Phoebe turned angry eyes on him. “Sawyer Snow, your mouth is running all over the place when it shouldn’t today.”
“Did you hear what he said?” Nora said. “We know where Owen is.”
All of the gathered muses began to murmur to each other.
Phoebe held up a hand for silence. To Nora, “Why didn’t you share this information with me earlier, before the meeting?”
“Because we just found out now,” Nora said. “While you guys have been down here arguing, we’ve been questioning the people who were loyal to Owen. Finally we got one of them to tell us where he’s gone. He’s on Mount Olympus.”
The murmuring grew even louder
Phoebe held up her hands for silence again, but this time it didn’t work. The muses kept talking.
“Quiet!” Phoebe yelled.
Everyone stopped speaking.
Phoebe pointed at Nora. “You. With me.” She turned. “Coeus and Alexander as well.” She turned and began walking towards her tent.
Nora gestured to her friends. “Come on. You’re coming too.”
They all made their way into Phoebe’s tent. When Phoebe saw that Nora had brought everyone with her, she sighed heavily. “I suppose there’s nothing I can do to convince you to leave them outside?”
Nora shook her head. “Nothing. They’ve been in the dark far too long this year. They’re part of this.”
Phoebe shut her eyes. “How do you know that Owen’s on Mount Olympus?”
Nora looked at Maddie.
Maddie licked her lips. “Well, I questioned Scout, and he seems pretty freaked out about Owen, but I convinced him that we would protect him if Owen came back—”
“Why would you say something like that?” Phoebe said.
Maddie glared at her. “Because someone has to do something.”
Phoebe looked annoyed at Maddie’s tone but didn’t comment on it. “All right, so you questioned him and he gave you this location. And you’re certain that he is correct?”
“No,” said Nora. “Not certain. But we don’t have any other leads. What have you been doing all day?”
Phoebe groaned. “Mostly getting a headache,” she said. She turned to Coeus. “Would you make me a drink?”
Nora’s jaw dropped open. “I hardly think now is the time—”
“Don’t question me right now,” Phoebe said. “You have no idea what it is like to be me. No idea at all. Now, I am well aware of the fact that the council has its faults. But given the alternative, this is the best that we have. And we can argue the philosophy of government another day. Right now, I need to get close to Owen Asher, so that I can exile him. Doesn’t have to be for very long. But I do need to be close enough to him that I can actually place the curse on him.”
“Okay,” Nora said. “So you and I will go to Mount Olympus. Where’s the dimension device?”
“I don’t think so,” Coeus said.
Nora turned on him. “What? Why not?”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Coeus said. He pointed at all of them. “I know that you want to help, and I appreciate that about you. But the fact remains, you’re all children.”
“Children?” Agler said. “Really?”
“None of you have come of age, so, yes,” Coeus said. “This is serious, and it needs to be taken care of by the adults.”
“But I’m the only one who stands a chance against him,” Nora said. “He’s so powerful. If you could have seen what he did this morning. He can draw on all of the powers of all of the gods. He could have obliterated me, but something stopped him.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Coeus said.
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Nora said. “Not only am I the one who has the power of Nimue, but Owen won’t hurt me. He proved this morning that he could stop himself when it comes to hurting me. I would be the safest person going after him.”
“Coeus is right,” Phoebe said. “You’ve taken far too much risk this year, Nora. And it’s my fault. I haven’t been fair to you. In some ways maybe I’ve been petty.” She sighed.
Nora had no idea what Phoebe was talking about.
“Thank you for telling us the location of Owen,” Phoebe said.
“Yes,” Coeus said. “The fact that you’re always taking initiative is something that we’ve noted. And we are appreciative.”
“But you’d better let us take it from here,” Phoebe said.
“But—” Nora began.
Phoebe shook her head. “Out. Out of the tent. And away from the council meeting. Go back to the tweens and rebels enclave and act like tweens. Get drunk or something.” She turned to Coeus. “Speaking of drunk, where’s my drink?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The council deliberated past dinner and far into the night. Nora and the others tried to get close to hear what was going on, but there were muse police stationed all around the fire pit after they had broken in. They kept them back. Occasionally, they would hear someone yelling, but they couldn’t make anything out.
After standing around outside the fire pit for several hours, they decided to give up and head somewhere else.
They were starving, having had nothing to eat all day. So they headed to the food enclave.
They found the kitchens bustling with food muses who were trying to prepare something for everyone to eat at the council meeting.
When they tried to get back there to make themselves something to eat, the food muses tried to shoo them away.
“Don’t you realize this is important?” one of them said.
“Well, what are the tweens supposed to eat?” said Sawyer.
“Yeah, and I’m sure that the kids in the babies and toddlers enclave will be hungry too,” Maddie said.
“Well, you’ll have to fend for yourself,” said one of the muses.
“At least the tweens anyway,” said another. “I think I can whip up something for the little kids.”
“We were coming here to fend for ourselves,” Nora said. “But how are we supposed to do that if you won’t even let us into the kitchens?”
The muse sighed. “Well, all right. But stay out of our way.”
They busied themselves finding leftovers in the back of the refrigerator. There was still some stuff left over from the Harvest Ball.
While they put together food, they could hear two of the cooking muses complaining to each other.
“What gets me is the fact that half of them haven’t even been to a council meeting in over a year,” said one portly lady.
“Right, and then they show up and have an opinion,” said a skinny muse who was helping her chop onions.
“I’m just not sure where they get off,” said Chubby. “They really think that everything they have to say is important, even though it’s been covered in about ten meetings that they never came to.”
“Phoebe’s really far too forgiving towards them,” said Skinny. “If I were her, I would kick them out.”
“What do you think is going to happen?”
“I don’t know,” said Skinny. “But it seems to me that Phoebe really should go, though, shouldn’t she?”
“Well, but they have a good point,” said Chubby. “If something happens to Phoebe and she is killed, then there is no head of the council. That power would just be floating around. There is a very important ceremony that has to be done to transfer the power from one head of the council to the next. So, it’s easier for Phoebe to instill the power of exile on someone than to—”
“No, I understand that,” said the muse. “But maybe she should step down as head of the council, anyway.”
“Well, if that’s the case, then she doesn’t even need to go and exile him, then does she?”
Nora spoke up. “That’s what they’re talking about in that meeting down there? Who goes after him? How many hours have they spent on that?”
Both of the muses turned to her.
“Is this your business, tween?”
“Do you h
ave your food?” said Skinny. “I think you better get out of here.”
And try as they might, they couldn’t get any more information out of the cooking muses. The cooking muses wouldn’t let them eat in the dining room, so they went back to the tweens and rebels enclave, which was much the same as usual. Some of the other tweens knew that something was up, but most of them were acting just the way that they normally did. There was even a big group of people sitting around the main fire pit drinking beer and playing music.
“I can’t believe them,” Nora said. “Don’t they realize what’s going on?”
Sawyer shook his head at her. “No, it’s not like that. I thought that too, earlier this year. I was so angry that no one was trying to do anything about what was obviously a problem between you and Owen. I was really convinced that he’d taken over people’s minds or something awful, you know? But I realized that as a muse, getting obsessed with things is bad for us. We’re wired to create and relax, and we have to do some of that.”
“Okay, some of that,” Nora said. “But when something awful happens—”
“Nora, there’s nothing we can do right now,” Agler said.
Nora sighed.
They went back to Agler’s and Maddie’s tent, and they ate their leftovers. They tried to keep up a bit of a conversation while they ate, but everyone was distracted.
Afterward, they all pulled chairs out of Agler’s and Maddie’s tent and sat out in front of it. They stared toward the main fire pit, and it got dark outside.
Nora was anxious. She was worried. But she had to admit, she was also bored.
But it didn’t seem right to fill the hours with a distraction.
So, she kept going over and over whatever it was that she had done wrong. Somehow, she should’ve convinced Owen that she wasn’t a threat. Somehow, she should’ve convinced him not to run off like that. If she had just done her job better…
Maybe she was being too hard on herself. Maybe there was nothing that she could have done to make it any better. Maybe the truth was that Owen would’ve reacted badly, no matter what happened.
Still, it had felt like they were making progress. She had been so sure that Owen was really changing. And she knew that he’d been hurt by the revelation of her betrayal. Really and truly hurt. He had wanted Nora to care about him, and she didn’t think it was just because you wanted to use her. He valued her. Respected her.
She could have used that. But not anymore. Now, everything was ruined.
It got dark.
Even though it seemed that the tweens were behaving as usual, once the sun went down, it became obvious they weren’t. It wasn’t nearly as loud and raucous as it usually was on a typical evening. There was less dancing, less singing, less music, less laughter.
And still, they waited to hear some news from the council.
Nothing came.
Sawyer sat down next to Nora. “It’s all my fault.”
She looked at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Daryl,” he said. “I’m the one who told him.”
Nora shut her eyes. That was right. Owen had said that he found out the truth from Daryl. At the time she hadn’t known how Daryl had even known, but now that was all clear. “It’s okay, Sawyer.”
“No, it’s not. He promised me he wasn’t going to say anything. I thought he was on our side. I have no idea why he would’ve gone off and told Owen this.”
“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? He did it to hurt Owen.”
Sawyer furrowed his brow. “Hurt Owen? Is that even possible?”
Nora nodded. “Apparently, it is.”
“What’s going to happen now?” Sawyer said. “I mean, the council will send some people after him to Mount Olympus. They’ll exile him. Then what?”
Nora shook her head. “Then he’ll start working on a plan to get back into Helicon. And with everything he’s been able to succeed at doing so far, I bet he’ll manage to get back here. And then we’ll have to deal with him all over again.”
Sawyer swallowed. “That first year, you wanted to kill him.”
Nora was quiet.
“Phoebe told you that we don’t do that here.”
“Are you asking me if I still want Owen dead?”
Sawyer shrugged. “I’m not asking anything.” He looked down at his finger. He fiddled with it absently.
“The answer is no. I got close to him again. And there are a lot of things that are wrong with him, but we were making progress. We were finding whatever part of him that’s still human.” Nora sat forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Owen got this way because he was neglected as a child. His mother was horrible to him, and his father never paid any attention to him. I think most of the damage is permanent. But I think some of it can be undone. I feel like we were getting there. We were starting to undo some of it. But now…”
“Maybe we were,” Sawyer said. “But I don’t think we undid enough. And I don’t know if we ever could.”
They were quiet.
Darkness crept over Helicon, only broken by a few fires dotting the landscape and by the stars overhead.
The council meeting kept going, far into the night.
Midnight came and went.
Still, they waited.
Finally, Nora realized she was nodding off. She hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep the night before, and she’d been a wee bit hungover from the Harvest Ball. Coupled with all of the stress of the day and the lack of eating, she wasn’t at her best.
She knew the others were probably feeling the same as her. But none of them were going to back down. If she wanted her friends to get some rest, she was going have to take the lead.
She stood up. She yawned, pointedly. “I think I’m going to head to bed, guys.”
“Really?” Maddie looked surprised. “You aren’t going to wait until the council meeting is over?”
Nora shrugged. “It’s like Agler said. There’s nothing anyone can do right now.” She picked up the chair that she’d been sitting on. “Want me to bring this back inside?”
“I got it,” Agler said. “I think I might be turning in as well.”
Maddie bit her lip. “Are you sure this is okay, Nora?”
“Of course,” Nora said.
“Um,” Lute said. “I don’t mean to be a downer or anything, but I think you’re forgetting something, Nora.”
Suddenly, it hit her. She sat down in the chair again, hard. “Owen’s fire ball destroyed my tent.”
“You can stay with us,” Maddie said. “There’s an extra room in our tent, and we have another hammock.”
“We do?” Agler said.
Maddie nodded. “We have the hammock I used to sleep on before we moved in together.”
The weight of all of it seemed to sag onto Nora’s shoulders. She rubbed her face, and she felt tears threatening.
Maddie was next to her, her arms around her. “Oh, Nora. I’m so sorry.”
* * *
“They left in the early hours of the morning after the decision was made,” Phoebe was saying. She was standing under the archway in the tweens and rebels enclave. She had come by that morning to explain to the tweens about the decision that had been made the night before, considering they hadn’t been allowed to come to the council meeting. “Though I wished to be present myself, I was outvoted. It was the feeling of the council that I was too important to be risked. That’s why I’m here. At any rate, I am just as nervous and worried as all of you are, I’m certain. They’ve been gone for a few hours now, we expect to hear word at any time.”
Nora was standing with her friends, listening to Phoebe’s announcement. She had slept well in Maddie’s hammock, but she had woken up still feeling restless and anxious. Even after the muses returned after having exiled Owen, she felt that she would be far from settled. There was simply too much up in the air. She wasn’t sure what Owen would be up to now, and it bothered her.
“After working all through the night last night,�
� Phoebe continued, “the food muses have not made breakfast this morning. Any tweens or anyone else who wants something to eat is encouraged to make it themselves. However, I do think it would be a lovely gesture if some of the food-minded tweens would get together and make a large amount of food for anyone who is hungry. Many of the adult muses will no doubt sleep late, considering the council meeting went on until early morning. I’m not going to require this of you, but if there any volunteers who would like to let me know—”
Phoebe was interrupted by a loud crack.
Everyone looked above Phoebe’s head, where Owen had appeared, floating in the air. He had his arms around the six muses that had gone to Mount Olympus to exile him. Obviously, they hadn’t succeeded, since he was back in Helicon. It looked almost as if the muses were drunk and passed out. Like a party had gone on too long.
Then Owen let go, and all of the muses fell to the ground.
Their bodies hit with a sickening thud.
Nora recognized Alexander and Coeus. The other four bodies seemed to belong to either the security enclave or the engineering enclave.
At the sight of Coeus’s lifeless body, Phoebe screamed. She ran forward, falling over her partner. She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.
Owen floated lazily to the ground, alighting directly in front of her. He studied his fingernails. “This is the best you can do, Phoebe?”
Phoebe stood up. Her voice was a screech. “We do hereby exile you—”
Owen gestured casually with one hand.
Phoebe fell backward on the ground, coughing.
Owen sneered down at her. “Leave me alone. Don’t try to exile me. You have my word that I don’t want to have anything to do with any of you.”
Phoebe gasped. “We strip you of any access—”
Owen’s jaw twitched.
“—or power connected to our realm.”
Owen raised his hand more firmly and a bolt of purple light emanated from his palm.
It hit Phoebe in the stomach. She doubled over, groaning.
“Leave me alone,” Owen said. “If you send anymore after me, I’ll do the same to them.” He gestured at the bodies littering the ground.
Echoes Page 28
