Chapter 4
Lyssa
“Erm, captain?”
I have my eyes closed, and I’m trying not to throttle the kid, when I hear Epizon’s voice.
“Oh, thank Hades you’re here,” I say, leaping up from where I was sitting cross-legged against the main mast. “I’m going to kill him if he asks me one more question.”
Epizon looks between me and Lucas, who is poking the huge, spindly navigation wheel. Somehow, he’s still talking.
“Is that the doulos who was with Lady Lamia?”
I nod. “Yes. He’s called Lucas and he’s obsessed with ships and he doesn’t shut up.”
Len peers around Epizon’s legs with interest. “Why is he on our ship?”
“She left him behind.”
“And the silver!” Lucas says cheerfully, apparently tuning into our conversation.
“Yes. Which this little shit tried to blackmail me into giving us, in return for staying on the ship.” I glare at him, and his incredibly pale cheeks color a little.
“Huh. That takes balls,” says Epizon, admiration in his tone. I roll my eyes, despite thinking the exact same thing myself.
“No, it takes idiocy,” I say slowly to Lucas. “We’re dropping him off when we reach Libra. Ep, I need you to help me get the tank into the cargo deck until we can work out where to hide… it from Lady Lamia. And then we need to work out what it eats.”
“You don’t want to drop it off in Libra too?” Len asks.
I shake my head. “No. It’ll be safest here on the Alastor, for now.” Plus, I feel responsible. Epizon will know that, but I’m not going to admit it aloud.
“Alastor? Is that what your ship is called? Doesn’t that mean blood feud?” Lucas asks.
So the kid has some education. “Yes. Shut up.”
“Did you name her yourself? Who is your blood feud with? I had a brother once, I think, but—”
I turn to Epizon, giving him a beseeching look as I send a mental plea. “Please make him stop.”
Epizon’s deep voice cuts Lucas off. “Len, watch Lucas while we get the tank down below. Keep us on course for Libra.”
By the time the two of us have moved the tank and prized off the remaining crate planks, we’re both panting. The ship has been designed to move large cargo around, with wheeled bases and the large magical haulers, but the tank is still heavy as shit.
“What do you think she is?” I say, staring.
“She?”
“I think so. What do you think?”
He shrugs. “Hades knows. I’ve never seen anything like it, and nor has Len.”
“And Len knows Olympus better than either of us.” I sigh.
Epizon reaches out and claps me on the shoulder. I’m more than a foot shorter than him, and this is a move he’s been perfecting over many years.
“You saved her, Lyssa.” He only ever calls me by name when nobody else is around. Otherwise, it’s always “captain.”
“It’s my fault she needed saving.”
“You don’t know that. The people we stole her from might have been just as bad.”
I scowl at him. “As a fucking demigod vampire?”
His mouth tilts. “No, maybe not. But still. We can make sure she’s safe now. This is a good thing.”
“You’re not mad about me keeping the drachma for the job?”
“Nope. Morals be fucked when it comes to monsters like her. We deserve the silver more than she does.”
“That’s what I figured.”
We both stare at the scaled creature a little longer. She moves through the water without a ripple, her whole body lithe and fluid, but her eyes unblinking as they move between the two of us.
“I’ll get Len to go through his books. See if he can work out what she might eat,” I say eventually.
“Good idea. Now, we’d better feed ourselves. And our stowaway.”
I rub my eyes and groan. “Epizon, he’s so fucking annoying.”
“Everyone annoys you. I’m surprised you’ve not locked him up, though.” He eyes me curiously.
“Ep, I don’t need another lecture about trust,” I start, and he holds his hands up.
“Clearly.”
“Look, he could have been left here on purpose by Lady Lamia, but I highly doubt it. And… there’s something about him being this resilient after being captive so long… I mean, he still smiles! How can you still smile after going through what he has?”
Epizon responds with a small smile of his own. “He’s a survivor. We’ll find him somewhere safe.”
As soon as we emerge onto the top deck, I know something is wrong.
The light is wrong. The clouds are pale and pastel, and all the shimmers are gone.
“We’re too low. Why have we dropped?”
My pace quickens and I jog to the mast. I try to connect with the Alastor in my mind as I go, willing her to rise in the sky. But there’s nothing but a blank space in my mind where she usually glows, fierce and silver.
Fear constricts my chest. No. How can the ship not be responding? Is she broken? Am I broken?
“Captain, I can’t feel the Alastor,” says Epizon beside me as we skid to a stop.
From the mast I can see the end of the quarterdeck where we left Len and Lucas, and I freeze. They’re not moving. Not prostrate on the ground, but stock-still in upright positions, as though frozen in time.
Before I can move toward them, there’s an almighty judder, and then a bright white flash. I’m disoriented, and the jolt was enough for me to lose my footing, but I know what that white flash was.
Everyone in Olympus knows what a white flash means.
When I stand, I suck in air. It’s dark. It’s never, ever dark in Olympus. Not on board a flying ship anyway. I look up, and see why.
A giant platform is above us, blocking most of the clouds.
How in Hades…
I move my gaze and suck in more air. There are ships everywhere. All around us. Hundreds of them, all floating only a few feet apart. I could jump from the Alastor’s railings to the closest one.
This is not possible.
“Lyssa,” Epizon whispers beside me as he stands, looking up at the huge slab overhead, “where are we?”
I move, dazed, to the edge of the ship, and look over the railings.
My head spins as I stare down into absolutely pitch-dark nothingness.
Fuck.
I know exactly where we are. And worse, I know the only way we can have been brought here was by an Olympian god.