Chapter 77
Gorgon
LYRA
“Do not fret,” she says. “I can no longer shoot my bow and arrow. Stay.”
Boone and I glance at each other. “We’re stuck here anyway,” he whispers.
“Yeah.”
We both lower to sit on the ground, our backs still to her.
She hisses. Or maybe it’s the snakes that make up her hair. Either way, I can’t help but shiver.
“You can face me, little goddess. I would never hurt a woman who has not personally wronged me. But him—”
The snarled word hangs in the air. I don’t remember learning that women are safe from Medusa’s eyes or rage over what was done to her. “I don’t think I’ll chance it. No offense.”
Her chuckle is a low rasp. “I am not lying, but you’re smart. Smart is good. Smart will keep you alive, if that is what you want.”
I glance at Boone again, and he shrugs.
The thing is, curiosity has always been my Achilles’ heel—pun totally intended. We’re here for a bit, and I have questions.
Boone beats me to it. “How are you—”
“You may not speak to me,” she says. “Only her.”
Yup. She definitely hates men. Given what Poseidon did to her, I don’t blame her.
“How are you even alive? I mean… You’re just…” I make a slicing motion across my neck.
Beside me, Boone drops his head in his hands. “You didn’t just do that.”
“What?” I ask him. “Is it indelicate to point out that she’s only a head? I mean, obviously she’s fully aware of that fact.”
“It is true that I am not entirely myself,” she agrees cheerfully.
Medusa is…cheerful.
Not like Persephone’s brand of eternal sunshine. There’s still an edge in her voice that is like the handle of a gun glinting in its holster, fury ready to unleash, and yet cheerful all the same.
“A gorgon is not so easy to kill.” Her tone changes, turning into a true hiss. “That bitch Athena should have thought of that before she fucking cursed me into one.” She scoffs. “Best friend, my ass.”
I blink, eyebrows crawling up.
That was a whole lot to unpack, but I think I get the gist. Gorgons can survive even without their heads attached to bodies.
Not sure how that’s physically or anatomically possible, but it’s not like I can argue with the alive head in the wall.
But that last bit was possibly the most interesting part.
“You and Athena were best friends?” When Medusa was the goddess’s acolyte? “How did that work—”
“I have no wish to speak about her.”
“You brought her up,” I mutter. Only to get a nudge from Boone’s elbow.
I wrinkle my nose at him but drop it. “How did you end up down here? It’s rumored that after Perseus used you to kill a kraken, he threw your head into the ocean.
Others say that Athena put your head into the shield Aegis to use as a weapon.
But I’ve seen that shield.” Samuel used it during the Crucible. “Obviously, that didn’t happen.”
“It did, actually. I pretended to be dead for Athena and Zeus. They both used that damnable shield. I am not certain how I was removed from that and put in here,” she says. “I woke up in this wall. Rhea found me. She visits regularly.”
“What?” I move to turn around to stare at her, but Boone’s grip on my arm stops me.
Stone statue. Right.
I settle, facing the door. The door the Titans couldn’t see…except Rhea seems to be able to see Boone when he does his disappearing thing. Is she the one who glamoured the door?
“Rhea visits?” I try for more casual than a second ago.
“Yes. But even Titans can be turned to stone, so she doesn’t want to risk moving me out of this space and accidentally making eye contact.”
“Gaia bless,” Boone murmurs. “I thought the Titans had it bad.”
Seriously.
Medusa doesn’t respond. Not to Boone, anyway.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” I ask. Because what she said about waking up in here sounds eerily familiar. Just like Persephone.
“I remember being carried in the shield,” she says. “I do not know by whom, because they were careful to keep Aegis turned away. I remember vague words in a muffled voice about helping me…and then nothing. I remember nothing.”
Boone and I frown at each other. That’s not exactly a lot to go on. But Oceanus’ words are bouncing around in my head. What if Rhea is his source down here? Only…I saw her face when Hades came to take her to Tartarus. She was devastated. Does she have a part in all this that I just can’t see?
Boone’s eyes widen slightly. “What if we can bring things here from the future, when we are in the broken time?”
He’s thinking about how the Titans have also traveled through those cracks, too. Except, Hades was holding me the last time I was brought back, and he’s not here. “I don’t think so.”
“Your axe.”
Right. I blink.
Oh my gods. Is that possible? Did someone inside Tartarus bring Oceanus here? Or Persephone? Or Medusa’s head? Was it Rhea? “Why?”
Medusa gives a hiss-like snort. “Don’t ask me. I’ve known only these walls for centuries now.”
Centuries.
I sigh.
Maybe Boone understood the undertone of it, because he slowly angles his head to peer closer at my face. “No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
He leans in, practically nose to nose. “No to whatever you’re thinking.”
“Are you going to let him speak to you that way?” Medusa murmurs from behind us.
“Do you want my help or not?” I toss over my shoulder.
“Your help?” She sounds suspicious now. “In exchange for what?”
“For nothing,” I say. “Someone should have helped you more than this a long time ago.”
That’s greeted with silence. Since I can’t turn around, I have no idea if it’s suspicious or otherwise.
I give Boone an imploring look. “You know what happened to her was not only not her fault, it was wrong on too many levels to count.”
“Even the Titans try not to look at her.”
“So we don’t look.”
“She’s dangerous.”
“We can work around that.”
“And,” Medusa inserts, “I can be very helpful to those I consider friends.” Her hiss lingers over the last letter.
Boone scowls, but I know that’s a point in my favor. “We have enough troubles,” he insists.
That’s not a good enough reason to not do the right thing here. “If that bitch of a goddess, Athena—”
“Only I am allowed to call her that,” Medusa snaps.
“Oh, good grief,” I snap back. “Do you want out of that wall or not? Work with me here, woman.”
Hissing fills the room, almost as though the snakes are speaking to her. Then, calmly, “I am listening.”
“What are you suggesting?” Boone asks. “Carting her head around in a cloth sack like Perseus, hoping her acid blood doesn’t eat through it and create monsters?”
“You’ve seen too many movies—”
“I no longer bleed,” Medusa says.
It’s so hard not to turn around to stare at her. “See,” I say to Boone.
“If possible, I would prefer a box,” the gorgon adds. “Perseus’ sack rubbed my face raw.”
It’s Boone’s turn to give me a look. “Other than having a powerful weapon in our possession—”
“I am no one’s possession,” she snarls. “Even like this.”
Boone ignores her. “Why, Lyra?”
“Because she deserves more than this room. And who knows, she could become a possible powerful ally. But I won’t make that part of the deal. This is just the right thing to do.”
His jaw works, dark eyes worried. “We’d have to carry her around everywhere.”
Relief leaves me in a puff, and I smile at him. “Maybe Asclepius could regenerate her body?” Although I doubt it. Asclepius is a healer, not a creator. “Or at the very least, Hephaestus could create her a new automaton body.”
“I do miss my snake tail,” she murmurs.
“You aren’t helping,” I shoot over my shoulder.
Medusa huffs.
Boone looks up toward Olympus, not that any help can come from that direction when we’re stuck down here.
“If what happened to her happened to me…” I nudge him with my knee.
Everyone knows Medusa’s story—pledged to purity as Athena’s acolyte, raped by Poseidon in the goddess’s temple, wrongly blamed and cursed by the same goddess, who’d apparently once been her best friend, and then exiled to a cave on Sarpedon, where she was constantly hunted by humans, turning them to stone with her gaze one by one, until Perseus cut off her head to use that gaze to stop the kraken.
Boone takes a deep breath. “Fine. But she stays here until we can figure out a box situation that will be easy and safe to cart.”
“What did he say?” Medusa asks me overloudly. “I have trouble listening to men.”
Which earns me a glare from Boone as I swallow a laugh. “If we can help you get out of here, we will,” I tell the gorgon most feared above all other monsters, but who I have only ever felt sorrow for.
“That’s assuming you can unseal all the Locks,” she says.
We both straighten. “You know about the Locks?”
“Rhea keeps me informed.”
Oh.
Boone leans toward me. “And we still don’t know how Hera’s Lock has changed to become so deadly.”
I don’t think I’ll ever not see my future self with my throat slit when I close my eyes to sleep. “Then we should get going on that.”