Nothing in the world was going to convince Calliope to relent though. Nothing except—
“Then kill me,” I said quickly, before the brothers could protest. “Do it now. I want you to, if it’ll mean you’ll help them recapture Cronus.”
“No,” said Henry sharply. His grip on my shoulder tightened like a vise, but I ignored him. This was between me and Calliope.
She laughed, a dark, muted sound that was empty of any real humor. “Do you really think that’s all I want?” she said in a sickly sweet voice. “Perfect Kate. So willing to martyr herself for nothing. But of course, if the offer’s still open—” A f lash of lightning sizzled through her. Her body went rigid, and after a tense moment, she slumped in her seat.
Beside her, Walter crackled with electricity.
I expected her to be unconscious—no one could possibly withstand that sort of attack—but seconds later, her icy blue eyes opened, and she stared directly at me. It was as if she could see every secret, every thought, every little piece of me that made me who I was, and her lips curled into a cruel smile.
“Kate,” said Henry. “We need to go now.” The moment I broke eye contact, Calliope hissed. The sound of her voice slithered through the room, creeping under my skin and gluing me to the f loor. “You have my word, Kate Winters,” she said, and a wisp of smoke escaped from her mouth. “I will do to you what you have done to me, and I will take what you love most from you while you are helpless to stop me.”
A strange prickling heat f illed me, and there was something menacing about it, as if it were a degree away from being sharp and unyielding pain. “What—” I started, but before I could say anything else, Henry stepped between us, and the feeling was gone as soon as it came.
“Get her to Theo,” said Walter, and without giving me a choice, Henry pushed me out of the room and slammed the door behind him. Taking my arm, he hurried along the hallway, and I had to run to keep up.
“What’s going on?” I said, my heart pounding. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” said Henry, and he swore. “I am sorry, Kate. I told Walter it was not a good idea, but he does not listen, and Phillip took his side.”
“It’s not your fault.” I frowned, and as he rushed me wherever it was we were going, I took inventory. I didn’t feel any different. “She can’t really kill me, right? We can’t kill each other?”
“She cannot kill you, but there are several things she can do to you to make you wish you were dead.” That wasn’t exactly reassuring. We turned a corner, and I sped up to match his stride. “What can she do? I don’t feel any different now. Nothing hurts.”
“It may not be physical,” said Henry. “In many ways, she is the most powerful of us all. Do not tell your mother or Sof ia I said so, but my sisters are more powerful than my brothers. We have the advantage of brute force, but their abilities center around life itself.”
My mother loved nature, I knew that, and she had an uncanny ability to grow anything anywhere. It made sense for who she was, and if growing a tree in the middle of Manhattan counted as a power, it was a nice one to have.
“What are you not telling me?”
I recognized where we were now: the hallway that led into the antechamber of the throne room. “It is no one thing,” he said, holding the door open for me. “Merely what she is capable of. Why her gift is so important to capturing Cronus, and perhaps why she is so convinced that he will not harm her, is because she has the ability to control loyalty and commitment.”
She was Hera, I remembered. Hera was the goddess of marriage and women. If those were the things she could control, then—
“Do you think she did something to make me disloyal?” I said. How could she possibly make me cheat on Henry?
Was that what she meant by saying she would take away what I loved the most?
“I don’t know,” said Henry grimly, ushering me into the throne room and through the aisle of pillars. “There is a chance she did not have enough time to do whatever it is she wanted to do, but it will not hurt to check. The good news is that she did not turn you into an animal.”
“She does that?”
“All the time. She favors cows in particular.” Well, that was a relief, then. I didn’t exactly like the idea of having an udder.
He stopped at the end of the aisle. The other council members milled around, speaking in whispers saturated with worry, and only a few glanced our way. “Theo, if you would.”
Theo broke from the crowd, letting Ella’s hand go in the process. While I’d been in Eden, I hadn’t realized how close they were, but now I rarely saw one without the other. No wonder Ella had been in such a terrible mood while she’d been with me and Calliope.
“Are you hurt?” said Theo to me, and I shook my head.
“It is possible Calliope did something to her,” said Henry before I could explain. “Would you mind looking her over?”
Theo gestured for me to sit on the nearby bench. I did so and waited as he held his hands out, and this time golden warmth washed over me. Several seconds passed, and f inally Theo pulled away, a line forming between his eyebrows.
“There is some superf icial damage from the cavern, but other than that, there is nothing else. She is f ine.”
“Are you certain?” said Henry, and Theo nodded. Henry turned away from me and gripped the back of the bench so hard that the wood splintered beneath his f ingers.
“That doesn’t mean it was something mental, right?” I said, my voice hitching with fear. “Or am I going to go crazy?”
Henry didn’t move. Beside me, Theo shuff led his feet. “It is more likely that she simply didn’t have time to f inish,” he said, eyeing Henry. “There’s nothing to worry about until something happens.”
“And when it does?” said Henry dangerously.
Theo frowned, and Ella moved to his side to take his hand. He seemed to relax at her touch. “Then we will deal with it as best we can. However, until we know there is a problem, there is nothing we can do about it.”
“No,” said Henry. “I suppose there is not.” Without warning, he stormed back toward the door. I scrambled to my feet and mumbled an apology as I pushed past Theo and Ella, and I hurried after him. “Henry, please—wait for me.”
Before I could reach him, he slipped into the antechamber and slammed the door behind him. The murmuring in the throne room grew quiet, and once everyone realized what was going on, curious buzzing replaced their whispers, but I didn’t stick around to hear it.