Chapter 100 Father Time
Father Time
LYRA
I rear back. “What? No. I only just got it—”
“That”—she points at the water the five Titans are containing—“can’t be fixed.”
“You just told Hades—”
“Because he’ll never let you do what you need to right now if he’s here watching.”
Oh. I try not to panic. I try to breathe. Oh gods.
“I don’t know how—”
“Go to Cronos. He’ll help you with the rest.”
Go to Cronos? I almost laugh in her face. Sure. It’s so godsdamned easy to just time travel to Cronos in the past the very first time I manipulate my power to do more than walk a few steps. Under the gun, clock ticking, and with Hades unaware of the batshit thing I’m about to try.
Sure.
Simple.
This will be cake.
“Try it,” she urges. “You’re our only hope.”
“I’m getting pretty damned sick of being the only hope around here,” I mutter.
Then I squeeze my eyes shut, hearing Cronos’ last words echoing in my mind. When you’re ready…when you need me…come find me…in our cell.
I picture the exact moment, the room. I try to recall the scents, the feel, where Cronos was sitting, and where I was when time took previous me away somewhere else.
Is it working? I don’t think it is. Because, unlike those broken cracks that would drag me into pressure and silence, nothing happens. I feel no change.
“You can look now, Lyra.”
My eyes spring open at the sound of a voice I heard so very recently and yet thought I’d never hear again.
Tears spring to my eyes. Again, damn it.
And I throw myself against Cronos’ chest. I feel the way I surprised him, the way it takes a second for him to accept the embrace and wrap me up in his arms.
“What is this?” he asks, amused, into my hair.
I swallow and pull back to look into brilliant blue eyes that haven’t faded in ages of time, even if there are laugh lines deep in the skin around them. “I don’t even know where to start to explain.”
He considers me thoughtfully. “I died just recently for you, didn’t I?”
I flinch with a whimper, staring at him. “How…?” I shake my head. “How did you know?”
His smile is resigned in the most horrible way. “This isn’t the you trapped down here with me in current time. You got out.”
Oh gods. A shaking takes hold of me that comes from my very core. Did I make him believe his death was the only way just by coming here? But he told me to.
“What happens?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Maybe there’s another way.”
“There’s not.”
“You don’t know that!” I jerk to my feet, backing up in the tiny room where he once took me to San Francisco. I keep going until I hit the door, hands over my mouth, holding back my horror.
“I do know it,” he says. “I’ve been manipulating time far longer than you, sweet girl.”
“No!” I shout the word through my fingers. “You sacrificed yourself for me. You didn’t have to—”
“I’ve known for a long time what my end would be.”
The rest of my words cut off on another choking noise between a whimper and a protest. “How long?”
He doesn’t answer that. “Why did you come now?” he asks instead. “To tell me that? Warn me?”
All of those things. “You told me to come.”
“I did?” He glances away, thinking that through. “Sounds like something I would do.”
“And Rhea did, too. After…”
He sobers at that, then opens his mouth like he’s going to tell me something, but with a shake of his head, he closes it again. Then, “Ah.”
“Ah?”
“My power.” He nods. “It’s new for you?”
“Yes.”
“What do you need to do with it?”
“Reverse what Hades did to the world without reversing our escape from Tartarus.”
Cronos’ eyebrows shoot up into his silver-shot dark hair. “And what did my son do? Be precise.”
I describe it. All of it. Olympus. Zeus. The temple. Tartarus. The oceans.
When I finish, Cronos rocks back on his heels. “That is…complicated.”
Disappointment is a sensation I should be getting familiar with, have been familiar with all my life. But this time…Hades has been through so much. I put him through so much. I thought maybe I could help with this one thing…
He places a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“I can teach you.”
“We don’t have time.”
Cronos smiles at that, eyes crinkling, truly amused. “You are not bound by the wards of Tartarus. You can go anywhere in the past you want, for as long as you want, and return to the exact moment you want. And I can teach you, for as long as it takes, before you return to where you started.”
I stare at the Titan who sacrificed himself for me. For Rhea. For all of us. Who now knows that his future ends in this place. I have to bite my lip to stop it from wobbling.
He sees it anyway, eyes turning both sad and understanding. “It will be okay, Lyra.”
No. It won’t.
He tugs me back into a hug. “We have all the time in the world now.”
Even if that’s true, I want to hurry. I want to rush back to them. To Hades. “Let’s get started, then.”
He huffs a laugh. “That’s the Alani worthy of my Hades.” Then he pulls back. “We start simple.”