Chapter 70
Put Your Hand In Mine
LYRA
Cronos doesn’t answer, but my vision clears, and I can see for myself. Definitely sea lions.
“What in the—” I take in where we are with wide eyes. “Seriously?”
Cronos chuckles. “Seriously.”
We’re standing on Pier 39 along the wharf in San Francisco. My city. The skies are crystal blue, no fog in sight, the temperature and the breeze both perfect. It might even be a weekend, given the swell of the crowds both here and walking the main street toward the food and shopping.
I can smell the slight salty tang of ocean air, popcorn, maybe even cotton candy.
And for once I’m not here as part of a crew of thieves trying to steal from people, even if I’m just observing.
I’m just…here. I don’t have to worry about anyone thinking I look suspicious, or being caught, or the score.
I can just enjoy the moment. Even if I know the moment isn’t real.
“Come with me,” Cronos says.
I’m so busy looking around me that I follow him without question or comment all the way to an ice cream stand. One that miraculously has no line. “Is pralines and cream still your favorite flavor?” Cronos points.
“I told you that?” Must’ve been a past iteration of me.
“You’ve told me many things.”
I wrinkle my nose. “I believe you. I’m just trying to figure out how ice cream came up.”
He hands me a cone with a double scoop, taking his own plain vanilla and nodding toward an open bench in the sun. I like his version of San Francisco where we get so lucky.
“I would have thought you’d pick a more…flamboyant flavor,” I say, eyeing his cone. “Cherries jubilee or mint chocolate chip, or one of those Ben and Jerry’s flavors.”
“Sometimes simple is better.” He nods at my ice cream, indicating I should eat it before it melts. The sweet flavor on my tongue is perfect, too.
But I guess perfect is a problem for me, because before I know it, my eyes are stinging. I blink back tears.
The thing is…I used to lie awake in the den and fantasize about my parents coming to take me home and all the things we’d do together as a family.
Thieves tend to do most of our thieving in heavily peopled areas, which means I saw a lot of the touristy spots in my city—and a lot of families doing those things. That’s what I’d picture.
This is what I’d picture. “Are you being nice to me just because you need me to get you out?”
“Is there something wrong with nice?” Cronos meets my gaze. He’s so different from the Titan who pulled me into Tartarus or who I thought he was. He’s…steady…somehow. Has he always been steady and was meeting me where I was so I wouldn’t reset?
I drop my gaze and study my ice cream, licking a drip off the top of the cone. “No,” I finally say slowly.
“But you don’t trust it.” This, he doesn’t ask, and I glance over to find him watching me with eyes that reflect curiosity rather than offense.
“I guess I don’t.” I frown a little. “Have we talked about this before, too?”
“Yes.”
“That has to be so tedious for you.” I can’t imagine having to have the same conversations, or versions of them, over and over, maybe with different outcomes.
He gives a small shrug. “The reasons change depending on how you…”
“How my life went,” I fill in.
He huffs a laugh. “I try to pretend those times haven’t happened and let you tell me this time. Once you trust me.”
That has to be so hard. I tip my head, looking at this Titan through a different lens. “Do I ever trust sooner?”
Another laugh, this one more a surprised bark, like the sea lions. “Come to think of it, no. You don’t.”
I lick my ice cream again. “So it’s a basic personality flaw.” I pause, still thinking. “I guess of the ones out there, that’s not so bad.”
“I’d even say it’s helpful. Nothing wrong with self-preservation. It’s how we survive.”
His word choice makes me grin. “If Hades heard you say I have self-preservation, he’d probably strongly disagree.”
Cronos grunts. “Well…yours does tend to be overridden by a stronger instinct to help others.”
He does know me. “I have no idea why. It just…always works out that way.”
“It is because, deep down, you have a good soul. Hades could see that, I’m sure.”
“I guess.” It’s nice to thinks so, at least.
“So…” He hands me a napkin to wipe the lingering ice cream from my face. “Tell me what happened.”
I open my mouth, then pause.
“Is it that bad?” he asks when I don’t go on.
“I’m not sure,” I mutter. Then side-eye him. “What have I told you before?”
“Uh-uh. Just get it off your chest.”
Damn. I take a breath and start talking. I tell him my theories—that I’m the puppet master, that I’m setting up my own path before I’m even there, and that the way time comes for me, I have to wonder if someone is also making sure I go back to specific moments to be able to do that.
Cronos doesn’t say a word. Not one. Not even a grunt. But his brows draw slowly together, lowering into a deeper frown the longer I talk.
Finally, I’ve laid everything out for him. “What do you think?”
He’s still silent, gaze unfocused, or maybe focused internally, frown still heavy. This does not seem like something he’s dealt with a thousand times already. That’s probably not good.
“Cronos?” I whisper.
He lets out a heavy sigh. “You have used time to set certain things in motion during your past visits to us, but not at the level you’re describing.
It was little things in your previous lives.
But if someone is manipulating my broken time”—he gives me a pointed look—“which is a new twist, that, at least, tells me that you should trust it.”
I…should? “Without knowing who is sending me?”
“So far, it sounds like they are sending you to the moments you need.”
True. “Do you think it’s future you?”
He flattens his lips. “Hard to say.”
“Right. I guess other gods have the ability to control time, too.” I know Kali, in Hinduism, is the goddess of time, and in the Greek tradition, there are other gods who have an effect on time in different ways.
“Not like me,” he muses. “But maybe Kairos.”
“Zeus’ youngest son?” I ask.
He nods. “Born after I was locked away. As far as I’ve been able to glean, his control of time is opportunistic, having to do with when actions must be taken to achieve certain results. So it fits.”
“I’ve never even met him. And he’ll have been raised to think of you as a monster. I can’t see him wanting to help.” Then I wince as my wording repeats itself in my head. “No offense.”
Cronos shakes his head slowly. “No. I agree.”
“Then…” Should I even mention this?
“What?”
I lean my elbows on my knees, suddenly chilly even in the sun. “I thought this last more permanent reset might have been my fault. Because I…pulled a pretty big string.”
“Maybe…” He must see the way my face falls.
“But I think we should trust it for now. If shattered time is taking you to opportune moments, do what you think is right. At the very least, think of this reset as positive. Maybe we’ve finally lined everything up just the way we need it to get out, without having to start so far in the past.”
“Maybe,” I murmur, sounding like him a moment ago.
“Come.” He holds out his hand. “We should tell the others.”
Even as I take his hand, I look around us, not wanting to leave this place.
He gives me a squeeze. “Fantasy is good, but staying in it to the detriment of your life in the real world is not.”
“I know.”
“I’ll take you to the real place when we get out.”
That warm and comfortable darkness and silence claims me again, and I close my eyes for a second, as if that helps. When I open them, we’re both sitting on the floor of the tiny, locked room.
A new chill shudders through me. One of…
loss. “You know,” I say as we’re getting to our feet, “I always imagined doing those things—the sea lions, the ice cream at the wharf—with my father.” For some reason, that doesn’t feel bitter to me now, and my smile for Cronos is sincere.
“I never in a million years would have imagined that it would eventually be with you.”
The Titan’s gaze skates over my features, and I swear there’s an affectionate light in his blue eyes. “I know. You told me once about wanting to do those things, so I…” He glances away like he’s embarrassed.
The King of the Titans, whose release from this place is so feared, is embarrassed.
“Why?” I ask.
He seems to know what I’m asking, because a self-deprecating smile tugs one side of his mouth up.
“I always loved being a father. I miss it. Miss my children sorely. I guess I just…wanted to give you those happy memories that you craved and remember myself what it felt like—being a father with his daughter—even for a second.”
A glimmer off to the side draws our attention as a crack in the fabric of time forces itself through the thick rock wall.
“Actually…” Cronos puts a hand on my shoulder. “Before we go to the others, one more test wouldn’t hurt.”
I look at him with my eyebrows raised. “Seriously?”
He tips his head toward the time that is inching closer. “See where it takes you and go from there.”
I consider the shimmering break, then take the few steps across the room to where it seems to be waiting. I pause to look over my shoulder, and Cronos waves me on. So I take that final step.
Just as the terrible silence grips me, I think I hear him say, “I trust you, daughter.”
But I can’t be sure.
…Where the fuck am I?
All I see are white columns. Some kind of temple to the Greek gods, obviously. But where?
Lightning sizzles overhead simultaneously with an ear-splitting crack of thunder. I slap my hands over my ears with a grimace. Then squeeze my eyes shut as familiarity and realization knock into me at the same time.
Oh no. Not here. Please not Zeus’ temple. I hate that fucking place. When did broken time take me to now? It’s one of only two options, because I’ve avoided this temple most of my life.
It’s either the day I was born…or the day I first met Hades.
A quick look behind me shows no one else is in the inner temple. Given that my mother gave birth to me here on a day it was open to the public, I’m guessing when I am is option number two.
Carefully, I shift around the column, looking not inside the temple now but outside. I’m already positioned on the side of the building that I came at it from when I was determined to have it out with Zeus about my curse. So I’m watching for movement beyond the temple, up the hill among the trees.
But that’s not what catches my eye first.
What catches my eye is the distinct form of a man leaning a shoulder against a column on the outside row, hidden in the shadows, the same as I am now.
Hades.
My heart feels like it both expands and contracts at the same time, even if that’s physically impossible. Because he’s here.
Hades listened to me. Despite how he was that day, despite how he hated me and didn’t want to believe me…he still came here tonight.
And somehow, that makes what I’m about to put him through, as well as myself, even worse.
I’m sorry, my heart cries out to him. Please forgive me.
I barely stop myself from running to him, fighting every instinct that screams at me to. The problem is…I’d likely only make things worse by showing up now.
I don’t know why time brought me here, but the smartest thing I can do is wait…and watch.