“I’m sorry, we didn’t have the chance to introduce ourselves properly back in the forest.” Casey stepped toward me, a warm smile on his face as he offered me his hand. “I’m Casey, and this is my brother, Lux.”
“I gathered.” I smiled back and shook his hand. “I’m Kate Winters. I’m Henry’s new wife.”
“Henry?” said Casey. Behind him, James began to cough.
“Henry—Hades?” I said. “I’m Persephone’s replacement.”
Everyone stov hEveryonpped moving, as if someone had hit the pause button. James sat frozen, his eyes wide. Across from him, Lux stopped mid-chew. All three of them stared at me.
The fire crackled, and my face grew warm. It was the first time I’d called myself Henry’s wife out loud, and it was hard enough to say without this kind of reaction.
“Persephone’s gone?” said Casey after an unbearably long silence. I nodded.
“Sort of a long story, but she decided to give up her immortality. Henry was going to fade if he didn’t find someone new, so…” I shrugged. “The council tested me, and I’m his wife now.”
“And Queen of the Underworld?” he said slowly, as if he were trying to wrap his head around it.
James cleared his throat nervously. “She isn’t queen yet. They only just married a few days ago, and she’s on her six month sabbatical—”
Crash.
The sound of pottery shattering cut him off, and Lux pulled his fist from his broken plate. Bits of rabbit meat had splattered across the cottage, a large chunk landing in James’s hair, but neither twin said a word about it.
“Let me get this straight.” Lux rose, his muscles rippling underneath his flawless skin. “Not only did you hunt us down, something you’d promised you’d never do, but you brought Hades’s wife with you as well?”
While his eyes were focused on me, his head was tilted toward James, who looked ready to fly through the roof if that was what it took to get away from Lux. “I swear to you, she has no idea,” said James. “She was born mortal, and she has nothing to do—”
“That’s not the point. You think Hades isn’t watching every move she makes? You think they don’t know we’re here by now?”
“Lux.” Casey’s quiet voice cut through the air. “Shut up. Kate, you won’t tell anyone you saw us, right?”
I blinked. “I—of course not. What the hell’s going on?”
“We’re leaving, that’s what’s going on,” thundered Lux. “Casey, get your shit and let’s get out of—”
“No.” For the second time in ten seconds, Casey effectively leashed his brother’s temper. “We’re not leaving until you’ve rested. You’re going to eat and regain your strength, and in the meantime, we’re all going to sit down and talk this out. James must have had a reason for bringing her here.”
“Yeah, so she can report back to Hades dearest,” said Lux.
James blanched. “Honest, she just happened to be with me. She won’t say anything, right, Kate?”
Whoever these men were, they had the power to turn James into a babbling boy, and that terrified me. I crossed my arms and said with more bravado than I felt, “I already said I wouldn’t. Will someone please tell me what’s going on before I really do have to go to Henry to figure it all out?”
Casey ge;%">Casstured to one of the mismatched chairs settled around the fire, and I perched on the edge. He took the one across from me, and without looking over his shoulder, he said to his brother, “Sit back down and finish.”
Lux grumbled, but did as he was told. He didn’t exactly look like he was weak and about to pass out, but I had a feeling he didn’t argue with his brother all too often.
I cleared my throat. “What’s going on? I swear I won’t talk to anyone about this.”
“I know you won’t.” Casey reached across the space between us and set his hand on mine. “Really. If James trusts you, so do we, despite what my brother wants you to believe. We’re Castor and Pollux. The Gemini twins.”
“The—what? You mean like the zodiac sign?” I glanced at James again, but his head was bowed, and he shoveled food into his mouth so quickly that it was a miracle he didn’t choke on it.
“Yes, something like that,” said Casey. I frowned, and the myth Irene had briefly covered during my time at Eden Manor surfaced from its hiding spot in the back of my mind.
Twin brothers, one mortal, one immortal—and when the mortal one died, the immortal one begged Zeus to allow him to share his immortality with his brother. “Didn’t Zeus turn you into stars?” I said stupidly.
At the table, Lux snorted, but Casey ignored him. “That’s one version of the myth, yes, but oral stories change over time when they are not drawn from a written source. As mortals told our story, they warped it into something more than it was—something magical, with a happy ending. Something they could draw a lesson from. As I’m sure you’ve discovered by now, there are several different versions of most of the prominent myths, and many of them do not even come close to the truth.”
I nodded. That had become painfully clear when Henry had explained to me exactly what had happened between him and his first wife, Persephone. The myths had detailed how he’d kidnapped her and forced her to be his wife; he’d insisted it was an arranged marriage that had failed, and Persephone had been his willing bride. The rest of the council of Olympians had confirmed his side of the story.
“So what really happened?” I said. “Why are you so afraid of Henry?”
Lux scoffed. “We’re not afraid of him.”
“Sure seems that way to me,” I said, and Casey managed a small smile.
“Forgive Lux. He does not admit weakness easily. The beginning of the story is true, for the most part. We have different fathers, but obviously we are twins.”
It was my turn to smile. “Obviously.” They were identical down to their slightly crooked bottom teeth.
“Whether I was made in Lux’s image or Lux in mine, we don’t know. We were born to the same mother at the same time, and we were raised as my father’s sons. He was a king, and we had a good life with our sisters.”
“One of which you may know as Helen of Troy,” said James from the table, and Lux’s expression darkened. Instead of grumbling even more, he shoved a large piece of rabbit into his mouth and took his822and too time chewing.
“Oh.” Kind of hard not to know about her. “Right, so—happy childhood with a gorgeous sister who inspired a war. Got it.”
“A war we never saw, as I died shortly before the start of it.” Casey folded his hands together and stared into the crackling fire. It was the first time during our conversation that he hadn’t met my eyes. “After my death, Lux went to his father—”
“He’s not my father,” said Lux through a mouthful of rabbit.
“Lux went to Zeus and begged that he allow us to stay together. Zeus relented, and he told my brother that we would alternate days between the Underworld and Olympus.”
“Lying bastard.” Lux again, though at least this time he’d swallowed.
“He did not lie,” corrected Casey. “Lux simply understood it one way while Zeus meant it another.”
James stood, his meal only half-eaten, and he moved to sit with us. “It wasn’t a misunderstanding. Zeus knew what he was doing.”
“Told you,” said Lux, and Casey sighed.
“Yes, well, regardless. My brother understood it to mean we would spend one day in the Underworld, one day in Olympus—together. Zeus, however, meant that we would spend it apart, sharing Lux’s rightful time in Olympus and mine in the Underworld.”
My hands tightened into fists. No one had to tell me how much the council enjoyed trickery. The past six months of my life had been one big deception on their part, though I didn’t hold a grudge. It’d all turned out perfectly all right for me—better than all right, even. But nothing about what Zeus had put Casey and Lux through was even remotely okay. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re together now though, right?”
/> Lux pushed his empty plate away. “Not because of anything Zeus did. Once I realized what was happening, I broke my brother out of the Underworld, and we’ve been on the run from the council ever since.”
“There’s a bounty on our heads,” said Casey. “Quite generous, really.”
“Thankfully the council’s mostly too busy to look for us, and the minor gods can’t tell their arses from their armpits.” Lux flopped down beside his brother. “But your dear husband is even more interested in finding us than Zeus is. Funny how much escaping from the Underworld can piss someone off.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What part of ‘I won’t say anything’ don’t you understand?”
“Forgive me if I’m skeptical. You are newlyweds, after all.”
Casey set his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Let it go. Kate, we don’t have many friends among the members of the council. They don’t take kindly to having the tables turned on them. Hermes—James, he’s the only one who’s shown us any kindness at all.”
“Well, you can count me as a friend, too,” I said. “I’m not going to let their egos get in the way of me helping you.Rhe ing you21;
“See?” Casey nudged his brother. “She’s not so bad.”
Lux scoffed, his dark eyes fixed on me. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
His lack of trust didn’t exactly inspire my confidence in him either, but at least he had a legitimate reason for being suspicious. I stared back, refusing to look away, and the seconds ticked by. Lux smirked.
“Feisty.”
I wrinkled my nose and gave him a look, which he returned mockingly. Casey grinned and patted his brother on the knee. Now that they were beside each other, they were in constant physical contact, as if reassuring themselves that the other was still there. I didn’t blame them.
“You need rest,” said Casey to Lux. “Go to bed, and we’ll figure out where James and Kate will—”
“Stop.” Lux tensed, and he turned toward the door. Several seconds of silence passed, and he whispered, “Did you hear that?”
I expected Casey to brush aside his concern, but instead they stood together. “Come on,” said Casey, and he fetched a pair of backpacks from the corner. “If we leave now we might be able to—”
A chorus of howls shattered the quiet night, and Lux swore. Loudly. “Artemis. I told you,” he growled. “I bloody told you.”
James jumped to his feet, and I joined him. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?” I said, and he shook his head.
“Ella’s out there.”
Ella, another member of the council. And according to the twins, another person who wanted them dead. My stomach dropped, and I peeked through the threadbare curtains. Sure enough, Ella stood bathed in moonlight not fifteen feet from the cottage door, and several hulking silhouettes loomed over her. Even in the darkness I could see the bow in her hand and the quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder, and she glared at the cottage as if it had personally offended her.
Perfect.
A rough hand grabbed my wrist and yanked me away from the window. Lux. “You did this, didn’t you? Somehow you told them.”
“Are you crazy?” I tried to pull my arm away, but my newfound immortality was the only reason his grip didn’t shatter my wrist bones. “How could I have possibly told anyone? I would never—”
“Of course you would. Look who you married,” he snarled.
“Lux, shut up.” Casey rammed his shoulder against a seemingly solid part of wall, but the wood groaned, and a piece half the size of a door came loose. An exit. One big enough for us to squeeze through. “Are you coming?”
Lux hesitated, apparently wavering between exacting vengeance on me or going with his brother. Finally he yanked me along with him. “Like hell I’m letting you go back to them. You’re staying with us.”
I hurried along and gave James an anxious look, but his face was drawn. Would he have somehow told Ella where we were? Or was Lux right—was Henry watching 220ry watcme, and was that how he found out?
We burst into the cool night air, and the four of us took off at a dead sprint. Running with my arm attached to Lux was damn near impossible, but every time I stumbled, he pulled me up with inhuman strength, and we kept going.
At last, once we were so lost I wasn’t even sure which direction the cottage was in, we all stopped. I was the only one who was breathing heavily. The others were too immortal or too dead to care about oxygen, but my body was still adjusting to the changes.
“Did we lose them?” said Casey, his cool demeanor all but gone. Instead he looked like a hunted animal, his eyes wide and his muscles flexing with the need to keep moving.
Lux hesitated. “I’m not—”
Suddenly an impossibly huge dog burst through the trees, snarling and snapping at us. Saliva dripped from its razor teeth, and its eyes glittered with the need to catch its prey. To catch us. I shrieked, and the four of us took off all over again. The dog tried to follow, but its large paws kept getting caught in the underbrush. At least that gave us a chance to get out of there.
This time I was the one leading Lux through the woods. Another dog appeared, somehow even bigger than the first, and Casey and James veered off to the left.
Where were they going? “James!” I shouted, and even though there was a canine the size of a Honda in our way, Lux turned sharply to follow them. The first dog skidded through the dirt and turned a tree into splinters, but that didn’t seem to faze it at all. Instead it changed course with ease, snapping at our heels.
I ran as fast as I could, dodging trees and roots and only looking as far ahead as I had to in order not to trip. Lux guided us down James and Casey’s path, and another set of snarls echoed through the woods ahead of us. But we had more pressing matters to worry about, like the dog that was about half an inch from taking off our legs.
“Lux!” I screeched. Instead of running faster, he let go of my wrist and whirled around. Without warning, he sent his fist flying into the dog’s jaw, and the resounding crack made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The dog howled, and Lux howled right back.
“Piss off, you hairy beast, before I break your skull.”
To my astonishment, the pair of them stared each other down for the space of several heartbeats, until at last the hound whimpered and ran in the opposite direction. How the hell had he done that?
“Was it absolutely necessary to hurt it?” I said. Lux’s skin glistened with sweat, and his eyes were practically on fire.
“Yes, else she would’ve used us as a chew toy. It’s an old trick. Works every time. Let’s go.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. We took off running together in the direction Casey and James had disappeared. “Casey?” he called. “Casey!”
Sprinting through the woods, I kept my ears peeled for the sound of snarling, but I heard nothing. Just our feet as we crashed through the forest, making no effort to hide our path. Lux’s shouts grew wilder and wilder, until the desperate way he yelled his brother’s name broke my hearr oroke myt.
At last he stopped, breathing as heavily as I was. His eyes were crazed, and his hands reached out for something that wasn’t there. “Casey!” he screamed, the name long and drawn out.
“Lux—Lux, he isn’t here.” I touched his elbow, but he jerked back, raising his fist as if he were going to punch me, too. Our eyes met, and after a long moment, he lowered his guard.
“This is your fault. You’re the reason we got separated.”
“No, I’m not,” I said, but he was beyond reason. He leaned against a tree, slumped over and pale with exhaustion. At least now I understood why Casey had been trying to get him to rest. He could barely stand up.
“It’s your fault,” he whispered, sinking to the ground and digging his nails into the soil. As he squeezed his eyes shut, tears slid down his cheeks, carving a path through the smudges of dirt. “He’s gone, and it’s your fault.”
I was silent. There was nothing I could say o
r do short of producing Casey that would make this any better. My insides ached with worry, but Casey was with James, and he wouldn’t let anything happen to him. He couldn’t.
With a gut-wrenching sob, Lux turned his face up to the star-filled sky and screamed, the sound of it reverberating through my very being. I closed my eyes. After everything they’d been through, this would not be the end. I would make sure of it.
Henry
Henry slumped against his black diamond throne, and with a wave of his hand, the woman he’d spent half the day arguing with disappeared back into her afterlife. He enjoyed a good debate as much as the next person, a necessary trait when it came to ruling over the reluctant dead, but hours upon hours of irrational stubbornness in the face of logic and reasoning made him want to jump headfirst into the River Styx.
Of all the members of the council, he was the one most likely to sympathize with those who had been dealt a fate they did not want. But it was not fate itself that mattered; it was how a soul handled it that he had to judge. The vast majority of citizens in his kingdom never set foot inside his throne room, and he preferred it that way. However, for those who came to him without any idea of what sort of afterlife they deserved, he judged as fairly and without bias as he could. Sometimes it was a kind afterlife; other times it was not. But his rulings always stood no matter how lively the debate became.
“I see you have had a rough day,” said a familiar voice, and Henry glanced up. Walter stood framed between the columns that lined the aisle, his lips turned downward.
“Yes, I have,” said Henry. “And I have the feeling it is about to get worse.”
“Perhaps, or perhaps not,” said Walter. “It all depends on which you value more.”
Henry frowned. It would be one of those conversations then. Walter never missed an opportunity to lord information over other members of the council, especially the original six siblings. “Get to the point.”