Helen rode her bike to school the next morning, giving her dad instructions to tell Lucas that she had a few things to do before homeroom. Jerry was a little put out that Helen refused to call Lucas to explain it herself, but she honestly couldn’t make herself listen to his voice.
“Did something happen at dinner last night?” Jerry asked. She ran out the door and pedaled off before he could get a straight answer out of her.
The cool autumn wind felt good on her face, which was puffy from staying awake half the night with her eyes leaking. She hadn’t really cried, and never got that explosive release that comes from a good old-fashioned weep-a-thon. Lying in bed, she’d been too shocked to sob. She felt like an idiot. She knew there had to be worse things in the world than being dissed by the boy of your dreams, but at that moment, she couldn’t think of any of them.
Kate, Claire, even her dad had asked her repeatedly what was going on between her and Lucas, like it was expected that the two of them would get together eventually, but no one had ever asked Lucas what he thought about being paired off with Helen. Now Helen knew for a fact that he “would never touch her.” Those words kept coming back to her, not just the words, but how passionately he had said them. The way he had spoken about her made it seem as if the very thought of kissing her was disgusting to him, and Helen was just as confused by this as she was hurt. How could he want to hold her hand all the time if he thought she was repulsive?
Helen got to school, locked up her bike, and took an alternate route to her locker. It was longer, but she knew it would be Delos-free, and therefore worth all the extra steps. She had left her house so early that even with the longer walk she beat everyone to homeroom.
When Claire arrived, she noticed immediately how awful Helen looked. Like the good friend she was, she forgot all about the argument they were supposed to be having, asking Helen a dozen questions about her red face and ratty hair before she had even put down her book bag. Helen lied as best she could, but so halfheartedly she never would have gotten away with it if Matt didn’t back her up by explaining how sick Helen had been the day before. It didn’t help that Zach kept making scoffing noises as Helen tried to put Claire off. Helen ignored him, as she usually did, but she could still feel him watching her with a sneer plastered on his face.
Helen kept her head down all day and did her work. She found now that she simply didn’t care anymore if she did well in class, drew attention to herself, and potentially got the cramps. As she walked to lunch she considered faking the stomach pain if it could get her farther away from Lucas. She didn’t want to go into the cafeteria and face everyone, but she still had to go somewhere, and the auditorium door was right next to her. It had been left ajar, so Helen pushed it open and went in. Helen knew she wasn’t allowed in there. Any room that was unsupervised by a teacher was off-limits to students, but that didn’t stop her. She really didn’t care if she got caught—she just needed a moment alone.
There was only a dim light onstage, and it was very quiet, exactly what Helen was looking for. She sat down on the apron of the stage and unpacked her lunch box. Chewing, Helen glanced around, taking note of all the new sets that were just beginning to be built. The drama club put on two shows a year—a winter play and a spring musical.
She wondered what play the drama club was going to put on, and saw a spare script lying in the wings. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Helen opened to the first page and read, scene 1. athens. the palace of theseus. She rolled her eyes and dropped the script, feeling set up. Maybe the Fates really did pull all the strings.
Helen zombied her way through the last three periods, but her luck couldn’t hold out all day. When the bell signaling the end of school rang, she rushed to her locker to get to track as quickly as she could, but Lucas was anticipating her.
“Hey!” he shouted from halfway down the hall. He looked big and dangerous as he walked toward her, every step sending underclassmen scurrying to get out of his way. “Where have you been all day?”
“Busy. I can’t be late for track again,” she replied tersely, not looking at him as she dug her stuff out of her locker.
“I’ll walk you,” he said. He tried to get a look at her face.
She kept her head down and her face covered with her hair and didn’t reply. They walked down the hall next to each other at the same pace, but today Helen felt even more lonely with Lucas beside her than she had when she was by herself.
“Why didn’t you call me this morning? I could have picked you up earlier if you needed to stop somewhere,” he said when the silence became intolerable.
“Look, Lucas. The whole ride to school thing is sweet, but I think it’s easier for me to just take my bike. So maybe we should just forget it.”
“You don’t want me to pick you up anymore?” he asked in a cold voice.
“No, I don’t,” she said. They neared the end of the hallway that led down to the locker rooms. She finally turned to look at him, which she shouldn’t have. He looked hurt.
“Okay,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Are you going to tell me what I did wrong or am I supposed to guess?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Helen answered listlessly. He looked at her, waiting to feel the lie, but there wasn’t one. The light scattered momentarily around his face, hiding his expression.
“You’ll be able to get yourself to my house after track?” he asked as he glanced around, so confused he didn’t know where to look or what to say.
“About that,” Helen started, trying to think up a believable excuse.
“You’re coming. We still haven’t found those two women and now Creon is out there. Learning to defend yourself is more important than what I did or didn’t do to piss you off,” he said, suddenly angry.
She nodded, knowing it was stupid of her to even suggest giving up her training. She could barely see him through the confusing images he was creating as he bent the light around him. It was as if there were three of him for a moment, whirling around like she was looking at him through a kaleidoscope. She kept her head down and her eyes behind her hair until his image stilled and she could look at him without getting dizzy.
“Do you want me to stay away from you for the rest of the day?” he asked in a carefully controlled voice.
No, she thought. And yes. Both answers were completely true. She couldn’t lie to him, but the truth had suddenly become very slippery.
“I think that would be best,” she mumbled.
He didn’t say anything. He just turned on his heel and left her.
“Hi, Luke . . . bye, Luke,” Claire said as she joined them. She looked back and forth at the two of them. “Fight?”
Helen shrugged and took Claire’s hand, leading her into the locker room. “I don’t really care,” was all she had the energy to say.
As they ran the trail she asked about Claire’s day. She let Claire in on the auditorium secret, and told her to tell Matt about it, too, in order to avoid a friendship meltdown. Claire looked at her funny, but she didn’t ask any questions.
Helen felt as if the whole world had turned into some gigantic punch line that she had waited patiently for, and then when she heard it she found it insulting. If she had been in a comedy club she would have gotten up and walked out, but instead she had to go to the comedian’s house after school and let his cousin beat the crap out of her.
When track was over, Helen dutifully rode her bike to the Delos compound, arriving before Lucas, Jason, and Hector did. She went down to the tennis courts, which were in the process of being converted into a proper fighting arena with a sandy bottom, and looked around. There was a sword on the ground. She picked it up and gave it a swing to see how it felt.
It felt goofy as hell. Helen supposed she wasn’t a swordswoman.
“I think Hector wants you to learn the spear first. It’s considered traditional,” Cassandra said behind her.
“Wouldn’t want to mess with tradition,” Helen said sarcastically as she threw the sword down, point first, into the sand so that the hilt made a cross above the ground.
“Yes, you would. In fact, I think that’s what your mother had in mind for you all along,” Cassandra said in that spooky, faraway voice she had a tendency to slip into at crucial moments. “But naming you is something your mother did in the past, and I can only see the future.”
“You’re an oracle!” Helen said, astonished. She should have known all along.
Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to be alone with Cassandra. There was something wrong about her eyes. Helen started to circle around her, always keeping an equal distance between them, but subtly closing the gap between herself and the exit.
“Delphi, Delos. And the Oracle at Delphi was always one of Apollo’s chosen priests,” Helen said as evenly as she could, trying to keep Cassandra distracted.
“Close. The Oracle was always one of Apollo’s Scions, and always a priestess. A girl,” Cassandra said bitterly. “The Oracle of Delphi is the female offspring of Apollo and the Three Fates.”
“I’m pretty sure that wasn’t in the book you gave me,” Helen said uncertainly as Cassandra pulled the sword out of the ground, hefted it in her hand thoughtfully, and took a few steps toward her.
“It wasn’t made known to any of the ancient historians, but they did know that Apollo is the son of Zeus, and not one of the original gods. He was second generation, a kind of glorified Scion, and, like us, he was going to die eventually.” Cassandra came closer to Helen, still holding the sword.
“Then why didn’t he?” Helen asked cautiously, trying to stay calm so as not to provoke her. She circled back the other way, never taking her eyes off the bright bronze blade that Cassandra alternately lifted and let fall, as if she couldn’t entirely bring herself to raise it.
“Apollo made a deal with the Three Fates,” she said, half distracted by some darker thought. “He offered them something they couldn’t have without him. A baby girl. He swore on the River Styx to give them offspring, and in return they swore never to cut his string of life. From that day on, Apollo got his immortality, and every generation one girl who is descended from him belongs to the Fates. She’s their spiritual daughter, and occasionally she can see what her mothers have in store for the world.”
Cassandra was stalling, Helen realized. Whatever she was planning to do unsettled her, but even though she seemed uncertain, she continued to close in. As she did, light started to dance backward into her skin, and her eyes and teeth glowed with the vaguely purple hue of black light. Helen knew that she was older, larger, and stronger than Cassandra, but she also knew she was still the one in danger. Cassandra was not the only being inside that tiny body. She was being visited and maybe even partially controlled by the Three Fates.
Helen watched as Cassandra cut off her exit. Helen could always fly away, now that she knew how to get airborne, but she wasn’t sure if she could control her flight once she was aloft. She also didn’t know how to land without Lucas holding her hand. But right now she was more afraid of the Oracle with the sword than she was of falling out of the sky. Helen was about to take her chances with flight when Cassandra’s demeanor suddenly changed. She went from being the dark, fiery messenger of the Fates to being a very vulnerable teenager.
“I saw something, Helen,” she said desperately. “Then I saw it again, and again. I’ve been so ashamed and frightened that I haven’t told anyone else what I saw. And I am so sorry if I’m wrong—for all of our sakes. But I have to do this . . . because . . . this is what comes next.”
Her eyes were filling up with tears. She looked so tormented Helen would have done anything to make her feel better. She smiled understandingly at Cassandra, who tried to control her hitching breath as she nodded in return and wrapped both hands around the hilt of her sword. She swung it over her shoulder and paused, waiting for Helen to be ready.
Helen choked back the scream that was trying to climb out of her mouth.
If Cassandra, the Oracle of Delphi, had foreseen her death, was there any sense in fighting it? Did Helen really have a choice?
Cassandra swung her sword. In that millisecond Helen knew she’d had a good life, because she suddenly loved it so much that she could have wept with gratitude. She’d had amazing friends, the best dad in the world, and a strong, healthy body. She’d even experienced the joy of flight. And once, just once, in the middle of the night, she’d almost kissed the only boy she’d ever wanted. . . .
Helen felt a strange, vibrating tickle, like someone had pressed a gigantic kazoo against the side of her throat and blown on it. She saw Cassandra’s eyes widen as she pulled the blade back from the side of Helen’s neck and looked at it.
The sword was totally mangled in the middle section, all crunched up on itself like a squeezed piece of tinfoil. Cassandra stared at Helen in shock for a moment. Relieved tears spilled down her cheeks.
“I was right.” She dropped the sword and grabbed Helen in a hug. Then she started jumping up and down, making Helen jump with her. “You’re not dead! This is . . . You have no idea how happy I am I didn’t just kill you!” she squealed.
“Ditto,” Helen said in a daze. She was alive.
“Hang on. We still have to test this,” Cassandra said excitedly as she ran over to a chest of weapons in the corner of the fenced-off court. She threw open the lid and grabbed a bow and arrow. Grinning, she shot Helen.
Helen heard Ariadne scream something behind her, and someone running at demigod speed to overtake the arrow, but it was too late. The arrow struck her and bounced off her chest, making a faint twanging sound as it did so. Too late to change course, Jason plowed into her from behind and knocked her to the ground. They rolled over together until he was propped up on his elbows above her, staring at her chest with disbelief.
“I saw that arrow strike you,” he said vehemently as if he were swearing in front of a grand jury.
“It did,” said Cassandra from the other end of the tennis court, beaming with pleasure.
“I think Cassie’s finally lost it,” Hector whispered sadly, but without surprise, to Ariadne.
“No, I haven’t lost it, Hector. I saw it,” Cassandra said, still smiling from ear to ear. “Helen can’t be hurt by any weapon. Try it yourself.” She pulled a sword out of the box, offering it to him.
“Cass, just put the sword down,” Ariadne said with a hand raised in an appeasing gesture. “We can talk about this.”
“I’m not crazy!” Cassandra screamed, suddenly livid.
“She isn’t crazy,” Helen said with conviction. She untangled herself from Jason and stood. “Go ahead, Cass. Shoot me.”
Cassandra locked another arrow in her bow and shot Helen—in the head this time. Ariadne screamed again, but the scream trailed off lamely when they all saw the arrow bounce right off. Everyone was silent for a moment.
“No frigging way!” Hector shouted, a touch of envy making him sound almost angry.
“Did that hurt?” Jason asked as he turned to Helen, a look of disbelief on his face.
“Maybe a tiny bit,” Helen said, but Jason was too excited to really listen. He ran over to the box, pulled out a javelin, and chucked it at Helen. It bounced right off.
“Okay, that stung,” Helen said, smiling and raising her hands to signal in a friendly way that she’d had enough, but Hector had already picked up a sword and was stalking toward her.
“I’ll stop as soon as you start bleeding, okay?” he said casually before he started hacking away at her. Four strokes in, and the blade was ruined.
Helen stumbled back with raised arms and fell down. She wasn’t wounded, but the instinct to protect herself was still there, and Hector was absolutely terrifying when he attacked. The rain of blows ended abruptly when the sword fell apart. She tried to stand back up, but as soon as she did she was thrown down again as something fell from the sky and landed violently on top of Hector. Lucas had rammed into Hector from above, driving his cousin two feet into the dirt before he reared back on his knees to hit him.
“Lucas, stop!” Helen screamed in concert with Cassandra and Ariadne.
Jason didn’t yell, but as usual, he dove on top of the other two to put himself between them. In his rage, Lucas hit Jason accidentally, and that misguided blow made him stop and look at his cousins more clearly. Hector lay at the bottom of the pile, covered in layers of dirt, his hands held up in a surrendering gesture. Jason lay across his brother’s body, bleeding from the mouth and pushing on Lucas’s shoulders to keep him back. Lucas blinked and looked up at Helen.
“He was trying to kill you.” Lucas lowered his raised fist. He forced his eyes to focus on Hector and his voice frayed at the edges, like he was a young boy. “I saw it. You had a sword.”
“I’m okay. Look at me, Lucas. No blood. I’m fine,” Helen said gently as she moved to the side of the trench. She put her hands on his shoulders and tried to coax him off his frightened, panting cousins. Lucas allowed himself to be led up out of the trench, docile with regret and confusion.
Cassandra briefly explained Helen’s imperviousness to her brother as Helen, Ariadne, and Jason pulled Hector up out of the collapsing ditch. He was injured—not too seriously, but badly enough that he couldn’t walk on his own. Ariadne and Jason took Hector into the house, having to hold him up as he walked. Lucas watched his cousin half limp, half drag himself across the yard. He had to sit down in the sand at the sight.
Three fast-moving shapes came rushing out of the house to see what was wrong. Pallas helped his children the rest of the way into the house while Castor and Pandora briefly conferred with Ariadne and then moved toward the tennis court.
“Why didn’t you warn me, Cassie?” Lucas pleaded quietly while Castor shouted questions as he and Pandora entered the tennis court. Cassandra shrugged, avoiding everyone’s eyes.
“She was afraid,” Helen answered defensively, cutting off Castor’s questions. She took Cassandra’s hand and pulled her close, a little angry that they would try to blame Cassandra for Lucas’s actions. “She had a vision of herself swinging a sword at me and she thought she was going to kill me. She thought she had to kill me. Would you have told anyone if you were in her shoes?”
Pandora looked at Helen questioningly as if to ask if she was okay. Helen gave her an uncertain smile in response, relieved that Pandora had been sensitive enough to keep this exchange silent. Then they both turned their attention back to Lucas, who was still shell-shocked.
“If you were scared, why didn’t you tell me, Cassie? You know you can always come to me,” Lucas said firmly, but she shook her head.
“None of you are qualified to be my confidants anymore. I’m the only one who can decide what to reveal or keep hidden,” she said gently. Cassandra stepped away from Helen’s side and stood up straighter. It was as if she was throwing off her support system with one painful gesture. She took a wistful breath and turned back to Helen.
“Standing there, waiting for me to cut your head off?” said the newer, older, and slightly more melancholic Cassandra. “That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
That’s because you couldn’t see yourself, Helen thought.
Cassandra looked down at Lucas, who was still in shock over what he’d done. She put a hand on his shoulder and shook it until he looked up at her.
“Let’s go inside and check on Hector,” she said as she helped her brother off his knees.
Helen still felt shaky with adrenaline. Walking back to the house next to Lucas, she wished he would take her hand like he used to, but then scolded herself for even thinking that. She sped up and walked in front of him so she wouldn’t be tempted to feel sorry for herself.
All of them sat down at the kitchen table to hash out the new discovery, but no one had any answers. They asked Helen if she could ever remember a time when she had been wounded by a knife, but Helen’s childhood was remarkably violence free, especially for a Scion. She couldn’t remember ever getting anything bigger than a paper cut. That sparked a philosophical debate on what qualified as a weapon—if paper could cut her but a spear couldn’t, could you make a spear out of paper and kill her?
“Is a fork a weapon?” Jason asked, gesturing to one sitting on the counter. Ariadne shrugged and stabbed Helen in the shoulder with it, and it squished up like a soggy ice-cream cone on contact.
“Guess so,” said Ariadne. “Maybe a spoon?” She turned to find one.
“Could you stop that, please?” Lucas said with a wince. “Eventually, we’re going to find something that actually can hurt her. Maybe even kill her. I think we should hold off on the experiments until we figure out why she’s like this.”
“I agree with Lucas,” Castor said carefully. “And the sooner we find out how she got like this, the better.”
“It can’t be something she inherited or we would have seen it in another Scion before,” Pallas said, staring at Helen like she was a fancy, new bug he’d found under a log. “Dipped in the River Styx?” He threw it out there, like it was the most logical explanation. “She doesn’t seem like a zombie, but maybe Achilles didn’t, either.”
“No. I would bet anything she still has her soul,” Castor said, shaking his head.
“And how would she have gotten to the River Styx? There hasn’t been a Descender in millennia,” Cassandra added doubtfully.
Descender? Helen wondered.
“What about something more basic, like a gun?” Jason asked. He was still trying to wrap his head around Helen’s unbelievable talent.
“Since when were bullets ever fast enough to hit a Scion? That’s why we still use swords, dummy,” Ariadne said with a smirk. “We’re the only things that can move fast enough to kill us.”
“Yeah, but what if we had her just stand there and take a few bullets? Technically, we can be killed by them, if we’re hit enough times,” he said logically.
“It doesn’t matter how many times she gets shot. You could drop a bomb on her and she’d be fine, that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Cassandra said with tired frustration.
“There has to be a reason behind it. It isn’t a talent, so she must have some form of protection we don’t know about. I’ll start doing some research and put together a list of possibilities,” Pallas interjected, still staring at Helen.
“I’ll help you, Dad,” Hector said from the doorway. He limped into the kitchen, his hair damp from a shower. “I’m dying to know how Sparky here does her little impervious trick.”
“I tried to get him to lie down, but he wouldn’t listen,” Pandora complained from the hallway behind him. Hector walked straight over to Lucas.
“How are you feeling?” Lucas asked guiltily.
Hector clasped hands with him. “It’s okay, brother. I would have done the same thing if I were you,” he said. Then he flashed one of his mischievous smiles. “Only I would have hit you harder.”
They hugged each other, and just like that the whole confrontation was forgotten. Ariadne started to ask Pandora a question, but Helen couldn’t hold her tongue for a second longer.
“Will someone please tell me why you all call me ‘Sparky’?” she burst out in frustration. “And if I get stabbed one more time tonight I’m going to lose it!” she added, rounding on Jason, who was sneaking up behind her holding a stapler.
“You haven’t told her yet?” Cassandra said to Lucas with disbelief. “You should have done it days ago.”
“I was going to tell her today, but I never got the chance,” he replied, looking at the floor.
Helen thought about how he had hunted her down in the hallway after school, like he had something urgent to say, and how she had told him she didn’t want to see him. But that was his fault, she reminded herself. He was the one who was forcing himself to teach her how to fight and fly, right?
“Well, tell me now, then,” she said briskly. Lucas looked up at her sharply. His eyes were angry.
“You can generate lightning. Electricity. I don’t know how strong a charge you can create, but from what I’ve felt, and what Hector felt in the grocery store, I’m thinking it’s big.”
“Lightning?” Helen said with disbelief.
She remembered Hector convulsing when he first touched her in the grocery store, and then she remembered Lucas letting go of her so abruptly in the hallway the very first time she had seen him. She had been so afraid of them both, so desperate to defend herself . . . . Was it possible she had summoned a power she had never been aware of? Had she created lightning?
Somewhere in the back of her mind she saw a blue flash, and Kate crumple to the ground. A terrible thought occurred to her. She tried to banish it as she had done since childhood, but this time the thought wouldn’t go away.
“We think that means you are descended from Zeus,” Cassandra said. “But from which House is still uncertain. The Four Houses were founded by Zeus, Aphrodite, Apollo, and Poseidon. Aphrodite and Apollo were Zeus’s children, so Scions from their Houses could display his traits as well. The fourth House, the House of Athens, was founded by Poseidon, so it can be ruled out. Well, maybe.”
“My House?” Helen said, still so wrapped up in her own head that she was having a hard time understanding English. She was remembering a blue flash from her past, and a scary man that kept trying to touch her hair, flying away from her off the back of the Nantucket ferry. The smell of burning filled her throat. Helen rubbed her hand over her face and tried to rebury that memory. She had always believed that she couldn’t have been the cause of that. And worse—had she hurt Kate, too?
“When we say your House, we mean your heritage, Helen,” Castor said gently, noticing Helen’s disquiet. “Zeus had a lot of children, so your House can’t be pinpointed with any certainty yet. But don’t worry, we’re still trying to find out who your people were.”
“Thanks,” Helen muttered, still overwhelmed.
“You can’t control the lightning yet, it sort of jumps out of you when you’re upset,” Lucas said after a long pause. He was looking at her strangely.
“Is it like a Taser?” Helen asked anxiously, suddenly snapping out of her trance.
“Yeah,” Hector said as if he was recollecting both sensations and comparing them in his mind. “But stronger.”
“Does it really hurt?” Helen said quietly. She felt sick to her stomach.
“I guess,” Hector said with a condescending shrug. “You know, if you put in some real training, you could probably generate a lethal charge soon.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Helen said, jumping to her feet, horrified with the suggestion. And with herself.
“Wait, Helen, it could be a good thing,” Jason replied. “You could learn how to use your bolts instead of fighting.”
“You don’t have to use them to kill. Just to knock people out,” Lucas amended, aware now that something was disturbing Helen deeply.
He couldn’t know that what he was saying to make it better only made it worse. Helen thought of Kate’s unconscious body—how Kate had convulsed in that nauseating way when the blue light flashed. How her head had lolled back and her mouth fell open uncontrollably when Helen had picked her up off the ground. She couldn’t get the horrifying images out of her head so she started pacing around, wringing her hands to dispel the nervous energy she felt. She knew everyone was staring at her. She looked up and locked eyes with Pandora, who was clearly attentive to her strange reaction.
“Why don’t we talk about this tomorrow?” Pandora said to the room in general. “Hector needs to eat and everyone else needs a shower. No offense, but pee-ew, guys.” She got a few laughs, but more important, she got the focus off Helen. Helen smiled at her gratefully.
“Are you okay?” Ariadne whispered in Helen’s ear as the family meeting broke up. Helen squeezed Ariadne’s hand and tried to smile, but she had no idea what to say. She started to wander toward the door.
“I’ll take you home,” Lucas called out over his shoulder to Helen, ending the brief conversation he was having with his father and uncle.
“I’m supposed to watch Helen tonight,” Jason said apologetically.
“And I have my bike,” Helen said. She couldn’t bear to be with him alone.
“I don’t care,” Lucas replied bluntly to them both. He stared down Jason for a moment, speaking volumes with his eyes, then turned back to Hector. “I need your truck,” he said with barely controlled anger. Hector nodded, glancing over at Helen and back at Lucas with something approaching sympathy.
Lucas grabbed Helen’s hand and pulled her outside. He loaded her bicycle into the back of Hector’s SUV, held Helen’s door open for her while she got in, and drove out of the garage without a word. Once off the Delos property he pulled over into one of the many scenic park-and-gawk spots and turned in his seat to face Helen.
“What’s going on?” he asked, angry and frustrated and frightened all at the same time.
Helen didn’t have an answer for him.
“Will you at least tell me what I did wrong?”
“I already told you, you didn’t do anything,” Helen said to her lap.
“Then why are you treating me like this? Look at me,” he pleaded, taking her hand. She stared at their linked hands like it was the first time she had ever seen anything like it.
“What the hell is this?” she asked. She pulled her hand out of his with disgust. “You know what? I take it back. You did do something to me. You led me on.”
Lucas’s whole face crumpled. Helen had had no reason to hope after what she had heard the night before, but for some reason there was a tiny spark still glowing in her that maybe, somehow, she had misunderstood. Or that he would change his mind. It went out completely when Lucas nodded.
“I led you on,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his fists so hard Helen thought for a moment he was going to rip the steering wheel off. His voice was harsh, almost a snarl. “You and I can’t be together, so just get it out of your head and move on.”
Helen unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car.
“Wait, please,” he started to say, almost as if he was in pain, but Helen slammed her door shut and cut him off.
“Wait for what? For you to tell me that I’m a really nice girl but you’d never touch me? Thanks, I got that part already. Now open the back so I can get my bike,” she bit out. Her voice was foreign to her, so bitter and loaded with sarcasm that it sounded like someone else’s.
“I promise I won’t say anything the rest of the way if you don’t want me to. Just let me take you home,” Lucas replied calmly. She hated that he was calm.
“Open the damn door, or I’ll rip it off!” Helen yelled back.
She knew she was making a fool of herself, throwing a tantrum in the middle of the road like this, but she couldn’t stop. Humiliation was leaking out of every pore and she needed to get away from him fast. She didn’t want to leave anything behind, either—nothing that would force her to come back to him later to ask for what was hers.
She stood at the back of his car with her head down and her arms crossed tightly over her sore heart. She knew he was looking at her in the rearview mirror, so she angled her body away. Finally, he popped the back. She got her bike out and rode off without another word.
When she got home she fell into bed without even taking her clothes off. She could hear Jason moving around on the widow’s walk as he settled down for the night, but she didn’t feel guilty about leaving him up there. All Helen wanted was to run as far away from the Delos family as fast as she could.
She was on the edge of the dry lands, in a new place that she had seen from a distance, but had never thought she could reach. It was still rocky, but interspersed with the tufts of razor-sharp grass, there were tumbledown drums of mason-carved marble, a thousand Parthenons’ worth of scattered columns. There had once been an empire here. No longer.
Far off, there was the promise of a river. Helen couldn’t tell if she could hear it, or if she felt the extra part per million of moisture in the air, but she knew there was running water nearby. She felt so dry and empty inside. Where was the river?
As she searched, she looked down at the fallen architecture and read the names graffitied on its sides. Gracus loves Lucinda. Ethan loves Sarah. Michael loves Erin. For what seemed like days she ran her fingers over the names carved into the fragmented bones of ruined loves, stepping around the broken pillars of unkept vows and dusting the headstones in the graveyard of love with her hands. Every kind of death had a resting place in the dry lands.
She walked until her feet bled.
Helen woke to a room filled with sad blue light. She tried to roll over and felt tied to her mattress, like she had been jumped by the Lilliputians in the middle of the night. Somehow in her sleep she had shucked off her shirt and shoes, but her jeans were so tangled up in her sheets that she had to push herself off the bed and fight it out on the floor to unwrap herself. It was an ugly battle, especially since she was still covered in dirt from the trench Lucas had dug with Hector’s body, dried blood from her cut feet, and a gray, powdery dust from the dry lands. Her feet had healed themselves, of course, but still there were blood-encrusted foot smears all over her sheets. They were ruined, and she would have to buy new ones. Luckily, her dad was too squeamish about girl stuff to ask questions.
She shimmied out of her jeans on her way to the bathroom and climbed into the shower before the water even had a chance to heat up. Opening her mouth, she gulped down as much of the cold spray as she could catch. She was so dry inside. Her body ached from walking hundreds of miles under a dead sun—the cold water was like a blessing even though it made her shiver. Helen looked down at her skin and watched the water get forced into little rivers by the raised hairs of her goose bumps. It made her think about the river she had seen from a distance right before she woke up.
She couldn’t remember it.
She knew she had felt a sigh-worthy relief, and only one thing could have made her feel that way in the dry lands. Water. But she couldn’t remember anything about it. How could she forget a river in the dry lands? It was unthinkable, so she stopped thinking about it.
It bothered her that her brain refused to think about it. She walked, still naked and dripping wet, to the vanity in her bedroom, picked up some old viper-green eyeliner Claire had left the last time she slept over, and wrote THE RIVER I CAN’T REMEMBER on the mirror, just in case she forgot again. Then she got dressed.
It was getting cold out, and the air was damp with fog. Helen zipped her jacket up to her throat and regretted not bringing gloves. As she rode to school she had to keep one hand in her pocket and one on the handlebars, and then switch off when the hand she was using to steer got too numb.
When she arrived she saw Lucas waiting in the parking lot, leaning up against an Audi she’d seen in the Deloses’ garage but had never seen him drive before. It reminded her how stupid she’d been to think he was going to kiss her that night in his garage. She dropped her head and hurried toward the school without waving to him. He took a step after her and opened his mouth to say something, but stopped himself and let her go.
When Helen got to the door, she heard Claire call out from behind. She paused and waited for her to catch up.
“Are you two fighting?” she asked, glancing back at Lucas’s stooped form. When she got a good look at how terrible Helen looked she burst out, “Holy crap! What the hell happened to you?”
“I didn’t sleep well last night,” Helen mumbled.
“Your eyes look black and blue, Len. Like you haven’t slept in weeks,” Claire responded, sounding seriously worried. “Were you crying a lot?”
“No. Not at all,” Helen said. It was true, too. She was sad, but she never felt like crying when she was depressed. She felt like sleeping.
“Can you tell me what the fight was about?” Claire asked cautiously.
“There was no fight, really. Lucas just doesn’t want to be with me,” Helen said. She rammed her fists into her pockets. She found that if she tensed her muscles she could keep herself from giving up on moving.
“I don’t believe that,” Claire said doubtfully. “He punched Hector in the face for just talking to you and pretty much announced to the whole school that you were his girlfriend.”
“Well, I guess he must have changed his mind since then,” Helen said, shrugging. She didn’t have the strength to argue. She barely had the energy to turn the combination on her locker. She was so tired from walking for weeks, but that had been a dream, hadn’t it? How could she be physically worn out from something that had only happened in her mind?
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Claire asked, studying Helen’s hunched-up body.
“Uh-huh. He doesn’t want me, Gig. He told me so himself. Can we drop it now? I’m just too tired.”
“Yeah. No problem,” Claire said, rubbing Helen’s back. For a second, Helen let herself lean against Claire in a sideways hug.
“Shit. I’ll kill him,” Claire offered. Helen tried to laugh at that, but what came out of her sounded more like a hacking cough.
“Thanks, but no. I don’t want him dead,” Helen said. She shuffled after Claire to homeroom.
Mr. Hergeshimer asked about her health as soon as he had a chance to process how wretched she looked. Helen assured him she was fine, and after studying her face skeptically for a moment he gave up and went back to harassing Zach about his choice for the Word of the Day. Matt asked Helen in a whisper if her stomach felt better, and then restated his opinion that she should quit track.
“You’re wearing yourself too thin,” he said, sounding an awful lot like her father.
The rest of the morning went similarly. Every teacher asked if she needed to go to the nurse, and all of her acquaintances worried that she wasn’t better yet from her “fit” during track the other day. Except for Zach.
“I had no idea you were so fast, Hamilton,” he said as he ran to catch up to her in the hall.
“Yeah, I’m pretty fast,” she countered, trying to sound disinterested.
“Right before you collapsed I saw you chasing that shirtless guy and I realized that I’ve had it backward all these years. See, I always thought you were the one who liked to be chased, you being such a tease and all,” he said with a faint sneer. “But it’s hard to believe any guy could outrun you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone run that fast.”
“Wait, you told Gretchen?” Helen asked, a sinking feeling in her stomach. “I thought it was the other way around.”
“I gotta admit,” he said, taunting her, “when you want to, you can move so fast it’s, like, inhuman. The only other time I’ve ever seen anyone move that fast was when one of those Delos kids was playing the hero during football practice and this freshman went down on the other end of the line—” Zach was cut off by Helen’s history teacher, who gestured for Helen to hurry up and get in the room.
For the moment, Helen was saved, but from the way Zach was looking at her, she had the feeling that this wasn’t the end of the problem. She tried to put it out of her head by telling herself that he could spread as many rumors as he liked, but everyone would think he was exaggerating. Zach liked to gossip and even though people generally listened to him, Scion speed was something that a person had to see to believe.
On her way to the auditorium to meet Claire and Matt, Helen got intercepted by Cassandra and Ariadne. They asked where she was going, and she didn’t feel like lying to them, so she invited them along.
When the coast was clear, they sneaked in the unlocked fire door and came into the auditorium from the backstage entrance. Matt and Claire were already sitting on the apron of the stage, their lunches laid out on napkins like a picnic.
“Good. You invited them,” Matt said with a satisfied nod when he saw that Helen wasn’t alone. “But don’t bring anyone else along or we’re going to get caught.”
“We’ll probably get caught, anyway,” Claire said with a smirk. “But it’s totally worth it. Where else could we get such atmosphere?” She gestured to the beautiful, glittery set that was growing, piece by piece.
Cassandra and Ariadne looked around appreciatively, especially at the parts of the set that were to be Theseus’s palace. They shared a conspiratorial grin with Helen, who managed to lift up half her face in something sort of like a smile. The fairyland parts of the Midsummer set appealed to Helen, but the Greek bits disturbed her. The faux Doric columns were half painted and lying sideways on the ground as if they’d been toppled, and they made Helen think of the arduous journey she’d taken the night before.
She never wanted to go back to the dry land, but if she could find that river . . . Wait, what river? she thought. She turned her back on the half-built columns and sat down next to Claire to eat her lunch.
Helen tried her best to get into the conversation, but she barely had the initiative to chew, let alone laugh and joke. She could tell that her friends were being clever and fun by the way Cassandra and Ariadne were reacting, but she could barely stay awake, let alone participate in the conversation.
She kept thinking about flying. Well, really she kept catching herself thinking about Lucas, but as soon as her thoughts slid down that hot knife, she shuffled her imagination over to the side and thought about flying instead. Maybe she would try it again on her own later, she decided, but this time she would do it inside her house so she wouldn’t be in danger of floating away. Although the prospect of blowing away on the breeze didn’t seem like such a bad idea right about now.
“Lennie! The bell’s ringing,” Claire said, her bag already over her shoulder. Helen jumped up and got her things together while her friends shot each other looks behind her back.
Claire tried to talk to Helen during track, but eventually gave up when Helen kept turning the conversation around to ask how Claire was instead. Helen didn’t want pity, and she didn’t want to talk about herself. She just wanted to switch her brain off and float.
Eventually, Claire got the hint and started talking about the bonfire party on the beach that night. She was having trouble deciding if she was going to get a ride with Ariadne or not.
“On the one hand I want to get to know her better, but it would mean I would have to go with her and Jason, and he always finds a way to start an argument with me. Are you sure you can’t take the night off from work? We could get a ride with Matt together,” Claire said optimistically.
“You know I can’t.”
“If you asked Kate, I’m sure she’d let you,” Claire coaxed
“Gig? I really don’t want to spend the night sitting on cold sand watching everyone make out,” Helen said with finality. “But you should go and have fun. And who knows? Maybe you and Jason will get along tonight, for once.”
Claire launched into a tirade about how annoying Jason was for always disagreeing with her. Only half listening, Helen finessed the air currents around her, practicing flying with the gravity on. She couldn’t wait to get home after work that night and give it a try.
Hidden behind a sand dune, Creon counted the minutes that passed while his cousins Hector and Jason stayed submerged. He hadn’t known about this talent, and he was happy that circumstance had led him there to witness it. He had lost track of Lucas earlier, which happened often considering his little cousin could fly, and he had to settle for following Jason and Hector to this ridiculous beach party. As he watched his cousins breach the waves and stroll out of the thundering surf, he seethed with resentment. All that talent wasted on cowards who were too frightened of the gods to challenge them, and too interested in their own pleasure to consider the implications that flirting with human girls could have for their entire House.
Jason spent most of the evening talking to a tiny Japanese girl. He seemed to be able to control himself around women, but Hector was a different story. It wasn’t even midnight yet, and Creon had seen him rolling around in the sand with two different girls already. Didn’t Hector know how easy it was for Scions to impregnate women? Did his idiot cousin really want his firstborn to be from some foolish child with no character? Obviously, Hector didn’t care about their House, or he wouldn’t waste his time with such silly girls. It rankled so much, Creon had to look away and grit his teeth. There was only one girl on this island who was equal to any of them in status. Only one girl worthy of his attention.
Helen. But Lucas wouldn’t leave her for a moment, and it forced Creon to keep his distance from her. He couldn’t confront his cousins directly or his undercover mission would be spoiled, but there had been a few times when Creon had considered it. Helen’s face had stayed with him. He thought back again to their confrontation out on the moors. The fear and anger in her eyes while she chased him had been pure, so passionate it was almost too much to resist. She was powerful, and yet so unaware of her potential she was nearly helpless. His hands shook at the thought of conquering her, but he had to be patient.
His mother had begged him to wait until she could quietly ask around and find out if there was a possibility someone in the family had left a bastard in Massachusetts. Creon had reluctantly agreed to wait a week on her reply, but he knew what the answer would be. Even though he hadn’t seen the Furies when he first encountered her, he knew Helen wasn’t his cousin.
There were rumors that a few Scions in the past had found a way around the Furies, and Creon believed Helen was one of them. His mother said it was impossible—that all the other Houses had been destroyed—but Creon had more to go on than a gut feeling. The traitors were guarding her like she was the last enemy Scion, and she was so untrained, so ignorant of who and what she was, it seemed obvious to Creon that she had been purposely hidden away from all the Houses, even her own. But above any of these other reasons, it was Creon’s body that told him she was not related to him. He had met dozens of his female cousins, all beautiful as the daughters of Apollo should be, but not one of them kept him up at night the way Helen did. He knew she was from another House.
He was obligated by family duty to watch and wait for a few more days in order to remain true to the promise he had made his mother, but very soon he would prove himself. He was up to this challenge, and although there was an alternative for unification of the Houses other than combat, Creon forced himself not to think about it, no matter how tempting it was. This was his one chance at the glory he deserved, the last chance at this type of glory for any Scion. There was another Triumph waiting to be captured, and in his heart he knew that this Triumph would be the one to open the gates of Atlantis.
Creon was destined to be the Scion to make his family immortal, and for that his father would honor him above all others.
