A whimper caught my attention, and I opened my eyes again. The golden room was gone, replaced by the sunset nursery in Calliope’s palace, and my heart sank. There, lying in the cradle, was Milo. My mother hadn’t saved him, after all.
I stood beside him, pretending I could touch him and rock him to sleep. Pretending that it wasn’t just a matter of time before the Titan fire in my veins consumed me and Milo would be orphaned. I had never known my father, but I treasured the time I’d spent with my mother. Milo would never have that either. The only time we would have together were those few seconds before Calliope had killed his father, and he would never remember them.
No, we had now. Even if he didn’t know I was with him, I could be there. I would be. Settling in beside his cradle, I watched him unblinkingly, soaking in every second.
And I waited for the inevitable to come.
* * *
Kate.
James’s voice floated toward me and wound its way through what was left of my heart. I blinked. How long had it been? Minutes? Hours? Days? No, Calliope might have been a monster, but she wouldn’t have left Milo alone for that long. He slept soundly in the cradle, his little chest rising and falling. I took comfort in each breath.
Come back, Kate.
His words were a whisper against my ear, but I stayed put. There was nothing left for me in reality. My mother had lived for eons before I’d been born; she could do without me once more. She would have to.
The air grew thick with annoyance. Kate, I swear, if you don’t come back, I will tell Henry you kissed me. And that you said I have a nice ass.
“Henry?” My eyes flew open—my real eyes this time. As it had each time before, the wrench of leaving Milo took my breath away, and fuzzy shapes floated in front of me until I managed to focus.
A sky-blue ceiling and undoubtedly a sunset floor. But unlike the room bathed in golden light, this was different. Smaller, muted, and darker somehow.
Frantically I looked around the room for any sign of Henry, but he wasn’t there. James’s sick idea of a joke then, to pull me away from the only thing that gave me any small measure of comfort now.
“How are you feeling?” My mother hovered beside my bed, applying a compress of something that smelled like honey and tangerines to my arm. Noticing my stare, she smoothed my hair back and offered me a small smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “A compress to stop the pain. You’ll have to wear a sling, but it won’t spread anywhere else for now.”
I shook my head. “Take it off.”
“What?” Her brow knitted. “Sweetheart, this is saving your life—”
“I don’t want it.” I sat up, and my body screamed in protest as I ripped the compress from my arm. It didn’t matter. Henry was dead, and I would never hold my son again. I didn’t want anyone to save my life.
My mother set her hand against my good shoulder, and firmly but gently, she guided me back onto the bed. I didn’t have the strength to fight her. “Too bad. I’m your mother, and whether you like it or not, I’m not going to let you die on my watch.”
I sniffed, staring at the cloudless ceiling. “I can’t do this, Mama.” I hadn’t called her that since the second grade, when the most popular girl in my New York City private school had overheard and proceeded to tease me for the next four years.
“Can’t do what?” She laid the compress on my arm again, and though it hurt like hell, the pain didn’t spread.
“I had a baby,” I whispered. Did she even know she was a grandmother? Did she know about Calliope’s plot? Or did she think I’d run off with Ava for nine months and forgotten about her?
She hesitated, not meeting my eyes. “I know. I’m so sorry, Kate.”
That was it. Simple acknowledgment. No offer to find him. No promise to take him from Calliope the first chance she got. I swallowed thickly, half an inch away from hysteria. “His name’s Milo. Henry—Henry liked that name.”
“I’m sure he still does.” James’s voice filtered through the haze around me.
“Still does?” My voice cracked, and though my mother held me down, I raised my head. James leaned against the open doorway, his blond hair tousled and his cheeks flushed, as if he’d run a marathon. Or maybe it was because I hadn’t seen him in the sunlight for so long.
“He’s in another room. Theo’s tending to him,” he said. Theo, the member of the council with the ability to heal wounds caused by Titans. Or if not heal, at least make them less painful.
Was it possible? The way Henry’s eyes had stared unseeingly, the lack of heartbeat, of any effort at all to keep his body going—it couldn’t be. “Is Henry alive?”
The moment between my question and James’s answer lasted for an eternity. All at once I needed to hear it, yet I didn’t want to know. I could have clung to the delicious hope James gave me for the rest of my endless life. Henry could always be in the next room over, alive and waiting for me.
“Yes,” he said, and I let out a soft sob. My mother touched my cheek, but I looked past her, focusing on my best friend.
“Can I see him? I need to see him.” Forget lying still. I struggled to sit up again, but for a second time, my mother held me down, more insistent than before.
“You can see him as soon as you’re well enough,” she said, but she glanced at James, and they exchanged a look I didn’t understand.
“What?” My neck strained with the effort of keeping my head upright, but I couldn’t look away. “What’s going on?”
James faltered, and that delicate balloon of hope inside me burst. “He’s unconscious, and there’s a chance he might never wake up.”
I gripped the sheets with my good hand. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t alive either. Caught between, like my mother had been during the time I’d spent at Eden Manor when the council had tested me. Except Henry was immortal, and he would have no release.
I didn’t know what was worse—death or this.
“Theo stopped the spread, but Henry was stabbed in the chest,” said James. He approached the bed and took my hand, grasping it gently. My fingers twitched. “We don’t know how bad the damage is. Or if Henry will ever recover enough to wake up.”
“Is—is there a cure? A way to fix him?”
“There’s nothing we can do,” said James, and on my other side, my mother dabbed the corners of her eyes with a tissue. “We just have to wait.”