“You touched the pendant,” she demands, “didn’t you?”
She sounds furious.
“Yes,” I reply, wary at her tone. “I had to. Gretchen went into the abyss and we didn’t know how to get her out. I had a vision that told me the pendant would give me the answers. And it did. If I hadn’t touched the pendant, she wouldn’t have—”
“Damn it! You are a walking trap,” she says. “You’ll get us all killed or captured.”
“No,” I argue. “We’re going to rescue you.” The pain is getting worse—my vision is starting to blur. I reach for the whistle hanging around my neck and lift it to my lips. “We already have Euryale safe. We’re going to take you home.”
Pain slices through my forehead. I suck in a breath to blow the signal.
As the ear-piercing shrill of the whistle echoes down the stone hallway, off the metal doors and into the dungeon beyond, my mind explodes like someone took an ax to my skull.
“Greer!” I hear Sthenno cry out as I collapse to the ground.
I don’t even fight the black as I am yanked into another vision.
I am in a white room. It is made of marble, like the halls of Mount Olympus, and decorated with laurel branches and ravens. In the corner, a stand holds a golden instrument that looks like a miniature harp.
“Welcome, young huntress.”
I spin to face the source of the familiar voice, the voice that has been whispering in my mind. It is a man—no, more than a man. A god. I don’t know how I know; I just know.
“Who—who are you?”
I never stammer. But, then again, I’ve never come face to face with a god—not even in a vision.
He smiles, his beautiful face transformed into an angelic expression. “You do not know?” His smile fades, replaced by a scowl. “How charming.”
I take it all in—the ravens, the lyre, the too beautiful face.
“You’re Apollo.”
He applauds softly. Mockingly.
“After all the time we’ve spent together, I would be hurt if you didn’t know.”
“Time together?” I shake my head. “We’ve never met.”
“Not formally, I suppose.” He studies me. “But I have been watching you closely since you touched my pendant.”
“Watching me?” The air rushes out of my lungs.
If he has been watching me, he has been watching my sisters, watching our progress. No wonder enemies keep showing up everywhere we go. Apollo knows just where to send them.
Remembering the sensation of being pulled out of my body and pulled into this vision, I ask, “Why did you bring me here?”
“I thought we should have a chat. Please”—he gestures at the space in front of me, and a chair appears—“have a seat.”
Something feels very wrong about this situation. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be having a conversation with a god while in a vision. They shouldn’t work like this.
I slowly shake my head. “No thank you.” I straighten my spine. “What do you want from me?”
“What do I want?” he asks, his voice deceptively sweet. “I want you and your sisters to walk away. I want you to let the door seal forever so my family has something else to talk about over dinner.”
In a flash, Apollo is right in front of me, mere inches away.
“Since you do not seem inclined to give up,” he says, “then I want you dead.”
“You will have to find us first,” I say with more bravado than I feel. My heart pounds like an earthquake in my chest. “You cannot kill what you cannot catch.”
“You cannot hide.” He smiles, and the expression knocks my breath away. “You and your companions have fought children until now. The wrath of Olympus is in motion against you. Not even one of my sister’s wayward soldiers can save you. You will not know what hit you.”
His sister’s soldiers? What does that mean? He is only trying to confuse and frighten me, and, well . . . I do not frighten easily. I’ve never faced down a god before, but I dig down deep and draw out all my courage.
“We are strong,” I insist. “We can take whatever you dish out.”
His smile is full of wickedness.
“And we will kill you,” he replies. “You, your sisters, your friends and family . . . one by one, until no one who even remembers the Keys remains.”
My hand strikes out without hesitation. My palm stings, the pain as real as if the slap had occurred in real life, not only in my mind.
And Apollo’s rage is just as tangible.
That’s my girl, the woman’s voice says.
He reaches out to strike me, hard and fast, a blow that I’m sure will leave me bruised and bloody.
Not so fast, wolf god.
I’m gone before his hand can connect with my cheek, pulled back out of the vision, just as violently as I was pulled in.
CHAPTER 13
GRACE
Avoiding the elevator, I run up the stairs to my floor, taking the steps two at a time. I don’t have to look back to know that Milo is keeping up. As I step out into the hall, I can see that the door to my apartment is open—wide open. This can’t be a good sign.
Milo follows me down the dark wood-paneled hall, but when we get to the front door, he pulls me back by the shoulder and steps in first. He pauses in the doorway, and I stand on my tiptoes to peer over him.
Everything looks normal.
“Are they gone?” I whisper.
“Let me check,” he says. “Stay here.”
I smile. The old Grace would have gladly waited in the hall while the boy went inside to search, but the new Grace has courage and confidence—and fangs.
As Milo moves left, through the dining room and into the kitchen beyond, I scan the living room on my way to the back hall. I duck my head into my bedroom, snatching my phone off the nightstand and slipping it into my pocket, and then check Thane’s room and the bathroom we share. Milo meets me in the hall outside my parents’ room.
He frowns but doesn’t say anything.
Together, we walk into the last room of the apartment.
Empty.
“They’re gone,” I say, defeated.
There is no sign that any kind of violence occurred here—no blood, nothing broken or disturbed. The monsters who were after me are gone. They must have taken Nick with them.
The earlier scene in the apartment plays through my mind. The boss and his goons hadn’t looked too happy with Nick calling the shots. Nick threatened to kill me—and I’d thought he was betraying us. He actually betrayed them. I don’t think they treat traitors like him very well.
“He’s gone,” I whisper. “He saved my life by sacrificing himself. They’ll kill him for sure. Gretchen is going to hate me.”
“Grace,” Milo says.
I jump at the sound of his gentle voice. I was so lost in thought, I’d forgotten he was here. Turning slowly to face him, I can’t keep the despair off my face.
He lays his hands on my shoulders and leans his head down to look me in the eyes.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
I shake my head, either because I can’t tell him or because I can’t speak at all. I can’t just confess what’s going on. Besides the fact that humans aren’t supposed to know that monsters and mythology are real and running wild on the streets of San Francisco, I don’t want him to know.
I like Milo. I mean, I really like him, and I don’t want to scare him away.
I don’t want him to see me as anything other than an ordinary girl.
So I look away, unable to meet his steady gaze.
“Clearly you’re freaked out,” he says, dropping his hands. “I am, too, after you materialized out of thin air onto my soccer field and then you told your parents the monsters found your house—”
My gaze flies up. I hadn’t even been thinking when I said that on the phone. I’d been totally intent on making sure my parents stayed safe. I hadn’t stopped to realize Milo was listening.
“So w
hy don’t I go grab us a couple of sodas from the fridge,” he continues, as if the world around him were still perfectly normal. “We can sit down at the dining table, and then you can tell me what’s going on.”
He turns and walks away before I can respond.
My heart races.
As much as I don’t want to, as much as I think it’s a horrible idea, he already knows too much. Right now I have no one else to trust. I have to keep my parents safe, my sisters and my brother are back in the abyss—or, hopefully, by now, on Mount Olympus—and the supernatural boy who came with me to help is now a prisoner of my enemies. Milo is all I have.
As I sit across the dining table from Milo, my courage vanishes.
It seems like such a small thing, only a few words. But when it comes to actually getting them out . . . My mouth goes dry.
Our relationship, whatever it is, is still so new—just as new as the world of myth being part of my life. I remember how hard it was for me to process, and it’s a part of me. How on earth will Milo understand?
“Listen, Grace,” he says, not looking at me. He has his forearms braced on the table, fidgeting with a flyer for an outdoor movie series Mom left out. “We haven’t known each other very long, so I get it if you don’t want to tell me.”
Oh, but that’s not true. I do want to. I hate keeping secrets—I’m terrible at it. I want to tell Milo everything. I’m just afraid of what will happen once I do.
“You should know that I like you a lot,” he says, not looking up from the bright yellow paper.
My heart does a little flip-flop.
“And that I’m a pretty open-minded guy,” he continues.
“I—” I stare down at my hands. “This is a really hard thing to explain.”
When I look up, he’s carefully folding the flyer into smaller and smaller shapes—first a square, and then a triangle, and then a smaller triangle.
Two things connect in my mind. When I saw the unicorn in the abyss, I knew I’d thought about one recently. I’d chalked it up to something I read or Gretchen mentioning the one she met, but now I really remember.
Milo once gave me an origami unicorn.
The hair on the back of my neck stands up. I think about Nick suddenly appearing in Gretchen’s life and turning out to be more than human. There’s something special about Thane, too. Maybe Milo is more than he seems. Maybe he and Thane didn’t become friends by accident. Maybe his interest in me isn’t purely romantic. At least that would make sense.
“You make origami,” I say dumbly.
He shrugs. “Yeah. When I’m nervous.”
“You’re nervous?”
I almost laugh. I’m the one on the verge of telling the boy I like that I’m a freak creature from mythology, and he’s nervous. Of course, seeing a girl appear out of nowhere and hearing her say that monsters are after her is pretty scary. He probably thinks I’m mental.
“The other day,” I say, “when we were at lunch, you made an origami unicorn. Why? Why a unicorn?”
He glances up at me through his thick lashes. “Honestly?”
I nod.
He holds up the piece of paper he’s been meticulously folding. He tugs on both ends, and the paper pops up into the shape of a unicorn. “It’s the only thing I know how to make.”
This time I do laugh.
For a second, I’d started to believe maybe Milo had given me the unicorn as a hint that he’s part of this mythological world, too. Maybe I was hoping that was the case. But it was only a coincidence—just my frightened brain trying to see a connection that isn’t there.
I take the unicorn from his outstretched palm.
The relief that Milo is a normal boy—with a normal interest in me—relaxes me. For some reason, that makes this easier.
“You’re sure you want to hear the truth?” I ask.
“Without a doubt.”
I hope he still feels that way in a few minutes.
“In case you didn’t already know,” I begin, “Thane and I are adopted. . . .”
Milo watches, focused, as I explain everything. I tell him about my sisters, about our mythological heritage, about the door and the legacy and the brewing war that might turn San Francisco into a battleground.
“One group,” I say, “wants to stop us before we can open the door. We think Zeus, Hera, Apollo, and a few other Olympians are on that side.”
He doesn’t flinch when I start naming gods. I’m impressed.
“Another group wants to take us out after the door is open.” I lower my gaze as I trace figure eights on the tabletop. “That’s most of the monsters. We don’t know who all is on their side. Maybe Hades and Ares because, well, they like to stir up trouble.”
He shifts in his seat, and I glance up to see if he’s ready to bolt. Not yet.
“We’re kind of caught in the middle,” I say, describing the third and final faction. “A handful of gods, spirits, and even some monsters want us to open the door and guard it like it was meant to be guarded.” I shrug. “That group is the smallest one.”
I lay it all out for him—every last detail. Through it all, Milo watches me intently.
Then I tell him about Nick being taken prisoner and my mission to find my birth mother.
“I managed to find her name in our adoption records, and I wasn’t in that big a rush to find her. But now our enemies are trying to kill her,” I explain, “because they think that will destroy our powers.”
“Powers?”
Oh yeah. That.
“Um, I can kind of . . .” I can’t think of an easy way to tell him about autoporting. I’ll have to show him.
Closing my eyes, I focus on the space behind his chair. There’s a light and then, when I open my eyes, I’m looking at the back of his head.
“I do this,” I say as I tap him on the shoulder.
He spins around in his seat, his pale eyes wide and unblinking. He stares at me for several long, torturous seconds before he says, “So you did appear out of nowhere on the soccer field.”
“Yeah,” I say, “I did.”
I pop back to the other side of the table, back into my chair. Milo turns back around to face me, his features frozen with shock.
He finally blinks and swipes his tongue across his lips.
“Grace, I . . .”
I close my eyes. This is the part where he decides that he didn’t see what he just saw, that I’m nuts, completely delusional—dangerously so, probably, since I’m talking about biting monsters and coming war—and that he should be as far, far, far away from me as he can possibly get. Like in Japan, or on Mount Everest.
“It’s okay,” I say, pushing back from the table. “I know it sounds crazy. Believe me, I know.”
I start to stand, but Milo’s hand wraps gently around my arm before I can push up.
“Wait.”
I sit, frozen, staring at the spot where he holds my wrist.
Then his other hand slides forward, under mine, so I’m sandwiched between his palms. I look up, uncertain but hopeful.
“It does sound crazy,” he says, his pale eyes watching me, “but you’re not. You’re as far from crazy as anyone I’ve ever met.”
I swallow hard, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“So if you’re telling me this is true”—he lifts his brows—“then it must be true.”
I shake my head. “Are you . . .” Surely I heard him wrong. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Maybe.” He stands and tugs me up and forward. As he leans over the table, he whispers, “Definitely.”
His lips are soft and warm and everything I need right now. They’re a gentle connection to something real, something not dangerous or deadly or out to kill me, my sisters, or my friends—something . . . perfect.
When he pulls back, his eyes are glowing—like a normal, excited human glow, not a demon monster from the abyss or anything.
“Now,” he says with a dimpled smile, “what’s the plan?”
CHAPTER 14
GRETCHEN
When I hear the whistle, I run.
There was only one short burst of sound, which means someone found Sthenno, and it echoed all the way through the dungeon.
My hallway was a dud—nothing but empty cages and cells filled with crates of supplies or something, most of them with bright yellow Xs spray-painted on the sides. No gorgons hidden there. No prisoners at all.
When I get back to the fork where Thane, Greer, the golden maiden, and I split up, I pause to listen for another whistle burst. I hear nothing except the echoing sound of booted feet running on stone. I back myself up against the nearest wall and wait until I see Thane emerge from his hallway.
“Was that you?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
The golden maiden arrives, looking just as expectant.
Thane and I simultaneously say, “Greer.”
“You stay with Ursula,” I tell the golden maiden. I toss her the keys. “She needs to be ready.”
Thane and I take off running down the hall my sister chose.
Behind us, I hear metal clanking against stone—a whistle dragging on the floor—and Sillus calling out, “Wait, huntress, wait.”
I don’t stop.
“Hush, little one,” I hear the golden maiden say as I race out of earshot.
Greer’s hallway is dark, with no torches or lights or magical whatevers to illuminate it, but there is a low beam of light spraying across the floor at the far end of the hall—her flashlight on the ground. I break into a sprint.
Thane beats me to her.
He skids to the ground on his knees right next to her head, reaches under her shoulders, and cradles her in his lap. I kneel at her side.
“Greer,” he says, gently shaking her. “Greer, wake up.”
She doesn’t move.
A scratching clank announces Sillus’s arrival. “Oh, no, huntress.”
I ignore him, scanning my gaze over Greer, looking for an injury or a wound. She doesn’t look hurt, and there are no signs of—
“Gretchen?”
I twist around at the sound of my name, searching for the source. There are doors on either side of the hall, so I grab Greer’s flashlight off the ground and peer inside.