Pawn Of The Gods: Deucalion Academy (The Dominions Book 1)

Chapter Eight

“Aella? Aella, hey.” Daciana nudged my shoulder. “Are you listening?”

I shook myself, forcing my gaze off the back of Alexander’s head. I couldn’t help it. It was my turn to stare, going by the game we’d been playing all morning.

The night before was our first date. After disaster and disaster, we finally had time alone, and I invented a headache and ran off. What else was I supposed to do? Sebastian Barba killed the mood, then came back and kicked the corpse. There was no chance of a hot and steamy make-out session when “most evil, dangerous, Janus-faced bastard” was spinning through my head.

That morning, I woke up to find my finished scrolls complete and waiting beside my bed. As promised, Alexander had gotten them done for me. He’d also done the same for all my friends, who about cried tears of relief when they saw the scrolls.

He’s done so much for me. Nobody forced him. Nobody paid him. He met a young woman in need and dropped everything to help her. What about that makes him an evil bastard?

Hondros gave us his back, and Alex took his chance to glance back at me. My eyes were already down and staring unseeingly at my textbook. We kept looking at each other, though I wouldn’t let our eyes connect. He might not know what was in mine, but I knew the question in his.

What went wrong?

“Sorry, D, I’m listening,” I croaked. “What’s up?”

“I was saying we should find the library tonight and get our studying done there.” She started putting her things away, which made me notice everyone was shoving their things in their packs. Class was dismissed. “I love whoever did our scrolls last night. Those papers were stupid and a punishment and we didn’t deserve them.” She giggled. “Although we did deserve the vein-bursting astonishment on Hondros’s face when we all handed in complete scrolls.”

I cracked a grin. It was true. Interestingly enough, Hondros looked far from pleased when we handed in all the work he asked for. Complete and on time. The man was clearly looking forward to handing out more punishment.

“But I want to learn,” Daciana continued. “I’m the first werewolf to be invited into the Olympian interdominion program in twenty years. My dad tried to improve relations between our people, but... it didn’t work. Now it’s my chance, and it’s already going so much better. I have friends while he didn’t.”

I paused, picking up my textbook. “You mean he was here for four years and didn’t have a single friend? That’s so sad.”

“Don’t feel too bad for Daddy. He’s a growly, ornery old wolf and has been since the day he was born. Anyone who tried to make friends with him would’ve run after getting their heads bitten off too many times. I’m the only person he likes.” She laughed. “Anyway, my point is I want to prove I take this opportunity seriously. Let’s study ourselves so the scroll fairy doesn’t show up again tonight.”

I shoved the last book in my pack and followed her out. I felt Alex’s eyes on the back of my head but pretended I didn’t. “As much as I love the scroll fairy, I agree. I want to learn everything I can too.”

She glanced back at me. “What do you want to learn?”

Where do I start? I want to learn about the Fates, why my gift is rarely given, how do I control it, and what it has to do with freeing a trapped goddess? I’d also like to learn who Selene actually is, why the gods went to such lengths to imprison her, and if there’s any way to rescue my mom and leave the grumpy bitch right where I find her. While there’s time, I’d like to learn everything there is to know about the council, Maximos Damien, and his son—the supposed evil, Janus-faced bastard who captured my heart from the moment I met him.

“Monsters,” I replied. “I couldn’t follow a thing Hondros said about the dracaenae. I’m not even sure I pronounced that right.” I linked arms with hers. “A library date it is.”

“Who’s got a date?” Nitsa linked with my other arm. “Because if you do, trust me, drink some paradise flower tea before you do. Jason wasn’t lying about the orgasms being orgasmy-er. I blacked out,” she rasped. “Twice. I screamed so loud I lost my voice.” She sighed. “Best sex anyone has ever had ever.”

“Quite a review.” I glanced back at Jason. A crowd twice as big as the one the day before gathered around his desk, practically throwing money at him. Looked like everyone enjoyed their samples, and wanted more, more, more.

I put it out of my mind as we headed for the history hall. Whatever the Hell Boys were up to would only become more obvious over time. They weren’t exactly hiding.

Walking into history, I was struck again by—

Books. Books as far and wide as I could see. We came out on the second-floor loft—students breaking up to make for the two spiral staircases leading down to the lecture floor with its desks, and those desks piled with more books.

“Wow,” I breathed, moving to the gold-and-iron railing to look up, not down. Another loft of bookshelves going all the way around promised the knowledge of fifty lifetimes. The true name and history of Selene was here. It had to be. I couldn’t believe there was a secret that escaped this temple of knowledge.

“Down in front. Down in front.”

I snapped around as my instructor exited a side door hidden behind the shelves.

“Fill in the front rows first,” said Madame Remis. “Come now, novices. The rumors that I bite are greatly exaggerated.”

I watched Sirena lace her fingers through Alexander’s and tow him to the front row.

My fists balled even while I thought it shouldn’t bother me. Things were on hold between us until I found out if what Sebastian said was true. It had to be.

A band of gorgeous, strutting Titans packed in around Sirena and Alex, claiming all the best seats that were gilded and reserved just for them. Cora and Hyacinth set Sirena’s books in front of her and fussed with her hair—making it more perfect than it already was.

What are they? Handmaidens?

My friends and I settled on the Sisyphean side.

“Good morning, everyone. I trust you all have scrolls for me,” Remis began.

I studied her as she moved a pile of books off her desk, then perched against it. She was quite pretty. Thick, dark hair cut short above her shoulders in a cut as severe as her sharp cheekbones. Should’ve made her seem severe, but she was softened by large, fawn-brown eyes and a tiny little coin of a mouth. I put her in her early thirties.

“Pass them up.”

There was shuffling and murmuring as everyone passed up their summary of the first chapter in our textbook, History of Olympia.

“Let us jump right in it,” Remis announced. “Did you learn anything that surprised you?”

“I learned my village teacher lied to us,” said Kristopher Aetos, a Titan. “She said Olympia was formed because monsters were attracted to the divine in our blood. We came here to fight and defend each other.”

“She was right and wrong,” Remis replied. “Some monsters can sense the god or goddess within our souls because they’re descendants of gods themselves. But as for the rest—the cursed—they see a human and only a human. No, the creatures that sensed the divinity in our blood and made life impossible for us... were the vampires.”

A sharp crack turned my head. A snarl peeled back Daciana’s lips as she tossed away her now broken writing reed.

The surprise of her reaction was the only thing that saved me blurting out, “Vampires?! They exist too?!”

“Vampires smell blood,” Remis continued, blowing my mind. “One sniff and they knew instantly that we were special. Human blood has an amazing restorative and drug-like effect on them, but demigod blood...” She whistled low. “It was like eating bread and water your whole life and then discovering a world of cakes, sweets, meats, and wine. They couldn’t get enough, so everywhere in the world we lived, whole covens hunted down demigods.”

She paced the length of the aisle, meeting my gaze, then flicking away as she passed. “Divine blood runs in families, not neighborhoods. Back then, you could be the only demigod family for a hundred miles. Who would come to help you when the vampires came?”

We were quiet mulling over that horrible thought. Just a family. Mother, father, and child—safe in their beds one night when bloodsucking beasts burst through the door.

Were vampires loose in the mortal dominion? For eighteen years, I walked around with veins full of vampire fine wine and had no idea. Walking around the city at night with a paper cut could’ve been the end of me.

No wonder Mom always wanted me inside before dark.

“Everywhere our people were dying and the gods were dying with us,” Remis said. “The vampires were bringing an end to what the humans started. The end of the Olympian gods. The end of everything.”

“Why would that have been the end?” asked a girl sitting in front of me. “The essence would just leave our bodies, right? Find a new person.”

Remis was shaking her head before she was done. “There’s a reason the choice to scatter was made in a last desperate attempt after they lost the war with the Christian god. Your heart is a part of you. If it’s removed from your chest, it dies and you die. It’s the same for the godly essence. It dies with us.”

“So, what did they do?” Sirena asked. “How did they overcome the vampires to found Olympia?”

“Children of Hermes.” Remis ended her stroll before her desk. “Those with the power sent messages far and wide to the demigods of the world to come together and fight. Thus began the first Vampire-Demigod War.”

“A war?” Sirena cried. “An entire war we never heard about?”

Remis inclined her head. “A war fought in the land that became the Americas. The destruction of that battle remains to this day. Nothing but a massive crater that goes on for miles and miles. How much kinder it would’ve been on the mundane population if this was the last cross-species battle.

“But there was another in the southern region of the Americas. Two in Europe. Three in Africa, and then two more devastating wars in Asia.”

We sat quiet and spellbound. This was definitely a time to listen.

“Two wars in, demigods formed alliances with the vampires’ natural enemies: the werewolves.”

Kristopher snorted. “So you dogs can be useful.” He twisted around to smirk vilely at Daciana. “You should follow in your ancestors’ tracks. Fight some monsters or get the fuck out.”

My retort was hot on my lips. “Shut—”

“Kristopher Aetos,” Remis snapped. “You will keep a civil tongue in your head, or I will remove it!”

“Yes, ma’am,” was his mumbled reply.

Yikes. I was in a different world. Teachers weren’t allowed to threaten they’d rip out tongues in the schools I went to.

I checked on Daciana, but it didn’t appear that she heard the exchange at all. She was shaking—her head down and fists balled tight on the desk. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer or look up.

“As I was saying.” Remis resumed walking up the aisles. “The werewolf packs joining us had a brutal impact on mundane casualties. Werewolves and vampires are evenly matched. Both have superhuman strength. Both are superior trackers. But werewolves and demigods had an edge. Our fight doesn’t stop when the sun comes up.”

“They started turning humans to keep up their numbers, didn’t they,” Nitsa said.

“They did indeed. Wiped out entire villages. Thus, mundanes were forced to fight for their lives or become a puppet in death.”

“How did all of this end in Olympia?” Nitsa asked. “This sounds like the start of the end of the world.”

“It very nearly was.” I twisted in my seat, tracking her path. “Until the final species could sit out of the battle no longer.”

“The fae.”

I didn’t know who said it, but Remis’s pleased cry said they were right.

I didn’t bother with the shock. Fae existed too? Of course they did. Leprechauns and the monsters under kids’ beds were probably real too. Why wouldn’t they be?

“The fae, my young novices, the fae,” Remis breathed. “They joined the side of the mundanes, and the last and final interspecies war was over in a fortnight.”

“Why did they join the side of the mundanes?” Sirena asked.

“For the same reason they stayed out of the conflict for so long. Fae are beings of nature—born from the primordial gods to become creatures all their own. They never obeyed the Olympian gods, and the Olympian gods never had the power to make them. Their only loyalty is to the balance and protection of the natural.

“Whereas we demigods, vampires, and werewolves are not natural. We’re mundanes perverted by magic, curses, and gods. When we became a serious threat to the survival of the mundane species, they stepped in, ended the war, and crafted the Five Dominions Treaty.”

“That, I know of,” Sirena said, nose high in the air. “The Five Dominions Treaty designated the sovereign land of the mundanes, vampires, werewolves, demigods, and fae.”

Remis snapped her fingers. “Correct, but did you all know that because of the treaty, we got the short end of the stick?”

“By being granted Olympia?” I heard myself say. “How?”

“Oh, it’s not the land. It was magnificent even back then when it went by another name: Atlantis. No,” she said. “We got the bad deal... because we got the monsters.”

“Got the monsters?” Nitsa repeated slowly. “Are you saying the monsters live in Olympia because of the treaty?”

“That is exactly what I’m saying, Miss Castellanos. When it came time to determine what species monsters were and, therefore, which dominion they should live in, the other four representatives voted ours unanimously.

“These creatures were the descendants of Greek gods, the creations of Greek gods, and the enemies of Greek gods. If they were anyone’s problem, they were ours. Back then, the very first council was ordered to enter this land with the monsters and seal the barrier behind us. If a single monster escaped to wreak havoc on the other dominions, it’d be a violation of the treaty and the war would begin anew with every being magical and mundane descending on Olympia.”

No one spoke for so long, I wondered if we lost the ability.

“I don’t understand,” Sirena said. “How can any of that be true? Why is this the first we’re hearing about this? If the fae or the whoever forced the monsters on us, it’d be known. It’d be taught.”

“Would it?” Remis said softly. She leaned against a bookshelf, running her fingers along the spines. “Between the pages is a safe place, isn’t it? There can be no lies, no half-truths, no missing information in the books we trust to tell us the world. I’m sorry, my dear novices, but the first thing you’ll learn about history is that it’s like everything else—subject to bias. Do you think the history books in vampire academies paint them as the villains or the heroes?”

A low growl escaped Daciana’s lips.

“But then why?” I asked. I laid my hand over Daciana’s.

“Because look around you.” She swept out her arms. “We’re trapped in a land with monsters that eat our flesh, devour our children, sing us to our deaths, burn down our villages, and wipe away everything we love in a single day.

“In the early days after the treaty, demigods attacked the barrier daily. Bands of Hecate’s children went after it, looking for weaknesses. The council weathered more than a few assassination attempts for agreeing to the terrible terms in the first place. Keeping control got ugly and violent very fast. As a result, the wars and the true terms of the treaty were stricken from the history books. Here we are two thousand years later, and no one remembers.”

“Why can we know now?” a guy in the third row spoke up.

“Because there’s been a recent change in the curriculum.” Madame Remis’s smile swept over us. “Me.”

“You?” Sirena repeated. Did she hear the disdain in her voice, or was it just natural at this point? “You’re going against council law to teach us banned information? You have no right.”

“This is my classroom, Miss Cirillo, I have every right. You’ll find Deucalion Academy is autonomous of the council. Here, I tell you what the laws are.”

A choked noise came from Sirena’s throat. “Nothing and no one is autonomous of the council. You—”

“Let’s open the discussion to the class,” Remis breezed on, dismissing her. “What do you think of the treaty in light of what I’ve told you? Were we treated unfairly? Was there a better solution that no one considered?”

“Yes,” Kosma cried. “Why weren’t the monsters trapped in their own world instead of in ours?”

“Ah, a sixth dominion. Would that have worked?”

“No,” said Alex. “Because the barrier has to be maintained from the inside and outside. Monsters are hardly going to maintain the walls of their prison.”

“Then children of Hecate could’ve gone in there with them.”

“Hey!”

Wasn’t sure who shouted that, but I guessed they were a child of Hecate.

Tentatively, I raised my hand.

Remis waved me down. “There’s no hand-raising in my class, Aella. We’re all adults. We know when to speak and when to listen.”

“Okay then, I was thinking. If monsters aren’t mindless beasts, and they can think and reason, why did they have to be imprisoned anywhere?” I asked. “Why couldn’t they have sat down at the table while the species were crafting the treaty and voiced what they wanted? Maybe they wouldn’t be so murdery and hate us all a lot less if we stopped throwing them into prisons for being born.”

Thick, smothering silence filled the room. I shrank back as everyone stared at me. Did I say something wrong?

“Do you know something... In my seven years teaching this class, not a single person ever asked the question you have.” Remis’s eyes were shrewd, shrinking me further in my chair. “I’m going to want to hear more from you as the season goes on, Aella Vanda. You can bet you’ll be called upon often.”

“Um, thank you, ma’am?”

“Called on for what?” Sirena barked. “To spout more of that Stymphalian bird shit? Of course they couldn’t ask them what they wanted?” She put on a high-pitched, whiny tone that I assumed was supposed to be me. Her handmaidens laughed on cue. “Being clever enough to reason the best way to lure prey into a trap isn’t nearly on par with the superior mind of a demigod. In every way that matters, they are mindless beasts.

“The best solution was the solution the first council decided upon. Don’t any of you strain your little minds to come up with another one.”

“But Madame Remis just said the first council didn’t come up with this solution,” Nitsa returned. “It was forced on us by threat of war.”

Sirena sniffed. “I’ll believe that when she proves it.”

Remis laughed—another reaction I couldn’t put to any of my old teachers. “See? This is what we need. Spirited, lively debate. I love it, I do.

“What about the rest of you? Does anyone else agree with Miss Vanda? Could we have tried a little diplomacy with the monsters?”

“Maybe not with all of them, but possibly with some,” a wavering voice spoke up. I connected it to Marinos, a son of Ares. “I grew up in a port town. One day, my little sister found an injured baby siren washed up on the shore. She was six and didn’t know any better. We had no idea she’d hidden the creature in the pond behind our home and was nursing and feeding it food from the kitchen.

“When it was strong enough, she released it back into the sea. None of us knew a thing about it until one morning Father took us out on the boat. We were set upon by sirens three miles out,” he said. “We thought that was the end until... they simply turned and swam away. My sister waved and thanked her friend, wishing her well.” He shrugged. “The creature remembered the debt she owed my sister and showed mercy. Maybe some monsters can be reasoned with—”

“No. They can’t.” The boy sitting beside Alex stood up. I recognized him. Ajax. “That cute little story, if it’s true, proves nothing. The creature owed your sister a life debt and paid it in full by sparing you all. I’d bet anything if she and it met out on the seas again, the creature wouldn’t hesitate to drag her to the depths.

“Monsters cannot be reasoned with.”

“Thank you,” Sirena said. “Finally, someone speaks sense. Monsters want to destroy us all and rule on the ruin of our corpses. The end.”

“What do you think, Xander?” Hyacinth asked.

All eyes turned to him except Daciana’s. She hadn’t lifted her head through the entire conversation or unballed her fists.

Alex got to his feet. I wanted to, but I couldn’t look away. “I didn’t know before today that a siren could turn away from their prey, let alone remember the kindness of a young girl and show it in return.”

He swept the crowd. “Clearly, our world is more mysterious, puzzling, and beautiful”—his gaze lingered on me—“than we were raised to believe. I don’t know if there can ever be peace between monsters and demigods, but it’s my duty to try—if it means a safer and happier world for you.”

My throat bobbed with a hard swallow. I couldn’t say how I knew... but Alex was speaking to me, and only me.

Applause broke out, making me jerk in my seat.

“Well said, Alex.”

“Thank the gods for Alex.”

“He’s so right. If it’s possible, we must try.”

“Alex is so wise.”

“I love him.”

Disbelief crumpled my face at the Titans and Sisypheans cheering him alike—Sirena loudest of all. Two seconds before, they scoffed at the mere idea there could be an end to war. Now, they were looking at Alex like he was the chosen one, destined to bring peace.

“That’s a load of Stymphalian bird shit—to borrow a phrase.”

Everything stopped.

Sebastian leaned back in his seat, balancing on two legs.

Alex glanced his way. “Problem, Barba?”

“Why would I have a problem with you spouting trash you don’t actually believe? Peace between monsters and demigods?” Sebastian laughed. “Cirillo said it perfectly. Being clever enough to set a trap for prey doesn’t mean you’re capable of changing your nature.

“Owls conceal in the darkness, lie in wait for scurrying, scampering mice, but they’d no more stop tearing them apart than you council spawn will stop saying anything and everything to make us peasants believe you’re on our side. Working for our interests when in reality you’re always working for your own.”

I flicked to Alex—wide-eyed. What would he say in response?

A slow, bland smile stretched Alex’s lips. “I understand why you’d feel that way. There have been more than a few times that the council has held the needs of nobles above commoners. It’s not a history I’m proud of, so I’ll make you this deal, Barba,” he said. “In ten years’ time, we’ll come back to this very spot and compare my decade using my powers to both hunt down monsters that won’t change and lead the council in new reforms for education, wage, and equality... with your decade of hiding in whatever hole you’ve been in, whispering to your dead friends.

“We’ll see which one of us has done more for the people, and if by some miracle that’s you, I’ll surrender my seat to you on the spot. But until then, you can stop pretending like you know me.”

“Oooh,” someone crowed.

It was me.

I couldn’t help myself. Usually, when someone was beaten down like that, there was more cursing and bruising involved. Credit to Alex for needing neither.

The look on Sebastian’s face as applause sounded for Alex again was terrible.

“I know you, Damien.” Sebastian’s hiss halted Alex midturn. “Better than anyone and so much more than you’d like.”

Alexander didn’t respond.

“Well,” Madame Remis said, recapturing our attention. “Despite that odd turn we took at the end, an interesting point was brought up. Nature. Is it in the nature of monsters to hunt and kill demigods? Did your sister, Mr. Marinos, truly prove that violence isn’t an inherent part of sirens, or is what happened no different from how one domesticates an animal? A wild cat will scratch you. A house pet will not. This does not change the fact that it’s in the nature of cats... to scratch.”

“I think there are more monsters that could be reasoned with.” Marinos spoke louder, finding his voice. “I actually started studying this ever since the sirens spared us.” He flipped open his pack, rooting around inside. “Sphinx, for one. If we— Ow.

“Ahh. Ahhhh!” Marinos flew back, crashing to the ground.

His hand flew out of his pack—a tight fist clutching... what? I could almost see when bodies jumped in front of me, blocking my view rushing to him.

“Ahhh!”

“Step back. Get back!” Remis shoved everyone out of the way.

“Holy hell!” I cried, clapping my hand over my mouth.

Marinos’s skin peeled, bubbled, and blistered. He screamed his torment as he was boiled alive.

Remis grabbed his head. I watched in horrified fascination. His skin knit itself back together. The tears seamed into one. The ruined flesh became whole and brown. His screaming subsided, and Marinos stood there—chest heaving and eyes wide, but fine.

“Are you all right, boy?” Remis checked him all over. “What happened to you?”

“I—I—I don’t know.” He was shaking like a leaf. “I think... there was something in my pack. I dropped it.”

“Dropped it?” She and half the class searched the floor. “There’s nothing here.”

There was nothing. Even though I was sure I saw something too.

Lifting my head, I flicked to Castor. He was head down on the table, fast asleep.

“Whatever may or may not have been in your pack, you’re going to the infirmary. Don’t leave until Healer Helena has checked you over for curses, hexes, possessions, and the rest.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

It took a while to settle after he left. Everyone was shaken—except for Daciana, who was still out of it.

“That’s enough whispering and wondering,” Remis said. “Back to the discussion. Mr. Lambros, what are your thoughts on nature and—”

The gong sounded, signaling the end of class. I jerked like it snapped me out of a dream. An hour and a half passed already?

“That’s all for today, ladies and gentlemen. Your assignment for tonight is to read chapter two, The History of the Gods. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what’s missing.”

“I doubt there’s anything missing,” Sirena snapped.

She flashed her a pleasant smile. “You’ll find out tomorrow.”

Sirena was at the front of the class, but managed to shove her way through and storm out the door first. Daciana was right on her heels, ignoring our calls.

“Is she okay?” Ionna asked.

“I’m not sure. I got the feeling she’s not a fan of vampires.”

“None of us are after that,” Theron put in, shuffling up between us. “Think all that stuff’s true?”

Nitsa slung her arms around our shoulders. “I mean, it does make sense. Mother told me the monsters came to Olympia because they could smell the divine in our blood. If that was true of all of them, there’s nowhere we could hide. But we do and we can. When I was nine, I was playing with my brothers in the woods when I stumbled into the path of a gorgon. I dove under a bush and hid there until my brothers came to find me. If she could sense me, why aren’t I dead?”

“Nitsa, I never felt more stupid than I do right now,” Theron said gravely. “It’s so obvious now that you say it. Why didn’t we notice that before?”

Nitsa, Ionna, and Tycho echoed him.

“What about Marinos?” I voiced. “He was right. There was something in his hand. It looked like...” The Hell Boys brushed past us. Sebastian gifted me a wink. “It looked like one of Castor’s Tartarus rocks.”

Tycho hissed. “Ooh, that explains it. Anything from that pit of torture and despair is going to be nasty. But didn’t Castor say it punishes people for their sins? What could Marinos have done that he deserved that? And who put it in his pack?”

None of us had an answer.

“—tell my mother about this.” Sirena echoed through the hall. “It’s an outrage that this information was kept from members of the imperial household, but it’s even more disgusting that she shared it for every pig-stinkin’ peasant in there to hear. She should’ve held a private class for those with the right to know.”

We passed by her. I barely kept hold of my tongue.

“Mother will be furious when she hears about this.”

Her handmaidens chimed in on cue.

“You’re right, Sirena.”

“Madame Remis went too far.”

“I bet none of that was true anyway. No way would the first council let a bunch of beasts and mundanes dictate to demigods. The whole thing makes no—”

Ionna put the heel of her hand to her mouth and, “Pbtfffff.”

“Hey! Who was that? Who did that!”

We tore out of the lecture wing, laughing so hard Theron tumbled into Tycho and took them both down.

Eventually, we sobered and made our way to the last class of the morning.

Together, we gathered in the stadium arena, circling the lone man on the platform. Everyone except Daciana.

“You all heard my speech yesterday, but for the benefit of the latecomers, I will repeat myself. Self-mastery is power combat training. Here, you will train to improve your speed and accuracy.”

Kazran was a young man. I put him at early thirties, maybe late twenties. According to my friends, this should impress me. He was young, fit, and built. His spiky red hair caught beams of sunlight between his locks, drawing your eyes up for the slight second you could stand to look away from his cornflower-blue eyes and the tawny dusting along his nose and cheekbones.

Young, fit, handsome men such as him were serving their army sentence with no hope of getting a teaching position until they were much older and slower. For Drakos to get him assigned to the school proved how much power the headmaster had, and how impressive Kazran was.

“A long time ago,” he continued, “self-mastery class was sending novices off the grounds to face whatever crossed their paths. Some came back, some did not.”

I wonder if that was left out of the history books too.

“Eventually, monsters got wise. We weren’t sending out snacks. We were sending out hunting parties, and like us, some survived. Most didn’t,” he said. “As a result, they moved farther out of the area. Too far to send you out and back in half an hour. So, we make do with proficients.

“As you should’ve read in the handbook, there are four classes. Novice, Competent, Proficient, and Expert. In Deucalion, you do not move on to the next class until you prove yourself worthy. These men and women here today have done exactly that.”

Kazran clapped and ten men and women broke off from the circle and joined him on the platform.

I was getting through the handbook slower than the others, thanks to Selene. I tried reading it in bed the night before, but she spent the whole time shouting in my ear, demanding I begin the search for her prison. My argument that I’d waste more time wandering aimlessly around the massive castle if I didn’t have a hint on where to start didn’t satisfy her.

Amid her banging on, I read that proficients were students at the third level of training. The book impressed upon me the weight of graduating to proficient. By the third level, about fifty-five percent of the average starting Sisyphean class was dead. Thirty percent of the starting Titan class was gone.

We were looking at survivors.

“These men and women have powers closest to the kind of dangers you’ll face while protecting Olympia. Fire wielders, hypnotic abilities, shape-shifting tricksters, regenerators, speedsters, fliers, iron skins, magic bearers, elemental molders, and seers. What you’ll do is simple,” he said.

“They will attack. You will defend. This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. You cannot move to another opponent until you’ve defeated your first. The same applies in battle because out there, if you cannot defeat your monster, you won’t move on... since you’ll be dead,” he deadpanned. “Any questions?”

No one spoke.

“Break into groups of ten,” Kazran called. “Except you five.” I blinked to find Kazran pointing at us. “Sisypheans like to bunch up together as if hoping all the extra limbs and flapping mouths will give them an advantage. It won’t. You learn by following in the steps of people stronger than you.”

“What does that mean, sir?” Nitsa asked.

“It means split up.”

I watched my friends shuffle off with uncomfortable looks and confused glances. Even before Daciana and I came along, I got the sense Ionna, Nitsa, Tycho, and Theron stuck together. Friends who always had each other’s backs. Like Kylie and Dina once had mine.

But not today. For any of us.

My friends split into different packs, and each followed a proficient to their own corner of the stadium. There was only me waiting beside the platform, wondering who to go with.

I wished Kazran said who exactly were the fire wielders and hypnotizers. I’d rather not have them first.

“Vanda,” he barked, waving me over. “Here.”

I turned toward him and froze. A group of nine stood in front of Kazran and a tall, long-haired woman with battle armor and a bored expression. It was Alexander, Ajax, Sirena, and her handmaidens.

“Why?” I asked, not moving a muscle. “What’s her power?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Come. Now.”

I considered arguing, then I considered what Kazran’s punishment would be for disobeying him. Scrolls or worse?

I’m not going to find out. I walked up to the group, stiffening with each step. Alexander’s gaze was a thousand pillow feathers tickling my skin. Goose bumps rippled down my arms just being near him.

“I’m not without mercy, daughter of Eirene,” Kazran said. “None of these proficients are going to let themselves be subdued by your lips.”

Sirena and her friends laughed louder and longer than that quip deserved.

“Since your power won’t do you much good, you’ll go last to see how it’s done. Learn from them and formulate your plan for defeating Proficient Catherine.”

“Thank you, sir.” I glanced at my simple white tunic and brown pants. “Can I have armor or gear—?”

“How long have you been training in combat?”

“Um, since yesterday.”

“Then what would you do with gear?” he asked, brows cocked. “Throw it at her?”

Sirena and her friends burst out laughing, heating my cheeks. “But what if—”

“Try not to kill her,” Kazran said, turning his back on us. “Begin.”

Try not to kill her? Was he talking to our group or to Proficient Catherine?

“Move aside, Sisyphean.” Sirena came straight at me, forcing me to jump aside or get mowed down. “Kazran said you’re last and least—where you’ve always belonged and who you’ll always be.”

I barely heard her. I was too focused on where to look.

If I kept avoiding looking Alex in the face, he’d think something was wrong, but if I acted like everything was fine, he’d think we could keep going as we had. How could we have steamy make-out sessions in the bathroom when all I’d be thinking about was what Sebastian said and the hatred in his eyes when the son of Hades looked at him?

“Hey.”

“Hey,” I mumbled.

“I’m going to pretend I’m fixing my boot buckle. Look anywhere but at me.”

I scanned the skies as he bent, wondering if I was really feeling the prickle of a thousand eyes or imagining them. This must be hell for Alexander—knowing anyone anywhere could be a spy for his father.

“Is everything okay, Aella? You ran off so fast last night, and now you seem off.”

“I’m fine. I just—” Don’t know if you’re a real friend or another snake with a pretty smile, waiting for your chance to use and abuse me—just like Kylie and Dina. “I just realized something last night and it freaked me out,” I said instead. “Now my head is spinning with what to do now.”

“What did you realize?”

“That my mom is here, Alex. She’s hidden somewhere in Deucalion Academy.”

“What?!” His head snapped up out of the corner of my eye. Quickly, he got to his feet and started stretching, facing his back to me. “Did you say she’s here? Aella, that’s not possible. Monsters can’t cross the spells, wards, and barriers around the castle. They’re even stronger than the barrier spell around Olympia, and that’s saying something. Deucalion Academy has never been invaded. Ever.”

Sounds like the perfect place to hide an irritating goddess that you don’t want found.

“I believe you, Alex, but she’s here. I know because—”

“Be very careful what you say next, girl.”

“—because my roommate, Ionna, is a daughter of Apollo,” I blurted. “She has the gift of prophecy, and last night, she started talking about a strange vision of a mortal woman trapped in the bowels of the academy.”

“Rhea and Cronus,” he breathed.

“Do you see? Ionna admits that her visions are confusing and often wrong, but seeing as my mother is the only mortal in all of Olympia, and I happen to be that mortal’s daughter, her having that vision right after she meets me can’t be a coincidence.”

“No, you’re right. It can’t be. But here?” he repeated, speaking to himself. “How did they do it? I can believe an echidna found a way into the mortal dominion, but for a monster to break through these barriers? It’s never been done.”

I so badly wanted to tell him it wasn’t done. Selene’s band of demigod minions took care of that.

“Did her vision give any more clues to find her?”

“Yes, she—”

“Xander? What are you doing?” Sirena jogged over and pasted against his chest, snagging his arm. “Come on. I’m first. Watch me show them how it’s done, xremxa.”

She dragged him away. I tried not to let it get to me that she was all over him or that her hand slid down and squeezed his ass.

“You all right, Sisyphean?” Ajax called. “You look like you sucked on a lemon.”

“I’m fine,” I snapped. “And my name is Aella.”

“Survive the season, then I’ll decide if it’s worth learning your name.”

Joining the group, I flipped him off.

Ajax laughed. In a way, he reminded me of Alexander. Ajax’s eyes were dark brown, whereas Alex’s were light. His cheekbones were softer. His jaw rounder. But they shared a handsomeness as effortless as the confidence in their stances. I was pretty sure Ajax was going to claim the Poseidon seat while Alex had Zeus. The gods of the heavens and seas.

It was easy to be confident when you were the future master of the world.

“You’re feisty, Eirene’s daughter. I might like that.” His wolfish grin spread slower than the flush heating my skin. “I might like that a lot.”

“I— You— But—”

Cora shot between us, putting a blessed end to my stuttering. “Let’s go over here, Ajax.” She dragged him off too, shooting me a nasty look for my trouble.

Only the gods knew what I did wrong. That was a drive-by flirting if there ever was one. I was an innocent, blushing virgin bystander.

“Ready?” Proficient Catherine called, flicking my attention to her.

Sirena adopted another pose. “Naturally.”

I blinked, and Catherine was gone. A blur streaked toward Sirena, who shifted even faster. Shooting off the ground, a magnificent creature with the body of a lion and wings of an eagle spread them wide and flapped a gust of wind that blew my tunic over my face.

Proficient Catherine popped off her feet. The blur became a woman, and she sailed through the air only to twist at the last moment and slide across the arena on her feet.

“Excellent,” she said, unfazed by her unscheduled flying lesson. “Who’s next?”

Sirena touched down naked as the day she was born and made sure to give Alexander a kiss on the cheek before getting dressed and sidling up to her friends.

Alexander was next up to go. “Ready.”

Catherine streaked toward him.

“Ahhh!” She jerked to a halt so suddenly she flew off her feet. Sliding across the limestone, her screams echoed through the academy.

Alexander dropped his hand—the torment over as soon as it started, but Proficient Catherine lay there in a sweaty pile, her chest heaving and breaths ragged.

“Amazing, Xander.” Sirena draped herself on him, trying to blink up into eyes that were once again watching me. She actually tried to tip his chin, then she slid between us when that didn’t work. “You’re next, Vanda,” she barked. “If you haven’t figured out how to beat her by now, then watching Ajax, Cora, Sara, and Hyacinth put you to shame won’t make much of a difference.”

Biting my tongue, I crossed to Catherine. I was starting to get real tired of this random woman barking orders at me.

Catherine slapped away my outstretched hand. “I don’t need your help,” she snapped. “Take your place, novice.”

After just being dropped on her backside by another novice, I let the hostility pass. I took my place across from her and ran through my options.

How do I defeat someone with such incredible speed? My true power let me go back in time—a cool one for someone who actually knew how to control it.

“Ready?”

The only way is to be clever in the millisecond I have before she’s upon me.Hunching down, I nodded. “Ready.”

I flung out my arms as she disappeared—swinging like a top. Be clev—

A hand seized my wrist. There was barely a chance to scream before Catherine sent me flying over her shoulder. I bounced off the limestone and landed smack on my back—dazed.

Sirena and her crew laughed uproariously. “What did you think you were doing, Sisyphean? Trying to swat her away like a buzzing fly?”

I pushed myself up and a blur streaked across my vision. I was flying through the air again to the tune of Sirena’s delicate, snotty laugh.

Catherine waited for me to be ready once, but all mercy was rescinded once she left her mark. I skidded across the limestone, tearing the sleeve off my shirt and groaning as a layer of skin went with it.

Clutching my shoulder, I gasped, “Please, give me... a minute.”

“The traps surrounding my prison won’t give you a minute. Get up. Learn. Win. Fight!”

I tried to rise and a kick in the stomach threw me to the sky. I collapsed—heaving and wheezing—and the threads appeared.

Swimming eyes widened, taking in the vast and endless world. Voices, people, and noise disappeared. There was nothing and no one in this place except for me... and the threads.

They were everywhere. Surrounding me on all sides. I couldn’t see where they began or ended. Reaching out, I touched one—

“Please, give me—” Wait. I’ve said this. I just did this. Which means—

I snapped my head around just as Catherine’s boot connected with my ribs for the second time.

I screamed, choking on pain. I used my power. I did it. And all I accomplished was getting my ass kicked twice.

This place was worse than the psychiatric hospital.

It was a nightmare.

Come on, Aella. Think of something clever. Think of something!

Flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. Clenching my teeth, I swung my aching body around—sweeping my legs. Catherine appeared five feet from me, stumbling to a stop in front of Alexander.

“Almost, novice,” she said, flashing a grin. “You didn’t trip me, but you forced me to veer off course. A point in your favor that you can carry with you to Asphodel Meadows.”

Sirena’s giggling grated on my ears. Asphodel Meadows was the realm of hades dedicated to ordinary people who lived ordinary lives. There were worse places she could’ve sent me, so I didn’t take it personally.

“You’re done for the day,” Catherine continued. “We’ll pick this up tomorrow. But just know, that trick won’t work twice.”

I scraped myself off the ground, hugging my chest tight. My unwanted limestone back-scrubbing tore holes all throughout my tunic. I felt as exposed as Sirena after a shift.

And I’ll have to do this all over again tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that, until I defeat a woman who runs faster than I breathe.

“Gods, you’re pathetic.” Sirena crashed into my musing. “What are you even doing here? Deucalion is for warriors and heroes. Useless fucking weaklings like you can skip into the mundane dominion.”

I tripped over my feet. Does she—?

No,another voice said. She couldn’t possibly know. She’s just sending me to the worst place she can think of.

Straightening, I flashed Sirena a beaming smile. “Sirena, I just want to say, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, go fuck yourself.”

Her eyes flashed. “Cora.”

“Punch yourself in the face,” Cora ordered. “Hard.”

The last thing I saw was my fist flying at my nose.

“VANDA? VANDA.” SOMETHINGpoked me in the side. “Wake up, novice.”

I blinked blearily, squinting at the blurry figure leaning over me. “Wha...?”

“What indeed. What are you, a Sisyphean, doing picking fights with Titans? I’ve never met a masochist outside the bedroom.”

I gaped at him. Only those words could’ve distracted me from the blinding pain in my face. “Sir! I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to say that to students.”

“Aren’t I?” Chuckling, he sat me up and dusted me off. “Who says?”

“I... um... the handbook.”

“If you say so. Something else it says is for people like you to not go making enemies with people like them.”

My group was going down the line, facing off with Proficient Catherine. They went on training while I lay unconscious on the ground.

“Fuck them,” I dropped, startling another laugh out of Kazran. “Bullies suck.”

“But that’s what this place is all about, Sisyphean.” His smile caught me off guard. “What is a monster, if not a bully.”

“Hmm. I guess that’s true. If I can’t face up to bullies like Sirena and the handmaidens, how will I ever defeat the things that go bump in the night?”

“I couldn’t say. I don’t understand the reference.”

Of course he didn’t, but his point remained. If I was going to go around picking fights, I’d better win them. How else did I hope to save my mom from a trap that claimed the minds and lives of everyone else who tried before me?

“Sir, can I ask you something?”

“I’m not a son of any of the healing gods. You’ll have to see Healer Helena.”

“No, not that.” Although talking about it did make my nose throb harder. “I read a, uh, poem last night, and I didn’t fully understand it. If I said the weaver, the deceiver, and the believer, what would that make you think of?”

Kazran frowned. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“Just something I’ll be thinking about on my way to the infirmary because I got hurt after you stuck me in an all-Titan group even though we’re supposed to be kept apart.”

The corner of his lips climbed as high as his brow. “Are you scolding me, Novice Vanda?” The thick amusement in his voice said what he thought of that.

“Not scolding, just asking for your opinion. You owe me after mentally scarring me with visions into your sex life.”

He snorted. “You’re hardly scarred. Sweet little bowl of ambrosia like you, you’ll fend off potential lovers harder than you’ll ever fight off monsters.”

My cheeks caught fire and I burst into flames. I was nothing but ash on the wind, being carried back to my world where an instructor would never in a million years call me hot.

“But I’ll answer your question,” he breezed on. “Let’s see. The weaver, the deceiver, and the believer. Was the poet speaking of three different people, or one person who embodied all three?”

“I... I don’t know.” I blinked at him. “I didn’t even think of that until you said it. It could be about one person.”

“Either way, it makes me think of lies. A deceiver weaves lies like a tapestry, and the key to those lies being believed is for the deceiver to live, breathe, and believe in them himself.”

I bobbed along, nodding hard. “That makes sense. Is there a famous figure in Greek history who weaved lies like that? Or maybe a god?”

“There is a god of lies.”

Hope burst in my chest. The weaver, the deceiver, and the believer stand guard. Within the eyes holds the gods’ lies.

“Dolos is his name,” Kazran said. “He also has a few children around here if you’d like to share your poetry with them.”

“Thank you, sir.” I threw my arms around his neck. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“Away with you, girl.” He peeled me off. “Get that nose seen to.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I beat it out of the stadium, making fast for the castle.

“Selene, tell me you know every statue, mural, tapestry, bedsheet, and toilet associated with Dolos in the castle.”

“I do indeed. I cannot say which hides my prison, but you will soon discover that.”

“It mentions lies right in the prophecy. Sometimes, these things are literal.” I squeezed my hands so hard half-moons pierced my palms. “I’m coming, Mom. I’m coming for you.”

AN HOUR LATER, I HADa healed nose and four spots checked off my list.

For a god I doubted was very popular, Dolos had six busts, two tapestries, three portraits, and four murals devoted to him. I investigated the ones closest to my classes, but so far nothing.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” I whispered. I hung back a bit from my friends, following them out to the practice green. “The only clue is that the lies are in their eyes. I smacked and prodded his eyes until I bruised my finger. Nothing. How will I know I’ve found the right entrance?”

“You won’t know. Your memory will be taken from you. Which, therefore, means since you have memory of your tries, they were not the entrance to my prison.”

“It’s hard to fault that logic, but that brings us back to the problem of me losing my memory. I need a way around that.”

“You have power over your past. It’s possible it cannot be taken from you.”

I stopped dead. “Is that true? Is that why the prophecy says you’re waiting for me?”

“I do not know. Your power comes from the Moirai. The three goddesses of fate. They stood above and separate from all of us. Even Zeus had to submit to them. No one—god or man—can escape their fate.”

I flashed to that still, dark, and calm place surrounding my threads. Mount Olympus was wrenched to the ground. The gods reduced to living in mortals like parasites. Even hell had to be anchored to the Hell Boys so we could continue passing into the afterlife. I don’t know how I knew, but that place wasn’t part of me or our human world.

It was above and separate from us all, and it’d live on long after we were all gone.

I shook myself, shivering. What was I? What ancient and terrible power was inside me?

“I cannot tell you what your power is, why, or how it works. Your fate is your own. The journey you walk will be a solitary one.”

She fell silent and I let her. I didn’t know which Selene bothered me more. Shouty, imperious, bitchy Selene. Or grim, pessimistic, serious Selene.

Neither one can nor cares to help me and Mom survive this, I thought, which makes her right. I can’t look to her for answers. I need to learn how to one-up fate myself because those witches aren’t taking another person from me.

AFTER CLASSES, I WENTstraight to the library. According to Selene, a portrait of Dolos hung between the bestiary section and the monster plant section.

Like everywhere in the academy, the library was larger—and more impressive—than any life I’ve lived. This place was the same style as Madame Remis’s room with the spiral staircases leading to stacks upon stacks on floors over floors.

I walked up to a small woman sorting and stamping books behind a desk. Some things are the same in every world.

“Excuse me?”

She flicked up. “Yes, dear?”

“I was wondering if there are books written by demigods about their powers?” I asked. “How to train them, control them, and get stronger. Books like that.”

She tittered. “I dare say nearly every book in here is a book like that. The rest are how to use those powers to kill monsters. Haven’t you been in a library before?”

Great. Once again I open my mouth and ignorance tumbles out.

“The stacks are organized alphabetically from Achlys to Zeus. I suggest you get to work, young lady,” she said, peering down her nose at me. “Sounds like you’re already far behind.”

“You have no idea,” I muttered, walking off.

As promised, I found the Moirai section easily.

I took down as many books as I could carry and brought them to a table behind the stacks. Squashy armchairs scattered around the table, each lit with a bright, glowing orblight. Choosing a book at random, I dropped on the chair and settled in to read.

“The Moirai, or the Fates, are three goddesses who decide the destinies of mortals,” I began. “Clotho, the Spinner, Lachesis, the Alloter, and Atropos, the Inflexible. It is known that these three beings reign supreme over past, present, and future. Clotho spins the thread of life. Lachesis determines how long the thread of a life shall be, and Atropos ends that life with a single snip of her indomitable shears.”

I flipped through, skimming the pages. Seemed the book only covered the goddesses’ history, and their influence on events before they scattered.

I put the book back, chose another, and opened on the first page. “Evanthia Theo, child of the Fates. Taming your gift of the present,” I read. “Nope.”

Back it went to be replaced by another. Then another. Then another. It didn’t take me long to realize the majority of the books were like the first—the history of the Moirai when they were whole. So far the book written by Evanthia was the only one about a demigod with their power.

“Selene did say we were rare.” Sighing, I closed the last books and returned to the shelves for more.

It took much longer than I anticipated, but finally, I opened The Threads of Time, written by Loukia Galanis. I read the first line on the first page and didn’t stop.

The power to control the past is not the gift it would seem to be. We think of the thread of our past as one straight, singular rope, but that is not so. Life is chaos. It’s wonderful, terrible, unpredictable, and acrimonious. To look upon the thread of our life is to witness a tangled and confusing, intricate web.

I frowned, thinking of that dark and quiet pocket of time.

What we chosen and cursed few must remember is that we have been given the tiniest seed of power from one goddess. That does not grant us the power of all three. A limitation that means little for other demigods, but ruin for children of the Fates.

“Ruin? Why?”

“Read it aloud,” Selene said.

“Can’t you see what I see?”

“What I do is not true seeing. Read it aloud.”

I had no idea what that meant, but I didn’t see a reason why not.

“My power is thread looping,” I read quietly. “In their wisdom, the goddesses gave me the gift of banishing others back into their past and looping the thread. Essentially, trapping them in a single day, week, month, or year of their history.”

My eyes were huge. “That’s an incredible power. The tiniest seed of power from one goddess allowed her to do that? Amazing.”

“It is indeed,” Selene admitted. “But would she call herself cursed if all was rosy in her garden? Read on.”

I did.

“I had little control over this power. I could not control where on their thread they returned. Two or ten years into the past. To their childhood or to infancy.” I lifted my head. “Reading the threads must be another power. That’s why they all look the same to me. It’s why I went back thirty minutes the first time, but only three seconds today.”

Selene hummed. She seemed to agree.

Cold realization dawned. “It also means I could accidentally choose the wrong thread one day... and wake up inside the locked ward of Sunny Breeze, forced to relive the restraints, the pills, the attacks, and the gaslighting all over again.”

Selene didn’t reply, nor did she deny.

Swallowing hard, I read on. “I also could not control the length of the time loop. As a young and foolish girl, I did not care about this. I had the power to banish my enemies from my sight. Why should I have a care what was happening to them in their time prisons? They were no longer my concern.

“It never occurred to me that in the twisting, chaotic weaves of our lives, our threads are never solitary. Never alone,” I read. “It never occurred to me that when I banished my unwanted betrothed and former childhood friend back in time, I was sending him back to our childhood with full knowledge of what I could do.”

I sat back, digesting that. “I see. It’s the same with me. The two times I went back, I remembered the future that was. She threw her ex back into time, but he remembered all of it. Remembered that he was a grown man, now a child, and he knew exactly who did it.”

“From the tone of this story, she comes to regret this choice.”

That was almost certain. Immature jerks don’t like rejection on their best days, but rejecting by throwing them back into a child’s body? That wasn’t going to go over well.

I almost didn’t want to read the rest.

Taking a breath, I resumed where I left off.

“Michail’s revenge was swift, or so it seemed. For he was gone but moments when my surroundings disappeared all around me, and I awoke in a cage—besieged by new memories of a new past.

“He captured me,” I whispered. “Bound me in chains. Claimed such complete control of me in mind and body those thirty years he was trapped in his loop that I was in every way, trapped with him. With me in his grasp, his enemies were banished into their threads, and his rise to power unimpeded.

“And when his years were up, he returned to childhood with more knowledge, more plots, more chains to bind me. Had I had the true power of the goddesses, I’d have cut his thread, but alas, it was another’s destiny to do that.

“She freed me,” I read. “She freed our world from his reign of misery, but the fact remains that all Michail Midas was is because of me.

“Know this, dear reader, and heed it well. The more you change your past, the further your future unravels.”

I closed the book with trembling fingers. “I’m assuming this is why you said I have to keep my power a secret.” My voice was a thin croak.

“You assume correctly. I still exist in the world. My mind, body, and soul are trapped, but all that I represent remains. In much a similar way that lightning streaks across the sky even though the almighty god Zeus is nothing but a collection of parasitic worms feasting on mortal souls.”

I heaved at the image.

“Over these many centuries, every one of your sisters has called out to me for help. A final, desperate plea at the end of a short and miserable life.

“There isn’t a being alive who doesn’t wish they could start at the beginning. Make different choices. Do it right,” she murmured. “That is what you are, Aella Vanda. A beginning. Once this is known, you’ll live out your days in a cage.

“Just like me.”

Fury and fear welled in my chest. “Fuck you. My life is my own. No one will ever put me in a cage again.”

Her laughter faded in my ear.

Shoving up, I threw the book in my pack and went back to the librarian to ask where to find Dolos’s portrait. The sooner I found the prison, the sooner I freed my mom and got us the hell out of this place. As beautiful and amazing as this new world was, they could use their mandatory military service to fuck their butts and shove a lifetime-of-me-hiding-my-power-to-escape-being-used right up there too.

After thoroughly poking and prodding the painting, I left the library for the next Dolos spot. Selene said he had a bust somewhere in the dusty halls of the lower floors. There was nothing much down there except storage, a few training rooms, and the laundry, according to Selene. A good place to hide a prison entrance was somewhere few people had reason to be.

I found Dolos in the middle of a long, dimly lit hallway that branched off into four other corridors. Stopping before him, I studied the statue. Selene said this was the guy, though it was hard to be sure.

The figure was an elderly, long-haired, wrinkled man with a solemn expression. Nothing like the grinning young trickster in the portrait upstairs.

I examined and poked it all over. “Within the eyes,” I repeated to myself. “Maybe it’s speaking of different people because there’s nothing in this guy’s eyes. Would it have been so hard to say within her eyes or his eyes? Narrow it down a bit.”

“Who are you talking to?”

I jumped around. Alex melted out of the shadows, carrying a cedar-scented wave and roguish grin. Gods, he was so handsome. I felt pimply and awkward just being in his presence.

“Where did you come from?”

“It’s not where I’m coming from. It’s where I’m going.” He pointed to the corridor behind me. “The best training rooms are down here. Real weapons. Not practice ones. Plus, the novice ones get so packed,” he said, rubbing the nape of his neck. “Even when I wake up early to get a room to myself, it’s packed with demigoddesses within the hour—all of them asking me to spar and give them tips.”

I got a sudden vision of Alexander shirtless, glistening with sweat, and muscles rippling as he gripped his sword—making long, smooth strokes through the air.

“I bet they are,” I rasped, wetness dampening my middle.

He cocked his head, the cutest look of confusion scrunching his face. “What do you mean?”

“Ugh, don’t tell me you’re one of those guys who is somehow blissfully unaware that you’re smoking fucking hot and cause five-alarm panty fires every time you walk into a room.”

Alex barked a laugh. “Shit. If I was blissfully unaware, I’m not now. Do you always say the first thing that comes into your mind?”

A giggle escaped my lips. “Only when I have to.”

“Stop courting and continue your search!”

My teeth clenched. What I wouldn’t give to fling the bracelet in the trash.

“I’m glad I caught you,” he said, taking my hands. My pulse quickened against his caressing fingers. “I wanted to finish our conversation today. I asked if her vision gave you any more clues, and you started to say something.”

I hesitated. What’s it going to be, Aella? Are you going to believe the smooth-talking blackmailer who’s selling people’s private business and responsible for Marinos being tortured in the middle of class?

Or the guy who’s been by your side from the very beginning?

I made my decision. “She said a lot of things. I can’t be sure which phrases are important, but I’m pretty certain this one is: The weaver, the deceiver, and the believer stand guard. Within the eyes holds the gods’ lies,” I said. “At first I thought it was talking about three people, but Instructor Kazran pointed out it could be one being who embodies all three.” I motioned to the statue. “Like Dolos. The god of lies.”

“No, it’s three,” he said without skipping a beat. “Definitely.”

“What? How do you know?”

“Grammar. If it was one being, it would be stands guard. But because it’s three, it says they stand guard.”

I stood there, blinking at him.

“Why didn’t you notice that, stupid girl? You wasted precious time traipsing around the castle for no reason.”

“You didn’t notice either,” I hissed.

“What?” Alex asked.

“I—I said I can’t believe I didn’t notice that.” I laughed. “You must think I’m such an idiot.”

“I think you’re perfect, beautiful, strong, and smell like cherries.”

I ducked my head, thanking all the demigod lighting technicians that the hall was dimly lit. “Those are... much better adjectives.”

“I’ve got your back on this, Aella. We’ll find her. Together.” Alex set off, tugging me along after him. “Let’s go. We’ll talk while I practice. Come up with ideas for who the weaver, deceiver, and the believer could be.”

“Sounds good.”

Soon, I was seated on the cushioned, matted floor, watching Alex practice.

His breaths came in panted hphoo hphoo hphoos as he pummeled the training dummy. I was near licking my lips at his bare, muscled back and the rock-hard ass straining his pants.

“Amazing it takes them a whole hour to track you down when your shirt’s off. I’d have you on a GPS alert.”

Chuckles filtered between his pants. “I have no idea what that means.”

“Then we’re equally clueless because I have no idea where to start with this weaver, deceiver, and believer nonsense.” I flopped on my back. “Do you have any ideas?”

“A few.” He spun, foot cutting through the air and knocking the fake echidna’s head clean off. “Clotho is a weaver goddess. She spins the thread of life.”

I started to hear her name said so soon after reading Loukia’s story.

“Apate was the goddess of deception, and Pistis was the goddess of trust and good faith.”

“A believer,” I said, sitting up.

“Exactly.” Alex crossed the room and took a two-sided axe off the wall. The thing was the length of my body. It was too heavy for me to even look at, and he wielded it one-handed like it barely weighed more than a stick.

I swear I came a little when he cleaved the echidna in two. Alex was so powerful. So strong.

And he was mine. Waiting for me to take him.

“If we’ve got it right, and the prophecy is referring to those three goddesses, they or something that represents them will be in the same place—standing guard over the trap. That’s not going to be many places,” he said. “Not in Deucalion.”

I flicked to the bracelet. “Selene?” I whispered.

“I can think of no such place, but that is good.”

“It is?”

“Yes. The gods went through great pains that no one should be able to locate my prison, least of all me. You know there’s a barrier of forgetfulness around the entrance. It resists even my godly power still clinging to the earth.

“Your lover is right. Find the goddesses, and you will find me.”

“He’s not my lover.” I bit my lip, holding back a smile. “Yet.”

“Did you say something?” With the echidna reduced to a pile of stuffing, Alex and his axe moved on to another monster dummy.

“What is that?”

“Manticore,” he replied. “Head of a man, body of a lion, and tail of a scorpion.”

“Ick. I don’t want to know what was going on during that orgy.”

Alex burst out laughing. “Gods, Aella, no one can make me laugh as hard as you. You’re just...”

“Just what?”

“Different,” he said, crouching down next to me. His smile made my lips numb and thighs hot. “From anyone I’ve ever met. You make me feel like I can be different too.”

“You shouldn’t be different.” I was proud for not fainting. All the blood was rushing to my head. “You’re perfect the way you are.”

“Ugh. This is repulsive.”

His smile dimmed. “You didn’t know me before. But I’m glad you know me now. The guy I was wasn’t worthy of you. I pray the guy I am now can come close.”

“I’ll let you know,” I teased.

Winking, he resumed beheading the awful part-man, part-lion beast.

“Can I ask you something else?” I spoke up.

“Course.”

“Why does Sirena go around telling everyone that you two are engaged?”

He blew out a breath. “We’re not engaged.”

“I hope not, or you’re very blatant about cheating.”

“There’s no cheating.” Alex gave up on practice and dropped down next to me. “It’s an old and outdated tradition for the Hera and Zeus council people to get married. Nobody expects that anymore. My dad didn’t even follow the tradition. But Sirena...” He drifted off, shrugging his shoulders. “She’s very traditional.”

“Still, tradition can’t be the only reason why she thinks you’re going to marry her. Were you two ever...?”

“No,” he said clearly, bumping my shoulder. “We never. But we’re friends. Always have been. I trust her. She trusts me. Lots of people, including her mother, believe the match makes sense. As Aphrodite councilwoman, she must approve all noble matches. She’s made it clear she’ll only approve of a match between me and her daughter. Hence why everyone believes the marriage is as good as done.” Alex shook his head. “Doesn’t matter what they think. I’ve waited a long time for my freedom. To finally make my own choices and have a say. I’m not giving in to what others expect of me.

“Not anymore.”

It was me who slid my fingers across the mat. Me, who weaved them through his. “What will you do? If her mother won’t approve any match that isn’t Sirena.”

“Wait until she steps down and Calix takes her place, or...” He tipped his head, grinning at me. “Elope. Run away with a sweet, beautiful woman who isn’t afraid of anyone. Even when she probably should be.”

We laughed, foreheads bumping together. No question he was talking about me. My death wish had been remarked on more than once.

“Oh, wait.” Alex got up and jogged over to his coat. “I almost forgot. I have something for you.”

I gasped when Alex held out a small, ornate golden box. No bigger than my palm, a tiny lyre carved into the lid.

“For me? What is it?”

“It’s a bellcone,” Alex said proudly. “To replace the one I killed. It lets demigods send messages and talk to each other when they’re far apart.” He was so cute I didn’t correct him.

He displayed his other hand. Another box rested on his palm. “You write a note, put it in your box, and it’ll appear in mine. What do you think?”

“I love it, Alex.” I held my bellcone close to my chest. “It’s perfect.”

“Now I won’t have to sit in class, bursting with a million things I want to say to you, while I watch you laughing across the room.”

I looked everywhere but his eyes. “What... kind of things do you want to say to me?”

“That I regret being gentlemanly and responsible that night at the inn. I wish I made love to you hard and fast and loud. The entire floor would’ve complained of the noise.”

I exploded with heat. If Alex told me there was steam coming out of my ears, I would not have been surprised.

“But what about demigod babies?” I blurted.

“We’d make beautiful babies.”

“Alex, stop,” I cried, half laughing. “You can’t say stuff like that.”

“You make me want to say all kinds of wild and impossible things.” His eyes were two beaming, intense pools—drawing me in. Drowning me.

He curled a finger under my chin, erasing the scant distance between our lips. “You make me want to break all the rules. Even the good ones. Even the ones I agree with. All of a sudden this grand, amazing world I loved... is so small in comparison to you.”

Alex trained himself to the edge, but it was me breathing so hard I may pass out. No one ever said such beautiful, amazing things to me. Not even the undercover reporters who tried seducing me for a story.

“Alex...” I breathed. “Yes.”

“Yes?” he whispered.

Gazing into his eyes, I nodded. He knew why. We both did.

Our lips connected.

“I will not be forced to witness your silly, juvenile fumblings for a second time.”

My eyes snapped open.

“Enough of this nonsense, and begin the search for the three guarding my prison.”

Alex pulled me close.

“Go on, girl.”

Lips parting, he deepened the kiss—

“Now!”

“No!”

Alex jerked back. “Aella, are you okay? Did I do something? Did I hurt you?”

“No.” I scrambled up. “You didn’t. I just—” Can’t experience my first time under the disgusted, watchful eye of a trapped goddess who won’t shut up! Selene’s ruining it before it’s even happened. “I can’t do it like this. I’m sorry.”

I took off running.

“Aella, wait. Wait!”

Shooting out the door, I left his pleas behind.

“Good,” Selene purred to my frustrated tears. “Now begin your search outside this time. One of my allies tells me there are shrines to the minor goddesses near the swamp patch. You can swim, can’t you?”

Her laughter rang in my ear, all the way down the hall.

I KNOCKED ON THE DOOR, then held my breath—chest tightening as footfalls sounded on the other side of the wood.

Throwing it open, a cloud of cedar and jasmine steam wafted out of the room, letting me know it was him before the cloud cleared, and my smile met his widening eyes.

“Aella?” Alex looked up and down the hall as if checking if he was in the right place. “Are you okay? You look... wow.”

I chewed my lips, sandal toeing the hardwood. Wow was what I was going for when I borrowed Daciana’s sheer, lacy white dress. A complete and total work of art, it was lighter than tissue paper, and even more see-through.

“I’m more than okay, Alex. I went looking for you in the training room, but you’d already left. So I came here.”

After bathing, doing my hair, putting a few pieces of jewelry on—

I glanced down at my bare wrist.

—and taking one off.

Selene screeched her head off when I shoved the bracelet under my pillow, threatening to send her minions after me. To which I replied, “If you wanted that threat to continue working, you shouldn’t have told me the prophecy hinges on me and Alex. We’re two of the safest students in the whole school, because you can’t let anything happen to us. You need us.”

I couldn’t repeat the things she called me. Mostly because it was in ancient Greek. But the hatred was loud and clear. It also faded to nothing as I left my room and walked farther away. Finally, the only voice in my head was my own.

“How did you know which room was mine?” he asked.

“I didn’t. I knocked on a lot of doors. Pissed a lot of people off. Pretty sure someone ran off to snitch to Vasili.”

Chuckling, he held out his hands. “Well then, you better get in here.”

My heart thumped stepping inside. His room was even grander than I expected the Titan dorms to be.

A roaring fire toasted me to the bones—night and day the clinging chill that hung around the Sisyphean dorms. The Titans were granted a huge, four-poster bed that would more than fit two people comfortably. A dressing table and vanity, a desk, shelving, and an attached bathroom. All of it expensive, beautiful, and done in the enchanting colors of ivory and seafoam green.

There was something calming about the space. I already felt safe and comfortable here. Although that might’ve been because of the best part of the room—the shirtless man padding across it, still damp from his bath.

I cleared my throat, leaning against the bedpost. “Just to be clear that no earlier wasn’t because I didn’t want to do it. I really, really do. That’s why I’m here for the sexual... activity. Sexual congress. Coitus, and that.

“Whoo whoo,” I blared, sounding off like a train. “All aboard for sex town!”

Alexander’s shoulders shook holding in his laughter. “Why are you talking like that, sesza?”

“I don’t know,” I cried. “Please, shut me up.”

“Your wish is my mandate.”

His lips crashed on mine.

We went at each other like wild animals—devouring each other’s mouths.

Lifting me up, Alex tossed me squealing on the bed. Sinking in the sheets, cedarwood, musk, and hints of orange-scented bathwater enveloped me. I flipped over as Alex took a bottle out of his desk and tipped the contents into his mouth. I assumed it was a contraceptive potion.

“Come to me.”

I shot into his arms, moaning as he finally captured my lips. Alex molded me to him—fitting our bodies together as puzzle pieces put in different boxes. We’ve been waiting so long to find where we belonged.

My hands were everywhere. Stroking his chest. Tangling in his waves. Memorizing every dip and curve. Tugging at his pants.

He nipped my lips, demanding entrance. The sweet perfection of our tongues tangling weakened my knees. I stayed upright only for Alex’s grip on my ass—holding me firm to him, wrapping my legs around his waist, moving his hardness between my middle.

Alex broke free and threw me again. I shrieked laughing, soaring across the sheets and landing on the pillows. Muscles rippled as he stalked toward me—the predator and his prey.

He kissed the inside of my ankle, making me shiver. My skin was alive like it’d never been before. I was acutely aware of the silk tickling my back. The glow of the flickering lamp, casting our shadows over the fireplace. And Alex, Alex, Alex.

He skated up my thigh, his lips following in his hands’ wake. Little whimpers escaped my mouth under his tender, nipping kisses.

“Is this your first time, my sweet one?” Alex teased the underside of my garments—the thin barrier between him and my virginity. I almost ripped it off myself.

I nodded.

Alex let out a long, sharp hiss. “I almost wish I didn’t know that.”

My brows furrowed. “Why?”

“Because,” he said, rising to his knees. “Now I have to go easy. Slowly.” He pulled down his pants. “Gently.” They flew across the room. “Claim you in every way a man can have a woman.”

His length stood proud for all to see—free of its constraints. I fisted the sheets.

Nerves couldn’t find me in the place I was in, though I felt it searching. Alex was longer, thicker, and readier than I was expecting. Two years in a locked ward didn’t teach me what to expect, and he surprised me anyway.

“That sounds good to me.”

I grasped his shoulders and tugged him down, indulging in another sinfully delicious kiss. He bit my lips, enticing a squeak, then kissed me soft. Continuing down, Alexander found my breastband, and the knotted string keeping it together. He had it undone and off quicker than his pants.

“Zeus and Hera, woman.” Alex arched my back, displaying my rounded mounds and their hardening peaks for his pleasure. “Narcissus would look up from the water to spend the rest of his life staring at you.”

I bit my lip, holding back my grin. Okay, he could talk if he was going to say things like that.

If I expected him to do more, he surprised me again. Alex left my breasts bereft and wanton—continuing his exploration down. A new sensation sprouted between my legs as he tugged my underwear off with his teeth. I fell open before him.

“Tell me, sweet one.” He teased a circle around my opening. “Do you taste sweet too?”

I blinked, cheeks heating. I think I tried to answer him, but nothing intelligible came out.

Alex buried his face between my legs, finding out for himself. I made a strangled noise as my legs snapped over his ears—back arching off the bed.

This is new.

Alex plundered my entrance—licking, nipping, and sucking on a particular place that sent Zeus’s lightning bolts zipping beneath my skin.

“Holy fucking gods,” I gasped.

I twisted and writhed on the sheets, doing my best to pull his head off his shoulders. Alex just laughed while he steadied me—sending delicious vibrations through my sex.

My legs were pushed up and out, spreading me wider than the obscene stuffed turkeys they served in the mess hall. Alex’s head dipped. A warm, expert tongue licked my puckered hole.

“Oh!” I jumped, bottom scooting away.

Alex trapped me with a hand flat between my breasts. Slowly. Deliberately. He drew me back.

“Easy, sweet one,” he said. “I’m just getting started.”

Sweat beaded on my skin at his final wink before ducking down. It was a good thing his arm around my thigh and palm to my heart kept me down, because living bubbles grew and burst within me—threatening to carry me away.

Or at least that’s how it felt as he had his way with both holes—teasing one, tasting one, and then switching it up.

Moans peeled from my lips as loud and begging as the women in the pornos my former roommate would watch on her banned phone. I always thought they had to be faking because no one but a bad actor carried on that loudly.

“A-Alex,” I screamed.

Wow, was I wrong.

Heat built in my lower belly, contracting it almost painfully. If pain now meant a feeling you never wanted to end even if it killed you. “Alex!”

The son of Zeus gently bit that spot, and I exploded.

“Heh-uhh!” I moaned, heels pounding the crown of his ass. Again and again pleasure bowled me over, blowing up my mind as one explosion ended and the other began. The chain reaction carried me all the way down, leaving me a flopping, sweaty mess on his sheets. “Oh, gods. Do that again.”

He chuckled. “So you say, so it shall be.”

Alex dipped down again, having his way with my pussy. I was a sweaty, writhing mess as he brought me to another orgasm. Wasn’t your first time supposed to be an awkward, fumbly disaster?

I don’t know what I was expecting with Alex, but it wasn’t this. He was so sweet, gentlemanly, and cute during the day. I had no idea he turned into this strong, roguish, confident bad boy at night.

“More.” I palmed his cock, earning a deep, husky groan that curled my toes. “Please, more.”

“I haven’t been able to say no to you since we first met. I won’t start now.” Alex cupped my chin, kissing me softly. “Lie back.”

I did so, taking him with me. Alex linked his fingers through mine and locked my wrists above my head.

“Wrap your legs around me,” he whispered.

I snaked around his waist, anticipation climbing. Whatever he asked me to do—even the eye-watering, impossible things they did in those pornos—I would do.

“Now I want you to”—he ensnared my lips, kissing me to thoroughly scramble my head—“relax and try not to tense up,” he whispered. “It’ll hurt at first, but afterward, all sweetness.”

I nipped his nose. “Hurt me.”

Emotion flashed in those clouded eyes. “You know... I might be in love with you.”

I giggled. “That’s another thing you’re not supposed to say yet.”

“I told you—”

A sharp stab of pain rocked me, clenching my legs to my teeth.

“—I’m breaking all the rules.”

“Ah, Alex,” I moaned.

“Shh,” he crooned. “Just relax, baby. Let yourself relax.” Alex repeated that to me until my muscles unwound and the pain faded.

He pumped slowly at first, letting my body adjust to the new sensations. I was right that my virgin entrance wasn’t built to fit a man of his size. I was wrong to believe she wouldn’t find a fucking way.

Alex stretched me to bursting, but what was first uncomfortable, quickly became—

“Oooh,” I breathed, thighs tightening on him. Alex bent and wrapped his tongue around my nipple. “Oh!”

A variety of sounds, cries, and moans poured from my mouth as he flicked the poor nub in time with his pumps—bobbing between my legs, bouncing me on the sheets, and playing with my breast. His prize had no way to escape him.

“Oh, Alex, I can’t—” The fire was blazing out of control. Our sweat slicked our bodies. My fevered pants hazed the air. “Please, I can’t... I’m going to...”

His response was to move to the next breast and put it under the same exquisite torture. I spasmed as the first wave crashed through me.

Half a thought crossed my mind to slow things down. Draw out this perfect moment with Alex for as long as possible.

I angled up and Alex struck a spot that rolled my eyes up in my head. Fuck slowing this down.

“Yes, right th-there. Ahh!” The second crash dragged me under, drowning me in the deepest depths where my fantasies couldn’t reach. No part of me could’ve imagined this. The pure pool of self-indulgent bliss that overwhelmed my senses was for us and us alone. I could only feel this with him.

My Alex.

He tensed in my hold, grabbing and crushing the silk. He grunted—back bending in half as he spilled warm wetness inside of me. “Fuck,” he breathed, collapsing on top of me.

I wrapped around him, peppering his hair, ear, and cheeks with kisses. “How much time do you need?”

“For what?”

“Until we go again.”

ALEX AND I MESSED AROUNDuntil the wee hours of the morning. Eventually we collapsed in an exhausted heap, gazing and grinning at each other from across the pillow.

Alex teased me with his fingers, drawing tiny circles and shapes on my skin.

“What does sesza mean?” I asked.

“Mmm. It means a... strange person?” he tried. “Or odd.”

My brows rocketed up my forehead. “It means weirdo.”

“Weird... o?” He nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I like that. That’s exactly how it’s translated, because if there’s a person weirder than you, I’ve never met them.”

“Hey,” I cried. “A little while ago I was perfect, beautiful, and strong.”

“You are still...” He stroked my cheek. “All of those things.”

“Damn straight,” I muttered, snuggling closer to him. “Can we just stay like this? I know we’ve got classes, scrolls, spies, and monster plots to deal with, but for right now, I just want to be with you.”

“We can stay like this for as long as you want.”

Eyes fluttering shut, my smile imprinted on his chest as I drifted off to sleep.