“No shit,” I said in a voice that trembled as much as his did. We stood a few yards from the shoreline of Cronus’s island, and the palace loomed above us, a giant shadow against the bright sky. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll live,” he said wryly. “At least until we get inside.”
“How are we getting through the barrier?” I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it, thrumming in my bones like a force field. If Cronus couldn’t penetrate it—at least not enough to leave, even though his reach now extended as far as Cairo—then how were we supposed to?
“We walk,” said James. “The barrier’s meant to keep Cronus trapped, not us. Walter even insisted we didn’t modify it to include Calliope. Until we realized she had you, of course.”
“You mean—” I faltered. I should’ve tried harder to escape. Somehow I could’ve found a way. Phillip could’ve picked me up in the ocean and brought me to safety, or—
I steeled myself against the barrage of possibilities that flooded my mind. Playing what-if wouldn’t change anything. I had tried to escape. I’d done everything I could. And right now, all I could focus on was how to make sure things finally went my way.
“I mean what?” said James, and I shook my head.
“Never mind. Let’s go.”
With my hand still in his and the taste of salt on my tongue, I dug my heels into the sand and pushed forward, trudging out of the ocean to meet my fate.
Unnatural silence settled over the island. The cliffs overlooking the shore stood tall and unyielding, but despite their imposing height, James spent one of the few precious minutes we had left trying to find the quickest way up.
“It’s not going to work,” I said, annoyed. We were wasting too much time. “Let’s just go around.”
“That’s miles out of our way,” said James.
“Then give me your arm and I’ll get us there.”
He snorted. “You really think I’m going to put myself through that again?”
“Do you really have a choice?” I wobbled across the beach, the sand giving way with each step I took. “Walk or reappear, James. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m leaving in ten seconds with or without you.”
Muttering something under his breath that I didn’t quite catch, he hurried over to me. “If we wind up in the ocean again, I’m leaving.”
“You’re the one who insisted I had to bring you along in the first place,” I said. “Besides, stop pretending you didn’t like that swim. I saw you grinning.”
“Yeah, sheepishly. Phillip’s never going to let me live that one down.”
If they were both alive at the end of this war. Taking his hand, I closed my eyes. “No water this time,” I promised.
The air around us changed, the warm ocean breeze replaced with the stale scent of ancient rock. I sighed with relief. We were in the bedroom Calliope had kept me in for nine months, and there wasn’t a drop of water in sight.
“Much better,” whispered James.
I reached for the door. It was locked. “Dammit,” I muttered, but before I could complain or suggest another trip through nothingness, James touched the handle, and I heard a faint click.
“Try again.”
This time the door opened without a hitch. I raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.”
Together we sneaked out into the abandoned hallway. It wasn’t nearly as decadent as the one outside the nursery, and I glanced around uneasily. I had no idea how to get there from here.
Each end of the hallway looked identical. Left or right, it didn’t matter, but Ava had pulled me right when Henry had attacked the palace. Good enough place to start.
“This way,” I said, creeping through the darkness, and James followed a few steps behind me. Someone had fixed the damage Henry had done to the castle, making the passageway clear.
“Are you sure?” he said dubiously.
“Aren’t you supposed to always know where you’re going?”
“Not in Titan territory. You’re positive it isn’t the other way?”
I ignored him. They had to have some way to move from floor to floor. I tried to mentally picture the parts of the palace I knew, but I couldn’t remember ever seeing a staircase.
“Kate,” said James with a hint of desperation in his voice. “I think you’re going in the wrong—”
A crash of metal against metal ripped through the air, and a man screamed. In an instant, James yanked me back so we were both leaning flat against the wall.
“What—” I started, but he pressed his palm against my mouth. A cold giggle echoed down the hallway, and I turned my head enough to spot Calliope exiting a room at the end of the corridor.
Humming to herself, she stepped through another doorway and disappeared, quickly followed by a stooped figure that couldn’t have been anyone but Ava. Where was Cronus? And who was inside that room?
“Nicholas,” breathed James. “He’s alive.”
My conscience pulled me toward Nicholas, but I’d come here for one reason and one reason only. As much as it killed me to sneak past his cell, if I wanted any real shot at saving my son, I had to.
“We’ll come back for him,” I said, half a promise to myself and half a promise to James. We wouldn’t have the chance to come back for Nicholas though, and we both knew it.
James led the way this time, and despite my hissed protests, he opened the door that Calliope had disappeared through. I held my breath, certain she’d be waiting for us on the other side, fully aware we were there, but instead—
“Guess there really is a stairway to heaven, after all,” said James with a grin, and if I wasn’t already on edge, I would’ve laughed at his stupid joke. We hurried up the stairs in silence. Two levels up, I nodded toward the door, and he pushed it open wide enough for one of us to fit through.
“Me first,” I said. If Cronus was waiting on the other side, he wouldn’t attack me. James, on the other hand, hadn’t exactly been invited. Slipping through the door into the empty peacock-blue-and-gold hallway, I waited the space of three heartbeats before I flagged him to follow. “Which one is Milo’s room?” I hadn’t spent any time outside the nursery, but during my vision, James had left.
“Fourth one down,” he said. “Kate, if anything goes wrong—”