Red blood bloomed from underneath Helen’s torn fingernails, pooled in the crescents of her cuticles, and trailed down her knuckles in little rivers. Despite the pain, she gripped the ledge more tightly with her left hand so she could try to slide her right hand forward. There was grit and blood under her fingers, making her slip, and her hands were cramping so badly that the center of her palm was starting to spasm. She reached with her right, but didn’t have the strength to pull herself any farther forward.
Helen slid back with a gasp until she was dangling from her rigid fingertips. Six stories beneath her kicking feet was a dead flowerbed, littered with moldy bricks and slates that had slid off the roof of the dilapidated mansion and broken into bits. She didn’t have to look down to know that the same would happen to her if she lost her grasp on the crumbling window ledge. She tried again to swing a leg up and catch it on the windowsill, but the more she kicked the less secure her grip became.
A sob escaped from between her bitten lips. She had been hanging from this ledge since she descended into the Underworld that night. It felt to her like hours, maybe days had passed, and her endurance was flagging. Helen cried out in frustration. She had to get off this ledge and go find the Furies. She was the Descender—this was her task. Find the Furies in the Underworld, defeat them somehow, and free the Scions from the Furies’ influence. She was supposed to be ending the cycle of vengeance that compelled Scions to kill each other off, but instead here she was, hanging from a ledge.
She didn’t want to fall, but she knew that she would get no closer to finding the Furies if she went on clinging here for an eternity. And in the Underworld, every night lasted forever. She knew she needed to end this night and start the next anew, in some other, hopefully more productive, infinity. If she couldn’t pull herself up, that left only one option.
The fingers of Helen’s left hand began twitching and her grip gave way. She tried to tell herself not to fight it, that it would be better to fall because at least it would be over. But still she clung to the ledge with every bit of strength remaining in her right hand. Helen was too afraid to let herself go. She bit down on her bloody lip in concentration, but the fingers of her right hand slid across the grit and finally came away from the edge. She couldn’t hold on.
When she hit the ground she heard her left leg snap.
Helen slapped a hand over her mouth to keep the scream from erupting across her quiet Nantucket bedroom. She could taste the flinty grit of the Underworld on her cramped fingers. In the pewter-blue light of predawn, she listened intently to the sound down the hall of her father getting ready for the day. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to hear anything out of the ordinary, and he went downstairs to start cooking breakfast as if nothing were wrong.
Lying in bed, trembling with the pain of her broken leg and her pulled muscles, Helen waited for her body to heal itself. Tears slid down either side of her face, leaving hot tracks across her chilled skin. It was icy cold in her bedroom.
Helen knew she had to eat to heal properly, but she couldn’t go downstairs with a broken leg. She told herself to stay calm and wait. In time, her body would be strong enough to move, then stand, and then walk. She would lie and say she’d overslept. She’d hide her sore leg from her father as best as she could, smiling and making small talk as they ate. Then, with a little food in her, she would heal the rest of the way.
She would feel better soon, she told herself, crying as quietly as she could. She just had to hold on.
Someone was waving a hand in Helen’s face.
“What?” she asked, startled. She turned to look at Matt, who was signaling her back to earth.
“I’m sorry, Lennie, but I still don’t get it. What’s a Rogue Scion?” he asked, his brow wrinkled with worry.
“I’m a Rogue,” she answered a bit too loudly. She’d faded for a second there, and still hadn’t caught up to the conversation.
Helen straightened her slumped shoulders and looked around at the rest of the room to find that everyone was staring at her. Everyone except Lucas. He was studying his hands in his lap, his mouth tight.
Helen, Lucas, Ariadne, and Jason were sitting around the Delos kitchen table after school, trying to catch Matt and Claire up on all things demigod. Matt and Claire were Helen’s best mortal friends, and they were both incredibly smart, but some things about Helen and her past were too complicated to be taken for granted. After everything they’d gone through, Matt and Claire deserved answers. They’d put their lives on the line to help Helen and the rest of the Delos family seven days ago.
Seven days, Helen thought, counting on her fingers to make sure. All that time in the Underworld makes it feel like seven weeks. Maybe it has been seven weeks for me.
“It sounds confusing, but it’s not,” Ariadne said when she realized that Helen wasn’t going to continue. “There are Four Houses, and all Four Houses owe each other a blood debt from the Trojan War. That’s why the Furies make us want to kill someone from another House. Vengeance.”
“A billion years ago someone from the House of Atreus killed someone from the House of Thebes and you are expected to pay that blood debt?” Matt asked dubiously.
“Pretty much, except it was a lot more than just one death. We’re talking about the Trojan War, here. A lot of people died, both demigod Scions and full mortals like you,” Ariadne said with an apologetic grimace.
“I know a lot of people died, but how does this blood-for-blood thing get you anywhere?” Matt persisted. “It never ends. It’s insane.”
Lucas laughed mirthlessly and lifted his eyes from his lap to meet Matt’s. “You’re right. The Furies drive us mad, Matt,” he said quietly, patiently. “They haunt us until we break.”
Helen remembered that tone. She thought of it as Lucas’s professor voice. She could listen to it all day, except she knew she shouldn’t want to.
“They make us want to kill each other in order to fulfill some twisted sort of justice,” Lucas continued in his measured tone. “Someone from another House kills a person in our House. We kill one from theirs in retaliation, and on it goes for three and a half thousand years. And if a Scion kills someone from his own House, he becomes an Outcast.”
“Like Hector,” Matt said tentatively. Even saying the name of their brother and cousin set off the Furies’ curse, angering the Delos clan. Matt only risked it now for the sake of being clear. “He killed your cousin Creon because Creon killed your aunt Pandora, and now you all feel an irresistible urge to kill him, even though you still love him. I’m sorry. I’m still not seeing how that’s even remotely like justice.”
Helen looked around and saw Ariadne, Jason, and Lucas gritting their teeth. Jason was the first to calm himself.
“That’s why what Helen is doing is so important,” he replied. “She’s in the Underworld to defeat the Furies, and stop all this senseless killing.”
Matt gave up reluctantly. It was hard for him to accept the Furies, but he could see that no one at the table was any happier about their existence than he was. Claire still seemed like she needed to clarify a few things.
“Okay. That’s an Outcast. But Rogues like Lennie are Scions who have parents from two different Houses, but only one House can claim them, right? So they still owe a blood debt to the other House,” Claire spoke carefully, like she knew what she was saying was difficult for Helen to hear but she had to say it, anyway. “You were claimed by your mother, Daphne. Or by her House, rather.”
“The House of Atreus,” Helen said dully, remembering how her long-lost mother had returned to ruin her life nine days ago with some very unwelcome news.
“But your real father—not Jerry—even though, Lennie, I have to say, Jerry will always be your real dad to me,” Claire amended passionately before getting back on track. “Your biological father, who you never knew and who died before you were born . . .”
“Was from the House of Thebes.” For a moment Helen met Lucas’s eyes, then quickly looked away. “Ajax Delos.”
“Our uncle,” Jason said, including Ariadne and Lucas in his glance.
“Right,” Claire said uncomfortably. She looked between Helen and Lucas who refused to meet her eyes. “And since you were both claimed by enemy Houses you two wanted each other dead at first. Until you . . .” She trailed off.
“Before Helen and I paid our blood debts to each other’s Houses by nearly dying for each other,” Lucas finished in a leaden tone, daring anyone to comment on the bond he and Helen shared.
Helen wanted to dig a hole straight down through the tiled floor of the Delos kitchen and disappear. She could feel the weight of everyone’s unasked questions.
They were all wondering: How far did Helen and Lucas go with each other before they found out they were first cousins? Was it just a little kissing, or did it get “scarred for life” serious?
And: Do they still want to with each other, even though they know they’re cousins?
And: I wonder if they still do it sometimes. It wouldn’t be hard for them because they can both fly. Maybe they sneak off every night and . . .
“Helen? We need to get back to work,” Cassandra said with bossy edge in her voice. She stood in the kitchen doorway with a fist planted on her slim, boyish hip.
As Helen stood up from the table, Lucas caught her eyes and gave her the tiniest of smiles, encouraging her. Smiling back ever so slightly, Helen followed Cassandra down to the Delos library feeling calmer, more self-assured. Cassandra shut the door, and the two girls continued their search for some bit of knowledge that might help Helen in her quest.
Helen turned the corner and saw that the way was blocked by a rainbow of rust. A skyscraper had been bent across the street as if a giant hand had pressed it down like a stalk of corn.
Helen wiped the itchy sweat off her brow and tried to find the safest route over the cracked concrete and twisted iron. It would be hard to climb over, but most of the buildings in this abandoned city were crumbling into dust as the desert around it encroached. There was no point going another way. One obstruction or another blocked all the streets, and besides, Helen didn’t know which way she was supposed to go in the first place. The only thing she could do was to keep moving forward.
Scrambling over a jagged lattice, surrounded by the tangy smell of decaying metal, Helen heard a deep, mournful groaning. A bolt shook loose from its joint, and a girder above her broke free in a shower of rust and sand. Instinctively, Helen held her hands up and tried to deflect it, but down here in the Underworld, her arms didn’t have Scion strength. She slammed painfully on her back, stretched out over the crisscrossing bars beneath her. The heavy girder lay across her stomach, pinning her down across her middle.
Helen tried to wiggle out from underneath it, but she couldn’t move her legs without excruciating pain radiating out from her hips. Something was certainly broken—her hip, her back, maybe both.
Helen squinted and tried to shade her eyes with a hand, swallowing around her thirst. She was exposed, trapped, like a turtle turned over onto its back. The blank sky held no cloud to provide even a moment of relief.
Just blinding light and relentless heat . . .
Helen wandered out of Miss Bee’s social studies class, stifling a yawn. Her head felt stuffed up and hot, like a Thanksgiving turkey on slow roast. It was nearly the end of the school day, but that was no comfort. Helen looked down at her feet and thought about what awaited her. Every night she descended into the Underworld and encountered yet another horrendous landscape. She had no idea why she’d end up in some places a few times, and other places only once, but she thought it had something to do with her mood. The worse the mood she was in when she went to sleep, the worse her experience in the Underworld.
Still focused on her shuffling feet, Helen felt warm fingers brush against hers in the hustle of the hallway. Glancing up, she saw Lucas’s jewel-blue eyes seeking hers. She pulled in a breath, a quick inward sigh of surprise, and locked eyes with him.
Lucas’s gaze was soft and playful, and the corners of his mouth tilted up in a secret smile. Still moving in opposite directions, they turned their heads to maintain eye contact as they walked on, their identical smiles growing with each passing moment. With a teasing flick of her hair, Helen abruptly faced forward and ended the stare, a grin plastered on her face.
One look from Lucas and she felt stronger. Alive again. She could hear him chuckling to himself as he walked on, almost smug, like he knew exactly how much he affected her. She chuckled, too, shaking her head at herself. Then she saw Jason.
Walking a few paces behind Lucas with Claire at his side, Jason had watched the whole exchange. His mouth was a worried line, and his eyes were sad. He shook his head at Helen in disapproval and she looked down, blushing furiously.
They were cousins, Helen knew that. Flirting was wrong. But it made her feel better when nothing else could. Was she supposed to go through all of this without even the comfort of Lucas’s smile? Helen went to her last class and sat behind her desk, fighting back tears as she unpacked her notebook.
Long splinters enveloped Helen, forcing her to remain completely still or risk impaling herself on one of them. She was trapped inside the trunk of a tree that sat alone in the middle of a dry, dead scrubland. If she breathed too deeply, the long splinters pricked her. Her arms were twisted behind her and her legs folded up uncomfortably underneath her, tilting her torso forward. One long splinter was lined up directly with her right eye. If her head moved forward while she struggled to break free—if she even let it sag a little with fatigue—her eye would be stabbed out.
“What do you expect me to do?” she whimpered to no one. Helen knew she was completely alone.
“What am I supposed to do?” she suddenly screamed, her chest and back stinging with a dozen little puncture wounds.
Screaming didn’t help, but getting angry did. It helped steel her enough to accept the inevitable. She’d put herself here, even if it was unintentional, and she knew how to get herself out. Pain usually triggered her release from the Underworld. As long as she didn’t die, Helen was pretty sure she would leave the Underworld and wake up in her bed. She’d be injured and in pain, but at least she’d be out.
She stared at the long splinter in front of her eye, knowing what the situation demanded she do, but not sure she was capable of doing it. As the anger fueling her seeped away, desperate tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks. She heard her own constricted, choked-off sobs pressing close to her in the claustrophobic prison of the tree trunk. Minutes passed, and Helen’s arms and legs began to cry out, twisted as they were into unnatural shapes.
Time would not change the situation. Tears would not change the situation. She had one choice, and she knew she could either make it now or hours of suffering from now. Helen was a Scion, and as such a target for the Fates. She’d never had any choice but one. With that thought, the anger returned.
In one sure movement, she jerked her head forward.
Lucas couldn’t take his eyes off Helen. Even from across the kitchen he could see that the translucent skin across her high cheekbones was so pale it was stained blue by the lacy veins running below the surface. He could have sworn that when she first came over to study with Cassandra at the Delos house that morning, her forearms were covered in fading bruises.
She had a spooked, hunted look to her now. She looked more frightened than she had a few weeks ago when they all thought that Tantalus and the fanatical Hundred Cousins were after her. Cassandra had recently foreseen that the Hundred were focusing nearly all their energy on finding Hector and Daphne, and that Helen had nothing to fear. But if it wasn’t the Hundred frightening Helen, then it had to be something in the Underworld. Lucas wondered if she was being chased, maybe even tortured down there.
The thought tore him up inside, like there was a wild animal climbing up the inside of his rib cage, gnawing on his bones as it went. He had to grit his teeth together to stop the growl that was trying to grind out of him. He was so angry all the time now, and his anger worried him. But worse than the anger was how worried he was about Helen.
Watching her jump at the slightest sound, or tense into herself with wide, staring eyes, pushed him almost to the point of panic. Lucas felt a physical need to protect Helen. It was like a whole body tic that made him want to throw himself between her and harm. But he couldn’t help her with this. He couldn’t get into the Underworld without dying.
Lucas was still working on that problem. There weren’t many individuals who could physically go down into the Underworld like Helen could and survive—just a handful in the entire history of Greek mythology. But he wasn’t going to stop trying. Lucas had always been good at solving problems—good at solving “unsolvable” puzzles in particular. Which was probably why seeing Helen like this hurt him in such a nagging, hateful way.
He couldn’t solve this for her. She was on her own down there, and there was nothing he could do about it.
“Son. Why don’t you sit next to me?” Castor suggested, startling Lucas out of his thoughts. His father motioned to the chair on his right as they all sat down at the table for Sunday supper.
“That’s Cassandra’s seat,” Lucas replied with a sharp shake of his head, but really what Lucas was thinking was that it was Hector’s. Lucas couldn’t bear to take a seat that never should have been vacated. Instead, he took his place on his father’s left at the end of the community bench.
“Yeah, Dad,” Cassandra joked as she took the seat that she had automatically inherited when Hector became an Outcast for killing Tantalus’s only son, Creon. “Are you trying to demote me or something?”
“Wouldn’t you know it if I was? What kind of an oracle are you, anyway?” Castor teased, poking Cassandra in the belly until she shrieked.
Lucas could see that his father was seizing this rare opportunity to play with Cassandra, because those opportunities were nearly over. As the Oracle, Lucas’s little sister was pulling away from her family, from all of humanity. Soon, she would drift away from all people and become the cold instrument of the Fates, no matter how much she was loved by those closest to her.
Castor usually took any chance he could to joke around with his daughter, but Lucas could tell that this time he was only partly focused on taunting Cassandra. His mind was elsewhere. For some reason Lucas couldn’t immediately see, Castor really didn’t want Lucas to sit in his usual seat.
He understood a moment later when Helen sat down next to him, in the place that had, through time and use, become her spot at the table. As she stepped over the bench and slid down next to him, Lucas watched his father’s brow furrow.
Lucas shook off his father’s disapproval and let himself enjoy the feel of Helen next to him. Even though she was obviously hurt by whatever was happening to her in the Underworld, her presence filled Lucas with strength. The shape of her, the softness of her arm as it brushed against his while they passed plates around the table, the clear, bright tone of her voice as she joined in the conversation—everything about Helen reached inside of him and soothed the wild animal in his rib cage.
He wished he could do the same for her. Throughout dinner, Lucas wondered what was happening to Helen in the Underworld, but he knew he would have to wait until they were alone to ask. She would lie to the family, but she couldn’t lie to him.
“Hey,” he called out later, stopping Helen in the dim corridor between the powder room and his father’s study. She tensed momentarily and then turned toward him, her features softening.
“Hey,” she breathed, moving closer to him.
“Bad night?”
She nodded, angling herself even closer until he could smell the almond-scented soap she had just used to wash her hands. Lucas knew she probably wasn’t aware of how they always moved toward each other, but he was.
“Tell me about it.”
“It’s just hard,” she said shrugging, trying to dodge his questions.
“Describe it.”
“There was this boulder.” She stopped speaking, rubbed her wrists, and shook her head with a pinched expression. “I can’t. I don’t want to think about it any more than I have to. I’m sorry, Lucas. I don’t mean to make you angry,” she said, responding to his huff of frustration.
He stared at her for a moment, wondering how she could be so wrong about how she made him feel. He tried to stay calm while he asked her the next question, but still, it came out rougher than he would have liked.
“Is someone hurting you down there?”
“There’s no one down there but me,” she replied. By the way she said it, Lucas knew that her solitude was even worse somehow than torture.
“You’ve been injured.” He reached out across the few feet separating them and briefly ran a finger across her wrist, tracing the shape of the fading bruises he had seen there.
Her face was closed. “I don’t have my powers in the Underworld. But I heal when I wake up.”
“Talk to me,” he coaxed. “You know you can tell me anything.”
“I know I can, but if I do, I’ll pay for it later,” she groaned, but with a touch of humor. Lucas pressed on, sensing her lightening mood, and wanting so much to see her smile once more.
“What? Just tell me!” he said with a grin. “How painful could it be to talk to me about it?”
Her laugher died and she looked up at him, her mouth parting slightly, just enough so Lucas could see the glassy inner rim of her lower lip. He remembered the feel of it when he kissed her and he tensed—stopping himself before he dipped his head down to feel it again.
“Excruciating,” she whispered.
“Helen! How long does it take to use the powder—” Cassandra cut off abruptly when she saw Lucas’s back moving away down the hall, and Helen blushing furiously as she darted toward the library.
Helen hurried through the room with the peeling petunia wallpaper, avoiding the rotted floorboards by the soggy, mold-infested couch. It seemed to glare at her as she ran past. She’d already come this way a dozen times, maybe more. Instead of taking the door on the right or the door on the left, both of which she knew led nowhere, she decided she had nothing to lose and went into the closet.
A mossy wool overcoat loomed in the corner. There was dandruff on the collar and it smelled like a sick old man. It crowded her, like it was trying to shoo her out of its lair. Helen ignored the cantankerous coat and searched until she found another door, hidden in one of the side panels of the closet. The opening was only tall enough to permit a small child to pass through. She knelt down, suddenly creeped out by the wool coat that seemed to watch her bend over, like it was trying to peek down her shirt, and hurried through the child-sized door.
The next room was a dusty boudoir, caked with centuries of heavy perfume, yellow stains, and disappointment. But at least there was a window. Helen hurried to it, hoping to jump out and free herself from this terrible trap. She pushed the lurid peach taffeta curtains aside with something approaching hope.
The window was bricked up. She hit the bricks with her fists, just jabs at first, but with increasing anger until her knuckles were raw. Everything was rotted and crumbling in this labyrinth of rooms—everything except the exits. Those were as solid as Fort Knox.
Helen had been trapped for what felt to her like days. She’d become so desperate she’d even closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, hoping to wake up in her bed. It didn’t work. Helen still hadn’t figured out how to control her entrances and exits from the Underworld without half killing herself. She was frightened that she was actually going to die this time, and didn’t want to think about what she would have to do to herself to get out.
White spots crowded her vision, and several times now she had almost passed out from thirst and fatigue. She hadn’t had any water in so long that even the sluggish goo that spattered reluctantly out of the taps in this hell-house was starting to look appealing.
The strange thing was that Helen was more frightened in this part of the Underworld than she had ever been, even though she wasn’t in any imminent danger. She wasn’t hanging from a ledge, or trapped in the trunk of a tree, or chained by the wrists to a boulder that was dragging her down a hill and toward a cliff.
She was just in a house, an endless house with no exits.
These visits to the parts of the Underworld where she was in no immediate danger lasted the longest and ended up being the hardest in the long run. Thirst, hunger, and the crushing loneliness she suffered—these were the worst kind of punishment. Hell didn’t need lakes of fire to torment. Time and solitude were enough.
Helen sat down under the bricked-up window, thinking about having to spend the rest of her life in a House where she wasn’t welcome.
It started pouring rain right in the middle of football practice, and then everything went sideways. All the guys started throwing each other around, sliding in the mud, really tearing up the turf. Coach Brant finally gave up and sent everyone home. Lucas watched Coach as they all packed it in, and could tell he wasn’t really into the practice to begin with. His son, Zach, had quit the team the day before. From what everyone said, Coach hadn’t taken it well, and Lucas wondered how bad the fight had gotten. Zach hadn’t been in school that day.
Lucas sympathized with Zach. He knew what it was like to have a father who was disappointed in you.
“Luke! Let’s go! I’m freezing,” Jason hollered. He was already stripping off his gear on his way to the locker room, and Lucas ran to catch up.
They rushed to get home, both of them hungry and wet, and walked right into the kitchen. Helen and Claire were in there with Lucas’s mom. The girls’ track uniforms were soaked through, and they hovered expectantly by Noel with excited looks on their faces while they dabbed at themselves with towels. At first, all Lucas could see was Helen. Her hair was tangled and her long, bare legs glistened with rain.
Then he heard a whispering in his ear, and a flare of hate flashed through him. His mother was on the phone. The voice on the other end was Hector’s.
“No, Lucas. Don’t,” Helen said in a quavering voice. “Noel, hang up!”
Lucas and Jason rushed toward the source of the Outcast’s voice, compelled by the Furies. Helen stepped in front of Noel. All she did was hold out her hands in a “stop” gesture, and the cousins ran into her hands like they were running into a solid wall. They were thrown back onto the floor, gasping for air. Helen didn’t budge an inch.
“I’m so sorry!” Helen said, crouching over them with an anxious look on her face. “But I couldn’t let you tackle Noel.”
“Don’t apologize,” Lucas groaned, rubbing his chest. He had no idea Helen was that strong, but he couldn’t have been happier that she was. His mother had a shocked look on her face, but both she and Claire were fine. That was all that mattered.
“Uuuhh,” Jason added, agreeing with Lucas. Claire crouched down next to him and patted him sympathetically while he rolled around, trying to get his breath back.
“I wasn’t expecting you boys home so soon,” Noel stammered. “He usually calls when he knows you’ll be at practice. . . .”
“It’s not your fault, Mom,” Lucas said, cutting her off. He hauled Jason to his feet. “You okay, bro?”
“No,” Jason replied honestly. He took a few more breaths and finally stood all the way up, the blow to his chest no longer the thing hurting him. “I hate this.”
The cousins shared a pained look. They both missed Hector and couldn’t stand what the Furies did to them. Jason suddenly turned and walked out the door, out into the rain.
“Jason, wait,” Claire called, hurrying to follow him.
“I didn’t think you’d be home this early,” Noel repeated, more to herself than anyone else, like she couldn’t let it go. Lucas went to his mother and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be fine,” he told her in a choked voice.
He had to get out of there. Still wrestling with the knot in his throat, he went upstairs to change. Halfway down the hall to his room and half out of his clothes, he heard Helen’s voice behind him.
“I used to think you were a good liar,” she said softly. “But not even I bought it when you said ‘it’ll be fine.’”
Lucas dropped his sodden shirt on the floor and turned back to Helen, too wrung out to resist. He pulled her to him and let his face rest against her neck. She fitted herself against him, taking his weight as his big shoulders curved over and around her, and held him until he was calm enough to speak.
“A part of me wants to go find him. Hunt him down,” he confided, not able to tell this to anyone but Helen. “Every night I dream about how I tried to kill him with my bare hands on the steps of the library. I can see myself hitting him over and over, and I wake up thinking maybe this time I have killed him. And I feel relieved. . . .”
“Shh-shh.” Helen ran her hand across his wet hair, smoothing it down and gripping his neck, his shoulders, the bunched muscles of his back—tucking him closer to her. “I’ll fix it,” she vowed. “I swear to you, Lucas, I’ll find the Furies and stop them.”
Lucas pulled back so he could look at Helen, shaking his head. “No, I didn’t mean to put more pressure on you. It kills me that this is all on you.”
“I know.”
That was it. No blame, no “pity me.” Just acceptance. Lucas stared at her, running his fingers over her perfect face.
He loved her eyes. They were always changing, and Lucas liked to catalogue all their different colors in his mind. When she laughed, her eyes were pale amber, like honey sitting in a glass jar on a sunny window. When he kissed her, they darkened until they were the rich color of mahogany leather, but with strips of red and gold thread shot through. Right now they were turning dark—inviting him to lower his lips to hers.
“Lucas!” his father barked. Helen and Lucas sprang apart and turned to see Castor at the top of the stairs, his face white and his body stiff. “Put a shirt on and come to my study. Helen, go home.”
“Dad, she didn’t . . .”
“Now!” Castor yelled. Lucas couldn’t remember ever seeing his father this angry.
Helen fled. She squeezed past Castor with her head bowed and ran out of the house before Noel could ask what had happened.
“Sit.”
“It was my fault. She was worried about me,” Lucas began, his stance defiant.
“I don’t care,” Castor said, his eyes burning into Lucas’s. “I don’t care how innocently it started. It ended with you half naked, your arms around her, and the two of you just steps away from your bed.”
“I wasn’t going to—” Lucas couldn’t even finish that lie. He was going to kiss her, and he knew if he kissed her he would have kept going until either Helen or a cataclysm stopped him. The truth was, it didn’t really bother Lucas anymore that some uncle he never met was Helen’s father. He loved her, and that wasn’t going to change no matter how wrong everyone said it was.
“Let me explain something to you.”
“We’re cousins. I know,” Lucas interrupted. “Don’t you think I realize that she’s as closely related to me as Ariadne? It doesn’t feel like that.”
“Don’t lie to yourself,” Castor said darkly. “Scions have been plagued with incest since Oedipus. And there have been others in this House who have fallen in love with their first cousins, like you and Helen have.”
“What happened to them?” Lucas asked cautiously. He could already tell that he wasn’t going to like his father’s answer.
“The outcome is always the same.” Castor stared intensely at Lucas. “Just like Oedipus’s daughter, Electra, the children born to related Scions always suffer our greatest curse. Insanity.”
Lucas sat down while his mind raced, trying to find a way around this impasse. “We—we don’t have to have children.”
There was no warning, no notice that Lucas had pushed too far. Without a sound, his father rushed him like a bull. Lucas jumped back up to his feet but didn’t know what to do next. He was twice as strong as his father, but his hands stayed passively at his sides while Castor grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him back until he was pinned against the wall. Castor glared into his son’s eyes, and for a moment Lucas believed his father hated him.
“How can you be so selfish?” Castor growled, his voice seething with disgust. “There aren’t enough Scions left for either one of you to just decide you don’t want to have kids. We’re talking about our species, Lucas!” As if to drive home his point, Castor slammed Lucas into the wall so hard it began to crumble behind him. “The Four Houses must survive and stay separate to maintain the Truce and keep the gods imprisoned on Olympus, or every mortal on this planet will suffer!”
“I know that!” Lucas yelled. Plaster from the shattered wall rained down on them, filling the air with dust as Lucas struggled under his father’s grip. “But there are other Scions to do that! What does it matter if Helen and I don’t have children?”
“Because Helen and her mother are the last of their line! Helen must produce an Heir to preserve the House of Atreus and keep the Houses separate—not just for this generation—but for the ones yet to come!”
Castor was shouting. He seemed blind to the white dust and breaking masonry. It was as if everything his father had ever believed was tumbling down on top of Lucas’s head, smothering him.
“The Truce has lasted for thousands of years, and it must last for thousands more or the Olympians will turn the mortals and the Scions into playthings again—starting wars and raping women and casting horrendous curses as it amuses them,” Castor continued relentlessly. “You think a few hundred of us are enough to preserve our race and keep the Truce, but that’s not enough to outlast the gods. We must endure, and to do that every single one of us must procreate.”
“What do you want from us?” Lucas suddenly shouted back, shoving his father off of him and rising up out of the bowed and breaking wall. “I’ll do what I have to for my House, and so will she. We’ll have kids with other people if that’s what it takes—we’ll find a way to deal with it! But don’t ask me to stay away from Helen because I can’t. We can handle anything but that.”
They glared at each other, both of them panting with emotion and covered in white dust grown pasty with sweat.
“It’s so easy for you to decide what Helen can and can’t handle, is it? Have you looked at her lately?” Castor asked harshly, releasing his son with a disgusted look on his face. “She’s suffering, Lucas.”
“I know that! Don’t you think I’d do anything to help her?”
“Anything? Then stay away from her.”
It was like all the anger had rushed out of Castor in a flash. Instead of yelling, he was now pleading.
“Have you considered that what she’s trying to do in the Underworld could not only bring peace between the Houses, but also bring Hector back to this family? We’ve lost so much. Ajax, Aileen, Pandora.” Castor’s voice broke when he said his little sister’s name. Her death was still too fresh for both of them. “Helen is facing something none of us can imagine, and she needs every ounce of strength she has to make it through. For all our sakes.”
“But I can help her,” Lucas pleaded back, needing his father on his side. “I can’t follow her down into the Underworld, but I can listen to her and support her.”
“You think you’re helping, but you’re killing her,” Castor said, shaking his head sadly. “You may have made peace with how you feel for her, but she can’t cope with her feelings for you. You’re her cousin, and the guilt is tearing her apart. Why are you the only one who can’t see that? There are a thousand reasons you need to stay away, but if none of them matter to you, at the very least stay away from Helen because it’s the best thing for her.”
Lucas wanted to argue, but he couldn’t. He remembered how Helen had told him that she would “pay for it later” if she talked with him about the Underworld. His father was right. The closer the two of them got, the more he hurt Helen. Of all the arguments his father had made, this one cut Lucas the deepest. He shuffled to the couch and sat down again so his father wouldn’t see his legs shake.
“What should I do?” Lucas was completely lost. “It’s like water running downhill. She just flows toward me. And I can’t push her away.”
“Then build a dam.” Castor sighed and sat down across from Lucas, rubbing plaster from his face with his hands. He looked smaller. Like he had just lost the fight, even though he’d won, taking everything from Lucas. “You have to be the one to stop this. No confiding in each other, no flirting at school, and no quiet talks in dark hallways. You have to make her hate you, son.”
Helen and Cassandra were working in the library, trying to find something—anything—that could help Helen in the Underworld. It was a frustrating afternoon. The more the two girls read, the more they were convinced that half the stuff about Hades was written by medieval scribes on serious drugs.
“Ever see any talking-skeletal-death-horses in Hades?” Cassandra asked skeptically.
“Nope. No talking skeletons. Horses included,” Helen responded, rubbing her eyes.
“I think we can put this one on the ‘he was definitely high’ pile.” Cassandra put the scroll down and stared at Helen for a few moments. “How are you feeling?”
Helen shrugged and shook her head, unwilling to talk about it. Since Castor had caught her and Lucas outside his bedroom, she’d been tiptoeing around the Delos house when she had to come over to study, and stuck inside the hell-house each night.
Usually in the Underworld, Helen could count on at least one or two nights a week where she was walking down an endless beach that never led to an ocean. The endless beach was annoying because she knew she wasn’t getting anywhere, but compared to being trapped inside the hell-house it was like a holiday. She didn’t know how much longer she could take it, and she couldn’t talk about it with anyone. How could she possibly explain the perverted wool coat and lurid peach curtains without sounding ridiculous?
“I think I should go home and eat something,” Helen said, trying not to think about the night that awaited her.
“But it’s Sunday. You’re eating here, right?”
“Um. I don’t think your dad wants me hanging out here anymore.” I don’t think Lucas does, either, she thought. He hadn’t looked at her since the day Castor had caught them with their arms around each other, even though Helen had tried several times to smile at him in the hallway at school. He’d just walked by like she wasn’t there.
“That’s nonsense,” Cassandra answered firmly. “You are a part of this family. And if you don’t come to dinner, my mom will be offended.”
She walked around the table and took Helen’s hand, leading her out of the study. Helen was so surprised by Cassandra’s uncharacteristically warm gesture that she followed quietly.
It was later than the girls had thought, and dinner was starting. Jason, Ariadne, Pallas, Noel, Castor, and Lucas were already seated. Cassandra took her customary place next to her father, and the only spot left was on the bench, between Ariadne and Lucas.
As Helen stepped over the bench, she accidentally jostled Lucas, running her arm down the length of his as she sat down.
Lucas stiffened and tried to pull away from her.
“Sorry,” Helen stammered, trying to shrug her arm away from his, but there was no room to move over on the crowded bench. She felt him bristle, and she reached under the table and squeezed his hand as if to ask, “What’s wrong?”
He snatched his hand out of hers. The look he gave her was so full of hatred it froze the blood in her veins. The room went silent and the chitchat died. All eyes turned to Helen and Lucas.
Without warning, Lucas threw the bench back, knocking Helen, Ariadne, and Jason onto the floor. Lucas stood over Helen, glaring down on her. His face was contorted with rage.
Even when they were possessed by the Furies, and Helen and Lucas had fought bitterly, she had never been afraid of him. But now his eyes looked black and strange—like he wasn’t even in there anymore. Helen knew it wasn’t just a trick of the light. A shadow had blossomed inside of Lucas and snuffed out the light of his bright blue eyes.
“We don’t hold hands. You don’t talk to me. You don’t even LOOK at me, do you understand?” he continued mercilessly. His voice rose from a grating whisper to a hoarse shout as Helen scrambled away from him in shock.
“Lucas, enough!” Noel’s horrified voice was tinged with dismay. She didn’t recognize her son any more than Helen did.
“We’re not friends,” Lucas growled, ignoring his mother and continuing to move threateningly toward Helen. She pushed her shaking body away from him with her heels, her sneakers making pathetic squeaking noises as she scuffed them against the tile, looking for purchase.
“Luke, what the hell?” Jason shouted, but Lucas ignored him, too.
“We don’t hang out, or joke around, or share things with each other anymore. And if you EVER think you have the RIGHT to sit next to me again . . .”
Lucas reached down to grab Helen, but his father gripped his upper arms from behind—stopping him from hurting her. Then Helen saw Lucas do something she’d never once dreamed he’d do.
He spun around and hit his father. The blow was so heavy it sent Castor flying halfway across the kitchen and into the cabinet of glasses and mugs over the sink.
Noel screamed, covering her face as shards of broken dishes went flying in every direction. She was the only full mortal in a room of fighting Scions, and in serious danger of getting hurt.
Ariadne ran to Noel and used her body to protect her, while Jason and Pallas jumped on Lucas and tried to wrestle him down.
Knowing her presence would only enrage Lucas more, Helen scrambled up onto her knees, slipping across a bit of broken crockery as she stumbled to the door, and jumped into the sky.
As she flew home, she tried to listen for the sound of her own body in the high, thin air. Bodies are noisy. Take them into soundless spaces like the Underworld or the atmosphere and you can hear all kind of huffs and thumps and gurgles. But Helen’s body was as silent as a grave. She couldn’t even hear her own heart beating. After what she had just been through, it should have been thundering away, but all she felt was an intolerable pressure, like a giant knee was grinding into her chest.
Perhaps it wasn’t beating because it had broken clean through and stopped.
“Is this what you wanted?” Lucas shouted at his father while he fought to break free. “Do you think she hates me now?”
“Just let him go!” Castor yelled to Pallas and Jason.
They paused, but didn’t let go right away. First they looked over at Castor, to make sure he was sure. Castor stood and nodded his head once before passing judgment.
“Get out, Lucas. Get out of this house and don’t come back until you can control your strength around your mother.”
Lucas went still. His head turned in time to see Ariadne brush a drop of blood from Noel’s face, her glowing hands healing the cut instantly.
An old memory, formed of images before he had words, came back to Lucas in a rush. Even as a toddler he’d been stronger than his mother, and once during a tantrum he’d pushed against her face while she was tenderly trying to kiss him quiet. He’d made her lip bleed.
Lucas remembered the hurt sound she’d made—a sound that still filled him with shame. He’d regretted that moment his entire life and since then he hadn’t once touched his mother any harder than he would touch a rose petal. But now she was bleeding again. Because of him.
Lucas pulled his arms away from his uncle and cousin, threw the back door open, and hurled himself into the dark night sky. He didn’t care where the winds took him.
