Sweet Shadows

  Not enough. “He texted me last night.”

  “Is he”—Milo hesitates—“okay?”

  “I think so.” I hope so. “He said he’d be home soon.”

  We sit in silence, listening to each other breathing for a few minutes. I’m sure Milo is wondering about his new friend’s weird behavior. I’m wondering what my brother is trying to work through and whether he’ll be happier when he gets back. He’s a good person—he deserves a lifetime of happiness.

  “So …,” Milo says.

  I smile sadly. “So …”

  I feel totally dumb for forgetting our date today. And I don’t know when I’ll be able to reschedule. I barely know what I’m doing tomorrow. Who knows what will come up the day after that? For all I know, the whole monster realm could break free and take over the city.

  I wish we could make tomorrow work.

  “Wait, I have an idea,” I blurt. Why did it take me so long to think of this? It’s the perfect solution. “How about I come to your practice? It won’t be like a date or anything, but we could, you know, talk.”

  I can hear the smile in his voice when he repeats, “Talk. Sounds perfect.”

  “Great!” I flop back onto my bed, relieved. “I’ll be there as soon as school lets out. I get out earlier, so I should beat you there.”

  “Great,” he says. “I’ll see you then.”

  I sigh. “Good night, Milo.”

  “Good night, Grace.”

  As I set my phone on the nightstand, I feel like I could probably float all the way to my boring white ceiling.

  Tomorrow, I’ll get to see Milo and we’ll talk. My parents forgive me. Now, if only Thane would come home. And my sisters and I could figure out how to rescue our kidnapped ancestors and survive the looming war. Then my world would be pretty much perfect.

  CHAPTER 9

  GRETCHEN

  I text Nick to meet me at the Peace Plaza in Japantown because it’s between his place and Union Square. It’s also very public and very neutral. A safe place, in more ways than one. I find him waiting for me by the Peace Pagoda.

  “Hey, how was your—”

  “I’m starved,” I say. “You like Korean?”

  He blinks, like he’s startled by my abrupt question. But, to his credit, he recovers quickly. “I like food, period.”

  I nod and then turn to head into the east building, to one of my favorite restaurants. I don’t say another word until we’re seated in a cozy—and discreet—booth, the waitress gone to get our drinks.

  “I am going to ask you a series of questions,” I say. “If you don’t answer them to my liking, I’m walking away.”

  For a second he looks as if he wants to make a joke. His dark eyes sparkle and the hint of a smile plays at the corners of his mouth.

  “Permanently,” I add, just in case I’m not being clear enough. “I just saw Sthenno get kidnapped. Ursula—Euryale—is already taken. My sisters and I were nearly killed last night. And there’s a war coming that we’re not prepared to fight. I need answers. Either you’re useful or you’re not.”

  He makes a choking sound.

  I spin my chopsticks on the table. “You won’t like what happens to useless things.”

  He regroups and says, “Okay. I’ll answer everything I can.”

  Everything he can? I snort. He’d better answer everything he can’t too.

  I’ve had the entire drive here to gather my thoughts, to prep my question, to decide on my first line of attack. There are so many things I need to know, and right now he’s the only one who might have answers. But where to start? Since Ursula told Grace she’s safe, I have to assume that she is. And that Sthenno will be too. For the time being.

  The critical question then is whether my sisters and I are safe. Which makes the first question a no-brainer.

  “Who wants us dead?” I ask. “My sisters and me, who’s trying to kill us?”

  The waitress returns with our drinks, a pair of root beers, and Nick waits until she’s gone with our food orders to respond.

  “I can’t know for certain,” he says. Not the answer I’m looking for, and when he sees my scowl he adds, “But I can make a guess. When the gods sealed the door, the ritual included a clause stating that after a time the door would be reopened.”

  “By the Key Generation,” I say. I take a sip of my root beer. “That’s me and my sisters. I know that.”

  “Right,” he says, giving me a look that shows he doesn’t appreciate the interruption. “Well, over the years—the millennia, really—some of the gods changed their minds. They grew complacent and lazy. Deluded themselves into believing that it would be best to maintain the status quo. They decided that reopening the door, even with the Key Generation to guard it, would be a huge mistake.”

  “They want us dead,” I say, trying to fill in the blanks, “so we can’t break the seal.”

  He nods.

  “Which gods are those?” I ask. “The ones who changed their minds.”

  Nick shakes his head. “We don’t know for sure. Zeus is probably one of them. He’s tired and checked out and doesn’t want to resurrect old concerns. If that is true, then his allies are on that side as well. But that’s supposition. We only know that one faction wants you taken out before you can break the seal.”

  Zeus. I shake my head. It’s one thing to think about the gods as a vague kind of idea. To think I’m distantly related to them, that I’m part of their family tree. But it’s another thing to realize they’re real and fallible and acting in ways that affect my life. To know they’re aware of me and planning to kill me. It’s … annoying. Can’t they just leave me and my sisters alone to do our jobs? It’s not like we asked for this destiny.

  “Well, that explains the bounty,” I say, thinking out loud.

  “The bounty?” Nick asks. “You mentioned it last night, but you weren’t exactly in the mood to answer questions.”

  “Yeah,” I reply, swirling my glass so the ice inside starts to spin. “A few of the beasties I’ve hunted lately mentioned it. They get a one-way ticket to freedom if they bring one of us back.”

  “Another argument for Zeus then.” Nick rips apart his chopsticks and uses them to dig out an ice cube from his glass. “He is probably the only god with the power to grant eleftheria—freedom.”

  “What’s so great about our world anyway?” I ask. “We’ve got pollution and traffic and lots of stress. Why is all of monsterkind so eager to visit our sunny shores?”

  Nick freezes, ice cube halfway to his mouth. “You’ve clearly never been in the abyss.”

  “No,” I say, “and I’m not especially interested in visiting. Have you?”

  His entire face shadows. “I have.”

  “Oh,” I say quietly. I feel that I should apologize, but I’m not sure for what.

  “It’s”—he looks up at the ceiling and shudders—“horrible.”

  “But it’s where monsters belong,” I insist. “It’s their home. It must be livable.”

  “There is a world of difference between livable and desirable.” Nick drops the ice cube back into his glass. “But to answer your question, there are two main reasons that monsters want access to the human realm. First, because access to the human realm means access to humans.”

  “And humans mean tasty life force for beasties to feed on.” I take a swig of root beer.

  Nick nods. “And second, because monsters in the human realm are immortal.”

  “Immortal?” I cough, choking on a root beer bubble that goes down the wrong way. “I knew my venom didn’t kill them, but I didn’t know they were immortal.”

  “Only an Olympian weapon can kill a monster in this realm.” Nick gives me a wry smile. “You can see why they might want to spend time here.”

  “I guess so,” I say, still in shock.

  “And there are some monsters,” he adds with a twist of a smile, “that would just rather hang out in the world of trees and sunshine. Endless black can get so mo
notonous.”

  I ignore his sarcastic comment.

  “So that faction, they think they’re protecting the world by keeping the Key Generation from breaking the seal?”

  Nick nods again, digs out another ice cube, and pops it into his mouth. While he crunches, I swirl.

  I’m still mad that they’re trying to kill us, but if they’re doing it for what they think are the right reasons? Well, that makes it easier to understand, anyway. Not that I’m going to let them succeed.

  “What about the other side?” I ask. “The ones who want us to open the door?”

  Nick takes so long to finish crunching his ice that I wonder if he’s buying time. With every bite, his cheek and jaw muscles tighten, showing off the chiseled lines of his face.... Snap out of it! The last thing I need to be thinking about is Nick’s chiseled face.

  “Oh, they want you dead too,” he finally says. “But not until after the door is open. In the meantime they are amassing an army to overpower you and your allies when the gates swing wide.”

  Great. Win-win.

  The waitress arrives with our appetizer, a variety of pajeon pancakes. As soon as she walks away, I grab my fork to spear a piece of kimchee and pop it in my mouth. I savor the burning feeling that lingers after the bite of spicy pickled cabbage is gone.

  “So, we have allies?” I ask. “It’s nice to know at least someone is on our side.”

  Grace said Sthenno insisted we weren’t alone. I guess this is confirmation.

  “I am,” he says quietly.

  So quietly I can’t help but believe him. I’m usually a pretty solid lie detector, and I don’t detect anything but sincerity from him right now. He’s lied and kept things from me in the past, but not now. He’s finally being honest.

  “Anyone else?”

  “A few, yes,” he answers. “The Gorgons, of course.”

  I roll my eyes at that statement of the obvious.

  “There are others. A number of minor deities,” he explains. “Even some Olympians would like to see the prophecy fulfilled. Balance restored.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask. “Balance restored?”

  “The two realms—that of man and that of monster—were not meant to be so divided,” he says. I can see a true longing in his eyes, like he’s lost in some distant memory. “Creatures of all kinds were meant to move in and out between the two. That is how the world began.” His eyes clear, and I sense him returning to the present. “That is how the world should be. In balance.”

  That makes sense. Light and dark, yin and yang, man and monster. Those dichotomies are supposed to coexist, not be divided.

  Still, the idea of monsters drifting in and out of our world is not exactly appealing. Monsters might be immortal in this realm, but humans aren’t. And most monsters are more than happy to kill a few of us to get the extra surge of life-force energy.

  “You’re not convinced,” Nick says, guessing my thoughts. “You think the realms should remain divided.”

  “Well, why not?” I ask. “Why should we let monsters free in this world to hunt and cause havoc?

  “I—” He closes his mouth and shakes his head. “I can’t convince you to make the right choice. You and your sisters will have to realize it for yourselves. I have enough faith in fate that you will.”

  I want to roll my eyes at the idea that fate will have anything to do with our decision, but his eyes are so direct and sincere that I can’t make light of his conviction.

  “So if we decide to break the seal, how do we do it?” I ask. “How do we reopen the door?”

  Despite Nick’s belief, I’m not certain that’s what we should do. The world is a very different place from what it was thousands of years ago before the door was sealed. It might not be able to handle the reintegration of monsters into daily life.

  My sisters and I might not be able to take up the guardianship the way our ancient ancestors did.

  But I need to stay open to all possibilities. I have to understand as much about what’s going on as possible. If the opposing sides are those who want the door opened and those who want it sealed permanently, I should understand what each entails. Even if the solution is none of the above.

  “No idea,” Nick says. “The ritual prophecy only stated that the door would be reopened. I doubt the gods wanted it to be easy. No one even knows where the door is anymore. It’s been a very long time.”

  “No one? Great,” I say, spearing another bite of kimchee. “How are we supposed to find out?”

  Nick shrugs, and I want to toss my root beer at him. How can he be so casual about this, when my life, my sisters’ lives, maybe a whole lot of human lives, are at stake? Especially when he was so serious moments ago. The boy drives me nuts.

  “Other than the gods who participated in the sealing ritual,” he says, “only the Gorgons ever saw the door. Only they might know its location.”

  “Then how do we find the Gorgons?” I ask back. “I just saw Sthenno taken into the abyss. You said Ursula might have been taken there too. How can I get in to go after them?”

  “Oh no, no, no,” he says, dropping his chopsticks on the table with a clatter. “That is a bad idea. You have no idea what the abyss is like.”

  His face pales and he looks terrified. Before I can stop myself, I reach across the table and lay my hand over his. He looks down, startled. And then puts his other hand over mine.

  I’m startled too. I’m not used to being comforting. I’m more of a smack-you-on-the-back-and-get-back-in-the-game kind of girl. It’s a weird sensation, and I have to fight the urge to yank my hand away.

  But as much as thoughts of the abyss obviously pain him, that doesn’t change some serious facts. I can’t just let this go.

  “I don’t have a choice,” I explain. “Sthenno is in there. Ursula might be too.” I shake my head. “We need them.”

  He doesn’t meet my gaze as he says, “I know.”

  “I have to go after them.” I tug at our entwined hands, drawing his eyes to mine. “How do I get in?”

  His head swings slowly from side to side. “I don’t know.” He slowly withdraws his hands from mine. “But we both know someone who does.”

  Before I can respond, the waitress arrives with our entrees. She sets the delicious-smelling plates in front of us.

  When she disappears again, I ask, “Who?”

  “The same woman who told you about your legacy.”

  “The oracle,” I say. “Wait, how did you know she—”

  “Everyone knows,” he answers before I can ask my question. “That’s what got this whole war brewing in the first place. I’ll meet you at your car tomorrow after school, and we can go talk with her.”

  The oracle. She’s at the center of a lot of what’s going on in my life. If anyone has answers—though probably cryptic ones—she does. Besides, it’s the only idea we’ve got.

  As I spear a pajeon pancake with my fork, I ask, “Will you be there?” I feel like an idiot and I think my cheeks are burning. “In school, I mean. In class.”

  He actually laughs. “Do you want me to be?”

  I shrug, as if it doesn’t matter.

  “It was only a cover,” he says. “An excuse to be near you without raising your suspicions.”

  I glance at him. “Oh, you raised my suspicions anyway.”

  He lifts his eyebrows in a silent question.

  “Well, besides the fact that you’re immune to my hypno powers,” I find myself confessing. “You never could seem to take the hint that I wanted you to back off.”

  “Did you?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “Want me to back off?”

  I hate that I hesitate before saying, “Of course.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  We eat silently. I have to force myself to stop stealing glances at him. This is such a strange situation. Me, eating dinner with a boy who is more than just a boy, a boy who knows my secret. He knows exactly who and what I am and he’s not
running for the nearest exit.

  I wish I knew more about him. He’s a descendant of a goddess. He says he was sent to protect me and help me and my sisters succeed. I feel like I’m missing something. Heck, I feel like I’m missing a lot of things.

  He shifts on his bench, and his foot brushes mine. Startled, I look up and see a sultry smirk. He knows exactly what effect he has on me. He’s teasing me. Flirting maybe.

  I don’t know how to flirt back, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He flirts enough for both of us.

  For now, he’s the best link I’ve got to the mythological world. I don’t have much choice but to accept his help. But that doesn’t mean I’m not keeping my eye on him.

  When our plates are clean and we head back out into the Peace Plaza, the sun is long gone. I shiver, wishing I had my leather jacket. Wishing it hadn’t been destroyed in the explosion.

  That’s probably the thing I miss most. I spent four years breaking it in. It was soft in all the right places.

  “Cold?” Nick asks.

  I want to say yes, because then I think he might put his arm around my shoulder. But that’s too much too fast. I’m just starting to trust him, to let him into my life.

  So instead of succumbing to girly impulse, I say, “I’m fine.” Then, because I can’t entirely dismiss him, I ask, “You want a ride home?”

  My heart does a little flip when he grins and says, “I’d love one.”

  As we make our way into the garage, I have a talk with myself. Just because he knows the truth, just because he seems to enjoy flirting with me—or making me blush or making me angry or whatever—doesn’t mean this is a good idea. It doesn’t change the fact that I know next to nothing about him. It doesn’t change what I am. It doesn’t change my responsibilities. I’m still a descendant of Medusa, still a monster hunter with a lifetime of guardianship ahead of me. Right now I’m not even sure how long that lifetime will be. If the various players in the game have their way, it’ll be pretty short.

  Even if I live a long, full life, there’s no guarantee that it will be in any way normal. I reconciled myself to the lonely path a long time ago. It’s only going to hurt more later if I get my hopes up now.