by Aimee Carter
“Because otherwise you’re not going to be very good at traveling through the Underworld, are you?” James untangled his arm from mine and wrapped it around my shoulders instead. “I’m sorry, Kate. Walter should’ve told you ages ago.”
A bitter taste filled my mouth. Sorry wasn’t going to fix anything. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t need him.”
“He is a bit of a womanizer,” agreed James. “Definitely not a good role model for the baby. Thankfully Milo has Henry to look up to.”
For a moment I was silent. James didn’t know whether or not Henry would ever wake up again. We didn’t even know if he’d still be alive by the time we got back. “Your optimism continues to defy reality,” I mumbled.
“I was right about your mother,” he said, and I shook my head.
“No, you weren’t. She died. Her mortal form, anyway, and you had no idea I was going to pass the tests. You didn’t know if I’d ever see her again.”
James waved off my objections. “Either way, this isn’t optimism. This is fact. Henry’s going to make it.”
He was baiting me, the jerk, but no matter how badly I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he had me hooked, I couldn’t resist. “Fine, I give. How can you possibly be so sure?”
Grinning, James leaned toward me, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Because,” he whispered, “Rhea can heal him.”
Chapter 5
Underneath
“Did you know?”
I stood beside Milo’s crib, gazing down at his sleeping form as Henry stood across from me. He looked different—more distant somehow, as if he was somewhere else, as well. He barely looked at me, and he stared unblinkingly down at the baby.
“Did I know what?” he said after a long moment. Was he even listening?
“Did you know that Rhea could heal you?” I said, keeping a stranglehold on my temper. Everything that had happened wasn’t Henry’s fault, of course, but still. Had he known this whole time? Was Walter aware? Was my mother?
“I...suspected,” said Henry, and his eyes glazed over again. Wherever he was, I sure as hell hoped it was more important than his own life. “I did not want to give you false hope.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “You didn’t want to give me any hope at all.”
Several seconds passed, and finally his gaze met mine. “Are you going to try?”
“Try what? You’re her son, aren’t you?” I said.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Then why would she say no?”
“She does not like to bother herself with our affairs,” said Henry.
“I’m sure she won’t mind pulling herself away from whatever it is she does in order to heal you,” I said. Why was he being so difficult?
Kate?
I froze at the sound of James’s voice, but Henry didn’t so much as frown.
Kate, come back, said James, the words no more than a whisper. It’s important.
It was always important. I sighed inwardly and leaned over the cradle to give Henry a kiss on the cheek. “I have to go. I’ll be back soon.”
“Of course,” he said distractedly, once again staring down into the crib. His gaze wasn’t focused on Milo’s face, though; it was as if he was looking through him. What was going on?
The nursery faded, replaced by the interior of an airplane. Despite the ample room first class provided, my arm ached from the way I leaned against the window, and I winced. These were the only tickets we could get, and James had insisted Henry would pay him back. During my first summer away, I had been reluctant to spend Henry’s money and forced James to fly coach. This time, I didn’t argue. I’d learned my lesson about spending twelve hours crammed between a screaming baby and a snoring passenger who treated my shoulder like a pillow.
“There you are,” said James. “Hungry?” He sat beside me, and on the tray table in front of him sat two actual plates of cheeseburgers and fries. Fancy. James hadn’t bothered with one of them, undoubtedly meant for me, but on the other he’d stacked the fries into a teetering structure.
“Depends,” I said, stretching my legs. “Did you pull me away from Henry just to ask for my fries?”
“’Course not,” said James cheerfully, and he pulled a plastic bottle of ketchup from his backpack. “If I wanted them, I’d steal them. Ketchup?”
“You really brought a bottle of ketchup on the plane? How did you get it through security?”
He grinned. “My secret.”
I moved my plate onto my tray table. Unlike coach, it came out of my armrest, and on the back of the seat in front of me was a wide screen playing a movie I didn’t recognize. “You’re crazy.”
“I prefer the term resourceful.” He squirted a moat of ketchup around his French fry fortress. “Anyway, I woke you up because you were mumbling something. What were you dreaming?”
I picked up one of my fries and popped it into my mouth. Not half-bad for airplane food. Then again, the few meals I’d had on airplanes before hadn’t been served with white china and silverware. “I wasn’t dreaming. I was with Milo and Henry.”
James frowned. “How often is Henry there with you?”
“All the time. I asked him to stay, and he did.”
“Can you touch him?” said James, and I nodded. “What about Milo?”
“He can. I can’t.”
“Right.” His frown deepened. “What have you been telling him?”
“What, I can’t have a private conversation with my husband without you butting in?”
James set his bottle aside and faced me. “Did you tell him where we’re going and what we’re doing?”
“Of course,” I said. “Well, no, I mean, I told him what we’re doing and that we’re going to Africa. I didn’t mention Zimbabwe specifically.”
“Good.” He brushed his fingers against mine, and I pulled away, folding my hands together and setting them in my lap. Friends or not, he’d intentionally hurt Henry all those years ago by having an affair with Persephone. While Henry might’ve been willing to forgive, he undoubtedly hadn’t forgotten, and I wasn’t about to give him any more of a reason to worry. “How has he been treating you? Has he said anything strange? Done anything that didn’t seem quite right?”
“What is this, twenty questions?” I leaned back in my seat, leaving my plate all but untouched. “It’s none of your business.”
“Yes, it is. We’ve never had a situation like this before. During the first war—obviously I wasn’t alive back then, but Walter—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Not when it had anything to do with Walter.
“You need to.” James’s voice was surprisingly kind. “It doesn’t matter who Walter is to you, all right? Forget about him. He’s not important right now.”
“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 hope.”
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 co
urse 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.
