The Goddess Test Boxed Set

by Aimee Carter

  “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 me 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.”

  A murmur rose from the other members of the council, but no one objected. I didn’t blame them. As much as it pained me to admit it, Walter was right.

  “You will remain with Calliope until given further instructions,” said Walter. “You will carry on as normal, with no sabotage or acts of ill will toward her. She must believe that your intentions are pure.”

  “But you haven’t even discussed it!” cried Ava, and Walter raised his hand, cutting her off.

  “There is no need. Two of our own are now at the mercy of Calliope and Cronus, and we cannot upset the balance until we are ready for a fight. We will heed Cronus’s deadline, though we already expected it. Any further information you acquire will be useful to us, but do not give it at risk of the prisoners.”

  “I don’t count as a prisoner?” she said, her eyes watering. “Because I don’t fight the way you do, I’m not worth saving?”

  For a fraction of a second, Walter’s expression softened. “My dear, of course you are.”

  “I’ve done everything you asked me to,” said Ava. “I’ve risked my life, my integrity, my friends, all for false promises. Turns out you’re just as bad as Calliope is, Daddy. But at least she doesn’t pretend to be something she isn’t.”

  Stunned silence. Was she telling the t
ruth? Had he really asked her to do all of those things? Walter paled, but he didn’t argue, and that alone was an admission of guilt.

  So it wasn’t entirely Ava’s fault, after all. She wasn’t blameless, not by a long shot, but she wasn’t alone in this either. Henry had been right. Walter had known I was pregnant. He’d known where I was and what was happening. He’d known, and he hadn’t done a damn thing to stop it.

  And the things he’d made Ava do, knowing how it would affect everything, knowing how the rest of the council would see her—how could he possibly hurt his own daughter like that?

  “I’ll agree to return to Calliope under your terms as long as you agree to fulfill one of mine,” said Ava. “I want to talk to Kate. Alone.”

  A murmur rose from the other members of the council, and my eyebrows shot up.

  “You know that is not possible,” said Walter. “It is draining enough for us to maintain this method of communication without Calliope and Henry.”

  “Then she can come to me,” said Ava.

  “Out of the question.” My mother’s voice rose above the others, and they fell silent. “I will not have her risk herself again. It is a miracle she managed to get out of there in the first place.”

  “I know how her visions work,” said Ava. “I know she can see me and hear everything I say. I don’t need her to talk back to me. I just need her to listen. And I won’t agree to your terms until Kate agrees to mine.”

  Whatever she wanted to talk to me about, she couldn’t say it in front of the others. Which meant she thought she couldn’t trust them—or at least couldn’t trust her father.

  Something about Henry? About Milo? Had she found a way to smuggle him to me somehow?

  Hope surrounded me, so fragile and delicate that a single word could have shattered it into pieces. It was possible, and because it was possible, I would do it.

  I nodded once, and Ava deflated, as if she’d used up everything she had to make it to that moment. “Tomorrow at sunset,” she said. “In the nursery. I trust you to be there.”

  She had no way of knowing if I would be, but she was smart enough to know that she had me hooked, and I wouldn’t miss it.

  “I love you,” she said, and this time it wasn’t directed at any one person. Instead the words whispered through the council, touching each of us as they passed. “Goodbye for now.” The golden light in the sunset floor flashed, and she was gone.

  For nearly a minute, no one spoke. Not to talk about Ava, not to ask James and me what had happened on the island, nothing. Finally Ella and Theo rose. “We must return,” said Theo. “Thank you for including us, Father.”

  Walter nodded, and confusion washed over me. They weren’t here to fight? “What about the war?” I blurted. “I thought—”

  “We are doing what we can on earth,” said Theo. “We’ve made overtures to many of the minor gods, but not even Nike will support us, not without Henry.”

  “And the twins?” said Walter. “I thought you were making headway with them.”

  Ella frowned. “Lux was receptive until you turned down his terms. Now they’ve disappeared again, and it was hard enough tracking them down the first time around. I’m not going through that again.”

  James’s expression grew distant. “They’re in Paris.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” said Theo. “We can’t force them to help. Even the Fates have gone into hiding. Everyone’s scared, and nothing we say or do can smooth things over. They’re convinced if they don’t help us, Cronus might spare them.”

  “Fools,” muttered Walter. “Very well. Keep me updated as you can.”

  Theo and Ella nodded in unison. A split second before they disappeared, her eyes met mine, and I swore I saw pity.

  “Come,” said my mother, and we both stood. “You’ve had a long day, and I’m afraid it isn’t going to get any easier. You need to rest.”

  “You, too,” I said, taking her hand. As we walked down the hall, her shoulders slumped, and she paled with the effort it took to make it to her room. I wrapped my arm securely around her. After all she and I had been through together, after all we’d managed to survive, how long would it be before Cronus took her from me, too?

  Chapter 14

  Chains of Fog

  I told my mother everything that had happened in Calliope’s palace, and though she didn’t confirm my fears, I knew I was right. She’d known about Henry’s plan—maybe she’d even helped him. And from the way she kept touching my face, it was easy to tell she was glad it was him Calliope had taken, not me.

  “We’ll figure it out,” she murmured as we curled up on her bed together. “We’ve made it this far, after all.”

  I wasn’t sure who she meant. She and I? The council? Did it even matter? This would end one way or the other, and no one, not even my mother, could reassure me that everything would be okay. Not this time.

  It took me ages to fall asleep, and when I did, I dreamed of Henry whispering words I didn’t understand. Dozens of questions swirled through my restless mind, but that voice offered no answers. Why had he gone through with this, knowing what it might mean? Had he done it purely to protect Milo? I’d had it handled, more or less—I hadn’t anticipated Calliope interrupting, but Henry couldn’t have possibly known she would either.

  He should’ve stayed behind. He would’ve been much more useful as a weapon Cronus and Calliope didn’t know about. He might’ve been the weight that tipped the balance away from them and toward the council instead, and he’d given that up to turn himself over to Calliope.

  I wanted to be mad. I wanted to be furious, to rip the room apart until there was nothing left. It wouldn’t accomplish anything though, and the best I could do was exactly what James had asked of me: to focus my efforts on thinking of something that the council hadn’t.

  Right. Wasn’t pride the very thing that had nearly lost me Henry and my mother and immortality in the first place?

  But the members of the council weren’t exactly angels either. They could do whatever they damn well pleased, and if they could cheat, so could I. Pride it was then, along with a side of wrath for good measure. If there was a way out of this, I would find it.

  After a restless night and an even more fitful day, the sun set on Greece, and at last it was time. As the council disappeared from the throne room to battle against an enemy they no longer had a prayer of defeating, I closed my eyes and slid into my vision.

  Ava was waiting for me in the nursery, exactly where she’d said she would be. Milo wasn’t in his crib, though. Ava’s arms were empty, and Cronus wasn’t standing in the shadows rocking him either. Henry must have had him then.

  Peering anxiously out the door, Ava pressed her lips together, oblivious that I was waiting. I glanced over her shoulder and followed her gaze to a window in the hallway. Through it I saw half a dozen small shapes attacking an opaque fog. The evening’s battle had begun.

  “Kate?” said Ava, turning so suddenly that I didn’t have time to move out of her way. She walked right through me. “Are you here?”

  I didn’t bother to reply. She wouldn’t be able to hear me, so it was useless.

  She stared into the empty nursery, and her shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s true. I swear to you I didn’t know what Calliope was planning.”

  This was it? Another round of apologies? I huffed and closed my eyes, ready to return to Olympus. I’d come. I’d listened. I wasn�
�t going to waste my time with this any longer.

  “I know the last thing you want to do is trust me,” echoed Ava as I slipped back to Olympus. “But I need to show you something.”

  I snapped back into the nursery, hungry with hope. Glancing around as if she wasn’t sure I was there, Ava exited the room, and I followed on her heels. She led me down the hallway and the narrow staircase I’d used the day before. We stopped on the same level that held my prison, and my stomach exploded with butterflies. Where was Ava taking me? Calliope couldn’t possibly be holding Henry down here, could she?

  Ava paused at a door. Nicholas’s room. The clang of metal against metal ripped through the silence, mingling with his screams. I flinched, but Ava pushed the door open and stormed inside. I hurried after her.

  “You swore you’d stop,” she said, and it took me a moment to realize she wasn’t talking to me. “I did what you told me to. Now you hold up your end of the bargain.”

  Calliope stood in the middle of a dank room with shelves and worktables along the edge. Discarded scraps of metal and dozens of weapons—some glowing weakly and others nothing more than lumps of steel—littered every surface.

  Nicholas’s forge. This was where he’d made that damn dagger.

  Right beside the dying fire in the center of the room, someone had welded a metal chair to the floor with opaque fog. Nicholas slumped against it, bloody and broken in ways gods should’ve never been. He was half-conscious, his face slashed and purple and his body a mess of cuts and bruises.

  “Your side of our deal hasn’t been finished yet,” said Calliope. “Kate is still alive.”

  Ava scowled. “That has nothing to do with—”

  “I don’t care.” Calliope’s voice sliced through the air like a scythe. “You will do what I say, or I will kill Nicholas. That is all there is to it.”