Damon wrapped his tiny arm around my shoulders. “What’s wrong, ’Tuna?” he asked.
The younger me rested her cheek against the top of her knee. She sniffed. “I overheard Mom and Dad in the kitchen this morning. She was talking about me. Worrying about my powers. Dad got upset when she mentioned something called a Reading. He said there was a cost. He was scared, Damon.”
His eyes were round with concern. Making a soft sound, Damon shifted, pressing his temple against Fortuna’s. But five-year-old boys didn’t care about much else besides having fun, and it was only a few seconds later that my brother pulled away and stood. “I know what will make you feel better,” he declared. “Let’s play the game.”
The other Fortuna shook her head, hugging herself tighter. “I don’t want to.”
“Please? Just once?”
I could see another denial in my expression, and Damon could, too—he hung his head and stuck out his lower lip. Younger Fortuna heaved a dramatic sigh and rolled onto her knees, then sat on the heels of her feet. When she got up, I remembered suddenly, there would be grass stains on her knees. Mom would sigh at the sight of them and inform me how much tights cost, beginning a lecture on financial responsibility.
She was always looking for an opportunity to teach me something new, I remembered with a soft smile.
Still humoring our brother, the other Fortuna covered her eyes. “Monster, monster, come out to play. Monster, monster, I’ve been waiting all day,” she chanted.
Beaming, Damon hurried off to hide.
And that was it. The children both vanished like spirits, the sounds of their game lingering in my ears for another moment before that, too, faded away.
It didn’t matter, though. I remembered that day now. After the other me said the silly rhyme they’d made up, she would go in search of Damon, and together, they would shriek and run as if the monster had found them both. Having seen the game now, as an adult, I didn’t understand the allure of it.
“I think it’s over,” Oliver murmured finally.
The moment he said that, I noticed how cold it was. The tip of my nose had gone numb and I could see every breath as I exhaled. Something about this place creeped me out now that I wasn’t so intent on the memory. “Okay,” I said heavily, releasing another cloud into the night. “Should we—”
Boom.
A crack ruptured through the place where we stood, and a scream tore from my throat. The jagged edges of the ice shot up so violently that Oliver ended up on one side, me on the other. I regained my balance at the last possible second, scanning the length of the crack with complete bewilderment. What the hell had that been?
Recovering quickly, Oliver started walking toward me, his body tensing to jump over the divide.
Boom.
More ice and snow flew up into the air. I held up my gloved hand to shield my face. When I lowered it again, the crack was even wider. Then I saw a divided, fan-like tail disappear beneath the black water, and in that instant I forgot how to breathe.
It’s something big, a matter-of-fact voice said inside my head. A whale, maybe?
I turned in a swift circle, the plumes of my frantic breath making it difficult to see. No more cracks appeared around me. The stillness returned, broken only by Oliver.
“Fortuna, run to me,” he shouted, urgently waving his hand in a come here gesture.
He doesn’t want to move, I thought dimly. Why didn’t he want to move? With a slow, wary frown, I looked down… and froze in terror.
A pair of giant, yellow eyes peered at me through the thick sheet of ice.
I was about to scream when the creature moved with supernatural speed, vanishing in a rush of black water and blue bubbles. Eyes wide, I jerked my head up to find Oliver, a warning already forming on my lips.
Then the world exploded.
The sky-shaking burst of ice and snow was so sudden that I fell, landing hard on my ass. Pain shuddered through my bones. I caught a glimpse of something dark and massive, but it went back under the water too quickly. Oliver was shouting. The adrenaline inside me was too loud, though, and his voice was white noise as I scrambled up and turned in a circle, assessing the situation I was in. Something had come up from beneath and struck at the ice, creating a spiderweb effect. Like a baseball through a pane of glass.
The section I was standing on was almost completely separated from the rest.
Then, almost as if the creature were doing it on purpose, that great tail shot out of the sloshing waves again and obliterated the remaining strand of ice. Boom.
The piece I was standing on gave a violent lurch. I screamed as I lost my footing a second time. I heard Oliver shout something at the same moment I threw out my hands, landing on the sopping gloves instead of my face. Boom. The night shuddered again, and in the next breath I was sliding backward, falling toward the sea. Water lapped and splashed, reacting to the ice that was crumbling and sinking all around.
“Ollie!” I screamed. I yanked off the gloves, instantly throwing them away from me, and tried to find purchase on the iceberg with my nails. Bad things were waiting in those frozen depths, I could feel it. I searched wildly for Oliver, knowing even as I did that he couldn’t reach me unless he swam. He would never do something that idiotic.
Goddamn it. Oliver was an idiot… when it came to me.
“Ollie,” I started, my voice strangled. “Don’t you dare get in that water!”
Before he could answer, a new sound echoed through the night. We both instinctively went silent. I clung to the ice, shivering, and the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Every sense felt heightened. It was a feeling I had gotten before, and I’d learned to recognize the signs. Thanks to Matthew Sworn, I was good at surviving.
I was being hunted.
I didn’t have a chance to think of a plan—without warning, the iceberg started righting itself again. Bewildered, I lifted my head and instantly saw why.
The creature I’d seen beneath my feet moments ago was now lumbering onto the ice, water streaming down its sides.
It had five massive flippers, three in the front and two in the back. Its head looked reptilian, but the rest of it was like a salamander, finished off with a film-edged tail. The weight of that long body was so substantial the slab of ice beneath us had leveled out like a seesaw. Terror beat at the inside of my stomach with frantic wings. Then the creature spotted me, its yellow eyes brightening with cold, predatory eagerness. Its long, narrow snout parted, revealing two rows of pointed teeth, and let out a sound that was halfway between a hiss and a roar. I’d never heard anything like it before.
It was fucking terrifying.
A beat after I went blank with fear, a memory shot through me—books splayed open on the floor, dapples of sunlight streaming through the tall windows of my mother’s office—and suddenly I knew what we were facing. I could see the drawing, along with the words beneath it.
Cetus.
In Mom’s stories, it had been defeated by both Perseus and Heracles. But how? Quaking with cold and panic, I ripped through my memories. I remembered one story involving a sword, and another that mentioned Medusa’s head. Neither of which were in my possession.
“Fortuna, behind you!” Oliver shouted, jabbing toward something behind me. I felt my eyes widen an instant before the ice cracked again, and I wrenched around to see the damage, only to discover a second sea monster coming out of the water. The slab of ice was bending, breaking in half.