Chapter Seventeen #2
“It’s better for him,” Daphne said consolingly as she reached across the table to take Helen’s hand. “The humans who love us never last long. Scions are tragedy magnets. It’s safer for them if we leave before the trouble starts. That’s why I didn’t give Jerry more time . . .”
“You never loved my father, I mean Jerry,” Helen interrupted bitterly. She snatched her hand out from underneath her mother’s.
“No, I didn’t. I’m not going to lie to you to make myself more sympathetic,” Daphne replied, moving her rejected hand to reach for the check.
“But I would never wish harm on that man. Remember, he’s the only person I trusted with my daughter.
You hate me for not loving Jerry? Fine. But the least you can do is respect me for understanding how special he was and giving you the gift of thinking he was your father. ”
“Jerry is my father in every way that counts,” Helen said, wrenching herself out from the sinking seat of the booth.
She waited with her back turned while Daphne threw down some bills.
On their way to the hotel to get their things, Helen spotted Hector.
He looked right at her and then right past her, just as Matt had done.
The twins were with him, wandering around by the ferry.
Helen heard Ariadne call out to Matt, sounding surprised to see him, but Daphne pulled her into the hotel before she could find out what they said to each other.
Helen heard Claire’s name mentioned right before the door shut behind her making it impossible even to tell what they were saying about her, even with Scion hearing.
Lucas was in the lobby. Helen didn’t see his face, but then she didn’t need to.
If she had only caught a glimpse of him as he disappeared around a corner half a mile away she would still have been able to recognize him.
She turned her face away, knowing she couldn’t look at him or she would lose concentration and allow her mask to slip away.
As she hurried up the stairs behind her mother, she both hoped and feared that he would yell her name, but of course, he didn’t.
Back in their room, Helen grabbed what few things she had and brought them to the entryway by the door, hiding her streaming eyes and her red nose from her mother as best she could.
She tried to let the stranger’s dark hair fall across her face, but unfortunately this girl had bangs.
As her mother checked over the room one last time before they left for the dock, Helen let out an incongruous laugh, suddenly remembering the last time she had taken the ferry.
It was when Claire first told her about the new family that had moved into the big compound out in ’Sconset.
Claire had been sure that there would be a dream boy to fall in love with each of them, and Helen had been sure that Claire was being ridiculous.
So sure that she’d changed the subject, and wondered aloud whether she should cut her hair.
“Well, Claire was absolutely right,” Helen said to herself, laughing through her tears. “I do hate having bangs.”
Her breath still catching on the half-crazy laugh, Helen yanked open the door of the hotel room to leave, and ran right into Lucas.
In a split second he registered Helen’s tears and the shocked face of the strange woman next to her.
Lucas grabbed Helen’s arm and pulled her away from the woman, putting himself between them.
“What did you do to her?” he said, threatening Daphne.
“And just who are you?” Daphne said with a southern drawl. Lucas gave the woman a confused look and then looked back at Helen.
“Helen, who is this woman?” he asked.
“Come inside,” Daphne said, dropping the fake accent. “Come on, Helen. We’ve been discovered. He can see your true face.”
“How?” Helen asked, looking down at the hands that weren’t hers, at a body that wasn’t hers, as she followed Lucas back into the room.
“Because he loves you.” Daphne shut the door behind them. “The cestus can’t hide the face of a beloved, it can only reveal it. You’ll never be anyone but yourself to him because he loves you exactly as you are.”
Daphne rubbed her temples in frustration at this new and annoying development. She turned to Lucas and dropped her disguise. He gasped.
“You are all of the women,” Lucas said, remembering what Cassandra had seen. “Helen, this is the woman that’s been attacking you, this isn’t her real face . . .”
“I know. I even know that she was the one who hurt Kate in the alley,” Helen said, swallowing painfully. “I thought it was me—that I had shocked Kate by accident.”
“Helen, you aren’t to blame,” Daphne said, sounding almost annoyed at the idea.
“She was trying to kidnap me to get me away from your family before you found out who I really was,” Helen continued, ignoring Daphne.
“She knew I wouldn’t trust her, and that she would literally have to tie me down to get me to listen to her.
So that’s what she did. But this is my true mother, and this is her true face, Lucas. It’s our face.”
“It’s not possible,” Lucas said, looking from Helen to Daphne and back again. “No Scion resembles another this closely.”
“The bearers of the cestus always look like the first Scion to ever possess it,” Daphne said.
“Helen of Troy,” Lucas said quietly.
Helen nodded, then clarified while looking at her mother. “Aphrodite and Helen were half sisters, and they loved each other very much. When the siege of Troy began, Aphrodite gave Helen the cestus to protect her. Since then, it’s been passed from mother to daughter, along with the Face.”
“The Face?” Lucas asked.
“That Launched a Thousand Ships,” Daphne said, repeating the title automatically. “It’s our curse.”
“Helen of Troy was in the House of Atreus,” Lucas said as he slumped down into a straight-backed chair that decorated the entryway. “So Pallas was right. You are Daphne Atreus.”
“I suppose Pallas had to be right about something eventually,” Daphne snapped before she stopped herself and softened her tone.
“I know he’s your uncle, but we have a complicated history.
Your father was different. He was very kind to me, or at least he tried to be.
The Furies make kindness a very relative term. ”
“The Furies,” Lucas said as an idea struck him. “Why don’t I see the Furies when I’m around you?”
“For the same reason your family doesn’t see them around Helen anymore.
You two risked your lives to save each other, and that released you from your blood debt.
A long time ago I went through something similar with another member of the House of Thebes.
But I don’t have time to explain the whole story to you,” Daphne said not unkindly.
“Helen and I have to get off this island, and we have to do it now.”
“No,” Lucas said, looking at Helen. “Come back with me, both of you. My family . . .”
“Your family wants me dead,” Daphne replied coldly. “And Creon is here to hunt Helen down. I have to get her off this island, and if you love her the way I know you do, you’ll help me do it.”
“I can protect Helen from Creon,” Lucas said defiantly, still waiting for Helen to look at him, but she wouldn’t.
“How? Are you ready to become a kin-killer? An Outcast?” Daphne asked harshly.
Lucas snapped his head around to look at Daphne, responding to a phrase that he had been raised to abhor. For a moment he hated her, but only because she was right.
“You can’t defend Helen against your own family—not to the death. I’m the only one who can protect her now,” Daphne continued, her tone suggesting that she was genuinely sorry for him. “And the best way for me to do that is to get her away from Creon.”
“I won’t let him near her. I don’t care what I have to become,” Lucas said, preoccupied with Helen and troubled by the way she seemed to be avoiding him. He took her hands.
“Lucas. Let me go,” Helen said quietly, pulling her hands out of his. He went silent, sensing something very wrong was about to happen. Again. “If you love me, you’ll let me go. Do you love me?” Her voice was so thin and papery it crackled.
“You know I do,” he replied, confused. “If you’re frightened, run away with me, like we planned. You know we’re meant to be together, I know you can feel that, just like I do.”
“I want you to let me go,” she said simply as she finally met his eyes and held them.
Instead of thinking about the way Lucas’s face fell under the weight of his surprise and sadness, Helen imagined her heart as a giant tub full of water.
Everything she had ever felt in her life, all the good and all bad, were just ribbons of food coloring in that water, and the whole beautiful mess was swirling down the drain.
The only thing she needed to do was wait a few more seconds and the basin would be empty.
“You can hear the truth in what I say, can’t you?” she continued mercilessly. “I want you to let me go.”
Lucas caught his breath and held it for a long moment as he registered that Helen wasn’t lying to him. Then he nodded and breathed again, his face impassive.
“I believe that you want to get away from me right now, but I also know what is going to happen, regardless of what anyone wants,” he said.
“The Oracle!” Daphne exclaimed to herself, understanding Lucas’s meaning. “She survived her first prophecy? Is she still sane?” she asked breathlessly.
He gave a curt nod in response to her insensitive questions.
Daphne began to pace distractedly, as if a thousand thoughts had started elbowing around in her head. Suddenly, she stopped moving and stared at Lucas.
“What did she say about us?” she asked.
“That the beloved of Aphrodite were to find shelter in the House of Thebes,” Lucas replied, emotionless. “So you see, you will come back with me.”
“Obviously,” Daphne said turning her palms up in acquiescence. “Helen, get your things.”