” said James gently, taking my trembling hands. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I can’t.” I stared at the mockery that was Cronus in Henry’s form, and hot rage unlike anything I’d ever felt coursed through me. “I can’t leave Milo.”
“There’s nothing you can do for him here,” said James. “Ava will make sure nothing happens to him.”
Despite my bone-shaking fury, I knew Cronus wouldn’t hurt him either. Whatever reason he had for doing this, he’d been good to Milo so far, and James was right. There was nothing I could do, not when I couldn’t so much as touch the baby.
“We’ll go to the council about it as soon as we find Rhea,” promised James. “But right now I need to talk to you, and we can’t do it in front of him.”
I glared at Cronus over James’s shoulder. “He’s not listening. He’s practically a zombie.”
“He’s always listening.” He touched my shoulder. “Come on, before he snaps back and makes things worse.”
In other words, before he could threaten me into silence or inaction. After saying a silent goodbye to Milo, I closed my eyes and slid out of the nursery, fighting through the quicksand to return us to our reality.
After the salty Mediterranean breeze, the stale air of the plane smelled foreign. Beside me, James looked as pale as I felt, and hot tears ran down my face. James silently offered me a napkin from his tray. When I didn’t accept, he dabbed my cheeks for me.
“I should have known,” I whispered.
“It isn’t your fault,” said James. “Cronus could have fooled any of us, and you needed hope that Henry was out there somewhere. It isn’t unreasonable. It’s human.”
“I knew something was off. He kept saying strange things, he wouldn’t kiss me, and the way he could hold Milo when I couldn’t touch him...” I shook my head. “I should have known.”
“You do now, that’s the important part,” said James. “I need to know what you told him.”
A lump formed in my throat. “Everything.”
I’d told him about Rhea. I’d told him the council’s plans to fight. Everything they’d trusted me with, I’d blabbed directly to the enemy. Once again, because of my stupidity, any advantage we’d had over Cronus was gone.
James hugged me, and I stiffened. I didn’t deserve his sympathy. “It will be okay,” he said, an empty reassurance. Regardless of whether or not there was something he could do, he couldn’t guarantee everything would turn out all right. He couldn’t promise me that Henry would live or I would ever hold Milo or that the council would recapture Cronus and make sure Calliope never hurt anyone again. He couldn’t make up for the countless lives already lost because of me.
“I’m never going to see them again,” I whispered.
“Yes, you will. I’ll make sure you do.”
I curled up in my seat and rested
my head against his shoulder, lost within myself. I could only take so much before I broke, and Calliope knew it. Cronus knew it. Staying strong for my mother while she’d been dying had been easy—it was staying strong for myself that had been impossible. Now I had no one to stay strong for, not even Milo. Not even Henry.
James was staying strong for me, though. I owed it to him—and to Henry and Milo and my mother and everyone—to try not to crumble. I swallowed, and my dry throat protested. “Did he know you were there?”
He shook his head. “He can see you, but only because he expects you and has already forged that connection with you. He’ll know someone came because you were talking to me, but unless he figures out who I was, he won’t be able to see me if we go back again.”
“How did you know it wasn’t Henry?”
“I didn’t,” said James, running his fingers through my hair. “Not until I saw him. The only question is why?”
My chin trembled. “I did something really stupid.”
“How stupid?” said James, his hand stilling.
I pressed my lips together, fighting the urge to slip back into the sunset nursery. “I promised Cronus I would stay with him and—and be his queen if he didn’t kill anyone. And if he gave me Milo.”
James exhaled. “Oh, Kate.”
“I’m sorry.” I tried to draw away from him, but his arm around my shoulders tightened. “I’m so sorry, James. I had no idea. I thought— I didn’t know what I was thinking—”
“You were thinking you had a chance to do what you always do,” said James with kindness I didn’t deserve. “You were going to give yourself up in order to save the people you love. It’s a bit of a problem with you, you know.”
I sniffed. “I just wanted to see Milo again.”
“I know,” he murmured, kissing the top of my head. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“But all of those people—Athens—”
“—would have happened no matter what you did. Cronus always intended on causing as much destruction as possible. That has nothing to do with you, Kate, I promise.” He paused. “In fact, your deal could work for us.”
