Chapter 4
Hestia’s Lock
LYRA
Shock hits, clean and sudden. I must have misheard the goddess.
“Labyrinth?” I glance around but only see the walls of my familiar bedroom back in San Francisco. “We’re still in Tartarus?”
She enunciates each word as though speaking to a child. “The only way out of Tartarus is to open the Lock.”
My first illogical thought is, Thank the gods. There is a way out of Tartarus. Immediately followed by thought number two…
“What do you mean by lock?” That word feels eerily synonymous with captive, and my stomach pitches. “What is a lock? How do I open it?” I shoot the questions at her like Artemis’ arrows. “Is it part of a maze?” The Labyrinth is a maze, isn’t it?
Hestia’s ghost, or projection, or whatever she is, flickers again. “The Lock tests your innocence. I wish you luck in this. My Lock will test the power of your deepest unfulfilled desire.”
My head is reeling. “What the hells does an unfulfilled desire have to do with innocence?”
The goddess blinks at me, and then the first smile she offered pins to her features again. This time, it’s not giving me any warm fuzzies. “You have entered the Lock of Hestia.”
I frown. “You already said that.”
Another blink. Another flicker.
“Welcome to the La—”
“You said that, too.”
Flick. Blink. Flicker.
If I wasn’t so damned confused, I’d say it’s been a while since anyone talked to Hestia’s…recording?
“Welcome to the Labyrinth,” she finally starts again.
“Eirene help me,” I pray to the goddess of peace, since technically there is no one to pray to for patience.
With a sigh, I cross my arms and wait to see if, without me interrupting her, Hestia might provide more information. Sure enough, after yet another smiling beat, she says, “This Lock can only be opened by one willing to give up what they want most.”
Damn. This sounds exactly like the godsdamned Labors the gods and goddesses created for the Crucible. But this isn’t so bad, I try to console myself. One simple test. I made it past nine Labors in the Crucible. Surely, I can open one measly lock and meander through a labyrinth.
I nod and open my eyes again, ignoring the racing of my pulse. I offer Hestia my own sinister smile. Bring it. “Let’s do this.”
But she’s not done. “In the Lock, you will be tested without your powers.”
Fuck me. Then the rest of what she said hits me… “No!”
I shoot out a hand like I can stop her. She is not taking the powers that Hades sacrificed to give me, that saved my life. I have a bad feeling that I’m really going to need them down here.
She snaps her fingers.
The lingering sensation of tingling from my teleporting attempt gets…stronger. And stronger. And stronger. Not pleasure now, but pain. Until it feels as though I’ve stuck my finger in a light socket.
I fight it. Or I try to. Fist clenched, I hold on to the sensation at the core of me that I think of as a piece of Hades—warmth, light, brightness in the dark—I try to hold on to it with everything I am.
A jolt ricochets through me.
Electric.
Then another, so violent that I pitch forward on a gasp. My grip on my power slips as, with my hands on my knees, my vision closes in on itself, the edges turning black until all I can see is a pinpoint of…light.
I know this light.
I am awash in it, everything around me radiant.
It is everywhere, within me and without.
My power. Hades’ power. Only, unlike when Hades made me a goddess, this time it lifts away from me, as if I’m watching a train going farther away down a tunnel.
As it gets smaller and smaller, all warmth disappears, leaving me chilled to the bone.
My vision clears and I come back to myself with a blink and a shudder, lungs heaving with effort and sweat trickling down my temples, only to find that I haven’t left my room and creepy AI Hestia is still standing there with that inane smile on her face.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I try to control my breathing.
I’m already sure of what just happened, but I test it anyway. The only thing I’ve mastered in the little time I’ve had to learn is turning lights on and off. I focus on my sad, wonky desk lamp and swish my finger like a wizard’s wand.
Nothing. Not a flicker of the lightbulb. Not even a poltergeist.
I’m human. A frail mortal without a weapon. Worse, she stole the only part of Hades I had left with me down here. Son of a bitch.
“Now for your test—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I throw up a hand. “Cronos threw me down a hole, and I ended up here. I do not want to go through any Lock or take a test.”
She flickers and blinks, clearly not computing.
Useless.
“Just send me back the way I came,” I beg. “I don’t want to do this.”
Another episode of flickering and blinking, and then she settles again. “The only way out is forward.”
Godsdamned gods with their “only way out” and “you have no choice but to compete” bullshit. I earned the right to never play a game or be tested again. This can’t be happening.
“Your sacrifice is to be granted your deepest unfulfilled desire,” Hestia says.
I glance around. Did I hear that right?
“Err… You mean you take it away, right?”
Glitch. Flicker. Blink. Glitch.
I don’t know why I keep bothering with questions.
“When you cross the threshold of this room, all that is will no longer be, and everything you want, you will have in its place.”
“Uh-huh,” I mutter under my breath as I start to search the room for anything I can use to fight my way out. A grappling hook, maybe? Can I climb out of here? “Riddle me something else, Batman.”
Like she finally decides to answer one of my questions, she rephrases it. “Everything that currently is will be stripped from your memory, replaced with a new history and what you’ve always wanted most.”
I straighten to stare at her. Anger twists like writhing snakes in my belly at being put in this position again, then goes limp under another onslaught of panic. It keeps coming in horrifying waves. She’s going to take away everything. Including…Hades?
Oh gods.
Oh hells.
Olympus be damned.
I scrape my brain for a thousand different answers. A way out of this. A way back up to the bridge. Cronos probably already left, assuming I’m dead.
But I’m also asking myself…
What have I always wanted most? That’s easy. My heart is screaming Hades. Hades is what I want most—to get back to him and the life we were trying to start together. That has to be it, right? I’d gladly give up being a goddess if it returns me to him.
“You have a choice,” Hestia says now.
“Finally.” I fling my hands up on a wave of sharp relief.
“You can accept the life you’ve always dreamed of inside my Lock. Or you can unseal this Lock and return to your real life.”
The relief abandons me so fast my shoulders slump. That’s not the choice I was hoping for. “How do I open the Lock?”
“You must willingly choose to walk away from the alternate life your hopes and dreams create, even if it breaks your heart and your mind.” She shoots me one more fake, glassy-eyed doll’s smile. “You may start…now.”
Hestia’s AI ghost disappears without a sound or trace. I narrow my eyes, frowning as I stare at the lamp on my desk. Why does the light look…fuzzy, hazy? I rub at my eyes, but it doesn’t help. The entire room has this romantic softness to it. A knock sounds at my door, unexpected, and I jump.
Then pause.
Do I open it?
“Lyra?” That’s Felix.
How does my boss in the Order even know I’m in here? Then my brain kicks in. This is part of the Lock. This is an illusion. The instant that thought occurs, a sharp pain pierces through my head, right behind my eyes. I wince.
Another knock. “Lyra? Good news.” I try to focus on the words and how wrong they are. I don’t think Felix has ever used that term in his entire life. The basic concept of “good” is lost on that man.
I point at the door, calling out to the invisible goddess. “This simulation got that part wrong.”
Another stab of pain is the only answer I get. I understand her reply all the same. Holding on to reality, to the truth…hurts in here.
Another knock.
I still hesitate. Hestia said that one bit about crossing the threshold of this room. So I probably shouldn’t do that. Right?
Except the only way forward is through. She said that, too.
A choice that is not really a choice. I have to go through this. The thing is, if Hades is on the other side of that door, even if it’s an illusion, what if I can’t make myself walk away from him to get back to the dumpster fire that is my reality?
Mental note for when I escape this place—lodge a complaint with the gods about their cruelty and shitty instructions in all things locks, labors, and games.
“Lyra?” another voice calls out.
I gasp so hard I splutter.
Was that…?
I’m only vaguely aware that the pain disappears thanks to a flutter of nerves taking off in my stomach.
My feet carry me to the door, and I jerk it open to find Felix standing there with a grin as cutting as the rest of him.
Behind him, haloed in pink glowing light that almost makes them appear angelic, are two people I used to dream and pray about every night from the age of three, when they handed me over to the Order of Thieves so I could work off “our” family debt.
But the reality is, thanks to the curse Zeus gave me as a baby—to be unlovable—they were using the debt as an excuse to abandon me. Or so I’ve always thought.
“Mom?” I croak around a throat that is threatening to clog up with tears. “Dad?”