“Gone,” he said. “Back into the universe.”
“Then why is this—this hologram here?” The empty throne, the empty bedroom, the empty hole in our lives where she’d once been—as if all of that wasn’t enough to remind us she was gone.
Walter inhaled deeply, and as he exhaled, faint thunder rumbled through the throne room. “She lived a very long time, and her life touched many others. Those who wish to say their goodbyes will have the opportunity to do so.”
“Yet you aren’t doing the same for Calliope.”
He winced. “My wife chose her path. She chose to separate herself from the council. Ava did not.”
“No, she didn’t,” I said. “You chose it for her. You’re the reason she died.”
Walter stared into the coffin. “I have made many mistakes—”
“Mistakes?” My snarl echoed from one end of the room to the other. “Ava’s dead, and all you can say is that you made some mistakes?”
Walter faltered. Though he tried to draw himself up to his full height, tears spilled down his face, defeating any intention he had of intimidating me. “It is not your place to say—you could not possibly know the circumstances—”
“I know Ava’s dead. I know she only joined Calliope because you told her to.”
“For Nicholas,” he said. “For the greater good.”
“Is this worth the greater good?” I gestured to the coffin. “Is this worth knowing that if it hadn’t been for you, Ava would still be alive?”
“She would not be alive,” he said hoarsely. “None of us would be. Henry would have never joined the fight, and Cronus would have won. It is as simple as that.”
“Rhea won the war, not Henry. He wasn’t even fighting on our side for most of the battle.”
“Yes, he was,” said Walter. “On the rooftop, he was countering Calliope’s abilities. A difficult thing for any of us to do, even more difficult without being discovered, but he managed. When he came to us with your plans to surrender to Cronus, we knew what he intended to do, and with Ava aware that Calliope wanted to take Henry as well, we set up the ruse. All along, he was feeding us information about her and Cronus’s tactics. We would have never stood a fighting chance without his help. Or without Ava’s help. She is the reason—you are the reason he agreed to fight at all.”
“There had to be another way to keep Ava out of it. There’s always another way.”
“If there was, do you think I would have risked her?” said Walter. “Do you truly believe if there had been any feasible alternative to draw Henry into the war without her—”
“You could have asked. You could have given him time. You didn’t have to play Calliope’s games and risk everyone’s lives.” At last I faced him. “We’re not pieces on a chessboard, but that’s how you treated us, and now you’re paying for it. We all are. So I hope whatever lies you’ve told yourself keep you warm at night, because no one in their right mind is going to bother with you once everyone knows what you did.”
He touched the casket, and all the fight drained out of him, leaving a husk of a man where the King of the Gods had stood only moments before. “I know what I deserve. I do not need anyone, you or the Fates or the universe itself, to detail the mistakes I have made. I am paying for it now, and I will pay for it throughout the rest of my eternal existence. If that is not the hell you wish for me, then I do not know how much more I could possibly hurt to satisfy your desire for vengeance, daughter.”
“I am not your daughter.”
Walter bowed his head. Every instinct I had screamed for me to leave before he retaliated somehow—emotionally, physically, it didn’t matter—but my feet refused to move. This was the longest conversation I’d ever had with the man who was supposedly my father, and this was what it’d come to.
“You are my daughter, as surely as Ava was,” he said quietly. “She was the only one of my children who ever bothered to see me for who I really am. The others only ever saw power. Calliope only ever saw a philanderer. But Ava understood the love I have for you all. She understood that a man can feel things he does not express, and that lack of expression does not deplete that love.”
“I know that.” She’d been the one to insist Henry loved me no matter what. “You realize if you’d never cheated, none of this would’ve ever happened?”
“If I’d never cheated, you would have never been born.” He looked at me with lightning in his eyes, and I held his stare. “James would have never been born. Ella and Theo, Irene, Persephone—I loved my wife. My misdeeds are not her fault. But I will not apologize, to her or to any other, for bringing my children into this world. Including you.”
“Then you’re no better than she is. Love doesn’t give you a free pass to hurt your family. You do remember what family is, right?”
He tilted his head. “And what do you mean by that?”
“You never came to see me.” I dug my nails into my palms. If I could draw blood, then maybe the fury trying to claw its way out of me would have some release. “You knew what I was going through after Mom was diagnosed, but you didn’t care.”
“I have many mortal children,” he said slowly. “There was no guarantee you would pass the test, and I did not want to risk forging a connection with you in case you did not.”
“Why, because you were worried about your precious secret being revealed?”
“Because after everything your mother told me about you, I knew that if I came to see you, I would love you instantly. The pain of losing children I have never known is hard enough. But to lose one I love...” He stroked the edge of the glass coffin.
My shoulders shook with silent sobs. “I needed you. I needed someone to tell me it would be okay. I needed to know I wasn’t alone, and you couldn’t bother with me because you were too afraid to love me?”
“The council has watched over you from the beginning, playing bit parts in your life. Loving and protecting you as we did in Eden. You were never alone, Kate, even in your darkest of days.”
“But I didn’t know,” I burst. “It doesn’t make any difference if I never knew.”
“I am sorry.” His voice broke. “I am sorry for never being the father you needed. I am sorry for not being the king my people deserve. And I am so sorry for letting my daughter make the ultimate sacrifice. I do not expect you or anyone else in this world to forgive me now that she is gone, but I hope one day, for Ava’s sake, you will allow me to be your family. To be your father, as I should have been when you were growing up. It is what Ava would have wanted for us both.”