Daphne touched her hand to the spiky crust of ice that had formed over the charcoal.
Insanity was swirling over her head while she stared at the burned-out basin that used to be a living room floor, and the snowflake-like ice that had grown over it, smothering the fire, when her daughter disappeared with Lucas. How could she use this? Daphne wondered.
Daphne had never expected this meeting to be successful, but the bickering that had ensued as soon as Helen had made her dramatic exit was rising to a fever pitch. Before everyone started hacking each other to bits, Daphne needed to take control. She didn’t plan to lose this opportunity.
“Did you make that earthquake?” she yelled up at Orion, interrupting the chaos.
“No,” he said. When he got shot several disbelieving looks, he sighed and continued reluctantly. “Helen did it. She got the Earthshaker talent from me when we became blood brothers.”
“And how did she take the blade away from Phaon?” Daedalus asked.
“Electromagnetism,” Pallas replied. “Although I’ve never heard of any Bolt-thrower having enough voltage to create a magnetic field like that.”
“She’s too powerful,” Tantalus said quietly to Pallas. “She could kill us all.”
Pallas nodded in agreement, as did Daedalus.
The room fell into stunned silence as they all contemplated this. Daphne couldn’t let them get distracted by that detail right now.
She grabbed the Bough of Aeneas, disguised as a gold cuff on Orion’s wrist as she stood. “Did you open a portal with this and push Helen and Lucas through it?”
“No. I can only open standing portals, not create them,” he answered. “Only Helen can make her own portals wherever she wants.”
“The ice?” Daphne asked, inviting him to explain it. She needed to get everyone thinking in the right direction.
“There’s always ice when she descends. But if she went to the Underworld, she’d be back almost instantly. Time stops here while you’re in the Underworld,” Orion said, confused by Daphne’s line of questioning.
“That’s not always the case. At least not for Helen,” Daphne countered. “I don’t know why, but in one instance I witnessed, time passed here on Earth while Helen was in the Underworld.”
Castor looked at Tantalus, who Daphne knew was a Falsefinder. Tantalus nodded. “She’s telling the truth,” he said.
“The Underworld?” Castor whispered, his voice breaking. “Why would she take Lucas to the Underworld?”
They had all felt the terrible heat of Helen’s electrical storm. Except for Daphne, who could handle the intense heat of lightning, the rest of them had raw, red burns on their exposed skin. And Lucas had held on to her while she was in that state. Marry that idea to the Underworld, and they would all come to realize that Lucas was dead or dying.
“Uncle,” Hector said gently. Castor’s eyes darted around, like he didn’t even hear his nephew. Hector looked across the room at Jason and Ariadne. All of them were speechless and searching each other for answers.
“Helen knows the Underworld better than anyone. Maybe she knows a place that could help Luke? Maybe that’s why she took him there,” Jason said, thinking out loud. Really, he was just grasping at straws. They all looked at Orion for confirmation.
“Could that be it?” Castor asked.
Orion shrugged and shook his head as if to say that he didn’t know. He didn’t look very hopeful.
Daphne allowed a few seconds to tick by to let it sink in. “What if she stays down there with him, Orion?” Daphne said quietly, reminding herself not to push too hard.
She saw Orion’s face crumple at the thought of losing Helen forever. He loved her and would do anything for her, just as Daphne had planned when she shoved the two of them together in the Underworld.
It was predictable, really. Two young, beautiful teenagers, faced with incredible odds, teaming up together to fight a common cause. All Daphne had had to do was make a relationship with Lucas impossible, give Orion a chance to hope, and he would certainly fall for Helen. Now all Daphne could do was hope that he loved her enough . . . so that Daphne could truly control him.
“Could you go after her?” she continued, nudging him, trying to work just the right angle in this situation to get Orion to realize what, or rather what role, he was meant to play in the next Great Cycle. “Could you bring her back?”
“From the dead?” Daedalus blurted out before he realized what he was saying. He glanced over at Castor apologetically. “I’m sorry, Castor. But your son didn’t look good.”
Castor nodded. His face was stark white, and his eyes stared blankly at the floor, like they weren’t seeing anything anymore.
“We don’t know what happened yet. Don’t give up hope,” Tantalus whispered in Castor’s ear. He clasped his brother on the shoulder comfortingly while Daphne bit her tongue to keep herself from snarling at the sound of his voice. She wanted to scream at Castor not to trust him, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good.
Tantalus spoke up so the rest of the room was included, easily shifting into the role of leader in the wake of disaster. He had always been the most charismatic of them all, Daphne thought bitterly. Even when they knew he was evil, they trusted him, anyway. They wanted to trust him, just as Daphne had once trusted him.
“I say we use this meeting to discuss what we witnessed and how we should move forward,” Tantalus said as he addressed the group. His eyes moved to Phaon and hardened. “Starting with how to punish Phaon for attempting to murder the Head of his House.”
Andy sat in the kitchen with the rest of the non-Scions—the rest of the non-Scions who didn’t need to lie down, that is. Kate had taken Noel upstairs after it became clear that she wouldn’t be able to stop crying. Noel was a tough lady, Andy could see that, but after what happened to Lucas, any mother would have fallen apart.
Matt and Claire waited for Kate and Noel to leave before they spoke.
“I never thought Helen would hurt Lucas. Never,” Claire whispered, her eyes blank with sadness. “I can’t believe it.”
“She’s completely out of control,” Matt whispered back.
The two friends sat, their faces unmoving like pale masks. Andy didn’t know Helen like they did, but she did know what malice looked like when she saw it. Having a siren for a mother had ensured that.
“But it was an accident,” Andy said, sticking up for Helen. “She didn’t mean to do it.”
“That makes it even worse,” Matt responded heatedly. “Can you imagine what would have happened if she did mean it?”
Matt, Claire, and Andy sat silently at the table and listened in on the rest of the meeting. The Scions fought over how they were going to carve up Phaon. Apparently, this Phaon guy was extra popular, especially with the older generation. They all wanted a piece of him, but it was Daedalus from the House of Athens who claimed the biggest grievance, and not just to avenge what had nearly happened to his son when Phaon tried to kill him just moments ago.
There was mention of a young girl named Cassiopeia, and the room grew quiet. Then it was unanimously decided that Daedalus and Phaon were to meet at dawn for a duel to the death. After that, the meeting was adjourned. Seconds later, Ariadne and Jason joined them in the kitchen. Ariadne’s eyes filled up with tears as soon as she saw Matt.
“Lucas . . . ,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms around his chest.
Claire went to Jason and searched his face, wordlessly asking him a question. “It’s bad, Claire. We felt his heart stop,” Jason said tonelessly.
“He’ll pull through, though. Won’t he?” Claire said. Jason shrugged, his lip trembling. Claire pulled his head down and let it rest on her shoulder.
Jason and Ariadne were gifted Healers. They knew the true extent of Lucas’s injuries. They may not have shared the details while they were in the meeting, but here in the safety of Noel’s kitchen, they could express what they couldn’t in front of the other Houses. Neither of them thought that Lucas would make it.
Matt and Claire comforted the twins as best they could, but there wasn’t much they could do apart from holding them. Matt and Claire shared a grim look over Jason’s and Ariadne’s shoulders. Andy knew what they were thinking.
If Helen could kill Lucas, the person she loved the most, she could kill them all.
Andy watched her new friends hug each other for a moment, and then started to feel like she was intruding. She hadn’t really known Lucas, and she had no idea what it was like to have a brother or a sister—let alone what it would feel like to think he or she was going to die. She’d always wanted someone to love as much as they obviously loved Lucas.
Confused that she seemed to want to suffer like they were suffering, that she felt almost jealous of how deeply they all felt this, Andy made her way to the kitchen door that led out to the yard.
She was a creature of the sea, and the ocean had always been her biggest comfort. Andy figured that maybe a quick swim would clear her head enough so that she could be there to help this family that had helped her so much. For the first time since she’d been brought to the Delos house, Andy left the property and headed to the beach.
“She walks in beauty, like the night,” said a lilting voice that was deep and dark, and bright and innocent all at once. Unmistakable.
Andy froze, although she knew it was too late. He’d already seen her, so there was no point in trying to stay still like a dumb deer in the middle of the road. Apollo was not a car—he was a wolf. Deer need to run from wolves.
“You didn’t really think I’d forgotten about you, did you?” Apollo asked as he sauntered toward her, backlit by the long rays of the lowering sun.
The water’s edge was just a few steps away. Maybe she could make it?
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Apollo said, tracking her intention. She felt the back of her throat close off with a sob, convinced that this was it. This was where she was going to die a horrible, drawn-out death.
“And I wouldn’t if I were you,” said what sounded like the echo of Apollo’s voice from somewhere out in the water.
Andy’s head turned to see Hector rising up out of the waves. Bare-chested and dressed only in soaking-wet jeans, he strode through the tide easily, as if the water were his ally. His face, an exact copy of Apollo’s, was rigid with anger.
Apollo smiled at his Scion double. “Interesting talent you have over the water, son. Where did you get it?”
Hector didn’t reply. He went straight to Andy. “Are you okay?” he asked her gently. She nodded and cast wary eyes in Apollo’s direction, as if to say “For now.” Hector angled Andy behind him and faced Apollo.
“My, my. How brash you are,” the god admonished. “Aren’t you the least bit worried about challenging me?”
“No,” Hector said in a steady voice. Apollo burst out laughing. It was a queer-sounding cackle—not human, and a little less than sane.
“You should be.” Apollo’s eyes gleamed. His skin shone with its own light, and it suddenly seemed as if the god wore full armor and carried a stout, bronze sword.
Although he was unarmed and half-naked, Hector did not flinch or show the least bit of fear. After a moment, the godly nimbus of light surrounding Apollo died down and the vision of armor vanished.
“You really are him,” Apollo said, impressed. “Hector reborn. And I should know. I rode with him in his chariot at Troy.”
Hector didn’t answer. He stared at his adversary, every muscle awake under his skin. Standing just inches away from his bare back, Andy could feel a storm churning inside of Hector. He wanted to fight this god, she realized.
Apollo’s face twitched. He was afraid of Hector. For the first time in what seemed like ages, Andy felt something close to relief.
“Soon, little son,” Apollo said, speaking about the confrontation that Hector so obviously wanted. “Soon we’ll be back on the battlefield, but this time I fight for Olympus, and you for your newly made Atlantis. And if Zeus doesn’t force us to resort to tricks like he did the last time, we’ll finally complete the Fates’ cycle and prove who is superior—the parents or their Scions.”
Apollo leapt into the sky and flew away. Hector watched him go, thinking about what Apollo had just revealed. Andy knew she should be thinking about what the god had said as well, but all she could do was watch Hector. She was wondering how she could have ever mistaken him for Apollo.
Sure, their features and build were the same, but Hector’s eyes were alive and full of emotion while Apollo’s were missing something crucial. Something human, she supposed. The god’s eyes had the dead-smooth quality of a marble sculpture while Hector’s were quick and fierce . . . so full of feeling they seemed to burn with it.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her whole life owed to him in those two words.
He glanced at her and nodded once, then abruptly turned to leave. He walked over to his shirt and shoes, heaped in a pile a ways up the beach. Andy followed his silent figure, stunned.
“That’s it?” she said, her voice pitching up incredulously at the end. “You aren’t even going to say one word to me? Just save my life, nod, and off you go like you do this every Tuesday or something?”
Hector didn’t look at her. Angling his face away, he pulled his shirt over his head and reached down to grab his shoes.
“Hey!” she shouted. He ignored her. “Hey!” She ran up to him, and pushed him as hard as she could.
“What?” he said, frustrated, as he stumbled away from her.
“What do you mean, what?” she yelled back at him sarcastically.
“I mean, what do you want from me, Andy? Do you want me to go, or stay, or drop dead? What?”
His eyes searched hers. They bounced back and forth, looking for something inside of her. Andy shrugged. She had no idea what he was looking for. He sat down in the sand with his shoes in his hand, like he was giving up.
“I can’t do this with you. Not tonight,” he said quietly. “I just watched my brother get burned to a crisp right in front of me—”
He stopped and looked away from her, his shoulders swelling with a deep breath. He caught and held it before it turned into tears. Andy knelt down on the sand next to him while he struggled, feeling horrible. He was barely keeping it together, but still he’d put all his other feelings aside and risked his life to save hers. And then she’d yelled at him. Not her classiest moment.
“I’m sorry, Hector.” Andy touched his arm with the tips of her fingers. He leaned a tiny bit closer.
“The worst part is not knowing where they went or how he’s doing,” he confided. “I hate that I can’t help them. You know?”
She did. Hector was good at saving people. She had just seen for herself that Hector was the type of guy who would rather fight a god than feel useless. Not being able to do anything was probably the worst kind of torture for him.
“Can Orion find them in the Underworld? Oh! Maybe he could even bring you with him? You could go get them,” she said, trying to be helpful.
“Orion can’t find Helen. She’s the one who finds him when they meet in the Underworld,” Hector replied, shaking his head.
“They spent all that time down there together, and they don’t have a set meeting place?”
“Time and space aren’t like they are here, and Helen is the Descender, not Orion. He could look for her, but unless she knew that he was looking for her, and she went to him, they’d never meet up.” Hector pushed some sand around with his hands, swirling his fingers through it in frustration. “Helen’s the one in control.”
“I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.” Andy looked down at the patterns he was making in the sand and frowned. “So all we can do is wait for Helen to come back? That’s pretty annoying.”
“That’s why I needed a swim. There’s some water nymph in my family, and I’ve always felt at home in the ocean,” he said, smiling and looking down at the sand. “Helps me calm down.”
“Me too.” She stared at his profile, wondering how it was that they had so much in common already. They’d never said more than a few words to each other, but she understood him perfectly. “And almost getting in a fight with a god isn’t exactly calming. Sorry about that.”
“No. Don’t say that.”
He looked up at her, and she forgot how to breathe. He was beautiful, sure. But beauty is easy. That wasn’t what moved her. What moved her was all the life she saw inside of him. He had such a strong spirit it seemed to reach out of his eyes and grab her.
“You showing up was the best thing that’s happened to me all day,” he said, totally ruining the moment.
Andy cringed. “Yeah, well. Thanks?” she said dubiously. “But I’d be more impressed with that line if I didn’t know what a crap day you’ve had.”
They both cracked up.
“That line was pretty pathetic, wasn’t it?” he asked, making fun of himself.
“I’ve heard worse, but yeah. It was pretty bad.” She grinned at him and threw up her hands incredulously. “What happened? I had you pegged as this total smoothie.”
“What can I say? I’m off my game,” he laughed, and looked away, growing almost shy. “I am so not smooth around you.”
“Good,” she said quietly, letting the joke go. “I like you better like this, anyway.”
When he looked at her out of the corner of his eyes and smiled, Andy knew she’d never mistake him for anyone else again. It didn’t matter who he looked like. Hector was unique. Andy also knew that, like it or not, from that moment on no other man would ever quite equal him in her mind.
Matt watched Apollo leave Hector and Andy on the beach and relaxed his grip on his dagger, thankful that nothing had happened. He knew he couldn’t have allowed Apollo to hurt the girl but interfering would have caused a whole mess of problems. Matt was still trying to convince himself he could live with a few misgivings as long as the greater evil was exterminated. He was just glad he didn’t have to confront those misgivings yet, and he hoped the gods didn’t put him in a position where he would have to.
Matt stole up the beach silently. Quiet as he was, he knew the only reason Hector hadn’t heard him was that he was distracted by Andy.
He and Andromache were reunited. From what Matt saw they had the same kind of love as before. A tender, humorous companionship that could survive anything—even war, famine, and the loss of other loved ones. Their love was one of the reasons Troy had withstood the siege.
Matt wished them the best and hoped it would turn out differently this time. He really liked Hector. He always had, despite their deep political differences. Hector was the only one who really understood him.
That’s the thing about walls, Matt thought. The men on either side of them sometimes have nearly everything in common—except for the one detail that they are willing to kill each other over.
Running up the beach to Great Point Lighthouse, Matt could vaguely make out the tents of his army’s camp. Well camouflaged even during the day, they looked like nothing more than sand dunes to the casual observer, but Matt could see them for what they were. Myrmidon nests.
“Master,” Telamon said, appearing soundlessly next to Matt.
Matt smiled at him and clasped him warmly by the forearms in greeting. He was surprised to feel such a deep tie to the captain. Fond memories welled up in Matt, reminding him of the bond they once shared. Telamon peered into Matt’s face.
“I look nothing like him, Telamon,” Matt said with a chuckle.
“It’s not the looks that are important,” he replied sincerely. “It’s your conviction that counts.”
“I know what I believe. I would have believed it even if the dagger never came to me. I realize that now, and I know what I have to do,” Matt said sadly, and released his old friend.
He became aware of a mass of men moving out of the dunes. They gathered around Matt like a thinking fog that bristled with arrows and swords.
“Which is precisely why the dagger chose you.” Telamon stepped back and raised his voice slightly, including the other thirty-two Myrmidons in this reunion. “Master would never force his beliefs on another. That’s why it took so long. He waited until he found a spirit that matched his own.”
The soldiers who seemingly appeared out of thin air passed in front of Matt, each of them searching his face as Telamon had. Some of the faces of his soldiers had monstrous ant-like characteristics, like antennae, shiny all-black eyes, or lobster-red skin that seemed to be made out of shell. Some appeared nearly human on the outside, but Matt knew they weren’t.
Matt recognized them one by one. They must have recognized something familiar about him as well, because as they each looked him over, satisfied looks spread across their faces.
“I know you all, and I notice that many of us have been lost along the way,” Matt said with real emotion.
They had waited for him for so long, and every single one of them had come when they were called. Matt couldn’t live with himself if he wasn’t honest about the doubt that he still felt. “I’m sorry, brothers. I’m not sure this war is just. It’s not our goal I question. I know what is right, and I know I need to do it no matter how hard it is for me. But I still have reservations about who we fight alongside.”
“As you did at Troy,” Telamon said with a knowing half smile, like he was reminding Matt that nothing much had changed. “You fight for no king, and no country, Master. You fight for the right of every man to decide his own fate. As every one of us decided for ourselves when we swore on the blade.”
“Swore on the blade,” the mass of Myrmidons whispered.
“One man, one vote,” Telamon prompted.
“One man, one vote,” the Myrmidons chanted back.
Matt waited for the chorus of believers to settle down before continuing. There was something about their single-mindedness that disturbed him, especially since what they were repeating in unison was the cornerstone of individual thought, and the jewel of Greek philosophy.
The idea of “one man, one vote” was the beginning of democracy. Poor or rich, god or mortal, Matt believed that every being should be counted equally. The weak had just as much right to decide for themselves as the powerful. That belief was something he would die to defend. Matt also knew that when one individual acquired too much power, those without power suffered and usually died. He couldn’t live with himself if he let that happen. Not when he could stop it. But he didn’t want to make the same mistakes he had at Troy.
“The god Hermes has informed me that several Scions wish to join our cause against the Tyrant, but I don’t trust them. What I want each of you to consider is this: Should we go it alone?” Matt asked, stepping back and raising his voice to include all his men in this decision. “What do you say? Should we have Hermes arrange for all of us to meet the Scions? Or can we do this without making alliances with people and with gods who are not much better than the evil we fight?”
“We fight and die for one purpose, Master,” Telamon said. The word Master was whispered through the men in agreement, unsettling Matt again. “Alone or with allies, it matters not. When you fight, those who seek the same goal as you will claim credit for your victories whether you want them to or not. Only one thing really matters.”
Matt nodded, his decision made, despite all he knew it would cost him. “The Tyrant must die.”
Helen lay in the grass, staring at Lucas while he slept. In its first moments, this new world she created was nothing but that—soft grass under her, a sun in the blue sky above her, and Lucas beside her. Then the world grew, because he was suffering.
She willed the sunshine to take his pain away, the air to heal his wounds, and the ground to nourish him so he didn’t need food or water. In seconds, Lucas was healthy and perfect again. His eyes fluttered open and locked with hers, and Helen’s whole world was in him.
“Hi,” he said, a smile spreading across his face.
“Hi,” she replied, smiling back at him.
“Am I dead?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“Oh, good.” He looked up at the bright, blank sky.
Helen hadn’t had a chance to put any clouds in it yet. Clouds popped into existence as they occurred to her, hazing out the yellow sun perfectly so Lucas wasn’t blinded by it.
“Are you sure I’m not dead? ’Cuz I feel kinda dead,” he said suspiciously.
Helen chuckled and laid her hand on his chest. For a moment, the steady thumping of his heart was the only sound in Helen’s world. “You don’t feel dead to me.”
“That’s all that matters,” he said, turning his head to look at her. Worry darkened his eyes. “I know this isn’t possible. What did you do, Helen?”
“I made you a world.”
Lucas sat up and looked around, and she felt suddenly shy, like he was looking at an unfinished painting, and she was still sitting at her easel. Helen willed the grass to stretch out and turn into a field. She put flowers in the grass, bees in the flowers, and filled the air with the scent and sounds of springtime. He watched the world grow, like a carpet unrolling in all directions, and looked back at Helen. He dropped his head, shaking it.
“It figures. If anyone was ever gifted enough to make a whole new world, it would be you, wouldn’t it?”
“I’m not the only one ever,” she admitted, sitting up next to Lucas and regarding him seriously. “Hades did it. Zeus did it. Morpheus did it. And . . . Atlanta did it.”
“Atlanta. As in, Atlantis?” he asked, frowning in thought. Helen nodded. Lucas turned to her, deadly serious. “Helen, do you know where Atlantis is?”
Helen swallowed and nodded. Like removing a Band-Aid, she figured it would be best if she just got it over with quickly.
“It’s gone. I don’t know all the details, but Hades told me that it sank forever when Atlanta lost some kind of challenge.” Helen watched Lucas’s face fall, like something in his body ached. “I’m sorry, Lucas. There is no Atlantis.”
“No. But there’s here,” he said, his mood lifting. Helen looked at him, puzzled.
“Yes, but no Atlantis means that there’s no immortality. All those years the Houses have been killing each other to get to Atlantis and become immortal . . . and it’s all a fairy tale.”
“I’ll bet anything your world is better than Atlantis ever was. And I bet if Atlanta could make people immortal, so can you.”
“Well, thanks, but all I’ve made so far is a field of flowers. Not eternal life.”
He looked at her for a few moments. Helen knew this look. He gave it to her when he was trying to figure out the best way to explain something complicated to her.
“Just spit it out,” she groaned, grinning at the inevitable lesson he was about to give her.
“I’m just thinking about how your world works. Everything you want to happen, happens—no matter how crazy it is, right? But there are still rules,” Lucas said, talking and thinking at the same time. “Let me put it this way. You healed my body. And I know I was pretty close to dead.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“When we go back to the other world. Ah, Earth,” he said, grimacing at how strange it was to say that. “I’m assuming that my wounds won’t come back, will they?”
“Of course not. You’re healed.”
“So you changed my body. Whatever you did to my body here will carry over when we return to Earth. That’s one of the rules.” Lucas waited for Helen to nod, which she did slowly, still trying to catch up with him. “Then what’s to say you couldn’t make me immortal here and I’d stay that way, forever, no matter what world we go to?”
Helen stared at him. “How do you do that? How do you figure everything out so quickly?”
“You may be all-powerful, but nothing beats plain old logic.” He smiled at her. “Am I right? You can make anyone immortal by bringing them here and willing it?”
She nodded silently, thinking about how she’d get injured in Hades and wake up in her bed on Earth and still be injured. She knew from experience that if something happened to the body in one world it carried over into all the others. The same went for immortality. Helen knew this was right implicitly, the same way she knew her feet were there even when she wasn’t thinking about them. She could make herself and Lucas immortal just by thinking it here in her world.
Just one wish made here in this world, sitting in the grass, and she and Lucas could live together, young and healthy forever.
“Don’t,” Lucas said, his face immobile. He knew what Helen was considering. “We need to really think about this before we go and do anything permanent.”
Helen thought about how Lucas had looked when she brought him to her world just moments ago—his charred skin, the bone showing raw and red in some of the worst spots. She knew she was tough, but she also knew that there were some things she could handle and some things that she couldn’t. Losing Lucas was not something she could handle. Not now, not ever.
“Of course. We’ll talk about it later.” She smiled placidly at him.
“Helen,” he began, his eyes widening at her in warning.
She stood up before Lucas had a chance to lecture her, and pulled him to his feet. “Come on, smarty-pants. I want to go to Paris. Or Rome. Or Stockholm.”
He didn’t know what she meant until a city skyline appeared at the edge of the field of grass and wildflowers. There was no ugly transition, no garbage heaps or poorly designed public transit hubs, just flowers and then pavement. A gleaming city sprang into being, perfect and contained from the natural world right next to it, like a kingdom in a snow-globe.
They stepped onto the pavement, and the city and all of its noise and bustle and life surrounded them. The scent of roasting coffee and baking bread filled the air, and their noses led them to a murmuring, clattering café, half a block down.
“It’s like New York, Vienna, and Reykjavík had a baby with Scotland,” Lucas said in awe.
He looked up at the buildings, some ancient and castle-like and some gleaming and new. Right outside the tall buildings, a perfect wilderness of forests, lakes, and mountains awaited to be hiked, swam, and skied.
Lucas shook his head to clear it. “It’s Everycity.”
“Yes,” Helen laughed softly. “Every city I’ve never been to.”
“I promised you once that we’d travel,” he said, his face sad. “I’m sorry, Helen. It would have only taken us a few moments, and we could have flown anywhere together. But I never took you.”
“We had other things on our minds,” she said, taking his hand. “I didn’t build this to shame you. I built it to share with you.”
Lucas raised his face to the sky, taking in the complex layers of smells and voices.
“Well, you got everything right—except for one thing.” Lucas swallowed hard and smiled, glancing at her. “It’s a lot cleaner than any city I’ve ever been to.”
“What can I say, I’m from Nantucket,” Helen said, shrugging. “We don’t do filthy.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed. Even the dirt there is clean.” Lucas laughed and turned his whole body to face hers.
For just a moment, Helen felt like he would kiss her, and everywhere in Everycity the sun shone a little brighter. But he didn’t kiss her. At the last second, he pulled back and changed the subject.
“Context clues. I know you want something to eat because you made us appear right next to a café,” he said, his voice deep and textured. He turned away and squeezed her hand, like he was trying to snap them both out of a dream. “Come on. Let’s see what you put on the menu.”
“Wait. Why?” she asked, suddenly shy.
“This world’s a reflection of your desires.” He led Helen into the busy café before she had a chance to remove anything unobtrusively. He glanced left and right at the tile-top wrought-iron tables, mismatched crockery, and the open rafters above their heads, and smiled. “This is your subconscious. I want to know what you really want.”
Too late to stop him, Helen followed Lucas as he walked into her subconscious. There was art on the walls—weird combinations of images that would never be on the same wall in a museum.
Ansel Adams and Toulouse-Lautrec somehow lived in perfect harmony in Helen’s little world. Cancan girls showed their legs next to noble pines buried deep in winter’s bleached purity.
It was everything that Helen loved about art, and everything she loved about human nature. She looked at another wall and saw a vibrant, almost violent-looking Van Gogh hanging just inches away from a soothing and orderly Mondrian.
Helen knew that Lucas saw every nuance, every dialogue between the works of art. One image informed the other as Helen went back and forth in her subconscious about what was more alluring—humanity’s ability to be rational and pure, or its need to be messy and sexy.
Lucas walked right into Helen’s unfinished internal argument and saw everything that was buried inside of her—bare skin fresh from a hot bath, and birch trees dusted with snow. Helen felt naked and laid open for him to stare at. It was so embarrassing she groaned.
She pulled Lucas into a tiny booth in the corner by the window and put up her menu, like a barricade. She tried to read the menu but it was blank. Just like her mind.
“Helen?” Lucas said gently, tugging down her menu. “You don’t have to hide anything from me. You know that, right?”
“S-sure,” she stammered, shaking.
“I’m not afraid of anything inside of you,” he pressed. “Good. Bad. Creepy. I know darkness. And I’d never judge you for having a few drops of your own.”
“Oh.” Helen looked around the room. Goya’s disturbing painting Saturn Devouring His Son captured her eye and held it. “And what if it’s more than a few drops?”
Lucas laughed. He snatched her menu away, threw it to the floor, and grabbed both her hands. “Didn’t I tell you I love you?”
“Yes.”
“I meant all of you. Even the weird bits.”
“Remind me to burn this place to the ground as soon as we leave,” she said, adoring him.
“Absolutely not.” He looked around at the patrons. People of every race, age, and time period seemed to be hanging out together. Native Americans in feathered headdresses chatted pleasantly with pirates. Girls with eighties mall bangs flirted with guys right out of Elizabethan England. “I like it inside your head. It’s strange, but it suits me.”
Helen looked around, and it all made sense to her. How cool would it be to be able to go to a café and strike up a conversation with someone from another time and place? It was something she’d always imagined doing, and now it looked like she didn’t have to imagine it anymore. She could be a part of it.
Neither of them was hungry or thirsty, they were just there to taste something yummy and enjoy each other’s company. It was chilly out, but pleasantly so, and when Helen looked at what they were wearing, both of them were dressed perfectly for a fall day. She hadn’t remembered dressing them, but they were definitely wearing some new clothes.
“Come on,” he said, standing up and putting on his newly created coat. “I want to take a walk before it snows.”
They left the café and started wandering down the cobblestone street, past shops and buildings that were busy with all kinds of people going about their lives. Helen had no idea where all these people came from. She guessed she’d made them up or remembered them. Whichever it was, Helen knew they were based in reality, and that was comforting to her. It would have been odd to wander around an empty city, or worse, a city full of mannequin-like robots.
The sun was setting, and Helen smelled snow in the air, just as Lucas had predicted. Windows lit up with warm glows as people turned on their lights or lit candles. Lucas had his arm over her shoulder as they strolled down the street.
“There are no poor people. No homeless,” he said suddenly.
“No,” Helen replied. “Everyone has what they need here.”
“But how could anyone be grateful for what they have if they didn’t know what it was like not to have what they need?”
Helen shook her head and looked down. “I’ve always thought that was the lamest argument—that we need some people to be poor in order to remind the rest of us to be grateful. All that really means is that someone has to suffer poverty so other people can feel better about themselves. What a selfish way to look at the world.”
Lucas chuckled and squeezed her against his side. “I agree. But you have to admit it is human nature to only really appreciate something if you’ve worked for it, or if you know you can lose it. How are you going to make the inhabitants of your little heaven feel fulfilled if everything comes to them easily?”
“Ah. The old ‘heaven is boring’ problem, huh? Not in this universe.” Helen looked up at Lucas, and they smiled at each other. “We’ll figure something out. We’ve got plenty of time.”
“Wait,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. “What do you mean ‘we’ve got plenty of time’?”
“Just that we’re young,” Helen replied cagily.
Before Lucas could continue asking questions, Helen imagined a carnival, and it appeared in front of them. Bright, multicolored lights flashed in the evening light, and cheerful music piped around them. The scent of spun sugar sweetened the air, and elsewhere they could smell something juicy and spicy getting grilled.
“Amazing,” Lucas breathed. “Everything she wants she gets.”
Helen pulled on his arm, grinning mischievously. “And what I want right now is to ride the carousel.”
Matt heard Telamon sound the alarm. No human or Scion would ever be able to discern the skritching noises that the Myrmidons made from the chorus of natural noises on a beach, but Matt could easily tell the difference between the voices of the insects and those of his soldiers.
He left his tent to watch a party of Scions coming up the beach. Matt had known most of them from Troy and had disliked most of them. Odysseus was the only one worthy of respect.
“So it’s true,” said a large, blond man. Matt knew him as Menelaus. “The Warrior has finally joined the fight.”
“Tantalus. Head of Thebes,” Telamon whispered in Matt’s ear. Matt nodded.
“When Hermes told me that Myrmidons were massing on the shore, I knew the last piece of the puzzle had been found, and you were coming to fight,” Tantalus continued, although Matt hadn’t asked him to. An uncomfortable silence followed as Matt stared at Tantalus, still reluctant to make an alliance with this man, although he knew it was inevitable. The Myrmidons had voted for it.
“You hired one of my soldiers. Automedon. He was one of my closest friends once,” Matt said, expressionless. “Before he lost his way.”
“Yes,” Tantalus said warily as he sized up Matt. “I had nothing to do with his death, though.”
“Uh-huh.” Matt looked at the two men on either side of Tantalus—Odysseus on his left and Agamemnon on his right. Pallas Delos, as Matt knew Agamemnon now.
“How’d this happen, Matt?” Pallas asked, dismayed. He gestured to the Myrmidon warriors, arrayed in precise ranks.
“He was chosen,” Telamon said defensively. “That’s all you need to know. We accept him as our Master.”
The Myrmidons whispered the word Master in their ghostly way, unsettling the Scions who shared a round of nervous looks. They were afraid of Matt’s men, as they should be.
“And do you have all the skills of Achilles?” asked the man Matt knew as Odysseus. Matt leaned his head close to Telamon.
“Daedalus Attica, Head of Athens,” Telamon told him immediately.
“That’s not your real question,” Matt said, regarding Daedalus evenly. “You want to know if I have Achilles’ weakness.”
Daedalus’s mouth turned up in a half smile. “Every mortal has at least one.”
Matt smiled back at him with closed lips, neither confirming nor denying what the crafty one was asking. They stared at each other until Daedalus looked away.
“Suit yourself,” Daedalus said. He regarded Tantalus and Pallas and raised his eyebrows. “Well, I’m convinced.”
“Are you sure about this?” Pallas asked Tantalus.
“The gods will crush us all if we don’t fulfill our end of the bargain,” Tantalus replied, eyeing Matt with open distrust. “We bring the Warrior to the table, or all the Scions die. Zeus swore on the River Styx that if we do this our Houses will be preserved.”
It was like it always was. At Troy, the Greek kings made their own deal with Zeus and saved their skins, and the innocent children of Troy were thrown from the top of the wall. Matt learned long ago that kings cared only about preserving their own kingdoms and were more interested with what they could get out of any given situation than doing what was right. Matt was suddenly so disgusted by the hedging and the political posturing he saw in the Scions that he turned to go back to his tent. This wasn’t what he’d come for.
“Hold on,” Daedalus called out, taking a step toward Matt. The Myrmidons moved as one to intercept Daedalus. He put his arms up in surrender. “Easy. Everybody just take it easy.”
“I’ll fight with or without you.” Matt stopped and turned back to face them, speaking plainly. “I’m here to kill the Tyrant. If that’s what you want, then you may join me. If not, get out of the way.”
Helen led Lucas into the maze of booths, tugging on his arm. He hung back playfully, acting reluctant to follow so she had to half drag him. On the way, a barker caught his attention with an outlandish dare, and Lucas just had to stop and throw a baseball at a stack of lead milk bottles.
It took him three tries, which he insisted had never happened to him before, but eventually, he won Helen a prize. There was a fluffy elephant that caught her eye for a moment, but she finally picked a glittery wand. It had a silver star on the top and dozens of ribbons flowing out of the bottom. The wand felt right in her hand and easy to carry. She waved it a few times, willing sparks to puff off of it as they paused in front of the glass-blowing booth and watched a man make a little glass dragon.
Neither of them could stop smiling. Helen heard the carousel and ran the last few steps. She hopped onto the back of a unicorn as it swung past, waving her glittery wand in the air like it was a riding crop.
“Tally-ho!” she cheered to her painted ceramic mount, but it didn’t go any faster. The pole down the unicorn’s middle was brass, and it smelled tangy and crisp in the autumn cold.
Lucas jumped up next to her, standing by her side rather than getting a ride of his own. He stood over her, his coat opening around her when he gripped the brass pole. They stared at each other for a long time as the rest of the world spun by them. The bright, fairground colors streaked and smeared in the corner of Helen’s eye but Lucas was still.
“Why won’t you kiss me?” she asked quietly.
“Can’t you make me?” he replied, raising a teasing eyebrow at her.
“I wouldn’t want to. Especially not on our first real date.”
Lucas laughed softly. “I was thinking the same thing when we were in the café. You and I had coffee together once before school, but we never really dated, did we?”
“We never got the chance. The world was always about to end, or one of us was on fire or something equally annoying.” He chuckled. She looked up at him and tried not to blush. “You know, we can do whatever we want here. I can make sure there are no consequences.”
She could feel his breath quicken and see his eyes gleam with more than just the cold. “You remember, months ago, you gave me some advice about how I should go about making tough decisions?” he asked.
“Decide what you absolutely can’t handle, and do the opposite,” she said, surprised that he was bringing this up when she had been thinking pretty much the same thing not too long ago.
“That’s why I won’t kiss you.” He raised a hand and touched her face, and quickly dropped it. “Eventually, we’ll have to go back, and I’ll lose you again. I know for a fact I can’t handle that.”
Nor could Helen, and she was starting to consider other options. Like figuring out a way for Aphrodite to remove the curse that required Helen to have a daughter in the first place. Maybe instead of accepting her situation—which was ridiculously unfair—she needed to at least try to fix it.
“I’m tired of going round and round,” Helen sighed.
The carousel came to a stop. She stood up and jumped down, the lights of the carnival shutting off section by section around her as she walked off the fairgrounds. She dropped her wand, and snow began to fall. Billions of tiny stars were blotted out and seemed to fall through the night sky as unique little crystals. It looked like the air around them whirled with shimmering bits of frozen stars.
“Helen,” Lucas began, following her. She heard him bracing himself for another one of their legendary arguments.
“I’m not angry with you because you won’t kiss me,” she said, turning around and stopping him. “I get why you won’t kiss me. I can’t go through all that again, either.”
“So what’s the matter?” he asked patiently.
“I’m sick of believing that there are these shadowy all-powerful deities who are greater than me, keeping me from what I want. Because that’s a lie. I’m just as strong as any of the beings who would hold me back. And I know I can beat them.”
“Ah. Helen?” Lucas hazarded. “You’re not going to run off and start picking fights with the gods or anything like that, are you?”
“Well, no,” she said, shifting uncertainly from foot to foot. “I was thinking I’d start by asking a few questions and take it from there.”
“Good,” Lucas said, relieved. He reached out and took her hand, his eyes narrowing with determination. “And if talking doesn’t work, we’ll bury them.”
Helen watched a dark shadow pass across his face. “We’ll think about this later,” she said, leading him to a path that wound into the woods. “I’m not ready for our date to be over yet.”
