Daphne opened her mouth to answer and shut it again.
“Did you just remember that you can’t lie to me anymore and decide to hold your tongue?” Helen scoffed.
“That’s right,” Daphne replied, her eyes hard. “And if you really want answers from me you’re going to have to land. If you kill me now, you’ll never know. I’m not going to say another word until you bring me back to Castor’s house.”
“All right,” Helen said, her lips tight with hatred. “But don’t think you’re any safer on the ground than you are up here.”
Helen flew them at an uncomfortably fast pace to the Delos house and felt Daphne squirm in her arms with fear. When they were still twenty feet up, Helen dumped Daphne and let her crash down onto the lawn. As she watched her mother do a shoulder roll to avoid breaking a leg, Helen realized that she’d landed on that same spot the first time Lucas took her flying.
Lucas. Not her cousin. Everything they’d gone through together, the way they’d tortured each other and pushed each other away, was based on a lie.
Helen pounded into the grass bare inches away from Daphne, knocking a great ditch into Noel’s backyard and showering Daphne with dirt. Helen had only felt this kind of hatred for one other being, and she’d sent him to Tartarus. While Daphne floundered over the uneven ground, trying to get away from her livid daughter, Helen grabbed her by the back of her jacket and hauled her up like she was handling a doll, and then tossed her onto more even ground.
“Start talking,” Helen ordered as she stalked toward her mother, who was scrambling away from her on hands and knees. “I want to know everything.”
“Helen!” Castor shouted, and a second later he was holding her arms and trying to pull her back. “What happened?” he asked, breathless with the effort to control her.
Helen could easily overpower Castor, but even as she considered doing just that, he spoke into her ear.
“It’s not worth it,” Castor said in sympathetic tone. “Whatever she did to you, it isn’t worth it. That’s what they want us to do, Helen. They want us to kill each other off, and then all of their problems are solved. Remember that.”
She did remember. It had happened in several of the lives she could recall. The worst instances burned the brightest.
She remembered when Arthur, the champion of the gods, had fought his nephew Mordred, the champion of Avalon. Two great men mortally wounded each other, and both were killed in one fight. Avalon dissolved into the mists, and Camelot crumbled, snuffing out the two brightest lights in an age of darkness. The only winners of that fight were the gods.
Helen relaxed and nodded to let Castor know she wasn’t going to kill her mother. He released her, and she turned to see Noel had joined her husband.
“What’s going on?” Noel said, looking at the torn-up yard. “Please. Come inside and calm down.”
“She lied. I’m not Ajax’s daughter. I’m Jerry’s,” Helen said in a robotic voice. “Lucas and I aren’t cousins.”
“How?” Noel asked. She and Castor exchanged confused looks. “Lucas heard her say—”
“That we were all family,” Helen interrupted, figuring out how Daphne had done it. “That’s what she said, word for word, in front of Lucas. And technically, she’s right. All the gods are related, so we are, too—distantly.” She stopped and swallowed around the choked feeling in her throat. “I’m the one who told Lucas I was Ajax’s daughter when he and I were alone, not her.”
Helen paused, remembering how she’d almost given in to Lucas in the greenhouse, right before she’d fed him her mother’s big lie. She remembered how Lucas had kissed her as if he could breathe her in through his skin. How he’d tugged at her clothes as he’d guided her down to the ground so gently. She could still feel him, still see the shape of his big shoulders over her, and she knew that the moment when she pushed him off of her was the moment that had decided her whole life.
Lucas. Her home. The mansion she’d paid for a million times over but hadn’t lived in yet.
She and Lucas were meant to be together. They should have been together that night, but instead, she’d pushed away the biggest blessing of her life because of her mother. Hate hit her like a cramp, and Helen hovered somewhere between sickness and pain.
“I believed it, so Lucas heard the truth, even though it’s a lie.” Helen finished in a low voice, trying to control the almost physical need to punch her mother.
“My father used to do that to me,” Castor admitted, like he understood what Helen was feeling. “He’d make me believe a lie, then send me to tell Tantalus so all my brother would hear was the truth—the truth as I understood it. That’s the only way to sidestep a Falsefinder. Turn the people who trust you the most into patsies.”
“Ajax told me that Paris used to do it to all of you to sidestep Tantalus’s talent,” Daphne whispered. “Where do you think I got the idea from?” She and Castor shared a look, recalling something that they both seemed to remember.
“Well, you’re out of patsies, Mother,” Helen said bitterly. “Get up.”
“Helen,” Castor said, trying to remind her to stay calm. Helen ignored him and kept her mounting rage focused on her mother.
“Stand up and tell me why you did this to me.”
Daphne looked up at her, but before Helen could get an answer, they all heard a commotion coming from inside the Delos house—the sounds of gasps and shouts.
“Everyone, get in here!” Jason yelled out to them. “He’s alive! Hector’s alive!”
“He can’t be,” Daphne said, jumping up. They all sprinted inside.
Hector was laid out on the kitchen table, his armor and most of his clothes stripped away. Bowls of bloody water surrounded him, and a sponge lay next to him, stained red. Jason had already begun to wipe his brother down in preparation for the pyre. But Hector was certainly not dead. Not anymore.
He was pale and weak from blood loss. His lips were blue, and his hands shook terribly as he sat up and clutched Jason’s shoulders, trying to talk. Something clanked against his teeth, and grimacing, he spit out a gold coin. It was the obol his father had placed under his tongue to pay the Ferryman. Hector took a moment to stare at the bright disk in his hand, contemplating the Scion equivalent of his own gravestone.
“That’s a first,” he mumbled. He gave the obol to Andy. “For later,” he rasped to her, his voice weak.
“Much, much later. Don’t do that again,” she scolded, her swollen, tear-streaked face beautiful with joy.
“You got it.”
Hector’s whole body suddenly trembled as he tried to stay sitting up.
“He needs blood,” Jason said, worried, as he supported his brother and laid him back down on the table. Jason held up his hands, and they began to glow. He brought his hands over Hector to start healing him, but Hector stopped him.
“Wait, Jase,” Hector said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Don’t knock me out yet. Where’s Helen?”
“Here,” Helen replied, stepping forward from her place behind Noel so Hector could see her. “What is it?”
“Go to the Underworld. Now. Try to talk Hades out of it,” he said, his feeble tone turning urgent.
“Out of what?” Helen asked.
“Out of the trade. Don’t let Luke stay down there for me,” he said, grabbing Helen’s arm and shaking it as if to wake her. “Luke traded himself.”
“Impossible!” Daphne shrieked, startling them all with her vehemence. “Hades doesn’t let anyone trade themselves for another. I tried a dozen times.”
“Luke didn’t trade himself for me,” Hector gasped, his eyes rolling into his head with the effort to stay conscious.
“Shhh, don’t,” Noel said, coming forward to put a soothing hand on Hector’s shoulder. “Jason. Knock him out before he kills himself again.”
“He traded himself for Hades,” Hector said over Noel. He pulled on Helen’s arm until her face was inches away from his. “Lucas took Hades’ place as the lord o
f the dead.”
FIFTEEN
Helen knew her mother was saying something repeatedly, but it took a moment for her overwhelmed mind to actually understand it.
“It was supposed to be Orion,” Daphne kept muttering to herself. When she locked eyes with Helen, like she was trying to explain herself, it looked like she was about to crack. “I mean—Orion is Hades. They look exactly the same, don’t they? Orion is the only one besides you who can go to the Underworld. He’s an Earthshaker and can ‘reduce all mortal cities to rubble’ so I thought he was the Tyrant—we all did. We all thought the Tyrant was supposed to replace Hades. All the signs were there. It was always supposed to be Orion.”
As if summoned by Daphne’s repetition of his name, Orion appeared at the kitchen door with Cassandra at his side.
“Castor,” Orion said striding in hurriedly. “The gods demand we produce Lucas, or Tantalus will send his army against us. And the Myrmidons want to kill Helen with or without Matt to lead them. I know you’re in mourning—we all are—but I need you at the front lines.”
“He’s alive!” Cassandra shouted before her father could answer, and ran to Hector.
“Stay back, Cass,” Jason said in warning as his hands glowed blue. “Let me work on him.”
“How?” Orion asked, his eyes glued to Hector’s chest as it swelled with obvious breaths. “His heart was cut in two. He was dead.”
“A trade,” Noel answered. She was so torn between feeling happy that Hector was alive and destroyed by what Lucas had done that she couldn’t finish.
“Lucas agreed to take Hades’ place in the Underworld in order to bring Hector back,” Andy finished for her.
“Why?” Cassandra asked, her face pleading. “Does he think we love him any less than we love Hector?”
Orion looked at Helen. “He did it because he thinks we’re together. Lucas thinks we . . .”
“I know,” Helen whispered, trying desperately to figure a way out of it. “I have to descend and tell him it’s not true.”
“Helen. I’m so sorry,” Daphne said, her eyes wide with panic. “You have to believe me. If I knew it was going to be Lucas, I would have left you two alone. You have to explain that to Lucas—make him understand that it wasn’t that I didn’t like him. Please.”
“What are you talking about?” Helen asked, a sinking sensation in her stomach. “Mother, what did you do?”
“That’s why I lied,” she said quickly and quietly, like she was trying to speed past it. “If Orion was going to become the new lord of the dead, why wouldn’t he want to restore life to his one true love’s father?”
“What?” Helen said, baffled.
“A dozen times now I’ve nearly died. Every time I’ve gone down to the River Styx, I’ve begged Hades, but why should he listen to me? My only hope was the prophecy that said a Scion would come to replace him,” she said, a desperate light in her eyes. “Who else could it have been but Orion? Orion is Hades’ twin!” She looked around at everyone pleadingly.
“And if I did replace Hades?” Orion asked, a horrified look on his face.
“You’d still have to agree to give me what I want, and even though you care for me, there was no guarantee. I had to ask myself, what would make me do anything? Love, obviously. If you fell in love with a girl, and that girl thought she had lost her father, why wouldn’t you restore her father to life for her?”
Helen shivered, like someone had walked over her grave.
“She wasn’t supposed to fall in love with Lucas,” Daphne said, turning on Helen and pointing an irrationally accusing finger at her. “You were supposed to meet Orion first and fall in love with him. It would have been perfect. You would have Orion and I would have Ajax and no one would have gotten hurt. I tried to keep you away from Lucas. I tried to get you off the island as soon as I saw the connection you two had.”
Helen remembered. When the Delos family moved to Nantucket, her mother, disguised as an older woman, had tried to kidnap her repeatedly to get her away from them. Daphne had told Helen it was to protect her from the Delos family so they wouldn’t kill her, but her mother had always known that Helen wore the cestus and was impervious to weapons. She also knew that Helen was stronger than all of them combined and didn’t need to be rescued. Daphne’s real goal had been to try to keep Helen away from Lucas.
“I meant for you to meet Orion first. I thought I had more time—you weren’t even seventeen yet, and the only boy you’d ever kissed was Matt. I thought I had more time,” she repeated, like this was what she regretted the most.
Helen half collapsed, half sat down on the bench that had been pushed back from the kitchen table and stared at the floor.
“How long have you been watching me?” Helen asked, dazed.
“All your life. Always with a different face, but I never left you for long, Helen,” Daphne said, falling on her knees in front of her daughter, and taking her hands. “One day, I was the tourist asking to take your picture, another day the customer at the News Store who chatted with you, asking questions about your day at school. Once, I was even that exchange student that came for a month. Do you remember Ingrid? She learned all the gossip, and then disappeared? They were all me. I’ve never left you for long.”
Faces seemed to flash in front of Helen’s eyes. Dozens of people who had struck up conversations with her over the years were all Daphne to Helen now, and she had the creepy feeling that most of her life had been staged. She glanced up at Orion and saw a matching look of disbelief on his face.
But even through the shock, Helen realized that Daphne hadn’t been that far off the mark. Orion was the only guy Helen had ever really considered being with apart from Lucas. And she knew that Orion would do anything for her—even raise the dead “father” she never got a chance to know for her—if he had the power to do it.
Her mother’s plan, as crazy as it seemed, might have actually worked. Except for the fact that it didn’t, and in the process, it had broken all their hearts.
“You’re insane,” Helen whispered.
“No. Just willing to do anything for the man I love.”
Helen saw Andy, Noel, and Cassandra all startle at this admission, like it was too close for comfort.
“So we all have something in common, then,” Helen said calmly as she stood.
She looked at Orion. Lucas had traded himself, but it wasn’t a fair trade because he had been tricked. Who could she go to if she wanted to object to the trade? Who would even listen to her case in the Underworld? Helen had an idea—she just hoped it would work.
“Stay close to Cassandra,” she told Orion. “Even if the Fates will be able to see me in the Underworld, they won’t be able to speak through her and maybe I can pull this off.”
He nodded once in understanding.
“Ask Lucas to give me Ajax. Please, Helen. I’m begging you!” Daphne sobbed, grabbing Helen’s arm. All her plans were ruined, but she was still trying to get him back. Helen wondered if she would act any different if it were Lucas. She could only hope she would, but she doubted it.
Helen yanked her arm away from her mother and vanished in a puff of air that was so cold it left a disk of frost on Noel’s kitchen floor.
The spiky crust of frost had barely started to melt when Daphne realized what she needed to do, and bolted for the kitchen door.
“Where are you going?” Orion demanded, blocking her path to stop her.
“To find out what’s going on at the other camp, and to try and buy Helen some time to get Lucas back.” She dodged around him to run outside.
She heard Castor say, “Let her go,” and continued unhindered to the beach.
As she ran to the front lines she changed her appearance to hide herself. Remembering that there were Myrmidons on Tantalus’s side, she altered her body’s scent as well.
She crested a tall rise and looked down to suss out the situation. There were far too many people massing on the beach—many hundreds of men and women. As
Daphne looked closer, she realized that more than just Scions were joining the line. Regular mortals were streaming in from the center of town and from all kinds of boats gathering out on the water to swell the ranks of the gods.
Some of the god’s soldiers were even beginning to flank Orion’s soldiers to the south and west. Out on the water, Daphne saw all kinds of boats coming in to shore. Yachts, fishing vessels, even little rowboats were joining Tantalus to fight for Olympus. Sure, most of the new recruits were full mortals, and scores of them could be easily mowed down by a handful of armored Scions, but the loss of life would be staggering. Why would a full mortal even consider fighting in this war? It didn’t make sense.
Daphne got closer and noticed that the mortals all moved in a stiff and unnatural way, like puppets. When she got closer still, she saw open eyes and dead looks on all their faces. Daphne cringed. It was like they were all zombies.
Or hypnotized.
“Hypnos,” Daphne mumbled to herself. Hypnos, the god of the trancelike state in which people can be easily controlled—was obviously working with the Olympians.
It didn’t surprise her that the Olympians were making the small gods like Hypnos help the Twelve. The small gods couldn’t fight and kill mortals, but they still could use their talents to help Olympus win. Now that Olympus was open, the small gods would have to deal with the Olympians for the rest of eternity unless Helen managed to send them all to Tartarus. Helen had managed it with Ares, but Daphne could see that the small gods were not so certain Helen could do it with Zeus. They were hedging their bets by supporting Olympus.
The army of hypnotized humans coming by land and by sea was just the start. Daphne thought through all the different small gods and knew that bigger horrors awaited Helen’s loyal defenders. There were true monsters left in the world. Daphne had seen a few of them in her lifetime, and she knew that Zeus wouldn’t hesitate to unleash them.
Daphne sprinted past the hypnotized throngs, moving too fast for their dazed eyes to see even in broad daylight. She had to know if the gods were planning a war of mythical proportions, and if they were, she had to find a way to either slow it down or to at least warn Helen about what was coming.
Goddess Page 27
