by Bree Despain
“Yes, Father.”
Ethan kneels beside him, inspecting his wound. I am kind of reeling at this information. It was hard enough processing the fact that Jonathan is Cupid, but Ethan is his son? And Psyche is a Sky Princess? The myth always said that she was a mortal who was granted immortality later in life—but I couldn’t exactly claim that any of the myths in my textbook had gotten the facts just right.
“So you’re really Cupid?” Tobin asks.
Jonathan nods.
“Did you know my sister, Abbie—I mean CeCe—was part Skylord?”
“Your sister?” Jonathan says. “I suspected she was at least part Skylord, but she seemed to want to keep it a secret so I never asked, and I wasn’t too keen on revealing my own identity. Ellis is a safe haven. Many people there have secrets we don’t talk about, but it was the first place in the world I found where I could hide in plain sight, and I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.” He clasps a hand over mine. “But believe me, Daph, if I had thought that the Underlords were using Olympus Hills as a staging ground for finding Boons again, I would’ve never let Joe bring you here. I thought it was a coincidence … until I saw your friend.”
“I’m not a Boon,” I say, almost indignantly. “I’m the Cypher.”
“The Cypher? Well, that explains the Key.” Jonathan looks at Ethan. “How is she? Your mother?”
“She will be better when she learns that I have found you.”
Thunder claps in the distance, so loud, it makes me jump.
“I’m sorry. I know you must have questions, and I have many myself,” Ethan says, “but we will have to save reunions for later. Skylords loyal to Terresa’s cause are headed this way, which means, Daphne, if you’re taking the Key through the gate, you need to ready yourself now.”
I blink at him. I have to admit I’d expected Ethan to demand I give the Key to him, like Rowan and Terresa before him, insisting his plan for it was the only way to go. “You mean you’re going to let me take it to the Underrealm palace? Just like that? Aren’t you afraid of the consequences of the war that might follow?”
“I will let you go if you promise me one thing: that you will kill the Keres before you come home. I would go with you, but I am needed here to stop the Skylord army.”
“I can’t do that on my own. I need someone who can throw lightning. I need a guide.” I look over at Garrick, who stands in the trees. “I need you to come with me, Garrick.”
He bows his head.
“You know I’ll get lost in five seconds flat without your help. I need you. Haden needs you. Heck, the world needs you.”
Garrick steps out of the shadows of the trees. “Count me in, then,” he says.
“Really?”
“Yes, I thought about what you said earlier. I want the chance to destroy the monsters who ruined my life.” He gulps hard, looking at the gate. “But you’re sure that’s what you really want? To go with me? You can’t be hesitant about it when we pass through the gate. You really want this?”
“Yes, I want to go with you.”
“I’ll come, too,” Jonathan says, but I can hear the strains of pain radiating from him.
“No,” I say. “You need medical attention.” I turn to Ethan. “You’ll make sure he’s okay?”
Ethan nods.
“And someone needs to get my mother out of Olympus Hills. If Skylords are coming, I want her as far away from here as possible. And Joe, too. He was supposed to be here, but I don’t know what happened to him.”
“I’ll make sure they’re okay,” Jonathan says.
I smile sadly, but gratefully, at him.
“Take this.” Jonathan pulls a bright red arrow from his quiver. “You asked if there was an antidote to the black arrow. For most, there isn’t, but considering you are willing to do all this to save Haden, then I am guessing this may work.”
“What does this one do?”
“My golden arrows elicit passion—a mad type of love that will eventually wear off. But this,” he says of the red arrow, “holds a true love spell. It will work only on someone who has found true love, solidifying it forever. I pricked myself by accident with one just before meeting Psyche—and once we kissed, I knew there would be no other person I would love than her.”
“And it can counteract the black arrow?” I ask, hope trying to mend the tear in my heart.
“If your love for him is true and his love for you is the same. You must pierce him with this arrow to activate the spell, but you must kiss him to seal it. Otherwise, after a fortnight, the spell will fail and the black arrow’s poison will take hold of him forever.”
“You mean I need to cure him with true love’s kiss?” I ask. It sounds too surreal to be true. “Like stuff that fairy tales are made of?”
“I’m Cupid, honey,” he says, brushing his hand through my hair. “Who do you think invented fairy tales?”
I smile, realizing that I shouldn’t have questioned him.
“This arrow is one of my most precious, and the last red arrow that I possess. I do not part with it lightly. Since my golden bow—my Kronolithe was stripped from me—these arrows are the only remnants of my power.” I look at the bow he’d dropped and realize it’s one of the PE department’s, which had been used as set dressing for the play. “When the last of the other arrows is gone, I will become fully mortal and die. So are you sure, Daphne, that this Underlord is worth it? I would hate to waste this arrow on him.”
I nod. “Yes,” I say. “He’s most definitely worth it.”
More thunder rumbles in the sky, growing closer still.
“You must hurry,” Ethan says, clearly agitated over how much time we’ve spent.
Before he hands it to me, Jonathan whispers the word mikro to the arrow and it shrinks down so it fits in the palm of his hand. I gape, realizing that was why I’d never seen him carrying around a giant quiver of arrows before. “Now it’s pocket-sized,” he says, giving it to me.
I thank him for the precious gift and tuck it into the pocket of my dress for safekeeping. I stand and approach the gate as the smell of rain hangs in the air.
“Are you ready?” Ethan asks.
I steel myself. I am as ready as I’ll ever be.
“Wait,” Tobin says. “I know I don’t have any powers or weapons or anything, but I want to come with you.”
I start to shake my head. For all I know, he’s the one who brought Terresa here.
“Please, Daph. I’m part of this team. I’m your friend. I said I’d help you and Haden back in Ellis Fields, when we all made our pact to follow him into the dark. Well, it’s dark now, Daph. Real dark, and I’m not letting you go into it without me.” The sound coming off him is so earnest, I can’t help but believe him.
“Okay,” I say as rain starts to fall.
I hold my hand out to Tobin, and he clings to it. Garrick follows at our heels. With the Key in hand and without a second’s hesitation, I step into the green light of the gate with my two companions. With a pulse of light, the ground is ripped out from under my feet, and my whole entire world disappears.
chapter fifty-five
HADEN
I feel as though I am drowning in darkness, blackness pulling me under the surface of consciousness. I can’t move. I have no control. A sharp pain radiates through my body, but I don’t know from what or even where the pain is located. My arm? My chest? Is the pain even real? My mind kicks against the black, like it’s trying to come up for air.
I think I hear a shout. Rowan? Or perhaps it was a cry. I am jostled. More pain shoots through me. I fight to open my eyes. More shouts.
I register a rocking sensation, as if I am on a boat.
The darkness pulls me under again.
chapter fifty-six
DAPHNE
When the pulling sensation stops, I almost lose my grip on the Key as I try to stop myself from toppling forward. Garrick, Tobin, and I have left the grove and are now standing in the middle of a stone arch
way pulsating with that same green light, at the end of a long ravine. Tobin stumbles next to me, clutching his stomach. A wave of nausea washes over me. Whatever form of transportation the gate uses, it causes motion sickness worse than any rollercoaster ride. I take a few lumbering steps away from the archway and wince at the sound of Tobin vomiting. I suck in a few deep breaths through my teeth, desperately trying to hold on to what lunch I was able to down before the play. Who knows when we will be eating again?
Eating. A thought hits me as I recall a part of Joe’s play in which Orpheus is warned not to eat anything in the underworld or he will suffer the same fate as Persephone’s—he’ll be bound to the underworld for all eternity.
“Is it true that mortals can’t eat here?” I ask Garrick. “Or does that only apply to Boons?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m just a lowly servant, remember?”
“Just in case, don’t eat anything while we’re here,” I warn Tobin. “Not if you don’t want to have to live down here for the rest of your life.”
“Noted,” he says. “But I don’t want to even think about food right now.”
He dry heaves beside the gate.
After I steady my stomach, my first act is to search for signs of Haden and Rowan.… The black arrow. The ground is stone, as if the ravine had been cut out of a mountain of rock, and there are no footprints. They were only a few minutes ahead of us, but as far as I can tell, there are no signs that they were even here.
I don’t see any signs of the arrow at first, until I notice a small black, splintered fragment in the dust. I am careful not to touch it as I crouch down to inspect it. My heart throbs against my chest as I realize that it looks like the broken end of an obsidian arrowhead. And it appears as though it’s smeared with blood.
A terrible image of Haden with a jet-black arrow protruding from his chest flashes through my mind. It wouldn’t kill him, only make him dead inside.
That thought makes me sicker than the journey through the gate.
Garrick calls for my attention. He turns to the gate, the light casting a strange green pall on his face. “Give me the Key,” he says, holding out his hand for the bident.
“Why?” I ask, feeling particularly possessive of it.
“We should lock the gate. If any Skylords get past Ethan, we need to make sure they can’t get through the gate. It’ll open up on its own when the equinox starts in a few hours, or at dawn actually, but in the meantime, we can slow them down.”
“Good thinking,” I say, but I don’t hand over the Key to Garrick. I don’t plan on handing it over to anyone until I see Haden’s face again. Until I know he’s been granted safety. I thrust the Key into the center of the pulsing green light, copying what I’d watched Terresa do, and twist the bident until the light starts to fade.
Stepping away from the gate, I look around, taking in the desolate ravine that is our surroundings. “Shouldn’t there be guards?”
“Yes, there should be,” Garrick says. “The gate only opens on its own twice a year, but there’s usually a few guards stationed here just in case. And this close to the equinox, there should be more. Perhaps they’re helping Rowan take Haden to the palace.”
“I half expected Rowan to be waiting here for us,” I admit. “Why wait for us to bring the Key to the throne room when he could attack us as soon as we were through the gate?”
“Maybe he was worried your god of an uncle was coming with you,” Tobin says.
I look up at the sheer walls of rock that surround us on three sides. The only option for us is to move forward. “How far are we from the palace?”
“By foot,” Garrick says, pressing forward, “an eternity.”
“An eternity?” Tobin asks, attempting to follow. He stumbles again, and I steady him. The trip through the gate must have taken even more out of him than me. He leans his weight into my side, wrapping his arm around my back. I use the bident like a walking stick to help propel the both of us forward.
“As in, you’d never make it,” Garrick calls back to us, his pace too quick for Tobin and me to keep up. “Between here and the palace are countless miles of the Wastelands. We venture through there, and we’ll get torn to pieces by the shades—the souls of the dead—and eaten for breakfast.”
“Then how do you propose we get there?” I ask.
Garrick stops at the end of the ravine. It takes Tobin and me a few seconds to catch up with him. The smooth-packed stone under our feet is now covered in sand. “We go by river,” he says, pointing down the sandy bank in front of us to a snaking, turbulent river. “Acheron: the river of woe.”
“I don’t know how I feel about swimming in a river by that name,” Tobin mumbles beside me.
“Beats being eaten alive by the dead,” I say.
“We aren’t swimming,” Garrick says, continuing on toward what appears to be a boat dock on the riverbank. Tobin and I follow after him again. “We’ll need to convince Charon, the river man, to take us by boat. Neither of you happen to have any money, do you? He has this thing about being paid.”
I remember now that was another thing Dax was supposed to bring with him. Where he and Joe and even Brim have ended up instead of the grove fills me with worry.
“No room for a wallet in my toga,” Tobin says, referring to the costume he’s still wearing from the play. It strikes me as suddenly funny that Tobin and I are dressed in ancient Greek–style garb while Garrick is the one wearing black jeans and a black long-sleeved T-shirt during our venture through the underworld. At least Tobin is still wearing his fedora. That one little normalcy gives me comfort in this unfamiliar place.
My hand goes to the hidden pocket in my dress. The only two things I have in my possession, besides the Key, are Jonathan’s arrow and Joe’s sobriety coin. And there is no way that I am going to use Haden’s antidote to barter for a boat ride. “I have Joe’s sobriety coin,” I say, taking it from my pocket. “It doesn’t have any monetary value, but it resembles a bronze coin.”
Garrick takes a look at it in my outstretched hand. “Charon is as blind as a bat; that’ll probably do.”
“Wait, a blind guy is going to steer our boat?” Tobin asks.
Garrick doesn’t answer. He picks up his pace, practically running down the beach. He’s too fast for me to keep up with while supporting Tobin. I look down at the coin. I don’t want to part with it, knowing what it means to Joe—to me—but, at the same time, I know he would want me to use it if it would help. “I just wish I knew why Joe didn’t make it to the grove,” I say softly to Tobin. “I hope he’s okay.”
Tobin stops leaning on me and starts walking slowly on his own beside me. “About Joe …,” he says, a regretful tone coming off him. Like he doesn’t want to say what’s on his mind. “I saw him right after the play.…”
“Was he okay?” I ask.
“Yeah. I mean, no.” Tobin takes a deep breath. “It’s just that I think he was drunk. He could barely put one foot in front of the other. That’s why he didn’t come.”
I squeeze the coin in my hand and shake my head. “That can’t be.…”
But whatever else I am about to say gets drowned out by a shout from Garrick. The sound of it is so urgent that we respond by jogging down the beach. I pull ahead of Tobin and find Garrick huddled over what appears at first to be a pile of gray rags, but then I realize it’s an old man dressed in tattered robes, curled in a fetal ball.
“You can keep your coin,” Garrick says. “Charon’s dead, and his boat is gone.”
“You mean we’re stranded?” Tobin asks as he appears behind us.
“As in, we’re dead,” Garrick says. “It’s only a matter of minutes before the shades catch our scent.”
chapter fifty-seven
TOBIN
As it turns out, the old boatman isn’t dead but merely knocked out (unlike Garrick, Daphne bothered to check his pulse), but that still doesn’t change the fact that we’re stranded. The old guy isn’t going to be waking any
time soon, based on how many times we jostle him, and there is no sign of his boat.
“Rowan must have commandeered it,” Garrick says, pointing at several sets of erratic footprints in the wet sand on the riverbank. “It looks like there was some sort of altercation.”
“That looks like too many footprints to be just Rowan,” Daphne says.
“Perhaps the guards were with him.”
“Then why would there have been a fight …?” I start to ask, but then I picture Haden trying to escape. Maybe he wasn’t as far under the black sleep as we had thought. “It doesn’t make sense that Rowan would leave us stranded, either.”
“Seriously,” Daphne says. “Doesn’t he want us to bring him the Key?”
“Maybe he’s hoping the shades will kill us for him and then he can come back for the Key later—” Garrick swings around, looking in the direction of the horizon behind us. “Kopros. They’re coming,” he whispers, as if he hears something we don’t.
I listen hard and catch a sound in the distance that reminds me of a moaning wind.
“Shades,” Garrick says. “They’ve caught our scent faster than I thought. Do you have to smell so rank, Tobin?”
“I’m sorry; I sweat when I’m onstage … and, you know, about to be eaten by zombies.”
A small, wispy bolt of lightning crackles up in Garrick’s hand. It’s not nearly as impressive as the lightning I’ve seen Haden throw. “Get behind me,” he says, sounding braver than I have ever given him credit for.
“Wait,” Daphne says. “Look, across the river. I think that’s a boat!”
I follow her pointing gesture, straining my eyes to see what she’s so excited about. At first, I don’t see anything, but then I make out what appears to be the underside of a small, capsized boat. It looks like it’d been swept across the river from the dock and crashed into a small cove on the other side. It bobs in the water as the current pushes it against the rocks over and over again.
