No. No one would die today. Not my mother, not James, not Henry, no one.
After one last look at the dead surrounding the palace, I closed my eyes. A warm breeze tickled my neck, and when I opened them, we were standing in the middle of a field full of flowers. Not ten feet away stood a cottage covered in vines, and even though we were in the Underworld, the sun—or at least Persephone’s version of the sun—shone brightly down on us.
“Hey!” cried Persephone, and I turned in time to see her blond curls bouncing in the wind. “Get out of there!”
“What—” I started, and then I looked down. We were standing right in the middle of my sister’s tulips. Oops.
My mother chuckled and took a step away from me, and I moved with her, refusing to leave her side. “I’m sorry, darling. Kate’s rather new to this particular method of transportation.”
Persephone stormed toward us, her feet automatically avoiding the patches of flowers as if she knew exactly where every blossom was. After spending a thousand years in this field, she probably did. “That’s no excuse for trampling my tulips,” she grumbled.
“I’m sorry.” Despite the reason we were here, the look on her face made me smirk. Persephone wasn’t my favorite person, not by a long shot, and having the chance to stick it to her was a small victory during an otherwise awful day. “Next time I’ll try to aim for the path.”
“You’d better.” She knelt down next to the flower bed and touched the crushed tulips. “Why are you here? I go centuries without having to deal with guests, and now you decide to visit me twice in a year? Are you really that desperate for marital advice?”
I blinked. “What? No, of course not—”
“If he’s going through one of his spats, just leave him alone and don’t bother him until it’s over,” said Persephone. “He’ll come to you then.”
“That’s not why we’re here,” said my mother, and she knelt beside my sister and touched the tulips. They glowed golden in the sunlight, and slowly they straightened back into perfect condition. “There. All fixed.”
“I didn’t need your help,” muttered Persephone, sitting back on her heels. “What I need is for you people not to step on my flowers in the first place.”
I opened my mouth to tell her exactly where she could shove her flowers, but James beat me to it. “For the love of whatever you hold holy, Persephone, would you please shut up for two seconds and let us talk?”
The three of us stared at him, and he squared his shoulders, clearly doing his best to look respectful and godly. But with his mop of blond hair and ears that stuck out like a caricature, he looked about as godly as Mickey Mouse.
“Fine. What’s going on?” said Persephone, and though the edge remained in her voice, her expression softened.
“Cronus is about to break free from the island,” said my mother. “The battle will begin within the hour, and I hoped you might be willing to look after Kate until it is over.”
My mouth and Persephone’s dropped open simultaneously. “You’re leaving me here?” I cried.
“You’re making me babysit?” said Persephone in an equally horrified voice.
My mother focused on me first. “Kate, darling, I know you want to help, but you will help the most by remaining safe so I do not have to worry about your well-being.”
“But—” I started, and though she held up her hand, I kept going. “Mom, please. You can’t keep coddling me like this.”
“You know you do not have the ability to fight in a way that will be helpful to the rest of us,” said my mother bluntly.
“That’s not my fault,” I said. “You’re the one who promised to train me. I could’ve learned.”
“Not in less than two months. We were all stretched to our limits already, and even if we had, you aren’t one of the original six. You simply are not powerful enough to help change the course of battle fighting head-on like that.” She touched my cheek. “Please, allow us our greatest chance of success. Remain safe.”
I dug my nails into the palms of my hands. “You can’t make me stay here.”
“I know, but I trust you to make the right decision. Milo needs a mother, and he can’t have that if you’re gone. When the time comes, he’s going to need you. And you’re going to need him.”
“So you want me to just hide my head in the sand until it’s over?” I said thickly. “How can you say that? You’re the one who showed me how to be a fighter in the first place.”
She gathered me up, and I melted into her embrace. “Sometimes fighting means surviving in the face of insurmountable odds. That’s what I need you to do. Be the survivor I know you are.”
I hiccupped into her shoulder, and my fingers tightened around her sleeve. “Please stay with me.”
“If I could, I would. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than here with the two of you.”
Holding her arm out for Persephone, she waited, and finally my sister accepted the hug. “First time you come to see me in hundreds of years, and you want me to babysit,” she muttered, and my mother kissed her forehead.
“I’m sorry, darling. I’ll make sure to visit more often.”
That wasn’t a promise she could keep if she were dead, and Persephone flinched right along with me. Was this the last time we’d be together like this?
It couldn’t be. I wouldn’t let it. There had to be something.
“I’ll promise to stay here with Persephone if you promise not to risk your life,” I said. It wasn’t much, but until I could come up with a solid plan, it would have to do.
“Oh, Kate.” My mother kissed my hair. “You might as well ask me not to go at all. I haven’t let Cronus get the best of me yet, and I don’t intend on starting now, that I swear to you. Have a little faith.”
Easy for her to say. She was the one running off to fight. “I love you,” I mumbled. How many more times would we say these endless goodbyes before it really would be the last time?
“I love you, too. Remember Milo.” She pulled away and looked me straight in the eye. “Can you do that for me?”
I nodded, a heavy numbness settling over me as she turned to say goodbye to Persephone. Instead of embraces and tears, they bent their heads together and began to whisper. “Let me go with you,” said Persephone. “Cronus and Calliope can’t hurt me, and I could be useful.”