1
Shadow Guild Tower
Seraphia
Sometimes, problems could only be solved with books.
Whether or not my problem was one of those, I had no idea. I hoped so. I might be a goddess now, but I was a librarian, first and foremost. I’d rather solve my problem with books than battle.
And boy, did I have a problem.
Just yesterday, Hades and I had released the evil titan Chronos from Tartarus. It had been a mistake, but the consequences were real. There was no time to waste. Chronos would wreak havoc on Earth now that he was free, and we needed to stop him.
“Okay, that’s the last of them,” said to my fae friend Eve as she set a box of books next to me. She leaned wearily against the edge of a table in the main room of the Shadow Guild tower and grinned at me. “And neither hide nor hair seen of Hades while we snuck them out of the library.”
“Thank fates.”
Eve stared at me with penetrating eyes, worry dimming the grin on her pretty face. Today, her hair was pale pink, which looked totally bad ass against her black leather jacket. “Really? I know this has to be difficult for you.”
“It’s fine.” It wasn’t fine. “Hades wants to rule Earth just like Chronos, and Hades being an evil dictator is kind of a deal breaker for me.”
“You grew really close though, didn’t you?”
“No.” Another lie.
“Hmm.” She turned and started sorting through the books. Apparently, she was a super sleuth when it came to ferreting out true emotions, because I had grown close to Hades.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “As long as he wants to spread his eternal darkness to the world, I can’t be with him.”
“Yeah, I can’t argue with that. Relationships take compromise but sitting on a throne of darkness for eternity is just a bit too much to ask.”
“Exactly.” I shoved away thoughts of Hades and looked down at the massive box of books. We’d lugged them from the library because it was safer in our guild tower. Though I no longer feared Hades, I wasn’t ready to run into him yet. And since he could access Earth through a portal in my library, that had become No Man’s Land.
The sound of crinkling cellophane caught my attention, and I turned toward it. I’d thought we were alone in the tower, but Cordelia, my friend Carrow’s raccoon familiar, sat by the fire. I hadn’t seen my own bat familiar, Echo, since I’d left the underworld, and the sight of the small, masked carnivore made my heart twist.
“Did you know she was here?” I whispered to Eve.
“Nope. She’s sneaky.”
Cordelia sat in a huge wooden chair that resembled a throne. It was our leader Carrow’s chair, but Cordelia had no respect for formalities. She sat on her fluffy butt like a human, her tiny hand buried in a bag of Cheetos. Orange cheese powder dusted her whiskers, and she stared at me, her black eyes unblinking.
We’d only been in the room a few minutes, and she’d been so still and silent we hadn’t noticed her presence. The lure of the Cheetos had apparently proved too great, however, and she’d plunged a little paw into the bag, alerting me to her presence.
“Have you been spying on us?” I asked.
She nodded slowly, then stuck a Cheeto in her mouth.
“You’re a weirdo.”
She grinned but said nothing. At least, nothing that I could understand. Only Carrow could speak to her.
“Care to share those Cheetos?” I asked.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” Eve said.
Cordelia shook her head.
Eve laughed. “Told ya so.”
I shrugged. “Fair enough. I shouldn’t get orange fingerprints on these books, anyway.”
Cordelia shoved another orange treat into her mouth, and I turned back to the ancient books I’d collected from the library. They were all about Greek mythology—ancient texts that I’d found in the back of the stacks.
Eve pulled a book out of her box. “We’re looking for any mention of Chronos, right?”
“Exactly. Anything that will give us a clue about how to get him back into Tartarus.” I’d tried to send him back when I’d first released him, and it had almost killed me. It would have killed me if I’d managed to succeed.
But Hades had saved me.
No.
I couldn’t think of him.
Nor could I afford to remember that he’d chosen my life over his own goal, even if he’d quickly resumed his quest for world domination, so it still wasn’t going to work out.
I reached for a book, and Eve and I got to work. I read quickly, looking for anything helpful. As I worked, I fell into a trance, lulled by the soothing sound of Cordelia chomping away on her Cheetos. I’d skimmed through half the books when my hand flickered, briefly disappearing.
Shock lanced me.
“What was that?” Eve asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Your hand just disappeared.”
“Yeah. That’s not normal, is it?” My voice was high pitched even to my own ears.
“Nope.” She grabbed my hand and inspected it. “Still looks normal.”
It flickered again, disappearing briefly, and she jumped.
“Shit.” My heartbeat thundered. I’d only seen this once before. On Hades.
“What is it?” Eve asked. “You look like you know something.”
“Um…I might.” My voice had gone faint.
“Oh, tell me it’s not bad.”
“It’s kinda bad.” I swallowed hard. “This is happening to Hades, too. It’s a curse that weakens his ties to the underworld. He starts fading every thousand years until he’s eventually dragged to Tartarus.”
“Oh, shit.” Her gaze flashed to mine. “So you mean maybe you are being dragged to Tartarus?”
Head buzzing, I nodded. “Maybe. It might have happened when I was trying to send Chronos back to Tartarus. I fell into the pit that leads there. Hades saved me, but maybe being so close to it cursed me or something.”
“This is not good,” Eve said. “Very not good.”
“You’re telling me.” I shivered. The room suddenly felt quite chilly. I turned to check the fire. It blazed merrily, but a faint blue glow emanated from the other half of the room, and the floor, ceiling, and walls were coated in ice.
I blinked, shocked. “Eve, turn around.”
She frowned at me in confusion but did as I said and gasped.
A thin layer of ice crept across the floor, already inching its way up the chair that Cordelia had fallen asleep in. In the flash of an eye, the ice crept over her still form, almost as if it had been drawn to her.
“Cordelia,” I shouted.
She jerked, her eyes opening. But it was too late. The ice crept over her furry little body, freezing her solid.
Horror opened a hole in my chest, followed closely by sheer terror. The ice inched across the floor toward us.
Eve moved toward Cordelia, but I got there first. Avoiding the ice on the floor, I snatched the raccoon out of the chair, shocked by how heavy she was. Immediately, my hands and arms felt icy cold. Numb.
Crap. I called upon my magic, forcing it to surge forward. I had no idea if it would work, but as Persephone, my power was based in life. Surely that could combat the deathly nature of whatever curse created the ice.