My heart pounded. The others were awake.
As a seventh crack echoed through the cavern, Calliope laughed gleefully, and in the fog, someone grabbed my wrist. I struggled to break their grip, but the cold metal of a wedding ring brushed against my skin, and I stilled. Henry.
What was he trying to do? Had he changed his mind? He only had three bars left to go, and it would be a matter of seconds before Calliope realized he wasn’t doing what she wanted anymore. Cronus surrounded us, and all it would take was—well, I wasn’t entirely sure what, but he would kill every last one of us if Henry reneged.
And then he pressed a painfully hot chain into my hand.
Calliope’s silhouette stopped moving. “Keep going,” she demanded. “I can count just as well as you.”
“And if I don’t?” said Henry, an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before.
“Look around you,” said Calliope. “Use that brain of yours, Henry. What do you think will happen? Cronus will crush you. He will slowly grind your bones into dust and paint the walls with your blood. He will do the same to your wife, your sisters and your brothers, and once he’s f inished, he will do the same to the ones who had the sense not to come. On second thought, it’d be much more entertaining if we kept you alive to watch the whole thing, wouldn’t it? I was planning on making Walter watch, and I’m sure he’d enjoy the company.”
“They’re your family, too,” I said, the chain burning my hands, but I refused to let go. If I couldn’t see her, then she couldn’t see me. She couldn’t see what Henry had done.
Cronus was everywhere though, and if he was paying attention—
“No, they’re not,” she spat. “Not anymore. The council has ruled for long enough, and they made a mockery of themselves and all I stand for. They tossed me aside as if I were nothing. Do you have any idea what that feels like?
Of course you don’t, Kate. You won. You have everything you want.”
Not everything. I didn’t have Henry, and I wasn’t sure I ever would. But I bit my tongue. The last thing she needed was a reason to blow me to bits.
Her silhouette came into view as Calliope rounded on Henry. “You and Walter will suffer the pain you put me through for all of these eons, and I promise to enjoy every moment of it.”
I couldn’t see what she did to him, but Henry screamed, an ugly, twisted sound that swallowed me whole until everything ceased to exist except my burning need to stop it. I moved toward her without thinking. The chain was f ire in my hands, and I swung it as hard as I could. A sick-ening crack f illed the cavern as it connected with the back of Calliope’s head, and the links wrapped around her neck, burning her pretty face.
I expected her to scream or shout or f ight back somehow, and I wasn’t going to hand it over to her that easily. I swung at her again and again, crazy with the need to make sure she never had another chance to hurt Henry or anyone else I loved, but f inally someone caught my arm.
“Enough,” said Henry. “Look.”
My heart pounded as I inched forward, squinting through the fog. I clutched the chain, prepared to hit her again if she jumped out at me. Instead my foot hit something warm and solid.
Calliope.
Henry wrapped his arm around me and grabbed Calliope’s ankle. I stared at her limp body, torn between horror and satisfaction as blood dripped from a gash in her cheek.
“Leave,” he called out, his voice booming despite his injuries. A hissing sound echoed through the cavern, and the air grew so hot I felt as if I were being boiled alive.
Tiny knives pricked me, burrowing underneath my skin and turning to molten lava.
I cried out, unable to handle the monstrous pain coursing through my body. My knees gave way, but Henry was there to catch me, and his chains clattered to the ground. He said nothing as he pulled me against him and buried my face in his chest. The next thing I knew, the stabs were gone, and cool air engulfed me.
“It’s all right,” said Henry in the soothing tone I’d wanted to hear so badly since stepping foot in the Underworld. Even though he must have been hurting, too, he ran his f ingers through my hair comfortingly. “You’re safe.” The agony of the fog seeping into my body hadn’t left me, but as I stood there trembling, it didn’t get any worse.
I cracked open an eye, and when I saw the red wall, my stomach lurched. Who had Cronus killed? James? Ava? Or had he killed Calliope for failing him?
As my vision focused, I realized we weren’t in the cavern anymore. We stood in the entranceway of the palace, the one with the mirrors and scarlet walls, and Calliope lay on the carpet, blood seeping from the wound in the back of her head.
We were home.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SH A DOW
As the seconds ticked by like hours, the others appeared around us. Ava was f irst, with Sof ia. Their wrists were rubbed raw. James showed up next with Phillip, who held a bloody cloth over his eye, and f inally Walter and my mother appeared. She was clutching Persephone’s hand.
The moment I saw my mother, pale and shaken but in one piece, I wanted to dash toward her. An invisible force held me back though, and I couldn’t move, not while she held on to Persephone.
My mother caught me staring. Her grip on Persephone tightened, and to my astonishment, she dropped her hand and moved toward me instead.
That was all the encouragement I needed. I rushed forward and hugged her, burying my nose in her hair. Even after all that time in the cave, she still smelled like apples and freesia. The faintest hint of smoke clung to her as well, but she was okay.
“Where is she?” said Walter, pushing through the cluster of dazed council members. Dylan, Irene and the others who had remained behind were nowhere in sight, but they were probably working on the surface. I hoped.
“Here.” Henry stepped aside and gestured to Calliope.
Walter knelt beside her—his wife, I reminded myself. I stared wide-eyed at the sight of the two of them together, him so old and her so not, and he brushed a lock of hair from her eyes.
“Oh, my dear,” he whispered, but that one tender moment was gone as quickly as it’d come. His expression hardened, and he gathered her in his arms with no more care than he would have shown a pile of rags. “Henry, have you anyplace to keep her?”
Henry gestured for Walter to come with him. I wanted to follow, but my mother clung to me, and I didn’t want to let her go.
“Are you all right?” she said, pulling away enough to look me over head to toe.