by Aimee Carter
“Can’t kill me.” I worked my fingers around the handle of the dagger and struggled to pull it from her grip. “I die, you die, remember?”
“Father won’t touch a hair on my head.”
“Are you willing to bet your entire existence on that?”
She screeched and wrenched the dagger from me. I had no chance against her immense strength, and I watched in horror as my grip slipped and the tip of the infused blade plunged into my arm.
White-hot pain ripped through me, burning everything in its path, infinitely worse than the brush of fog against my leg during my botched coronation ceremony nearly a year before. This was inside me, fusing together with my very being, choking it until only a few pitiful gasps remained.
I was dying. Two more seconds, and I’d be—
A black blur slammed into her. As the weight of Calliope’s body disappeared, the choke hold vanished. Agony burned inside me, leaving me breathless, and fire replaced the ice of the blade as I bled freely. What was happening?
I opened my eyes, half expecting to see wherever gods went when they died, but instead all I saw was Calliope’s maniacal grin as she lay on the floor beside me.
No, that wasn’t all. Henry hovered above her, pressed oddly against her body at an angle I didn’t understand. His eyes widened, his mouth dropped open, and his hands clutched something against his ribs.
“I win,” whispered Calliope. And as she pulled the bloody dagger from Henry’s chest, I finally understood.
Chapter 3
The Darkest Hour
For four years, I’d stayed by my mother’s bedside and watched her fade away. Her once strong and healthy body had withered into a poor imitation of the woman I remembered, and not an hour had passed without me imagining what it would be like the day death claimed her.
I’d lived in constant fear of waking up and finding her gone, a shell where my mother had once been. I would watch the clock flip over to midnight and wonder if that was the date I would mourn each year for the rest of my life.
I knew what it was like to lose. I knew what it was like to fight the inevitable.
But none of that had prepared me for watching Henry die.
Blood spurted from the wound in his chest. He fell to his knees, one hand clutching his rib cage, the other reaching for me. I’d never seen such real terror in his eyes. Gods weren’t supposed to die. Not unless they wanted to.
I reached for him with my good arm as the life drained from him. Was the blade strong enough to kill me, too? Once it was over, would we be together on the other side, wherever that might lead?
Was there even another side for the Lord of the Dead?
The moment our fingers met, my body lurched. It was a familiar feeling—much more jolting than I’d ever experienced before, but the instant it happened, I knew. We were going home.
One second, I was only feet away from Milo as he cried. The next I lay in a heap with Henry, and silence surrounded us. We weren’t in Calliope’s palace anymore. We weren’t even on the island. But we weren’t in the Underworld either, or at least any part of it I’d ever seen.
Instead we were in the middle of a massive room devoid of anything but a sky-blue ceiling and sunset floor. The golden walls seemed to stretch out forever, and with the sun in the middle of the ceiling as if it were a real sky, everything glittered with light. It should’ve taken my breath away.
But Milo was gone. Wherever we were, I knew instinctively he wouldn’t be joining us, and unspeakable pain spread like acid inside me. I would have gladly been stabbed a thousand times over rather than feel this for even a moment.
There was nothing I could do, though. My mother was on the island with him, along with James and the rest of the council, and that would have to be enough. The only person I had a prayer of helping now had me pinned to the sunset floor.
“Henry.” Even though the last thing I wanted to do was hurt him, I had no choice but to roll him gently off me. Blood soaked through his shirt, and I pressed my hands against his chest in an attempt to stop the flow, but it was useless. After everything we’d gone through together, after everything he’d done to protect me, I couldn’t do a damn thing to save him. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair.
“Kate?” His voice was thick and hoarse, as if he were ill, but he wasn’t. He was dying. “Are you—are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I lied, and my voice broke. “Don’t sit up. You’re losing too much blood.” How much did gods have in them? The same as mortals? How much could they live without?
“I didn’t know,” he whispered. “I thought— Ava said—”
“It’s not your fault.” I shakily brushed my mouth against his. He tasted like rain. “None of this is your fault. I should’ve never trusted her. I should’ve never left you. I’m sorry.”
He kissed me back weakly. “Was that—was that baby...”
A lump formed in my throat. “Yeah. He’s your son.” I managed a watery smile. At least Henry knew. “I named him Milo. We can call him something different if you’d like.”
“No.” He coughed, and a few droplets of blood stained his lips. “It’s perfect. So are you.”
I leaned against his chest, putting as much weight on the wound as possible. I refused to say goodbye like this. Not to Henry, not to our life together, none of it. I wasn’t ready, and Milo deserved to have a father. I hadn’t had one growing up, and like hell would I let him experience that same emptiness and uncertainty. He deserved more than that. He deserved to have a family.
My arm bled freely, and within moments the room began to spin. Henry’s moonlit eyes remained open, and he smiled. “Never thought I’d have a son.” His voice trembled. “Never thought I’d have you.”
I gritted my teeth against the dizziness, my body growing weaker by the second. “You’re going to have me for a hell of a lot longer than this.” My vision blurred, and I struggled to look around us. Where was everyone? Why couldn’t they feel the life drain from Henry the way I could?
Because it wasn’t his life I felt draining away. It was mine.
“Kate? Henry?”
My mother’s voice washed over me, and I let out an exhausted sob. “Mom?”
She knelt beside me, radiating warmth and the scent of apples and freesia. “Let go, sweetheart,” she murmured. “I’ve got you.”
I couldn’t force my hands from Henry, though. He was cold now, his eyes wide and unblinking, and his chest was still. Gods didn’t need to breathe, but Henry always had. His heart had always beaten, but now I saw no hint of a pulse.
He was dead.
I didn’t remember the others appearing. One moment my mother held me against her chest, her hand wrapped around my bleeding arm as I screamed and cried and disappeared into myself. The next, Walter hovered over us, and Theo knelt beside Henry’s body, his lips moving at a furious pace.
“Get her out of here,” said Walter, his booming voice distant as I cowered in a dark corner in the recesses of my mind. Gentle hands lifted me, and I thought I heard James’s voice murmuring words of comfort I didn’t understand, but outwardly I thrashed and shrieked. I couldn’t leave Henry. If I left him, I would never see him again, and then he really would be gone.
He couldn’t be, though. He just couldn’t be.
Another pair of hands joined us, but I was so completely submerged into myself that I might as well have closed my eyes and disappeared in the dark. In here, nothing could touch me. In here, Henry was everywhere. In here, it was winter again, and we curled up together underneath the down comforter in the Underworld as the hours passed by. His chest was warm under my palm, and his heart beat against my fingers, steady and eternal. In here, no one died.
A whimper caught my attention, and I opened my eyes again. The golden room was gone, replaced by the sunset nursery in Calliope’s palace, and my heart sank. There, lying in the cradle, was Milo. My mother hadn’t saved him, after all.
I stood beside him, pretending I could touch him
and rock him to sleep. Pretending that it wasn’t just a matter of time before the Titan fire in my veins consumed me and Milo would be orphaned. I had never known my father, but I treasured the time I’d spent with my mother. Milo would never have that either. The only time we would have together were those few seconds before Calliope had killed his father, and he would never remember them.
No, we had now. Even if he didn’t know I was with him, I could be there. I would be. Settling in beside his cradle, I watched him unblinkingly, soaking in every second.
And I waited for the inevitable to come.
* * *
Kate.
James’s voice floated toward me and wound its way through what was left of my heart. I blinked. How long had it been? Minutes? Hours? Days? No, Calliope might have been a monster, but she wouldn’t have left Milo alone for that long. He slept soundly in the cradle, his little chest rising and falling. I took comfort in each breath.
Come back, Kate.
His words were a whisper against my ear, but I stayed put. There was nothing left for me in reality. My mother had lived for eons before I’d been born; she could do without me once more. She would have to.
The air grew thick with annoyance. Kate, I swear, if you don’t come back, I will tell Henry you kissed me. And that you said I have a nice ass.
“Henry?” My eyes flew open—my real eyes this time. As it had each time before, the wrench of leaving Milo took my breath away, and fuzzy shapes floated in front of me until I managed to focus.
A sky-blue ceiling and undoubtedly a sunset floor. But unlike the room bathed in golden light, this was different. Smaller, muted, and darker somehow.
Frantically I looked around the room for any sign of Henry, but he wasn’t there. James’s sick idea of a joke then, to pull me away from the only thing that gave me any small measure of comfort now.
“How are you feeling?” My mother hovered beside my bed, applying a compress of something that smelled like honey and tangerines to my arm. Noticing my stare, she smoothed my hair back and offered me a small smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “A compress to stop the pain. You’ll have to wear a sling, but it won’t spread anywhere else for now.”
I shook my head. “Take it off.”
“What?” Her brow knitted. “Sweetheart, this is saving your life—”
“I don’t want it.” I sat up, and my body screamed in protest as I ripped the compress from my arm. It didn’t matter. Henry was dead, and I would never hold my son again. I didn’t want anyone to save my life.
My mother set her hand against my good shoulder, and firmly but gently, she guided me back onto the bed. I didn’t have the strength to fight her. “Too bad. I’m your mother, and whether you like it or not, I’m not going to let you die on my watch.”
I sniffed, staring at the cloudless ceiling. “I can’t do this, Mama.” I hadn’t called her that since the second grade, when the most popular girl in my New York City private school had overheard and proceeded to tease me for the next four years.
“Can’t do what?” She laid the compress on my arm again, and though it hurt like hell, the pain didn’t spread.
“I had a baby,” I whispered. Did she even know she was a grandmother? Did she know about Calliope’s plot? Or did she think I’d run off with Ava for nine months and forgotten about her?
She hesitated, not meeting my eyes. “I know. I’m so sorry, Kate.”
That was it. Simple acknowledgment. No offer to find him. No promise to take him from Calliope the first chance she got. I swallowed thickly, half an inch away from hysteria. “His name’s Milo. Henry—Henry liked that name.”
“I’m sure he still does.” James’s voice filtered through the haze around me.
“Still does?” My voice cracked, and though my mother held me down, I raised my head. James leaned against the open doorway, his blond hair tousled and his cheeks flushed, as if he’d run a marathon. Or maybe it was because I hadn’t seen him in the sunlight for so long.
“He’s in another room. Theo’s tending to him,” he said. Theo, the member of the council with the ability to heal wounds caused by Titans. Or if not heal, at least make them less painful.
Was it possible? The way Henry’s eyes had stared unseeingly, the lack of heartbeat, of any effort at all to keep his body going—it couldn’t be. “Is Henry alive?”
The moment between my question and James’s answer lasted for an eternity. All at once I needed to hear it, yet I didn’t want to know. I could have clung to the delicious hope James gave me for the rest of my endless life. Henry could always be in the next room over, alive and waiting for me.
“Yes,” he said, and I let out a soft sob. My mother touched my cheek, but I looked past her, focusing on my best friend.
“Can I see him? I need to see him.” Forget lying still. I struggled to sit up again, but for a second time, my mother held me down, more insistent than before.
“You can see him as soon as you’re well enough,” she said, but she glanced at James, and they exchanged a look I didn’t understand.
“What?” My neck strained with the effort of keeping my head upright, but I couldn’t look away. “What’s going on?”
James faltered, and that delicate balloon of hope inside me burst. “He’s unconscious, and there’s a chance he might never wake up.”
I gripped the sheets with my good hand. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t alive either. Caught between, like my mother had been during the time I’d spent at Eden Manor when the council had tested me. Except Henry was immortal, and he would have no release.
I didn’t know what was worse—death or this.
“Theo stopped the spread, but Henry was stabbed in the chest,” said James. He approached the bed and took my hand, grasping it gently. My fingers twitched. “We don’t know how bad the damage is. Or if Henry will ever recover enough to wake up.”
“Is—is there a cure? A way to fix him?”
“There’s nothing we can do,” said James, and on my other side, my mother dabbed the corners of her eyes with a tissue. “We just have to wait.”
My throat constricted. There had to be a way. There always was. If Henry could bring me back from the dead, then I could find a way to do the same for him. “What about Cronus? Couldn’t he do something?”
Dead silence. Seconds ticked by, and without warning, my mother and James started talking at once.
“I can’t possibly allow—”
“Even if he could, do you really think—”
They both stopped and stared at each other, and finally my mother went first.
“You are not going back there, sweetheart,” she said. “It’s a miracle Henry got you out in the first place, and he risked everything for you. He wouldn’t want you to walk back into that. You know he wouldn’t.”
If it was just me, then my mother would have been right. However, it wasn’t just about me anymore. It was about Milo, too. I might’ve been powerless to rescue our son, but if Henry could save me, then he could save him, as well. And if there was a way I could help Henry—if there was a way I could give Milo the father he deserved, then I had to try.
“Can Cronus help Henry?” I said again in as steady a voice as I could muster.
James leaned in closer, clasping my hand in his. “Yes,” he admitted. “He could. But even if you did go back to Cronus, he wouldn’t undo the damage he’s already done to Henry. You know he wouldn’t.”
“Right,” I whispered. James was wrong, though. If Cronus had enough incentive, he might. And I wasn’t going to give up just because they insisted there was no point in trying. Even if it meant marching straight up to Cronus and giving him everything, I would really do it if it meant Henry might live.
* * *
While bedridden, I planned.
Every word I’d say, every argument I’d use, everything I’d offer Cronus to make him save Henry. Layer after layer of blueprints that would give Henry his life back and our son a father. Whatever it took.
I spent my hours with Milo, watching him sleep, watching as Ava changed him, watching as Calliope attempted to coax him to eat from a bottle. To my immense satisfaction, he refused.
“You must eat,” said Calliope sternly as she offered yet another warm bottle to my son. He turned his head away, his face scrunched up and bright red from crying, and she narrowed her eyes. “Callum, you must.”
Callum after herself, undoubtedly. He was Milo, not Callum, and no matter how long he stayed with that bitch, he would never be hers.
However, as the hours turned into one day, then two, my worry surpassed my hatred for Calliope. Milo wasn’t eating. He fussed in his sleep, and when he was awake, his eyes constantly leaked with tears. He was miserable.
I didn’t know what to do. Was there anything at all, other than storming the palace and demanding Calliope give him back to me? It wouldn’t work anyway. I could have the entire council backing me up, but without Henry, it would be nothing more than an exercise in defeat. Cronus would keep me, Calliope would hide my son away, and he would only grow weaker.
“Come on, Milo,” I whispered as I leaned over his crib. For the umpteenth time, I tried to touch him, but once again my fingers passed through his cheek. “I’m sorry I’m not here. If I had any choice...” My voice caught in my throat. “I know Calliope’s horrible, but you need to eat. You need to be healthy and strong for when I finally get to be with you again.”
At last he opened his blue eyes, and in that moment, I swore he saw me.
“There you are.” I gave him a watery smile. “You’re beautiful, you know. You put Adonis to shame.”
His whimpers quieted, and he lifted his arms, as if he were reaching for me. I tried to touch him again, but it still didn’t work. I’d never stop trying, though.
“Think you could do that for me?” I murmured. “Just eat a little bit. You can be as unhappy as you want. I don’t blame you. It won’t last forever though, I promise.” It couldn’t. I wouldn’t let it.
“He has your eyes.”
My heart damn near stopped. Slowly I turned, and despite the dim light, I could see every feature of his face. “Henry?”
