Goddess (Starcrossed Book 3)

Staring at Hector’s body lying on the sand, Helen couldn’t help but think—I chose him as my champion because I couldn’t bear it for Lucas or Orion to be lying there. This is my fault.

“Challenge!” Lucas shouted, his deep voice piercing through the commotion.

The gods collapsed into a tight group to confer.

“How can this be?” Poseidon asked. “I thought you said the Face took him to her world.”

“She did,” Hermes answered defensively. “She must not have made him . . .”

“Wait,” Zeus said, holding up a hand to silence them before Hermes could finish. “Hecate still has to decide.”

Lucas reached the edge of the arena and strode into the ring, unhindered by the barrier that had kept everyone else out. Whatever old magic tested a challenger’s fitness, it had accepted Lucas. The gods exchanged looks of confusion.

Helen followed Lucas in a daze, unconcerned with the gods’ reaction. She knew why it was possible for Lucas to enter the ring. She just didn’t know why he would want to. It didn’t make any sense. Matt had killed her champion, and now he was supposed to challenge her.

“Lucas? What are you doing?” she asked, fear making her breath flutter. He didn’t answer or even acknowledge that he’d heard her.

“Lucas is Hector’s second, Helen. It’s his right to challenge Matt before Matt can challenge you.” Jason’s voice was breaking. Helen looked at him. Tears were falling freely down his face for his brother. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it.

“Can I stop them?” she whispered.

“No. This is what it means to be a champion’s second.”

Helen knew it was foolish of her not to have realized that, but it honestly never occurred to her that anyone could defeat Hector in the first place. And if they did, she figured it was up to her to do her own fighting. She looked at Orion pleadingly, and he shrugged, helpless.

Inside the circle, Lucas had crouched down over Hector’s body. Matt stood back respectfully as Lucas shut his dead brother’s eyes. Helen could hear Pallas and Ariadne weeping on the other side of the arena. Helen knew she was crying, too, but more important to her than her own sorrow was the guilt she saw in Lucas.

“One more second,” Lucas whispered to Hector’s body. A sob burst out of him unexpectedly, like it escaped without his permission. It was a rough and angry noise.

Lucas picked Hector up and carried him to Orion and Jason who were waiting at the edge of the barrier. As he handed Hector’s body over, Andy pushed her way into the tight circle that waited to claim the fallen hero.

“Wake up!” Andy commanded, her voice carrying that haunting note that made nerve endings strain to obey. He didn’t move. Her cheeks flushed a bright red as she concentrated every ounce of power she had.

“I said, wake up!” she repeated, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him.

Her siren voice echoed across the dunes and the water. Sand and spray jumped into the air like they were trying to flee from her. But still, Hector did not move. When Andy started to shout and call him all kinds of nasty names for leaving her behind, Castor was the one to finally come in and drag her away from Hector’s body.

“Enough! He’s gone, and not even you can wake him,” Castor said, trying to get through to her. She didn’t have the strength of a Scion, but she fought him for a moment before she fell apart.

Noel was there to hold her as she cried. But even as she comforted Andy, her eyes were fixed on Lucas, who still had yet to fight. Lucas had his hand in his right pocket, his fingers worrying something he kept in there.

“Bow and arrow,” Lucas called to Jason.

A startled murmuring began to rise among the onlookers. Several of the gods laughed.

“This one doesn’t disappoint,” Apollo said excitedly to the goddess in armor. Helen assumed she was Athena. “It’s just like last time.”

“That’s what worries me,” Athena said back to Apollo. Her shrewd eyes were trained on Lucas.

“Why didn’t he pick a sword?” Helen asked Orion, ignoring the gods as they placed bets.

“I have no idea,” Orion responded.

“Well . . . how many arrows does he get?”

“Just one.”

Helen’s head snapped around, and she stared at Lucas as he stood calmly in the ring. “Why would he pick that weapon then? That doesn’t make any sense,” she pressed. Orion’s puzzled look deepened Helen’s fear.

“Come on, Luke,” Jason said, throwing up his hands in an exasperated gesture, like he didn’t know what Lucas expected of him.

“Bow and arrow,” Lucas repeated distinctly.

Flushed with anger over Lucas’s seemingly suicidal choice, Jason picked a bow and a single arrow from the weapons chest that waited on the edge of the dueling ground. He pulled on the bow and stared down the shaft of the arrow to test them, and then brought them to Lucas.

“You aren’t even wearing armor,” Jason said to him in a harsh undertone. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

As soon as Helen heard Jason say this, she realized that she hadn’t considered that possibility. What if Lucas was so fed up that he wanted to die?

Lucas took his weapons without answering Jason and moved away from the edge of the ring. He didn’t try to communicate with his father or mother. He didn’t embrace Jason or give a last-minute speech about what he was doing and why. He didn’t even look at Helen or try to let her know that it was going to be okay. Lucas simply took his weapon and squared off opposite Matt, signaling that he was ready.

But Helen wasn’t. “Hang on,” she said, her voice coming out breathy and shrill with fear. “You don’t really want to die, do you?” she asked frantically. When she looked at his chest, all she saw was a dull, lifeless mass inside of him that was equal parts grief and resignation. It looked to Helen like he didn’t much care if he died or not. And that was the one thing that could kill him.

She ran at the invisible barrier surrounding the arena, sending orange fire coursing across the surface of the dome-like barrier. Even if she could find a way to batter it down, she knew it was too late.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Lucas lifted his bow, and Matt his sword before Helen could yell. As she threw herself at the barrier and was stopped short a second time, Matt charged forward. Both of his hands were wrapped around the pommel of his sword and his arms raised over one shoulder, the blade held high, to cut Lucas down with a single powerful stroke. Lucas loosed his arrow.

Matt stopped abruptly, his face shocked. The arrow stuck out of Matt’s left hand.

Out of the heel of his left hand.

Matt dropped his sword, and Lucas lowered his bow. Staring at his hand for a moment, Matt smiled and nodded.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Matt said, looking up at Lucas as his legs wobbled and weakened. “I shouldn’t have said the word heel to Hector. I should have known you’d figure it out.”

Lucas dropped his bow and met Matt as he toppled over to catch him and break his fall. Lucas laid his defeated foe respectfully on the sand.

“She’s too powerful,” Matt whispered as his life faded away.

“I’ll be there to balance her,” Lucas promised.

“Worse than Olympus,” Matt said, his voice failing. “At least with them there were twelve.”

“We don’t want to rule, Matt,” Lucas told him gently, but in vain.

Matt was already dead.

Lucas closed his eyes, just as he had Hector’s a few minutes earlier. For a moment, the only sound was of Ariadne weeping. Dark shadows spun out of Lucas like a black fog, and Helen heard gasps all around her as the crowd fearfully whispered the word Shadowmaster. He stood and pointed a finger at Helen.

“Don’t follow me,” he ordered.

Darkness billowed around him like a cloak and hid him. Before Helen could even process what he’d said, Lucas launched himself into the sky and disappeared.

Lucas soared up into the roiling thunderclouds, hidden in his cloak of shadows. He knew Helen well enough to know that by ordering her not to follow him he’d made her determined to do just that. Lucas wanted to kick himself. He would bet one of his legs that Helen had the Shadowmaster talent as well and could see through the darkness, but he was pretty sure she hadn’t learned to use it yet. This was Lucas’s only edge, and when he turned back and confirmed that Helen wasn’t following him, he went right to her house.

From the air, he could see that it was miraculously undamaged even though no one had been home for days now. The blue tarp was still covering her bedroom window from when Helen had accidentally thrown a rock through it. Lucas ducked under it and flew into her room.

It was cold and empty and the smell of her all around made him ache.

Lucas went directly to her bed, still tussled and dirty from the time Orion and Helen had emerged from the Underworld onto it—landing on top of Lucas in the process. Throwing the bedding on the floor, he lay down on top of the bare mattress.

Reaching into the right front pocket of his jeans, Lucas pulled out the last of the three obols he’d stolen from the Getty and tucked it under his tongue.

He shut his eyes and opened them again.

“You know, chasing a loved one to the Underworld never ends well, my friend.” Morpheus sighed.

Lucas sat up next to the god of dreams, took the obol out from under his tongue, and offered it to him.

“Please,” he begged, holding out the god’s payment. “Please let me at least speak to Hades.”

“Oh, you are so noble,” Morpheus huffed, punching one of his silk pillows to show just how miffed he was. “Have you really thought this through? Do you think Helen would want you to do this?”

“Of course she wouldn’t. But Helen’s not making this decision, and yes, I have thought it through,” Lucas said calmly. “There’s nothing for me up there anymore.”

He wasn’t being self-pitying; it was the simple truth. After Lucas had refused to kiss her in Everyland, Helen had made it clear that she had chosen Orion as soon as they were back on Earth. She could barely take her hands off of him, and Lucas could only blame himself. He couldn’t very well expect Helen to pledge herself to him if he wouldn’t even kiss her. Lucas had always known that Orion could give Helen what she needed, and now he was just making it easy for her, and making himself useful at the same time.

Andy really loved Hector. Everyone loved Hector. Lucas was an extra body now, the Lover who wasn’t allowed to love. So why not do something good with his life?

“I just want to speak to him,” Lucas repeated.

“All right,” Morpheus said reluctantly, taking his coin and rising from his enormous bed. “I’ll take you to the tree.”

Morpheus led Lucas through the many rooms of his dream palace. As they passed, the impossibly long, slender elfin people who danced inside the glowing circles of mushrooms and chased the bright, iridescent bubbles that seemed to beckon “follow me” stopped their cavorting to stare.

Lucas could hear them gasping as he passed. He thought he heard a few whisper “Hand of Darkness,” but he couldn’t be sure.

Outside the palace, they walked across the plain that bordered Hades and stopped at the edge of Morpheus’ land. They both stood for a moment, looking at the nightmare tree.

It was so large it seemed to take up acres along the border between the land of dreams and the land of the dead. The notched branches flared out as if they were a million fingers of bone reaching up, and trying to scratch the very black out of the night sky.

“Stand under the branches,” Morpheus began.

“And don’t look up,” Lucas finished for him, remembering his last trip to the tree.

“Try not to get damned or cast into Tartarus or anything horrid like that, okay?” Morpheus said with genuine fondness.

“Thank you, Morpheus,” Lucas said sincerely. “I owe you.”

“You and Helen both,” Morpheus replied with a lazy wave of his hand. He turned and walked away, fading into the blur of the eye-teasing lights.

Lucas could hear the nightmares moving through the branches. He held his breath as a light feeling thrilled through him. He forced himself to walk under the branches, his legs marching forward in stiff little strides.

It was a cold fear he felt, responding to nightmares that didn’t threaten him in the usual way. The tree knew he wasn’t afraid of dying or pain as he had been the last time he stood under these branches. Those things were not what he truly feared anymore. This time, instead of claws and teeth scraping across the bark, Lucas heard familiar voices whispering above him.

He heard Matt. He heard Hector. He heard his aunt Pandora. He heard Helen weeping, “I’m bleeding,” over and over. The voices and the shapes of all the people who he had loved and lost hung over him in the branches of the nightmare tree.

Lucas was surprised that Matt’s presence and tone of voice were so familiar to him after just a few short months of friendship. But then, they had shared much more than just lunch tables and homework assignments. They had shared the last moment of Matt’s life, and because Lucas was the one who took it, he would carry a part of Matt with him forever.

“Hades!” Lucas called, forcing himself to shout over the sound of the nightmare-Helen’s crying. “Please, just hear me out!”

The nightmares went silent and disappeared. Lucas looked up to see Hades walking toward him. He stopped on his side of the border. It was the first time Lucas had ever seen the lord of the dead, yet when Hades pulled off the Helm of Darkness and revealed Orion’s face, Lucas was not surprised. He’d already guessed at the connection between Hades and Orion.

What Lucas didn’t expect was to see Hades swaddled in shadows, exactly like the shadows Lucas made. While Lucas stared, Hades tucked the helmet that made him invisible under his arm. I can make myself invisible, Lucas thought.

Something clicked in his head. Lucas wanted to scream it was so ironic.

“Hello, son,” Hades said softly, confirming Lucas’s suspicion.

“How?” Lucas asked, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Did my mother . . . ?”

“No,” Hades said firmly. “I had a child with a woman from the House of Thebes many hundreds of years ago.” He paused for a moment as a look of regret passed over his face, even though it had happened so long ago. “The blood of a god does not dilute—we are immortal and so are our . . . well, our genes, I guess you could call them. You are mine and Apollo’s, but I see more of myself than him in you.”

“Can you think yourself warm?”

“No. That trait you get from Apollo. You can withstand any heat, except Helen’s. She can get even hotter than the sun.”

“I noticed,” Lucas said with a little rueful laugh.

“But the majority of your talents, you get from me. I’m sure you find all this disturbing.”

“Not at all,” Lucas responded. “It actually makes this easier. Like it was meant to be.”

“Go home, son,” he said kindly. “Your absence is causing turmoil where it is least needed.”

“How can anyone know that I’m absent?” Lucas asked, confused. “I thought time stopped in the Underworld.”

“It does, unless you are with Morpheus or with me, in which case time passes as it does on Earth. We must live in time in order to affect lives.”

Lucas thought it through quickly and nodded. “Or you’d be trapped in one eternal moment—and no one would ever find either of you.”

“Very good,” Hades said musingly. “Not even Helen noticed that, and she is very clever.” He smiled at Lucas like he was pleased with him before continuing. “I know you grieve for your cousin, but I don’t allow people to trade themselves for dead loved ones. If I did, it would lay too much guilt on those who would rather live than sacrifice themselves for the dead. This would hurt more people than it would help.”

He even sounded like Orion, except that his way of speaking was slightly more formal. They both had a compassion for others that Lucas respected.

“That makes perfect sense,” Lucas conceded. “And I think you’re absolutely right. But I didn’t come here to trade myself for Hector. I came here to trade myself for you.”

“For me?” Hades repeated, surprised for the first time in what Lucas assumed to be millennia.

“I know you didn’t choose to be the lord of the dead. It was forced on you. I know how that feels. I feel as if the Fates are trying to force me into Poseidon’s role. But I am going to reject that fate of my own free will in favor of another.”

Lucas stepped over the border and entered Hades’ land, knowing that if he succeeded, he might never leave it again.

“Bring Hector back to life, and I’ll take your place in the Underworld for the rest of eternity.”

Helen stared up at Lucas, easily seeing inside his cloud of shadows. She knew she could follow him, but if she did she would have to leave everyone else unprotected. Orion and Jason were great fighters, Daphne was a flat-out monster, and Helen knew better than to second-guess Castor’s skills, but there were twenty times more fighters on the gods’ side than on hers. Almost all of the House of Rome and half of the House of Athens had joined her and Orion, but it still wasn’t enough to beat both the Hundred Cousins and the Myrmidons. If Helen left she knew that her side wouldn’t stand a chance.

“We wish to honor our dead,” Castor called across the arena, the sand of which was still stained with Hector’s blood . . . and with Matt’s.

Helen felt her eyes fill and her chest heat up with sobs. Two people she loved dearly were dead. That wasn’t what she’d planned.

As the gods conferred with the generals of their mortal army, resolve solidified in Helen and froze her tears in their tracks. She knew that if she allowed herself to give in to sorrow, she wouldn’t be of any use to anyone. Let Andy cry for Hector, and let Ariadne cry for Matt. Helen no longer had the luxury to mourn.

“We can’t deny you the right to prepare your dead,” Tantalus shouted back at Castor, their emotions lighting up their insides like swords being sharpened on rocks. “But the Tyrant’s champion has gone missing.” Tantalus continued in a falsely innocent tone. “How can you prove that he did not run away because he has taken a mortal injury from our champion?”

“Ridiculous!” Orion shouted. “Matt never even touched Lucas. We all saw the duel.”

Helen spun around and looked at her mother. “What’s going on?” she asked in a whisper.

“You’re in danger,” Daphne replied tersely, but she didn’t have a chance to elaborate before Tantalus continued.

“The Tyrant’s champion isn’t here to prove that he is unharmed,” Tantalus said with a forbidding shake of his head. “Produce your living champion, or hand over the Tyrant.”

“And who will enforce that?” Orion called back. “The gods can’t fight us.”

“My army will,” Tantalus replied calmly.

Orion and his entourage of loyal Athenians moved like a swarm, massing between Helen and the battalion of Hundred Cousins that seemed to materialize out of thin air around Tantalus.

“The House of Thebes goes too far!” hissed a relative of Orion’s who Helen didn’t know.

“Again, Tantalus wants to wipe out every other House, starting with Atreus and Athens,” said another, even more boldly. “And when we are dead, the gods will let him plunder our Houses. Again.”

Helen felt a hand on her shoulder and glanced over to see that her mother was pulling her back in the ranks. It suddenly seemed like the beach was filled with hundreds of men. Where did they all come from? Helen wondered in a daze.

“Get behind them,” Daphne said to Helen in a low voice. A flood of armored Romans seemed to surge forward to stand with the Athenians at Orion’s side. “Back, back!” Daphne growled in Helen’s ear as she hauled her daughter away from the front lines.

In the stampede of armored men, Helen got knocked to the ground. Daphne stood over her daughter, her hands crackling with lightning. The dry, stale smell of burnt ozone wafted all around her, and the acrid glow made the swelling wave of soldiers peel off around them as Daphne helped Helen to her feet.

“Castor!” Daphne cried desperately, searching the throngs of massing soldiers for a familiar face. “Shelter for the Heir of Atreus!”

Helen wrapped her arms around her frantic mother and soared into the air, carrying both of them away from the danger of the trampling army.

“You can carry me?” Daphne asked, stunned. “Ajax couldn’t carry me when he flew.” Daphne smiled, thrilling in the sensation of flight, despite the desperate situation.

“My father could fly?” Helen asked, curious that no one had mentioned this to her before.

“Oh yes, he could fly.”

Daphne’s voice chimed out of tune in Helen’s ear.

“My father can fly?” Helen asked again, making them soar higher above the massing armies on the beach.

“Yes,” Daphne repeated distractedly, still laughing at the uplifting sensation of weightlessness that Helen gave her.

Helen cringed at the lie, and Daphne’s smile fell.

“You’re a Falsefinder now, aren’t you?” Daphne asked resignedly, like she knew she’d already lost.

“Yes,” Helen whispered.

The cottony middle of a new cloud misted the cheeks of the embracing mother and daughter. Dappled sunlight made its way through the dense thunderheads that Zeus had conjured, making the dew in Helen’s and Daphne’s identical blonde hair fracture into tiny rainbows. Two pairs of amber eyes locked, but the blue bolt in Helen’s scarred right iris sparkled when she spoke.

“Is Ajax my father?” Helen asked in a dangerous monotone, already knowing the answer—it had been right in front of her for a week now, but she’d only just put the pieces together in her mind.

Ajax looked like Hector—they were the same character in the Fates’ big play, separated by a generation. And Orion had told Helen that the main characters from Troy got replaced with a new baby when they died. Hector had replaced Ajax when Ajax died. But Hector was a year older than Helen, so Ajax had to have been dead for a year before Helen was conceived.

“Answer me,” Helen threatened, needing to hear it from Daphne.

“No,” Daphne replied, her voice hollow. “Jerry’s your father.”

Helen wondered if she dropped her mother from this height, would she survive? Daphne looked down, as if she knew what Helen was thinking. Her breathing sped up with panic.

“Is that why you drugged him? To keep him from waking up and telling me the truth?”

“It wouldn’t take you long to figure out that I lied if you talked with him. I knew it wasn’t a permanent solution, but I only needed a couple more days,” Daphne answered unapologetically.

They drifted for a few moments, Daphne’s words running around in Helen’s head like they were too big and too awful to stop and sink in anywhere.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.” Helen’s voice was completely steady.

“Because I didn’t kill Jerry, and I could have,” Daphne replied immediately. “You owe me for that.”

“Why?” Helen’s voice faltered, and they swooped dangerously in the sky. “Why did you lie?”

“Helen . . . we should go down now,” Daphne said anxiously as she clutched Helen closer. “It doesn’t benefit you to kill me. Think clearly.”

“I am thinking clearly. You’ve never done anything but hurt me. Why should I let you live?”

“I sent you Orion.”

“And why did you do that?” Helen asked suspiciously. “I’m sure you had a reason that served your purposes and not mine.”

Daphne opened her mouth to answer and shut it again.

“Did you just remember that you can’t lie to me anymore and decide to hold your tongue?” Helen scoffed.

“That’s right,” Daphne replied, her eyes hard. “And if you really want answers from me you’re going to have to land. If you kill me now, you’ll never know. I’m not going to say another word until you bring me back to Castor’s house.”

“All right,” Helen said, her lips tight with hatred. “But don’t think you’re any safer on the ground than you are up here.”

Helen flew them at an uncomfortably fast pace to the Delos house and felt Daphne squirm in her arms with fear. When they were still twenty feet up, Helen dumped Daphne and let her crash down onto the lawn. As she watched her mother do a shoulder roll to avoid breaking a leg, Helen realized that she’d landed on that same spot the first time Lucas took her flying.

Lucas. Not her cousin. Everything they’d gone through together, the way they’d tortured each other and pushed each other away, was based on a lie.

Helen pounded into the grass bare inches away from Daphne, knocking a great ditch into Noel’s backyard and showering Daphne with dirt. Helen had only felt this kind of hatred for one other being, and she’d sent him to Tartarus. While Daphne floundered over the uneven ground, trying to get away from her livid daughter, Helen grabbed her by the back of her jacket and hauled her up like she was handling a doll, and then tossed her onto more even ground.

“Start talking,” Helen ordered as she stalked toward her mother, who was scrambling away from her on hands and knees. “I want to know everything.”

“Helen!” Castor shouted, and a second later he was holding her arms and trying to pull her back. “What happened?” he asked, breathless with the effort to control her.

Helen could easily overpower Castor, but even as she considered doing just that, he spoke into her ear.

“It’s not worth it,” Castor said in sympathetic tone. “Whatever she did to you, it isn’t worth it. That’s what they want us to do, Helen. They want us to kill each other off, and then all of their problems are solved. Remember that.”

She did remember. It had happened in several of the lives she could recall. The worst instances burned the brightest.

She remembered when Arthur, the champion of the gods, had fought his nephew Mordred, the champion of Avalon. Two great men mortally wounded each other, and both were killed in one fight. Avalon dissolved into the mists, and Camelot crumbled, snuffing out the two brightest lights in an age of darkness. The only winners of that fight were the gods.

Helen relaxed and nodded to let Castor know she wasn’t going to kill her mother. He released her, and she turned to see Noel had joined her husband.

“What’s going on?” Noel said, looking at the torn-up yard. “Please. Come inside and calm down.”

“She lied. I’m not Ajax’s daughter. I’m Jerry’s,” Helen said in a robotic voice. “Lucas and I aren’t cousins.”

“How?” Noel asked. She and Castor exchanged confused looks. “Lucas heard her say—”

“That we were all family,” Helen interrupted, figuring out how Daphne had done it. “That’s what she said, word for word, in front of Lucas. And technically, she’s right. All the gods are related, so we are, too—distantly.” She stopped and swallowed around the choked feeling in her throat. “I’m the one who told Lucas I was Ajax’s daughter when he and I were alone, not her.”

Helen paused, remembering how she’d almost given in to Lucas in the greenhouse, right before she’d fed him her mother’s big lie. She remembered how Lucas had kissed her as if he could breathe her in through his skin. How he’d tugged at her clothes as he’d guided her down to the ground so gently. She could still feel him, still see the shape of his big shoulders over her, and she knew that the moment when she pushed him off of her was the moment that had decided her whole life.

Lucas. Her home. The mansion she’d paid for a million times over but hadn’t lived in yet.

She and Lucas were meant to be together. They should have been together that night, but instead, she’d pushed away the biggest blessing of her life because of her mother. Hate hit her like a cramp, and Helen hovered somewhere between sickness and pain.

“I believed it, so Lucas heard the truth, even though it’s a lie.” Helen finished in a low voice, trying to control the almost physical need to punch her mother.

“My father used to do that to me,” Castor admitted, like he understood what Helen was feeling. “He’d make me believe a lie, then send me to tell Tantalus so all my brother would hear was the truth—the truth as I understood it. That’s the only way to sidestep a Falsefinder. Turn the people who trust you the most into patsies.”

“Ajax told me that Paris used to do it to all of you to sidestep Tantalus’s talent,” Daphne whispered. “Where do you think I got the idea from?” She and Castor shared a look, recalling something that they both seemed to remember.

“Well, you’re out of patsies, Mother,” Helen said bitterly. “Get up.”

“Helen,” Castor said, trying to remind her to stay calm. Helen ignored him and kept her mounting rage focused on her mother.

“Stand up and tell me why you did this to me.”

Daphne looked up at her, but before Helen could get an answer, they all heard a commotion coming from inside the Delos house—the sounds of gasps and shouts.

“Everyone, get in here!” Jason yelled out to them. “He’s alive! Hector’s alive!”

“He can’t be,” Daphne said, jumping up. They all sprinted inside.

Hector was laid out on the kitchen table, his armor and most of his clothes stripped away. Bowls of bloody water surrounded him, and a sponge lay next to him, stained red. Jason had already begun to wipe his brother down in preparation for the pyre. But Hector was certainly not dead. Not anymore.

He was pale and weak from blood loss. His lips were blue, and his hands shook terribly as he sat up and clutched Jason’s shoulders, trying to talk. Something clanked against his teeth, and grimacing, he spit out a gold coin. It was the obol his father had placed under his tongue to pay the Ferryman. Hector took a moment to stare at the bright disk in his hand, contemplating the Scion equivalent of his own gravestone.

“That’s a first,” he mumbled. He gave the obol to Andy. “For later,” he rasped to her, his voice weak.

“Much, much later. Don’t do that again,” she scolded, her swollen, tear-streaked face beautiful with joy.

“You got it.”

Hector’s whole body suddenly trembled as he tried to stay sitting up.

“He needs blood,” Jason said, worried, as he supported his brother and laid him back down on the table. Jason held up his hands, and they began to glow. He brought his hands over Hector to start healing him, but Hector stopped him.

“Wait, Jase,” Hector said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Don’t knock me out yet. Where’s Helen?”

“Here,” Helen replied, stepping forward from her place behind Noel so Hector could see her. “What is it?”

“Go to the Underworld. Now. Try to talk Hades out of it,” he said, his feeble tone turning urgent.

“Out of what?” Helen asked.

“Out of the trade. Don’t let Luke stay down there for me,” he said, grabbing Helen’s arm and shaking it as if to wake her. “Luke traded himself.”

“Impossible!” Daphne shrieked, startling them all with her vehemence. “Hades doesn’t let anyone trade themselves for another. I tried a dozen times.”

“Luke didn’t trade himself for me,” Hector gasped, his eyes rolling into his head with the effort to stay conscious.

“Shhh, don’t,” Noel said, coming forward to put a soothing hand on Hector’s shoulder. “Jason. Knock him out before he kills himself again.”

“He traded himself for Hades,” Hector said over Noel. He pulled on Helen’s arm until her face was inches away from his. “Lucas took Hades’ place as the lord of the dead.”