I want to murder and kill him!
I never should have gone to the kitchen last night. Why didn’t the Fates steer me away from that calamity? What’re they doing up there at the top of the mountain? Placing bets on how quickly I’ll fail?
And that kiss. That stupid, gods-be-damned kiss.
Just thinking about it sends my stomach alight again. My body has clearly forsaken reason. Clearly it’s against me as well.
I’m so gone to fuming that I nearly run right into Max. He’s standing outside my bedroom door, fist poised to knock.
“I’ve been looking for you!” we shout in unison.
Max laughs. “You first.”
He follows me into my room and I shut and lock the door behind me. Better to be on the safe side. Monstrat might have been clear with his warning, but Haven isn’t about to listen to the professor and something tells me Pearce won’t either.
I sit on the edge of my bed. “Did you hear what happened?”
Max expels a breath. “You heard what happened? Oh, thank the gods and all who love them! I was dying to tell you but the staff was specifically told not to mention that the escaped Titan was last seen headed this way because they don’t want the descendants to lose focus for the upcoming trial and knowing that in advance would be totally against...the…” Max trails off as he takes in the look of utter shock on my face.
“The titan...is coming here?” I can barely get the words out without a little shriek coming out with them. I grew up hearing stories about the titans and how monstrous they were. We knew to be afraid of them before we even knew how to walk. And now one is headed this way? Maybe Hades will cancel the trial...
My hands and face grow hot.
“Whoa. Are you ok?” Max puts his hands out toward me but doesn’t come any closer. “I think you’re glowing?”
I jump up and rush to the armoire. I yank open the door to get a look at myself in the mirror hanging on the backside of it.
Gods around us.
He’s right. My hands and face are glowing a kind of weird reddish-gold. I shake my hands experimentally as though I can shake off the strange light. When I place my hand on the door of the armoire to shut it, it starts to crumble at my touch.
In an instant, it’s just charred hunks of wood raining to the floor.
A headache builds behind my eyes.
“Something is wrong,” I say.
“Is that the gift Hades gave you?” Max asks.
I nod. “The Gift of Life, or so I’m told.”
“Well, it’s pretty amazing. You just decimated that wardrobe. Imagine what you could do to Haven’s face.”
“What’re you talking about? This is anything but amazing!” The pounding behind my eyes intensifies. “When Haven used the ability on me, it burned, but he wasn’t glowing. I’m supposed to be able to affect life force, not burn down the furniture.”
Max still looks impressed though. “Maybe it just works differently for you. I mean, you’re an exception, you know. In all things.”
I sit down in the middle of the floor careful not to let any part of me that’s glowing come into contact with anything else. I want to rub at my eyes and see if I can massage the pain away, but I don’t dare touch my face. I don’t want to melt the skin from my bones. “Is it normal for it to make my head hurt this much?”
“I’m not sure,” Max says. “Maybe...maybe you just have to get used to it? I’ve never actually witnessed Hades use the gift of life so I can’t exactly say what it’s supposed to look like. Maybe try it on something more alive? Maybe it makes your head hurt if you use the power on something that’s dead. Like that wardrobe.”
“Okay. That makes sense.”
He looks around and then grabs a small plant from the windowsill. It’s a delicate thing, with white star blossoms that open up on delicate stems. I think it might be narcissus but I’m not sure.
“Set it down here.” I gesture for him to set it in front of me, careful not to touch him as he backs away. “Hades didn’t say life force only worked in one direction. I should be able to make it grow more quickly?”
“Theoretically,” Max hedges. “But we don’t see a lot of that kind of thing around here. Hades and his descendants aren’t known for their cultivation abilities.”
I think back to the trees in the Dark Wood, the way their branches shed their leaves after I lost control of myself.
If I was a descendant of Hades’s, my powers would certainly line up with his. Cultivation notwithstanding.
But if I can kill leaves, maybe I can make things grow too. Life force is a two-way street. And I’d feel a lot better about a lot of things if I could give life to something instead of take it away.
I take a deep breath and stare at the beautiful plant. Narcissus doesn’t grow around Hestia’s House—it’s almost exclusively a Hades flower—but the sweet floral smell still reminds me of home.
“Stand back,” I say to Max.
He backtracks to the corner of my room looking both excited and anxious as I reach out one glowing hand toward the blooms.
The pain in my head lessens as a patchwork of light trembles around my hand much like it did from the Orb of Life. The glowing intensifies. The pain is all but gone now and I let out a breath of relief.
But the moment my hand touches the flower, the light snaps out from me and the petals disintegrate into nothing but ash.
“Max,” I start to say when the light explodes and sears my vision. Faces flash in my mind. Faces and names and events at Hades’s House. Things I remember but shouldn’t remember.
Someone is screaming.
The light swirls in my head and with a snap, it blooms outward like a ripple in the sea.
“Ana!” Max yells. “Ana, STOP!”
I blink. I’m cold all over and shaking. Smoke rises in front of me. I look down to see that not only is the plant gone but I’ve burned my way through the rug and made a sizable hole in the wood floor beneath it.
“Max?” I say. “What hap—”
Black smoke coalesces behind him and solidifies into Hades. He looks from me to the smoldering floor and a dark frown crosses his face.
He snaps his fingers and everything goes black.
Chapter 25
Theo.
His name comes to me like the sharp ringing of a bell.
I see his face in the Dark Wood.
I see him at the giant oak handing over his bracelet to Haven.
In the darkness, I’m aware enough to know that I’m not supposed to remember Theo.
But somehow...I do.
Every now and again I surface long enough to hear people talking around me, but I’m never sure if they’re real or part of the memories I can now recall with perfect clarity.
Theo. One of the twins. Others whose faces are grim as they walk to the waiting carriage.
We were never meant to remember those that had been sent away but somehow now I do.
Theo. Who wanted to go to the mortal realm. Who considered Haven a friend. The Theo that Haven helped get to the mortal realm because he loved a mortal girl.
I’m able to lift my eyelids ever so slightly.
I swear I see Haven sitting near my bed.