Chapter Eighteen
My nails dug in the floor. I lay flat on my back, chest heaving and pounding the dusty top of the shelf.
I wasn’t dead. Why wasn’t I dead?
Pushing up on my elbows, my eyes lit on something partially hidden by the books. I pushed them aside, and found the dagger.
It stuck fast in the floor, splintering the wood, but refusing to bend itself as the shelf bore down on the hilt.
“How?” I breathed. A tiny little weapon against a shelf a hundred men would strain to lift—that battle should’ve been won in a second, and yet...
“Just who exactly were you, great-grandmother Aella.” I raised my head, smiling at my companion unseen. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Aella.”
My heart jumped in my throat. “Dad?”
“Aella!”
Daciana, Nitsa, and Jason waved me down through the crack in the door. They were all covered in welts and bruises.
“What are you doing?” Nitsa’s eyes darted from me to the raging Talibah. “Hurry!”
No sooner had the cry left her lips than Talibah spun around. Blood-tinged eyes narrowed to slits.
“The riddle has no answer. Deceitful girl. Lying wretch!” She came after me—her broken paw slowing her down only slightly. “You tried to trick Talibah. Admit it!”
I shoved up, and collapsed down on my back. “My leg’s caught!”
Talibah picked up the pace—mouth frothing and eyes nearly all white, I knew that she was done spouting riddles. She was going to kill me.
“Guys, get out of here,” I cried. “Keep going and—and when you find my mom, tell her—”
“Stop babbling nonsense, you beautiful fool.” Jason grasped me under the shoulders. “Sexy, you lift and I’ll pull.”
I wasn’t sure who Sexy was, but in a flash, Daciana was by my side. She wedged her shoulder under the shelf, and changed.
Her mouth lengthened, teeth sharpened, and fur sprung up all over her body. The young pretty woman retreated, and the wolf was taking over.
“Gonna need to pick up the pace a bit, gorgeous.” Alarm crept into his voice. Talibah was ten feet away, and closing the distance fast. “There’s a flower-fueled romp coming your way if you do. Gorgeous?”
Daciana’s bones stretched, shortened, and popped. Human ears hung on a wolf’s head. Human legs supporting a wolf’s haunches.
“Hurry up!”
“I can’t!”
“I can.” A cow clomped past us, ramming headfirst into Talibah’s bad paw.
Her scream was terrible. Talibah’s tail flashed, swinging down on Nitsa from above.
“Look out!”
Nitsa shifted. The cow winked out of existence, and swift, nimble Nitsa took her place, diving out of the way.
She rolled, came up under her legs, and shifted into her hefty other half. The cow reared on her hind legs, throwing Talibah up—head over wings.
Talibah landed hard on her face with the full weight of her oversized body driving it into the floor.
She didn’t get up.
Cow Nitsa hurried over and stuck her head beside the wolf’s. Together, they lifted.
The wood creaked and groaned. Impossible if it was anyone else, but the strength and power of Daciana defied. The shelf lifted off the knife’s hilt.
“Argh!”
Talibah’s tail smashed the stack, dropping it viciously on their heads, and me.
Nitsa, Daciana, and Jason threw themselves back—Jason still holding on to me. I bellowed as my body stretched. A tearing sound filled my ear.
I scrabbled up, free but for half a pant leg missing above my right ankle. “Run.” I snatched up my dagger and my friends. “Run!”
A shadow fell over us.
“Tricked me. Lied to me. Talibah did not fail. Die, liar!”
We dove for the door.
“Die!”
We tumbled hand, foot, hoof, and paw through the entrance. The force of Talibah’s strike slammed the door into our backs, propelling us across the floor.
We collapsed in a groaning heap.
“Yikes, what was behind your door?” Hands reached into the pile and helped us up.
My spinning vision cleared on Ionna and Theron. We were standing in a connecting room of sorts. We stepped down into a sunken space covered with the pillows and cushions that gave us a soft landing. Surrounding us were circular walls holding seven doors. Exactly seven.
“Sphinx,” Nitsa croaked, rising shakily to her feet. She looked down and clapped her hands over her naked body, flushing down to her toes. “When will children of Hecate figure out a way we can keep our clothes when we change?”
“Nitsa, it’s okay.” I shielded her back. “Jason can summon clothes from Elysium. Jason?”
He winked, smirking. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare have a hand in covering such a delectable body.”
Theron scowled. “What the fuck is wrong with you, man? Have some respect and get them the clothes.”
Jason threw up his hands. “Of course I will. I was just kidding. Relax, Zervas.” Jason waved his hands over Nitsa, then Daciana. Plain tunics, breeches, and boots adorned their bodies. “We should keep moving. Who has the key?”
“We don’t,” Ionna said. “We were hoping one of you did.”
“No.” A raspy croak spun our heads around. “I’ve got the key.”
Tycho stumbled out through the door, holding a key in one hand, and his bleeding stomach with the other.
I gasped, rushing to catch him as he tipped off the stairs and collapsed on the pillows. He defeated the sphinx he faced, but not before she left a parting gift by way of three nasty gashes raked across his abdomen.
“I... got one of the riddles... wrong.” He cringed. “So fast, I didn’t have... a chance.”
“Shhh,” I crooned. “Just rest. Breathe.”
“We don’t have time for either,” he got out. “The council is going to raze this place... to the ground. We have to keep going.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” Ionna dropped down beside him. “Not like this.”
“He’s right,” Jason said. “We have to keep moving. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we get him to Healer Helena.” Jason took the key from Tycho and held it up. “Look. It’s the symbol Athena. We’ve gotten this far. We can make it to the end.”
“But he can’t walk like this,” I argued.
Ionna tipped her head, eyes glazing. “He won’t have to. Tycho, if you’re okay with it, the future has an idea.”
WE TOUCHED DOWN INa ballroom.
I wished there was another way to describe it, but the soaring, sweeping ceilings, crystal chandeliers, and wide-open dance floor were found in every ballroom I’d seen on television, so my guess was a safe bet.
“At least we’re together this time,” Daciana said, though she swept the room with her back to us, taking in everything. “The last god was Athena. Who do we have left?”
“If we assume the gods who created this are the same gods represented in the atrium, then we’ve got Aphrodite, Apollo, Hestia, Ares, Artemis, Hephaestus, Hera, Poseidon, and Zeus left,” Theron replied. He was circling the space like Daciana.
“If we don’t assume that?” Tycho asked.
He stretched out on a Sphinx’s back, letting the dead monster be his legs. We bound his wounds with strips of our clothes. Tycho claimed he was fine and could carry on, but we needed to get him to a healer—fast.
“Then Dionysus and Hades could’ve left traps for us too. They are also officially among the twelve main Olympian gods, but history likes to switch them out.”
“I don’t want to imagine what a Hades trap would be,” Ionna said.
“There will be no trickery from Hades or Dionysus.”
I glanced down at the bracelet. Not only had Tycho been allowed to keep his companion, but Selene reappeared on my wrist. What did it mean that we were allowed to face what was coming together?
“Neither were present when I was captured and locked away. You will face the traps of the nine left, but I cannot tell you who is responsible for this one.”
“That’s something at least.” A thought occurred to me. “Ionna, can you see anything? Even bits and flashes of possible futures could give us a clue to what’s next.”
She shook her head. “No. I’m surprised I even got that vision of Tycho riding a sphinx.” Ionna brushed my shoulder, lowering her voice. “Normally I can’t see anything when you’re involved.”
I sighed. “How long have you known?”
“I didn’t know. I guessed.” She pretended to inspect the ceiling. “I also guessed why you’re hiding it.”
“It’s not because I don’t trust you guys. That was it at first,” I admitted, thinking of Kylie and Dina, “but not anymore.”
“Aella, it’s okay. The reason why you didn’t say anything is the same reason why I didn’t say anything. It’s the reason the Hell Boys won’t tell everyone the full extent of their powers. There are some powers that no one wants to have, because it’s a power everyone wants to have.” She pinned me with a look. “I hate my random, confusing visions. But I’d hate them even more if they were always true.”
“I—”
“What’s up, guys?” Nitsa came over. “Did you figure something out?”
“I think I did.” Theron waved us over. “Look at the floor. Doesn’t it remind you of something?”
Brown flooring with stripes of black on the left side of the room. It didn’t look like anything. “Um, no.”
“Eighty-eight,” he cried, smiling like that was supposed to mean something. “There are eighty-eight floor panels.”
“Great.” Jason grinned. “I’ve had the same number of lovers.”
Theron ignored him. “Eighty-eight panels. Eighty-eight keys. It’s a piano.”
He said it, and just like that, I saw it. “The black keys are sharps and flats,” I cried, running over. “This has to mean something. So far, nothing in this place was put here by coincidence.”
“Aella, behind you.”
We all watched transfixed as the floor opened up, and a platform carrying a grand piano rose from the bowels. A bench chair sat before it, but no one and nothing was sitting on it.
I opened my mouth to question when two keys depressed and a haunting, eerie note washed over the room. The piano played—teased by invisible fingers—a tune I’d never heard before. Just as the melody sunk into the corner of my mind where it’d always stay, the song was over.
Daciana blinked, tears clinging to her lashes. “What was that? It was beautiful.”
“The ballad of Blood and Sorrow.” Theron paced the length of the floor, studying it. “It’s an old Olympian song written by a mother who lost all of her children in the Typhon War.”
My brows snapped together. “If it’s an Olympian song, then it was written long after this place existed. At least to some extent, the prison is still connected to the outside world.”
That’s how Selene was able to bleed through the cracks of this place and find allies to help her escape. Did the gods make a mistake, or was this inevitable? Can anyone truly trap a god? And if the twelve most powerful beings in the universe couldn’t build an inescapable prison, how were a couple Sisypheans and a son of Hades going to stand in the way of her freedom?
“Connected enough to know that’s only part of the song.” Theron snapped his fingers. “Uh-ha. What if we’re supposed to finish it? That’s why they, or he, or this place let us stay together. We split up, take a section, and play. A fitting challenge for Apollo.”
“Hmm. Could be,” Nitsa said, stepping up to one of the panels. “But are we sure these are keys to be played? How do we know—?” She stomped on it and a loud, discordant note ripped through the silence.
The panel tore out of the floor, flipping up like a seesaw and launching Nitsa screaming through the air.
She crashed headfirst into the wall, snapping her neck, then thudded to the floor. Dead.
“Nitsa!”
We launched off our feet, running to her.
Eeeee.
Ahhh.
Ehhh.
Panels ripped up, flinging us into the air like water off a duck’s back. Daciana hit the ceiling. Theron and Ionna sailed through the window, and I watched them die as my feet left the floor—soaring through the air as Selene’s and my screams mingled.
“You cannot die! Free me. Free me!”
The wood rose to meet me, promising a broken spine if death didn’t claim me first.
“No!”
Darkness opened up and swallowed me whole.
I blinked to find myself in the time abyss. Wasting not a second, I grabbed the thread nearest me.
“Eighty-eight panels. Eighty-eight keys,” Theron said again. “It’s a pi—”
“No one move!”
Daciana and Ionna jerked, half jumping out of their skin.
They were fine. All fine.
Nitsa stood there whole, well, and confused.
Thank the gods.
I spun around, but there was no piano or invisible player.
“Okay, okay,” I breathed, heart pounding my rib cage. “Theron, you’re right, but I think naming the trap, springs it. We need to get into position before that happens.”
He made a face. “Naming it springs it? How do you know that?”
“Because we’ve been walking around and nothing’s happened. It wasn’t until...” The song played that the floor started killing us.
“Until what?”
“Just trust me, okay. I took lessons for this instrument when I was like eight. I don’t remember much. Do you know how to play?”
“I do.”
“Then, you tell us where to go.”
Theron clearly wanted to ask more questions, but the soldier in him took over. He divided the eighty-eight keys among us eight—Tycho insisted he and the sphinx could handle their share, so there’d be less for the rest of us.
Only when we were all in position, did I speak. “This is a piano. We must play with the god of music and poetry to pass.”
In an instant, the floor opened up and the piano returned. The ballad of Blood and Sorrow tickled my ears, filling me with the same sad beauty.
“Theron, do you got this?” Daciana called.
“I think so.”
“What? You think so?”
He flapped his hands, waving our concerns down. “It’s been a while since I played the notes, but I know the words. That’s all I need, trust me.
“Aella, D-flat. Daciana, C, D. Tycho, F, F-sharp, F.”
Under his instruction, we played the second stance of the ballad. It didn’t sound nearly as nice as the first half, but since we weren’t being thrown around the room—this god awarded points for accuracy, not style.
“Ionna, A.”
Ionna jumped on the key, ringing out its tune.
We waited.
“Theron?” I craned my neck to see around the sphinx, careful not to take a deadly step. “What’s next?”
“Um... I’m not sure.”
“Now isn’t the time to be unsure,” Tycho gritted. His copper skin was taking on a gray tinge. “What are the words, man? If you know the words, you know the notes. That’s what you said.”
“That’s the thing. I remembered halfway through that there are two versions that end in this stance. Forever I’ll cry or lay down my heart and die,” he said. “How am I supposed to know which one’s right?”
“Oh no, it’s true.” Nitsa threw me huge eyes. “There are two endings. What are we supposed to do?”
“I don’t know— I mean, let’s think about it,” I said. “This is a terrible, frightening, brutal place. If it’s going to choose a song, it’ll be the most depressing one it can think of. Which version is more depressing?”
“Lay down my heart and die.” Theron nodded. “Definitely.”
“Then, that has to be the one.”
“Are you sure?”
My hands shook. My nails pierced half-moons into my palm. “No.”
Theron took a deep breath. “Either way, we have to make a choice, or we’ll all die. Your reasoning works just as well.” He shifted to one of his oldest friends. “A-flat, Nitsa. A-flat.”
She didn’t move. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Okay,” she said, lifting her foot. “I trust you.”
She stomped the panel, and it sprung up—flinging her into the air.
“Nooo!”
Nitsa sailed screaming through the ballroom window.
“Hasina, save her!”
The sphinx shot into the air. She smashed through the window without a care to injury, and was gone.
We held on with bated breath, waiting for the two of them to return.
And waited...
...and waited...
...and waited.
“Fuck!” Theron doubled over, pounding his forehead with his fists. Smoke billowed off his body.
“Theron, p-please.” Tears soaked my face. “I know... but we have to keep going. Take a breath. We’ll get through this. The song hasn’t started over, so maybe we don’t have to—”
“Fuck the song!” He ripped up, and glowing, burning red eyes shotgunned my heart into my throat. “Fuck this place! Fuck the bloody gods! We didn’t ask for this. None of us asked to be the unwilling hosts of loser gods, pouting in the dark corner of our souls because humans threw them and their bullshit out of their lives.
“None of us asked to be trapped in this monstrous hellhole, fighting a war forced on us, so that they can rise again!”
His skin was boiling. Fissures like lava cut through his arms, chest, and face. Scorching ash billowed off his skull. Theron was a volcano, and he was about to blow.
“You didn’t ask to lose your mother because thousands of fucking years ago, the gods couldn’t get the job done! I hate this!”
“Theron!”
“Hate losing everyone!”
He was so bright, I couldn’t look at him.
“Theron, please—!”
“I HATE THE GODS!”
“Nooo!” we screamed, throwing our hands up.
“Theron, don’t.”
A thin, tired voice pierced our terror. We looked up as the sphinx’s head crested the windowsill. She kept flying until Nitsa’s smile hit us. “It’s okay,” she said, tone soft though she had to be humming with fear and adrenaline.
The sphinx was gentle placing her down on the exact panel that threw her. “I’m okay.” She held her hand out to Theron, hugging him the only way she could. “Just breathe.”
Slowly, surely, miraculously, the real Theron returned to us, and the lit fuse of rage disappeared.
He blinked at us dazedly. “Guys, I’m... I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I replied. “We’re all okay. That’s all that matters.”
“What also matters is that you have the most amazing power there is, Tycho,” Nitsa said. “I’ll punch the next person who calls you useless.”
Tycho chuckled hoarsely. “I’m going to cheer you on when you do, because we’re getting out of here. All of us are getting out of here.”
“Yes, we are.” Daciana nodded sharply. “Because Theron’s going to get us out of here. Come on. You can do this.”
“Okay, okay.” Theron tossed his head. “If it’s not A-flat, the next note is F. Aella, that’s you.”
I hit F, and away we went, playing out the final notes of the ballad. As the last chime lingered in the air, the piano disappeared, and a single gold key lay on the platform in its place.
Within minutes, we were whisked away and dropped on a field.
Literally dropped in Tycho’s case. His sphinx didn’t make the journey with us, leaving Tycho to hit the ground and crumple immediately, clutching his stomach.
Ionna and I ran to him, helping him up.
Sunlight beat on the back of our necks, raising my body temperature a hundred degrees. I was sweating in seconds, and not a single breeze or bee cough tickled the endless waves of grass.
The field had nothing to show for itself, except for the fifty-foot-tall pole towering before us, and the bow and arrow placed at its base.
“A pole?” Daciana craned her neck looking up. “What’s up there? Is it on fire?”
“A flaming target.” Theron circled it. “I think we have to shoot the arrow through it. A challenge fitting Apollo’s twin, Artemis. All right, guys, who’s the best— Hey!”
Cow Nitsa blew past him and rammed the pole headfirst. She hit, pounded, and headbutted it—wobbling it in the breeze, until the ground gave way and down it came, slamming to the ground with a boom that shook our boots.
Nitsa changed, snatched up the arrow, marched to the fallen target, and stabbed it in. The key fell out of the dying flames.
We were a gaping, silent bunch when she stomped back.
“Here.” She slapped the key on my palm. “I’m sick of this shit, and I’m sick of this place. When we find your mom, we’re kicking this Selene bitch’s ass for dragging her, and us, into this nightmare.”
A chuckle was Selene’s only reply. She wasn’t saying it. She wasn’t saying much of anything, but I could sense it. The closer we got, the more triumph radiated from her parasitic presence. She cared not for our threats. She welcomed the final battle that awaited the end of this prison.
She’d been preparing for it for three thousand years.
“That’s done,” Daciana said as a door appeared before us. “On to the next.”
We stepped through and went spinning away. My feet touched the ground—alone.
“Guys?” I twisted, squinting past the trees. “Daciana? Nitsa? Are you there?”
Buzzing cicadas called back to me joining a chorus that smothered my ears as oppressively as the muggy, humid heat filled my nose, lungs, and blanketed my skin.
I fanned myself with my hands, grimacing under the pinpricks of sweat popping all over my skin. I’d gone from an open field to a verdant, hot jungle. Swaying fronds made the sunlight dance on the tree roots. The sweet scents of fruit and eucalyptus carried on the scant breeze.
I turned around and came face-to-face with trees, dirt, vines, and more trees.
“Hello?” I called again. “Is anyone there? If someone is, now’s a good time to show yourself. None of these hide-and-seek games. Come out and attack me already. You think you’re being clever with these traps, but I’m starting to figure you out, gods of Olympus. This is a living, breathing place—effused with the essence of gods—and you’re unlocking our weaknesses as quickly as we’re unlocking these gates.
“That’s why Mom was able to fight her way through when everyone else failed. She’s a mortal with no power. You sized her up and down, realized she was no threat, and let her pass. Another prisoner in this nightmare.” I spun and directed my rant at a banana tree. “You’re sizing us up too. Splitting us when you think it’ll be easier to pick us off. Throwing us back together when you thought of something horrible enough to break our spirit.
“I’ll tell you right now, it’s not going to work,” I bellowed, shooting up on tiptoe. “Why? Because we’re on the same side. You have to protect the prison. You have to keep that monster goddess in. Guess what? We want the same thing! So think about that while you’re prepping your next horrible trick or trap. We want her to stay the fuck here just as much as you do.
“All we’re trying to do is save my mom,” I said. “If you’ve been paying attention, then you know she’s the best person in the world, and she doesn’t deserve this. Stop fighting me, and help me. If we work together, I can get my mom out, and you can keep Selene in. Without my mom as hostage, she has no power over me. The prophecy is dead.”
I waited a beat.
“This is the right move, and you know it,” I called. “That’s why you haven’t kicked off whatever horror show awaits me in here. We’re on the same side. No tricks. Just give me the key, and we can end this nightmare quickly. Two years is two years too long.”
I paused and waited some more. Nothing happened.
Had it worked? Were they listening to me? They had to be. From the little experience I had with monsters, they didn’t hang around, shooting the breeze, when there was demigod flesh nearby to feast on. Whatever creature was lurking in this jungle was being held back.
“Thank you.” I released the first true breath I’d taken all day. “Now the key. Lead me to it. If it’s with my friends, lead me to them. We’re ending this n—”
A noise sounded overhead.
I tipped back, getting a single millisecond to scream before a coconut smashed into my face.
“—LA? AELLA?”
I groaned, blinking blearily. My whole face ached like I was whacked with a shovel. What the hell happened?
“Aella, are you okay?”
A voice reached me, piercing through the fog and confusion. I could make out someone leaning over me. They looked familiar. Who was it?
“Wake up, baby. Please, wake up.”
“M... Mom?” My eyes refocused, locking on to the woman who gave them to me. “Mom!” I bolted up and tipped flat on my face, head spinning. “Mom?” I croaked. “Mom, is that you?”
“It’s me, sweetheart. It’s me.” Mom helped me up, then hugged the stuffing out of me. I would’ve complained about her cracking my ribs, if I wasn’t hugging her just as tightly.
“I can’t believe it.” I buried my face in her neck. “It’s really you. How?”
“You’re how, Aella. I’ve been trapped down here so long, I’ve lost count of the days. I’d given up hope of ever leaving when the door to my chamber suddenly opened. I didn’t think,” she said. “I just ran. I ran and ran, and in chamber after chamber, the doors opened until they led me to you.”
“That means it worked. They listened to me.” I drew back, taking in every inch of her.
I’m not sure what I expected. Likely the emaciated, gaunt version of my mother who had sunken eyes and stringy, tangled hair. The woman sitting before me looked nothing like that.
Her clothes, her makeup, her hair, her honey-blossom perfume—all of it was just how it was the night she was taken.
“This place must be outside of time too. You haven’t changed at all, Mom.” I squeezed her hands so tight they turned white. “And... and you don’t look like you’ve been hurt. Please, tell me Selene didn’t hurt you.”
“Selene?”
I threw out my hands. “The goddess they built all of this to trap.”
“Oh, Selene.” Her eyes darkened. “She goes by a different name in here.”
“What is it? Who is she?”
“We have plenty of time for that later.” She rose, pulling me up with her. “All that matters is no, I wasn’t hurt, and it seems you weren’t either. You’re beautiful, baby girl, look at you.” Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “You’re bigger. Older. How long have I been away?”
I bit my lip, not wanting to say, but the answer spilled out. “Two years.”
“Oh,” she cried, doubling over like the words were a physical blow. “I left you on your own for two years? I’m sorry, Aella. I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” I threw myself in her arms. “We’re together again. That’s all I care about. This nightmare ends today.”
“Yes, it does, baby. We’re going home.”
My heart melted, then exploded. For two long years I waited to hear those words. Finally, I was going home.
“We are going home.” I roughly wiped my eyes. “First, we’ve got to find my friends, then I’m going to sneak behind Maximos Damien and kick him in right when they start destroying this place. Can’t wait to watch him burn to a crisp.”
Mom laughed. “Don’t know who this Damien guy is, but I’m not so cool a mom that I’ll let you commit homicide. If he’s done something to hurt you... I’ll do the kicking.”
I laughed too—my first real, free, and genuine laugh in longer than I could remember.
“Come on.” She linked my arm through hers. “I’ve been through this jungle before. I know the way to the door.”
I clung to her—so happy to see her again, my face was aching from the hit and my beaming smile.
“Tell me everything I’ve missed,” she said, helping me over a fallen tree. “Have you gotten a tattoo? Have you gotten drunk at a party? Have you lost your virginity yet?”
My face lit up. “Mom! People used to say we were too close. I get what they mean now.”
She gave me a knowing look. “We’re close enough that I know when you’re dodging a question. What’s his name?”
I gave her a look right back. “Her name is Hera, and Athena, and Persephone. Also, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades.”
“Wow. You’ve been busy.”
“Mom,” I groaned, shoving her shoulder. It was like no time had passed at all. “You know what I’m saying. What you’ve missed is me finding out on my own that there’s a whole world of gods and demigods, and Dad is from it.”
She winced. “I’m sorry, love. Your dad and I talked about it over and over and over. Was it the right thing to tell you about a world you couldn’t be a part of? If he brought you to Olympia, you both wouldn’t have been allowed to leave, and I wasn’t allowed to come. It’d be the end of our family.
“When you were born with the gods in your eyes, that settled it. Of course we were going to tell you everything, including why your home had to be New York, but then... we lost D-Daddy.” She stuttered, voice thick. All these years, she still couldn’t think of him without crying. I didn’t understand that kind of love. Until Alex. “Year after year went on without you showing any signs of power, which just gave me an excuse to delay.
“If you’d set fire to the coffee table, it would’ve been an easy conversation-starter. But you didn’t realize you were anything other than an average human, and I didn’t know how to prove you weren’t without your dad,” she said, guiding me through a tangle of brush. “I was afraid you’d think I was crazy. I mean, come on, who wouldn’t? You can’t just go around ranting about six-headed monsters, invisible barriers, and people with powers.”
I couldn’t argue with her there.
“All the same, I’m sorry, Aella.” Stopping short, she faced me, grasping my shoulders. “You deserved to know the truth from the very beginning, and it was my job to be the one to tell you. I’ve let you down, baby. I’ve had two years to think about just how much.”
“Mom, stop.” I clapped my hands on her shoulders too. “You didn’t let me down. Honestly, I get it. How do you explain all of this without proof? I’ve lived in Olympia for months and it still doesn’t seem real to me. It’s a lot for any person to handle, and you just wanted me to have a normal life.
“It’s not your fault that life was taken from us. It’s Selene’s.”
Her lips twisted. “Selene.” Mom spat the name. “What a sweet, peaceful, pretty name for a vicious beast.” Shaking herself, she set off again, tugging me behind. “I don’t want to talk about her. Tell me about the guy you’re not telling me about.”
I blew out a breath, accepting my fate. “His name is Alex. He’s amazing, Mom. Sweet, kind, strong, smart. He makes me feel like I’m the most important person in the world. I can see myself spending the rest of my life with him.
“So of course, I blew it.”
I frowned, looking around. A sound competed with the chirp of cicadas. I couldn’t quite make it out. It sounded like—
“What do you mean?” Mom asked.
I turned back. There was a break in the trees up ahead. Peering over sweeping palm fronds, I made out something too chiseled and crafted to be jungle.
The door.
“I did something terrible to him.” My eyes squeezed shut. “Unforgivable. I didn’t know who I was doing it to at the time, but I knew it was wrong.
“He’s done with me,” I whispered, lips trembling. “After everything we’ve gone through to be together, and it’s over with one stupid mistake.”
“Oh, baby.” She drew me in, hugging me tight. “If it’s real, it’s not over. Not without a fight, and my little warrior never backs down from a fight.”
“I—”
“...la...”
I twisted, craning my neck around a tree. “Did you hear that? Sounded like someone called my name.”
“I didn’t hear anything.” Mom held up a branch, waving me forward. “After you.”
I stepped through, entering the small clearing. The door rose before us. Like Mom guessed, it was cracked open.
“Okay, about Alex,” I continued. “If there’s any chance of him forgiving me, I need to come up with the biggest apology. Huge. We’re talking rom-com-level grand gesture. Any—?”
“Aella...”
“Okay, I definitely heard it that time.” I spun around, searching for a bobbing head or rustled branches. “It must be one of my friends. This place didn’t separate us. It threw them in here with me. I can’t leave them.”
“You can’t stay,” Mom said. “I didn’t want to scare you, but this chamber is the most dangerous of them all. This jungle is full of arachnes and what they do to their victims...” She shuddered. “If you know what a spider does to their prey, then you get the general idea.”
Shoot them with paralyzing, liquefying venom, then suck up their insides like soup. My stomach heaved.
“Oh my gods. What kind of sadist thought up this place?”
“It doesn’t matter, because they’re not getting you. Go, Aella.” Mom pulled the door open. “I’ll stay and guide your friends through.”
“But—but I can’t. We’ve waited two years to be together, we’re not separating again.”
Mom kissed my forehead. “I’ve waited two years to be your mother again. To love you. To care for you. To protect you like I should’ve done that night. Good Mom 101: Don’t let your daughter hang around in a jungle full of man-eating spiders the size of a bus.
“Aella, please go. The next chamber is just an empty field. You’ll be safe to wait there. I’ll get your friends. I promise.”
I hesitated. I couldn’t skip off to safety while my friends battled arachnes, but Mom had a rare serious look in her eyes saying she was about to shift from Cool Mom mode to I’m Not Going to Tell You Twice Mom mode. The mode that defused many a bridezilla and had them meekly apologizing for their tone before the day was done.
“Go through, young lady. Now.”
“Um, okay.” I took a step. A swirling dark hole of nothingness gazed back at me. “I’ll go, but I’m counting to three hundred, and if you’re all not back, I’m coming back in after you.”
“Fair enough.”
“And take this.” I handed her Dad’s knife.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so happy you still have this.” She held it to her chest, smiling softly. “This knife is special, love. Have you figured out how yet?”
“It’s... uh... made of very tough steel?”
She chuckled. “It’s what you need when you need it, and you need it more than me.” Mom handed it back. “Now go.”
The grip on my shoulder was as firm as her tone, guiding me to the entrance. I let her do it, lifting my feet and sinking it into the abyss.
“Three hundred seconds,” I warned, pushing her and the dagger back. “Maybe less. Maybe three if you’re not quick enough, and not at all if you don’t have a weapon to defend yourself.”
She laughed. “Yes, ma’am.”
I stepped through.
“Aella, no!”
My head swung around, and collided with Ionna’s. “Ow!”
She appeared out of nowhere—seizing my collar and snatching me back.
I fell.
“Ahhhh!”
The ground disappeared from under me. The green, humid, sweetly scented jungle vanished into vapor. I slammed into something hard and craggy, bellowing as wind and rain lashed me. The sun winked out. Through the torrent I could make out nothing but angry, black clouds, and Ionna.
“Aella, hold on!” She strained half over the cliff’s edge— Why were we on a cliff!? Frantically kicking for purchase, Ionna screamed against the wind—her death grip mangling my collar and choking me.
“—Aphrodite!” she shrieked. “It was an illusion. A trick! Visions of the people we love, leading us to our deaths!”
I gasped, her words punching me in the gut. “N-no! Mom! That was my mom!”
“It wasn’t,” she screamed. “I thought it was my—my—” She sobbed. “I thought they came to save me, but then I had a vision of falling off a fucking cliff! It wasn’t real, Aella, but this is. Help me! You have to climb up. We have to save the others.”
My head spun. How was this happening? That was my mom. Her hair, her perfume, her laugh, her hugs. I knew my mother. I couldn’t be fooled by some illusion. This was the trick. It had to be!
“Aella, please. Climb.”
I looked down, and down, and down. Darkness swallowed the bottom of the pit before my gaze reached it. Somehow I knew, if I fell down there, I was never coming back.
“Climb!”
And then I saw them.
Daciana, Theron, Jason, Nitsa, and a limping Tycho. Eyes glazed, and smiles on their faces, they walked straight for the edge of the cliff.
I scrambled to grab the edge, legs kicking against the slick and slippery cliff face. Rain pelted my eyes, undefeated by me rapidly blinking and shaking my head. I could barely see. I could barely hear, and my friends couldn’t hear us.
“Tycho, stop!” I heaved against the side, willing strength in my arms to lift me. Ionna thrashed in the mud—trying to pull back as I pulled her down. “It’s not real. You have to wake up. You have to—”
Tycho walked off the edge.
“No!”
His scream echoed all the way down.
I stared in disbelief. He’s gone? No. No, he can’t be gone. This isn’t happening. This isn’t real.
“Daciana, snap out of it,” Ionna wailed. She got her knees under her and heaved, dragging me up centimeter by centimeter. “Wake up. It’s not real. It’s not—”
Daciana jumped. The smile still hung on her lips as shadows claimed her.
Tears mixed with rain and snot, running down my face. “No, this can’t happen.” My boots slid off the rock, refusing to find a toehold. “Undo it. Let me undo it!”
“Aella, grab on to the edge. If you can hold on for just a little, I can stop the others before they jump.”
Jason tipped off the edge before she finished her sentence.
“Hurry!”
I snaked my arm around hers, squeezing it in a death grip. Hanging for dear life, I pulled up and reached—reached—for the edge. My nails scraped and clawed at the mud and rock, almost—
“I got it!” One hand followed the other, and I grasped the rim, heaving myself up on my elbows. “I’m fine, go,” I shouted at Ionna. “Save Theron! He’s almost—”
Crack!
The heavens split open, lashing their judgement across the earth. Lightning struck the ground beside us—flooding my senses with heat and blinding light. Our piece of earth broke off, and we tumbled into the dark.
“Open! Open,” I called to the heavens, the gods, the Fates. I didn’t know. “Let me undo it!”
Theron fell off the edge, joining us on our final descent into hades.
Wind and rain buffeted me—throwing me around; filling my mouth, eyes, nose, and lungs; whipping my clothes off my body. Anger exploded out of my chest.
“Enough! This is my power. I am the mistress of the past. I control my fate! I’m not asking you, forces of the universe, I’m telling you. LET ME IN!”
The storm winked out. I roughly rubbed my eyes, coming to in the silent, still place between everything that is and everything that isn’t. The threads were as unreadable to me as ever, but I’d done this enough times to figure the threads closet to me were my recent past.
I didn’t need to go far.
I FLINCHED, TURNINGaway from the burning sun. I was dry, upright, and standing before a door.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so happy you still have this.” Mom held it to her chest, smiling softly. “This knife is special, love. Have—?”
“Give me that.” Snatching it back, I grabbed her arm, hauled her before the swirling abyss, and drop-kicked her inside. “Bitch.”
“Ahhh—!”
I slammed the door on the creature’s wails. The jungle disappeared instantly, flinging me back into the world of storm and rain.
“Aella!” Ionna raced through the mud. “Aella, stop. Wake up, it’s not real!”
“Ionna, it’s okay.” I caught her when she threw herself at me. “I’m okay. I’m awake.” My gaze flicked over her shoulder. “But Tycho isn’t! Quick, I’ll get him. You get Daciana.”
We didn’t waste a moment. I tore across the plain and wrestled Tycho inches from the edge, hauling him to the ground.
“What the fuck!” He snapped around, then groaned—clutching his side. “What’s going on? What happened?”
“Not enough time to explain.” I searched the gloom for Jason. “What matters is that you’re safe now. Stay here and don’t—”
Jason lit up by a crack of lightning, running. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the chamber knew it was running out of time, and was trying to kill us faster.
I ran.
There wasn’t time to shout, plead, or warn. Taking a running leap, I tackled Jason, bouncing his skull off the ground.
“Argh,” he roared, snapping out of it. “What the hell! What— Wait, where are we?”
I was about to answer when I saw Ionna take Nitsa down hard. She spun around, leg swiping an arc through the mud, and kicked the legs out from under a running Theron—dropping him flat on his face. Shouts, bellows, and cries of confusion abound.
But they were safe.
“What was that?” Daciana ran to us, shouting over the howling wind. “I was with my dad. He heard I was in trouble and came to help me. Then, he was gone.”
“It wasn’t real. None of it.” Ionna helped Nitsa over. A cut on her forehead bled red and clear from the rain. Better than the crumple mass of broken bones and skin she’d be if she’d hit the bottom of that pit, instead of taking a hit from Ionna. “This was Aphrodite’s test, and it’s frightening how easily it would’ve worked. If I hadn’t had that vision in time, we’d all be gone.”
Grim truth tightened my jaw. We were gone. All of us. Love’s test would’ve killed us all if not for my gift of fate.
Standing there huddled with my friends, trading echoes of relief and thanks, it was all too clear to me why the prophecy named me, and only me. No mortal—man or monster, dead or alive—could win against this hell. No one... except me.
It had to be me because no one else could undo every mistake. Every death. All these thousands of years, it was me.
The child of the Fates. The final key.
“Key,” I cried, rising up. “Where is the key?”
“It could be anywhere in this,” Jason said. “It could be down there.”
“No, it couldn’t. I refuse to believe love is that cruel.” Theron gently set Tycho down. The son of Persephone didn’t look good. Not at all. “We’ll spread out. We keep each other in sight. It has to be here some—”
“There!” Daciana pointed up at the sky.
“Where?” Rain pelted my eyes. “I can’t see anything.”
Daciana bolted. Racing across the plain, she chased nothing—heading straight for the edge.
“Oh no, the illusions got her again,” Ionna cried. “Stop her!”
We sprinted after her, bellowing and begging her to snap out of it. Theron pulled ahead of the pack, bursting into speed.
Daciana jumped, snatching something out of the sky. She dropped down right on the edge of the cliff. Arms windmilling, boots teetering on the rim of the world, she tipped over.
“Ahh!”
Theron grabbed her belt, snatching her back. They collapsed in a pile in the mud.
“Guys, are you okay?” I slid down next to them. “Daciana, what were you doing?”
Inexplicably, she smiled at me, straddling Theron as she sat up. “I was getting this.” Resting on her palm, was a golden key stamped with a swan. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“With pleasure.”
THE DOOR WHISKED USaway from the hurricane-drenched cliff’s edge, and dropped us on sandy shores.
I blinked at the pristine white sand beneath my boots, and the crystal clear water lapping at them. It was something right out of a Bora Bora postcard. Dancing palm trees. Rolling mountains. Warm, radiating sun drying the clothes on our backs. It was paradise.
“A beach? A beautiful beach?” I shook my head. “Wonder what nightmare is waiting for us here.”
Tycho collapsed.
“Tycho!”
I reached him first. Flipping him over, I lifted his tunic and hissed. “Oh, no. He’s bled through his bindings. Guys, he’s in really bad shape. He can’t take any more of this.”
“F-fine...” he croaked. “I’m... fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Daciana said firmly. “All right, I’m sorry, guys, but we’re going to have to split up again. Tycho needs time to rest and proper treatment for his wound. Jason, you’re staying back with me and Tycho. You wash his wounds with salt water, and cut up fresh bandages from your tunic.
“Jason, now,” she ordered.
He got to it, not wasting another second.
“I’m going to search the island for honey, yarrow, turmeric, anything that can slow down the bleeding and fight infection.” Daciana gave a trembling smile. “Field medicine. Who knew that class would come in handy so soon?”
“Of course, we need to stop and take care of Tycho, but why are we splitting up?” Theron asked. “Two people searching for yarrow works even better than one.”
“We’re splitting up because what’s going to help Tycho the most is you guys finding and taking out whatever’s lurking on this island, waiting to kill us. What’ll help Tycho is taking the beast or challenge down quickly, so we can keep moving on, get out of this place, and bring him to a proper healer.”
“F-fine fine, I’m fine—” Tycho jerked, body spasming on the sand. “F-f-f—”
“Tycho!” Nitsa was on the verge of tears, dropping down and holding his head. “What’s going on?”
“The strychnine,” I said through numb lips. “Tycho, hold on. We’re going to get you out of here, I promise. You’ll make it through this.”
I drew back, taking Nitsa, Ionna, and Theron with me. “She’s right. The best thing for Tycho is Healer Helena, and we’re only halfway through. There’re still six more gods, and six more keys, to go.”
“Only halfway?” Nitsa sat down hard. “How can we be only halfway? We’ve been in here a lifetime.”
It certainly felt that way.
“That’s why you four need to go,” Daciana called. We hadn’t walked far enough for her wolf ears. “Ionna, your visions have been saving our ass. You’ll see what’s coming and protect Nitsa, Theron, and Aella.”
“My visions have been clearer here,” she admitted. “More focused. More accurate. I think it’s this place. We’re literally standing in a place of pure, godly power created before they scattered. It’s making all of us stronger.” Ionna glanced at me. “But I’m going to stay here with you, not Jason. He’s a Titan. It’s better having someone on your side who can fight what’s coming, instead of only seeing it.”
“But, Ionna—”
“She’s right,” I sliced in, breaking through Daciana’s coming argument. “She’s the person who can best protect Tycho right now.” Because I won’t be in the way, messing up her visions like the fate black hole I am. “Jason, you’re with us. Nitsa, you scout ahead.”
Nitsa looked around like I could be talking to someone else. “Me?”
“You’re a spy, remember.” I smiled. “The best spy the Olympian army will ever have.”
“Oh. I—I—” She straightened, squaring her shoulders. “I mean, yes. I am.” Crouching down, she shifted into her cow form and trotted off.
We followed at a safe distance, lapsing into silence. At first I thought it was because we didn’t want to attract attention, but as we slipped through the tree line and tramped further into the island, I figured it was because we didn’t know what to say.
“Thanks again.” My voice sounded weird to my own ears. “For coming in here with me. You’re good friends. The best.”
“Happy to do it.” Theron faced his back to me. Ever the soldier, he kept a sharp eye on our surroundings. “If I’m honest, putting aside all the psychotic, homicidal traps, this place is... beyond belief. The gods—the actual gods of Olympus—created all of this. Might even be the last thing they created before they scattered. Who knows what else is down here? Perfectly preserved for three thousand years.”
“Just that library,” I replied. “There were recent books in there. I think it’s been updating all this time, filling up with all the books of the world. Imagine all the history that’s down there. Imagine what it’s worth.”
“All we can do is imagine. Whoever this goddess is that they trapped down here, she’s bad, Aella.” He turned to me. The look in his eyes chilled my soul. “She’s worse than we can possibly imagine.”
“Wha—? How do you know?” I forced out.
“I told you. Monsters and demons run free. The gods of carnage and suffering were left alone to scatter and continue on in their demigods, but this goddess—this one—was so dangerous, she couldn’t be allowed to scatter and live on. She was trapped down here to wither away into nothing—forgotten.
“I can’t imagine who or what could be so dangerous, and that’s the problem,” he said. “Everything I can think up exists, or has already happened, so she’s something beyond imagining. Something new.” His expression was grim. “The world’s got enough problems, don’t you think? It doesn’t need a new one.”
I swallowed hard. “Then, it’s a good thing they’re going to wipe this place and her out.” I flicked down to my wrist. Selene was there. She was listening to every word. “I’ve got no problem with that. As long as they do it after we leave.”
“Pssst! Guys.” Nitsa waved at us from behind a palm tree, concealing her nakedness, but not her face. Wide eyes rolled in their sockets, set in a face paler than a sheet. “I found it,” she hissed. I saw her trembling from where I stood. “I found the key.”
“That’s great.” Jason jogged over, covering her with a wave. “Where is it?”
“It’s in a cave a quarter of a mile that way.” She was still clinging to the tree. She was still trembling. “Where it is isn’t the issue. It’s... It’s what’s in the way.”
“What’s in the way?” I asked.
All too soon, I got my answer.
I stood at the mouth of the cave, shaking harder than an earthquake. If someone told me wetness was dripping down my leg, I’d have said good. My urine was smarter than me.
It was running away.
“Wha... What is it?” I rasped.
“Something that shouldn’t exist.” Theron kept sucking in sharp breaths like he wasn’t getting enough air. “Something that went extinct thousands of years ago.”
A hand the size of a blue whale rested on the rocky, black stone ground. Deep, sonorous breaths blew the hair on his knuckles—blown out of a nose bigger than my old home. Bigger than everyone’s home. Everywhere. In the whole world.
“Giant.”
Nitsa shook her head roughly. She had one foot slid back, fighting every urge to run. “Worse than a giant,” she hissed, jaw clenched. “Cyclops.”
“Why is a...?” I stopped and started again. My mouth was so dry. “Why is a cyclops worse than a giant?”
“Giants didn’t eat humans. Cyclopes do.”
My jaw hung open. I think I was silently screaming. I couldn’t be sure. My brain stopped working after eat humans.
“What do we do?” Theron asked. His gaze traveled up and over the cave’s owner to a craggy ledge. An altar.
I wanted to use another word, but none would come to mind. Waxy clumps the size of all four of us put together, were lit up and placed around a table where he seemed to keep all of his trinkets. Pelts, chewed-on bones, dolls made of coconuts and palm fronds, and stuffed into old tunics and trousers, and the doll of honor that was given a necklace with a key on it.
“Guys?” Jason lifted a trembling finger. “Do you recognize those uniforms?”
I nodded slow. “Now we know why the bodies of those two students and the professor didn’t come when Headmaster Drakos summoned them.”
“Because they were in his stomach,” Nitsa squeaked. Tears down ran her face. She was so terrified, I don’t think she noticed she was crying.
Thud.
We gaped at Jason. The man fainted. Flat-out, lights-off, knees-gave-up passed out on the ground.
Theron gave him a grim look. “That’s the most sensible thing anyone’s done all day.”
“What do we do?” Nitsa gritted. “We can’t get up there without climbing on him.”
“What if we—?”
The cyclops snorted in his sleep.
We ran.
We didn’t pause. We didn’t think. Snagging Jason’s tunic, we hauled ass—dragging him across the ground until we were far enough away to—
“Holy fucking fuck!”
“Did you see that thing!”
“We can’t do this. We just can’t do this. We’re done.”
—freak out.
I threw my back against a tree, sliding down to the ground. “Guys, we can’t be done. We have to get the key. We have to save my mom.” I was talking as much to them as I was my noodle-legs. They didn’t want to hold me up anymore, let alone walk me back to certain death in a one-eyed giant’s stomach. “Just let me think.”
“Think? Think about what?” Nitsa was half-screaming. “That we’re a bunch of Sisypheans and the only Titan in the group literally passed out in terror! That creature eats people, Aella! It eats them, shits out their clothes, and makes dolls with them! Dolls, do you hear me? DOLLS!” she shrieked, blowing my eyes wide.
“I bet this is Poseidon’s challenge.” Theron paced a groove in the earth. “He was the father of cyclopes. Fitting for the gods of the seas. You can’t beat the ocean, and you can’t beat a cyclops. We’re done.”
“Please, stop saying we’re done.” I rose up, holding out my hands. I rubbed their shoulders soothingly, passing on calm I did not feel. “Guys, take a minute, take a breath, and let’s think. This might not be so bad.”
Nitsa goggled at me. “Aella, I mean this in the most loving way, what the fuck is wrong with you? Not so bad? It literally could not be worse.”
“It could be worse.” I looked them in the eyes. “He could be awake.”
They made to say something and stopped. Understanding dawned as they traded looks.
“It’s true,” Theron said slowly. “When Odysseus was trapped by a cyclops, he escaped by putting him to sleep and driving a stake through his eye. We’ve already accomplished the sleep part.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Plus, look at the size of him. He won’t notice a human climbing his arm, any more than we’d wake up if an ant crawled on us. We got lucky. This is our chance to grab the key and run.”
“I don’t know.” Nitsa kept flicking toward the direction of the cave. “We’re only guessing—praying—he won’t notice. What if he does? The three”—she glanced—“and a half of us can’t face him by ourselves. We need everyone.”
Theron shook his head. “Daciana and Ionna need to focus on Tycho. Besides, numbers won’t make any difference against a cyclops. There’s a reason Odysseus had to put the creature asleep to win. Awake, we don’t stand a chance. Nothing and no one do.”
“That’s just more reason that I...” I shoved it out. “I have to go in there alone.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“You guys are the best. Seriously, the absolute best friends anyone could ask for, but you didn’t sign up for extinct, man-eating giants. I’ll go in alone,” I said again, convincing myself more than them. “It’ll be safer that way. The three and a half of us clomping around in the cave will only wake him up.”
“No.” Nitsa straightened. “You’re not going in there alone. That you’d even say such a thing proves you’ve taken leave of your senses. We go together.”
Theron nodded firm.
“We just need a plan,” Nitsa finished. “We can’t wake him up. For gods’ sake, no matter what happens, we cannot wake him up.”
Jason stirred. Blinking awake, he moaned. “Oh, gods, what happened? What did—? Ow.” He lifted his elbow, grimacing at the cut down his forearm. “Did you drag me?”
“We had to,” Nitsa replied. “Unless you would’ve preferred to keep napping next to the cyclops.”
He grinned. “The only place I want to sleep is next to you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Come on. Get up and help us. We’re working on a plan to get that key.”
Nodding, he got to his feet and joined us. We thought up a plan, going back and forth until it was solid. Then, we reached a new threshold of bravery when we picked up our feet, and made for the cave mouth. The cyclops slept peacefully inside. He was so massive, the giant would’ve towered over the Empire State Building.
My mind couldn’t conceive of his size, but it could conceive the fact that I could never run fast enough to get away.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Take your places.”
Slowly, we fanned out. Theron and Jason took position next to his face. Nitsa and I approached his hand. In a flash, Cow Nitsa was next to me, blinking with those moon eyes. I climbed onto her back, balancing carefully as she brought me as close as possible.
The cyclops’s pinky, just his pinky, was so big, I needed the extra four and a half feet to reach the hairs on his knuckles.
Taking a deep breath, I clutched the dagger in one grip, my fear in another, his rope-sized knuckle hair in the last, and climbed.
Below me, Jason scattered flowers as fast as he could conjure them—spreading them in and around the giant’s nose. Impossible to know how much of a dose was needed to get a being of this size climb-the-walls high, but waking up slightly tipsy and goofy was leagues better than enraged and ravenous.
I bit hard on my lip, penning in my grunts. My boots found toeholds in the grooves of his skin, aiding my climb to the top of his finger. I stood up and almost flew off—knocked sideways by a blast of breath.
“Agh,” I choked, eyes watering. His breath. Dear gods, his breath.
Clapping my hand over my mouth, I ran. I was a daughter of fate. I knew when it shouldn’t be tempted. I wasn’t hanging around, taking my time, or lingering on the literal hand of death.
I ran through his forest of arm hairs, taking me up to his elbow where it sat just beneath the ledge. I jumped, strained to reach, missed, and dropped down hard—landing flat on my back.
“Egh,” he grunted, shifting in his sleep. His elbow popped up and threw me clear.
“Ahh!” I crashed on his altar of candles, pelts, and coconut dolls, and everything went to shit.
One of the dolls tipped forward and landed against the candle, going up like a flash-fire. I reacted on instinct, kicking the flaming thing away, and flinging it right on him.
His eye snapped open, taking in a frozen Theron, Jason, me, and a cow.
“AHHHH!”
I blew off my feet, slamming into the cave wall. Pressure and pain like I’ve never known caved in my eardrums—stealing sound and throwing me into an echoing, muffled chamber like being underwater.
My vision spun. Through the twisting and white spots, I saw my friends peeling themselves off the ground. I saw him begin to rise. We were out of time.
Ripping off the key, I jumped off his arm and slid through the hair jungle like a water slide. Up I popped off his knuckle and landed on Cow Nitsa. Jason leaped up next to me, splaying stomach-down on her back.
“Go!”
At least I think I shouted go. It sounded less like a word, and more like a foghorn blast.
Nitsa must’ve understood anyway, because she took off. She clomped out of the cave mouth, landing hard on the craggy, moss-covered rocks and tramped the way down—getting clear as fast as possible.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Exploding heat, light, and power attacked the cyclops’s round, boulder-sized eye—ripping out a scream that shook the island. He clapped his hand over his eye, bellowing, thrashing, flinging himself against the cave walls.
Did it work!? Did we blind him?
He ripped his hand off, and his red, scorched cornea rolled in his head, until it landed right on me.
“Ruuuun!”
Theron burst out of the cave, speeding down the hill as we rolled off Nitsa’s back. The top of the cave blew apart—a fist ripping through earth and stone like tissue paper. A deadly rock shower rained down on us, falling within inches of killing us, but horror-struck we stood.
How did the cave hold all fifteen hundred feet of him? How did the ground hold him up? How did we stand a chance?
It wasn’t just his height. The cyclops was a couple football fields wide, lugging rolls of leathery, tanned skin; three-trunk arms; massive feet tipped with lethally long, cracked, yellowing toenails; and a powerful stench that watered my eyes. All of it was terrifying, yes, but none so terrifying as the unrestrained, lip-curling hatred in his eye.
We turned tail and ran away screaming. It wasn’t coordinated, or pretty, or something you wanted to look at. It was just four pant-wetting terrified teenagers fleeing through the forest like their lives depended on it. Because it did.
We thrashed through brush, collided into trees, windmilled through hanging branches, and screamed our heads off the whole way.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
“He’s following us,” Nitsa shrieked. “Gods help us, he’s coming!”
A shadow fell over us. He was already here.
We burst through the trees onto the beach. Daciana and Ionna knelt over Tycho, redressing his wounds. Three frantic voices shouting their names snapped their heads up... and up.
“Ahhh!” all three sounded off.
“Door!” I held the key out in front of me, screeching at it. “Open the door. For hate of the gods, open the fucking door!”
Boom!
A foot stomped down next to us, exploding a wave of sand and water in our faces—tossing us off the skin of the earth.
I tumbled head over feet, landing hard. The key flew out of my hand. “No!” Cracking my eyes open, I fought to see. Sand coated me toe to eyeballs. I couldn’t make out the hands trying to rub it away. I couldn’t see my friends. “Guys? Daciana? Theron? Can you hear me? Are you okay!”
Boom!
I was thrown again—flung clear across into the sea. The cyclops was stamping us out. We weren’t even meals. We were scurrying ants destined to be scraped off the bottom of his feet.
“Give me the key!”
There wasn’t time enough to be shocked that he spoke English. I forced up on hands and knees, squinting for my friends, the key, and the door to get us out!
He punched the water, and a tidal wave rose from the seas—coming straight for us.
I opened my mouth to scream, and sea water filled it. Flooding my throat and lungs, claiming, then throwing me away. I soared through the air and crashed into a tangle of spears, fronds, and leaves.
Nitsa flew past me, colliding with her tree, then thudding to the ground. Theron landed next to me. All around, my friends dropped from the sky.
Theron was right. He was so terribly, heart-breakingly right. There was no winning against a creature like this. I could undo our deaths a million times, and he’d kill us a million and one.
“My key!” He raised his foot over us, blotting out the sun. “Thieves, die. Die!”
This was it. The end of our doomed rescue mission. The end of the line.
The end of our threads.
“Arrgggh!” His roar echoed through the prison, flattening my ears to my head.
This is how I would leave the world. Eardrums blown, blinded by sand, and crushed between a tree and a foot.
“Argh! Agh!” The giant dropped his foot, stumbling back. Flinging and thrashing about, he clutched his head—roaring louder still.
“What’s... wrong with him?” Jason croaked. He didn’t bother trying to climb out of the bush he was thrown in. “What’s going—?”
The cyclops exploded.
A crimson tsunami of blood and entrails burst over the island, showering us in ichor. The entire eyeball dropped in front of me—accusing even in death.
Eyes rolling up in my head, I fainted.