Mortality Bound: The Complete Box Set (Books 1-5 of the Epic Urban Fantasy Series)

Ramy Vance

S.W. Clarke

Keep Evolving Studios

Contents

Fatebound

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Oathbound

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Bloodbound

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Mortality Bound

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Soulbound

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Epilogue

The Arc

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Join The Clan!

About the Author - Ramy Vance

About the Author - S.W. Clarke

Mortality Bound Series © Copyright <<2019>> Ramy Vance and S.W. Clarke

Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

For more information, email: ramy@paradise-lot.com

A Keep Evolving Production

Editor: Nola Li Barr

Cover Design: Melody Simmons, www.bookcoverscr8tive.com

Fatebound

Chapter 1

I just wanted a Twinkie.

And a warm bed.

Hell, I’d settle for what life was like an hour ago.

At least then I wasn’t being chased by a giant, rampaging monster through the back roads of Quebec …

An hour ago, the darkness had settled in like a blanket just past the headlights of the Mustang. She was Justin’s pride and joy, and he’d kept her up perfectly.

It was a starless, moonless night. A pitch-black night. The perfect night for disappearing into.

But every time we tried to disappear, we were found. We had been running for weeks, and every time they’d found us.

The World Army.

The human army.

Dr. Serena Russo.

At any moment, they could find us again …

And to think: a few weeks ago I was a normal university student enjoying the classic combo of wacky tobacky and Twinkies.

Beside me, Justin’s hand hovered over the gearstick, as though at any moment he would need to use it to bludgeon someone to death.

“We’re OK,” I lied, my hand settling over his. His fingers felt clammy; they shook. Frankly, I didn’t know how he’d stayed upright this long. And yet his jaw remained firm as he stared out the windshield, his left hand overtop the steering wheel.

“I appreciate your optimism, Isa.” A dime-drop of sweat ran from his hairline down the side of his face, clinging to his jawbone.

“Do you want me to drive?” I asked.

One dark eyebrow went up.

“Don’t go all macho manly on me. You’re exhausted, and I’m a kickass driver. I know this car is your baby, but…” I let the last word linger.

He chuckled. “You’re right. I’m just possessive of Sally here.”

“As in Mustang Sally.”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Just that you’re a millennial and I didn’t think millennials knew classic rock anymore.”

“Pish posh,” he said with a smile. “The internet won’t let us forget… anyway, let’s switch over we’re out of Canada.” The engine growled as he accelerated us.

Outside, the trees had fallen away to open land, houses winking by.

“All right.” I squeezed his hand. “ Just remember that you’re still sick. You need your rest.” I said it so low I might not have heard it myself if I hadn’t voiced the words.

And yet I knew he’d heard me, because his fingers squeezed my own. “I’m sick, but I’ll heal. You should know that better than anyone, Little Miss Biologist.”

I forced a laugh, but inside I wanted to scream that I did know better. I understood what Serena did to him better than anyone—possibly even Serena herself—and I knew this wasn’t like a cold that he’d eventually get over.

He needed a cure. An anti-venom to neutralize what the aqrabuamelu poison was doing to him.

He had the cure. Almost took it, too. But instead, he sacrificed himself so that the other soldiers who had been genetically modified could also use the cure.

But that was Justin. He needs came after everyone else’s. Of all the humans I’ve known in my five hundred years of life, he possessed one of the purest souls.

Simply put, Justin was good.

And I loved him for it.

Still, the experiments were taking their toll on him. He was strong now. Stronger than any human should be. I could manufacture a cure for the side effects if I could only get some time in a lab, undisturbed.

But that was a tall order, given we were being hunted.

Another thought occurred to me: we needed to disguise ourselves. Something, as a shapeshifter, I could do easily. Not so easy for him.

I ran my hands through his hair. “I think we need to shave your hair off.”

“Hey, I like my hair. It’s the only part of me that doesn’t hurt right now.” He lifted a hand when my face turned grave. “It’s a joke. I’m joking.”

I drew my fingers through his black hair—one of my favorite things. I gave it a flirtatious tug. “I like your hair, too. It’ll grow back.”

“OK,” he said. “But since we’re talking about disguising ourselves, who are you going to be?”

My eyebrows rose. “I don’t know.”

He gave a single nod, eyes never leaving the empty highway. His throat spasmed as he suppressed another cough. “You’ve been alive five hundred years, right?”

“Five hundred and twelve.”

“How many illusions have you worn in that time?”

“Twelve thousand, eight hundred and thirty-two.” I didn’t hesitate; I knew those faces like I knew that cells were the basic unit of life. I knew them as simply as I knew I loved Justin Truly.

“Holy— Twelve thousand, Isa?” He glanced at me; I held his gaze. “OK, of twelve thousand, pick the one that’s you.”

I sat back into the Mustang’s bucket seat, closed my eyes. An anxiety came over me, different from the constant adrenaline I’d felt since we had escaped Montreal in the night. Different from the heart-pain of wondering when and how we’d be found by the World Army’s lead scientist—my former boss, Serena Russo.

This was the anxiety of thrill. Changing my appearance was one of the most wonderful, enduring pleasures of my life.

And I knew exactly who I wanted to look like.

My eyes opened, shifted to Justin. “What if you don’t like the way I look?”

“Isabella”—his hand finally left the gearshift and drifted to my thigh—“it’s not about that.”

I pursed my lips.

“OK, it’s not just about that.”

“Ah ha.” I reached down to the hem of my sweater and pulled it up over my head.

Justin could hardly keep his eyes on the road. “What are you doing?”

“These clothes won’t fit once I’m done.” I started on the buttons of my jeans. “Don’t worry—I brought other sizes.”

“You expected this.”

“It’s in my nature. It’s what we encantado do.”

Thirty seconds later I’d stripped down, the buttery leather touching only my bare back and legs, the Mustang purring beneath me. “Don’t get distracted.”

Justin’s eyes flicked toward me, surveyed me once in the almost-darkness before returning to the road. This time he did smile. “Too late.”

Maybe tonight would be one of those nights. I could nearly touch what floated between us, that buzz of energy.

“This won’t be a minute.” Though in truth it wouldn’t take anywhere close to sixty seconds. Shifting to this form would be like passing under a bridge in the rain, a split-second absence of noise.

My eyes closed once more. When I opened them, they would be brown. The thigh beneath Justin’s hand would be longer, a bit more slender. I would tell him in a soft alto that I was done.

And no one except him and I would know who I was.

Such was the power of the encantado.

↔

At the gas station, Justin climbed out of the car and stumbled toward the trees. So, not one of those nights. I watched through the open car door as he gagged, and by the time I stepped out, he was already wiping his mouth.

He didn’t like me worrying about him. So I passed around the back of the Mustang and opened the gas gauge. “I’ll fill her up.”

He stood with his hands on his knees, bracing himself as if he’d run miles. “Just flip open the flap and turn the nozzle …”

“I’ve got it, dear.” I turned toward the pump, which had only two options: leaded or unleaded.

Above us, a neon sign flickered in the night, beckoning drivers in.

And past the two pumps, a little convenience shop glowed with a half-light. Through the window, a man surrounded by peanuts and scratch-off tickets watched his tiny television.

“Good, I’ll go inside and pay,” Justin said, the bell chiming as he pushed the door to the shop.

I stood alone, pumping the gas, when I felt an eerie sensation of someone watching me. I turned around to see a little boy standing just outside the halo of the gas station lights.

He was staring straight at me.

I stopped, and he and I observed one another. He couldn’t have been more than three, and he clutched what looked like an oversized, fluffy sheep to his chest. Also, someone had dressed him in nothing but an old-fashioned white loincloth.

“I found you,” he said in a musical little voice.

I came forward and bent toward him. “What was that?”

He gazed up at me, his blue eyes and blond hair almost cherubic under the overhang’s stark fluorescent light. “I found you before my brothers did.”

I scanned the parking lot. A blue sedan sat not far off. “Are your brothers in that car?”

“Isa,” Justin called as he returned to the car. I was so distracted by the kid, I didn’t even hear him leave the shop. “We should head out.”

I straightened at once, leaving the creepy little kid alone as I went to the Mustang.

↔

Justin had taken out the pump and was at the driver’s side door. From the way he slumped, I sensed another decline coming on.

“Uh-uh-uhhh,” I said in as casual a tone as I could muster. “I’m driving, mister.”

“No, I’m fine,” he said.

“No, you’re exhausted. Get in the back and rest, bucko.”

He must have been tired, because he didn’t protest. He just did as he was told. Rare for Justin.

Very rare, indeed.

I walked over to the driver’s side and was about to get in when I felt it.

A vibration hit the center of a puddle of gas next to the car, emanating out to its edges and sharding my reflection.

Before I could theorize what could cause that, the puddle jumped again, my face distorting as the ripples pushed outward. A second later, another ripple.

“Justin,” I said, “are you doing that?”

“Doing what?” he called from the back seat.

Another second, another vibration. Another. Another. The puddle no longer had time to settle before the next set of ripples hit.

I lifted my face, squinting out past the neon sign into the darkness. The World Army couldn’t have found us out here—not yet.

It was too soon.

And yet, as I stood next to the car, I felt the vibrations through my thick-soled boots. A regular thud-thud, thud-thud.

Could be road work, I thought. Or problems.

Given our luck, I was betting on problems.

I pawed at the door handle. “We have to leave,” I called. “Right now.”

When I dropped into the seat, I turned to see Justin slumped over.

No movement. No acknowledgement of my cries.

He had lapsed into another delirium.

GoneGodDamn Serena Russo and her gene splicing experiments.

She was killing my boyfriend.

I glanced out the window, down at the puddle, where the vibrations came quick now. Over in the convenience store, the bags of chips swayed from their clips. Even the owner had glanced up and out the window.

But that little boy still stood in the parking lot, staring after me.

“Run inside,” I called out to him as I looked through my rearview window and saw it coming.

“Please no dinosaurs,” I prayed as I slammed on the accelerator, my eyes straying between the road and the emptiness behind us in the rearview mirror. “No Jurassic Park.”

As I prayed, the darkness behind us shifted into movement. My eyes locked on the mirror as a creature emerged from the night.

Not a dinosaur. Dinosaurs didn’t have red eyes.

Chapter 2

What slipped out of the night was unlike anything I’d seen in five hundred years. And I had seen a lot of strange creatures.

First its two black hooves appeared, pounding the highway so hard the steering wheel vibrated under my hands.

Then its horselike head, red-eyed with three horns sticking out, lowered as though to ram the back of the car.

Whatever it was—horse, elephant—the creature was enormous.

It wasn’t a dinosaur, but it was the size of one. And it had a thick, armored hide.

Dr Serena Russo had sent another monster after us.

“Uh, Isa,” Justin murmured from the back seat. “There’s something—”

“I know,” I cut in. “We’re being chased.”

Justin sat upright. “Since when did I get in the back seat?”

Times like this—the worst time for him to get like this—Justin seemed drunk or feverish. It was the genetic modifications, whatever Russo had done to him to make him a “super soldier.”

His body was trying to fight them off like an illness. Because of it, he didn’t grasp the fullness of reality the way he did when he had all his faculties.

So we were reduced to this: yelling at each other from the front and back seats of the car.

It didn’t help that he hated being told what to do. He hated being seen as weak.

And at that moment, with me driving and him useless in the back, I knew the part of him that hated his own weakness was yelling inside his head.

“Why are you driving, anyway?” he asked.

I didn’t have time to argue with him, and I couldn’t tell him what was going on because he’d want to help—needed to help—and in his condition, he’d just get himself killed.

And because I loved him, I’d be right by his side, two lovers gobbled up by this Jurassic Park reject.

“The man at the pumping station weirded me out,” I lied, taking a corner as fast as I dared. Why couldn’t I have picked an illusion with the right reflexes for driving race cars?

The monster was fast. A curse, given it was on our tail. But a blessing when it came to corners.

It wasn’t able to turn like I had, and it toppled over before regaining its footing, widening the divide between us by precious feet.

I pushed the Mustang well beyond the speed limit, the road racing into view and disappearing under the hood as fast as my eyes could process. If anything happened to be out there, the car would flatten it.

And if I didn’t, then this thing chasing us would take care of it.

“What did the guy say?” Justin asked.

I had forgotten what we were talking about. “What guy?”

“At the gas station,” Justin leaned between the seats. “We should go back there. Let me talk to him.”

I put a placating hand on his chest and said in a voice far too soft, given that we were being chased by a dinosaur, “Oh, nothing. Just creeped me out. You rest, honey. Please.”

Justin resisted before lying down again. Under his breath he muttered again, “Why are you driving?” His voice trailed off in that way it does just before you fall asleep.

He must have been out of it. But that was how it was when he went into one of his states: fleeting moments of lucidity.

Not that I had time to worry about that now. Glancing back at the rearview mirror, I saw that the monster had regained those lost yards. It had closed to within striking distance.

I shrieked as, with one swing of its horned head, the hellhorse struck the car’s bumper. I felt the Mustang struggle to keep straight, the wheel bucking under my hands.

Meanwhile, Justin slid and hit the back of my seat—hard.

“Are you OK?” I yelled.

“Shit, Isa,” he groaned. “You’re going to wreck her. Careful on those turns.” OK, now I was starting to worry. How could he not know what was happening? That horn cracked the bumper like thunder and he thought it was my shitty driving?

He needed help. Well, if we survived this. At least getting eaten will solve one of my problems.

And with me driving and him doing nothing, survival was low on the list of probable outcomes. Even though it was way, way outside my wheelhouse, I knew what I had to do.

“Soldier”—I threw my voice as low and gravelly as I could—”get your seatbelt on.”

My command seemed to work, because I heard a click from the back seat and a sarcastic, “Yes, ma’am.”

Well, sass and compliance were better than sass and no compliance.

“Thank you,” I said with all the gentleness I felt toward him. Despite everything around us, I felt a constant compassion for Justin Truly. That didn’t ever seem to change.

My eyes returned to the mirror. The hellhorse had fallen back a few paces, but was closing in again. Preparing for another swipe at us, no doubt.

If I could time it right, I could accelerate the car just before the next headbutt.

But I didn’t get that chance.

Ahead, something appeared out of the darkness, a flash of white in the night.

A … a boy?

As soon as I saw him, I screamed, my foot shifting to the brake. But he had already swept up onto the windshield.

I’d thought he would have shattered the windshield or punched right through into the car, but the child we’d hit simply slid up and onto the roof.

It was like he had meant to do that.

I glanced in the rearview mirror, but no child’s body flew out behind the car and into the darkness. Only the hellhorse appeared in the reflection, still close on us.

“What the hell was that?” Justin called.

“I …” I hesitated. Had I seen what I thought I’d seen? It sounded ridiculous. “I think it was a boy.”

“You hit someone?” Justin sounded horrified in his half-aware state.

“Yes … and I think he’s still on the car.” I glanced up as though I could see straight through the roof. I didn’t know how any human would be able to stay up there, which meant this wasn’t a human.

This boy was something else.

A moment later, the hellhorse let out a noise—the first I’d heard from it since it had started chasing us, a sound between a bellow and a neigh.

When I glanced in the mirror, something thin and angular flew past the creature, narrowly missing its head.

It looked like a slender, feathered arrow.

Two small thuds sounded on the roof, and I knew that whoever was up there was an Other. A capable one, too; a second arrow flew into the night, this one nicking one of the hellhorse’s horns before pinging to the highway and being trodden underfoot.

Capable, sure, but wooden arrows weren’t enough to deal with this thing. I knew for sure where the hellhorse had come from—Serena Russo, the World Army—but I didn’t know who was on our roof, or what his agenda was.

All I knew was he was distracting the creature, and right now, that was good enough for me. Whoever was up there was launching arrows at regular intervals, and even though they kept missing, our pursuer had fallen back.

Although, to be fair, I didn’t know if there was anyone—human or Other—who could nail a creature like that from the roof of a car going eighty miles an hour.

The best thing I could do was drive, keep the Mustang as steady as possible and give our rooftop archer a chance to do his thing.

Two more arrows shot off into the darkness, and then—

Then the hellhorse bellowed.

The thudding slowed, and I watched in the mirror as the creature disappeared from sight. All at once, we were a car driving alone on the highway, still blasting through the night.

Even so, I didn’t slow; I kept driving. We had to be close to the border by now, and who knew? Maybe this Canadian monster didn’t have his papers.

A second later, a cherubic, upside-down face appeared at the top of the windshield. The wind flattened his blond hair to his head, but he carried a certain serenity in the way he gazed in at me.

A chubby hand knocked on the glass, and I had two thoughts.

So I’m not crazy after all. It’s sheep boy from the gas station.

Then: Stop, Isa! He wants you to stop.

I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to keep driving and take us as far from that hellhorse as this tank of gas would last. But this boy—this Other—had just saved us.

At the very least, I could let him off this ride.

I slowed the Mustang to a stop, my hands shaking when I detached them from the steering wheel. I watched the boy slide down the windshield onto the hood and drop off the side of the car with perfect agility.

He didn’t have a scratch or a scrape. But that wasn’t the most curious thing about him.

A tiny pair of wings—almost comically small—sprouted from his back. Even curiouser, he seemed almost to glow in the night. And it wasn’t precisely that his skin appeared luminous from within, but from without.

Like he was haloed in light.

All at once, I felt his peace, his serenity. I didn’t know this boy, but I sensed I could trust him.

He came around to the passenger side and waved. A little blond, dimples in his cheeks, with a quiver and bow strapped crossbody. He tried the handle, but the door was locked.

He cupped both hands and set them around his mouth. “Open up,” came his muffled child’s voice. “It’s the po-po.”

I stared. The po-po?

The car stalled out as I fumbled with the controls and managed to half-roll the back windows an inch down, then back up, before I finally unlocked the doors.

The boy opened the door, climbed in and immediately crawled over the center console into the back seat.

“What are you waiting for?” His voice, a sweet tenor, rang through the Mustang’s interior. “In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s an odontotyrannos chasing us.”

With that, the thudding started again.

Chapter 3

Odontotyrannos. The word ran through my head and registered within a second. It helped that as an octolingual, I was fluent in three latinate languages.

Tyrannos means “tyrant” in Latin. Which made this a monster of antiquity, and the boy in our car one of the hellhorse’s—I mean, the odontotyrannos’s—contemporaries. An ancient Other, perhaps from Greek or Rome.

And it occurred to me that the boy might be ...

“Roll down the back left window,” the boy instructed, removing his bow from over his head.

I turned the ignition and let off the clutch with a jerk. We started down the highway with the thudding closing in, and I pushed us up a few gears as the boy’s knuckles rapped the back window. “You hear that? That’s the sound of glass in my way.”

This had to be Cupid from Greek mythology. But I didn’t have time to think on it. We still had a three-horned horse chasing us.

“It’s got an armored hide,” I called back, nonetheless feeling around for the right button. When I finally found it, the wind’s reverberations filled the car, thrumming off my eardrums.

“No shit, Sherlock,” the boy shot back. “So you do the same thing you do with anything that’s got a tough exterior: aim for the weak spot.”

I watched in the passenger side-view mirror as he leaned halfway out the window with his bow, one arrow withdrawn from his quiver.

In the back seat, Justin stared at him with an open mouth. “Isa, did you kidnap a child?”

As much as I hated it, I kind of wish Justin would just stay under. These flashes of lucidity were distracting. “We picked up a hitchhiker,” I explained.

An arrow flew in my peripheral vision, and I watched in the mirror as it missed the odontotyrannos, who was right up on us again.

Except this time, it wasn’t going for our bumper. It was trying to pull up alongside us—the same side our vulgar boy-archer was hanging out of.

He leaned back in, and his face popped around the passenger-side headrest. “Keep it steady. She’s coming up for a side swipe.”

“She?”

“Yes,” the boy shot back, clear annoyance in his voice. “Female odontotyrannos have three horns.”

“How do you know these things?” I called.

But he was already leaning back out the window, another arrow pulled from his quiver. “Just keep her steady,” he said again.

Somehow, even with his face angled toward the window and the wind blowing all around us, his voice belled crystal clear through the cabin.

I did my best to keep the Mustang steady, but with the odontotyrannos coming up hard on our right, I had to veer us into the oncoming lane or be hit.

“Hold on, you two.” I eased the sports car across the dotted line as the odontotyrannos thundered up beside us. I really hoped we weren’t about to pancake some poor schmuck driving down QC 141 in the middle of the night.

But what other choice did I have?

We flew down the highway, a red Mustang with a boy hanging out the side and a monster five times my size preparing to throw her massive head into our right front wheel.

I glanced over, spotted the boy taking slow and measured aim with the next arrow. If this one didn’t connect, we’d be eating bark.

But in that glance, I saw where he was aiming: at the one of the hellhorse’s red eyes—a weak spot. And he had the perfect angle.

He waited. And waited.

I pressed my lips together, keeping the car steady in the left lane. At any moment, all of this could implode in our faces—one way or another. “Shoot!” I yelled when I couldn’t wait any longer.

With a twang, the arrow flew through the air and struck the odontotyrannos right in her soft red pupil. The shaft sank deep into the creature’s eye and held, the feathered end blowing in the wind.

Good shot, I thought. Hell of a good shot.

But I didn’t expect what happened next. I thought the arrow would infuriate her further, maybe slow her down a little before she came back with even more vengeance. She still had one good eye, after all.

But instead, her head lifted as she pressed back, both forehooves plowing into the asphalt as she let another bellow. It was like she’d come to a seat in the middle of the highway, and as she turned around and disappeared back into the darkness, I saw her swing her tri-horned head off toward the forest.

In the back seat, the boy slapped a hand on the window and let out a whoop. “Still got it.” He slid back into the car and rolled his window up. “Been a few hundred years since I’ve had a challenge like that.”

I kept glancing between the back seat, the road ahead and the road behind. I swerved us back into the right lane, but I didn’t slow or stop the car. “What did you do?” I said. “She’ll be back, right?”

The boy shook his head, settling into the seat. “Not for some time. I sent her off to hump the nearest tree.”

My eyebrows raised as I stared at him in the mirror. “Who are you?”

I needed confirmation.

His dimples emerged. “Really? Look at me, I’m wearing a loincloth, I have wings, and—”

Just then, Justin yakked all over the back seat.

“Eww,” the boy crooned. “My bare feetsies!”

↔

“You’re Cupid,” I whispered twenty minutes and one border crossing later. “Like, the Cupid.”

Now in the passenger seat, the boy turned away from the window and toward me. He made a finger gun, shot it at my face. “B-b-b-b-ingo. And you?”

Even in the car, Cupid’s whole form seemed to glow. And I felt that same sense of trust I had when I’d first seen him. Plus, he’d just saved our lives; it probably wouldn’t hurt to be honest.

“Isabella.” I gestured over my shoulder. “That’s Justin.”

We had just crossed into United States, and thick forests closed in around us.

At the border, Cupid had climbed into the front seat and somehow procured a passport from his loincloth—I didn’t even want to think about how bad that thing must smell—and Justin was recovered enough to wave from the back seat and pass the scrutiny of the customs officer.

To get through, I’d had to shift briefly back into my old, redheaded form. That was the face on my passport, after all. And even though Cupid had seen me do it, he hadn’t blinked or said a word.

Which I guess made sense … he’d been around for thousands of years.

“That wasn’t just a regular arrow you shot at the odontotyrannos,” I said as we drove away from customs.

“Absolutely not.” Cupid almost sounded offended at the suggestion. He reached over his shoulder, pulled an arrow from his quiver and extended it to me. As I drove, I glanced at it in the half-light. “They’re signature arrows,” he explained.

His finger underlined a tiny engraving at the base of the shaft: Cupid’s Arrow, followed by a pair of floating hearts.

I raised an eyebrow. “You put your name on your arrows?”

He shrugged, replaced the arrow. “I’ve got a name to uphold, especially with the other two ‘Cupids’ ”—he double-quoted in the air—”running around.”

“Two other Cupids?”

“It’s a long story. How familiar are you with Greek love?”

“It’s different from regular love?”

“Oh yeah.” He waved a hand through the air. “We had all sorts of love, like Eskimos have words for snow. It was a better time. Anyway, those other two ‘Cupids’ represent different types of love.”

“What kind of love do you represent?”

He leaned toward me, a tiny smirk appearing as his eyes flicked toward the back seat, where Justin sat. “The best kind of love. Eros.”

I knew that word—eros. It meant desire, erotic love. Which was why the odontotyrannos had fallen deeply in love with a tree when Cupid’s arrow had struck her.

Cupid shot a second glance toward the back seat. “Your boyfriend doesn’t look so good.”

I looked into the rearview mirror, spotted Justin’s unconscious face. After we’d crossed the border, he had fallen into a stupor. Whatever had happened, his head hung toward his chest.

“We have to stop soon,” I said. “He’s not well.”

“There’s a motel up ahead.” Cupid gestured into the darkness. “About ten miles down the highway. Can’t miss the sign.”

“How do you know that?”

“I flew up this highway on my way into Canada.”

My eyes flicked to his tiny wings, but I said nothing.

“What, you think these are just for show?” One hand reached over his shoulder to pat the feathered crest of a wing. “I may not have the span of an angel, but don’t underestimate these babies.”

“Why were you headed into Canada?”

His blue eyes regarded me with a little mischief and a whole lot of intensity. “Because of you.”

I eyed him, turned my face back to the road. “This is getting creepy.”

He laughed, a warming sound that eased my tight grip on the steering wheel. Everything about Cupid had that effect; being next to him was like sitting by a warm hearth. “I was drawn to you,” he said. “Well, to your love story, more specifically.”

“My love story?”

“Yes—it’s a very interesting one. Powerful.”

“You mean me and Justin?”

“Justin is part of it, but he isn’t the whole of it. Your story involves so much love, Isabella, and not just eros. Other kinds, too.”

I ventured a long look at Cupid. “You’re referring to things that haven’t happened yet.”

He nodded.

“How? How could you possibly know?”

He tilted his head, eyes drifting out toward the road ahead of us. “You know, I always wanted to ride in a Mustang. Ever since the gods left and my mortal life began, I thought: ‘Before I die, I’m going to ride in a Ford Mustang.’ ” He clapped his hands together. “And who would have thought I’d ride on top of one before I sat in one?”

I said nothing. What did that have to do with—

“But now that I’ve done it, I realized something, Isabella. The temporary pleasures of modern life—that powerful desire, that exhilaration I felt once the car’s hood was beneath my feet—it all dissipated. It’s the old, less exciting loves that bring the most fulfillment. And I can see them in people.” His hand went into the air, closed into a fist. “Pulsing like a heart.”

I was struggling to follow. “I was asking about the future,” I said. “The story that hasn’t happened yet.”

He turned to me, his hand circling in one elegant gesture to point at the center of my chest. “I can see it in you. The old loves, the quiet loves. You’re like a beacon. That’s what I mean when I talk about your story—it’s in you, waiting to unspool.”

And because he was staring at me with such intensity, I refocused on the road. Who would have thought the chubby boy from mythology would be such a wise romantic? Here I thought he twanged a little arrow from his bow and giggled as he flew off.

Turns out, he was by turns vulgar and philosophic.

“I think you’ve got the wrong person,” I said quietly.

“Whatever.” Cupid waved me off and turned to the window. “People always underestimate the former god of love because I look like this. I’ll have you know, the reason I still wear this loincloth is because it gets really hot being as luminous as I am. I need the venting.”

The last thing I wanted to think about was Cupid’s loincloth and his otherwise complete lack of clothes. “The gods are gone.”

He groaned. “Do you have to remind me? Half of them still owed me.”

“Owed you what?”

“Oh, debts for this and that. Mostly all the arrows I shot off because they fancied this human or that one. Gods are terrible with IOUs, you know.”

I couldn’t help my laugh. It was the first real moment of humor I’d felt since that creature had appeared, and the taut bundle of nerves inside me eased. “Thank you for helping us,” I said. “We can take you as far as the motel.”

“And then?”

“We’ll part ways.”

He turned back toward me. “That would be a mistake. A real whoopsie-daisy, as it were.”

“What would be?”

“Parting ways.” He lifted his shoulders into a high shrug. “But it’s your choice.”

I eyed him. “Isn’t the gist of your power that you make choices for people?”

“Oh sure,” Cupid said. “About love. Not the rest.”

I hesitated, then, “Why would it be a mistake for us to part ways?”

His dimples reappeared. “Because I’m part of your love story.”

Chapter 4

The neon bed floated over the highway with all the promise of Christmas morning, the vibrant green and red lights beckoning us in. Vacancy, the sign declared.

Beneath it, an arrow pointed straight down at the rutted parking lot.

“We’re here,” Cupid sang to the two of us as I slowed the car. “And the GoneGods saw fit to bestow free cable on us.” He directed one finger at the sign. “Boy, do I love me a good telenovela.”

We came off the road and to a stop. As soon as I’d turned the car off and pulled the keys from the ignition, I sat there staring at my shaking hands. I couldn’t make them stop, even when I squeezed my fingers to fists.

It happened every time I ran away. And in five hundred years as an encantado, I’d done a lot of running. My propensity for anxiety—for fear—came as second-nature, and I’d grown very good at listening to what it told me.

Too good. So good that, even when the danger had passed, I couldn’t stop the shaking.

Cupid noticed. “Someone could use a dip in the jacuzzi.”

“I doubt they’ve got jacuzzis here.” I lowered my hands, unbuckled my seatbelt.

When I angled around toward the backseat, my stomach turned over; Justin had completely passed out. “Will you help me get him into the room?” I asked Cupid.

He eyed Justin and flexed one of his chubby arms. “Sure. Not many people know this, but I once carried a very drunk Achilles to his bed.”

“He can walk—it’s the getting upright part he needs help with.” I climbed out of the car. My legs unfolded with pins and needles, and the frigid air hit me like a wall. I zipped up my coat as I bent back down to look into the Mustang. “Just wait here a minute, you two.”

In the office, a graying woman sat engrossed in one of those bare-chested romance novels. When I came in, she took a single look at me and set her book fully down on the counter. “Evening.”

“Evening.” I pulled my purse up onto the counter and extracted my wallet. “I saw you have a vacancy.”

“You saw correct. Just one room?”

I pulled out my credit card. “Two rooms for the night.”

I had told Cupid he couldn’t stay with us, but as soon as I walked into the front office, the guilt hit me. Even as a formerly immortal Other, Cupid still struck me as a child. And I didn’t see where he could be stashing any money in that loincloth.

The least I could do would be to get him a room for the night. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the funds; the upshot of a life spent anxiously was that over the past few hundred years I’d always had a get-out-of-jail-fund stashed away somewhere. I had a few thousand dollars on me … Now if only we knew where we were going.

The woman rang me up on a register I remembered coming into fashion in the 70s. “It’ll be $75.”

I paid her, and she plucked two keys from the corkboard behind her. Not a single other key was missing from its spot.

“Are we the only ones staying tonight?” I asked.

She nodded as she passed them to me. “Yes ma’am.”

Good, I thought. Right now, the fewer faces I had to deal with, the better. I just wanted one night of good sleep without worrying. I lifted the keys. “Thanks.”

“Checkout’s at noon.” She flipped her novel back over. “Let me know if you need anything between now and then.”

Just as I was about to leave, the door opened, and a man actually ducked through the doorway. He was that tall.

But that wasn’t the most interesting part about him.

He looked like the guy on the cover of a romance novel, bare chest and all. Just like the one the motel owner had splayed open in her hands.

Actually, nix that part about her hands—I heard the sound of her paperback hitting the floor as she spotted her newest customer.

And I knew why: he was almost completely naked, except for what looked like a lion skin girding his loins.

I gaped up at him. Not only was he at least six-and-a-half feet tall and rippling with muscle, but he bore a certain refinement to his features. His brown hair touched his shoulders in effortless curls, his square jaw was shaved, and he had a straight nose and striking brows over a pair of intense green eyes.

But it was the lips that did me in. I had a weakness for men with full, kissable lips.

As it turned out, all it would take to defeat Isabella Ramirez was a strong jaw and a good head of hair. Oh, and the lips.

That’s the thing about us encantado: we’re lovers, and we love to love. Most of all, we love romance and eroticism. And this man’s eyes spoke of those in spades.

But there was something else about him.

Something … non-human.

Is he an Other?

He glanced between the two of us, took a step forward and leaned down toward me. I would have backed up if I hadn’t been rooted to the spot.

As it was, he could have picked me up and whisked me out of there and I wouldn’t have noticed I was airborne until we were out of the parking lot and into the trees.

I waited for him to say something, but he only took a giant whiff of me, his nostrils flaring as his great lungs filled. “You have the stink of my labor on you,” he said in a honeyed baritone.

“Uh,” I said. Suffice it to say, I was feeling especially articulate tonight. “What?”

“Can I help you?” the motel owner said. Her voice had risen by an entire octave.

Those green eyes shifted to her, but his finger raised to point at me. “Tell me of your deeds.”

All at once, it hit me: this guy wasn’t an Other … he was just high. I mean, gorgeous, but totally out of his mind on something. That was what I had sensed in him.

It took every ounce of willpower to edge my way around him with my hands up. “Sorry—I don’t know what you mean.”

Even so, I couldn’t help looking back before I passed through the door. He was staring after me, and the motel owner was still gazing up at him.

I couldn’t blame her. Buzzed or not, he was unreal.

Back in the parking lot, Cupid had opened Justin’s door and he was half-splayed out of the car, still mostly unconscious.

When Cupid saw me, he paused. “Your boyfriend’s a lightweight.”

“Ahh, yeah ...” I groaned, jogging over to kneel by the car. I took Justin’s hand. “Let’s get inside.”

Justin’s eyes opened and, after a few seconds, focused on me. His smile was automatic. “Hey.”

I couldn’t help but return it. As soon as I saw that smile, the memory of his sacrifice—what he’d done to destroy the super soldier program, how he’d stuck with me for the past few months—came back to me.

He might not have been Mr. Muscle back there, but he was a good man. I owed him one. Hell, I owed him fifty.

The thing was, we were both traitors. Justin had been a recruit into the World Army’s super soldier program, allowed himself to be genetically modified with Other DNA to be stronger, quicker, more capable.

But genetic modifications—especially when the science was this new—were hellishly hard on the human body. He’d needed regular treatments to help his system cope … treatments he wasn’t getting any longer.

He’d ensured that six months ago when we infiltrated their facility in Montreal and he’d destroyed the super soldier program for good.

Now he was part of a defunct new species of humans, and the splicing was ravaging his body. That was the price he was still paying for ending the program.

For my part, during that infiltration I’d destroyed all of Serena Russo’s research on Other genetics. Plus, I’d taken my own research with me. It was all inside my head, and she was never going to get the chance to extract it.

If she did, she’d use it to destroy every Other in the world.

Between the two of us, Justin and I had set the World Army back by years. We’d both risked our lives for what we believed in, and we’d stuck together through it. An experience like that bonded two people for life.

“Hey,” I said back. “Can you stand?”

“Of course.” He lifted his head, and found Cupid standing above him. “Woah, Isa—look.”

“I know,” I said. “It’s Cupid.”

Justin allowed me to leverage myself under his arm and help him to his feet. Cupid floated up under his other arm, and Justin stared at him with new amazement. “You can fly. You’re a … a …”

Cupid sighed. “I know—I’m a miracle of creation. ‘How can he possibly fly with those tiny wings and all that chub?’ Am I right?”

Justin rolled his head, gazing out across the motel’s parking lot. “Well, I guess when you put it that way, yeah.”

“I could ask the same thing about you, buddy,” Cupid said. “You have an incredible capacity for upchucking. I didn’t know one man could carry that much GoneGodDamn liquid in his stomach.”

Justin glanced at me. “I’m being cursed out by a toddler.”

Cupid’s face popped out from the other side of Justin. “I can hear you, you know. And I’m not a toddler. I’m way, way older than you.”

Justin’s head rolled back. “Then why do you look like one?”

“He’s been given the gift of permanent youth,” I cut in as we reached the door and I pulled out the key.

I was getting testy; all I wanted to do was lay down in a bed and get a few hours of sleep before the sun came up—or the World Army showed up. Again.

“You know Diff’rent Strokes?” Cupid said.

Justin nodded. “ ‘Whatcha talkin’ ‘bout Willis?’ ”

“Yeah, yeah,” Cupid said. “Well, the thing that made Gary Coleman look like a kid at age forty? I’ve got the mother of that condition.”

“Oh,” Justin said. “Cool.”

“ ‘Cool’? Please. Do you know how hard it is to buy a drink when you look like this?”

I opened the motel room door, and the familiar smell of must and lack of ventilation filled my nose. This wasn’t my first motel—I was an encantado, after all—but it was my first in this country.

Seems motels smell the same just about everywhere, though. I found it strangely comforting.

At least it didn’t smell like monsters and death. We’d faced a few of those in the weeks since the World Army decided we needed to be captured.

We walked Justin over to the bed and laid him down on it. Cupid floated out the door after me, and I handed him his key in the breezeway. “You’re next door,” I said.

He accepted the key. “Does this mean we’re a party?”

“A party?”

“You know, a group. a gang, a collective ... brothers-in-arms. Well, Others-in-arms.”

I gave him a blank look.

“Are we all on the same mission now?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “The only mission is for him and I to run as far as possible, as fast as possible. We’re in danger. And worse, we’re dangerous, Cupid. We’re unpredictable and powerful … Well, he is, at least.” I sighed. “You don’t want to be near us—trust me.”

He looked me up and down. “No offense, but you look about as dangerous as a mole who’s just seen daylight. Same goes for your boyfriend. Especially your boyfriend.”

Inside the hotel room, Justin let out a groan. I turned back, glancing through the doorway. “Everything OK?”

“Sure,” came his reply. “Just slowly turning inside out.”

I made a face; that might not be so far from the truth. When I turned back to Cupid, his eyebrows were raised in confirmation of what he’d said.

“It’s not that we’re going to hurt anyone,” I said. “It’s that we’re being followed by people who aren’t afraid to hurt anyone around us. I don’t want that for you.”

“And what about him?”

“Him? Whatever they did to him gave him powers and these weird, random fugue states.” Then, more to remind myself than anything else, “That’s why I need to get somewhere secure. To do some tests, and fix whatever they broke inside him.”

“Ah.” Cupid gave a single nod. “So that’s why I sensed so much standing in the way of your love story.”

I wasn’t about to try unpacking his constant refrain about my love story—not right now. After all, he was Cupid, and everything to him was a love story. Hell, buying bubble gum probably had some romantic twist to it.

“Right, so …” I held out my hand to shake. “Thank you for your help, but we have to part ways.”

He stared at my hand, then lifted his eyes back to mine. “I just saved you both from an odontotyrannos while riding atop your car, and now you’re turning down my help—the ‘kid’ who’s clearly much more capable than the both of you put together.”

My brows pulled together. “Even after I told you about the bad guys chasing us, you still want to come?”

“Like I said”—under the dim breezeway bulb, his blue eyes gleamed with heavenly light—“you have a powerful love story. One of the most powerful I’ve ever seen. My brothers and I were drawn to you right away.”

On the highway, a car’s engine approached, grew in volume until it sped right by the motel and disappeared down the road. My whole body tensed as it did, but I said nothing. What was there to say? “You’ve got the wrong encantado?” It didn’t seem like I could convince him of that.

Eventually, Cupid’s cheeks dimpled as he smiled at me. “You think about it, Isabella.”

And that was how Cupid and I left it in the motel parking lot.

In the room, Justin was feverish and sweating. I spent an hour tending to him, and then took a long, long shower when he’d fallen asleep.

I closed my eyes, let the water run over me and imagined home. My first home—the rainforest, where I bathed in a river every day before modern luxuries.

I missed home.

Cupid couldn’t come with us because I had decided that we were headed to my home, Brazil. It would be a long journey, but Justin and I would be safe there. I could find a lab to continue my work on Other DNA, and treat the side effects of Justin’s genetic modifications without worrying about the World Army every minute of the day.

Of course, that involved getting on an airplane, which involved getting to an airport, which involved getting to the nearest city.

New York City.

I toweled off and came back into the main room, where Justin was sleeping with his mouth open. Right now, he needed me to keep him safe. Which meant we needed to ditch the car.

The World Army was tracking us somehow, and Justin’s Mustang was doing us no favors. They probably knew the make, model and license plate.

Plus, our car now had an odontotyrannos-sized dent in the trunk.

I picked up my purse, found my phone and sat on the edge of the bed. When I called Egya, he picked up right away. “It’s Isa,” I said. “We made it to Vermont.”

“Uneventfully?” His voice, always vaguely amused, bore not an ounce of humor now.

“They sent a … creature after us.”

I heard him curse. “What happened?”

“It’s a long story, but we’re OK for now. Are they still expecting us in the city?”

We never said who they were on the phone, for fear of someone—anyone—listening in. But we both knew who we were referring to.

The resistance.

“Yes. When you arrive, go to Times Square and do exactly as I instructed. Be there two nights from now. They will find you.”

“Can’t you give me an address?”

Egya sighed. “It isn’t that I don’t trust you, but I cannot. You understand.”

I understood; the network of Others who had banded together against humans were still so fragile. If the World Army found them …

“I get it,” I said. “We’ll go to Times Square.”

“Be safe.”

Safe. That was starting to feel like such a temporary, fleeting word. Safety didn’t last—it was impermanent.

I got dressed in the clothes I would wear tomorrow, as I had done for days now. I packed our belongings into the single backpack I’d brought into the room with our essentials, set it next to the bed. I kept the car keys in my hand as I sat on the bed.

We were always ready to go.

I double-locked the front door and secured the blinds and curtains before I climbed under the covers with Justin.

“Here’s the plan,” I whispered, setting my arm over him and stroking his face. He shivered as I did, and I briefly forgot how powerful the World Army had made him, forgot about all the Others they had combined his genetics with.

He just seemed like Justin Truly, the guy I’d grown to adore. “We’ll go to New York City, and we’ll find the resistance. They’ll help us get where we need to go—where we’ll be safe.”

Justin didn’t respond. The only noise was the muffled sound of Spanish on the other side of the wall—Cupid’s room. I rolled my eyes; he hadn’t been kidding about the telenovelas.

As I lay there, my thoughts roamed to what the demigod had said about my “love story.” Its power, its brightness. I didn’t doubt he really was Cupid, the former god of love, but coming to me, Isabella Ramirez?

He definitely had the wrong encantado.

I had just begun to fall asleep when I heard a faint thud. My eyes flicked open, and I lay perfectly still, listening.

Another thud. Followed by another, and another.

I glanced at the lampshade on the dresser next to Justin. It was swaying, jerking a little bit harder with each thud. Not again.

I threw the covers off and bolted over to the blinds, peered through them. Outside, the parking lot was empty except for our car. Maybe it wasn’t what I thought, maybe it was a—

Then I heard the bellow.

Chapter 5

Cupid and I both rushed out of our rooms at the same time. We met eyes in the breezeway.

GoneGodDamnit, I was hoping we’d get some rest. A few hours, at least. But this was too much. I didn’t know how long we could keep doing it.

We had to last two more days. Get to Times Square, get help, then collapse.

“Is that the odontotyrannos?” I asked.

“It’s her.”

“I thought you shot her with an arrow. I thought she was off to hump the nearest tree.”

“I don’t get it, either!” Cupid threw his hands up in the air. “This shouldn’t be happening. The only thing that could override my arrow’s spell would be a greater destiny presenting itself. But nothing is stronger than love …”

“We’ll have to figure out its ‘greater destiny’ later.” I turned back toward the room. “I’ll get Justin. You get in the car.”

“Isabella!” Cupid yelled behind me.

I spun back around. The odontotyrannos had emerged from the forest, pushing trees aside like she was wading through high grass. She stepped onto the highway, those powerful hooves echoing, and a tingle ran up my spine as her large eyes fixed on us from across the parking lot.

I had forgotten how terrifying she looked. Those red eyes glowed even brighter than the sign above her. Her head lowered like she was about to charge at us, and she let another bellow. It looked like she was going to ram right into the motel.

That would up our bill.

With the odontotyrannos’s bellow still echoing in my ears, a tremendous yell returned through the parking lot.

A … human’s yell.

A figure appeared from around the side of the motel and came jogging toward the odontotyrannos. All three of us—Cupid, me, and the odontotyrannos—stared as a man with a gnarled club wearing nothing but what looked like a lion skin walked right into the path between the creature and us.

“Oh my GoneGods,” I whispered. “It’s that dude.” Great, Mr. Toke was going to get himself killed.

“Hey, that kind of looks like ... ” Cupid trailed off. “Nah, couldn’t be. Hey, you! Run away. Get out of here, you dummy.”

The man ignored us. He raised his club and his other arm into the air, roaring at the monster.

Mr. Toke was challenging her.

“We have to do something,” I said to Cupid. “That guy’s high as a kite.”

Cupid stared. “High? He looks downright crazy to me.”

The odontotyrannos answered the challenge with a new, deeper bellow. This sounded angrier, like it came straight from the bottom of her lungs. She lowered her head even farther, one hoof pawing the ground before she charged at the man, pushing up asphalt in her wake.

Cupid’s hands flew to the sides of his face. “Ho-ly Hera,” he breathed. “A greater destiny.”

I threw my hands over my eyes, partly blocking my vision as the scene unfolded. The odontotyrannos closed in on the man, who looked smaller and smaller as she drew near, and he just stood there in a half-crouch with his club at the ready.

But as she came to within striking distance, those horns poised to impale him, he stepped right and swung at the side of her head. I expected the club to splinter to pieces on contact, but it didn’t. I also expected him to be thrown off his feet by the impact, but he wasn’t.

Instead, the odontotyrannos flew head-first through the air and landed on her side. As in, her forward momentum was completely redirected by his blow.

“Holy—” Cupid began.

“—merda,” I finished in Portuguese.

What had just happened?

We watched as the man straightened, and the odontotyrannos struggled back to her feet. Within half a minute, they had begun round two—this time with a lot less distance between them. In fact, instead of backing up, he had moved closer to her.

The creature attempted to rear and stomp on him, but he rolled away and was up on his bare feet in one motion. The club came around in a blur, and this time he got her right in the ribs.

I heard a crack—what must have been his club splintering. Except the odontotyrannos dropped again. Past her hill of a body, we saw the man still standing, his club intact in his hand.

“How did he … Why …” I trailed off, my mouth working without actually forming a real sentence.

This man had just defied everything I thought I knew about humans.

What kind of drugs was he on?

“Did you hear that crack?” I finally managed to say. “He must be hurt.”

I started across the parking lot, but felt a small hand encircle my wrist.

“No, Isabella—that wasn’t his bones cracking,” Cupid whispered. “It was hers.”

I stopped, staring on. The odontotyrannos heaved, but her breathing was labored. Cupid was right: his blow had cracked her ribs. Meanwhile, he wasn’t even breathing hard.

Mr. Toke’s face lifted, and he spotted Cupid and me under the porchlight outside our motel rooms. When he started toward us, I began backing up—I was ready to run straight inside the room and bolt the door behind me—when that deep, musical voice rang out. “You,” the man said. “I scent the stymphalian birds on you.”

Cupid and I gasped at the same time.

The stymphalian birds. He knew their true name, which could only mean one of two things: He was a scholar specializing in ancient Greek mythology with a particular emphasis on rare and little-mentioned creatures.

Or he was with the World Army.

The World Army had unleashed the stymphalian birds on Montreal to drum up fear of Others, and it had worked. The only reason they weren’t terrorizing the city right now was because Justin and I had defeated them.

So to hear this man—who I’d just watched defeat an odontotyrannos which I was 99% certain had been sent after us by the World Army itself—talk about stymphalian birds, I wasn’t counting on him being a scholar. But if he was with the World Army, why would he have toppled the same monster who had chased us into another country?

“I thought it was you,” I heard Cupid say. “I’ve never seen another man defeat an odontotyrannos, in the old world or the new.”

I stared at Cupid. Did he know Mr. Toke?

The man gestured back toward the odontotyrannos as he came into the light. And I was bowled over again by how wildly handsome he was. Uncannily handsome. “Who else would be able to defeat a beast such as this with such grace?”

Cupid chuckled. “Well, now I know for certain. Nobody else is as humble as you.”

Cupid knew him, that was for certain. And because Cupid had saved my life once already, that weighed much heavier than my suspicions. I felt a tiny seed of trust bloom in my stomach.

Mr. Toke laughed, and the sound almost made me want to laugh, it was so authentic and effortless. Plus, I got to watch his six-pack move under his abdomen as he did. “And no one else is as incisive as you, Cupid of Eros.” His eyes shifted to me. “Was it you who defeated the stymphalian birds? Tell me.”

“I …” I hesitated, unwilling to divulge information so sensitive to a man I’d just met. But boy, it was a challenge not to tell him exactly what he wanted to hear. Who was this guy? I may have been an encantado, but he had an unnatural sway over me. “In a way.”

“In a way, you say.” He leaned close, sniffed me so hard the ends of my hair lifted. “Yes, the scent of my labor is on you, but not as strongly as what wafts from behind that door.” He pointed to the room where Justin was currently sleeping.

Cupid raised a finger. “I thought you defeated those little assholes way back when?”

The man’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “I did. A fact which Hera could not stand, so she ensured they lived on.”

“As did you, son of Zeus,” Cupid said wistfully. “I thought you had departed with the rest of the gods.”

Son of Zeus. A god of Greek mythology? I raised my eyes carefully back to the man standing before me, flitting up his wall of chest and to his face. Neural functions returned, along with all the implications of what had just been said.

Who were the children of Zeus? Right now, I couldn’t think of a single one.

“Evidently I was not godlike enough,” the man said. A smirk cracked his face. “I wonder what could have made them think that. Do you remember the fifteen maidens of the—”

Cupid cut in with a waggling finger. “Not for polite company, you scoundrel you.”

I raised a hand. “Excuse me. Son of Zeus?”

The man turned to me. Those green eyes found mine again, and I nearly staggered under their intensity. GoneGods give me strength, but the man’s charisma hit me like a wave. “Ah, but I haven’t made introductions.” His hand came around and found mine. His warmth radiated into my fingers as he lifted my hand to his lips. “What may I call you? Judging from your lush black hair and fiery spirit, I’ll have a name for you … after. Perhaps we could wait until then.”

I pulled away my hand, knowing full well what preceded “after.” I also knew that in other circumstances, I’d be tempted. More than tempted.

“Isabella,” I whispered. My fingers came away branded by his touch, and I folded them into my opposite hand. After everything that had happened, him kissing my knuckles was the cake-topper. It sent my insides to jelly, nerves lighting through my body after the heavy shot of adrenaline I’d gotten minutes earlier. Part of me distrusted it. “And you?”

“He is the demigod born of the god amongst gods,” Cupid whispered to me. “A legend amongst men, not seen for two thousand years.”

The man waved a hand through the air. “No need for all that.” He straightened, one hand settling over his chest. “Lady, you may call me just Hercules.”

↔

Here in the parking lot of an isolated motel in Vermont, Greek antiquity had just walked off the page. Hercules the demigod stood before me.

I felt like I was in a dream. So after a moment of staring, I raised my hand to my forehead and … saluted. GoneGods know why—I guess because Hercules was renowned as a fighter. Then I said, “Hercules it is.”

Hercules and Cupid just looked at me.

“I get the sense she goes a bit loopy around handsome men,” Cupid explained to him in a clearly audible whisper, one finger touching his shoulder. “But she possesses a miraculous love story. Trust me.”

Hercules nodded. “I’m not surprised. She’s quite compelling.”

I took a deep breath and commenced shivering. With the adrenaline leaving my system, I felt the chill like nothing else.

“You’re cold, Isabella,” Hercules observed. “Would you like me to walk you inside?”

Cupid gestured toward his door. “Herc, please do me the honor of staying in my motel room tonight. Isabella, come—we’ll talk.”

I hesitated, pointed at the odontotyrannos. “What about that?”

“Oh,” Hercules said. “An oversight. One moment.” He strode into the parking lot and took hold of the odontotyrannos by its head, dragging it off behind the motel like an unwieldy bag of trash.

Cupid and I just stared.

“You said only a greater destiny could divert the odontotyrannos,” I said. “Was he the greater destiny that brought her here?”

Cupid nodded. “Perceptive of you to notice. Yes, defeating an odontotyrannos was one of Hercules’s minor labors. As soon as she sensed him, his nearness overcame the power of my arrow.”

“She was drawn to fight him?”

Cupid glanced up at me as Hercules reappeared from behind the motel. “Of course. A labor is a labor—it is timeless, binding. I suspect this odontotyrannos was the descendant of the ancients Hercules fought in the old world.”

“I thought Cupid’s arrows were the most powerful magical force out there. I mean …” I threw my hands out. “Passion, right? Nothing is more powerful than lust.”

Cupid sighed. “Popular culture.”

Hercules chuckled as he wiped his hands on approach. “I can assure you, Isabella, that Cupid’s arrows are quite potent. Someday I’ll share with you the story of the chalice.”

I realized I was staring at the fine musculature of his shoulders and lifted my eyes. “The chalice?”

Cupid made a face. “That’s not one of my prouder shots.”

Hercules clapped the boy on the back, and his tiny wings started into frenzied motion so he wouldn’t fall over from the force of it. “It’s a story for the ages, old friend. No need for shame.”

The two were headed toward the door, but I didn’t move. “We should talk in my room. I have to keep an eye on Justin.”

A minute later, we stood around a sleeping Justin. “This room,” Hercules said with an extended hand, “is where the scent of my labor stems from.”

I cleared my throat. “Hercules, about the stymphalian birds … Justin slew them some weeks ago.” I thought back to the predatory creatures with bronze wings and talons, unleashed on us by the World Army to stir up fear of Others.

They were terrifying.

I went on to describe their vicious curved beaks. The way they flew, and their style of diving and striking. Both Cupid and Hercules seemed surprised by my understanding of them, but neither knew how much time I’d put in to studying birds over the decades. To me, they were fascinating, prehistoric.

I also told him about how Justin and I had fought them in the forest near Montreal. How I had poisoned them, and he had brought others down with a bow and arrow.

Hercules’s green eyes searched mine as I spoke. “No doubt he slew them as you describe,” he pronounced when I had finished, his gaze turning murderous as it shifted to Justin. Hercules crossed to the bed’s edge, leaned over it and took an audible inhale. It was so loud, in fact, that Justin’s eyes opened.

As he gazed up into the veil of Hercules’s brown hair, he practically leapt out of the bed. “Who the hell is this?” Justin yelled as he shot to his feet, more animated than I’d seen him in days.

“You,” Hercules bellowed so loudly the replica paintings on the walls shook. “You have stolen my glory.” And before any of us could react, Hercules had stepped forward and, with one hand folded to a fist, popped Justin right in the face.

“Merda!” I yelled.

Justin staggered back, blood spurting from his nose. I went to grab Hercules, but the demigod wasn’t advancing on Justin. Instead, Hercules staggered back himself, one hand going up to his own nose like he’d been punched.

But I definitely hadn’t seen Justin take a swing.

What in the GoneGods …

Just then, a twang echoed through the hotel room, and a white-feathered arrow with hearts on the shaft embedded itself between Hercules’s shoulder blades. “Got ‘em,” Cupid said.

“Ach!” Hercules yelled, his free hand reaching around toward his back as he lost his balance, stumbled and dropped.

On the far side of the room, Justin did the same, sprawling onto his backside. Almost as one, my boyfriend and the demigod fell flat on their backs.

So much for sleep.

Chapter 6

I spent a second gazing down at the two men laid before me, unsure which direction to head in first. The bathroom, to grab a towel for the blood on Justin’s face? Or just drop to his side and cradle his head?

Or maybe enlist Cupid to help me get Hercules away from my boyfriend?

Most of all, I was frozen to the spot by the question circulating again and again in my mind.

What just happened?

“Well, that was unexpected,” came a cheery voice. In the next second, Hercules had risen to his feet, casting me and Cupid a bright-eyed look … which was made exceptionally strange by his bloody nose.

As Hercules turned toward us, the arrow turned with him, though he didn’t seem to notice it sticking out of his back. “Don’t suppose either of you has any sage? You know, for this.” He indicated his bloody nose as though it was nothing.

“Afraid I haven’t carried any on me since the years ended in B.C.,” Cupid said.

I gazed wide-eyed up at Hercules. “You’re not … angry?”

Hercules blinked. “About?”

I tried not to let my eyes stray to Justin, as though by reminding Hercules of his presence I might reinvigorate his ire.

Cupid flitted to my side. “He’s safe now,” he whispered. “My arrow did its work.”

“Which means what?” I whispered back.

“Hercules’s feelings about your boyfriend have been adjusted from ‘murderous rage’ to ‘general disdain.’ ”

We both watched as Hercules hummed, his eyes flicking over the motel room until he spotted a tissue box. He grabbed it, ripped out a tissue with a flourish and dropped it, watching it float to the floor.

“They’re for your nose,” Cupid interjected. “For nose-wiping, that is.”

Hercules nodded, grabbed another tissue from the box and set it to his face. “Ahh, how soft. How ingenious, this thin paper.”

“Will it hold?” I whispered to Cupid.

“As long as Justin doesn’t go out of his way to piss Hercules off,” Cupid explained, “the demigod will regard him as distasteful and be able to control his desire to murder him.”

I watched as Hercules continued ripping tissues out of the box. “I thought your arrows inspired lust.”

“They toy with lust, if the subject is willing,” Cupid said. “In Hercules’s case, he felt an overabundance of bloodlust. And my arrow suggested he feel a little bit less of that.”

“Well, that was a trip,” Justin murmured from across the room. He was sitting up, his elbows on his knees, blood dripping from his nose. “I think I saw the GoneGods.”

I crossed into the bathroom, retrieved a towel for Justin and knelt by him. “Here, take this. How’s the pain?”

He accepted the towel, dabbed at the blood. “My nose might be broken.”

“It’s not, peon,” Hercules returned, still exploring the wonders of the tissue box. He’d already extracted about half of them, which were littered around him on the floor.

I lifted my eyes to the demigod. “It’s not what?”

“His nose.” He turned—the arrow disappearing behind him—with a clump of tissues in one hand. “It’s not broken.”

“How do you know that?”

He drew in a long breath, his green eyes shifting to Justin. When they did, a deep loathing colored his expression—but thankfully not a desire for murder. “I know because my fate is now bound to that frail human’s.”

We all stared at him a moment, until Cupid finally piped up with, “Say what?”

Hercules tried to lower himself into the armchair by the window, but the arrow caught on the backrest. “What hinders me?” He attempted to reach around, but his body was too muscular, and his arms too short to reach the arrow.

“I gotcha.” Cupid flew over, snatching the arrow and hiding it in his quiver in one quick, furtive motion.

Hercules made a face, flaring on him. “Did you just … pinch me, Cupid of Eros?”

“Nope.” Cupid sped to the other side of the room, away from Hercules’s anger. “You just had a little something stuck to you.”

Justin rose from the floor, the towel set to his face. “What do you mean about our fates being bound?”

With a growl, Hercules lowered himself into the armchair. “Listen, and listen well. Twelve labors were given to me by King Eurystheus to atone for murdering my wife and six children.” He raised his eyes to Justin. “One of my labors was to rid the world of the scourge of the stymphalian birds, and so I slew them some time ago. But Hera could not bear to see her creations wiped from the Earth, so she created another flock and placed them in a cage.”

“A cage?” Justin asked. “Where?”

His eyes unfocused. “One of the greatest structures the gods ever made—the Museum of All.”

Justin and I exchanged a glance. The name didn’t register.

Hercules shifted, the armchair giving a cry with his weight. “Their reappearance, my resurrection—it can only mean that they escaped.” His green eyes went hard on Justin, his hands folding until his knuckles pressed against the skin. “And this scoundrel killing them means that my destiny was denied me.”

From the corner of my eye, I spotted Cupid reaching over his shoulder toward his quiver. I put out a staying hand and stepped forward to redirect Hercules’s attention. “What do you mean by ‘resurrection?’ ”

Hercules’s fists relaxed a little as he gazed at me. “I awoke in a field, the whole swath of the heavens above me. I recognized the constellations, and I knew I was home, in Greece. I lay on the the very spot where my funeral pyre had burned. And I knew I had one purpose: to finish my labors. And so I began walking.”

“You walked from Greece to Vermont?” I met eyes with Cupid, who lifted his palms in confusion. How had Hercules crossed the ocean? He didn’t look like the type of guy who carried his credit cards in his back pocket. “How long have you been walking?”

“Sixty-five days.”

I angled my head around to see his feet. “Barefoot?”

“Foot coverings slow me. I must feel the earth to move upon it.”

“And what does me slaying the birds have to do with your fate?” Justin pressed.

In the armchair—which already looked like a doll’s chair with Hercules in it—the Other seemed to bristle, growing in size as he gazed at my boyfriend.

I exchanged a glance with Cupid. Better not to test the uber-powerful demigod. “My boyfriend meant that in the politest way.”

“The most diplomatic way,” Cupid added.

Hercules gestured to Justin. “My fate is now bound to yours. When my fist connected with your face, I took the blow myself. Which means, in the simplest terms, that if you die, I die.”

↔

If you die, I die. If you die, I die.

The words kept ringing inside me, but they didn’t register until the third ring. If you die, I die.

This night just kept getting worse.

“Wild,” Cupid breathed.

“Hold up.” Justin lowered the towel. “Who are you, anyway? The Terminator?”

Hercules again made to rise from the chair, but Cupid flew over to Justin, his wings now flitting as fast as a hummingbird’s to keep him aloft.

He cupped a hand at the side of his mouth to whisper into Justin’s ear, “This is Hercules. And he’s under the effect of one of my arrows, which is why he isn’t trying to kill you right now. So try to smile when you talk to him.”

Justin’s eyebrows went up as he turned on Cupid. “And who are you?”

I cleared my throat. “That’s, um …”

“Cupid of Eros,” the demigod sang. He folded both chubby hands to make peace signs at either side of his face. “Not to be mistaken for Cupid of Philia or Cupid of Agape, my inferior, far less interesting brothers. Don’t tell them I said that.”

Justin leaned toward me. “Who are they really?” he whispered in my ear.

“They’re Hercules and Cupid,” I whispered back.

“Of Eros,” Cupid added in the same whisper.

Across the room, Hercules’s anger had fallen off, and he was now inspecting his nails. I cleared my throat to get his attention. “So what you’re saying is, Justin completing your labor bound his fate with yours in such a way that if he takes a punch, you take it, too.”

A tiny smile played on Hercules’s lips. “Well perceived.”

“Are you certain that includes death?” I asked in a smaller voice.

“I presume so.”

Justin sighed. “OK, Hercules and Cupid of Eros. What brought you from ancient Greece to …” His hands went out, and he surveyed the space we were in. “To this motel room in Vermont?” I could tell he wasn’t totally buying that this was the real Cupid, and that was the real Hercules.

Cupid pointed at me. “Her love story.”

“My labor,” Hercules said simply.

“Well,” Justin said, “I guess that means you can leave now, Hercules.”

Hercules shook his head, steepling his hands. “I wish I could. Unfortunately, our fates being bound complicates the circumstances. You’re clearly quite weak, and I can’t possibly allow you to die—at least, not before I complete my last undone labor.”

Ouch. Without realizing it, Hercules had touched on the open nerve that was Justin’s biggest insecurity. Being weak. Helpless. Incapable. The irony was that the World Army messing with his genes had led to just that.

“So unbind our fates,” Justin said with clenched teeth. “And then we’ll never have to see each other again.”

Hercules raised his hands helplessly. “If I could, feeble human, I would. But I cannot.”

This time it was Justin who bristled, and I had to set my hand on his arm to keep him from lashing out. “You mentioned a last labor,” I said. “There’s another?”

“Yes, another labor which has been undone. It is not far from here, and when it has been completed, I suspect our fates will come unbound.”

“Because you’ll die afterward,” Justin said. “For good.”

Hercules narrowed his eyes at Justin. “And I will rest once more.”

“What is that labor?” I asked.

Hercules straightened, one arm folding in front of his chest. “I must steal the apples from the Hesperides in Hera’s garden.” He canted his head. “Well, if I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t mind thieving from Hera’s garden. She did attempt to kill me over a hundred times, that malicious wench.”

“Baaaa-ad blood,” Cupid murmured.

“Who are the Hesperides?” I asked.

“The Daughters of the Evening, the Nymphs of the West,” Hercules said with a flourish of his hand. “They dance. They sing. They guard the garden.”

“And where are these Hesperides?” Justin asked.

“Where else,” Hercules said, “but the city known as the Big Apple?”

Chapter 7

In the morning, Justin and I stood by the bumper of the Mustang. He cringed as he inspected the damage. “You said the creature had three horns?”

“Yep—three,” I murmured in distraction, standing close to him. Some twenty feet away, Cupid was teaching Hercules how to manipulate a TV remote through the open door of his motel room. The dulcet notes of a soap opera issued through the door. “Justin, we need to decide what to do.”

Justin straightened. “What do you mean, ‘do?’ We need to find the resistance.”

I pointed at the pair sitting on the edge of the bed. “What about those two?”

“If they’re who they say they are, then they should have no trouble fending for themselves.”

I turned on him. “You sound like you disbelieve.”

Justin shrugged. “I mean, come on. Hercules? Hercules of legend was like”—his arms went out and up—“huge. Godly.”

I glanced again at Hercules. “That guy is pretty huge. You didn’t see what he did last night. We were being chased by an odontotyrannos, and he brought it down with two blows from his club.”

“An odonto-what?”

“It’s like a cross between a horse and an elephant. Don’t you remember it chasing us last night?”

“To be honest, I don’t remember much after you shifted into this form.” His eyes flitted over my dark hair and new face.

“Anyway, that’s not the point,” I insisted. “You saw what happened when he punched you.”

Justin pointed at his nose, which was crusted with blood and bruising around the sides. “Yeah, I sure did see it.”

“So how do you explain that?”

Justin’s mouth opened, then closed a few seconds later. He clearly had no explanation, but he didn’t want to accept the truth, either.

“Listen,” I said, “Hercules said his fate is bound to yours, but he thinks we can change that by stealing these apples. He needs to go to New York City. We’re going to New York City. I’ve been alive long enough to know that’s no coincidence. I believe him when he says your fates are bound together.”

“Stealing the apples from the Hesperides? What does that even mean?”

I lifted my cellphone. “I looked up the myth about his labors. It’s just like he said: they were nymphs who guarded an apple tree.”

Justin groaned. “So he thinks ‘the Big Apple’ means he’ll find apples there.”

“He can’t be that dense.” I glanced at Hercules and Cupid in the motel room. Cupid was sitting on the only chair the motel room provided, swinging his legs like a toddler patiently waiting for a snack.

Meanwhile, Hercules appeared to be attempting to use the remote upside-down, the power button pointing at his own chest. He was getting increasingly agitated when nothing kept happening.

Deep down—I mean, so far down I couldn’t have even acknowledged it in my mind—I knew we needed to keep Hercules around. I didn’t know why, but I did.

“I think if we just take him to the city, he’ll understand for himself what the expression means,” I said. “Regardless, I think he could be helpful to us. He’s strong, and self-preservation means keeping you alive, too.”

When I looked back at Justin, I could see the frustration in his eyes. Every time he had to be saved, taken care of, it brought him back to the dybbuk.

Before we’d met, Justin had been possessed by a dybbuk demon. It had done a number on him, to the point where he’d allowed Serena Russo to combine his genes with various Other DNA in order to be more powerful.

In exchange, he’d become a guinea pig, and the side effects were terrible. Though he seemed all right now—or maybe he was just good at hiding the pain.

“Please,” I said.

“All right,” Justin said. “We’ll take them to the city to steal the ‘apples.’ Then it’s you and me.”

“And we’re bringing Cupid,” I added. “He saved our lives.”

For some reason, I hesitated telling Justin about what Cupid had said—that I had a powerful love story. Maybe it embarrassed me to talk to Justin—whom I loved—about it, or maybe I didn’t really believe it was true, so it wasn’t worth mentioning.

Justin eyed Cupid in the room. “Can’t he put on some clothes? Can’t either of them, for that matter?”

I shrugged. “I’ll try.” But I had a feeling their egos were bound up in their aesthetics. Hercules’s especially.

Ten minutes later, the four of us piled into the Mustang, Hercules and Cupid both still clad in nothing but their loincloths. As I’d suspected, neither of the demigods wanted to mess with his signature “look.”

Justin insisted on driving, and Cupid called shotgun—he complained of motion sickness in the back seat—and Hercules and I were crammed into the back. I did my best not to touch Hercules, but he didn’t seem to mind that we were thigh to thigh, or that his massive arm brushed up alongside mine.

It didn’t hurt that he smelled divine. GoneGods know how a man who’d woken up in a field and spent sixty-five (presumably showerless) days walking could smell so good, but I assumed it had something to do with being half-god.

A lighter clicked, and Cupid’s head appeared between the seats, a cigarette held up. “Anyone mind if I smoke?”

I was too stunned to say anything. Was that even legal? I mean, he was over two thousand years old, so I was technically younger than him.

“Just roll the window down,” Justin said, pulling us out of the motel’s lot. Which Cupid did, one hand resting on the sill as the smoke flew by outside.

I turned, stared behind us as we got onto the highway. The people chasing us were somewhere down that long length of road. We just needed to find the resistance before the World Army found us.

↔

We hadn’t driven a mile before Hercules angled to face me. “Tell me, Isabella. What are you?”

Seated this close, if I turned toward him I might melt from the intensity of his gaze. So I just stared ahead as Justin drove. “I’m a biologist.”

Hercules laughed, a melodic sound that sent tingles through my stomach. He was one of those easily amused types whose laughter inspired your own. I found myself wanting to laugh with him, but resisted.

“Ah, a woman of the mind,” he said. “I respect that. This modern world seems ripe with opportunities for women. Tell me what you do as a biologist, Isabella. Surely you’ve eclipsed Aristotle’s research.”

Hercules the feminist? I thought. I nodded as I processed this. Hercules the feminist. “I’m a geneticist, which means …” I tried to think of how to put it. “It means I study the traits that are passed down from parents to children.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “And what about your magical nature?”

Now I couldn’t resist looking at him. Those green eyes were indeed on me, and I swallowed. “My magical nature?”

“He’s a demigod,” Cupid chimed in from the front seat. “Those of us born of gods can sense these things pretty easily.”

Well, Hercules was protecting Justin, in a way. The least I could do was repay him with honesty. “I’m an encantado,” I said, “from the rainforests of Brazil.” Not that Hercules was likely to know what Brazil was, or where.

But he took it all in with patient eyes. “Surely encantado are enchantresses. I sensed as much from you as soon as I entered your presence.”

Every seductive instinct in me fired off. I knew exactly what to say, what to do, how to angle my face and pronounce my words to the end my body wanted. And that end was with me underneath Hercules … and maybe by intervals atop him.

My eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, where Justin and I met gazes. Don’t flirt, Isabella. Don’t flirt.

I took a deep breath, allowed my quivering insides to settle. Then, I rattled off like a biologist: “Encantado are shapeshifters, able to take on the appearance of any human. Our true form isn’t of a human at all, but a creature of the water. We are all female, and before the gods left, we were immortal, free to mingle with humans throughout the millennia.”

There, nice and non-suggestive.

“So you’re seductresses,” Cupid said from the front seat.

I made a face. “It is in our nature, yes.”

“Are the rest of your kind so thoughtful?” Hercules asked. He lifted two fingers, pointed them at my eyes (and also pinned me to the spot). “I can see every thought percolating in your mind.”

By the GoneGods, why did Hercules have to be so charming? He’s not into you, Isa. Just remember that.

The engine roared as Justin accelerated us, and we blew down the highway. Anything I might have said to Hercules would have been lost under the roar, and that wasn’t an accident.

Justin, as I was learning, was a tad possessive.

I took this as my cue to disengage. I glanced outside; more trees, intermittent fields. We had already crossed the state line into New York, and would be into the city by the evening. The plan was to get to Times Square, ditch the car and wait for the resistance like Egya had instructed.

“I, too, find that nature helps me articulate my thoughts,” Hercules said, apparently still observing me.

Right now, I was having a hard time concentrating on the plan. As the engine’s roar fell away to a purr, I carefully met Hercules’s eyes, thinking of how to formulate a response that wasn’t seductive.

But Cupid saved me. “Look,” he said, shifting to boyish excitement. His fist knocked the window, which he’d rolled up after finishing his cigarette. “That’s where I found my first job after the gods left.”

We were coming up to a strip mall alongside the highway. Half a dozen shops populated the little lot. “Number 1 Wok?” I asked.

“No,” he said irritably, pointing at an auto-repair shop. “Jimmy’s.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You were a mechanic?”

“Apprentice,” Cupid corrected.

“What happened?”

He shrugged, stared wistfully out the window at the fields. “I have commitment issues.”

I couldn’t help it; I laughed. “But you’re Cupid!”

He flared on me, blue eyes meeting mine through the slot between the seat and the headrest. “Yeah, and what do you think Cupid does?”

“He flits from person to person and place to place, shooting them with arrows,” Justin offered.

“That’s right,” Cupid said, turning back around. “Good word, by the way … ‘flit.’ ”

Hercules leaned toward me and whispered, “If he gets moody, the best thing to do is talk about love.”

I swear, hearing that man’s voice in my ear—feeling his hot breath on my skin—was all the incentive I needed to talk about love. But I shied away from Hercules; I loved Justin, and no super-strong, super-charming demigod would change that.

Right? Right.

I cleared my throat. “I would love to grab lunch. How does everyone feel about that? Does anyone else love lunch?”

Justin met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “We need to keep moving, Isa.”

“We can’t move if we don’t eat.”

Cupid pointed at a passing sign. “Could do Dunkin for a quick bite. I recommend the ham-and-cheese croisswich.”

“Crosswich?” Justin and I said together.

Cupid sighed. “Canadians.”

I raised a finger. “I’m actually Brazilian.”

“I crave a good ham,” Hercules boomed.

“All right,” Justin conceded. I was surprised by how quickly he’d warmed to the idea. “But only the drive-thru.”

That was the thing about Hercules, I was realizing: you found yourself wanting to please him, to do as he asked. It was his thing. I had even noticed Justin eyeing Hercules in the rearview mirror, and not with envy. Well, not just with envy.

The truth was, Hercules was a whole lotta charismatic man. And you’d have to be blind not to appreciate that.

That was why, twenty minutes later, Justin’s Mustang was filled with the scent of fast food and crinkling wrappers. And for a little while, the pure pleasure of fat and cheese and sodium helped take the edge off.

It helped me put aside the fact that the World Army had sent an odontotyrannos after us. That they were diverting a large portion of their resources to recovering the biologist—me—with the keys to their genetics program, and the super soldier—Justin—whom they’d manufactured to stand at the front lines of their war, destroying Others and all of Otherkind.

And, most of all, I was able to briefly put aside this persistent thought: If we were caught, my definition of “suffering” would be redefined.

For twenty minutes, we were just two college students and two demigods stuffing our faces as we drove to NYC.

“This delicacy is beyond anything I have tasted,” Hercules pronounced. He’d swallowed his whole sandwich in a single bite and now sucked the salt off each finger. “Except perhaps Ambrosia. Cupid, how long until we arrive at the Big Apple?”

“Under an hour until we hit the traffic,” Cupid said with a full mouth. “And then we’ll spend the rest of our mortal lives in it.”

I leaned forward. “You’ve been in the city?”

“Unfortunately. That was where I fell when the gods left. I hated all the noise and commotion at first, which was why I came all the way out here and found Jimmy’s auto-shop.” His voice went low and gravelly as he turned to stare at me again in the gap between the seat and headrest. “But just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.”

I stared back at him. “Who’s they?”

“Really? Al Pacino? Godfather III?” Cupid said.

I gave him a blank look.

Cupid’s eyebrows went up through the gap. “The movie?”

I shook my head. “I’m not really into movies. Now a good book, preferably a romance, and you have me.”

“Girl, you are wasting your mortality. Are you sure you want to be with this chick?” he muttered as his gaze strayed to Justin, who shrugged with a wry smile.

“I, too, know nothing of this Godfather,” Hercules interjected. “Now the All-Father, Odin, he was one to reckon with.”

“Oh brother,” Cupid groaned. “I’ve hitched a ride with charlatans.”

“Anywho, you were saying?” I said to Cupid. “New York City?”

“Ahh, yes.” Cupid nodded. “Loved the lights, the bustle. So many people looking for love. I’ve never shot more arrows in my life than the years I spent in New York City.”

“Then what were you doing at a gas station in Vermont, holding a big stuffed sheep?”

Cupid’s mouth dropped. “I forgot Baa Baa.” Then he sighed and rolled his eyes at me. “Anyway, like I said: I was looking for you.”

He was looking for me because of my love story. I still couldn’t get that part through my head. I had spent five hundred years mostly invisible to the world, and now the World Army and the three Cupids were searching for me. As much as I enjoyed attention from men, I was a monogamous gal in all respects; unless I was dancing, I preferred the attention of one person at a time.

All of this love story business was making me itch with discomfort, so I changed the subject. “How safe is it in the city?”

Cupid smirked, turned back around. “However unsafe it is, do you have a choice?”

“No.” I sat back in my seat. “No, we don’t.”

↔

As promised, the city rose to view within the hour, skyscrapers meeting the low clouds and disappearing beyond. It put me in mind of Rio, except …

“Ugh,” Cupid said as we came to a barricade of brake lights, “see what I mean?”

The road widened to six lanes and slowed to a standstill all at the same time, and Justin spent the next hour cursing every time he had to put the gearstick in neutral and then into first just to move us a few feet.

To his credit, we didn’t stall once. But I observed him closely; I couldn’t tell if his agitation stemmed from the traffic or his sickness returning. His episodes had been occurring closer and closer together, for longer and longer.

It reminded me of my own mortality, and the invisible crown of good health we immortals used to wear. We were like most human teenagers, in that sense, unaware of how blessed we were with a fully functioning body and a lack of chronic pain.

Healthiness—you don’t notice it until you or someone you love loses it.

I stared at Justin’s lush black hair—what we would have to shave off—and wondered if he still considered it all worth it. The jimmying with his insides, the resulting superhuman reflexes and strength.

I still didn’t know the details of what had been done to him, since he was mum about most of it. But I knew it had been extensive and painful. It pained him even now.

From somewhere came a long blast on a car horn. Someone else beeped in response.

I flinched as a low voice resonated in my ear. “You love him.” When I turned, Hercules’s face was conspiratorially close to mine.

“How did you …?” I began.

“I’ve been married three times.” A bolt of pain crossed his face, and he fingered a little blue vial set around his neck that I hadn’t noticed until now. “Once, I had six children. Anyone who’s loved can recognize it.”

“Well, you’re right,” I said. Justin couldn’t hear us, or if he could, he didn’t acknowledge our conversation. “I do love him.”

“Good,” Hercules whispered. “Because he’s very sick. He needs you.”

My throat closed. Another honk sounded, and I leaned forward. “Does that happen a lot?” I asked Cupid.

“Oh, you’ll grow to love it. Either that, or it’ll kill you.” Ahead, the highway sloped down toward a tunnel. Cupid pointed. “That’s the entrance to the city.”

“How long is the tunnel?” Hercules asked.

“Let me put it this way,” Cupid said, “get your vitamin D now, kiddos, because it’ll be a long time before we see the sun again.”

I glanced around us; we were surrounded by harried New Yorkers, yellow taxis and a whole lot of bored and agitated faces. Nothing menacing.

So why did I feel so uncomfortable?

“Is this the only option?” I asked.

“Now it is,” Cupid said. “Unless you want to get out and walk.”

“I love a good walk.” Hercules patted one of his bare, bulging quads. It gleamed like someone had shaved it and rubbed coconut oil in. “Cupid, do you remember our walk from Epirus to Thessaly?”

Cupid chuckled. “I don’t know how I let you talk me into that.”

I finally got it: these two were buddies. One of the original bromances. And it gave me a small pleasure in my discomfort to know that these two had found each other after two thousand years.

“As I recall,” Hercules was saying, “you rode your puff for the last hundred kilometers.”

“Puff?” I asked.

Cupid swatted at him. “Slander. Don’t listen to him.” He turned to me. “My puff is the cloud I ride. But ‘puff’ is cuter, don’t you think?”

By increments we passed into the tunnel, the sun replaced by yellow lights set at intervals along the tunnel walls. It darkened, and behind us, the outside world was reduced to a shrinking rectangle of light.

“Yes, he rode his puff.” Hercules’s voice carried the faintest thread of teasing.

“And if I recall, Herc,” Cupid said, “you got us lost.”

“I most certainly did not.”

“Yep, you did.” Cupid turned around to look at me. “We had reached this weird rock that kind of looked like an eye.”

“Ras El-Ainn,” Hercules said.

“Whatever. Not the point. The point was that rock was one of a kind. Kind of like Sauron’s eye, but without all the fire, magic and orcs.”

“No, nothing like Sauron’s eye.” Justin chuckled. So did I—it was good to hear him laugh.

“Again—whatever. Then Herc was all like—that-a-way, so we walked and walked ... For two days we walked, only to wind up right back at that rock.”

“Lies,” Hercules chuckled.

“And why did we do a big circle? Because Herc’s right leg is stronger than his left. And without some point, some map, we made this huge circle.”

“Very well, little one … I concede part of our trip was one large circle. But why was it my fault? How do we know it was not you and your tiny little legs that didn’t lead us astray?”

“Because I was on my puff.”

The car erupted in laughter.

“So you admit it?” Hercules said between a snorting laugh that sounded more like a donkey braying than a manly-man laughing.

“Better to be lazy and right than not lazy and wrong.”

“True. But you forget that I, too, was right.”

“How so, Herc? How does you wasting two days and leading us in a circle make you right?”

“Because sometimes we need to wander aimlessly and find ourselves back where we began to truly understand where we must go.”

I don’t know if it was the gravitas with which he said it, or me being tired, but there was real wisdom in those words, and I found myself wondering where I needed to go to find where I must go.

But before I could let those words sink in, Cupid piped up. “There’s already one self-help guru for Others named Aldie. A dark elf, way handsomer than you. I suggest you stick to hitting things.”

Hercules shot his balled-up wrapper at Cupid’s head, and Cupid responded by pelting him with a sauce packet. They were true friends having a road trip.

The two of them seemed entirely unconcerned, which I guess made sense: they’d lived through a lot, and Cupid was a New Yorker. But neither grasped the magnitude of what was after us—who was after us. How could they?

They hadn’t encountered the World Army. They hadn’t met Serena Russo, studied her research, seen the devastation she’d wrought in Montreal.

Innocent people had died because of her. Probably more than I knew.

Justin found my gaze in the rearview mirror. “Isa, are you all right?”

He always seemed to sense when I was uncomfortable. Right now, he’d probably be reaching for my hand if he could.

“I’m fine ...” I began, trailing off as my eyes focused through the windshield. “Who is that?”

In the distance, a man was walking down the dotted centerline between cars, staring into them as he did so. He came to a red sedan, leaned over and knocked on the window.

“Looks like a panhandler,” Cupid said. “Anyone got two bucks?”

“Lock the doors,” I said.

“Isa, it’s probably just—” Justin began.

“Lock the doors,” I repeated. In the past two weeks, I’d learned that a panhandler was never a panhandler, and an unlocked door should always be locked.

Justin pressed the button, and all four locks engaged at once. Beside me, Hercules’s massive form shifted to peer between the seats. “He’s looking for someone.”

Ahead, the man was dressed in oversized slacks and what used to be fine leather shoes, his wispy hair combed to his head, but he looked more like the approximation of a homeless person than an actual one.

There was something about him that was too … refined. A panhandler’s never a panhandler. And he was only about three cars away now.

“They know,” I said. “Somehow, they know.” I unbuckled my seatbelt, twisted around in the car and began searching the headrests, feeling around.

“Who knows what?” Cupid asked.

“She senses something amiss,” Hercules said. “And she’s right. I sense it, too.”

Justin turned, one hand set on the center console. “What are you doing, Isa?”

“I’m looking.”

“For what?”

I leaned down, my fingers searching under Cupid’s seat. To Justin’s credit, he kept his car immaculate; I felt nothing except clean carpet, one of the wrappers Hercules had thrown, and …

I froze as my hand settled over a tiny disc, small as a quarter, that shouldn’t have been there.

A knock sounded on Justin’s window, and I jerked up with the disc in my hand.

Outside, the panhandler stared in at us.

Chapter 8

I recognized those gray eyes, but from where? I studied him as he studied us, and then he straightened and removed something from his coat pocket.

“Don’t roll down the window,” I said, grabbing the disc from the floor of Justin’s car.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Justin said. His hand rested over the gearstick, but there was nowhere he could take us.

Finally, my brain clicked. I had passed this man many times in McGill’s biology lab. A few times he’d been leaving Serena Russo’s office. She had called out to him as he was exiting, a name that sprang into my head with dizzying clarity.

“It’s Kilby,” I said. “They traced us.”

“Who?” Justin said.

“Serena’s assistant. He traced us here.”

Justin’s head jerked around. “How?”

“With this.” I held the coin-sized disc out to him between the seats.

Justin stared. “A tracer.”

“I take it Kilby isn’t a friendly,” Cupid said.

“He’s with the woman who’s trying to make our lives a misery,” I said, scanning left and right. How would we get out of this? “AKA the World Army.”

“Does this awkwardly dressed man pose a danger to you?” Hercules asked. His fingers closed over the end of his massive club, which was longer than my thigh.

I stared at it, and then my eyes lifted to Hercules. He was bound to us—indebted, he’d said. The demigod had leveled an odontotyrannos with two blows. I could only imagine what he would do to Kilby’s head.

A plan unspooled in my mind. “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, he is.”

“Don’t worry.” Hercules pushed on Justin’s seat. “I shall dispatch him. Allow me out of the vessel.” He kept trying, but he didn’t know how to get out of the two-door sports car.

“Hercules,” I said, “is this your first time inside a car?”

“Hey,” Justin shot over his shoulder as Hercules rocked his seat, “cool it, Terminator. I have to let you out, OK?”

In the passenger seat, Cupid had unslung his bow from around his body. “I’ll back you up, Herc.”

I turned to Hercules. “When Justin lets you out, can you just … gently knock the awkwardly dressed man out? But don’t give him a concussion. No brain damage.”

Hercules paused to stare at me. “You want me to hurt him.”

“Yes,” I said slowly.

“But only a little,” Hercules said.

“Yes. Just a temporary hurt, nothing permanent.”

He gave a single nod.

Outside, Kilby had passed around the hood of the car and was kneeling in front of it. What the hell was that about?

“Whatever he’s doing, it’s not good,” Cupid said.

Justin spun to face me, and for the first time since Hercules had shown up, he grinned. “So we’re doing this?”

And by this, I knew he meant our escape-the-car strategy, which we’d hashed out specifically for situations like this. In our time on the run, we had figured out a lot of strategies for different situations. “We’re doing this,” I said.

“Doing what?” Cupid broke in.

“Abandoning the car,” I said. It was a potential reality Justin and I had discussed before, and while he hadn’t been at all keen on the idea of leaving his baby behind, he had accepted that there might come a time when he’d have to.

And, in this standstill traffic with Kilby standing in front of our car, we didn’t have much choice. We had to run.

“Are you nuts?” Cupid slapped his hands onto the dashboard. “This is a prime piece.”

“Don’t I know it,” Justin murmured. “Trust me, I’m going to cry a little tonight when no one’s looking.”

“We don’t have time to discuss it.” I pointed at Kilby. “Because like you said, whatever he’s doing, it’s not good.”

“The lady has a point,” Hercules said.

“Fine,” Cupid sulked. “Let’s do it.”

Justin leaned back into his seat and pulled a latch, and the trunk popped open. “I hate sitting around anyway.”

Meanwhile, I reached over Cupid and pulled the lever on his seat to pop it forward, to which the little demigod let a curse. “Sorry!” I said as I grabbed the handle on the passenger-side door, waiting for Justin to do the same on his side.

“Ah,” Hercules observed, “miraculous technology.”

“All right, everybody,” Justin said. “We’re all exiting the vehicle. Now.”

When he opened his door, I threw open the other door, and Cupid flew out right away. I followed, rising up and out of the Mustang.

All at once we were on the asphalt, the scent of fumes and idling engines all around us. In the tunnel’s artificial darkness, the headlights from opposing traffic shone at us like a thousand tiny stars.

Justin and Hercules came out on the other side. From his kneel in the front of the car, Kilby’s face lifted—and lifted—high and higher, his mouth opening as Hercules stepped toward him with his club held before him. From the other side came Cupid, drawing his bow.

I shielded my eyes from the headlights as Justin and I swept toward the trunk. We each grabbed our backpacks, slinging them over our shoulders as Cupid and Hercules closed in on Kilby at the front.

I glimpsed Cupid’s tiny wings flitting, his bow already nocked with a signature arrow. “I’ve got this,” I heard Cupid say to Hercules.

“Stop. No, don’t!” Kilby said, hands going up just before he grunted. Through the windshield I spotted an arrow sticking out of his chest.

“Oh, come on,” Hercules groaned. “It’s been almost an entire day since I’ve had a fight.”

“Don’t worry,” I said as Justin and I came up alongside the car. “There’ll be more. Trust me.”

There was no way Kilby was alone. I’d bet the rest of my mortal life on it.

As we passed Kilby, his eyes glazed and his body went momentarily limp. I glanced back as we threaded past cars. “What did you make him desire?” I said to Cupid.

“I didn’t make him desire anything,” Cupid snapped. “My arrows don’t coerce—they suggest.”

Right, the perfect time for a lecture from a toddler.

“And what did your arrow suggest?”

“That he hump the first woman he comes across,” Cupid said, floating beside me. From somewhere he’d summoned his tiny cloud, which carried him with admirable speed.

“Wasn’t I the first woman he came across?” I asked.

Cupid’s dimples emerged. “The first human woman. You’re something else—something better.”

Well, that was a change from the way I usually heard people talking about Others.

When I looked back, Kilby had thrown his entire body over the hatchback behind ours and was thrusting his hips into it with manic fervor. The entire car rocked on its suspension, and inside, I could swear I heard screaming.

“You just traumatized some poor woman,” I breathed as we jogged.

Cupid shrugged. “All’s fair in love and war.”

Justin had taken the lead, Cupid and I were at the center and Hercules brought up the back. We moved fast, threading past cars and weaving to avoid hitting side-view mirrors.

People rubbernecked as we passed, but no one else stepped out of their car. That was the single point of relief in all this—we were the only people on the road.

Well, besides that horndog Kilby.

“There’s the exit,” Justin said, pointing at a tiny rectangle of light ahead. It looked miniature, impossibly far off.

As we neared, some of the cars looked much bigger than the rest. Military-size, in fact; I counted four of them in separate lanes, all even with one another. “Justin,” I cautioned.

“I see them.”

“Do you think …?”

“Oh, I think.”

“How should we handle it?” As a former soldier in the World Army, Justin’s tactical knowledge surpassed mine by a mile. Especially when it came to their tactics.

As I said it, the white brake lights on two of the trucks we were approaching flashed, and their wheels angled toward us.

This was because of the tracer in Justin’s Mustang. They had seen where we were headed and planned to block us in at the tunnel.

“They’re moving to trap us,” Justin said, mirroring my thoughts. “We need to get through before they do.”

“What in Empty Hell did you two do to bring in a literal army?” Cupid said.

“I took something of theirs,” I said, out of breath. Actually, somethings. I took secrets, I took my research and I took Justin. I knew which was more valuable to them—the knowledge I had taken with me—but I knew which was more valuable to me.

The man. The human being.

I didn’t even know if I could call him a “human” anymore. Ahead of me, he ran differently, his legs like pistons. He’d been mixed with Others—multiple Others. Parts of him had been changed, modified. What made humans human and Others Other?

Maybe, I thought as we approached the military vehicles now angled to pin us in, it’s in how you think of yourself. If you have a little of both in you, it comes down to your choices.

As we came close, Justin stopped and took my arm. We veered left, cutting into the next lane of traffic. Here, another of the vehicles was maneuvering to pin us in. And it moved way faster than we were.

We neared, and Justin yelled, “Slip around!” He took the lead, and let me go as he angled his body sideways between the military vehicle and the SUV, just barely sliding through.

But the rest of us wouldn’t make it.

“Justin!” I called.

He glanced back, already half a dozen feet beyond the blockade of military vehicles. A door opened between him and me, and a booted foot stepped onto the mudguard.

“Hold up right there, Ms. Ramirez,” a voice said, and Sergeant Johnson’s shaved head appeared from the depths of the vehicle in front of me.

He didn’t have a weapon out, but I knew from the times I’d seen him training Justin how many he was probably hiding on his body. None of which mattered, anyway; no doubt he could take me down with his bare hands.

The other vehicles were unloading now, doors opening and World Army soldiers stepping out. They hadn’t sent a brigade—they didn’t want to draw more attention than this, I realized—but they’d sent enough.

Enough to trap us here in this tunnel before we could disappear into the city.

“Merda,” I hissed, stopping hard.

A pair of hands slid around my waist and legs, lifted me up like I weighed nothing. I was pressed up against a massive, bare chest, and I was about to scream when I looked up.

“Not to worry, Isa,” Hercules said—when had he started calling me Isa?—and in that moment we were airborne. He had leapt onto the trunk of the car on our right, ran us up over the hood and launched us off the roof and onto the street beyond the military blockade.

Justin, probably wanting to out-man Hercules, jumped over the cars entirely, landing by our side. “I’ve got her.”

“I am carrying Isa,” the legendary warrior said.

“Uh, guys,” I said from Hercules’s arms, “I’m here, too. And I’d just like to add that I have two legs and can run.”

“And you’re half-god,” Justin retorted like I hadn’t spoken. “Whereas I’m just a boy.” He gave Hercules a mocking glare.

Cupid floated alongside on his cloud, launching arrows as he went. “OK, boys … we’ll have a pissing contest when we’re not being hunted by an army.”

We came into the rectangle of light where the tunnel ended, the clouded sun bleeding over us, and Hercules pelting forward with me still in his arms. I spotted Justin as we blew by; his face bore a mixture of frustration and awe. But he didn’t stop running.

Behind us, a man yelled something unintelligible, drowned out by the acoustics of the tunnel and the honking and the engines. But I knew what it meant: Get them.

Ahead, the city street arrowed into the distance, branching off at right angles to other streets. Streets upon streets upon streets, all of them punctuated by buildings rising pencil-straight into the sky. And, of course, the endless lines of brake lights clogging the road like an artery.

We had made it.

“The Big Apple,” Hercules observed as casually as if he were taking a little stroll, and not racing with me in his arms. “Wait, where is the apple?”

A mosquito’s buzz sounded by my right ear, and a sharp pain bloomed in my shoulder. When I jerked my head left, I found a black dart sticking out of my arm. A tranquilizer? I wasn’t sure; I had never seen anything like it. Past Hercules’s shoulder, I spotted a sharpshooter kneeling atop a car, taking aim.

“Duck!” I yelled at Hercules as I yanked the dart out of my arm.

Evidently he trusted me, because he reacted as soon as I’d spoken, dropping to one knee in front of a car. Cupid dropped down with us. A millisecond later, a second black dart whizzed through the air where we’d been.

Justin appeared, dropping down with us. “Did that sharpshooter get you?”

“I’m fine,” I lied. This wasn’t the time to worry him. “We need to take a left at the next light.”

“What’s left at the next light?” Cupid asked.

“I have no idea,” I said. “But I can guess.”

In the next second, Hercules rose, carrying us to the end of the block and just missing the edge of a building as he brought us around the corner. As we passed onto the side street, I glanced over Hercules’s shoulder. Justin appeared after us, and I didn’t see any darts sticking off him or wounds to speak of.

“You good?” I called back to him.

He raised one thumb in the air as he caught up. The sweat rolled off his forehead in rivulets.

“Please put me down,” I said to Hercules.

“Are you certain? No offense intended, but I can carry you faster than you can run right now.”

“I’m certain,” I said as Hercules lowered me to my feet. “Because right now, I’m probably the only one here who’s capable of hailing a cab in under a minute.”

Years of living in Rio had made me a city encantado—or, at least, one capable of taking advantage of the natural advantages of being a young woman in a city. One of which was stepping to the sidewalk’s edge and lifting my hand in the air.

My arm went up, I met eyes with the first oncoming taxi driver and like a law of physics, he pulled over alongside us.

Hercules, Justin and Cupid stood stunned on the sidewalk (well, Cupid floated). “How did you do that?” Justin asked.

“It was a beautiful thing,” Cupid observed.

“Why has this yellow vessel stopped before us?” Hercules asked.

“It’s not a ‘vessel,’ Herc,” Cupid corrected. “It’s called a car. An ugly one, but we’re keeping it basic right now.”

I groaned and opened the back door, swept my hand forward. “Would the three of you please get in?”

When I’d slipped into the front seat and the other three into the back, the driver stared around at all of us with wide eyes. In the back, Cupid sat sandwiched between Justin and Hercules, who looked like a balloon that had been compressed into a space way too small for it. “You’re all on the same fare?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Where to?”

“Times Square.”

“Anywhere in Times Square?”

“The square.”

“Like … the center of it?”

“Exactly.” I spun to stare out the back windshield. The nose of one of the military vehicles had just appeared at the edge of the cross-street, and was stopped at a red light. I didn’t know if they had seen us pile around the corner. “Please just drive.”

We drove. I dropped into the seat to pull my jacket off and roll the sleeve of my shirt up. My arm had begun to throb, and while whatever they’d shot me with wasn’t a tranquilizer—I wasn’t feeling tired—I knew they had done something to me. Something bad. I felt different, less capable.

“They know we’re in the city, Isa,” Justin said. “We can’t just go stand in the middle of Times Square in broad daylight.”

“I know,” I murmured, gingerly pulling my sleeve up to reveal the wound. A red puncture sat high up on my arm, a rash already blooming around it. No one had noticed, and I wasn’t about to bring it up. Justin didn’t need any more worries, and right now, what we most needed was to get to safety.

“It’ll be dark soon,” Cupid observed, pointing out the windshield. Above us, the sun had already fallen beyond the line of the city. It cast a soft, early-evening light through the taxi.

I should have been calmed by it; instead, my eyes kept darting toward the back windshield. We didn’t seem to be followed, and yet …

“Where is the big apple?” Hercules insisted.

The taxi driver and I met eyes. I shook my head at him—don’t ask—and he seemed to take my cue and focused instead on the road.

“Egya told us to wait until nighttime,” Justin said.

“So we hang out in a McDs until then.” I rolled my sleeve down and pulled my jacket back on.

“They know to look for these two.” Justin pointed at Cupid and Hercules. “We’ll be way more conspicuous now. You need to change again, Isa.”

And by “change,” I knew he meant I should shift into another illusion. It was my best defense, a camouflage I’d used my entire life when I’d needed to disappear, to go on the run. And as an encantado who ended up in a lot of bad romances, I’d had to do more running than I liked.

“I will—” I began. I was cut off by Hercules, who pulled on the door handle. Without a word, he kicked the door open as we drove.

Then he rolled out into the street.

Chapter 9

Outside, Hercules somersaulted across the asphalt and swept up to his feet in one motion. His fist came to his hips, and his chest jutted out as he pointed with one hand straight up the side of a building.

We all stared at him from the car. “Is he doing a superhero pose?” Justin asked.

“Who is that guy, man?” The driver pulled us to the curb, the cab’s open door swinging shut with the motion. “Is he crazy?”

“I’m so sorry.” I reached into my backpack and yanked out $50 in cash. “Please, take this and don’t mention any of what just happened.”

He eyed the bills. “Those aren’t U.S. dollars.”

I stared at the money. We hadn’t even thought to exchange any of our Canadian bills for American. I reached back in, pulled out my Amex card. “Here.”

As the driver processed my card, I rolled down the window and cupped my hands around my mouth. “Hey, get back in the car!”

Hercules glanced over. “I’ve found them.”

“Found who?”

“The Hesperides.”

I followed his gaze up to a massive pink-and-gold advertisement on the building’s side. On it, three nymphs stood in various suggestive poses around a gleaming silver pole. One of them lay atop the lettering at the bottom of the advertisement, which read: NYMPHOS.

“That’s them,” Cupid said from the back seat. “Can’t miss those Hesperides.”

“Really—Nymphos?” I murmured. “A bit on the nose, isn’t it?”

“We must go there!” Hercules bellowed in the street. A taxi swerved around him, the driver laying on his horn. Hercules didn’t even flinch. “We must go at once, Isabella.”

I squinted at the poster. “That’s where the apples are?”

He didn’t answer, but like an eager dog, he stared between me and what he wanted.

I groaned. “Nymphos is a strip club, Hercules.”

“Then we must go to this stripping club.” He stepped closer to the driver’s side of the taxi and knocked on the glass. The driver looked at me, then rolled his window a couple inches down. “Where is Nymphos?” Hercules asked.

“The … the strip joint?”

“Yes.”

“7th and 51st.”

“How far is that?”

“About ten blocks that way. You take a left up at the light.”

Hercules nodded, straightened. He started down the sidewalk, and in the early evening of New York City, people stared at his almost-naked, bronzed body. A woman walking her teacup dog walked by and did a double-take at the club hanging from his lion skin.

We were getting far, far too much notice.

“Get back in the taxi,” I begged. “Get back in and we’ll go to Nymphos.”

Hercules paused mid-stride, glanced back like a model on a catwalk. “We’ll go?”

“Cupid swung the door back open. “Get in, big guy. You’re about to be questioned by the po-po for public indecency.”

And so Hercules climbed back into the car. The side of the taxi sagged as he did, and when all four doors were shut, I leaned over and pushed the lock on Hercules’s door.

“So now you want to go to Nymphos instead of the center of Times Square.” Our driver could barely hide his irritation.

I made an apologetic face. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, we’d like to go to Nymphos.”

“Those kinds of places don’t open until nighttime.”

“We shall wait,” Hercules said, “until the Hesperides open their gates.”

I gestured back at Hercules. “You heard the man. Take us there.”

Ten minutes later, we stepped out of the taxi on 7th and 51st. Before us, a black-curtained set of windows encompassed one side of a building, a blazing neon sign lighting the street for yards.

NYMPHOS.

Hercules approached the door, which didn’t have an outer handle. He tried peering through the opaque glass, both hands cupped around his eyes. He knocked once, set his ear to the glass.

How had this man survived sixty-five days in the modern world?

“They’re not open yet, Herc,” Cupid explained, floating to his side. “We need to wait a few hours.”

Hercules let out a low growl. “You saw them, Cupid. You saw the Hesperides in their traditional poses.”

I scanned the block around us. It wasn’t as populous as the main thoroughfare some fifty feet off, but I still met eyes with a pedestrian, whose gaze slid past me to Hercules. She didn’t even notice Cupid.

People were still staring.

I stood next to Justin, my hand sliding into his. I could feel his tremor again; even so, I also felt his warmth. I squeezed. “How are you?”

“Oh, you know”—he shrugged one shoulder—“just unsuccessfully trying to process a bunch of Other genes spliced with my own.”

“Hang in there.” I raised a finger, pointed at a barber shop near the end of the block. “How about that haircut?”

He groaned. “Not the hair.”

“And we can drop into that Gap to get clothes for me and Herc and Cupid.”

Justin eyed them. “I doubt we’ll find anything big enough … or small enough.”

I shifted from foot to foot; my right arm was throbbing now. “Mostly the goal is to get these two off the street.”

Hercules pounded three times with his fist. “Hesperides! Open your gates.”

Justin and I met eyes. “Right,” he said. “You take them to the Gap, I’ll get rid of my hair. We go into the strip club and find a private booth to discuss getting to Times Square and finding the resistance. Deal?”

I pressed a kiss to his lips. “Deal.”

Justin left for the barber, and Cupid and I managed to pry Hercules away from Nymphos’ door on the promise that we would return in two hours.

When we came into the Gap, Hercules had to duck under the door as it chimed. The young woman manning the counter just stared, frozen with a blouse in mid-fold, her jaw slack.

Still, palpable relief settled over me. We were relatively safe in here. I leaned toward Hercules, my eyes on the attendant. “That is why you need to wear clothes.”

“Isa,” Hercules said, one massive hand rising to pat my arm. For all Justin’s warmth, the demigod’s hand practically scalded me through my coat. “Surely you’re acquainted with such reactions. By now I consider them not at all, because what is the physical form except passing, transient? It’s what’s in here.”

He tapped his finger to the side of his beautiful brown curls—by which I understood he meant his mind.

But all I could manage was to wonder how his hair gleamed so well under the store lights.

“What do you think of this?” Cupid had drifted over to a rack and raised a smart wool jacket to his chest, the hanger still inserted. “I just adore it.”

“Perfect.” I couldn’t help a soft smile; he was growing on me. “Cupid, will you help Hercules find some clothes? I need to step into the bathroom.”

Cupid stared Hercules up and down. “We’ll see. Might need a tailor just to make this guy a shirt that’ll fit.”

I set a hand on his small shoulder. “Anything’s better than a lion skin.” I turned, hesitated and turned back. My eyes flitted over Cupid’s loincloth. “You wouldn’t happen to have a phone I could borrow, would you?”

I shielded my eyes as he reached inside the little scrap of cloth. He poked me, floating up to my height. “I’ve got limited minutes. Don’t abuse them.”

I offered a grave nod as I accepted the phone. “Absolutely not.”

↔

I found the bathroom in the back of the store. I had to squeeze in, and the light flickered with precarious uncertainty before it stayed on, but I had privacy. Sheer, absolute privacy.

I set my backpack on the sink and pulled my phone out, staring at it. What if the World Army was tapping my calls, too? Surely they had that power. After all, they’d put an illegal tracer in Justin’s car.

He was a fugitive to the Canadian police, but what about here in the United States? Had they coordinated with the local police to create that minor blockade at the entrance to the city?

Perhaps. It was, after all, the World Army, an arm of the World Government. They fought for humanity, regardless of nationality. And their power transcended national borders.

I looked up Egya’s number on my phone, wrote it down in a notebook I pulled out of my backpack. I tugged a bobby pin from my hair and maneuvered the SIM card out of my phone, pocketed it and dropped the phone itself in the trash.

I called Egya on Cupid’s phone. I desperately needed to talk to him.

Except he didn’t pick up. I stared at myself in the mirror as the phone rang, pulling off my coat and rolling up the sleeve of my sweater once more. I cringed as the puncture came exposed—the rash had turned redder, and it was painful to the touch.

The phone kept ringing. Egya didn’t even have a voicemail option, so it eventually just went silent.

I tried again, the phone set between my ear and shoulder as I pulled out the first-aid kit from my backpack and swabbed a little disinfectant over the spot and taped a piece of gauze there.

After three unsuccessful calls, I yanked the phone from my ear and started texting. I need to talk to you, I wrote. It’s urgent. I set the phone in my backpack and placed my hands overtop it.

I sighed and spent a second contemplating who I wanted to look like this time.

I was getting sick of changing my face. For once in my long life, I just wanted to have a single appearance, one whose dimensions and angles Justin could grow used to. Could grow comfortable with, perhaps describe with perfect acuity even when he was old and his vision grew poor.

I stared at my dark hair and heart-shaped face in the mirror. It had been decades since I’d seen her, the woman I once considered a human sister, if an encantado could have such a thing. Hinata, a half-Japanese, half-British transplant from Japan to Brazil.

She’d saved me from another woman’s brutal scorn, and I loved her in the way you love your chosen family: completely, without conditions.

She hadn’t lived a long life, so her face had never aged past twenty-one. This was how I remembered her—how she looked the last day I ever saw her face: still careful of the world and optimistic all at once.

This was how I would commemorate her. Once all this was over, I would shift back to this beautiful face and remain with it until the end of my mortal life.

Right now, I just needed to change long enough to escape an army.

Except when I tried to shift into a new appearance, nothing happened. I closed my eyes and I felt nothing—no breeze around me, no percolation inside me. I opened my eyes, and I saw Hinata’s terrified face gazing back.

Whatever was in the dart meant that I could not change. I could not use my magic. But that wasn’t possible. Was it? Even though I was clothed, I felt naked without my magic. Panic started to raise in my throat and I clutched the sink, breathing fast and hard.

My last anxiety attack had occurred four years ago, when the gods left. But it came on in just the same way as they always had: with an impending sense of doom.

The walls of the bathroom seemed to grow tighter, the light above me turned harsh, and it was all I could do to ride the waves of my heaving chest through the terror circulating inside my head.

The thing about panic attacks is that they feel like eternity, like forever. But when they pass and you look at a clock, an impossibly short time has passed. Meanwhile, a thousand dark thoughts have sieved through your mind.

At the end, I stared at myself, still in the same illusion I had taken on when Justin and I had arrived at the motel. “This is your face,” I said. “This is your face right now.”

Fifteen minutes later, I came out of the bathroom and found Cupid floating outside one of the tiny dressing stalls, dressed in the dapper wool coat he’d shown me, a sweater vest and a pair of jeans he’d cuffed at the ankles. On his feet were a pair of baby-sized brogued leather boots.

Meanwhile, Hercules’s massive frame barely fit inside the stall, and he banged the door as he tried to change. “It’s not going to fit,” he reported over the door.

Cupid groaned. “Hold on—I’ll go find the extra-extra-extra-large stuff.” When he turned and saw me, he froze. “Isabella? What’s wrong?”

Hercules’s face appeared over the dressing room door. “Isa, you look like you’re about to faint.”

“Just find the clothes,” I whispered. “Then we need to leave.”

Cupid flew off to the extra-extra-extra-large section, and Hercules stepped out of the dressing room still in his lion skin. He came up to me, set the back of one palm against my forehead, and looked down at me with complete concern. “You’re warm.”

I would have chuckled if I wasn’t so terrified. Who would have thought Hercules, the demigod of Greek lore, was a caretaker? But then, so much of the nuance of personality and personhood was lost to history. Only the stories, embellished and polished by the people who lived to tell them, remained.

Looking up at Hercules, my stomach shifted as it had in the car. “I’m OK.”

“You are absolutely not,” he said. “You’re very easy for me to read.”

“How is that? You’ve only just met me.”

“As I mentioned, your eyes flick back and forth before you speak. The longer they do, the greater the weight on your mind. And when it’s bad, you develop two lines between your eyebrows.” He removed his hand from my forehead, drew his finger downward between my brows.

I tried not to shudder with the sensation. If I was easy for him to read, then he would definitely be able to tell how I reacted to his touch.

His finger fell away, and that expression of concern remained on his face. He waited in silence.

I drew in a long breath. “I told you that I’m an encantado.”

“Yes.”

“And we have the ability to take on different appearances.”

He nodded.

I pointed to my shoulder. “When we escaped the tunnel, the World Army shot me with something.”

His eyes drifted to my shoulder. “I saw.”

“You did?”

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I knew you would tell me if I needed to be told.”

He’d only just met me, and Hercules completely trusted my judgment. Right now, I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done that.

Hercules and I stared at one another until our silence was broken by Cupid flitting over. “Get a load of these!” he crooned, dragging along a pair of extra-extra-extra-large mustard corduroys.

Chapter 10

When I spotted Justin outside the barbershop, he’d changed out his sweater for a long-sleeved shirt with the cityscape monogrammed on the front. He was rubbing his hand over the orb of his newly shaved head and staring at the sidewalk. His other hand folded and unfolded at his side.

So here was my boyfriend in relief, unaware of being observed. He looked like a man carrying a planet on his shoulders.

I came up behind him, slipped my arms around his waist. “Hey.” Whatever had passed between me and Hercules in the Gap, my guilt came out in the kiss I planted on his cheek. “You look like a proper tourist now.”

Justin flinched before he relaxed to my touch, his elbow rising backward toward my chin, and for a second, I thought he might pop me right in the jaw. He’s trained as a soldier, I thought in that moment. You don’t walk up and grab a soldier like that.

But he stopped himself just in time. When he turned toward me, a forced smile tugged at his mouth, disappeared as quickly. “I’m broken,” he murmured.

“What?”

“I’ve been useless to you. Sick, passed out. It wasn’t me who saved us back at the tunnel. It was supposed to be me.”

“Useless?” The thought made me scoff, and yet … a part of me resisted acknowledging that, in some ways, Justin’s choice to let Serena Russo mess with his genes had caused all this. The illness, the lapses into unconsciousness. All of it.

He saw my thoughts behind my eyes. “You know it’s true. The whole reason I joined the cadets back in Montreal, trained with the World Army, was to be useful. Kat ...”

When he trailed off, I waited. But nothing else came.

“Kat?” I said.

He shook his head, avoiding my eyes. “I was useless to her, too.”

I hesitated, but I couldn’t help myself. “Do you miss her?”

We encantado know men. We know their tics, their gestures, what they mean when they say no, and what they mean when they say yes. And right now, Justin was giving me every indication that the answer to my question wasn’t no.

“No,” he said, finally meeting eyes, “I don’t miss Kat.”

He missed her. Of course he missed her. They had only just broken up before we had to leave Montreal. It made sense, after all—feelings didn’t just transfer from one face to another. Not if they were real.

And his had been real. I had to admire that.

The part of me that adored him surged to the surface. “If you hadn’t been with me all this time, I wouldn’t have made it this far. I promise you that.”

“You’re sweet, Isa.” He leaned forward, planted such a tender kiss on my cheek that it felt more meaningful than some kisses I’d had on the lips. “When the time comes,” he said, “I won’t fail you.”

Before I could respond, his gaze shifted behind me, and he barked a laugh.

When I turned, the two demigods stood outside the Gap, looking right out of different decades. Hercules’s mustard corduroys fit his width, but not his height; they ended at his ankles. He’d paired them with a black, v-neck sweater and still—still!—he managed to look like a babe.

Meanwhile, Cupid had stuck with his wool coat, his sweater vest, his jeans, and his brogued boots. He couldn’t fly in that getup, so he just looked like the most stylish child of New York’s elite as he walked down the sidewalk.

“Oh no, Isa,” was all Justin had to say about the two of them. But I saw the way his eyes lingered on Hercules’s biceps in that shirt. Evidently I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t help but admire his physique.

“Call me Hinata,” I said. “For now.”

Justin touched my long hair, my lips. “You haven’t changed illusions.”

“About that …” I leaned close to whisper in his ear. “I can’t shift.”

“What?” His hands went to my shoulders. I winced when he touched my right side, and his fingers fell away. Before I could protest, he urged aside the collar of my loose-necked sweater to see. Concern clouded his features. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Hercules stepped forward. “The fiends shot her with a dart of black magic that limits her powers. But she is strong. She will overcome the venom coursing through her veins.”

“I was shot with a dart filled with something that stops me from shifting. Not black magic.” I shot Hercules a glance. “Science.”

Hercules nodded sagely. “Black science.”

“Sure,” I said. “Black science.”

Cupid snickered. “I forgot what a hoot this guy is.”

Justin raised an eyebrow. “Hercules already knew about this?”

Shame rose in me, and then the defensiveness that sometimes follows shame. “He was carrying me. Come on”—I pulled my collar back up—“we don’t have time for this. Not here. Not now.”

Justin’s expression morphed from hurt to expressionless, an effect of his training: instantaneous compartmentalization. I had seen him do it once or twice before, and each time it was discomforting, mostly because it had all happened so quickly.

It felt like one day he’d been Justin, and the next—after some Clockwork Orange-style conditioning, VR sessions, and time spent under Sergeant Johnson’s tutelage—he’d been a soldier.

Justin retrieved a pocket knife from his waistband, but he left it folded. “We need to go inside the barbershop.”

I stared at it, then at him. “What the hell are you doing?”

“You may be a capable scientist, but I know the World Army’s tactics.” He pointed at my shoulder. “They put a tracer in your arm. We need to cut it out.”

I reached up, felt under my sweater. At first I could barely touch the spot for how tender it had become, but I persisted with my rubbing until there, beneath the skin, I discovered a tiny nub I’d never felt before. It lay right where I’d pulled the dart out.

“Shit.” The street around us lay empty, not a pedestrian in sight, and yet I knew the army would come here. They would come here just as they had come for us in the tunnel. Just as they had found us every time since we’d left Montreal because of the tracer we’d never noticed inside Justin’s car. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize.”

This modern world with its trackers, WIFI and satellites … It was all so confusing. I was out of my element. Now put me up against a gaggle of witches and I’d know exactly what to do.

Still I should have known better after I’d found the tiny disc on the floor of his Mustang.

Justin threw his arm around me, started us toward the barbershop. “We’ll fix this. Come on.” Hercules and Cupid followed after, but Justin held up a hand. “Not you two. Cupid, did you see that McDs two blocks back?”

Cupid nodded.

“We’ll meet you there.”

“I can help,” Hercules said. “In antiquity, I performed a surgery to remove gout from the big toe of Achill—”

“No,” Justin said. “This isn’t antiquity—it’s modernity. It’s World Army tech. I know how to handle it. And as much as you’d like to think otherwise, she is my girlfriend. The love of my life. Not yours.”

Justin squared off against Hercules, and I thought: He’s back. Justin’s back.

“We’ll meet you there, OK?” I said over my shoulder. I pulled Justin away before the clash of the … ahh, yummy titans could really get interesting. We left the other two on the sidewalk and went inside the barbershop, where Justin’s black hair was being swept up by the barber.

“Bathroom?” Justin said to him.

The barber took one look at me and pointed to the back. “No needles.”

“It’s not like that,” I said with an embarrassed laugh as Justin urged me toward the back of the shop.

We went inside the bathroom, and Justin pointed at the toilet. “Sit.”

He seemed to be taking pleasure in this: for once, having some modicum of control over the situation. Knowing exactly what to do. How to help me.

And I was happy to make him happy.

I did as he said, pushing the toilet cover down and sitting on it, germs be damned. I felt completely out of my depth, ashamed that I had missed something so obvious to anyone with military training. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I said as he flicked the knife open, ran it under hot water in the faucet. “How bad will it be?”

“They’re coming, Isa. We need to get this done fast.” By which I could tell he meant: it would hurt a fair bit. He gestured for me to remove my sweater, which I did.

I grabbed my first-aid kit from my backpack and got an alcohol swab out, rubbed it over the spot where the dart had gotten me.

Justin knelt beside me, and we met eyes.

“Do what you need to do,” I said. “I trust you.”

What passed between us in that moment was more than just an incision in the bathroom. More intimate than any love making. More precious than any secrets shared.

It was validation. I saw it in his eyes, the light that appeared inside them. I trusted him, and that fact meant the world to him.

So I set a hand to his cheek and said it outright. “I trust you, Justin.”

And because we had no more time, he set both hands to my arm and proceeded to cut the tiny capsule out.

Except it wasn’t a tiny hurt. It was horrendous.

The knife cut in, and I felt it all. I pressed my eyes shut, gripped his thigh with my hand. I tried not to scream, but in the end, I had to muffle my mouth with my hand.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered as he dug for the tracer. I might have heard his voice break on the words, but it was hard to tell with the overwhelming pain. I only knew that my eyes opened, blurry with tears, and I saw his own eyes glossy under the light.

This act pained him, too, even as he forced himself to do it. Even as he swiped the tears away to keep his focus.

Finally, when I was about to scream that I couldn’t take it anymore, he stopped with an exhale. “There.”

But all I could see was blood on his palms. “You got it?”

“I got it. Now we get the hell away from it.”

He cleaned me up with a few gauze pads, pressed one over my shoulder with some tape. I threw my sweater back on, and we ran out of the bathroom and through the barbershop. When we hit the alley, we headed for the nearest dumpster.

Justin handed me the tracer, a minuscule capsule no bigger than an allergy tablet. “Go ahead.”

“Sayonara, and fuck you,” I said as I tossed it in. May we never cross paths again.

But of course, given our luck, that was a dream of a hope.

↔

When we came into the McDonalds, Hercules and Cupid were engrossed in the TV beside a hearth with a fake fire burning. Between them, they had about half a dozen Big Macs, and even more balled-up wrappers littering the table.

“How,” I said as we approached, “did you even …?”

Cupid turned to me with lettuce sticking out of his full mouth. He just pointed at Hercules.

“Whatever,” I said as Justin and I sat. I got to work with the first-aid kit, treating my arm.

Hercules pressed an entire hamburger into his mouth as a prelude to his question. “Is it done?” he said as it bulged from his cheeks.

“It’s done,” Justin said. “We need to get out of here. But first, we need new names.”

“Names?” Cupid said.

Justin pointed at himself. “You can call me Joe.”

“Joe?” I said.

Cupid raised a finger. “There’s about a 50/50 chance of being named Joe if you live in this city. It’s a good choice.”

Justin shifted his eyes to Hercules. “And you?”

“Eurystheus, in honor of the king who bestowed my twelve labors upon me to atone for my crimes,” Hercules declared.

“No,” Justin said, “you’re Mike.”

I gritted my teeth, waiting for the two of them to start arguing over Hercules’s undercover name.

“Mike,” Hercules repeated. “Mike is a fine name.”

The tautness inside me eased; Hercules had sensed the tension of this situation and decided to be agreeable. That, or maybe he did think Mike was a fine name. Either way, he wasn’t the authoritarian I’d imagined Hercules of legend would be. He had more compromise in him than that.

Another reminder that stereotypes were frail shells, easily broken.

“And you’re ...” Justin began, his eyes on Cupid.

Cupid waved his hands in the air. “I’m the only one here who’s lived in New York. I get to pick my name.” He paused. “I’m Harper.”

We all turned to him in confusion.

He plucked at his coat. “Come on, I look like I walked straight out of a United Colors of Benetton ad. I’m a Harper.”

I shrugged; that was, after all, exactly what I’d thought earlier. “He’s right.”

“All right, then.” Justin stood, grabbed a Big Mac and bit into it. “Then let’s go find these apples.” He said apples with the disdain of an atheist in a chapel.

We all rose—Hercules gathered his remaining burgers from the tray like he was looting a treasure chest—and passed out of the McDonalds as tightly strung as wires, all four of us.

We were going to need a drink or two once we got to the club.

Chapter 11

Outside Nymphos, a bouncer sized us up with folded arms. Except he was shorter than Hercules by more than half a foot, and Hercules, who’d taken a cue from the bouncer, stood in the same folded-arm pose.

I could tell he was trying to fit in, make the right impression, but he was more intimidating than anything.

I tugged at Hercules’s arm. “Just stand normally.”

“All right.” He shifted both hands to his hips and pressed his chest farther out.

“Just put your hands down, Herc—I mean, Mike,” I said. As an Other who’d had to deal with few non-humans, I hadn’t realized how annoying it would be to babysit a demigod who’d only spent two months in the modern world. Sometimes he was a paragon of wisdom; other times, Hercules seemed impossibly dense.

But he did as I asked. His hand brushed the back of mine as it lowered to his side, and I stepped away toward Justin, who had pulled out his ID to show the bouncer.

The bouncer’s eyes flicked from Justin’s license to his face. “Canada, eh?”

“That’s right.”

“Get it?” The bouncer half-smirked. “Canada, eh?”

Justin’s first reaction was to groan, but he quickly shifted it into a laugh. He slapped his thigh. “I get it, eh!”

I laughed with them, and stepped close to Justin as the bouncer waved him through. When he saw me trying to sidle in, the bouncer pointed at me. “What about you?”

My ID still had my old, redheaded appearance; it wouldn’t work at all. So I turned on my encantado sultriness, gazing up at the bouncer from under my eyelashes. “I forgot to bring it. I hope that’s OK.”

His eyebrows lowered, face warming. Still got it, I thought as he nodded me through.

Justin held the door open for me, but I hesitated as Hercules and Cupid stepped up to the bouncer.

Cupid went first, standing on tiptoes to hold his license up. Even then, he barely reached the bouncer’s waist. “You’re Cupid?” the bouncer said, crouching to examine the card. “Like, the Cupid?”

“Cupid of Eros. There’s a distinction.”

“Where’s your …” The bouncer’s fingers wiggled in the air. “You know, bow and arrow and wings?”

“The wings are hidden,” Cupid explained. “And I would never bring weapons into an establishment like this.”

Of course, we all knew Cupid’s bow and arrows were hidden under his jacket.

The bouncer flicked Cupid’s ID between his fingers. “It says here you’re two thousand years old.”

“That’s right.”

“You look about three.”

“Three thousand?” Cupid looked offended.

“No—three years old.”

“Oh!” Cupid chuckled. “I moisturize.”

The bouncer looked conflicted. “So you’re permanently a three-year-old child.”

“Listen, buddy.” Cupid seemed to be building toward a fight, but then he gave a long sigh. Both his hands raised, palms facing upward. “You know the actor who played that kid in that show?”

“What actor? What show?”

“You know, the guy who had the condition.” Cupid made a face, then, “Whatcha talkin’ ‘bout Willis? Well, he had this condition that made him look forever young, and ...”

The bouncer burst into laughter, and the rest of Cupid’s explanation was drowned out. The man slapped his thigh. “Oh, I get it. That’s great—get in there, kid.”

Cupid yanked his ID out of the bouncer’s hand and looked like he was about to say more, but I yanked him through the door. “Don’t.”

“But he thinks I’m some sort of … of …” Cupid’s hand flailed through the air, searching for the word.

“Whatever he thinks you are,” Justin said, “you’re in.”

Cupid let a frustrated huff and leaned against the doorway, arms folded.

When Hercules stepped up, he and the bouncer surveyed one another. The bouncer took in his ankle-length yellow corduroys, his sweater, his bouncing locks, the club still at his waist. Shit, I should have told him to lose the wooden club.

“ID?” he asked.

“I’m Mike,” Hercules boomed, breaking into a full-toothed grin.

The bouncer hesitated, but he couldn’t stop his own smile. “Mike?” He rubbed his chin. “Mike, why haven’t I seen you around before?”

“Oh my GoneGods,” I whispered to Justin. “Is he …?”

“Yep,” Justin said, “he is.”

Hercules lifted one shoulder. “My journey did not take me through the Big Apple until tonight.”

“I’m glad it did.” The bouncer leaned toward Hercules and whispered something I couldn’t hear, then patted him on the back.

When Hercules met us in the doorway, he had to duck and turn sidelong to get through.

“What did he say to you?” I asked.

“Who?” Hercules asked.

“The bouncer,” Justin whispered.

“Oh, that’s Ralph. He told me his favorite sequence of numbers.”

“Oh my GoneGods,” I said to Justin as we turned toward the hallway. “The bouncer gave him his number.”

“His number?” Hercules asked.

“He likes you,” I clarified.

“Ahh, good. I like him, too. His girth impresses me.”

“Are you …?” I let my question hang, not finishing it. I didn’t want to be rude.

“Herc here swings both ways,” Cupid said, leading the way down the dark hall and removing his jacket as he did. “And let me tell you, not a man, woman or anyone in between could resist him back in antiquity. That loincloth was on the floor more often than it was around his waist.”

Justin and I burst into laughter, covering our mouths. If Hercules noticed—or cared—he didn’t show it. The demigod just strutted.

We took off our own jackets as we came into the club. A sultry, lyricless music ebbed around us, growing as we entered the dim cave where a goddess of a woman was in the process of entwining her legs around a pole.

The four of us stopped together, watching her milky, impossibly long limbs undulate to the music. With both hands she pulled herself up the length of the pole almost to the ceiling, then straightened her legs as she swirled around the long piece of metal all the way down.

When she touched the stage, her legs were wide open, and I knew I wasn’t the only one whose eyes followed her thighs all the way up to the little slip of lace keeping all of this PG-13.

A smile touched her lips as she met eyes with Hercules, and I sensed him puff up. Irresistible indeed.

A young hostess appeared beside me, evidently pegging me as the only one able to form words. “Booth or table?”

“Booth,” I said. Better for privacy.

“Drinks?”

“What do you have?” I asked, still surveying the strip club.

The dancer on stage had swept back up onto her feet, her mint-green hair swaying around her head as she gripped the pole with one hand. Tiny twinkle lights framed the catwalk beneath her, a constellation of stars in the encroaching darkness.

I couldn’t tell if the club was empty, because I couldn’t see much of anything beyond the edge of a table some six feet off.

That made sense. I had been to a few strip clubs in my time—I may have even danced on a stage or two when I got drunk enough—and nobody in the audience wanted to be looking at each other.

The young server’s fingers touched my unhurt shoulder. “Are you Others?” she whispered.

All at once, my focus centered on her. She could be a World Army plant, or just an Otherist. Either way, she got a skeptical glare. “Why do you ask?”

Her hand lifted. “No offense. It’s just that we have some fantastic Ambrosia.”

“Oh.” It had been decades since I’d had Ambrosia—and even longer since I’d had a good cup. And as it turned out, the stuff was too potent for humans. It was, in fact, restricted in most countries to Others only. “Sure. We’ll take three. And one beer.”

The hostess smiled. “Feel free to claim any booth—you’re the first ones here.”

When she left, I turned back to the other three. None had even registered my conversation with the hostess, all three sets of eyes still fixed on the dancer on stage. “Guys, let’s go sit.”

No one reacted.

I stepped in front of them, clapped my hands. “Guys.”

Still, no reaction.

I groaned and slung one arm through Justin’s and the other through Hercules’s. They allowed me to lead them over to the nearest booth, and Cupid followed like an imprinted duckling as we all squeezed in.

Hercules’s thighs pressed up against the bottom of the table, forcing it to a slant.

Up on stage, the dancer had removed her bejeweled top, now swung it around one finger. Except no one was looking at that finger.

“Is that one of the Hesperides?” I asked Hercules.

He took a moment to answer, his mouth slightly ajar as he stared. Just as I was about to repeat my question, he shook his head. “She is only human.”

The dancer left the stage, and the lights dimmed before the next performance. When they rose again, three nearly identical dancers slipped out from backstage, each of them not so much walking as pooling onto the stage, their movements as fluid as water.

The first was blue-haired, the second a soft purple, and the third a deep red, all three holding hands in a line as they poured toward the end of the catwalk.

They looked like Victoria’s Secret models, except they moved better. Like liquid sex. Their hips gyrated in infinity signs as they came forward, which I didn’t even realize was possible for hips to do (and I’m an encantado, which is saying something).

But it was mostly what was above those hips that captured me.

“Unreal,” Cupid murmured.

“How do they …” Justin began.

“Can those be real?” I asked. “They’re like …”

“Perfectly laden wineskins,” Hercules finished.

We couldn’t take our eyes off them.

The drinks arrived, but none of us reacted.

All at once, the three dancers stood together at the end of the stage, opened their mouths, and harmonized. They sounded like angels. More than that: their voices transported me, and I found myself hardly in my own body.

I felt like I was up on stage with them, and the world sliding around me in slow motion. The lights slid to watercolor, and I didn’t know how much time passed before Hercules jarred me to life by clapping his empty glass on the table.

The demigod pointed. “That’s them.”

Chapter 12

Whoever these women were—I was still dubious that the actual Hesperides had become strip club dancers in New York City—they were fantastic. All three of them moved in synergy as they sang, periodically flouncing their mini-togas to throw us a glimpse of what lay beneath.

And what lay beneath you could bounce a Canadian half-dollar off of.

I could try to shift illusions a thousand times and I’d never be close to what they were. Damn, girl, I thought, Hercules might not be the only one who swings both ways.

Justin and I were supposed to take this moment to strategize about getting to Times Square and finding the resistance. But as I watched him sip his beer and chat with Cupid, I saw the tension easing from his shoulders for the first time in weeks.

“This,” Cupid was saying as they watched, “is one of the purest examples of eros—love of now. We often referred to it as theia mania, or madness from the gods.” He chuckled as Justin ogled the redheaded nymph. “I guess we were wrong about that.”

Justin nodded, taking another sip of beer. “Uh-huh.”

“It’s momentary, immediate, but overwhelmingly powerful. Do you feel it?”

“I feel it.”

I grinned; as an encantado, I didn’t feel jealousy over my lover enjoying the sight of other women, other lovers. For us, sexuality came in many forms and expressions. If it made Justin happy, it made me happy.

And as anxious as we both were about finding the resistance, the loving part of me wanted to allow him this time. Just a little space between the bad and the terrible. War was long, after all, and every soldier needed R&R, at the risk of his sanity.

“You see,” Cupid went on, “modern love romanticizes eros. Having a crush, falling in love, being head over heels for your lover. But all have a common thread.” He waved a hand in front of Justin’s face, which my boyfriend didn’t even notice. “A loss of control.”

I chuckled, but Hercules appeared grave. “A frightening thing.”

“Herc here still feels the ancients’ fear of eros.” Cupid took a sip of Ambrosia. “In the ancient world, humans and gods alike dreaded it.”

“Why?” I asked. We encantado loved lust as much as we loved love—each and every part of it. I couldn’t imagine fearing such a thing. I gestured to Justin, who didn’t seem to be following our conversation at all; his eyes were still locked on the stage. “Yeah, he ‘lost control,’ but it’s harmless.”

Cupid raised his eyebrows at me. “Have you never heard of a spurned lover driven to depression? Or even murder? Therein lies the true danger of the madness of love.”

Well, he had a point. A good one.

I finished my Ambrosia. “If you feel this way about eros, then how can you possibly bear to be Cupid of Eros?”

“Ah.” He raised a chubby finger. “Because the only moment we have is this one. We don’t have the future, and we don’t have the past. It’s in the present that we make our lives, and while lust may be terrifying, there’s also a reason why the modern world is obsessed with romance. It makes us feel alive.”

Silence fell over the table, and I contemplated Cupid’s words. They struck hard and deep for me, given the creature I was. I thought about the centuries I’d spent falling in and out of lust and love, driven by it and drawn to it like a mammal to water.

Hercules’s chuckle drew me out of my own head. “And to think,” he said, “such wisdom from a demigod who looks like a toddler.”

This broke Justin out of his spell. The whole table started laughing, and even Cupid cracked a smile. “Yeah, yeah … laugh it up. But every one of you knows that love of now is the only love you can trust.”

I took a deep sip of my Ambrosia, and as it burned down my throat, I turned to Hercules. “So where are these apples?”

Hercules remained stone-faced, set a finger to his lips. “Speak quietly of them, for the Hesperides will hear.” He leaned toward me. “They’ve hidden them. Perhaps behind that curtain.”

I took another long sip as we both gazed at a curtain near the back of the stage. “Before you go rooting around back there, how do you know these women are the Hesperides?”

His finger lifted to the three on stage. “I saw them once, long ago. You see, I first completed this labor for King Eurystheus, who tasked me with sneaking into Hera’s garden and plucking three apples from her sacred tree. The Hesperides—those nymphs before us known as Aigle, Hesperia, and Erytheia—guarded the fruit with their lives.”

“Who’s who?”

He jerked his chin toward the blue-haired one. “Aigle. Her name means ‘dazzling light.’ ” Over on stage, her blue hair gleamed almost in technicolor, and she was in fact the flashiest of the dancers—the dazzler of the three—as she gripped the pole and swung around with the other two surrounding her.

“The one with purple hair is Hesperia, also known as sunset glow. She’s the softest and most pliant.”

“And that one?” I gestured to the red-headed dancer—the only one who didn’t seem to be wearing a wig.

“Erytheia, the red one. She’s vicious, one to be wary of.”

“How did you get past them?”

“I enlisted my handsomest friend to distract them.”

“Handsomer than you?” I blurted, then covered my mouth. The Ambrosia must have been doing its work, because I wouldn’t normally have said that. Fortunately, Justin was still distracted.

Hercules chuckled. “You flatter me. But yes, Theseus was handsomer, wiser and more intelligent. The Hesperides were in the palm of his hand almost as soon as he entered their line of vision.”

I finished my glass. I had gone through those eight ounces way too quickly. “That worked?”

“Oh yes. You see, they may be guardians, but they are forever young women. And as Cupid will tell you, the flesh always beckons.”

Our hostess appeared. “More Ambrosia?”

“Yes,” I said at once.

After three more top-ups on our drinks, I was ready to infiltrate. Actually, I managed to climb over our table and up onto the stage, where the Hesperides were on to their fourth song.

When I pulled myself up next to them, they seamlessly incorporated me into their dance. The blue-haired one Hercules had called Aigle—dazzling light, my Ambrosia-addled brain recalled—took my hand in her soft fingers and pulled me right in.

And though I try to be humble, there are a few things encantado are really, really good at. One is seduction, and another is dancing. We tend to be shy, but pour a few dozen ounces of Ambrosia down our throats and that shyness falls away like a shawl.

I danced with those Hesperides like I had a dollar left to my name.

“Hey,” Justin called from the darkness beyond the twinkle lights, “that’s my girlfriend!”

“Lucky man,” I heard Hercules reply.

Sober me would have been bashful about overhearing that. Inebriated me let out a whoop and attempted to do the infinity sign gyration with my hips, and I found myself back-to-front with one of the Hesperides, whose body aligned with mine so that those “perfectly laden wineskins” pressed up beneath my shoulder blades as she helped me with the movement.

Suffice it to say, I was completely infatuated.

Near the end of the third song, one of the nymphs helped me toward the edge of the stage. “You’re very good,” she murmured in my ear, red hair pouring over her shoulder. Erytheia. One to be wary of.

I gazed at her pouting lower lip, wanting to suck on it like a lollipop. My eyes drifted to her chest, and a line from a movie my college roommate and I had watched floated into my mind. “How about them apples?”

The nymph’s eyes widened as she let me off the stage. “What did you say?”

I turned to repeat myself, but Justin, who’d been waiting to ferry me off, took hold of my hand. “Hinata, honey, let’s get you back to the booth.”

As we approached, Cupid slid over next to Hercules. “Way to embody passionate love, Hinata.”

I mimed a curtsey and nearly tripped. “We encantado live to please.” Justin helped me into the booth, and it was only when I sat that I realized I had gotten way, way too drunk to do what we had intended to do.

“I’m sorry,” I said as Justin slipped in next to me. “We were supposed to talk about Times Square.”

He passed me a glass of water. “Drink this first.”

Apparently I was way drunker than anyone else, because I seemed to be the only one who was having trouble drinking without spilling.

I’d finally managed to hold my glass steady at my mouth at the same time as a middle-aged woman stepped up to our booth. She was clad in dark robes, her aged face a floating mirage of wrinkles to my inebriated brain. I recognized her as one of those sham psychic readers, and she was staring at Hercules.

“You,” the woman said to him. Her voice sounded like a handful of gravel in a bag.

I was about to tell him to ignore her, but Hercules lowered his glass to the table. “You.”

↔

“Don’t buy what she’s selling,” I whispered to him. “She’ll try to read your palm, and—”

Hercules waved a dismissive hand through the air. “The Oracle of Delphi would never do such a thing. She is the world’s most revered seer.”

“Indeed, young Heracles.” Despite the music, this “oracle’s” voice issued with crystal clarity into my ears. “I never thought we would meet again.”

Her eyes floated around to the rest of the party, then darted toward the stage, where I could have sworn Aigle, the blue-haired nymph, was keeping an eye on us as she danced.

Pythia’s gaze swept over the four of us. “I sense a strong spiritual presence among your group. Will your table join me in the reading room?”

Justin and I met eyes as Cupid and Hercules slid out of the booth and followed her. Justin shrugged at me. “The worst she can do is pull out the tarot cards and try to upsell us.”

His forehead was beaded with sweat, and even in my state, I had the sense to grab a napkin and dab at his skin. He was declining again.

“Justin,” I began, but when his eyes flashed, I remembered his nickname. “Joe,” I corrected, “what if she’s really the Oracle of Delphi? I mean, in this GoneGod World, it’s not impossible.”

He glanced toward the stage. Up there, the Eurytheia and Aigle were pressing their bodies against one another, both their faces on … us. They were staring at us.

“I don’t trust this,” Justin said. “I don’t trust any of it. I think this ‘Pythia’ and the nymphs are in cahoots, and that ‘reading room’ is a trap.”

I downed my glass of water, trying to sober up as fast as possible. “Then we need to be careful, which means we need to stick with Hercules. You saw what happened when he punched you. His own nose started bleeding. Like he said: his fate is entwined with yours, which means if anything happens to him before he gets those apples, it happens to you, too.”

Justin hadn’t taken his eyes off the nymphs. “And they’re going to fight us for these apples? They weigh less than me put together. No … there’s something else going on here. I think we should just go straight to the resistance in Times Square.”

My mouth opened, but I didn’t answer. Hercules and Cupid had disappeared into the “reading room” with Pythia, and Justin and I were alone. We could walk out of this club right now, head to Times Square and try to find the resistance. We could run.

And it was because I believed everything Hercules had told us about his labors and their entwined fates that I wanted to run. We’d be safer with Hercules and Cupid, but every instinct in me leaned toward leaving this club behind.

If I was honest, I liked to run. To disappear. But right now, I couldn’t even change my appearance. I had tried three times in the clothing store bathroom to no effect.

There was also this: I was beginning to feel something for the two demigods. A kinship of sorts. And if we walked out right now, any trust we’d developed would be obliterated. We would be abandoning them.

Moreover, I had promised myself that I wouldn’t run from the things I had to face. The promise came on the heels of walking into the forests of Mont Royal to meet the stymphalian birds and the monster Empusa.

I told myself after we’d defeated the birds and Empusa that I would never turn tail when it mattered.

Easier said than done for an encantado like me.

I grabbed Justin’s water and took a long, long drink. It cleared my head enough that the decision came to me with perfect ease. “We can’t leave them.”

Justin squeezed my hand. “We can. We’re not responsible for them—just us.”

“They’re Others, Justin, and one of them saved our lives. The other one’s life force is bound up with yours. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.” I let out a long sigh. “But it’s more than that. If we don’t take care of the two Others with us tonight, how can we possibly go to the resistance’s door?”

This seemed to hit him hard, because his eyes softened. “You’re right,” he whispered. “We have to bring them with us.”

“We have to bring them with us,” I repeated.

He squeezed my hand again before he lifted it, pressed his lips to my knuckles. “You’re a good person.”

My throat constricted, and I swallowed. “I mostly feel like a pretender.”

“It’s all in the intent, Hinata. Do you want to be good?”

I nodded.

“And you try to do good things?”

I nodded again.

“Then you’re a good person.”

Together, we slid out of the booth and passed along the stage toward the reading room. Justin pressed aside a black curtain, and we found Pythia flanked on either side by Hercules and Cupid, all sitting on a luxurious half-circle sofa under a pink light. The whole room, in fact, followed the shape of the sofa, and all of it was a soft pink.

“This is the champagne room.” I knew enough to know that this was where the really dirty, VIP action happened.

Pythia waved a hand through the air. “The room is called by its purpose. Right now, it is the reading room.” She gestured to the open spots beside Hercules and Cupid. “Sit, please.”

Justin and I separated. I sat next to Hercules, and he next to Cupid.

Pythia’s hands folded in her lap. “Tell me, Heracles, why you have returned. Tell me all.”

And like a man on a therapy couch, Hercules told all. Waking up where his funeral pyre had burned, the certainty inside him of his labors come undone. How he walked along an endless black road—a highway, I realized—past flat fields and houses, through snow and wind.

How he boarded a ship and crossed the ocean. Sixty-five days, and all the while he processed this new world and his place in it.

Aboard the ship, he sensed that someone had slain the stymphalian birds—the first of his undone labors. And that was when—here he pointed at Justin—“I determined I would find this one and kill him. He stole my labor from me.”

Justin lifted a hand to wave. “Hi. I’m that guy.”

Pythia regarded Justin at length. “But you did not kill him.”

“I did not.” Hercules clenched his hands. “For some reason, the murderous rage I had carried with me for so long simply … dissipated into an inexplicable loathing after I met him. I still do not understand it.”

Pythia’s eyes strayed to Cupid, who sat beside her. “You always were an imp.”

Cupid set an offended hand to his chest. “Moi? I did nothing to—”

Pythia raised a hand. “Enough. You know by now, Cupid of Eros, that I see the past with the same clarity as the future. You cannot hide such things from me.”

Cupid’s cheeks reddened. “I may have shot one arrow.”

Pythia gestured me forward. The sheer force of her presence brought me to a kneel in front of her, and she studied my face. Her eyes fluttered, closing and unclosing. “An Other,” she said. “One who possesses quite the story.”

“You sense it,” Cupid said.

“Oh yes. Yes, yes.” At once, her eyes opened, shifted to Justin. “Come.”

Justin seemed less convinced about kneeling in front of Pythia, but he did so. She did the same with him, and as her eyes fluttered, her white brows drew together. “Not human, not Other. One and both.” She paused. “You are deathly ill. How is it you kneel before me now?”

Justin scoffed. “I feel fine.”

“Determination and a strong will, it seems.” She shrugged, her eyes flitting between Justin and Hercules. “You have an identical injury to your noses.”

Hercules lowered his eyes. “It happened when he slew the stymphalian birds, Oracle.”

Justin went to stand, but Pythia pressed him back down. She withdrew one hand, set it on Hercules’s shoulder. Her nostrils flared, and her hands lifted abruptly from both men, as though she had touched a hot stove.

“Fools,” she whispered. “You fools have bound your fates.”

Chapter 13

I sat forward. “So it’s true?”

Pythia gathered her robes at her chest. “It’s as true as their swollen noses. By slaying the stymphalian birds, Heracles’s fate is now bound with Justin Truly’s—and Justin Truly’s fate is bound with Heracles’s. Such is the nature of the labors. Such are the laws of the gods. If one fails, the other dies.” She glanced at Justin. “And by the looks of him, your success is in doubt.”

My nails pressed into my thighs. “The gods are gone.”

“But their laws remain,” she shot back.

Hercules sighed out a low growl. “Can I not kill him and take the labor from him?”

I immediately stood up, standing between them, ready to claw Hercules’s eyes out if he made a move against Justin.

But the great warrior made no move—he didn’t even look in our direction. He just stared up at Pythia. His question wasn’t a threat—it was curiosity. Information that he’d act on later … if need be.

But any chance of him attacking Justin later was dispelled with a simple shake of Pythia’s head. “You had your chance, but you did not. Now it is too late.”

Hercules folded his arms. “Why?”

“Because you care for her.” Pythia gestured to me. “And she loves him.”

Hercules nodded in understanding.

Heat rushed up my neck. I had gotten that last part loud and clear, but of their bound fates I understood nothing. “What does that mean?”

“It means he had his shot, didn’t take it, and in the game of fate and destiny, won’t have another one,” Cupid said.

“What?” I fixed my fury on Cupid. “So now what? Their fates are intertwined. If this idiot gets himself killed, Justin goes, too.”

“Hey.” Cupid lifted his hands in defense. “Hate the game, not the playa.”

Justin shifted narrowed eyes to Cupid. “Please never string those words together in that order ever again.”

“Ahh, Greeks and their friggin’ mythology.” I squeezed my fingers to fists. “I miss the Amazon.”

In my mind, I played back the moment when Justin had killed the stymphalian birds. I was there. I had fed them the poisoned meat, even if I hadn’t brought them down with a bow and arrows. “Why not me? Why am I not bound to him, too? I helped to slay the creatures.”

“Not directly.” Justin rose and took my hand in his. “It’ll be OK.”

I pulled away. “Not true. I am the one responsible for their deaths. I killed the stymphalian birds, not Justin.”

Pythia’s eyebrow rose. “By your own hand?”

“Yes, I laid a trap of poisoned meat.”

Her eyes flicked to Justin. “And you?”

“Arrows,” he said. “I shot them with arrows.”

“Well”—her hand flicked through the air—“there you are. You are not the slayer, encantado.”

Hercules rose from his seat. “What is the condition of our binding, O great oracle?”

Pythia gazed up at him. “The completion of your labors. All of them.”

Cupid groaned. “The ancient rules were a real bitch.”

I stepped forward, one hand touching my chest. “I take responsibility.”

Pythia’s lip twitched up. “You care for this Justin Truly. I can see it clearly. But the fates do not adhere to your desires—they cling only to truth and action. And the truth of this matter is that this man you love is the slayer. It is his fate, and his alone, that remains bound.”

“You’re wrong,” I growled. “I choose for my fate to be bound with his. It may not be some force of magic, but it’s just as strong.”

Hercules stepped close to me, set a hand over mine and lifted my palm to his chest. “Isabella, I swear to you I will not fail in my labors. I completed them once, and will do so again. Justin Truly will not die.”

From behind Hercules’s massive form, I heard Justin’s low voice. “You all talk about me like I’m not here.”

He rose, and Hercules moved aside to allow a view of Justin, whose gaze moved from Pythia, to Cupid, to me and finally to Hercules. Fury raged inside him. “Maybe I won’t allow you to fail, Hercules. Maybe it’s your death I won’t allow. Maybe I’ll steal the apples from the Hesperians.”

A soft, gravelly chuckle emanated from the sofa—Pythia’s laugh. “You’ll steal the apples? Ah, humans and their hubris. You creatures, so low to the ground, have always lacked perspective.”

We all turned to the oracle, whose tiny smile had grown to a smirk. “And you, Heracles. You truly thought you traipse into our domain and simply”—she pretended to pick fruit from an invisible tree—“pluck the apples from Hera’s garden? You have always been a boisterous fool who can’t keep his mouth shut about his intentions.”

“I will complete this labor,” Hercules said. “Tell me where the apples are, Oracle.”

“Hidden,” Pythia spat. “From you.”

“I’ve only just arrived,” Hercules said. “How could you have possibly—”

“Known?” Pythia rose from the sofa, hands spreading. “I know all, son of Zeus. I see all, for I am the Oracle of Delphi. Two thousand years ago, it was I who instructed you to approach King Eurystheus. It was I who knew of your labors before they had even been given to you.”

She stepped forward. “And it is I who knew you would arrive this evening and attempt to thieve from the nymphs. I knew you would allow yourself to be led into this room.”

“See,” Justin whispered to me. “A trap.”

GoneGodDamn, Justin had been right all along.

“You helped me long ago,” Hercules said. “Why not now?”

“Helped you?” Pythia laughed. “I could have sent you to any king, but I chose Eurystheus, a man known for his hardness. The labors he assigned you were the most dangerous and impossible in the ancient world.”

“You helped me,” Hercules repeated. “If the labors had been less than they were, I would never have atoned for the murder of my family. By the gods, I ask you to help me complete this labor now.”

“The gods are gone, son of Zeus. All must make their way in this mortal world. And I?” Pythia pointed behind us. “I have chosen the guardians of Hera’s garden. The maidens of the west. They are my family.”

A soft thread of a voice emanated through the doorway behind us. “Hello, thief.” We turned and found Aigle, Erytheia and Hesperia in the doorway, the latter two flanking Aigle with their bodies pressed to the frame as though posing for a photo.

“Do you three just … naturally stand like that?” Justin asked.

Cupid leaned toward him. “They used to be much more modest. Modernity changed them.”

“Ah, Cupid”—Aigle, the blue-haired dazzler, stepped through the doorway—“I thought that was you. Tell me, can those tiny wings still carry you now that you’re mortal?”

The other two tittered, which was kind of like laughing at your own joke. I would have said as much, but Cupid ripped off his wool jacket and pulled his shirt untucked.

Before anyone could object, every piece of clothing had left the upper half of his body, and he rose into the air with his little chubby belly hanging over his jeans.

As I suspected, he’d managed to smuggle his bow and quiver in, which hung crossbody. Cupid crossed his arms. “Any other questions, Ai-gle?”

I had to give it to him: he enunciated each syllable of her name with admirable sass.

Erytheia the redhead stepped forward, one hand raising. “I have one. How many mortals did you have to shoot with arrows before you got one to look in your direction, Cupid of Eros?”

I glared at Erytheia; this was getting dirty. But before I could come up with a comeback in Cupid’s defense—I was always best at those in the shower, after the fact—Hesperia the purple-haired nymph pointed at me. “Figures he’d be running around with a human. Others won’t have him.”

Human? Me?

My mouth pursed to the size of a raspberry, and I could actually feel my IQ dropping as the heat rose up my neck.

It wasn’t that I’d been mistaken for a human—it was that, despite all the awfulness humans had perpetrated through history, my best friends in the world and the man I loved were human. They couldn’t be classed with such broad, derisive brushstrokes.

Not on my watch.

“You mistake me, Hesperians.” I stepped toward them. “You think I don’t speak for myself. I do.”

Justin brushed my side as he came forward. “Ladies, please …”

But another voice overpowered his. “Enough, nymphs.” Hercules had turned away from the oracle, his fingers folded to fists, knuckles pressing white beneath the skin. “Tell me where you’ve hidden Hera’s apples.”

Aigle lifted one finger to her chin. “Oh! You mean the three you stole two thousand years ago? I could ask you that very question, Her-cu-les.”

This room had more emphasis on syllables than a grade school classroom.

“I brought them to King Eurystheus,” Hercules declared, fists finding the seat of his hips.

“Whereupon they promptly rotted,” Hesperia spat. “You knew what would become of Hera’s apples once they left the garden. Now you want more?”

Justin raised a point-making finger. It was rare I’d seen him so coolheaded, but he was the only one present who hadn’t been insulted—and somebody needed to be the logical one. “You know, I don’t think Hera would mind if we took an apple or two, seeing as how the gods all, you know ... left.”

All at once, the three nymphs hissed. Some Others were in denial about the gods having left, other Others accepted it but disliked the reminder of it, and some Others …

Well, some Others hissed at you like you’d slapped them.

I took hold of Justin’s finger and slowly lowered it, shaking my head. “Good try, honey,” I whispered.

Then the fracas started.

↔

Back in Montreal, I had defeated a creature called El Lobizon. Imagine the biggest wolf you’ve ever seen, and then magnify its size by ten. I took one of his claws and had kept it for two reasons:

One, as a reminder of what I had endured to defeat such a fearsome beast, and the woman whose vendetta had led to her following me from Brazil all the way to Canada, and the dark curse she’d used to summon him.

Two, because that claw is 100%, indisputably badass.

You see, El Lobizon’s claws have the rare ability to nullify magic. I had been scratched with it once—barely an incision at all—and lost the ability to use my magic for a good hour.

It was even more potent than whatever had been inside the dart the World Army had shot me with outside the tunnel into New York, because El Lobizon’s claw hadn’t just made me unable to change illusions … it had made me unable to feel magic altogether.

When I’d been scratched with his claw, I had reverted to the natural encantado form—a majestic, pink mermaid-dolphin hybrid—right on the bathroom floor of a coffee shop. Which is a very long story, but suffice it to say, El Lobizon’s powers terrified even the angels.

If his claws could nullify magic for a time, imagine what his bite could do. (Answer: they could erase an Other’s ability to use magic for the rest of his or her mortal life.)

The claw hadn’t left my side since the night I defeated him. Sometimes, however, I needed to keep it in less obvious places.

When the nymphs moved at us, I knelt and pressed my fingers into the lip of my left boot. I found the leather grip and slipped El Lobizon’s claw out, rising with the iridescent dagger’s tip facing the ground, my fist tight around the leather.

I caught a glimpse of Erytheia and Hesperia sweeping out to each side, and Aigle moving straight at us in the center.

None drew the weapons at their hips, and none seemed prepared for physical confrontation. In fact, they were doing the opposite: they opened their arms wide, fingers reaching to the length of their wingspan.

Whatever they were doing, they didn’t plan to take us down head to head.

I only had a moment to process this before the others were in motion. Almost by instinct, Hercules and Justin closed in in front of me, obscuring my view of them. And beside me, Cupid had already drawn his bow and nocked an arrow, preparing to fire.

A thought flitted into my head: the three of them—Hercules, Justin and Cupid—had moved to surround me. To protect me.

And then the rejoinder came: Why me?

Why were they protecting me?

“Don’t listen to the nymphs,” Hercules rasped, his warmth pressing into me. “They will destroy your mind.”

I was about to ask what he meant, but the question was drowned beneath the most beautiful harmonizing I had heard in half a millennium—as long as I had lived—as those three sets of lips parted and a song came pouring from their mouths.

It was different from what I’d heard out there on the stage. Bigger. Brighter. Glorious. It was so beautiful that it obliterated my understanding of song, of music, of sound.

It became the only song I had ever heard—the only one I ever wanted to hear again.

My eyes rose to the ceiling, where a glass shade covered the light, cast the room in pink.

I blinked, and all at once I existed not quite in Nymphos, but not quite out of it, either. My thoughts came to me like leaves down a stream, and I at the bank, only able to observe them approach and then pass.

I could not hold on to them. Not a single one. And for a ruminator—a worrier, a thinker, a cerebral Other—the frustration was incomparable. I could not think on a thing long enough to form a decision.

And so I was left in perpetual indecision.

Why was I so affected? And the answer came at once: Because these are men of action. And you are a creature of thought.

Around me, Hercules, Justin and Cupid moved as though through jelly. I watched Hercules’s beautiful locks sweep into the air as he ducked, the tendons of his soles flexing as he came onto the balls of his feet. He intended to rush the nymphs, to end their song.

And there beside Hercules, Justin pressing right, his cupped hand—I loved those fingers, that hand—rising to cover Erytheia’s beautiful mouth. His jaw flexed in profile, and what glimpse I got of his right eye was focused not on her, but on … me.

He was worried about me. He hadn’t even noticed the shimmer of metal slipped from the breast of Erytheia’s mini-toga, the deadly edge that she poised now to slide right into the center of his chest as he came close.

Justin needed me. Except I couldn’t articulate a thought in my mind to speak it. I couldn’t converge my attention on my desire to swing El Lobizon’s claw long enough to activate the muscles needed to do so.

From my periphery, an arrowhead pierced the same horizontal space occupied by Erytheia’s neck. As it pressed through the room toward her, I observed Cupid’s signature—CUPID’S ARROW ♥♥—gleaming under the pink light, the feathering swaying in the air.

What a miracle of aerodynamics. In that moment I loved Cupid, adored the whittled piece of wood and metal and feather that would enter Erytheia’s neck, pour tendrils of desire into her. It would mean the difference between Justin’s life and death.

On and on it went, cleaving the air right to the spot where her unlined neck met her unspotted décolletage—and slid right past and on into infinity.

She’d moved.

Which meant Cupid had missed. It would take another eon for the arrow to strike the pink-padded far wall and buzz there with the force of his shot.

And because Cupid had missed, Erytheia’s little blade drew closer now to Justin’s chest. Closer and closer.

Warmth seized my hand, familiar fingers squeezing my own. Justin’s fingers. I didn’t have the wherewithal to squeeze back, or even to look down, but his green eyes were still on me with worry.

No—not worry. He squeezed harder, sliding his fingers in under my grip on El Lobizon’s claw. In one super-human moment it entered his possession, the iridescent curve of it rising into my view and up to Erytheia’s bird-boned forearm.

She had overextended to get to him, and now she would receive her punishment.

Such a small cut he delivered, even as he curved his body in and away from her blade—oh, Justin, what did Russo do to make you like this? Was it worth it?—and only the very tip made it past his jacket and pierced his own chest.

El Lobizon’s claw never failed. A drop of blood issued from the cut on Erytheia’s porcelain arm, inching down like condensation.

I watched her comprehend in half-time what Justin had done to her. Her pretty mouth opened wider, eyebrows drawing together, and her chest expanded in preparation for what I knew was a scream.

But El Lobizon’s magic worked faster than that. Much faster.

Just like that, the music ended. The world resumed at pace, and Pythia’s voice poured into my ears.

“Kill the human first,” she was saying. “Kill him now.”

Chapter 14

I blinked, gasped in real-time. Around me, a drag-down fight ensued at what felt like an impossible pace.

Justin lunged toward Erytheia, the knife edge of his palm connecting with her wrist. The blade flew from her hand, disappeared into the pink shag carpet.

But I couldn’t comprehend the fistfight that ensued, only the noises—the shuddering sound of bone on bone as she kicked, met his shin.

The sound of Cupid’s hummingbird wings buzzing by my ear and his cherubic face appearing beside me.

The creak of his bow as he nocked another arrow, aimed across the room.

The sound of the arrowhead missing its target, penetrating the plush wall.

On my left, a roar from Hercules. A woman’s growl in return, and I turned in time to spot him in a wide-armed sweep, catching Aigle and Hesperia up in both arms like a father gathering his two girls.

Except these girls didn’t want to be gathered. They slipped easily away, thin limbs carrying them with the flexibility and agility of warriors—guardians, I remembered now—turned into dancers in the modern world.

Hercules stayed low, one leg sweeping out to catch Hesperia, who leapt over it. Behind him, Aigle had produced metal discs between the fingers of each hand, and they flew with a single flick, their pointed ends blurring as they hurtled toward the demigod.

I didn’t have time to warn him properly. So I whistled, a single thwip between my teeth, and Hercules reacted at once, flattening his body and rolling right once, then twice before he found his feet.

The stars lodged in the edge of the sofa, right where he’d been.

Remarkable. He’d defeated an odontotyrannos with incredible strength, but I didn’t expect him to have this kind of agility, too. He looked, well … too big. But right now he moved just like the nymphs, meeting the two of them blow for blow and dodge for dodge.

All of this had happened in about five seconds. I had no idea how fast the world moved until I’d been stuck in half-time. Meanwhile, Pythia had managed to scream, “The human first!” what felt like two dozen times in that span.

I understood why: Justin was the one who had undone their spell. He had the tactical foresight that Hercules and Cupid didn’t.

I ignored her, because Justin grunted as he struggled. He and Erytheia had dropped to the floor—somehow she had disarmed him, and El Lobizon’s claw gleamed from the shag carpet some three feet beyond their heads—and they writhed in what I felt embarrassed to think was an erotic meeting of bodies.

(Hey, when you’re an encantado, sometimes you’re that one friend who’s always making the bad boob jokes. It’s just on the brain.)

Then it got serious. Erytheia somehow managed to straddle Justin at the neck, her thighs at either side of his face as she attempted to pin his arms beneath him. It wasn’t just the illness—she had gotten that single stab in at the center of his chest, and blood bloomed there now, seeping into his shirt.

And there was another wound in his side that I didn’t know the source of. But he was definitely injured in multiple spots.

El Lobizon’s claw might have nullified Erytheia’s magic, but it didn’t stop her from using her body. And, surprise surprise, she was GoneGodDamn good with it.

On my left, Cupid had distracted Hesperia, flitting around her and forcing her to dodge his arrows. He got off three shots before she managed to get close enough to him to grab his chubby arm and swing him into the wall, which he hit with a grunt and a thud.

Three feet off, Hercules and Aigle were both on their feet, trading blows and kicks, dodging and both struggling to get the upper hand.

But I saw now that two of the stars had lodged in his side; he’d just kept fighting with them lodged in his body, but he wasn’t blocking as well on that side.

And then there was the knife wound Justin had taken in the center of his chest, which had appeared now on Hercules’s chest.

Their fates are entwined. If one fails, the other dies.

Hercules had taken the throwing stars in the side and Justin had been wounded. Justin had taken the knife to the chest and Hercules had been wounded. They shared wounds, just as they had shared that blow to the nose in the motel room.

It was all true. Their fates were completely bound, in sickness and health.

Hercules was moving slower, too, blood dripping into his mustard corduroys. Both legs had ripped, and though anyone else would look like a pirate who’d spent too many days at sea, he just looked … magnificent. Studly. But hurt.

And through it all, I was ignored like the non-threat I was. They would get to me last, after the real warriors were taken care of.

Frustration rose in me; I wasn’t a fighter like these other three. Maybe five seconds had elapsed, but so much had occurred that I didn’t know how any of them could process it all.

Training, I thought. Training and constant exposure. Neither of which I had. But I did have something equally important: cleverness. We weren’t winning this fight with me trying to engage the nymphs. But I didn’t need to engage them.

I wasn’t the only non-fighter in this room.

Behind me, Pythia’s cries had risen to a screech. That same line was getting really, really old. I lunged past Justin and Erytheia for El Lobizon’s claw, dropping to one knee to swipe it up off the carpet.

Pythia hadn’t even noticed me, her hands raised with the palms upward, eyes filled with manic fervor.

She might have been talking to the gods, if they were still around to listen. Unfortunately for her, it was just us mortals. One of whom was getting increasingly pissed off.

I crossed to Pythia, grabbed her wrist and yanked her toward me. Her frail body felt like a bag of bones in my arms, and she practically tripped toward me with a yelp.

As soon as my arm went around her chest, I brought El Lobizon’s claw to her throat. “Everyone freeze or the oracle gets it.”

↔

To my surprise, everyone actually froze. Well, the nymphs did, at least. Because Erytheia cried out, “Pythia! The dagger is infused with vile magic.”

In Hesperia’s moment of shock, Cupid managed to get a sucker punch off with his tiny balled fist. Her hand rose to her jaw, brow creasing. “Ow. You sneaky …”

Cupid tutted. “Uh-uh. The lady told you to freeze.”

Hesperia turned back, her mouth closing and her hand lowering. Aigle dropped out of her fighting pose, straightening and turning to me.

“You wouldn’t kill the oracle,” Erytheia hissed.

From between her thighs, Justin coughed.

“Get off my boyfriend,” I snapped, nodding my head once toward the nymph atop Justin.

“Why? He was liking me better than you,” she shot back, but did as told.

Hercules plucked a throwing star from his side with a wince and tossed it away. He pulled out the second one and pointed it at Aigle. “Sit. Now.”

She sat right where he pointed, crossing her legs to reveal thigh all the way up to where the two halves of her toga joined. “What, a little pointy bit of metal hurt the big demigod?”

“Quiet for once, nymph,” he growled, unslinging the vial I had noticed earlier from around his neck. He unstoppered it and allowed a single drop to drip onto his tongue. Hercules replaced the vial before he lifted his shirt to reveal where the stars had pierced his side. The wounds glowed with white smoke as they healed at once.

That’s definitely magic right there.

“Water from the River Styx,” Aigle hissed. “How is it possible?”

“The River Styx?” I repeated. Wasn’t that a river in the Greek underworld?

“Forbidden!” Hesperia yelled beside me. “Heracles, what have you done?”

“The human will live,” Hercules said. “He is bound to me, after all.”

“For your sake, I hope you’re right,” Erytheia said.

On the floor, Justin’s wounds began to heal, too, though he didn’t look nearly as well as Hercules. Had water from the River Styx just healed both their wounds? A line from an Ancient Greece 101 textbook came floating back to me: “the River Styx confers immortality.”

Of course, immortality wasn’t possible in this GoneGod World. But it appeared that the waters of the River Styx still carried power.

Hercules stepped close to Aigle. A strange pang of emotion passed through me as the two stared at one another, their bodies nearly touching. “Tell me where the apples are.”

“Do not tell him,” Hesperia shrieked, and Cupid delivered another blow with his little boy fist. This one got her square in the shoulder, which she clutched like she’d been stung by a bee. Evidently he was much, much more effective with his bow and arrows.

“Don’t tell him, Sister,” Erytheia entreated from beside Justin.

“You need not tell Heracles,” Pythia said with uncanny calmness. “The encantado will not kill me. I have foreseen it.”

“Don’t underestimate her,” Justin said, rising to a seat. One hand went to his chest. “She’ll do what she needs to do.”

“I don’t need to kill her,” I said. “This is El Lobizon’s claw, terror of the angels. One cut from it will end her ability to use magic for the rest of her mortal life.” OK, I was exaggerating, but none of them knew that.

“I will never tell you, Heracles,” Aigle said, glaring up at him.

Hercules lifted one hand, drawing his finger down the length of Aigle’s face. Her entire body shuddered with the touch.

Something floated in the air between them—that nameless chemistry that existed between some and not others. A compulsive attraction.

“Do you remember ...” Hercules said, leaning close to whisper in her ear. The nosy, envious part of me wanted to know what he was saying to Aigle—whether it was the words or the whispering, the way his hair trailed along her shoulder and face like a veil as he spoke.

“Sister,” Hesperia cried from beside Cupid, “don’t forget what happened last time.”

“He betrayed you—all of us,” Erytheia said.

Meanwhile, the oracle’s breath quickened under my arm around her chest. “I feel something,” she murmured to me. “I feel your fate, encantado.”

“Quiet,” I said.

“It palpates around us. I can almost reach out to touch it.”

“If you so much as lift a finger, I’ll cut you.”

“If you meant to cut me, you would have done it already,” she said simply. “And if I meant to escape, I would have done that.”

I swallowed, gripped the claw harder. “You told the nymphs to kill us.”

“I told them to kill the human,” she corrected.

“First,” I added. “To kill him first.”

Pythia reached back, her fingers touching my leg. She flinched away, almost as if burned. “It’s you,” she breathed. “I saw that you would come to me, but I did not expect you to be an encantado.”

“Stop it,” I said. She was trying to distract me.

The hand touched my leg again, more gently this time. So much was conveyed by that touch; it wasn’t an attempt to escape my grasp, but a touch of solidarity. “Fate has brought you to me,” she whispered. “Finally, it has brought me you. You need not fear me, encantado.”

“How do you know me?”

“I know fate. I trust it. And I obey what it tells me: that you, with a greater fate than all of us, would come to me.”

All at once, I began to understand: Pythia’s deepest allegiance wasn’t to the nymphs. It was to fate.

“Look around you, encantado. Why have you come here—to find some apples?”

“I …”

“It isn’t about the apples,” Pythia rasped. “You follow Heracles because you sense his importance to your story.”

My story. Cupid had called it that.

“When she comes,” the oracle continued, “you must not run. They depend on you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. But a name flashed through my mind at once: Serena Russo. The name floated through my head always, but especially right now.

She snorted. “Your lies would be transparent even if I wasn’t the Oracle of Delphi. Hear me now. If you heed your nature, they will die.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Her narrow shoulders lifted. “The visions come to me, and I must heed my own nature, encantado.”

“What should I do, then?”

“Face her. You must defeat her.”

“Why?”

The oracle didn’t answer; she and I both knew why, it seemed. Serena Russo would never stop. Not just because I’d stolen her research and destroyed most of what remained. Not just because I had taken her super soldier with me.

It was something else.

From the moment I’d met Serena Russo, that black hair lapping over her shoulders, those crystal-blue eyes sizing me up from crown to toe, I’d been dazzled. Overwhelmed. That day, and every day after, she asked me about my progress.

Serena wanted to know every detail, every microcosmic step forward.

She worked all hours, never seemed to leave McGill’s biology building. She was a woman possessed by her research—her mission to map the strand of DNA that made Others Others. She took no prisoners, bore no fools.

And even as her research assistant, I couldn’t quite understand her drive, what made her so single-minded. She was a force of nature, which was why I knew I couldn’t stay in Montreal.

Empty Hell, I couldn’t even stay in Canada.

“I don’t know if I can,” I whispered. “She’s …”

“In love,” Pythia finished.

I blinked. “What?”

The oracle’s fingers squeezed my leg. “Allow me to show you what you missed.”

“What? I thought oracles foretold the future.”

She shook her head. “Past. Future—the visions don’t distinguish. Take my hand.”

“What will happen?” I breathed.

Pythia’s face turned toward me, her profile enveloped in shadow. “You will see.”

I lowered my arm, but I kept El Lobizon’s claw at her throat. When my fingers touched hers, she clasped them at once, her grip a vise.

Around us, the champagne room melted into a boy’s bedroom.

Chapter 15

The oracle still held my hand, but we weren’t in New York City anymore.

Well, we were in a boy’s bedroom in a house in … Montreal. Yes, we were back in Montreal. Somehow I knew that.

Across from me, a map of the city spread across the wall; I spotted McGill’s campus right there along the river. I could set my finger on the biology building I used to work in. The building where I’d done all my research—and from where I’d ultimately stolen that research.

Sunlight from the two windows dappled the map, a large tree’s leaves casting their shadows over the glossy surface. When I glanced outside past the blue curtains, I recognized suburbia. A mown lawn, a wide swath of driveway, a street separating this house from the facing ones.

All of them nearly identical. All of them safe, secure.

My gaze returned to the map. Beneath it sat an expertly made twin bed, the blue coverlet spread smooth. A small side table lay next to it, the reading lamp fixed up with an odd on/off switch trailing right onto the bed, which had railings.

All around me, the evidence of boyhood. Gleaming trophies in soccer, baseball, football. (How could one boy play so many sports?) Plaques for achievements in school. A bookcase with books, yes, and a prized baseball in a small plastic case.

Beside it, a partially opened closet, clothes pressed flat as they hung in exact striations of colors. Every hanger’s head faced the same direction. Beneath my feet, the wooden flooring gleamed with a recent mopping.

A beautiful room. And yet …

“Where are we, Oracle?” I whispered.

She lifted one hand, pointed toward one of the plaques.

I let her hand go and stepped forward, leaning in with squinting eyes. When I read it, I gasped. COLLIN RUSSO, the plaque read in gold lettering. FIRST PLACE - ST. GEORGE’S PRIMARY SCHOOL MATH BOWL.

Russo. Collin Russo.

He was smart. He was athletic. And he had a very particular last name.

I spun toward Pythia. “Who is this boy?”

The ghost of a smile touched her lips before her eyes swiveled toward the door. All at once, I noticed the mechanical noise emanating from the hallway. It droned on, halted. There followed two muffled voices. They were nearing.

I straightened, my entire body as stiff as a wireframe, hands resting on the bookshelf behind me. “Take me back,” I whispered.

Pythia didn’t respond, didn’t acknowledge I’d spoken. She just stared at the door. And as the voices grew in volume, I recognized one of them.

It sent dread rolling through me.

Isa, you fool. The oracle must have burned magic to bring me here. All at once, my brain fired off with conclusions: she was a pawn of the World Army, a secret operative in a strip club in New York City. I should never have trusted her.

My hand had just settled over the baseball in its case, ready to weaponize it, when the door opened.

In came Collin Russo, and behind him, Serena Russo. The woman looked as overwhelming as the first day I’d met her, except this time her black hair hung from a workmanlike ponytail.

But they didn’t enter in the way I’d imagined after taking in all those trophies. And now I understood why Collin Russo’s room looked the way it did: too neat, almost rigid. Clean to a fault. Railings on the bed.

Collin Russo didn’t walk into the room. He was pushed in a wheelchair.

And the woman pushing him was Serena Russo. His mother.

↔

As they came into the bedroom, I expected the two of them to stop when they spotted the Oracle of Delphi standing there in her dark robes. After all, she stood not three feet from the door.

Or at least, one of them would spy me standing by the bookcase with my hand over a prized baseball.

But neither of these things happened.

“It’s the worst uniform,” the boy was saying. “They make us button it right to the collar all day.” The boy, who was actually a teenager, had inherited Serena’s blue-black hair, her eyes the color of the deep ocean.

An oxygen tank was strapped to the back of the chair, and though he didn’t sit like he’d had a spinal injury, he was clearly very, very sick. His school uniform, a sweater-vest and dark slacks, sagged almost everywhere.

How thin he looked. Uncommonly so.

“I think you look handsome.” Serena—who was the most dressed-down I’d ever seen her, in joggers and a pair of sneakers—pushed Collin right through the oracle, who dispersed like sand as they passed through her. Pythia reformed at once, her gaze following the two humans.

When they reached his desk, Serena leaned over and unbuttoned his collar with both hands. Such care, such devotion. She practically beamed with pride as her eyes flicked over her son’s face.

I stepped toward the oracle. “They can’t see us.”

“No, they can’t.”

Serena removed his backpack from his wheelchair, set it on the desk and unzipped it. Out came the books, the papers, his laptop. Each of them she set up with perfect care as the sun played over the both of them.

“Tell me about school,” she said.

“Oh, you know, I just sat around all day.”

She laughed—I had never heard her laugh like that. Full-throated, unrestrained—and her son couldn’t help his toothy grin. He had braces.

My throat constricted; I wanted to close my eyes, turn away from this. But I couldn’t, because GoneGodDamn if the two of them didn’t make a compelling scene.

Such is cognitive dissonance, when a grade-A bitch becomes a mother with a disabled son. You don’t want to look straight on; the world is already complex enough that some narratives need to remain simple.

She’s bad. You’re good.

She wants to hurt Others. You want to save them.

Serena leaned close, one hand set on the crown of his head. Those long fingers threaded through his hair, and I knew she had once done this when he was young enough to lay in her arms and she could admire every strand.

My eyes flitted to the trophies. Soccer, baseball, football. Things hadn’t always been this way. Which was what made all of this more painful.

“She’s in love,” I said. I understood now what Pythia meant.

The oracle nodded. “Yes.”

And finally, Serena Russo’s manic possession during her working hours made sense. The third strand of the helix, the obsession with mapping it. Justin’s gene editing, splicing in Other DNA here and there.

She was searching for the key to Other reproduction, yes. She was making super soldiers, yes. She was bolstering the World Army, yes.

But all of it was a cover, just as my research “goals” were a cover for my deepest desire.

I wanted to have a child of my own.

Serena Russo just wanted her son to walk again.

“You both labor for the same kind of love. The love of someone from you, who is more than you,” Pythia said. “And in that way, you are both the same.”

For a moment, my heart paused. Then it galloped on. “How do you know that I want—” I couldn’t even say the words out loud. A child. I wanted a child of my own. I wanted to be a mother.

The thought that such a thing would forever be denied me hurt deeper than any blade could ever penetrate.

Pythia turned to me. “After all this, you still ask me that?”

She was right about me, of course. Perhaps to the oracle, humans and Others alike were as transparent as glass. As was the past and the future.

“If you know my fate, then tell me: will I ...” I hesitated. Asking this question felt fraught, like asking an Ouija board when I would die. Maybe I didn’t want to know the answer. Knowing could be devastating.

Pythia shook her head. “You’re uncertain. Only those who have processed the consequences of learning their fate and still desire it may know.”

I turned back to Serena, grateful that Pythia had made the decision for me. “How will being here make it easier for me to face her?”

“Now you understand her mettle. She fights for her son’s future,” Pythia said. “And you fight for the possibility that your future offers. If she wins, you will lose Justin, Heracles and Cupid. You will lose yourself. You will suffer. But also, your mission will fail. And in that failure, you will condemn the fate of Others, sealing them off from the only hope they have to sire children of their own.”

My eyes were drawn to Pythia. “Sire … children?”

The oracle gave a deep, long nod.

“How could that be?”

Her eyes twinkled as she gazed at me. “You are a scientist, are you not?”

“Yes,” I said slowly. “But to give Others the power to have children is like wizardry.”

“How does the saying go?” Pythia set a finger to her chin. “Magic is just science that we don’t understand yet.”

“You said I have to fight for the future I want,” I said. I didn’t fight. I wasn’t a fighter. And yet the love I desired necessitated it. So perhaps Pythia was right, in that sense. “You can see multiple futures?”

“I see every future,” she said simply. Her hand went out to Serena, swept back to me. “And in every one of them, your paths converge. They converge many times, and every time is combustive. Eventually, one of you will die in the other’s presence.”

I swallowed, stared at Serena. She would die, or I would. Did Serena know this? How could she? “How much time are you burning right now?” I whispered to Pythia.

“I don’t burn time to see through time, encantado. The pasts and futures exist, and I only look into them.”

“Why, though?” I asked. “Why do this for me?”

“I am an Other, Isabella,” Pythia said. “Your success is necessary to the survival of Others. All of us, everywhere. I want you to arrive at that future.”

“How can that be? I’m just one person.”

“You will know.”

Silence fell between us, and the sound of Serena and Collin’s voices came clearer. She sat on the edge of the desk, going over his homework with him.

For the first time, I saw her without any affectation. She hunched, her back curled, shoulders pressing forward. She felt nervous, afraid, uncertain. Like a moon, she remained in close orbit, attending to her son’s every word, his every need.

When I approached them, kneeling on Collin’s other side, I stared at Serena. “Are you certain one of us will die in each other’s presence?” I asked Pythia.

In that moment, Serena’s eyes met mine.

I froze. Had she heard me?

Serena rose from the desk, stepped around her son’s chair and right next to me. When I rose, her eyes remained fixed on mine.

She reached out, swept her fingers through the air. I couldn’t step back in time to avoid it, but I only dispersed like Pythia had done, the swath of my chest she swept through reforming at once.

I gasped, expecting to feel something. Pain, or the sensation of my body disassembling. But I didn’t feel any of that.

It was like I had no body at all.

“Who’s there?” Serena whispered.

Her son’s head swiveled just a few degrees, within the range he was capable of. “Mom?”

She kept staring at me, even as I backed away toward the window and my hands found the windowsill. She followed.

Her eyes narrowed, her mouth hardened, and all at once, she was Dr. Serena Russo, the brilliant and uncompromising scientist at the head of the World Army’s efforts.

She was terrifying. Even if she couldn’t see me—could only sense me—she would face this uncanniness. She would fight it. With her son present, she would fight anything.

I stared back, my legs shaking. I couldn’t stop their shaking, because even here, even now, I felt the instinct to run. It threaded through my system with white-hot urgency.

Could I defeat this woman? Especially now, knowing what I knew. She carried a mother’s love with her, and that love was indomitable.

Serena took another step forward, but as she did, Pythia stepped through her. She grabbed my wrist with her thin, viselike fingers. “We must leave.”

And once more, the world melted away.

Chapter 16

We were back in the champagne room. I could feel my body, and I could feel the grip of El Lobizon’s claw poised at Pythia’s throat, but my mind wasn’t fully there. Serena Russo’s eyes had burned into my vision, still hung before me as if I’d stared too long at the sun.

“You understand now,” Pythia said. She sounded softer, more compassionate.

At once, I jarred back to the present, gasping. I lowered the claw and stepped back.

She turned toward me. “I’ve given you a gift. Few ever discover their fate, and even fewer gain a glimpse into the future or the past. So you can imagine how rare it is that you should understand—truly understand—the heart of your nemesis.”

She had voiced what I’d been thinking for so long.

Serena Russo was my nemesis.

There was no better way of putting it. And yet Serena Russo was the mother to a boy in a wheelchair. Even now, the two could not join in my mind.

The oracle stepped away from me, crossed toward Aigle and Hercules.

Hesperia and Erytheia let another hiss, preparing to attack Justin and Cupid. But Aigle raised a hand in the air as Pythia came close to her, leaning to whisper something in her ear. One finger rose, pointed at me, and Aigle’s eyes darted to mine.

“Her?” she said.

At once, Aigle rose. She leaned close to Hercules, her mouth approaching his ear. She whispered something, and Hercules nodded.

Aigle took a step back. “Move away, sisters,” she said, defeat threaded through her words. “We’re done here. The apples are hidden in Central Park—the oracle will tell you how to reach them.”

“Sister,” Hesperia moaned.

“But,” Erytheia cried, “we are the guardians, appointed by Hera.”

Aigle raised a hand. “The gods have left.” She moved to the center of the room, staring at me. “She is the one the oracle has been waiting for. And the oracle has told me that Heracles is crucial to the encantado’s fate. We must allow him to complete his labors.”

“Labors?” Hercules said. “I only have one labor remaining.”

Pythia shook her head. “Not so, Heracles. You and I will talk on this.”

I was still stuck on what Aigle had said about Hercules and me. Crucial to my fate.

I stared at Hercules, who met my gaze. Since he’d walked into that motel office, I’d been struggling not to look into his eyes. Having a friend you find attractive is one thing, but the son of Zeus and a witty, perceptive charmer to boot?

Well, you either avoid, avoid, avoid, or you’re doomed.

“What do you mean about him being crucial to my fate, Oracle?” I said. “Why Hercules?”

“Isabella,” Hercules interjected, stepping toward me, “may we speak in private?”

I just stared at him, stuck to the spot. I did and didn’t want to speak to him in private. GoneGods, what would “privacy” look like in a strip club, anyway? I pictured us pressed into a tiny dressing room. And given his size, I do mean pressed.

A throat cleared to my right. “Well, I’m going to speak for my girlfriend and say that’s a big, fat ‘no.’ ”

Justin. He had pushed himself to his feet, but he looked like he was about to collapse from exhaustion.

As soon as my eyes fell on him, the rational gear in my brain clicked into place. I crossed to his side, ducking under his arm to help him stand upright. “You need to lay down.”

“What I need,” Justin began—he was slurring again—“is for the Terminator over here to stop macking on my girl.”

“Bring him to my room,” the oracle said. “I will do what I can for him. Aigle, show them the way.”

A minute later, Justin lay on the oracle’s—admittedly glorious, plush—bed just down the hall from the champagne room, surrounded by the minutiae of her life. A dresser with a seat and mirror for applying makeup, vials and herbs set in a row on its surface. She even had beads across the doorway, like a true sham psychic.

All of it seemed mysterious and appealing in the light from the hallway, but when Pythia turned on the real light—the bare-boned white light—all of us came into relief, and I was reminded that half of a strip club’s allure resides in the lighting.

I stood just inside the doorway while Pythia examined him. Aigle, Cupid and Hercules had piled into her room with me, the latter two at my side, and we all observed Pythia’s work.

“Does she know what she’s doing?” I whispered to Aigle.

Aigle scoffed. “She is the Oracle of Delphi. Her understanding of the healing arts surpasses any human doctor.”

Justin winced as the shirt came away, and the mess of wounds came exposed under the harsh light.

I gasped, tried to muffle it with my hand. “I thought, when Hercules drank from the vial …”

“Yes, I drank from the vial,” Hercules said. “And though our fates are entwined, what I drink from the River Styx will have a much diluted effect on him. Particularly since he is a human, and I am not. It is only our bound fates that kept him from dying to it in the first place.”

Pythia raised a gloved hand. She had scrubbed with soap and put on a pair of disposable gloves like a regular nurse. Now she touched the edges of his wound.

She chuckled. “You got lucky, given it was Erytheia’s blade. It’s not deep—just bloody.” A pause. “A few stitches will do.”

On my other side, Hercules leaned into me. His scent already overwhelmed me in this space, and now I felt the heat radiating off him as he spoke. “Isa,” he whispered. It sounded like the most familiar thing in the world.

I didn’t move. Stop thinking about how Hercules smells, I thought, even as I spoke to him. “Yes?”

“I won’t fail. I cannot, because it will mean Justin’s death. It will mean your death. Nothing will happen to you—I swear it.”

As if he’d heard him, Justin’s eyes flicked to Hercules, then to me … where they stayed, accusatory through and through.

I realized how it looked: Hercules and I pressed together, him whispering to me. And it wasn’t injustice I felt—“how could you think this of me, Boyfriend? I’ll always be true to you!”—but shame. Some part of me wasn’t being true.

The encantado in me enjoyed the feel of Hercules beside me. The heat.

When Justin sat up, Pythia clucked her tongue. “Lay back down, human.”

“Not until I’ve taken care of this.” He swung his legs off the bed, his muscled chest gleaming in the spots where it wasn’t bloody. I had forgotten how strong he was, how the Other DNA had changed his physique.

Before, he’d been athletic. Now, he was powerful.

“Hey,” I said, “you’re unwell. Don’t—”

“Hercules,” Justin intoned, his growl vibrating through the room. Every hair on my body rose at once.

Hercules straightened. “Justin Truly.”

When Justin stood, he brought one fist into the other palm. Four knuckles cracked, then the fifth. “Step away from my girlfriend.”

“Oh boy.” Cupid flitted into the air. He sounded vaguely … excited? “I love a good throwdown over love.”

Aigle the nymph rolled her eyes, pushed past the beads in the doorway. “I have customers to entertain,” she murmured on the way out.

“Justin, Hercules”—I lifted my hands in a placating way—“we don’t have time for this. Remember the apples?”

Hercules canted his head. “Your girlfriend is over five hundred years old. I believe she can decide whom she’d like to stand next to.”

Justin pointed at the doorway. “Outside. You and me, demigod.”

Hercules shrugged. “As you wish, Justin Truly.”

“And stop calling me Justin Truly.”

“What shall I call you?”

“Your worst nightmare.”

Cupid snickered. “Proof positive that IQ drops when the adrenaline kicks in.”

As Justin passed through the beads and Hercules made to follow, Pythia called out to him. “Hercules, a moment. The rest of you may go.”

Cupid and I slowly followed Justin down the hall. “What do you think that’s about?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder back the way we’d come.

My mind was so fixed on Justin, I just shrugged. “I haven’t got a clue.”

Whatever the two of them talked about in Pythia’s bedroom, it didn’t take long for the demigod to catch up to me and Cupid—and pass us as he strode after Justin.

A moment later, Pythia appeared at my side.

“We have to stop them,” I said. “Justin’s hurt, he’s sick. He’ll get knocked out.”

Pythia only clasped her hands together before her. “Some things you cannot stop. Hercules desires your affection, and Justin loves you. This is how he has chosen to fight for you.”

Warmth pooled in amongst the fear in my chest. I didn’t want them to fight, but it also felt good to be wanted. The encantado in me glowed at Pythia’s pronouncement, and the other part of me felt terrified for Justin.

“No. This can’t happen—he’s Hercules,” I said. “How can Justin possibly win?”

“That depends on how you interpret ‘winning,’ ” Pythia said. Well, that was mysterious, but what could I expect from an oracle?

We threaded through the club, which had filled with customers. Aigle had returned to the stage, captivating the men seated around her. When we came outside, a blast of winter air hit us.

Before me, under the neon lights of Nymphos, Hercules had removed his shirt and his corduroys, leaving nothing but the lion skin, and the two men faced off in the middle of the street.

I stepped between them, my arms folded across my body against the chill. “This doesn’t need to happen.”

Justin’s eyes never left Hercules. “Step aside, Isa.”

I approached him, but Justin only moved around me, leaving nothing between him and Hercules. And from somewhere behind me, Cupid’s chubby hands went around my shoulders and he urged me to the sidewalk.

“It’ll end quickly,” Cupid whispered. “Their fates are entwined, remember? It’ll be like each of them beating himself up. Natural preservation instincts will kick in.”

But, I thought, you don’t know Justin when he’s determined.

↔

For all Justin’s bulk, Hercules still stood half a foot taller and probably that much wider than my boyfriend. They looked like they were of different species, and I guess they were.

A demigod, son of Zeus, versus a human being with a spritz of unknown Others thrown in.

From the sidewalk, a line of people waiting to get into the club hollered and hooted and raised money in the air.

“Two to one on the big guy!”

“Take it all off,” a woman crooned at Hercules.

Pythia came forward like some sort of referee, her robes trailing behind her as her hands raised into the air. “Step two paces back, each of you.”

Cupid floated at my side. “She’ll never admit it, but she loved the arena back in the ancient world.”

I kept shivering. “Like, gladiators?”

“Like gladiators,” Cupid said. “Just be glad there are no tigers around.”

The two men stepped back. Justin leaned forward, hands out, ready to grapple, while Hercules only stood upright, hands at his sides. He appeared as casual as ever.

Pythia’s arms remained in the air. Her head turned from one to the other before she swept them down and stepped back. “Begin.”

Justin rushed forward, ducking low as though to sweep Hercules’s legs out from under him. Hercules fell into the same pose, the two men meeting and grappling.

“He has no chance against Hercules,” I murmured. “He’ll break his hand on Hercules’s face.”

Cupid glanced at me. “You don’t know how Hercules’s strength works, do you?”

“What do you mean? Isn’t he just … strong?”

“Yes,” Cupid said, “but only as strong as his opponent. That’s the trick of his strength. You see, the gods loved nothing more than fine print and exceptional challenges.” He pointed at Justin. “However strong your boyfriend is right now, that’s how strong Hercules is. In terms of brute strength, they’re a mirror match.”

Before me, the two continued grappling, neither able to gain any purchase on the other. “Doesn’t Hercules usually win? I mean, what he did to the odontotyrannos …”

“He does,” Cupid said, “because he understands the fine print. Think back to how he defeated the creature.”

I shivered as another blast of wind hit us. It was hard to think about anything right now. “He sidestepped it, I think.”

Cupid snapped his fingers. “Bingo.”

“So he outsmarted it.”

“He used technique, wisdom, savvy. Doesn’t make for good entertainment for the gods if he could just overpower every enemy with brute strength, does it?”

In the street, the two men had dropped to their knees, each reaching out to grab at the other’s leg and failing. This stalemate persisted for a full minute—and had just begun to feel like it would last forever—when Justin managed to get a grip on Hercules’s ankle.

A scraping ensued, and Hercules was pulled off his feet and onto his side. Justin tried to climb on top of him, but Hercules rolled out from under, scrambled away.

The two of them rose to their feet, and then the real fistfight ensued.

Chapter 17

Justin threw the first punch, but Hercules dodged. Another punch, another dodge. Every time, my heart rose into my throat. I didn’t want to see Hercules take a blow—it would hurt Justin.

Plus, I didn’t want to see him hurt, just like I didn’t want to see Justin hurt.

I wanted to run out there and scream at them both, but I had already tried that, and they had just ignored me like two feral cats.

Then Hercules’s swing came. That massive arm plowed through the air, and Justin deflected with his forearm, used the opening to land a jab in Hercules’s side. Both of them jerked forward in synchrony.

I gasped; as before, the blow had hurt Justin as much as the demigod.

I took a few steps forward, but Pythia grabbed my arm. “Do not interfere, encantado. Trust me, you do not want to be the recipient of a stray fist.”

I watched the two men—shining examples of male physicality—fight over me, and I didn’t realize Cupid was observing me until he said, “You think you’re not worthy.”

I flashed him a glance. “What?” I knew he’d hit on the truth, because I became flustered, couldn’t find the right words except to pretend like I hadn’t heard.

“You heard me.” His hand settled on my shoulder. “I know that little voice in your head. It tells you lies.”

“You know it?” I said, my eyes still on the two fighters. I wasn’t sure a demigod like Cupid could even have psychological issues. “But you’re …”

“Oh, you think because I’m going to spend the rest of my mortal life looking like a toddler and fly around shooting arrows that I don’t have thoughts like the rest of you? Well, my therapist can set you straight.”

I started to laugh, but stopped when I met Cupid’s eyes. “Oh, you’re serious.”

He pointed at Justin and Hercules, who were dancing around each other, throwing punches and deflecting, occasionally getting a half-blow in. Neither one had landed a definitive strike yet. “They’re fighting over you, but that’s not why you’re worthy, Isabella.”

“Why, then?” I said, just to humor him.

“Because all three Cupids”—his chubby fingers went up, waggled—“are seeking you. All three of us.” He floated partly in front of me, and one finger lowered, touched me in the center of the chest. “You’re capable of greater love than any mortal in this entire city. Empty Hell, on this entire continent. Don’t forget it.”

My eyes focused on Cupid staring at me, then beyond him to the two men in the street. Then they could not focus at all, and I had to wipe a tear away. I hadn’t expected to cry—not here, not now. But then, I hadn’t expected Cupid’s little pep talk, either.

Most importantly, I hadn’t realized how much it would mean to me to hear his words.

A cheer rose from the line outside Nymphos, and both of us discovered Justin seated on the asphalt. He was working his jaw with his fingers while Hercules stood over him, both hands clenched. I knew Hercules’s own jaw must have ached.

“Do you yield?” Hercules asked.

Justin said nothing. He only glared up at Hercules, lowered his hand, and in one motion, rose from the ground and landed on Hercules like a jaguar.

The two men toppled onto the street, Justin on top of Hercules, and Justin proceeded to wail on the demigod. Every blow he landed appeared on Justin’s own face.

A determined Justin was a madman.

“Enough!” Pythia declared. “It is done.”

But Justin didn’t stop.

When I rushed forward and touched his shoulder, he flinched and shot a furious stare up at me like he wanted to attack me, too.

His chest heaved, blood seeping down into his pants and onto Hercules’s skin. Dark bruises were forming around his eyes, and a streak of red ran down his chin.

“Are you stopping me because of him?” he growled. I had never seen him this angry. “Because you don’t want me to hurt him?”

I staggered back. “No,” I whispered. Beneath Justin, a smattering of blood covered Hercules’s face—his lip was broken, too—but he only stared up at Justin, green eyes impassive. He didn’t struggle, didn’t continue fighting. He just lay there.

“Please,” I said, reaching out for Justin’s hand, “I love you. Let’s just go back inside.”

Justin’s shaking hand rose as though he would take mine. Before we touched fingers, his eyes fluttered, and he dropped sidelong onto the asphalt.

I knelt next to him, turning his face upward. He was out cold.

Hercules sat up, wiping his lip. “I haven’t fought like that since I was a young, young man.”

I looked up at the demigod. “You held back.”

“I never hold back.” Hercules didn’t meet my eyes as he stood, brushed himself off. “Allow me to carry him inside.”

Hercules lifted Justin, and the five of us went back into Pythia’s room inside Nymphos. I watched Hercules as he lowered Justin into the bed, observed the care with which he did.

The demigod had held back.

Hercules stepped to my side as Pythia tsked over Justin’s wounds and new bruises. Cupid had become her assistant, handing her medical instruments as she requested them.

“What about you?” I asked, reaching up toward Hercules’s battered face.

He caught my hand, holding it with surprising tenderness after that fight in the street. “I have suffered worse. Someday, I’ll tell you about my first labor, in which I slew the Nemean lion.”

He turned back to Justin. “Only sheer will kept him upright during that fight. It wasn’t just the wounds—it was something else. What happened to this human?”

I made a face. “It’s a long, long story, and challenging to explain to a man educated in ancient Greece—no offense.”

“You cannot offend me,” he said. “I have endured too much for words to hurt me.”

I gazed up at him. “You endured the death of your family.” By your own hand.

He flinched. “Yes.”

I swallowed. I didn’t know such pain—couldn’t conceive of it. “Suffice it to say, Justin’s biology has been scientifically altered. He’s been combined with species and creatures of legend.”

“And his body does not know how to process such things. Nor does his mind.”

I nodded. He’d captured it exactly. “I don’t know if he’ll make it to where we’re going.”

“And where is that?”

“To the resistance—a safe house somewhere here in the city.”

His finger found the tip of my chin, lifted and turned it so that our eyes met. “Didn’t I tell you that I wouldn’t let anything happen to you? Either of you?”

“Yes,” I breathed.

“Regardless of what may exist between us, this binding of fates”—he gestured between Justin, himself and me—“is more important. Rest easy, Isa.”

We didn’t say anything else. Hercules only found my hand, squeezed my fingers before he unstoppered the vial around his neck and approached Pythia’s side. “May I?”

↔

The oracle eyed the vial in Hercules’s hand. “You would have him drink directly from the River Styx?”

He nodded.

“A mortal?” Was that envy sparking in her eyes? “This gift is beyond him. Moreover, each drop risks his death.”

“We are all mortals now,” Hercules said. “None of us is beyond another.”

She sighed, waved him forward. “It is yours to bestow. But move quickly—he needs every ounce of aid you can offer.”

I came to stand by the bed beside Hercules. “How much are you giving him?”

Hercules held the vial out to me. “All of it, if you will allow me. It is your decision to make.”

I received the vial, the mercury liquid nearly to the top. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that this human has endured too much to survive this night.”

“Woah there, big boy.” Cupid dropped the piece of gauze he’d been cutting. “Are you sure about that? It’ll kill you if it kills him.”

“Absolutely sure,” Hercules said. “I have accepted that my fate is bound with his, and his with mine.”

“All of it?” I whispered, staring at the vial. I knelt by Justin, my hand threading through his hair. “Will it cure him?”

“I don’t know,” Hercules said. “As the oracle says, such a large amount is too potent for a human. Each drop from the River Styx risks his death. But without it, he will not wake again. He cannot survive without this drink from the River Styx—nor can I.”

I hesitated, the vial in my hand. I didn’t want to make the wrong decision.

“If what you said about his biology is correct,” Hercules added, “then his body might be able to process this. The water will give him the strength he needs, now and for some time.”

I looked at Pythia. “Is this true? He won’t wake again?”

She nodded. “He is terribly unwell, encantado.”

Justin, I thought, you idiot. He had to fight for me. He always had to be involved in every fight—even the ones he picked that he didn’t need to. The ones with demigods in the street over the love of a woman.

A woman who already loved him anyway.

My eyes flicked to Cupid. “What about my love story? He can’t die.”

“Your love story was never about this man,” Cupid said in a low voice.

“But I love him,” I said. “Isn’t that what a love story is? How can he not be part of my future?”

Neither Cupid nor Pythia spoke. They understood things I didn’t, but they weren’t telling me.

Anger flared in me. I looked at Hercules. “He can handle it.”

I didn’t know if that was true so much as I wanted it to be true. I couldn’t lose Justin and Hercules together. If one died, the other died.

Hercules nodded. “Then it is yours to give him.”

I unstoppered the vial, and the scent of the river wafted up to my nose. I could not describe it except as … immortality. As life. And it was intoxicating.

I leaned down, kissed Justin once. “You’ll live through this,” I said, as much a command as a wish, a hope. “You will.” I set my fingers to Justin’s lips to part them, and I tipped the vial and poured the whole of it into his mouth.

When I stood, I handed the vial back to Hercules, and we waited.

Nothing happened.

Well, that’s not true. Hercules gave a little wiggle and grinned. “Ah, I feel as fresh as if I’d bathed in a river.”

Cupid chuckled and patted him on the shoulder.

“What about Justin?” I asked.

“It will take some time.” Pythia turned to Hercules, Cupid and me. “In the meantime, you three have a labor to complete.”

I gestured at my boyfriend. “Can’t the labor wait until Justin wakes?”

Hercules shook his head. “Sadly, it cannot.”

“Why not?”

“The magic binding Hercules is powerful,” Pythia said. “It has brought him back to life—back to this world—for one purpose, and one purpose only: to complete his labors. If he does not move toward them, he moves away from them.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means my strength diminishes,” Hercules said.

I gestured to Justin. “And if Hercules fails in his labors, Justin will die.”

Hercules and Pythia nodded. “And”—Pythia’s finger went up—”there is an added complication.”

I hesitated. “What is it?”

Pythia exhaled slowly. “The nymphs have enlisted the hundred-headed dragon Ladon to guard the tree.”

“Merda.” I turned to Cupid and Hercules, who both looked ashen. “You two know of this dragon, I take it.”

Cupid stared wide-eyed into space. “Everyone in the ancient world knew of Ladon.”

I turned back to Pythia. “Can the nymphs help us get the apples?”

“The guardians of the tree?” Pythia shook her head. “It is a miracle they even told you where the apples are hidden. You cannot ask this of them.”

Stupid Others with their stupid rules. But it made sense in a twisted sort of way. An Other can provide a map, but not a hand. A cryptic clue, but nothing direct. That is the way Others unbind themselves from the duties. We’re all like shady lawyers looking for loopholes in the contracts of destiny.

I should get that printed on a T-shirt, I thought with a groan.

Silence fell, and I looked between Hercules and Cupid. Could the three of us really handle a dragon? Even a one-headed dragon?

Nossa Senhora, I thought. Time to use my Google-fu to figure out how to defeat a dragon.

Pythia rose from the bedside. “But I will aid you.”

I nearly lost my balance. “You?”

“Oh snap,” Cupid whispered to Hercules.

“I did not understand until I touched you, encantado. You are the one I have waited for since the gods left. Your story supersedes the roles of the old world. I will sacrifice my life for you, if need be.”

“Pythia,” I breathed. She was an older woman, frail under my hands when I’d grabbed her in the champagne room.

She half-smiled. “Ah, I see you underestimate the Oracle of Delphi. Know, little encantado, that I have seen the constellations binding the fates of all mortals.”

“Well,” Cupid said, “I say aye to the oracle coming with us.”

I had to agree; with a hundred-headed dragon, we would need all the help we could get. And I sensed Pythia had hidden depths to her power.

I nodded, and Pythia circled a finger in the air. “Follow me, you three. We need to prepare.”

The others filed past the beads. I hesitated, lowering again to Justin’s side. I swept aside his hair, placed a long kiss on his forehead. “Sleep well. I’ll see you soon.”

I rose, turned and passed through the doorway, my fingers folding to fists. For how drunk I had been an hour ago, I was painfully sober now.

Chapter 18

Pythia pressed aside a fake wall in Nymphos and led us into a weapons room. And when I say a “weapons room,” I mean this room looked like a jewelry store in the mall, except guns replaced rings. Blades replaced bracelets.

“Woah,” I said.

“No way,” Cupid said.

“Merciful Zeus.” Hercules rubbed his hands together.

“The nymphs call this the trove,” Pythia said, passing to the center of the room. “As useful for living in New York City as it is for guarding Hera’s garden. Pick what you like.”

Hercules was already lifting spears off a rack, testing their weight. Cupid flitted to the bows and arrows. He pulled down a long bow and nearly dropped to the floor before his wings buoyed him up.

I just stood at the doorway. “All this for the nymphs?” It made sense that the guardians of Hera’s garden needed an entire room of weapons … but still. This was something else. Something worthy of epic creatures of lore.

Cupid lifted a single-handed crossbow from the wall. “Hesperians gonna be pissed when they see I took all their bows.”

“One item each, please.” Pythia said to Cupid as she approached me. “These are challenging times. What weapon do you prefer, encantado?”

I retrieved El Lobizon’s claw from where I’d tucked it back into my boot. “I’ll stick with this.”

“Ah, very nearly the instrument of my death.” She admired the curved dagger before she leaned close to me. “Except, how will you cut Ladon without your magic?”

I could see it in her gaze—she knew about the dart the World Army had hit me with, or at least the result of it. My magic was gone. “You know,” I breathed.

Why was I still surprised by Pythia’s knowledge of everything? She had proven that she could step into a past rendered with cinematic clarity. And yet I was surprised; I had never met anyone like her. Every time she did her oracle thing, it was uniquely jarring.

“Of course.” Her finger hovered over the spot on my shoulder where I’d been hit. “It stems from this.”

I stared at the bandaged spot she’d pointed to—from which Justin had dug out the tracer—and it finally clicked.

The World Army didn’t want to lose me, so they’d done the next best thing to capturing me: they had injected me with a chemical concoction that prevented me from changing.

If I couldn’t change faces, I couldn’t hide.

“Do you know how long it will last?” I asked.

“A very long while, I’m afraid.”

“Like, days? Weeks?”

Pythia looked pained. “Longer.”

“Months?”

“Longer,” she whispered.

Something wrenched inside me, and my hand went to my chest. “No,” I said. “That can’t be. I have to shift. I have to.”

For one thing, all my identification and paperwork showed a red-haired, green-eyed Isabella Ramirez. If I couldn’t be her, then how could I get on a plane? How could I travel out of the United States?

But more importantly, I was an encantado. Shifting was in my nature. The World Army might as well have cleft away one of my legs.

“I pity you, dear,” Pythia said, one hand touching my hair. “But we must rise to the challenges we are given. This is yours.”

My head felt light, and it was only when Pythia led me to a table of throwing stars and other tiny instruments of death and urged me to lean on it that I realized I was actually seeing stars—but not the metal kind.

At once, Hercules and Cupid were at my side. “What is it?” Hercules said.

“She has lost her powers,” Pythia said. “She mourns them.”

The two demigods understood right away. Hercules’s warm hand encircled mine, and Cupid’s arm went around my shoulders. I had to admit, it helped. All of it.

When my breathing slowed, a different feeling ebbed in. I wasn’t wholly familiar with it, but it was starting to become more common. Ever since my life had taken this turn—the World Army, being on the run—I was finding it easier and easier to inhabit.

Chutar o pau da barraca.

I wanted to kick the tent pole.

I raised my face, wiped my eyes. “Serena Russo did this”—I touched my shoulder—“which means I can undo it. I’ll figure out how to get my magic back.”

“How will you figure it out?” Cupid asked.

I lifted my eyes to him. “Because magic is science unexplained. And I’m the better scientist.”

↔

A half hour later, Pythia emerged from the trove, a tall staff in her left hand. At the top, gnarled roots encircled a green gem. It had been hers from antiquity, she explained to us, and she used to raise it to the heavens during her rituals.

Now she used it for walking. “And,” she said with a wink, “other things.”

None of us wanted to follow that line of conversation.

Next came Cupid, who still had his signature bow and arrows. Except he’d replaced the back quiver with a sleek, dark one that hung at his waist. “For easier drawing,” he’d explained. “And I look good in black.”

Then came Hercules. Correction: then clanked Hercules. He emerged in full Spartan armor, a spear across his back, a helmet on his head, and his good old club still at his waist.

Cupid looked him up and down. “You look ridiculous. How are you going to fight in all that?”

Hercules pushed his chest out. “Jealousy doesn’t become you, Cupid of Eros.”

Cupid scoffed, flitted toward Pythia. “As if.”

Hercules looked at the oracle for approval.

She pointed to Cupid. “He’s right about the armor.”

Hercules sighed and proceeded to unstrap his gear piece by piece.

I emerged last, my hands empty. In the end, I hadn’t wanted another weapon. I would stick with El Lobizon’s claw and my wits. Physical fighting wasn’t my forte, and I doubted it ever would be.

We circled in the hallway, Nymphos’ sultry music ebbing through the walls.

“So,” I said to Pythia, “tell us everything you know about this dragon.”

“If you know anything about dragons, there’s not much to say,” Pythia said. “Except that Ladon has one hundred heads capable of breathing fire—each one of them.”

Cupid, who’d at some point managed to sneak a bottle of Ambrosia into his loincloth and was now drinking straight from it, spewed everywhere. “You’ve got to be shitting me. All at once?”

The rest of us stared at him.

“Guys,” he said, raising the bottle, “I’m allowed to curse. I’m the second oldest here.”

“It’s still weird,” I said.

“It is a bit,” Hercules agreed.

“Not all at once,” Pythia explained to Cupid. “Only one head may breathe fire at a time.”

“Still, how are we going to defeat a dragon with one hundred heads?” I asked Pythia.

A woman’s low voice sounded behind us. “Not with those blunt weapons.”

We all turned. Erytheia stood in the hallway, leaning against the wall. Those nymphs were awfully good at sneaking up on us in the middle of a conversation.

She raised her forearm, pointed to the band-aid covering the spot where Justin had cut her. Her eyes were on the claw tucked into my boot. “You took away my magic.”

“It’s temporary,” I said. “It’ll come back within an hour.”

Erytheia raised an eyebrow. “Ah, so you lied when you had it poised over the oracle’s throat.”

I shrugged. “I said what I had to.”

She pointed at the claw. “My sisters won’t speak to any of you”—her eyes lifted to the oracle—“especially you, Pythia. We accept this fate you’ve decreed, but helping them thieve Hera’s apples? You take away our purpose.”

“The labor must be completed,” Pythia said. “It is more important than old roles, old grievances.”

Erytheia’s eyes lifted to me. “You need to suppress Ladon’s magic. It is the only way you can defeat him and take the apples.”

Great. So we needed to get close enough to his one-hundred-headed body to cut him. But we also needed to avoid his fire. And his tail.

This would go splendidly.

For the next ten minutes, we all set our heads together to come up with a plan. When we had finished strategizing, Hercules gave a single nod. “Let us to it, then.”

He started toward the front entrance of Nymphos, but Pythia stopped him.

“Where are you going, Heracles?”

“To Central Park to defeat the dragon Ladon and retrieve three of Hera’s apples.”

She rolled her eyes. “Do you know how far it is to Central Park? Do I look like a woman who walks in the city at night?”

The three of us knew better than to attempt answering that one.

Pythia jerked her head in the opposite direction. “Come on, out the back. We’re going in my car.”

I hesitated, looking back toward her room, where Justin lay. “He’ll be safe here?”

Pythia turned to me. “I give you my word. The only thing that may harm him here is the power of the River Styx.”

“All right,” I said. It was the first time Justin and I had been apart in weeks, and it felt strange.

But in this new GoneGod World, all things were transient. It was a truth I would eventually have to come to peace with. Especially if Justin didn’t survive the river’s power—an outcome I could hardly think about without tearing up.

The image of us in the bathroom, him knelt before me, the trust I felt as he prepared to take the tracer out—all of it flooded back in a moment.

I swept it aside. I couldn’t think about it; I wouldn’t let myself be distracted right now. “Let’s go slay a dragon, then.”

If I’d been given five hundred more years to live, I never would have guessed that the oracle of Delphi drove. Which means I definitely wouldn’t have guessed she owned a forest-green Volkswagen Jetta.

We came out the back of Nymphos and all of us stopped—except for Pythia, who pulled her keyring from her robes and manually unlocked the driver’s side door. She opened it with a creak and looked back at us. “Well?”

My eyes strayed to Hercules. “No offense, but I don’t know if we’ll all fit.”

“We shall make it fit,” Hercules declared.

“That’s what she said,” Cupid murmured.

Hercules looked perplexed. “No, she said she didn’t know if we’d all fit.”

Cupid looked at me. “Others who haven’t watched TV are the worst.”

I nodded knowingly, though I hadn’t gotten the reference myself. Thanks to two years in college, I considered myself pretty savvy as Others went, but my roommate Aimee still groaned all the time about my poor pop culture education.

Instead of outing myself, I jogged around to the passenger side. “We’ll make it fit.”

Cupid flew after. “Shotgun!”

I opened the passenger-side door. “There’s no way I’ll fit back there with Hercules. Sorry.”

Cupid grumbled, looked back at Hercules, who was attempting to jigsaw himself into the Jetta’s back seat.

In the driver’s seat, Pythia slapped back the sunroof and pointed at Cupid. “You ride up top.”

“Got it, Chief.” Cupid floated to the roof, his bare feet hanging into the car.

With Cupid on top and Hercules pressed into the back seat like a can of Pillsbury dough, we set off toward Central Park and, according to Pythia, our destiny.

We passed endless tall buildings, and I gaped. I had never seen New York City at night. It was different from Montreal. Taller. More glittery. But one difference really stood out.

“So,” I said, “how long until we get to Central Park?”

Pythia stopped us at a light, and as we idled, she looked over at me the way one looks at a hopelessly naive girl. “Oh, child.”

“Just forget that you’ll ever see Central Park,” Cupid said through the sunroof, “and then you’ll never be disappointed.”

I blinked. “So like, half an hour? An hour? A timeframe would be good.”

No one answered me.

“You see,” I said, “Justin and I have to be in Times Square tonight at a certain time.”

“You seek the resistance,” Pythia said. When the light changed, she hit the gas. “Well, you found us.”

My breath caught, and I braced myself on the door. “What did you say?”

Pythia sighed. “I should say you found one of us. Consider me a link in the chain.”

The Oracle of Delphi, a member of the resistance?

“Bad-ass,” Cupid said from above us.

“The trove,” I said slowly. “All those weapons in there were stockpiled for the resistance.”

Pythia gave a curt nod.

Hercules’s face appeared in the gap between our seats. “What is the resistance?”

“We are an underground network of Others,” Pythia said. “We are present around the world, city to city, town to town. Though we are only truly organized here and in Las Vegas.”

“And why are you called the resistance?” Hercules asked.

I could swear I saw a tiny smirk touch Pythia’s face. “Because we will not be put down.”

“Why have you joined the resistance?” I asked.

“Why not?” Pythia hardly glanced at me. I sensed she was evading.

“Because you’re mortal now,” I began. “Because life is short, and precious, and joining the resistance promises hardship. It promises hiding and secrecy and fighting, and very likely an early death. You are, after all, taking us to fight a one-hundred-headed dragon.”

“It is a long story,” she said in a whisper.

“According to you,” I shot back, “I shouldn’t ever expect to get out of this car, anyway.”

She exhaled a soft laugh. “Perhaps someday I will tell you. Trust must be built, encantado.”

“Did Egya tell you to meet me in Times Square?” I asked.

She raised an eyebrow. “Egya? I do not know this person. There are many of us in the resistance, encantado. But I knew one would come who would bring our immortality back.”

“But you didn’t know I was me until you touched me.”

“Can you really know anyone until you are intimate with them? By any definition of the word.”

“Well put,” Cupid said.

“So you can see what will happen when we fight the dragon.”

She shook her head. “Not as yet. You still don’t seem to grasp how my powers work. I see many fates, and they are determined by choices.”

I considered what she’d said. “So … when we arrived at Nymphos, our choices determined our fates?”

“Correct. And you, my dear, made a choice that set you on an unlikely branch.”

“When I set the claw to your throat,” I said.

“And you allowed me to show you the past. To show you Serena Russo.”

“Why did that matter so much?”

“Because I understood you, Isabella. Only in touching you could I truly see you—where you have been, where you are, where you will go.”

“But I thought my fate could go in many directions.”

“Yes,” Pythia said, “and right now, I’m trying to ensure you stay on the right branch. It is thin, wavering, but if you make the right choices, you will serve the resistance in a greater way than anyone ever anticipated.”

“She gets it,” Cupid said, leaning down and pointing through the sunroof at Pythia.

I looked up at him. “My love story?”

His dimples appeared.

“What if I make the wrong choices?” I asked both of them. “If the branch is so delicate, how can I possibly stay on it? I mean, we’re about to fight a GoneGodDamn dragon.”

A warm hand fell over my arm, and I met eyes with Hercules. “Because it matters this much to you. That’s how you make the right choices.” He struggled to get his other arm unpinned, finally managed to press his thumb to his chest. “And you have me. I never make the wrong choice.”

Pythia groaned, and Cupid made a gagging motion. I couldn’t help laughing, despite—or maybe because of—what was to come.

Life was precious, after all. And short. Especially when you went off to fight hundred-headed dragons.

Chapter 19

By the time we arrived at Central Park, the moon sat round and white in the sky, the treetops lined in silver and otherwise ominous beneath.

Pythia parallel parked us, and I stared into the park. “Why is it so dark?”

“Why should it be otherwise?”

“How can people walk through it at night?”

“Trust me,” Cupid said, “no one wants to walk in Central Park at night.”

“Is the dragon in there all the time?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” Pythia said. “A dragon will not leave his hoard, if he can help it.”

Hercules’s face appeared between us. “And how do you hide a hundred-headed dragon in the middle of such a city?”

“If you were to pass through the park, you could not see Ladon or the apples,” Pythia said. “Not without knowing where you were going.”

I turned to her. “And you do?”

“Why yes. I arranged with the nymphs to have him put there.”

“Will he be awake?”

“He wouldn’t be a very good dragon if he wasn’t, would he?” Pythia said. “Thieves come most often at night. Anyway, this dragon never sleeps.”

“And he flies?” Cupid said.

“Not willingly,” she said. “His treasure remains on the ground, after all.”

“How many of his heads must I remove to slay him?” Hercules asked.

Pythia turned to him. “How many heads do regular dragons survive with?”

Hercules’s eyes glazed as he considered the question.

One, I thought. The answer is one.

“Well,” I said before I lost my nerve as I grabbed the door handle, “let’s go find him, then.”

The three of us got out and worked to extract Hercules from the Jetta. By the time we’d gotten his upper body out, a homeless man watched us from the bench he’d been asleep on.

With a last tug on both his arms, we pulled Hercules onto the sidewalk, and the car rose a foot on its suspension.

So much for being inconspicuous.

With the four of us on our feet, Pythia touched her staff to the sidewalk. “This way. Follow on my heels, or else you will lose me. If you lose me, you may never escape the park.” She winked.

Was the oracle of Delphi making a spooky joke? Either way, I shivered, my eyes flitting upward to the trees and down to the beer bottles and needles littering the path.

Pythia started into the park, Cupid and I close on her, and Hercules at the back. We walked deep and deeper, passing the very occasional lamppost, bright enough in this blackness to be its own moon.

Sometimes I heard snoring, caught glimpses of a sleeping bag on a bench. Once, a laugh echoed down the path, and I stopped so hard that I felt Hercules’s warmth behind me.

“It’s all right,” he whispered.

At some point, it felt as though we’d exited the city and entered a forest. Pythia departed from the original path we’d started on, cutting up a little incline, across grass, stepping over small rocks.

Past a point, her staff stopped tapping on the carved stone of a walkway, and we never encountered a real path again.

Finally the moon went out of sight, and I had begun to wonder if I should resign myself to walking for the rest of my mortal life. That was when Pythia stopped hard, one palm raising for us.

When she stepped forward, it appeared as though she’d passed through a shimmering cobweb. She turned to us, and I didn’t so much see as sense her set a finger to her lips.

The rest of us followed, and as soon as I had passed through the web, the air changed—became cleaner, more fragrant. I scented flowers, fruit, and … dung.

Well, hundred-headed dragons probably did make a lot of dung, after all.

Pythia’s arm came around my shoulders, and we all leaned in to hear her whisper what I’d already sensed. “We are here,” she said, and from somewhere behind her emanated a deep, gargantuan breathing.

↔

Before we continued, Hercules squeezed us closer. “I will lead,” he whispered. “This is my labor. I must slay Ladon.”

Pythia nodded. “Fight well, son of Zeus.”

Hercules paused, and I sensed him looking at me in the dark. When I raised my face to where I thought his should be, he surprised me with a soft kiss on the cheek.

And, like the oblivious encantado I was, I hadn’t recognized I felt something more than lust for Hercules until that moment.

I loved Justin, but love wasn’t so narrow that it couldn’t encompass more than one person. And what I felt for Hercules wasn’t love, precisely—not yet, by any stretch—but the promise of it, if both of us were to survive this fight.

And then I would be in a real pickle.

But I would have to take that as it came. For now I needed to follow the demigod, and Cupid behind him, and Pythia behind Cupid, through the thicket into a clearing illuminated nearly to daylight by the moon.

In the rainforests of Brazil, we encantado lived amongst large trees. Very, very large—so big that some we couldn’t see the whole of. And the one that rose in the center of this clearing, its roots extending from a trunk the width of a building, was bigger than the biggest tree I’d seen in the rainforest.

That was when I knew we weren’t in Central Park any longer.

“Hera’s garden,” I breathed. “The garden isn’t part of the park.”

Pythia nodded. “A magical place, not bound to one spot.”

This was how the Daughters of the Evening protected the tree.

“I never thought I would stand here again,” Hercules whispered.

Amongst the tree’s boughs hung red apples the size of my head. Not just a few, but countless apples, brilliant and heavy for the picking.

Except for the serpentine body wound around and around the trunk beneath those apples, the clubbed tail at the end of that body, and at the other end …

One hundred necks, one hundred heads, one hundred sets of enormous teeth, and two hundred eyes. All of which opened to gaze at us.

Hercules eased his club from his lion’s skin, stepped forward into the clearing. As he did, he seemed to grow in the moonlight. His powerful limbs shone silver, the muscles enormous beneath his skin.

It gave me courage to see him so healthy, so powerful. If he was alive, it meant Justin was alive, too.

“Ladon,” he boomed, “I have come to challenge you. Bring forth your anger, your fire, your fury. If you do not, I will end you with a single blow.”

“Oh boy,” Cupid whispered to me as we crept through the trees around the clearing, pulling his bow over his head and preparing his first arrow. “He’s doing his thing again.”

I glanced at Cupid. “His thing?”

At that moment, all one hundred heads rose, their eyes focused on Hercules. Together, their mouths opened, and they let a roar that blew my hair back and left my ears ringing.

Cupid flew back up to my side, and Pythia and I continued through the trees at a jog. “He really likes to piss off his opponent. Really likes it.”

Well, this kind of fury hadn’t been part of the plan. But of course, male bravado didn’t follow plans. So with that, I pulled El Lobizon’s claw from my boot, and Cupid, Pythia and I charged in toward Ladon.

↔

Before tonight, I had never imagined a hundred-headed dragon. And I certainly hadn’t imagined how a hundred-headed dragon would shoot fire.

Breathing fire is one thing, but shooting it? Like a bullet out of a tooth-filled barrel.

Hercules jogged forward with his club at the ready, and Ladon opened one of his mouths to reveal a growing ball of flame. With a jerk forward, the head spewed a cannonball-sized spheres of flame straight at him.

Hercules strafed left, his feet working so fast it looked as though he had teleported, and all the while, he didn’t stop his forward progress.

GoneGodDamn was Hercules a badass. Not because of his strength—which was, I knew, as immense as this dragon’s—but because the man was utterly fearless.

Ladon closed his mouth as another of his heads rose into the air. This one opened, spewed fire down on Hercules, who was lost in the brightness, and then inevitably reappeared, this time even closer to Ladon’s body.

The dragon opened another mouth, fire shooting out of it from a different angle. The flames pinged between each head in rapid succession, each of them preparing their attack before the fire even emerged from their mouths.

One of the heads angled around on its long neck behind Hercules, who had gotten close enough to be in amongst the tangle of Ladon’s body around the tree, and I yelled out as the mouth opened and fire shot at him from behind.

Hercules stepped right, spun, and used the momentum to swing his club into Ladon’s fire-breathing head, sending it rocketing around on its neck and into the ground.

When it hit, the earth rumbled beneath us, and it scorched the grass as it went down. The eyes closed, and the head didn’t move.

One down, ninety-nine to go.

As we approached, I only caught glimpses of Hercules in amongst Ladon’s tremendous bulk. The heads passed around him, shooting fire—and he rolled, dodged, passed through flames and swung his club.

Heads flew, they rolled, they went quiet, and at every moment I expected Ladon to land the killing strike, but he did not.

Because he was fighting Hercules, and tonight, the demigod had more than strength. He had purpose.

The three of us came up behind Ladon in the darkness. Pythia nodded me forward, and I stepped toward the tree.

As I did, three heads swung around like risen snakes, six eyes flashing on me. One mouth opened, and I saw a growing ball of flame at the center of it.

Cupid rose into the air beside me, an arrow nocked. “Move!”

I jumped to the side as flame spewed out, destroying the spot of earth where I had been standing. I landed on my hands and knees just as the second head raced toward me, preparing to snap me in half. Before it reached me, it jerked left with a roar as an arrow plunged into its eye.

“Add that one to your list of admirers,” Cupid called as he shot by me, preparing another arrow. A second later I heard it thwip through the air, followed by the cry of another of Ladon’s heads.

Admirers? I thought, but my question was answered by the head that had just tried to take a bite out of me. It swung around and attacked the first head—the one that had tried to incinerate me a moment earlier.

The two of them flared on each other, now snapping and growling as their necks wrapped around each other in a strange ballet.

I got it: I had a dragon admirer. One head of one hundred, at least. Did that count as a full dragon? Either way, he would fight the other ninety-nine for me, it seemed.

Which left me with one looming head. And boy, was he pissed.

I got to my feet as the last head—the largest of the three—swept out toward me, his mouth opening as a mesmeric cauldron of flame grew in his throat.

This one had a two-tier strategy: he would burn me to a crisp, and if that failed, ram me straight on. As soon as I recognized what he was doing, I didn’t have time to run.

I only had time to duck.

I gripped the claw hard as the ball of flame broke, the fire issuing out of his mouth. Now, I had time to think before I dropped to one knee and rolled, swiping the claw across the soft underside of his jaw as he passed above me.

Tremendous heat washed over me—and not just from the flame. It just emanated off his head and neck like a furnace, and I kept rolling to avoid being scalded.

But I didn’t know if I’d gotten him with the claw until I rolled onto my belly and looked back. Behind me, the flame died away as the head lost its magic, and it rose high into the air with a terrified shriek.

“Now!” Pythia yelled from where she stood by the tree. “End this, encantado.”

I pushed myself upright and sprinted toward the tree, where Ladon’s body had wrapped so tightly the bark was flaking away.

How simple a thing it was, to stop a dragon: a single cut with El Lobizon’s claw, no bigger than a paper cut.

I stooped as the battle raged on the other side, the tree’s immense trunk shuddering all the way up to the leaves, where the enormous apples swayed, and I waited for the moment when Ladon’s serpentine scales shifted to reveal their soft interior.

I knew what that moment would be.

The dragon prepared to roar, his body easing before he did, and the scales lifted like petals. I drove the claw in amongst the scales, yanked it out in the same instant.

At once, Ladon flinched, shuddered from his tail straight up the length of his body, all the way around and around the tree’s trunk until it reached his heads.

Together they ceased, and the dragon released another roar from his fifty-something remaining heads—this one pitiful, heartbreaking. The mouths opened, but the fire did not come.

And so a great and terrible dragon, older than any of us, was stripped of his power.

As I rose, my vision blurred with tears.

Beside me, Pythia sighed. I felt the sorrow in that exhale. “Retrieve the apples, Hercules,” she called, “and let it be done.”

Hercules lowered his club to the ground and stepped forward. Ladon’s remaining heads hovered in the air, hissing as he reached for one of the low-hanging apples.

Beside me, Pythia tensed. She took two steps, set her hand on the dragon’s body. “He whispers of something. I cannot hear him properly.”

Hercules’s fingers touched a low-hanging apple. As they did, a low, foreign sound echoed through the clearing. A rapport. Gunpowder.

My mind returned to the present era, and the word entered my head like a shot.

Gun.

The apple Hercules had touched fell from the tree at his feet, a perfect hole in the meaty center of it.

Then three things happened at once:

“Killers!” Pythia cried first. “Ladon speaks of killers.”

A second rapport. This time a hole appeared in Hercules’s side, and blood streamed from it like a cracked jug. He stared down at the wound, found the strength to turn in the direction he’d been shot, then he dropped to one knee.

Across the clearing, the World Army emerged from the trees.

Chapter 20

Run. Run, Isabella. Run.

Hinata. It was Hinata who had told me that. Hinata whose face I now wore.

In 1915, she had been fascinated by me. Most young Brazilian women had heard stories, feared and distrusted encantado with equal fervor.

But Hinata was not of Brazil. She was an immigrant, the teenage daughter of a Britishman—long disappeared—and a woman who had brought her daughter from Japan to work on a coffee farm.

A difficult, withering life. One which had not diminished her. She had a rare brightness, an ability to truly see people.

And the first moment she saw me walking down the road, that ability was what brought her to her feet.

Her mother, whose face had shriveled from a lifetime under the sun, remained seated.

“Kiseki,” Hinata had said in Japanese. Which, I would later learn, didn’t mean what I’d thought. In Brazil, we encantado were considered seductresses, thieves, monsters who stole men away. Even worse, you could not tell us apart from humans, because we wore the illusion of them.

I assumed kiseki meant monster or demon. I assumed it meant I should walk faster, turn my eyes away.

I did. Except her footsteps sounded behind me, and her fingers fell on my arm. “Kiseki,” she repeated, softer this time. Her mother was beckoning her back, but Hinata persisted. “Anata wa nanimonodesu ka?”

I spoke Portuguese and English. She spoke only Japanese. We only had one common language, and that was kinship. You feel your kin when you meet them.

I did not understand what she said that day, but I did. I understood her softness, her brightness, her sweet cadence. I felt it in the eyes, the lips, the tone.

And so, over years, I visited her at nights. We walked the road by the plantation, our hands clasped, our conversations becoming richer as she learned Portuguese—as one does when enveloped by a new language—and I learned what kiseki meant.

Miracle. She considered me a miracle.

I don’t know how she knew what I was. But some have that ability to see past the veil, see us for what we really are, and she must have been one.

She asked me about where I lived, and I took her there one night. The rainforest, our home by the river where we slept under the canopy and hung our clothes from branches. And Hinata met my sisters, the first human in a hundred years to truly enter our world.

She met them with joy.

That night, we returned to her mother standing in the road, feet set apart, the metal in her hands silvered by the moonlight.

I recognized the long barrel as she lifted it, aimed at me.

I remember she called me a demon—because she, too, had the sight. She saw me for what I was, and what she saw she feared.

Other. A monster.

But I remember Hinata’s words better.

Run. Run, Isabella. Run.

Because by then, she spoke fluent Portuguese.

I did run as the two women wrestled, but Hinata’s mother had a mother’s love. She feared me and what I would do to her daughter.

So I, clapping down the road as hard as I could, heard the rapport and I knew. I knew it before the hole appeared in my side, and my blood ran out into the dirt like a cracked jug.

↔

In Central Park, I could not run.

Even as the soldiers fanned past the trees.

Even as they spread into a half-circle inside the center of Hera’s garden.

Even as Serena Russo emerged at the center of that circle, her black slacks and suit jacket swapped out for tactical gear. That waterfall of ebony hair had been wound into a tight bun, the angles of her hard face shining harder under the moon.

She stared at me. Only at me.

Run. My best hope was to run.

Pythia’s hand gripped my wrist. She sensed my fear. “Remember what I said. Remember what I told you.”

My blood rushed so hard in my head, I couldn’t even remember ten seconds before, or my own name. I stepped back from Ladon.

“You must face her,” Pythia said. Behind her, Cupid swept toward Hercules, unleashing arrows into the night. The oracle’s grip slid to my hand. “You must.”

I stared, uncomprehending.

“Forget your instincts,” she said. “Forget what you have always done. If you do not face her, Hercules will die. Justin will die. Look at the son of Zeus.”

She turned my face with almost violent force, and through the blur of tears, I saw Hercules trying to rise. Trying, and failing.

“He is not of this world,” Pythia said. “He does not know a bullet, a gun.”

I looked back at her. “I’m not a fighter.”

She gripped my face harder, anger flaring in her eyes. “You want to be a coward? Then you are. You want to fight? Then you fight. But be decisive, encantado. For GoneGods’ sake, be decisive.”

And with that, Pythia dropped her hand and struck off toward Hercules and the World Army. She didn’t run like a young woman or a fighter. She ran with uneven steps, a stumbling gait. Because she was old and her balance was not what it had once been.

Of course, none of that mattered, because when she reached his side, she planted her staff in the ground and from her chest blossomed a thousand pasts and futures.

They swept out of her like ghosts, which I suppose is what they were: the ghosts of what has been, and what may come. White wisps, but so many of them that they nearly obscured my view of her, and even of Ladon’s remaining heads.

They swept around her, Hercules and Cupid, enveloping the three Others in a vortex of time.

And the pasts and futures screamed. They screamed like wailing women, all of them … because they were being shot. Beneath their wails, I heard automatic rifle fire. Guns unloaded from the tree line, the World Army assailing the oracle’s vortex with hundreds of bullets.

The bullets pierced everything: Ladon’s body, the tree’s trunk, the apples, which thumped to the ground.

I dropped to the earth. How had they found us? Justin had removed the tracer, but somehow they’d tracked me again, here into this magical place in Central Park. And they’d decided to destroy everything they saw.

Which was, after all, the World Army’s way: shoot first, sort through the wreckage afterward.

I knew Serena wanted me alive, to extract the research I’d stolen. But I suspected the others—the men shooting their guns—wouldn’t mind if I ended up dead, either.

After all, both outcomes kept me—and what I’d stolen—from slipping into the resistance’s hands.

Through the gaps in the swirling vortex, I caught glimpses of Pythia. She was aging, dying, her body growing frail. What was left of her life she intended to use to protect the rest of us.

And still I wanted to run.

Except her words wouldn’t let me. “You must face her. You must face her to defeat her. They will die if you do not.”

Hercules and Cupid would die if I did not face Serena Russo. Justin would die if Hercules died. And I would die with them. If not in body, then in spirit—and certainly in body not long after.

The wailing was dying with Pythia, the vortex shrinking. “For GoneGods’ sake, be decisive, encantado.”

It was possible those words would remain with me for the rest of my mortal life.

I gripped El Lobizon’s claw hard enough to make my hand hurt, and when I heard a pause in the gunfire, I rose and emerged from behind the tree. My hands went up, waving through the air in the universal body language for truce, for a ceasefire.

Across the scorched earth, Serena Russo’s elegant hand went up, too. And just like that, only the sound of the Oracle of Delphi’s gasps remained, the pasts and futures dissolving into the air like smoke.

Beside me, Pythia dropped to her knees beside Hercules.

“Here I am,” I yelled, my voice echoing back at me. “It’s me, Serena.”

Beside her, Sergeant Johnson yelled in his barking style, “Tell the Others to drop their weapons. You too, encantado.”

I dropped the claw to the ground.

Cupid floated to my side, his bow still in his hand. “You can still run. I’d distract them.”

“Put your bow down,” I whispered. My eyes drifted to Hercules, whose hand pressed to his bloody side, and Pythia, who appeared impossibly frail to still be alive. “I’m not running. The oracle told me my fate.”

Whatever came—and I knew it wouldn’t be good for me—I wouldn’t run from Serena tonight.

Cupid stared across the clearing. “Your fate?”

I followed his gaze, a shiver running up my body as I found her blue eyes. They were staring back at me. “I have to face her.”

“What will you do?” he said.

What would I do? I had no clue, except the vague idea that I could save the rest of them by approaching her woman to woman. “I’m going to talk to her.”

Cupid’s eyebrow arched. “You do realize she just ordered a military contingent to kill us all with automatic weapons?”

I nodded, reaching up to touch his chubby hand. “Promise me you’ll do whatever you can to keep Hercules and Justin alive.”

“Immortality burns promises out of you,” Cupid said. “You’re more important than any of us, Isabella. More important than me or Hercules or Pythia or Justin. You can’t let them take you.”

“What if my love story isn’t possible without bravery?” I said. “What if I’m not capable of having the kind of love you see in me without protecting the four people who would give their lives for me?”

He opened his mouth, but when no response came, he closed it. His only answer was to drop his bow to the earth. He floated back to the other two, watching me with terrified eyes.

Above us, Ladon’s remaining heads hovered, a hundred eyes staring down at me. He had still been aggressive after I’d stabbed him with the claw, but now he just watched.

He watched me with the intensity of a dragon.

A thin voice—it might have been leaves rustling—threaded up to my ears. “Ladon knows. I have shown him who you are.”

Pythia. She hadn’t moved, but she spoke. She was still alive.

“Go, encantado,” she said in that threaded voice. “This is the way. Go now.”

I turned back to the World Army. Against every fiber of instinct, I started forward across the clearing.

↔

Serena understood at once. She came forward alone, and the two of us met in the middle of a patch that had been scorched and blackened by Ladon’s flames.

“You look different,” Serena observed. That low voice pooled into my ears, seductive and menacing at once.

I looked up at her, who appeared exactly as the last time I’d seen her in real life. That afternoon, she had just settled into her office chair after our daily meeting, completely unaware that I was about to steal everything she understood about Other DNA.

“You don’t,” I said. “How did you find me?”

“I can’t reveal all my secrets, Isabella.” She studied me. “You defied all your species’ instincts. Encantado are runners.”

“We are.”

Her eyes drifted behind me. “Three Others and a dragon.” She squinted. “Is that a Cupid?”

I said nothing.

“And that man—how he moved. Johnson saw him at the tunnel, and that was quite the show just now. He is … who? Achilles? Or perhaps Hercules of legend?”

My eyes must have fluttered, because Russo nodded in understanding. “So he is Hercules. How is it that he lives? Never mind that now. He’s bleeding out, but there’s still time—if we get him to a hospital.”

My lips pressed together; how had she known? The shimmer of greed had entered her eyes. I knew she was already imagining how she could splice her soldiers with his DNA, what kind of marvelous strength they would possess.

“You won’t have him,” I said. “You won’t have any of them.”

Her gaze returned to me. “Oh, I see. You think you can bargain.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not possible. Not after what you did. Not after you attempted to steal my son’s future.”

Collin. Collin Russo.

I knew, no matter what I said, I wouldn’t be able to change her mind about that. So I didn’t try.

“Then why meet with me like this?” I swept my hand around. “Here, the two of us alone, at the center of everything.”

As I said it, a voice bellowed through the clearing. “Step away from her, Serena.”

We both turned, but I already knew who I’d see. I knew that voice better than anyone’s.

Justin.

He stood by Hera’s tree, as hale as I’d ever seen him. He wore a bow over his chest, and had an automatic rifle pointed right at Serena’s head.

A thrill shot through me—he had come for us, for me, and he was OK—before cold dread filled me. Something about the way he stood struck me as profoundly off. Hercules’s wound. He’s taken the same wound to the side.

With a sharp inhale, I understood he would not be able to defeat Serena on his own. This would not turn out well for him.

“That’s why,” Serena said. And I understood: she had been waiting for her super soldier to appear. And she knew he would have to show himself if I was about to be captured by the World Army.

Serena raised her hand into the air, gestured at Justin. All at once, a hundred automatic rifles clicked, and she pulled me to her. Her arms gripped me tight; GoneGodDamn but she was strong for a scientist.

“Drop!” was all I had time to yell before the firing started.

Pythia and Hercules were already prostrate, but Cupid hit the ground hard. Ladon roared as the bullets peppered his heads and body, his blood spilling out of him with each new bullet hole.

And Justin?

Justin had disappeared.

I searched the clearing, but I couldn’t find him. The firing continued, and Ladon lashed out with his remaining heads, sweeping them up and around, his mouths opening to spew the fire he no longer had.

The apples on the tree shook, sprouted holes, more of them thumping to the ground and rolling down.

On and on it went, until the dragon finally unwound himself from the tree and rose into the air, great wings flapping with such fury that my eyes couldn’t stay open from all the debris. He carried the dead weight of half his heads, but still managed to raise himself high above us.

The bullets followed. I suppose because Justin had disappeared, and because the soldiers had no other target than the dragon who now roared with the fury of some thirty heads over Hera’s garden.

It was an even sadder sight, watching the majestic creature die a slow death to bullets, without even his fire to protect himself. And I had done it to him. I had stuck the dagger in.

“This is what happens,” Serena said into my ear. “I don’t relish this. I don’t want it. But this is what happens when you endanger humanity. When you take the research we’ve spent decades procuring to protect humans—that I’ve spent decades gathering—and give it to those who threaten to destroy us.”

For a moment, I was transported back to Collin Russo’s bedroom, to Serena’s pained, tender face as she watched her son do his homework.

This was her feeling, and always had been: humans were frail, delicate, powerless. Her son was powerless. She would give him safety, a future. Freedom from fear of those creatures who possessed magic, who possessed the power to destroy human beings the way Hercules had defeated Ladon.

“You mean your son,” I whispered. “Those who would threaten to destroy your son.”

I felt her breath catch, and she had just opened her mouth to speak when a plume of fire bore down on the soldiers behind us.

Ladon had gotten his magic back.

We both stared into the sky, where the dragon still raged, and I realized I was wrong. No fire emanated from those remaining mouths. My eyes followed the fire’s trajectory, and I realized it had come from the ground.

Out from behind the tree stepped Justin, two of Ladon’s heads squirming from the top half of his body, arching away from his own head. The dragon heads were so large I didn’t even know how his legs could hold them up. And both of them were spewing fire.

Boy, were they.

Chapter 21

Justin couldn’t control the heads properly, and as he started toward the World Army, one head shot fire at the men in the tree line, and the other gazed right at Serena and me, its mouth opening to reveal a sphere of flame.

Serena threw us out of the way, and the heat blew past us so close I thought my skin might melt off.

As I lay on the ground, I lifted my head to see the real Ladon swoop forward and half-land, half-crash into the trees amongst the World Army. A man shrieked, and World Army soldiers tumbled out of the trees like debris.

Ladon thrashed in amongst the soldiers, every head fighting, every fanged maw lifting men and tossing them through the air.

Serena grabbed my wrist, started to her feet. She yanked me after her, and we tore across the opening in parallel to Ladon. She meant to leave with me. And I knew if we reached that tree line, I would not escape.

I tried to pull away, but she had such immense strength I wondered if she, too, had been spliced. Or maybe she bore the strength of fury and fear and need. That was its own power, after all.

“Serena,” I yelled.

An arrow cleaved past my cheek and clipped her hair before it sailed into the forest. As it passed, I spotted the white feathering, the signature hearts on the shaft.

“Let go of her, you bitch!” Cupid called. When I looked back, he was racing toward us on his cloud, nocking a second arrow.

But Serena didn’t let go. She flinched and kept running, and I knew she carried a mother’s determination with her. Not just here, but everywhere. Everywhere she went, she thought of him. Her son—him and home alone. The only human in the world who mattered.

She needed the knowledge I carried in my head, and even if someone cleaved her hand from her arm, that hand would cling on. Because she had her own love story.

I understood her. And I finally understood what Pythia had meant when she’d told me to face Serena. She hadn’t meant standing before her. She hadn’t meant that at all.

“Collin,” I whispered. Then, in a yell, “Collin!”

We were three feet from the trees when fourteen years of instinct forced her to turn her head. Someone was calling her son’s name.

She could never ignore her son’s name.

Her face came around, those blue eyes widening, and the next arrow took her right in the shoulder—the same shoulder that was connected to the hand holding onto me.

I leaned back as she fell, and her nails dug in to keep her grip. They ripped into the skin of my wrist, but Cupid’s arrow was too powerful.

When she let go, I fell back, rolled onto my hands and knees as I scrabbled for purchase toward the tree. I started running; I ran harder than I had in decades.

When I glanced behind me, Serena had risen, the arrow still protruding from her shoulder. We met eyes for a beat before hers filled with ethereal desire—the arrow taking effect—and she turned and disappeared into the trees.

A reprieve, but she wasn’t done with me. She wouldn’t be done until she had taken back what I stole. That was what her love story dictated.

Ahead, Justin and Ladon were wrecking the soldiers, who had begun to flee. But I didn’t run toward them—I ran toward the two prone figures surrounded by new-fallen apples.

When I arrived, I lowered to my knees between Pythia and Hercules. He lay on his back, his hand stemming the blood from his side. She lay in the fetal position, her hair over her face.

“The oracle,” Hercules said, gaze upward, “go to her.”

I pressed Pythia’s hair away, found her eyes open. I couldn’t tell whether her chest moved under her robes for how frail she was. Then she blinked, a slow movement.

“Pythia,” I whispered. “You’re alive.”

Her mouth opened, and only air came out. Then, that thread of a voice. “Only just, and not for long, I fear.” Her voice wasn’t so much a voice as an exhalation, words formed on the wind through her throat.

One meatless, veined hand rose toward me. “You asked why I joined the resistance.”

I stared at her hand. “What matters now is …”

“One moment,” she breathed. “Just give me one moment. Take my hand. You will never experience a story in this way again, encantado.”

So I placed my hand in hers, and we took one last trip into the past. The very, very ancient past.

↔

We stood in an open-air temple, pillars rising around us to a Grecian dome. And at the center, a young woman of maybe fifteen in ivory robes, seated cross-legged before a grown man.

The young woman’s lush, dark hair swept over her shoulders, her porcelain skin unlined. She was striking.

And the man … was not. Scars littered his body, and the tip of his nose had at some point been cleft away. But he was clearly powerful—a warrior, clad in armor, a sword at his waist.

In the night, a storm raged. Lightning skewered the sky by intervals, overpowering the flames burning in cauldrons around them.

Beside me, Pythia sighed. “It has been two thousand years since I saw her. Tell me, encantado, can you remember anyone’s face from the first hundred years of your life?”

That was five hundred years ago. I thought hard. “No,” I whispered. A strange shame swept through me. “I can’t even remember beyond the last century.”

“Nor can I.”

“But before the gods left, couldn’t you just revisit the past any time you liked?”

“Yes,” she said, her eyes on the young woman before us. “But I could not bear to revisit this past.”

As I gazed with her, I recognized the resemblance between her and Pythia. “Is she you?”

“Oh, no.” Pythia swept a dismissive hand through the air. “I was far less attractive in my youth.”

But I could see it in the way she stared at the young woman, the longing on her face …

“She was your daughter,” I said.

Pythia’s eyes welled. She turned away before I could see the tears touch her cheeks. “Pray you never have a daughter, encantado.”

Before us, the seated girl offered her palms to the soldier—an oracle doing her reading. “Why, Pythia?”

Pythia wiped at her eyes, straightened. Ahead of us, the warrior reached out and grabbed the girl’s small wrists. She shrieked—the same sound through human history, unchanged: a girl in pain, a girl in need. A girl alone.

“Because losing her will be a worse pain than any mortal wound,” the oracle whispered.

Pythia did not move as the man pulled the girl toward him, knocking over bowls, spilling a red herb and a forest-green dust across the stone.

As he pressed his lips to her face, lightning lit the sky, and the two of them were illuminated in a pose I knew well.

A man taking what he wanted. Nature’s vilest maxim: the strong will dominate the weak.

In the temple, under the rain, we watched a horror of the past. The girl’s robe torn off to expose her not-yet-developed chest before she was hoisted over the man’s shoulder like so many potatoes in a sack. The man rising as she beat his back. The man carrying her from the temple as she screamed for her mother.

Pythia was the name she called. And the words “Mother,” and “please.”

The rain enveloped them as he departed, and we two specters were left standing amongst the spilled herbs and the firelight.

“She was half-human, half-demigod,” Pythia said. Her tone had gone flat. “She was the most precious creature I have ever beheld, and I have seen many, encantado. Yet with all my power, I could not see her fate to save her.”

“What happened to her?” I whispered.

“That I saw, too,” Pythia murmured. “But I will not show it to you.” She raised her eyes to me. “Suffice it to say, she became like the other virgins lost to time.” Her hands raised, indicating the temple all around us.

I lifted my eyes, spotted their faces carved into the pillars. Young women. The oracles of the ancient world, commemorated in stone.

“That is why young women could no longer be oracles,” Pythia spat. “Because they offered men the future, and those men could not resist present desires. Humans have always been short-sighted.”

Thunder boomed, and a few seconds later the pillars lit up in blue-white light. When Pythia lowered her hands, I enfolded hers in mine. “You joined the resistance because of her.”

“I led many men to their worst fates because of her. Because I could not bear her death.” Her voice was streaked through with regret. “But I joined the resistance because I saw you. I saw that you would come to me, and fate told me that you were the only one capable of returning immortality to Others.”

My eyes widened. “Immortality? Pythia, no. The gods are gone. And I’m …”

She raised a hand. “You’re only a scientist. You’re only an encantado. You’re only Isabella. All these things I have heard.”

I closed my mouth.

“You finally understood what I meant about facing Serena Russo.”

I nodded.

“And you will understand this, too, when the time comes.” She stepped closer, leaned toward my ear. With a boom of thunder, she whispered, “You will understand when you complete your labor.”

I blinked, leaned back. “My labor?”

“We all have our labors, encantado. But most of us don’t have oracles to make us aware of them.” She gripped my shoulder. “When you return, place a piece of apple in Hercules’s mouth. You must do that at once. You will need him for what is to come. Never let him leave your side.”

“I promise.”

“And then you must go straight to 91 Bainbridge. I’ve told them to expect you there.”

“91 Bainbridge?” I repeated. “Where is—”

“Cupid of Eros will know.”

“But who …”

She cupped my face with her hand. “You will be safe. For a time.”

My chin crumpled. “Will you come?”

“You remind me of her, encantado. Maybe it’s just that: we are always in search of those we’ve loved.” Pythia’s eyes had already passed beyond me. She crossed to the temple’s edge, one hand reaching out into the storm, the droplets coating her fingers.

“I will miss this.” A little laugh escaped her as the world melted away. “You never know what you’ll feel sentimental about until the end.”

That was the last view I had of the Oracle of Delphi. Just a woman in the rain, waiting for her daughter to return.

↔

When I opened my eyes, my hand was still set in Pythia’s. Beneath me, her eyes had shut, every ounce of her spirit burnt into the ether. I raised the bare-boned fingers, set my lips to them.

“Isa?”

Justin stood still some ten feet away—only a moment had passed, as the oracle had promised—with a hand pressed to his bloody side. My first instinct: get him to the hospital, to the emergency room. I was about to start toward him when he fell to his knees.

“I’ve got him.” Cupid flitted over to Justin, catching him before he knocked his head on the ground as he dropped.

Everyone was falling around me. Pythia, Justin, Hercules ...

Hercules. The apple. I couldn’t let him leave my side.

I fell to my hands, crawling over to the demigod’s prone form. Like Justin, he had slipped into unconsciousness, both hands still pressed to the bullet hole in his side. Blood pooled in the grass beneath him.

And beside him lay one of Hera’s perfect, untouched apples.

I rose, searching the ground. There, glinting some twenty feet off: my dagger. When I retrieved it, I grabbed the apple—which was as big as a basketball—and set it in my lap.

I cut off a tiny sliver, and the fragrance hit me at once, more potent and alluring than any fruit I had tasted in my life. My mouth watered as I opened Hercules’s mouth and inserted the piece of apple.

My heart thundered in my chest. Nothing happened.

Cupid flitted over. “What are you doing?”

“Pythia told me I had to give Hercules a bite of apple.”

Cupid scoffed, fished the piece out of Hercules’s mouth. “He can’t swallow it while he’s unconscious.”

“What am I supposed to do—juice it?”

He passed it to me. “Eat it.”

I stared at the piece of apple, looked back at Cupid. “Pass it to him like a bird?”

“That’s gross. Just swallow a bite and then kiss him.”

He was right, of course—the juice would still be in my saliva. I inserted the apple into my mouth, began chewing almost at once. Not because of the urgency of the situation as much as, well … it tasted better than Ambrosia.

If I wasn’t careful, I’d eat the whole apple right here.

The most powerful feeling of well-being I’d ever experienced came over me as I swallowed, and I understood why King Eurystheus had charged Hercules with stealing this fruit—and why Pythia had instructed me to feed it to him.

When I swallowed, every ache and pain left my body. And after that battle, I had many. They all evaporated, and for the first time since the gods had left, I felt immortal again. I felt timeless.

My eyes flicked to Justin, prone on the grass. This is for both of you, I thought.

I leaned over Hercules’s body, parted his lips with my thumb and kissed him. I kissed him as deeply as I had ever kissed a man, my hands cupping his face.

I tried to imagine he was Justin, but Hercules’s lips were fuller, more sensual. His scent was different. It was like trying to imagine the color green was red.

I couldn’t do it. So, after a moment, I acknowledged the truth: I was kissing Hercules. And GoneGodDamn was it nice.

Soon, I wasn’t the only one doing the kissing. One hand touched my hair, and when I tried to lean back, he pulled me in closer. And I knew it wasn’t just the apple or saving Justin any longer.

It was us.

After some time, he released me. I stared down at Hercules, breathless, and cut off another slice of apple. When I handed it to him, a smile touched his lips before he bit into it.

“For the record,” Cupid said, “I didn’t shoot either of you with arrows. That was au naturale.”

Merda, I thought. High-stress situations certainly intensified a kiss.

After he had swallowed, Hercules rose to his elbows. “Do you know,” he said, “after I completed this labor the first time, I wondered for the rest of my life why King Eurystheus wanted the apples from Hera’s garden.”

He glanced down at the wound on his side, which was rapidly closing. “I thought maybe it was pride, or that he had a vendetta against Hera and the nymphs. But I never once thought to sample the prize.”

I sat back on my legs. “Now you know.”

“Now I know.” He reached for the apple I had taken a slice from, and I passed it to him. He accepted it with one hand, and it looked more like a softball than a basketball in his palm. “They’re not as big as I remembered.

“That’s what she said,” Cupid sang from where he sat with Justin.

“Isa said nothing,” Hercules began. “And how would she know? She was not there when—”

“Just stop,” Cupid said. “First thing we’re doing when we get in front of a TV is an Office marathon.”

I rose, crossed toward Justin and dropped down by his side. “Honey,” I said to him, setting a hand on the side of his face. Because, despite what had just happened between Hercules and me (or maybe because of it) it had become clear to me how much I cared for Justin.

What he had just transformed into—a half-man, half-dragon—was terrifying, but I trusted the human in him. He had sacrificed for me more than once, and now he was here because of me. For me.

I was about to press a slice of apple between his lips when Cupid pointed. “Look.” The wound in his side was fading, smoke rising from it like mist. “The River Styx’s power.”

“It’s that strong?”

“It made Achilles immortal,” Cupid said with a shrug. “Well, except his heel.”

“But he’s not immortal, is he?”

“Unfortunately not,” Cupid chuckled. “No one in this GoneGod World is immortal anymore. It’s a temporary effect.”

Justin’s eyes opened, and he gazed up at me. “You’re OK.”

“Me?” I said. “You—”

But before I could finish, he pulled me down into his arms.

When my face found the crook of his neck, the thread of fear I felt at the creature he had become a few minutes ago dissipated. These were the arms I remembered, and the scent I knew. The human I trusted.

Afterward, I leaned back. My hand slid down to his side. Beneath the blood, he bore no wound. “What have you become?” I whispered.

His mouth twitched, and he said nothing except, “What now?”

“Now?” It was hard to think of the next step, after everything. Then I remembered what Pythia had told me. I turned to Cupid. “Where is 91 Bainbridge?”

Cupid rubbed his chin. “That sounds familiar. Hold on—I need to think.”

“Pythia told me to go there,” I said. “She said they were expecting us.”

His eyebrows raised. “The oracle told you?”

“She said you would know where to go.”

He snapped his fingers, and his puff of cloud swept down from the sky. He hopped into it and proceeded thinking with his face in his chin. “91 Bainbridge. 91 … Bainbridge.”

“I once slew ninety-one—” Hercules began.

“Go eat some more apple, Herc.” Then Cupid’s eyes lit, and he rummaged in his loincloth. The rest of us averted his eyes until we heard paper crinkling.

Somehow he had fit a map inside there, which he now unfolded in his cloud as he floated over to me. His finger traced, and he stabbed at the map. “Brooklyn.”

I squinted. “What?”

“91 Bainbridge Street.” A little grin spread over his face. “You’re going to love the subway at night.”

Hercules appeared above us, hands at his hips. “Well, what are we waiting for? I feel like I could slay the Nemean lion all over again.”

I rose. “Not yet,” I said. “We need to do something first.”

Chapter 22

Together, the four of us worked to bury Pythia beneath Hera’s apple tree. Hercules ate an entire apple, core and all, and afterward managed to dig up great swaths of dirt so that, soon after, we had a small grave.

We didn’t need a large one. Pythia—or what remained of her—wasn’t very big, after all.

It was I who lowered her in, shrouded in her robes. And because I had never known a religion or a faith, I waited until we had packed the dirt over and we stood beside the grave and I said the first truth that entered my mind.

“She was decisive,” I said. “She was brave, and I will never forget her or her wisdom. May she and her daughter rest well in whatever beyond this GoneGod World has to offer.”

But it didn’t feel like enough. Words never felt like enough for the cherished dead. So I took her staff, and I planted it as a headstone. When the nymphs returned to the garden, they would know. If Hera ever returned, she would know.

The Oracle of Delphi had died for Others to live on.

Afterward, we crossed the scorched earth in silence. Hercules carried three of Hera’s apples in a stray World Army backpack, and the rest of us retrieved our weapons. We passed Ladon’s corpse, who lay still amongst the trees.

Cupid led us out of the clearing, but I hesitated at the skein that lay between the garden and the rest of the world. “They’ll be waiting for us, won’t they?” I said.

“Who?” Cupid asked.

“The World Army.”

Hercules shook his head. “Isabella, I don’t know if you quite grasp the sacrifice the oracle made.”

I turned to him. “Besides her own death?”

“The oracle released two thousand years of pasts and fates,” Hercules murmured next to me. “You saw the vortex.”

“I saw it,” I said. “But I thought …”

“Tonight,” Hercules said, raising a hand to the buildings around us, “any human near this park will be stuck in their past or their future.”

“What about Justin?” I took my boyfriend’s hand. He didn’t seem stuck in the past or the future.

“Whatever I am,” Justin said, “I’m not completely human anymore.”

He and I met eyes. It was the first time he had fully acknowledged what had happened to him, how he had changed. Tonight was the first time I had seen him truly tap into the powers the World Army had given to him.

And it was the first time I noticed a single strand of silver hair in one black eyebrow. I thumbed over his browbone. “Whatever you are,” I said, “you’re still Justin Truly.”

“It seems no one within the garden was affected,” Hercules said. “Only those out here.”

He was right—none of the soldiers or Serena seemed to have been swept into the past or the future. “She was clearing the way,” I whispered. “She knew that if we did survive, we would be surrounded by the army.”

“Such was her power,” Hercules said. “She anticipated better than anyone. You had the great fortune of knowing one of the most remarkable women to grace this world.”

My eyes blurred, and I swiped at them. I glanced back one last time at the great tree, the mound of dirt, and the upright staff. Before anyone could speak, I said, “I guess she would want us to go, then.”

We all stepped through the veil. Around us, Central Park lay quiet and dark, just as Hercules had predicted. Ten minutes later, we emerged onto the sidewalk of an empty street.

Cupid led us to the nearest subway entrance, and we descended into the mildly unnerving hive of New York’s underground public transportation.

He used his card to get us all through the turnstiles—Hercules had to turn sidelong to get through—and on the platform, Hercules’s hair floated around his head as he gazed at the graffiti strewn over every surface.

“The wisdom of the new world,” Justin joked at him.

Hercules pointed at one sentence. “Will you read me some of your modern wisdom?”

“Julie’s a bloody tamp …” Justin stopped. “Actually, I misread. It says ‘Love thy neighbor.’ ”

Cupid snickered.

“Ah.” Hercules nodded. “A fine sentiment.”

As we waited on the platform, I turned to Cupid. “What did you make her want?”

He glanced up at me. “What?”

“Serena. With your arrow.”

“Oh.” He waved a hand through the air. “I made her want to see the person she loved most in the world. Wherever that person was.”

Clever. “You might have sent her all the way back to Montreal.”

“If I persuaded her.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The arrows aren’t absolute, remember?” Cupid said. “They only offer a strong suggestion.”

“Right.” I thought back to the way Serena had disappeared into the trees. “Your suggestion worked.”

He winked at me. “It always does. Well, almost always.”

As our train came to a stop in front of us, Hercules clapped his hands to his ears. “Why do the mechanical beasts squeal so?”

“Because, for all the technology in this new GoneGod World,” Cupid explained as he ferried us onto the subway, “they can’t be bothered to replace their worn-out brake pads.”

↔

When we came off the subway, Cupid started us down the sidewalk, but Hercules’s voice rang out behind me. “Isa,” he said.

I stopped, turned and found him unmoving. I let go of Justin’s hand, and when I crossed to Hercules, he looked down at me with mournfulness I’d never seen.

“You look so very sad, Isabella.”

“Me?” Though perhaps I did. Perhaps I reflected in my own face what I saw in his. “The oracle is dead.”

“In our time, Pythia would have died with the highest honor. She sacrificed herself for you—for us.”

I nodded.

“You thought I would die this evening,” he said. One hand lifted, flounced my hair. “I promised you I would not fail you, or him.”

“You kept that promise,” I murmured.

“You are most beautiful,” he said, “under this diffuse light.”

I swallowed. “That sounds like a goodbye.”

He gripped my chin in two fingers. “Perceptive as always.” When his hand fell away, he lowered his face. “I have another labor to complete.”

“I thought only two had been undone.”

“This is not a labor given to me by King Eurystheus. It is one I wasn’t sure of until I had the apples in my hands, and I knew the oracle was right. She told me my journey would not end when I defeated Ladon.”

“What is it?” I whispered. “We can help you. Justin’s fate is bound with yours.”

“Then it is fortunate I will not fail.”

“Tell me what it is.”

He lifted his eyes to me. “I must avenge a great wrong.”

“What? What does that even mean?”

“The oracle didn’t say.” His jaw hardened. “But I know which wrong I would like to avenge.”

“What wrong is that?”

“All the vileness Hera spread in this world. The family she forced me to murder. My own children.”

“How can you avenge that? Hera is gone.”

He sighed out his fury. “I don’t know.”

I set my hand at his cheek. “Pythia told me to keep you by my side. Come with us. Avenge the great wrongs that have been and will be done to Others by humankind.”

He stared down at me, then beyond me. “What about Justin Truly?”

“You know I can hear you both,” Justin called from down the sidewalk. He approached, and my hand quickly fell away from Hercules’s face. “What’s this about?”

“Hercules has a final labor,” I said. “To avenge a great wrong.”

“I must depart …” Hercules began.

“No,” Justin said. “You don’t.”

We both turned to Justin. “What?”

“Your fate is bound with mine. If you die, I die, remember? I’m not going to die because you accidentally walked out in front of a car somewhere on the other side of the world.” He stepped closer. “But more than that, Isabella needs you.”

“But …” Hercules began.

“I don’t care what’s between the two of you.” Justin looked at me. “Well, I do care. I’m jealous, but I already wailed on this guy’s face in front of a strip club. And then he saved my GoneGodDamn life with water from some ancient river in the underworld, so I think we’re about even.”

“Justin,” I breathed.

His eyes met mine. “I’m right, aren’t I? The oracle wanted you to keep him with you. You need him.”

I nodded.

“So you’re coming,” Justin said to Hercules. “You’re with us.”

I gazed up at Hercules, who was staring into the night sky. When he looked back down, it was straight at me. “I’m with you.”

↔

We came to 91 Bainbridge, which sat in a line of imposing brick rowhouses. The lights were on in 91, but the curtains were drawn tight.

We climbed the steps to the stoop, and Cupid gestured me forward. “You do the honors.”

Before me sat a frosted-glass door, impossible to see through. I touched my finger to the doorbell, which chimed through the interior of the house.

“Should I be ready to knock someone around?” Hercules whispered, one hand edging toward his club.

I shook my head. “No.” I trusted the oracle. And I suspected I knew what we would find inside 91 Bainbridge.

The door opened six inches, and a young woman’s face appeared. “Yes?”

“Pythia sent us,” I said. “I’m Isabella.”

“Pythia?” she said.

“The Oracle of Delphi.”

She opened the door farther. Before us stood a centaur. Her thick blonde hair hung down almost to her waist, and she wore a low fringe across her forehead. On her upper body, a biker’s jacket. The horse’s half of her was a light brown, dappled with white at the flanks and socks.

The centaur stepped close, one forehoof stamping. “I know who you are, encantado.” Her blue eyes surveyed the others. “And them?”

“They’re with me.” I pointed to each. “Hercules of legend. Cupid of Eros. And my boyfriend, Justin Truly.”

“You can call me Mari,” the centaur said. “You need to be off the street at once. All of you, follow me.”

“Wait,” I said. “How do I know …?”

“That I’m not going to kill you?” The centaur had half-turned down a dimly lit hallway, now snorted as she came back around. She swept up her blonde hair, lowered her head as she flipped her left ear for me to see the back of.

There, a minuscule outline of a fish. It almost looked like an infinity sign. I had to squint to make it out in the half-light.

“What is that?” I said.

“If you’re ever in doubt,” Mari said, “ask to see the flying, walking fish.”

I nodded. The fish and infinity—both references to the gods, to immortality. But this one had wings and feet. That fish—that infinity—had become something more. Evolved into something more.

We came through the door, and Mari brought the four of us down the hall and into a pineapple-themed kitchen.

There, we met the resistance.

More specifically, we met a man named Roger who sat with his hands wrapped around a mug as he listened to me tell him everything that had happened since we’d escaped Montreal.

Roger had little hair left on his head. He had a puppy calendar on the kitchen wall. He was an accountant by day. He was as human as humans came.

And he led the resistance in New York City.

As I finished my story, he watched with keen interest. “What I’ve stolen from the World Army—it’s the key to everything. If I can just gain access to a lab,” I said, “I can regain my powers, and I can complete my research. I can map the third strand of DNA, and …”

Roger’s eyebrows went up. “And?”

“I think I can give Others the ability to procreate,” I said. “I can give us immortality.”

Cupid spat coffee. “What?”

Mari stepped closer to the table. “You’re sure.”

I turned in my chair, both hands on the back. I didn’t blink, didn’t waver. “Yes.” I knew now what Pythia had given her life for. She had died for me to complete my research, to figure out the secret to procreation. That was the immortality she had spoken of.

“That’s, that’s …” Cupid stammered. “Isa, you told me you were a geneticist, but I didn’t know you were a good one.”

Mari met eyes with Roger. “The Oracle of Delphi died for this encantado. When she contacted me, she said that her fate was key to the survival of Others.”

“Well,” Roger said. “Now we know why.” His eyes drifted to his tea, then to Mari, Cupid, Justin and me. They settled on me. “She needs to go to Paradise Lot. She needs to meet the angel.”

“The angel?” I said.

“Miral,” Roger whispered, and even that word seemed injected with a grace that hung over the room like a veil. “The former Commander of the Lord’s Army.”

“Why?” Justin said. “Why all the way to Paradise Lot? Why this Miral? Can’t we just give her a phone call?”

Roger’s eyes flashed on Justin. “That’s classified to most of the resistance. You’ll know why when you see her.”

Cupid downed his mug of tea. “It’s a long-ass way to Paradise Lot. A whole ocean, if I remember my geography.”

“It is,” Roger said. “And it’ll be a harder journey than you know. The World Army wants you. They want you badly.”

“They’ve wanted me badly for weeks,” I said. “They still don’t have me.”

Roger nodded, a smile crossing his face. “That they do not. I do like your spirit.”

“What about your spirit?” I asked. “Why are you with the resistance?”

He paused with his mug half-raised to his mouth. “Ah, the question I’ve been waiting for. You mean, why is a human with the resistance?”

I nodded.

“Because empathy is not exclusive to one’s own species, Isabella Ramirez,” Roger said. “Because I may be an accountant, but I believe all of us—humans and Others—are capable of making a difference. We offer what we can, and I offer this.” His hand swept around the table.

“What is ‘this?’ ” Cupid asked.

“Sanctuary, kindness, and the ability to get where you want to go. You see, I’m married to an Other—a succubus. And no, before you ask, I did not marry her for the sex … although that is amazing. She’s asleep upstairs right now.” He pointed to the ceiling. “And my life would be over if hers were to end.”

I hid my grin. A succubus? Clearly I had misjudged Roger the accountant.

“So, encantado,” he said, “what will it be?”

“Let’s do this,” Cupid said.

“You know I am with you,” Hercules said.

Across the table, Justin and I met eyes. We had spent weeks together, just the two of us, running so long that running felt like the natural way of things. Him and I together, hand in hand.

After a moment, he nodded.

I turned back to Roger, Pythia’s words ringing through my head: Be decisive, encantado.

“All right,” I said. “We’ll go to Paradise Lot.”

Roger set his mug aside, pressing his sleeves back to his elbows. A glint had entered his eyes.

“Good,” he said. “Let’s begin.”

Oathbound

Chapter 1

I knew they would come. I just didn’t know when.

Every night, the four of us slept in the living room. Well, all of us except me.

I didn’t sleep.

I’d kept it a secret from the others—Hercules, who snored as he sprawled over the couch; Cupid, who snuggled into the crook of his arm; and Justin, my boyfriend, who curled to my missing form on the air mattress—because it was better this way.

I was the reason we were all here. I was the one risking their lives. This was my vigil.

Since we had arrived at the resistance’s headquarters in Brooklyn three days ago, I spent my nights drinking coffee and sitting in the window seat overlooking Bainbridge Street.

Every night I sat in that window and listened to Roger, the head of the resistance, make love to his wife, Selene the succubus. Or more accurately, she made love to him. It started about midnight, the crystals on the living room light fixture tinkling, and rolled right through into the truly dead of night—the hours when no one should be awake.

Roger must have been a terrible accountant; he never slept.

Lucky for me, he liked good coffee. Tonight I wrapped my hands around one of his pineapple-shaped mugs, pulled my knees up and felt a thin sheet of comfort overlay the anxiety in me. Outside, through the blinds, nothing moved but tree leaves.

“Isa?”

My heart leapt for no good reason. I knew who it was.

I turned my face, found Mari the centaur shadowed in the hallway. “Hey,” I whispered. She was young, her human half (and her horse half) equally trained for combat. I’d sensed immediately why she remained here at the townhouse day and night.

Trouble. If trouble came, Mari would meet it.

She gestured for me to follow her before clopping down the hallway toward the kitchen.

When I emerged into the pineapple-themed kitchen, she looked from the french press to me. “Do encantado not need sleep?”

I ran my thumbs over the half-empty mug between my hands. “Well, not as much as most mammals.”

“But you need it.”

“I’ve slept.” I slid into one of the chairs at the table. “Just not much.”

“You know why I’m here, Isabella,” Mari said. “To protect you. You’re with us now.”

I met her gray eyes. “So I can sleep easy?”

“So you can sleep easy.”

I touched a finger to the side of my head. “Tell that to my brain.”

“All right.” She opened a cabinet, retrieved a box of Nyquil. “Isabella’s brain, I’ve got a present for you.”

I leaned away. “No.”

She slid the tablets across the table toward me. “They aren’t coming to this house, Isabella. It’s been three days.”

“They always come.” My fingers slid across the table to touch the edge of the packet. I was too afraid to say the World Army—ever since we’d arrived, I’d only referred to them as they.

“How?” she said. “You said you got that tracer out of your arm.”

Got it out wasn’t exactly the right phrase. At once, I felt a phantom ache in my shoulder from where I’d been hit by one of the World Army’s darts. Afterward, Justin had used a pocket knife to pry out a tiny capsule planted beneath the skin—a tracking device. In five hundred years I’d rarely felt that kind of pain.

“I don’t know,” I said. “You’re right—they have no way of tracking us. But we haven’t stayed three days in one place since …”

Since we’d fled Montreal, I realized. It had been a month since Justin and I had left the city where we’d been college students. It had been six months since all of this began. It felt like another life now.

Mari filled a glass of water in the sink. She set it on the table next to the Nyquil. “We leave tomorrow evening. You need the sleep.”

I broke open the foil and released one tablet into my palm. I tossed it into my mouth, and had just lifted the glass of water when I heard the scratching.

It could have been a rat. It could have been a tree branch on the window. But I knew it wasn’t either of those things.

Mari and I met eyes. In the same moment, I spat the tablet into the glass of water and she thundered out of the kitchen, slapping a red button on the wall as she did.

Metal panelling clanged down over every window in the kitchen, and when I followed Mari down the hall—“Roger!” she bellowed up the staircase—and emerged into the living room, I found the bay window shielded, too.

Upstairs, I heard movement. Roger and Selene, probably getting dressed in a hurry.

Justin, Hercules and Cupid were all in various stages of waking. Nix that—Hercules was still snoring on the couch. Justin, on the other hand, was already pulling our belongings together into our backpacks, yanking his jacket on.

On the couch, Cupid tugged on Hercules’s limp arm. The cherubic demigod was always ready to go; he never took off his bow and arrow. And his loincloth—which I’d secretly begun to think of as his diaper—was just about all he ever wore, anyway.

His wings flicked into motion, and he flitted to Hercules’s head. “Herc buddy!” he yelled. He snapped his fingers by the demigod’s ear. “Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey.”

Hercules’s eyes snapped open. “Eggs?”

Mari had already yanked aside the edge of the large rug, revealing an outline in the floor. I came to her side as she grabbed a metal handle in the floor. “The panels on the windows,” I said. “Will those keep us—“

“No,” Mari grunted as she yanked. The panel didn’t move. “They won’t last for more than a few minutes. They’re just buying us time.”

And not much of it, at that.

With a yell, Mari pulled the trap door open. A cloud of dust rose in a square around her, and she pointed. “All of you, down there. You’ll see a door in the far wall with a route behind it. Follow it as far as it goes. First manhole you see, climb the ladder and exit onto the street.”

None of us said a word of objection. Mari handed me a flashlight, and I took the lead down the wooden steps. I descended into a cluttered basement, shone the flashlight over the boxes and past the wine rack to the far wall.

The door. I came to it just as Hercules dropped—not climbed, but dropped—into the basement behind me. Everything rattled, even my bones.

I expected a joke, but he only said, “Hurry, Isa.” Somehow he and Justin appeared by my side, pulling aside the wine rack partially blocking the door.

I grabbed the knob and turned it, and the door swung wide. A breeze hit me, carrying the scent of decay. Before us, the flashlight revealed a two-foot-square landing and, past that, a vertical stone tunnel some six feet around. As I stepped forward and angled the flashlight below, a metal rung gleamed back at me from the edge—a ladder down into pure darkness.

“Phew,” Cupid said beside me. “That’s the sewers for sure.”

“Isa,” Mari yelled from the square hole in the ceiling. “Penn Station, like we talked about. When you get off in Phoenix, tell them what happened in New York.”

I caught a glimpse of her yellow hair before she threw the trap door shut. My heart thudded in my ears—thump-thump-thump—for two, three, four seconds before the explosion threw everything in the basement on its side.

↔

“Isa,” came a voice. Cupid, muffled as though we were separated by glass. “Isa, get up.”

My right cheek hurt. I couldn’t breathe right, my throat coarse as a rapping cough overtook me. When I opened my eyes, I found that my flashlight had rolled away, the cone of light revealing the bottom half of an old movie poster on the far wall.

Casablanca.

A warm hand gripped mine, and I was being pulled to my feet. Justin. He wrapped his arms around me, and I melted into him. But I couldn’t stop coughing long enough to speak.

The light shifted, and Hercules’s face came into the flashlight’s cone as he climbed over the detritus toward us. “All good?”

“She’s OK,” Justin said.

“Mari,” I croaked. A powerful part of me wanted to throw open that trapdoor and find her and Roger and Selene. The other part of me knew what to expect.

There was a reason she had thrown that door shut between us and her. That was an Army-grade explosion, and whoever had set it off knew exactly who was inside this rowhouse.

Us.

Well, us until Mari sacrificed herself to get us down here.

“We can’t go back up there,” Justin said.

“I know.” We only had one choice: follow Mari’s instructions. Get to Penn Station. But that didn’t make it any easier to accept our inability to help her. Above us, a banging started. It sounded like a ram, its rhythmic thud jangling the wine rack beside us. “Let’s go.”

“I’ll float down first.” Cupid retrieved the flashlight from Hercules. “Light the way.”

Justin stepped toward the door. “I’ll follow Cupid and test the rungs.”

“And I’ll follow Isa,” Hercules said. “If anyone comes after us, my fist will greet their face.”

We proceeded into the sewers, the three of us following Cupid’s voice as it echoed down and down. The rungs were cold, narrow. It didn’t help that I was shaking with adrenaline and trying not to breathe through my nose.

After that first whiff, I suspected just the smell down here could kill me. Then the World Army’s job would be done for them.

“Get ready for wet,” Cupid called. A second later, I heard the sound of Justin hitting the water.

I paused, staring down. The flashlight’s beam flitted over concrete walls and dark, sitting water some five feet below me.

“It’s a short drop, and only about six inches of water,” Justin called up. The flashlight’s beam lit on me. “Drop down.”

And because I trusted him so fully, I did so at once. Justin eased the drop with his hands at my waist.

“Make way,” Hercules boomed. A second later, he dropped so hard into the water that it cascaded over all of us.

“Shit!” Cupid’s wings darted him back—not in time to avoid the wave.

“Make that plural.” I slapped my wet hands against my soaked pants.

Above us, the distant sound of automatic gunfire. It was unmistakable, the echo of it ricocheting down the tunnel.

“Those are AR-15s,” Justin said. “We need to move.”

I didn’t question it; I knew the World Army had trained him as one of their own, and he understood their tactics and their weaponry better than any of us. But it was still strange, to have known him six months ago—a normal college student—and to catch glimpses of what he had been Clockwork Orange-d into.

A super soldier. A weapon.

Cupid spun the flashlight around and flew off down the long length of sewer. Justin started after him, and I followed, with Hercules at the back. The tunnel was about six feet in width and twelve feet up; I felt grateful the darkness didn’t permit a good look at what surrounded us—just the scent was enough to know.

We splashed through the water, and I couldn’t stop the thought: This wasn’t supposed to be how it went down.

We were supposed to ride in Roger’s Miata to Penn Station where we would catch a cross-country train to San Diego. He promised to see us off with coffee to-go, supplies, weaponry, maps. Most of all, he was supposed to return home to his wife, Selene. They were supposed to make chandelier-tinkling love that night, like they did every night, and fall asleep in each other’s arms.

Now, all of it—the house on Bainbridge Street, the New York resistance—resided in our heads. Our memories.

Because they had found us. Me.

How? I could have screamed.

I didn’t want to imagine what was happening to Roger or Selene or Mari right now, but I did anyway. And that was why, when Cupid shone the flashlight straight up toward the manhole whose tiny gaps allowed the streetlight to shine down over our faces, mine was contorted.

“That cover’s going to be a bitch,” he said.

“Cupid of Eros,” Hercules chided. “Inappropriate.” He waded past Justin and me and climbed straight up the ladder rungs. At the top, he used one hand to slide the manhole cover aside as simply as we would press curtains away from a window.

Hercules, son of Zeus. The strongest Other I had ever met, and he had chosen to follow me. I still didn’t know whether I deserved his loyalty—or Cupid’s—but after Pythia’s death, I had resolved to earn it.

Those brown curls swept back from his face as he stared up into the street. When his green eyes returned to us, one hand gestured up. “Come on.”

The four of us emerged from the sewers into relative silence—a sleeping, peaceful street in Brooklyn.

Cupid jerked a thumb behind us. “The house is about four blocks back that way.”

When I turned, my hand went over my mouth. A narrow plume of pure, black smoke rose into the sky behind us. “Nossa Senhora.”

“Bastards,” Justin said. “Absolute, pure bastards.”

My other hand found his, and lacing my fingers with his I found a tiny bit of comfort. “They blew it up?”

Justin didn’t say anything, which I knew was confirmation. I saw it in the way his lips folded so hard they turned white under the streetlamp.

“What now?” Cupid said.

I raised a finger for silence.

I had heard something. A vehicle. A heavy vehicle.

“They’re tracking us,” I said. “Somehow, they’re tracking us.”

Chapter 2

“Move!” Justin yelled.

He didn’t need to say it again. We all started at a jog down the sidewalk away from the rowhouse.

“They’re still tracking us,” I whispered as I gripped Justin’s hand. It felt like wherever we were going was doomed—just another place where they would locate us. Inevitably. Always. Every time.

Then it hit me. “It’s me.”

“What?” Justin veered us into someone’s yard, where we came to a high fence. Cupid set two fingers in his mouth and whistled, and his little cloud sailed down from the sky. He settled into it and floated over the fence.

“Uh, Cupid?” Justin called.

“Hold up,” came Cupid’s voice from the other side.

They’re tracking me, I thought. Not the rest of them—just me. In the next second, a vehicle accelerated as it turned down the street we were on.

The latch unlocked and the gate swung open. On the other side, Cupid cocked his head at us. “You thought I was just going to leave you hanging?”

The three of us darted through the gate and pushed it shut as the vehicle neared. When it rolled on past without braking, I felt us all breathe again.

Maybe I was wrong.

At the end of the block, the car braked. And started reversing.

“Go!” Justin said as the four of us made for the back of the garden, where a high fence separated us from the next yard.

A memory came back to me as we approached the fence. One of the World Army scientists in our lab at McGill had been a specialist in nanobots—minuscule robots designed to circulate through the bloodstream. Many days I had glimpsed him at his workstation, injecting mice with them.

I was starting to think like Serena would. “They planted the dummy tracer in my shoulder to throw us off. The real tracer was one of those nanobots. It was the dart,” I muttered, certain now I understood. “The bot was in the dart.”

No one noticed I had spoken. Cupid sailed over the fence, his face and arms reappearing. “Come on. I’ll pull you up.”

I had just climbed over and dropped to the grass on the other side when Justin’s face appeared. Then the rest of him appeared as he flew over the fence and somersaulted next to me with a grunt.

“What the hell was that?” Cupid said. “Oh, Herc threw you, didn’t he?”

Justin climbed slowly to his feet. “It was supposed to be a boost.”

“Come on, Herc!” Cupid whispered, peering over the fence.

“This construction is too flimsy,” Hercules said. “I can’t possibly climb over it.”

“Then do what you need to do.” Cupid waved an urgent hand. “Oh … oh shit. Hey guys, move back. Move waa-ay back.”

Hercules did what he needed to do. We moved backward, and the demigod blasted right through the fence, a whole section of it slamming into the grass before he ran right over it and past us.

We followed him, passing through the next yard and through another gate. We emerged onto the street the next block over.

“What do you mean,” Justin said, “it was the dart?”

Apparently he had noticed me mumbling to myself. “There’s a nanobot in my bloodstream,” I said. “That’s how they keep finding us. I know it.”

“And how do we get it out of you?”

“I don’t—”

I was drowned beneath an engine’s roar. Headlights flashed over the nearby trees, and the SUV that had been following us came around the corner.

We booked it into another yard, continuing our foray through the backyards of Brooklyn’s most affluent. As we ran, I tried to think of solutions to my nanobot issue, but all I could process was the sound of that SUV chasing us and the heavy footfalls I now heard on the street a block behind us.

“We’ve got boots on the ground,” Justin said.

“Noticed that, buddy,” Cupid shot back from his cloud.

As we mounted another fence and dropped onto the grass, Justin doubled for a moment to breathe. When he straightened, he said, “Breaking Bad.”

A section of fence fell next to us, and Hercules patted his hands together. “How do you break an intangible concept?”

We started moving again.

“You know,” Justin said, “that scene in Breaking Bad with the magnets. ‘Science, bitch!’ and all that.”

We all remained silent.

“So none of you watch TV?”

“I prefer telenovelas,” Cupid said.

“What is a TV?” Hercules asked.

“Just tell us what you have in mind,” I said.

“Cupid, are there any junkyards in New York that would be open right now? We need magnets. Major magnets.”

Cupid paced in his cloud—by which I mean he floated six feet to the left and six feet to the right with his head down—before he snapped his fingers. “I know a guy.” He pointed. “In the Bronx. A place called Max Junk.”

“The Bronx?” Justin said. “Isn’t that kind of …”

“Dangerous?” Cupid made a face. “First of all, you’re watching too much TV. Not every neighborhood in New York is dangerous. Second, dude, come on. You’re being chased by an army.”

“Good point,” Justin said.

“Come on.” Cupid veered his cloud around and started us toward the street. “He’s a guy I knew back during my gearhead days. Liked to do experiments with his junk. Probably our best bet.”

“Hercules,” Justin said. The demigod strode up to his side. Unlike Justin and me, who had been jogging this whole time, he was so large he only had to walk to keep up. “Will you distract them?”

“Do you mean with my club,”—his hand trailed to the wooden club at his waist—“or my club?” And then his fingers traveled … elsewhere.

Cupid snickered.

“Uh,” Justin said. “Whichever one works best.”

Hercules flashed his dimples. “You’re welcome to find out.”

The thing about Hercules was this: he didn’t limit himself to 50% of the population. And as an encantado, I respected that. We, too, were known not to discriminate.

But my boyfriend was old school, or rather, modern day, strictly monogamous school.

I could swear I saw Justin’s neck flush, even though he ignored Hercules’s comment. “We need them off our backs for an hour.”

“I’ll go with him.” Cupid patted his quiver of arrows as we came onto the street. “I’m the best distracter here.”

“Good,” Justin said. “Cupid, you lead Hercules to Penn Station afterward. We’ll meet there, and we’ll all get on the train together.”

We were coming to a busy thoroughfare. Ahead, I could hear the 24-hour-a-day honking that punctuated the city’s arteries.

I stopped. “Cupid, Hercules—you don’t have to.”

Hercules came around to stand in front of me. Those green eyes regarded me with more warmth and humor than it was possible I’d felt in my entire life. For a moment, I felt incandescent with his attention. Such was Hercules’s effect.

“We choose to,” he said in a low voice. His fingers reached out and touched my shoulder. “And Isabella?”

Heat rushed up my neck. “Yes?”

“If we don’t arrive in time, you have to go without us.”

“No,” I said. “No way.”

“Yes way,” Hercules intoned, imitating my use of modern slang. Those words had never sounded so charming.

“Remember: Max Junk,” Cupid said to us. “Tell him Cupid of Eros sent you.”

And with that, the two of them changed directions, and Justin and I were left alone on the busy street. I stared after the two demigods, my vision blurring with emotion. “Do you think they’ll be all right?”

Justin stared with me. “It’s Hercules and Cupid. I think they’ve got a better chance than we do.”

I nodded. It was hard to swallow past the lump in my throat.

Justin pointed at a yellow taxi. “Work your magic.”

Beside us, those taxis flowed by like carp in a river. “Well, one kind of magic, at least.” I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Since I’d been hit with the World Army’s dart, I couldn’t change illusions, couldn’t look or sound like anyone else. The heart of my power had been taken away from me. And I didn’t know how to get it back. I needed time to think, a lab and—probably—a miracle.

So right now, my magic was limited to my charm. I stepped to the edge of the sidewalk, raised my hand, and like a law of nature, a nearby taxi pulled to the curb.

“Max Junk in the Bronx,” I said as we climbed into the back seat. “Stat.”

↔

On the ride over, Justin filled me in on his plan.

“Magnets,” I repeated. “You want to suck the nanobot out of me with magnets.”

“More like one extremely high-powered magnet. And you won’t get close enough for it to get sucked out … just disabled.”

The cab bumped over a pothole. “But it’s made of metal.”

“Right.”

“So in theory, they could be sucked out of me.”

“Well …” Justin began.

In the front seat, our driver’s eyes had shifted to the rearview window. Time to use another of my minor encantado powers: playing a role.

“So”—I turned to Justin with a wide-eyed expression—“in this novel, how does the super soldier find a magnet big enough at a junkyard to disable the nanobot inside his girlfriend?”

Justin understood at once. “He drops Cupid’s name, and bribes the guy on duty to help the super soldier and his girlfriend out.”

“And this whole ‘sucking out’ part. If she gets too close, that sounds like it’ll be pretty painful for the girlfriend. Maybe even dangerous.”

Justin’s hand slid over mine. I could see in his eyes what he didn’t want to say. He only stroked my cheek with his other hand.

I nodded in understanding. “What if she gets too close, and it’s circulating through a delicate part of her body? They’re sharp and small, which could mean a lot of piercing and ripping.” Even just talking about “piercing and ripping,” a shiver traveled up my spine.

“It’s a risk,” Justin said.

I lowered my voice to a whisper. “And you think this is our best option? This thing you saw on a TV show.”

“Can you think of a better one?”

I exhaled audibly through my mouth. “No.”

“Don’t worry.” His arm encircled my shoulders. “I’ll take care of you, Isa.” His warmth bled right through my clothes, seeping into my skin.

I pressed my head into the crook of his arm. “Don’t forget: I’m taking care of you, too.”

“Sure,” he said. “Just let me have my moment, OK?”

A small smile touched my lips. before he’d enlisted in the World Army back in Montreal, allowed them to mess with his genetics, he’d become obsessed with independence, self-reliance, strength. That obsession had gotten him into trouble more than once—trouble he’d sometimes gotten himself out of, and that I’d sometimes had to rescue him from—and by now I had learned an important lesson:

When a person you love asks for their moment, you give it to them.

“I know.” Because I did. “I know you’ll take care of me through this. And that you always will.”

But I also knew that I had to take care of myself, too.

That was more and more the reality of my life.

When we arrived at Max Junk, a single light shone on in the junkyard’s office behind the chain-link fence. Justin and I came through the door and found no one around.

“Hello?” I called.

A clang sounded in a back room. Then, “Shit.” Half a minute later, a sleepy-eyed old man emerged with a towel, wiping coffee from his pants. He looked up at the two of us. “It’s the middle of the night. What do you want?”

“Cupid of Eros said you could help us,” I said.

Justin stepped forward, set his palm on the counter. “We need magnets. Lots of them.”

The man glanced down at Justin’s hand and his eyes traveled up the length of his arm to his face. Then to mine. His expression was unreadable. “You said Cupid of Eros?”

“Did I say Cupid of Eros?” Justin said with raised palms. “I meant …”

“He brought me my wife,” the man interrupted, his face brightening. “Not a day passes I’m not thankful for that arrow in the back.”

Justin and I met eyes and said nothing.

“I told the little bugger I would help him out any time he needed.” He eyed the two of us. “What is it he needs?”

Justin pulled $200 out of his backpack, slapped it on the counter. “Have you seen Breaking Bad?”

The man stared at the cash. “Sure I have.”

“We need a major magnet—one strong enough to disable a micro-computer inside a human body. And we need it now.”

He touched the bills on the counter, lifting them close to his face for examination. “What is this?”

“It’s Canadian dollars,” I said.

“You’re Canadian?”

“And we need you to not ask questions.” I removed another $100 from my own backpack. “Can you help us?”

He set his coffee-stained towel on the counter. “You’ve come to the only guy in the Big Apple who can help you.”

Half an hour later, we stood inside a two-stall garage where cars sat in various states of disarray. Before us lay one of those enormous circular magnets junkyards used to grab cars and lift them.

This looked seven shades of dangerous. And completely unscientific.

The mechanic held a box with a cord wired up to it from the back of the magnet, which he passed to Justin. “There you go. Make sure you get rid of any metal on you before you turn this thing on.”

We tossed our backpacks aside, and Justin yanked off his belt. I hadn’t worn jewelry since we’d left Montreal, but I patted my body anyway. My hands felt sweaty against my jeans.

Justin turned to me. “Stand far away, out in the yard. When I turn this on, you approach one slow step at a time.”

“How the hell will you know when the thing works?” the mechanic asked.

Justin ignored him. “Once you get to within thirty feet, stop.” He tracked from the yard to a spot between me and the magnet, ran his foot in a line through the dirt. “That should be enough.”

I went out to the spot in the yard where Justin had indicated and let out a long exhale. “Turn it on,” I called.

Justin flipped the switch, and a humming began. The magnet was definitely on, but I didn’t feel it pulling me.

I took one step forward, then another, my eyes on Justin’s line in the dirt.

Nothing happened. Nothing continued to happen as I came forward, each step more tentative than the one before it.

I came to within a foot of the line, and still nothing happened. I didn’t feel any pull.

“I have two theories.” I raised my fingers in the air. “There’s no bot, or it’s already disabled. Either way”—I took the last step forward to the line—”We’re in the …”

All at once, I felt it. The pull was small at first, but as I took another step, it felt like an invisible hand had wrapped around my right leg and was dragging it with more and more force toward the garage.

“You OK?” Justin called, his hand poised over the switch to the box.

“I think so,” I managed to say. I struggled to keep slow and steady, but my shoes were practically sliding through the dirt. And I felt a simultaneous ache in my right leg, a pain that grew sharper and sharper the closer I got. GoneGods that was a strong magnet.

“Forget that,” I said as the pain grew more intense. “Shut it off. Shut it off!”

Before Justin could react, I lost my balance. In the same moment, it felt like I was being pierced with an ice pick right in the quadricep. A tiny spurt of my blood shot out of my leg toward the garage, hit the ground in a trail of droplets.

I hit the ground hard as a red spot bloomed on the thigh of my jeans.

The magnet had sucked the nanobot right out of me. It had also pierced an artery.

The humming stopped, and I heard a clatter as Justin dropped the box and ran over to me. He dropped to his knees. “Are you—”

I squeezed both hands over the spot on my thigh, but the bright blood kept coming. “It got an artery. A big one.”

“Tripping billies,” the junkyard owner said. “She’s bleeding pink.”

“Throw me your belt!” Justin called out to him. When he did, Justin wrapped it around my thigh above the wound. “You’re bleeding bad.”

“I need to use my magic,” I breathed as he yanked the belt tight, cutting off the blood. “But … but I can’t. The dart.”

“Lay back,” he instructed. “I’ll take care of you.”

“There’s no time,” I said, though I simultaneously did as he instructed. “It was too deep.”

“Just relax,” he said as he pressed my head to the ground. “Breathe, Isa. You’ll be OK.”

But I couldn’t do as he asked. I lifted my face as his hands slid over my thigh below the tourniquet, and I watched as his hands began to glow white. As they did, a warmth cut through the pain.

“Nossa Senhora,” I said. “How are you doing that?”

“Remember what happened in Central Park?” he said, not taking his eyes off my leg. “When I grew two dragon heads?”

Of course I remembered. He had appeared out of nowhere, stepping out from behind the tree that the hundred-headed dragon Ladon was still wrapped around. And he had saved all of us. “You took on some of his power,” I whispered. Just like Justin was doing with me—he was taking on some of my magic to heal me.

“You may not be able to access your magic,” Justin said, “but that doesn’t mean it isn’t in you.”

“You are brilliant.” I lowered my head to the dirt as the warmth spread through my leg.

“Just genetically modified by brilliant people.” After a minute, the warmth dissipated, and his face appeared over mine. “All done.”

I blinked. “No more bleeding?”

“No more bleeding.”

“And no more nanobot.”

Justin smirked as he helped me up. “Magnets. Told you they would work.”

“Magnets and magic,” I added as I rose. Magnets and magic—that could be the anthem of this GoneGod World.

Chapter 3

Predawn light gilded the city as we left Max Junk and took a taxi to Penn Station. I lay my head back as we bumped over potholes to the wordless melody of honking.

Justin touched the bandage over my thigh. “Does it hurt?”

I winced. “It hurts when you do that.” Though it was a comfort to feel Justin’s fingers on me—not just because he was my boyfriend. Also because that meant Hercules was alive, unhurt.

Back in Montreal, Justin and I had done battle with a flock of ancient birds released by the World Army into the city. It was Justin who had slain them, and as we later found out, in doing so had completed one of Hercules’s “twelve labors.” I hadn’t heard of these labors before last week, but any Greek mythology buff would have.

Twelve labors were given to Hercules to atone for his crimes: the murder of his wife and six children. And as it turned out, slaying the stymphalian birds was one of those labors. It had been undone when the World Army released the stymphalian birds over Montreal, and had brought Hercules back into the world.

Ever since we’d slain the birds, Justin’s and Hercules’s fates had been entwined. If one died, the other did, too. At least, until Hercules completed one more labor: avenging a great wrong. He had wanted to slay the goddess Hera—his nemesis from antiquity—but she was gone. All the gods were gone. Which was why he had chosen to stick with me until that labor was complete. If it ever would be.

But just because I knew that Herc was alive, I still didn’t know if he was safe. He could have been captured, or—

I cut off those thoughts as we approached downtown. Please be there, I thought. Please be there.

The buildings rose tall and taller as we came into Manhattan. Along the way, I saw no evidence of the World Army. Of course, you rarely did—they mostly remained unseen until they chose otherwise. And New York City made that easy. Here, everyone on the sidewalks wore black, as though permanently in mourning. In five hundred years, I had never seen such a monochromatic city.

When we arrived at Penn Station, the sun had just risen high enough to refract off the windows of the skyscraper above it, half-blinding me as I stepped out of the taxi. Please be there. Please be there.

While Justin paid, I stepped inside. New York City’s Penn Station was nothing like Montreal’s Union Station. Where Union Station bore high windows and a domed ceiling, Penn Station’s stairs swept underground to a wide, flat vista. Shops encroached on the edges, and the ceiling sat almost suffocatingly low.

Before me, a janitor swept detritus, an elderly couple surveyed a postcard stand, and various folks in black carried briefcases in and out of the station’s main hall. In a hurry—always in a hurry.

Justin came up behind me. “See them?”

“No.”

His hand came over mine, and we walked through the entrance. “They’ll be here,” he said. “We’ve got all day.”

All day. Well, that called for a little pick-me-up. “Let’s nip in there and keep out of view.” I pointed at a small cafe and started us toward it.

“Woah there.”

“I … didn’t sleep last night.”

Justin eyed me. “Not at all?”

“Or any of the nights in the rowhouse,” I admitted.

As we approached the cafe, he gripped my forearm like I might faint right there in Penn Station. “Isa, why?”

“I needed to keep vigil,” I said. “Don’t worry—we encantado don’t need eight hours to recharge like you humans.”

He let out a vague snort as we came into the cafe and stepped up to the counter. “A large,” I told the barista when it was our turn to order. “The largest you’ve got.”

Afterward, we sat down at one of the tiny tables, our large coffee cups in hand. “Remember this?” I said. “Our first date.”

He gazed into the cup. “You mean my date with Kat.”

“It was with me, though. I just looked like Kat.”

“Of course, Isa.” His eyes lifted to me, and I read something there—a certain sadness which he covered over with a smirk. “You were just using your magic to look like my girlfriend because you were so obsessed with me.”

I forced a smile. He’s joking, Isa. Don’t get miffed.

But it stung. It stung in the way all poked vulnerabilities do, especially when they contain truths. Yes, I had used my encantado magic to look like Katrina Darling. I had wanted to see what it would be like to be loved by Justin Truly, whom I had an aching crush on.

But he was making it silly. He was making it into hyperbole. And from what I knew about Justin, he resorted to humor when he wanted to deflect from what was really going on inside him.

Like the fact that he missed Kat.

From somewhere outside the brooding recesses of my mind, a man’s voice sang through the cafe’s interior. “Good morning!” To which the barista returned her own good morning. She sounded twice as happy as when we’d ordered.

My gaze snagged on a brown—not black—trench coat, a young man’s lithe, wide-shouldered form, a head of jet-black hair. When he stepped to the counter and his face came into profile, I was reminded why men’s faces were sometimes carved into marble statues. To commemorate power or beauty.

In this case, beauty.

His face turned toward me, dark eyes catching mine. A perfect canvas of severe eyebrows overlooked those clear eyes, a straight nose on down to full—eminently kissable—lips and a hard jaw below.

The full lips reformed into the subtlest smile, and he gave me that look. The look men give women they find attractive.

Hey, I may have been 100% taken, but I was still an encantado. It was in our very blood to admire beauty—and in my case, male beauty. The encantado in me blossomed, and I remembered that sometimes, miracles still occurred in this GoneGod World.

“What’ll it be today?” the barista asked him.

The brown eyes swept off me, and his two elegant fingers tapped the counter. “I’ll take the pour-over. Black, no sweetener.” His voice was almost musical, charm dripping off the edges. The barista looked like she wanted to offer him her apron to bathe in.

Back when I was wild and free, that was exactly the kind of man I would have seduced.

“Isa,” Justin said. My eyes refocused on him, and I realized I’d sipped away half of my coffee. “You’re doing that thing.”

I lowered my cup. “What thing?”

“Where you distract yourself from your problems by eyeing the next best-looking guy in the joint.” He gestured with his thumb toward the exact man I had just been staring at. “After me, of course.”

My eyes widened on Justin. That was pretty perceptive of him. And funny, which eased the tension. “Sorry,” I said, tapping my cup. What was it I was really upset about? “I guess I’m just bitter that I can’t ... you know.”

Justin swept a hand over his face like he was throwing off a mask. His way of miming my illusions. “Yeah, I get it.”

But he didn’t get that one—not in the way I felt it. He was a human recently endowed with Other DNA courtesy of Serena Russo, the World Army’s lead scientist, and he could tap into magic right this moment, if he wanted.

But that was barred to me. Which was why I couldn’t save myself at the junkyard, and instead needed to rely on my boyfriend to keep me from bleeding out.

Tall-and-Charming caught my eyes once more as he left the cafe with his coffee, and I kept my eyes firmly on my boyfriend as he walked out.

Justin grinned at me. “You can look if you want.”

“I— What?” I took a long sip of my coffee.

“I know your nature, Isa,” he said. “Sometimes you look, and I’m OK with that.”

I set my cup on the table, preparing to tell Justin how much I appreciated that, when my eyes fell on the TV on the wall behind him. The morning news was playing, and there, on screen, a black plume of smoke rose into the sky.

“Merda,” I breathed.

Justin turned to look, too, and we took in the large-lettered headline together.

THREE DEAD IN BROOKLYN HOUSE FIRE.

↔

Mari’s face appeared. Roger’s. Selene’s.

All three of them.

“She killed them,” I whispered. Across the table, Justin hadn’t said a word. He just stared at the screen, where the three members of the resistance smiled back at us. Roger and Selene on vacation, their arms around each other. Mari at a birthday party, grinning over a cake.

Then I couldn’t see them properly. I covered my eyes with one of the cafe’s napkins.

“They did it. The army did it.” Justin turned back to me. “Not just her.”

“That”—I pointed at the TV—“is Serena Russo’s work. Roger was a human. If the World Army is fighting for humans, then why would she kill a human?”

“He was the head of the resistance here.”

“Because it doesn’t matter that he was human.” I balled and tossed the napkin onto the table. “Back when she unleashed Empusa on our campus, it didn’t matter that the students that monster murdered were humans. She doesn’t fight for humans, Justin.”

“Then what does she fight for?”

“Something far more dangerous,” I said. “Her son’s future.” Collin. Collin Russo.

“Her son?”

“I saw him. He’s a disabled boy.”

Justin’s eyebrows knit. “What do you mean, you saw him? Back in Montreal? On campus?”

No—in Serena’s home. In her son’s bedroom. That all sounded patently wrong, but I hadn’t broken in. Not my corporeal self, at least. A few days ago, the Oracle of Delphi had shown me a vision of the past, of Serena Russo helping her teenage son with his homework. Such a simple thing, but it was all I needed to know about her obsession with mapping Other DNA.

He was a quadriplegic. He would never walk again.

Not unless she pushed the envelope on her research. My research.

Now wasn’t the time to explain to Justin what the Oracle of Delphi had shown me. “Yes,” was all I said. “She loves that boy more than anything in the world. She will do anything to make him walk, including using young men like you as her guinea pigs.”

Justin flinched like I’d beaned him with the napkin. “I wasn’t a guinea pig.”

“You were among the first humans spliced with Other DNA. They probably didn’t even expect you to survive.”

His green eyes burned, inflamed by my words. He was so bullheaded when it came to his vulnerabilities, his weaknesses. More so now than ever. Back when I’d had a crush on him, he had seemed softer. Sweeter. Less afraid.

For the first time, I wondered if they had messed with the core of who Justin was. Tampered with the parts that made him softer and sweeter.

He sat back in the chair. “I met with Serena regularly. Did you know that?”

I leaned forward. “About what?”

“My progress. All the work they did on me.” That flame in his eyes seemed to dampen. “There are things happening to me that I can’t even explain, Isa,” he whispered. “I just wanted to be able to protect the people I care about. And here I am, twenty years old and I feel like I’m falling apart.”

Twenty. The word hit me like an anvil. Justin was twenty years old and surrounded by Others who were hundreds or even thousands of years old. I’d lived lifetimes longer than him. He was barely an adult trying to make his way through a world that had screwed him up and screwed him over good and well.

I slid my hand across the table toward him. “We’re going to get through this.”

He gazed at my hand. “Maybe, but only the GoneGods know the cost.”

On the TV behind him, they were doing a mini-feature on Mari, the centaur who had helped us escape last night. She was being painted as a delinquent, a drug addict. Why was she staying at Roger and Selene’s home, anyway? Had she started the fire, the anchor wondered?

Two more faces appeared, and my eyes widened.

Justin’s face. Then mine.

We were on the local news as suspected arsonists. Apparently we had been seen fleeing from the house.

And I knew exactly who had put us up there as suspects.

I rose from my chair, pushing it back with a screech. I crossed to the TV, hit the power button. All at once, the white noise of the local news disappeared, and the other patrons in the cafe turned from the line they stood in. The barista’s head shot up from where she was foaming milk, her wide eyes on me.

I swallowed. “Can we just play some music?”

Justin pushed away from the table, found my side, and the two of us booked it out of the cafe. “Why did you do that?” he asked.

“Did you see what was on that television?”

“I saw it. And then you drew everyone’s attention to your face.”

“The World Army made us into suspects.” I was walking us across the center of Penn Station toward a bookstore across the way from the cafe. Hiding with hardbacks in front of our faces would give new meaning to getting lost in a book.

“I know,” he said as we came into the store and passed along the bookcases toward the back. “But it’s only local news. Once we’re out of here, we’ll be OK. You’ll find a way to regain your powers, shift to a new appearance, and no matter what happens, I’ll …”

“What?” I grabbed a copy of Crazy Rich Asians off the shelf and pretended to be fascinated by it. “What will you do?”

He sighed, set his hand on a shelf. “I’ll be here,” he whispered. “I’ll be here with you.”

His other hand was reaching for mine again. I stared at it. I knew we would be back and forth, back and forth. Angry at each other, making up. It was cyclical, because we were both tired, and stressed, and probably a little depressed. We hadn’t stopped running in a month, and now this.

Three more people were dead because of us.

Hercules and Cupid still hadn’t appeared, either.

But this was what you did. You reached out and you met hands, because the world was hard enough without misunderstandings with the people you loved. And even if you would get angry again, you needed each other.

“You’re right.” I touched his fingers. “You’re here.”

That was how we spent the rest of the day: hiding our faces in the shops at Penn Station, staring at books and magazines and cool travel gadgets and waiting for the two demigods to show. We waited as long as we could, but Hercules and Cupid never appeared.

Finally, our train to Phoenix started to board.

It was our way out of here, but it felt all wrong. We walked to the boarding area together, but I stopped before we got to the train. I turned back around, staring at the entrance to the station, hoping they would barrel in off the street.

“We have to go,” Justin said from behind me. “Remember your promise to them.”

“I never promised.” I turned back toward the train, and the two of us started toward it. “I just didn’t say ‘no’.”

Chapter 4

The most wonderful thing about Amtrak trains in the United States?

They don’t ask to see your ID.

The second most wonderful thing?

Alcohol.

As we boarded, I noticed a lot of six-packs—not the kind attached to abdomens—and long-necked bottles. Everybody was going to get drunk on this train, it seemed. Which was good for us, since we didn’t want anyone remembering our faces.

When we climbed aboard, the attendant looked at our tickets. “Two rooms, third car from the back.”

“Two?” I said.

“Rooms?” Justin added.

“I guess there was a reason why Roger had that enormous rowhouse,” I whispered as we passed down the aisles.

“It’s good being an accountant,” Justin said. He went suddenly quiet after he said it, and I knew why. He had spoken in the present tense, as though Roger was still with us.

Yes, it was good being an accountant. Yes, he had the rowhouse. But Roger was dead. He had died because of me.

I had been fighting the urge to grieve all day long, but when we arrived at our two rooms in the third car from the back and Justin swept the door open to the first room—a bed, we had a bed!—and then the second, where a tiny microscope and set of beakers had been smuggled into the corner, I finally broke down.

There, amongst the little lab, an envelope.

I,

We pulled a few strings. Hope this helps with your research.

IMPORTANT: you’re being rerouted. The resistance urgently needs a scientist in Las Vegas. Ask for Ananda at the Bellagio.

Go safely.

-R & S

Roger and Selene. People I hadn’t even known—not really, not at all, in the way it’s possible to know people—had done this for me. They had done it because they believed in what was possible.

Creating change for Others, one scientist at a time. One person at a time.

I focused on the name in the note. Ananda.

I had only known one Ananda in my life—my encantado sister. But she had disappeared four years ago. Was it possible she was with the resistance? She had always been the brave one, and if anyone would have joined an organization like the resistance, it would be her.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

I raised my eyes to Justin, who closed the door and sat down beside me. I held up the note. “We’re not going to Phoenix.”

After he’d read the note, he passed it back. “A scientist in Las Vegas? I thought the only science that went on there was cooking up drugs.”

“Could be,” I said. To be honest, I didn’t know much about Vegas besides the two staples: gambling and prostitution. “Apparently it’s urgent, though. And we are part of the resistance now.”

“So we’re kind of obligated to help.”

I nodded.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll get off at Vegas.”

We didn’t say anything else on the matter, and I dropped into the seat beside him as the train clanked into motion. Through the window, the bowels of New York City began to pass by as we picked up speed, but my eyes remained unfocused, a hundred thoughts swirling through my head.

That is, until the two fists slammed against the door.

We both jumped. Justin swept aside the curtain over our door, and there was Hercules, grinning like an idiot. He waved, and Justin pulled the door open.

“Sir and lady,” Hercules boomed in the hallway, “I’ve come to inform you that I think we’ve boarded the wrong train.”

I blinked. “Wha …”

“We’re on the inebriation train.” He raised a twelve-pack of Mike’s Hard Cider. “A fellow just handed me this. Can you believe that? Said he had brought more than he could carry.”

Before he said anything else, I rose and threw my arms around Hercules. By which I mean, I spread as wide as they would go, which didn’t even begin to encircle his torso. “You’re here.”

His warm hand settled on my head. “Did you doubt me?”

Justin stood. “There’s not even a scratch on you. And I would know.”

I looked up at Hercules. “Cupid?”

Hercules’s handsome face reformed as a cloud passed across his features. “He’s not with you, I take it.”

“No—he never came,” I said. “What happened?”

Hercules deposited the twelve-pack on an armrest, dropped into a seat. It creaked with his weight, but didn’t give completely. (That had happened once before since I’d met him.) He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Sit, Isa. I have things to tell you.”

I sat. Justin stood by my side. “Tell me,” I said.

Hercules drew a great breath into the bellows of his lungs. He opened his mouth, then unhooked one of the cans from the twelve-pack. When he cracked it open, he upturned it until the whole thing emptied into his mouth.

He swallowed, pressed the back of his hand over his lips and muttered, “Hard cider? Hardly more than water.” Then his eyes met mine, and another shadow passed over them. “This World Army isn’t to be trifled with.”

“You saw them?” Justin asked.

“Saw?” Hercules swiped a hand through the air. “I fought them. Dozens—more than I can recall. Cupid and I fought together for a time, but we were soon overwhelmed by their … contraptions.”

“Cars?” I offered. “Guns?”

“Yes, those things. They also fired canisters of smoke, and that was when I lost Cupid of Eros in the fray.”

“Define ‘lost,’ ” Justin said.

“He disappeared. For a time I could hear his arrows, and then I fought alone. I fought for my life, and yours, Justin. And to return to you, Isa.” Even now, when Hercules called me Isa, it made parts inside me that I didn’t know could quiver feel like jello.

Especially since we’d kissed in Hera’s garden. A fact which I still hadn’t discussed with Justin.

Then I processed the rest of what he’d said.

Alone. He’d fought alone.

“Merda,” I breathed.

“Do not underestimate Cupid of Eros,” Hercules said. “He’s more capable than you may think.”

“Then where is he?” I said. “He isn’t here. He should be here.”

We lapsed into a brief silence as the train gained speed, the city’s underbelly passing by faster and faster through the window. Soon, with a single radiant beam, the entire window lit up. We were out from under the city. We were under the sky again. Above the treeline, wispy clouds filled the sky. Except for one giant cumulus, which reminded me of Cupid’s little cloud he rode on.

“This is all my fault,” I whispered.

“Isa,” Justin said.

“If they haven’t taken him for research, they’ve killed him.”

“Isa,” Hercules said.

“I’ll never see his little powdery fart of a cloud again.”

“ISABELLA!” came a muffled voice. A child’s voice.

A voice through the window.

I raised my wet face and nearly fell back into my seat. There, at the window, Cupid’s chubby cheeks were pressed so hard into the glass that air bubbles were trapped beneath his face.

He was riding that GoneGodDamn cloud beside the train.

Hercules shook his head with pride. “Would you look at him? Marvel of a cherub.”

I rushed to the window, tried to pry it open. “It’s locked.”

“They don’t just let you open the windows on these trains.”

Hercules raised a finger. “Allow me.” He gestured left for Cupid’s benefit, then swept the door open and stepped out into the car.

“Where’s he going?” I said to Justin.

When I spun back, Cupid had disappeared from the window.

Justin hesitated. “I think … I think he’s going to open the train door.”

“Can he do that?”

“When it comes to Hercules’s strength, I don’t think the question is whether he can. It’s whether he chooses to.”

Nossa Senhora, Justin was right. Hercules could probably derail the whole train with one outstretched foot if he wanted to.

We dashed out after the demigod, who was in the process of pushing open the outer door to the car. The wind blew in, throwing his brown curls back, and for a moment, he looked straight out of a photoshoot.

Then, with a thud, Cupid flew in and landed face-first on the floor.

↔

Twenty minutes later, the four of us sat in a booth in the dining car. Between us lay six hotdogs, two portions of fries, and the rest of that twelve-pack of cider that Hercules was rapidly making his way through.

Beside him, Cupid was squished up against the window. But he didn’t seem to mind. He accordioned a hotdog into his mouth. “It was crazy,” he said around all the dough, “they bazooka-ed the whole GoneGodDamn house. Just kablooey!” He threw his hands up, slapped them back down on the table.

“You went back to the rowhouse?” I asked.

“Zipped over there after the fighting died down. Between Herc and I, we took out a lot of soldiers, Isa. They must have sent an entire platoon after you. Is that the right word?” His eyes shifted to Justin.

Justin shrugged. “I’m not with the army.”

“But you’re a soldier.”

“I’m a fighter. I don’t know what else you’d call me anymore.” He fingered the rim of a can of cider. “Justin. Just that.”

“Anyway,” Cupid said, “Herc here laid about twelve of them flat with one swing of his club. GoneGods I wished I’d had my phone out. That vid would have gone viral on YouTube for sure!”

Hercules waved a hand. “It wasn’t so many.”

“Oh, the son of Zeus has decided on modesty?” Cupid scoffed. “You’re too old for that now, buddy.”

“I don’t take pride in killing men any longer,” Hercules said, his voice lowering. His eyes shifted to me. “I saw her, Isa.”

“Her?” I asked.

“The woman you speak of. Your mentor, and your enemy. The one who ordered me shot in Hera’s garden.”

I didn’t want to say her name. So she had escaped Hera’s garden and was back at it. And by it, I meant making my life miserable. “Where?”

“On the street in front of the house. She looked different than before.”

“Different how?”

Hercules’s eyes flicked through space as he tried to find the words. “Stronger. More powerful. It’s difficult to describe, but after so many battles, you know strength when you see it.”

Justin and I turned to one another in the same moment. I could see the question pass between us. Was she modifying herself? Splicing her own genes?

And why not? The guinea pigs had already undergone the testing. The process was being refined at rapid pace. GoneGods, if only cancer were as detested as Others, every form of it would be cured in a month.

Cupid was talking again. “So we’re safe here? You did your Breaking Bad business?” He was referring to the nanobot in my bloodstream.

Justin nodded. “We’re safe.”

I sensed a pair of eyes on me, and when I looked up, someone was passing down the aisle. I recognized the same black-haired man from the cafe in Penn Station. This time, the look he gave me was unmistakable.

It said: I want to know what you taste like.

And just like that, he had moved on. His black hair gleamed under the fluorescent lights as he touched the door activator with his foot and entered the connector to the next car.

“He is good looking,” Justin said. My gaze swept around, and I found my boyfriend smirking.

Heat swept up my neck. “Sorry.”

Justin threw an arm around me. “My lover the encantado loves to love.”

“I love you,” I said to him.

“I know. And you love these two.” He pointed at Hercules and Cupid.

The heat moved up to my cheeks as I tried not to meet eyes with Hercules. It wasn’t that I wanted to keep my kiss with the demigod a secret … after all, it was what I had needed to do to save his life.

I was afraid to tell Justin because it had become more than saving his life. When I’d met Hercules’s lips, I had felt it through my entire body. And I knew what that feeling meant. That was what made it frightening.

So what do you do when something deeply scares you? Legal anesthetization.

I grabbed one of the ciders off the table. When I popped the top, Justin kissed me on the crown of my head. “Drink up,” he whispered into my ear. “Tonight, let yourself to feel what you need to feel. We’re safe.”

Great. Just when I was feeling guilty, my boyfriend had decided to be extra loving. Which meant I needed to get extra drunk.

Forty minutes later, I pointed a wary, unsteady finger at Hercules and Cupid. “You two are bad influences.”

Cupid hiccuped, leaned forward. “The worst.”

“The two of you, inebriated on water.” Hercules had somehow acquired a bottle of wine, which he sipped straight from. He had slumped halfway onto Cupid’s shoulder. “I hardly feel anything.”

“I feel everything,” I whispered. “You know, I never even met Selene. I never even saw that succubus’s face until she appeared on the TV. She was very pretty.”

“My Megara was pretty.” Hercules’s eyes bore a drunk glaze. “We had six children. Hera drove me crazy and made me kill every one of them.”

Cupid and I met eyes. He shook his head as if to say, Be careful—this is his sorest spot.

“Hera,” I slurred. The Greek pantheon floated fuzzily in my head. “She was your mother?”

Cupid made a face and leaned away just before Hercules slammed the bottle on the table so hard it nearly shattered. Two booths over, an Amish family straightened and stared at us.

“My mother?” Hercules boomed. “You think that selfish, meddling, loathsome bitch was my mother?”

“No.” I waved my hands in front of me. “Absolutely not.”

“She was my step-mother, and an abominable one at that,” Hercules said. “She tried to murder me a hundred times. And when she could not, she compelled me to kill my sons in my own hall. The oracle said I would have my vengeance.”

The fog in my brain cleared a little. “But the gods are gone.”

“She told me I would kill her,” Hercules growled. “I will kill Hera.”

“I think this guy’s reached his limit,” Cupid said.

“Agreed.” Justin slid out of the booth. “Come on, demigod.”

Hercules’s gaze meandered up to Justin’s face. Even in my drunkenness, the fury written across those divine features made me shiver. “I’m going to avenge a great wrong,” he whispered.

“How about you avenge that great wrong after you’ve sobered up?” Cupid tried to squeeze out from between the window and Hercules, but he was pinned. “I’ll get you to bed, Herc buddy.”

“It’s fine,” Justin said. “I owe him one after he didn’t get the two of us killed fighting the World Army today.”

“Are you sure?” I said to Justin.

He nodded, grasping Hercules’s hand and attempting to yank him up. Instead, he got pulled most of the way down. “Help me out here, Herc.”

After a minute, the two of them stumbled down the aisle together, I could swear I heard him making a pass at Justin. Then, when Justin declined, his ranting about Hera resumed.

I set both hands around my can of cider. “He gets a little bit …”

“Scary,” Cupid said. “I know. Back in his day, he was the best friend you could ever hope for, and the most fearsome enemy to anyone who crossed him.”

“What did he mean about killing Hera?”

Cupid shrugged. “Beats me. Probably forgot the gods are gone. He’s only been alive again for two and a half months.”

“Right.” I raised my drink to my mouth, paused with it at my lips. There, at the other end of the car, I thought I saw two more Cupids walk through the door.

“Uh”—I lowered my can—“I think I’ve reached my limit, too.”

Cupid followed my gaze, turning around in the booth and slinging one arm over the edge. “Oh, by the GoneGods,” he whispered before leaping to his feet and pointing past the Amish family to the other end of the car. “You fuckers can just turn right around.”

Chapter 5

Across the car, one of the Cupids floated into the air. “Excuse me? Did that small man just tell us to—”

The other flitted up next to him. “Is that Eros?”

“Are those your brothers?” I asked.

Cupid dropped back into the booth, set both hands on the table. “Be cool. Don’t look at them.”

I tried hard not to. “They’re coming this way.”

“Ero-os?” came the sing-song. It sounded like my Cupid’s voice, but different. Higher pitched, more ... benevolent?

Soon, the two Cupids flew over to us. My Cupid hid behind a can of cider, and I pretended to be staring out the window into the night—which was really just me staring at my own reflection.

“Hello?” said one of the Cupids. His chubby hands were at his hips. “Eros, don’t pretend like you don’t see us.”

With a groan, my Cupid—whom the other had called just “Eros”—performed a slow and methodical turn of the head toward the other two. “Why are you here?”

One of them lifted his cell phone. “GPS tracking. Remember, so all three of us can find one another in a pinch?”

“I’m changing my settings right now, stalkers,” my Cupid said.

“That’s her, isn’t it?” In the window’s reflection, I spotted one of the Cupids was pointing at me. “It’s the encantado.”

I finally turned toward them. There, just cresting the surface of our table, two cherubic faces gazed at me with perfect serenity. It was absolutely adorable, and a little unnerving. Something about the big blue eyes coupled with those bows and arrows.

“I sent a group text that I found her, and that I’ve got it under control,” my Cupid said. “Philia, Agape, I know you both saw it. I got the read receipts.”

“You all have a group text?” I asked. Where did they even fit the phones in those loincloths?

They ignored me. “What did you expect us to do, Eros? Just stop trying to find her? Go back to living our lives?”

The other raised a finger. “You know three Cupids are better than one.”

“I absolutely do not know that,” my Cupid said.

“Hold on here,” I said. “Can we all please be introduced?”

“There’s no need,” my Cupid said. “They’re leaving.”

I turned to the other two. “My name is Isabella Ramirez.”

“We know,” they said in unison.

I cleared my throat. “And you two are …?”

One pointed a thumb at himself. “Philia.”

“That means friendship,” I said slowly. Score one for Greek Mythology 101.

“The best form of love,” he whispered to me behind his hand. I noticed that where my Cupid’s arrows were tipped with white feathering, his were tipped with baby blue feathers.

“And I’m Agape,” said the other.

“Love of man?” I said, unsure my Greek was holding up. His arrows were feathered in a soft hue of green. There was also a certain lightness to him that the other two didn’t have. Even the Amish family was now observing Cupid of Agape with smiles.

“Unconditional love,” he clarified. “Transcendent love.”

“There he goes again.” My Cupid spun his finger in the air. “Agape always thought the gods loved him best.”

Agape said nothing; he only beamed. I could see where the sibling rivalry between Cupid of Eros and Cupid of Agape had occurred—Agape was the golden child, forever unaware of his exalted status.

“We’ve come to aid you, Isabella Ramirez,” Agape said. “Howsoever we can.”

Before I could speak, my Cupid rose to his feet in the booth. He looked like an out-of-control toddler in a restaurant as he pointed one angry finger down at the other two. “Over my tiny dead body.”

Philia and Agape looked like someone had hit a puppy. Then a certain mischievousness crossed Philia’s face. “You don’t tell us what to do, Eros.”

“Oh, I absolutely do. I may not be the oldest, but I’m the only one here who’s lived in the real world since the gods left. Not you two, faffing around in your Stepford mansion in Greenwich.”

“It’s not our mansion,” Agape said. “But we do have the full run of it. What can I say? Our benefactress loved ancient Greece. It’s not our fault you chose a different path.”

My Cupid shot them a withering look. “You call that a path? You fly around some rich lady’s house shooting your little arrows and posing for her Instagram selfies. I bet you can’t even shoot straight anymore.”

The other two Cupids gasped, hands over mouths. I looked between them, waiting for someone to say something. “What?” I said.

“That was a dire insult, Eros,” Philia whispered.

My Cupid folded his arms. “I stand by it.”

“Well,” said Agape, reaching over his shoulder to grasp one green-feathered arrow, “I suppose we shall see about that.”

“Whoa,” was all I managed to say before all three had drawn arrows and nocked them in their little bows. Three Cupids, three bows, three arrows.

It was a cherubic standoff.

“Don’t even,” my Cupid said. “I have the high ground.”

“Cupids—boys—demigods.” I rose from my seat. “Surely this can wait until we’re not in an enclosed space.”

None of them looked at me. The other two lifted into the air, wings flitting like hummingbirds. “What was that about the high ground?” Agape said.

My Cupid floated up off his seat, and soon the three of them were nearly at the ceiling.

“Cupids, please!” I called up to them. Before me, the Amish family was packing up their sandwiches and hustling to get out of the car. I gestured for the Cupids to fly back down. “You can all help me. I’m all about eros, philia and agape.”

“No, Isabella,” my Cupid said. “This precedes you. It’s two thousand years in the making. These two always thought their loves were better than my love. More important. Bigger.”

“They’re wrong!” I said.

“You’re GoneGodDamn right they are,” my Cupid said.

“How dare you invoke the gods,” Agape said. “Know your place, Eros.”

“Oh, I know it.” My Cupid smirked at them. “Now that the gods are gone, my place is what I make it.”

And with that came the twang of his bowstring. My Cupid’s arrow pierced the air, zipping toward Agape, who dodged it so easily he turned to a blur. Then he released his own arrow, and soon Philia’s blue-feathered arrow flew through the car.

After a few seconds, there were so many arrows I couldn’t keep track. They pinged off the windows and walls, the tables. One hit the seat right next to me, and I jumped away.

From up the stairwell came the black-haired man I’d seen twice now. The one who’d given me that look. He surveyed the room, we met eyes, and then he waved me over. The stairwell was the closest exit, after all.

I made a dash for it, ducking low as the arrows flew. When I’d gotten to within a couple feet, I felt his hand grab my arm and yank me into the safety of the stairwell.

Except I was still drunk, and he yanked a little hard, and I tumbled right into him.

↔

Together, we stumbled down the steps into the lower level of the dining car. I could barely keep my balance, and he kept me upright.

“Well,” he said. I had forgotten about the musical tenor of his voice when I’d heard it in the cafe in Penn Station—the one he’d charmed the barista with. “The wonders of the GoneGod World never cease.”

My head was swimming. “I swear I had only a little to do with that brawl.”

“Brawl?” A tiny crease appeared between his dark brows. His scent came to me, unfamiliar but intoxicating. He wasn’t like Justin or Hercules, both large and physical. He was tall, lithe, pin-straight hair framing his Asian features. “I only see one wonder down here.”

I laughed a little too hard, the ridiculousness of his flirting filtering through my drunk brain. He laughed, too, which made me like him more. I appreciated a guy who tried, and one who was self-deprecating when he didn’t quite hit the mark.

The sounds of arrows pinging echoed down the stairwell, and he helped me toward a seat in the empty car. “I’m Daiski,” he said.

Daiski. Even my muddled brain recognized that as Japanese.

“Isabella,” I said at once.

“You’re drunk, Isabella.”

I groaned. “I almost never drink.”

He pointed up at the ceiling, where the sounds of three toddlers yelling their war cries filtered down. “I bet you had more to do with that than you’re letting on.”

“It’s a long story.”

An arrow flew down the stairwell, pinged off the metal. One of the Cupids flew down, splatted against the wall and tumbled to the floor.

“I’ll bet it is.” Daiski pulled me up, and we backed toward the next car as all three Cupids appeared. “Looks like Cupid-bowl is migrating.”

Somehow my hand was in his, and we opened the door to the next car, which was absolutely full to the brim with sleeping passengers. Don’t let them come in here, I prayed. Don’t let them come this way.

As the door closed behind us in the silent car, Daiski and I started down the aisle. We had only gotten five feet before the door whipped back open, and one of the Cupids let a ululation that lifted every head off their headrest.

“Cupids, no!” I yelled.

It was too late. A white-feathered arrow got someone right in the shoulder, and then that poor old woman was desperate for her half-awake husband. Soon those afflicted by arrows were multiplying like zombies, and I could swear the car was rocking on the rails with all the humping going on around me.

My Cupid was definitely a lot more aggressive with his arrows than the other two.

Daiski yanked me behind a seat for cover, but I wasn’t fast enough. With a yelp, one of the arrows bit me right in the ass.

My hand was still in Daiski’s, and he and I stared at each other for a long, long moment. He was giving me that look again.

I want to taste you.

For a second, I understood what it was like to be a man full of testosterone. All I could see was his naked body, and then I was imagining mine under his. On top of his. Two sets of limbs entangled.

I was completely and unabashedly objectifying a man I’d just met. Normally I’d at least feel bashful about it. But just then, my inhibitions had sieved right out of me. I just wanted what I wanted, and I would have it.

I was about to leap on him when a tiny voice entered my mind: Justin.

And then, an even smaller, more devious one: Hercules.

No—Justin. I love Justin. I want Justin.

I rose, and like a poor creature possessed by a parasite (never mix your alcohol with your Cupid’s arrows, kids), I pulled away from Daiski.

He resisted, his hand reaching out for me. “Wait. Don’t go.”

But the haze was growing heavier, and my legs carried me straight down the aisle of the car, working like pistons. I ran faster than I’d ever run, kicked the GoneGodDamn door activator and passed right into the next car, then the next one, then the next one.

When I hit the third car from the back, I threw open the door to our roomette, my growl of a breath funneling in and out of my throat.

I needed Justin like a beached dolphin needed water. I was going to make wild, passionate love to my boyfriend if it was the last thing I ever did.

And, the way I felt, maybe it would be.

There, in the darkness, someone slept on one of the narrow beds. I recognized the scent—Nossa Senhora, I was like a bloodhound—and I leapt through the doorway and on top of whoever it was. Justin—Hercules—I wasn’t sure. One of them.

“Wake up,” I purred into his ear, sliding my fingers into his hair and gripping at the scalp.

When he turned over and saw me on top of him, he pulled my head down toward him, and we kissed with magnetic fervor. Somehow our mouths never detached as the clothes flew off, and five hundred years of seduction had never prepared me for this.

In the haze of lovemaking, my entire body felt like a live wire. They say women can have multiple orgasms, but what about unending orgasms? Well, that night a scientific survey of one determined encantado proved it was possible.

On and on it went, and when I thought I sensed another man—was that Hercules?—enter the fray, I wasn’t sure if I was hoping and imagining, or if it was real.

Nothing felt real. It all felt like a dream.

The best dream of an encantado’s life.

Chapter 6

Scattered light hit my eyes. When I woke, the curtains fluttered above my face, daylight seeping in. The train rolled on, though I couldn’t have said where the Empty Hell we were. I only knew my head throbbed like an open wound, the murkiness of the night unspooling in my mind in shutter-stop.

A fight? Yes, a fight in the dining car.

The black-haired man—Daiski—grinning at me.

Had I slept with Daiski?

I groaned, rolled onto my side. No one lay beside me. When I opened my eyes, the bed lay empty. The room smelled of sex.

And my butt hurt.

I glanced under the covers. Naked. When I felt my left cheek (gluteal cheek, that is) my fingers slid over a lump as tender as a bee’s sting. And all at once, I remembered.

I shot upright. “GoneGodDamn Cupids,” I whispered before my head tolled like a bell and I crumpled back onto the pillow.

Twenty minutes later, I had managed to get myself together enough to leave the room and stagger through the length of the train toward the dining car. One word swirled in my mind, louder and louder: Coffee. Coffee. Coffee.

Coffee first, then I’d deal with the Cupids.

As I passed through car after car, I felt like I was descending through the Nine Circles of Cupidity. In the first car, a few folks were passed out under blankets, some even kissing. In the second car, I definitely saw genitalia. And in the third car, it looked like an orgy had taken place—which, I suppose, is probably what happened. Bodies were wrapped around each other so well they didn’t look like people anymore so much as a mass of limbs and flesh.

I even saw a pixie and a human laying together. GoneGods know how that works, but apparently Cupids’ arrows don’t discriminate by species.

Or maybe it’s our desires that don’t discriminate. Cupids’ arrows are only suggestions, after all.

What about the other types of love—agape, philia? Shouldn’t some of these people have been playing ukuleles and singing and dancing? Surely Cupid of Eros hadn’t been responsible for all this.

As the door to the dining car slid open, three cherubic heads turned. All three Cupids were seated in one side of a booth, drinking three separate coffees.

“Opa!” they said in unison.

I dragged myself to the table and managed to get my hands onto my hips. “Opa?”

“We’re Greek. That’s what modern Greeks say,” my Cupid said. “I taught them.”

“Opa is for celebrations,” I said with all the miserliness I felt.

“We are celebrating,” my Cupid said. “The gang’s back together.”

“But …”—I waved my hands between them—“last night you three were trying to kill each other.”

“And we worked out our issues,” my Cupid said. “Through violence.”

“That sounds healthy,” I muttered.

Agape and Philia smiled at me with that same pristine naivete from yesterday. “Good late morning,” Philia said. “Sit with us for second coffees.”

I dropped into the opposite seat, and Agape passed me his mug. It was loaded with sweetener and creamer, but I didn’t care; I needed all the uppers I could get.

My Cupid leaned forward, took an audible sniff. “Smells like one of my arrows got you.”

When I had downed the whole mug, I smacked it down onto the table. Little droplets sprayed in a radius around it, and I enjoyed the effect of all the Cupids’ eyebrows raising. “You three,” I began.

My Cupid raised a hand. “Isa, my dear, say no more. We’re sorry.”

“No,” I said. “I’m going to say a lot more.”

All three Cupids groaned.

“Have you seen the state of this train? I mean, I don’t even know how this happened. All three of you were shooting arrows, but the place is a bordello.”

“We were shooting arrows at him.” Agape pointed at Cupid of Eros. “He had something of a … different strategy.”

My eyes trailed to Cupid of Eros, who shrugged. “What can I say? I’ve become Americanized since the gods left.”

“What does that even mean?” I asked.

“It means, when you’re under siege, you spray and pray.”

The Amish family, who had somehow escaped the madness, were now watching us while eating their paper-bagged sandwiches from several tables away. One of the girls was taking pictures of the Cupids with an old-fashioned camera.

I leaned forward with a whisper. “I had mad sex last night, and I don’t even know who it was with.”

My Cupid giggled. “Mad sex, or mad sex?”

“I don’t know—both?” I slumped back. “I just feel strange not knowing who was on the other end of it.”

“Don’t forget,” he said, “that my arrows take away your inhibitions and allow you to live your deepest desires—if you so choose. You know yourself better than you think. What’s your deepest, most passionate desire, Isabella?”

All three Cupids’ heads came forward, their keen eyes on me.

“I …” I began. A thought came into my mind, but I didn’t feel comfortable voicing it. Nearby, the old-fashioned camera clicked again. “I think I know, but I don’t want to say.”

I hadn’t even finished my sentence when the car door opened to reveal Justin and Hercules. Both wore stupid grins. Both were looking at me.

“Oh … merda,” I breathed.

“Good morning!” Hercules boomed. The two of them carried just about every breakfast food offered on the train—muffins, pastries, little yogurt containers, cups of orange juice—in their arms.

“What are you two doing together?” I said. Even now, the sight of them filled me with equal desire and fear. I could tell I was still in the thrall of Cupid’s arrow.

And maybe they were, too. This was the friendliest I had ever seen them with one another. I mean, we’d had to stop Hercules from murdering Justin the first moment he saw him back in Vermont.

I pointed a finger at Philia. “Did you hit them with one of your arrows?”

Philia glanced up at the two men, who were depositing their goodies onto the table. “Only him.” He indicated Justin.

“Orange juice, my love?” Justin extended the cup to me with a wink.

My gaze traveled to Hercules, who also winked.

They had both winked at me.

I rose so fast I knocked some of the orange juice out of the extended cup. “Sorry,” I said, planting a kiss on Justin’s cheek. “I have to run to the bathroom.”

And by that, I meant I needed to get away from all the sources of my romantic confusion. And those three Cupids.

I bolted out of the dining car and into the quiet car, which was powerfully, gloriously quiet. They hadn’t wreaked their havoc here.

From the window seat I could watch the midwest pass by. I could put everything that had happened—not just last night, but in the past week—into perspective. I could think.

So I found an empty row amidst all the naked, sleeping bodies and I slid over to the seat closest to the glass. That was where I stayed for the next half an hour, thinking.

That is, until I saw a reflection appear in the window.

“You’re lovely in profile, deep in thought like that,” came a musical voice.

I didn’t need to turn to know who stood in the aisle. But I did anyway.

“Hello, Daiski.” I knew if I offered to let him sit, it would be because my inhibitions were still suppressed. But I gestured for him to sit down.

Chapter 7

Daiski dropped into the seat beside me, that scent wafting over me again. It was an indescribable musk, and in my inhibitionless state, I felt it in my core. Every time—with every man I’d wanted—it had always been in the scent.

I tried to keep my eyes on the window, but I could see him watching me in the reflection. Those brown eyes gleamed, his hair swept sidelong across his forehead like he’d just stepped out of the wind.

But the wind had favored him; it had styled his hair. On windy days, I ended up looking like that girl from The Ring, especially now that I had long, black, pin-straight hair. Hinata’s hair. Of every woman I’ve met, I’ve never admired anyone’s hair so well. Maybe that was because I loved her as my best friend—philia, I thought briefly—and so I loved her hair, too.

I found myself touching it often, unconsciously.

“All three times I’ve seen you, you’ve been doing that,” Daiski said.

I turned back to him. “Doing what?”

His elegant fingers—a pianist’s hands—reached out and twined a small section of my hair. He wasn’t touching me, but he was. “That.”

I lowered my hand, didn’t know whether to lean closer or away. “All three times?”

“The first time was in the coffee shop yesterday morning. You were watching the news.”

“Right.” The facts of my situation floated back in through the haze: the house fire. My face on the television. The World Army.

“It’s all right,” he said, lowering his hand to the armrest. “I know you aren’t an arsonist.”

Merda. “What are you talking about?” I said. Maybe if I played dumb …

Daiski smiled, and those well-formed lips parted to reveal a set of perfectly even teeth. “Lucky for you to have left before the house caught fire.”

I said nothing. We just stared at each other, our faces less than a foot apart. “You have American teeth,” I said. Still drunk on Cupid’s arrow, it seemed.

Now he looked confused. “What?”

“Americans always have perfect, white teeth.”

“Pegged.” He leaned mischievously closer. “Can you tell the accent?”

“Somewhere in the south, I would guess.”

“You’ve gotten around for such a young woman. I’m from Texas, actually.” A pause. “And you?”

“It’s your turn to guess.”

His eyes traveled the course of my features. “You’re an enigma. Your face suggests one place, your accent another. And then there’s the party you’re traveling with.”

This was getting personal—too personal. Even arrow-drunk, I knew not to go farther. “You keep showing up,” I said. “Dai-ski.”

“We’re on a train together, I-sa-bell-a.”

“Doesn’t quite work with so many syllables, does it?”

“Not quite.”

This was fun. Normally I’d feel guilty, but that was suppressed right now. So I decided to poke a little. “Texas, huh? Shame you folks are so keen on fossil fuels, seeing as how climate change will put your state underwater within twenty years.”

He set a hand over his heart. “I solemnly swear, Ms. Scientist, that I’m not one of those Texans. I even recycle.”

A charming American with a great sense of humor? Be still my heart.

Then: Wait, I didn’t tell him I’m a scientist.

I waggled a finger at him. “I never told you what I do for a living.”

A shadow passed over his features, which he blinked away. I had just glimpsed a snapshot of another Daiski—not the man I was talking to right now. I had seen the man hidden away beneath the man I was talking to right now.

He had been there, and then he was gone. But I had definitely seen that micro-expression.

“On the news, it said you were a biology student at McGill,” he said. “If I’m not mistaken.”

Had that been on the TV? I couldn’t recall, but I didn’t doubt it. The World Army wanted me badly, and they would publish whatever information about me they deemed necessary to find me. Which Daiski had seen on the news. For a second, I had been ready to claw his eyes out, to scream through the train. For a second, I had thought he might be with them. And that was the thing about Cupid’s arrow: all my reactions were keyed up to ten. My reactiveness was off the charts.

I wanted to be cool, but right now, I couldn’t be.

I remembered why I had come to this car: to be alone.

Instead of answering him, I rose. The train was slowing as we approached a station somewhere in the plains of the midwest. “Sorry,” I said, “but I need to head back to my room.”

Daiski rose with me. “I want to show you something first.”

Next to each other, I realized how tall he was. The top of my head barely reached the middle of his chest. Ah, tall men—they certainly could reduce you to thoughts of physicality. Of being overwhelmed, overpowered, ravished. In a sexy way.

I blinked hard. Even as an encantado I wasn’t normally this bad. GoneGodDamn Cupid’s arrow.

I looked up at him. “Show me what?”

He offered his hand as the train came to a full stop. “It’ll just take a second.”

And so, still arrow-drunk, I did. I followed him down the aisle to where the train’s outer door had opened and the conductor had stepped off onto the platform. Hot air blew in, tall wheat waving in a field beyond the middle-of-nowhere train station.

“This,” Daiski said, “is where Indiana borders Illinois. It’s right here.”

I stared out. “The state line?”

He pointed off into the distance. “Just beyond where we can see.” Then he turned to me. “Want to see it?”

The train’s horn blew. That sound meant we were departing in two minutes.

“I … What?”

Daiski turned to me, those blue eyes full of possibility. “Do you want to get off here with me?”

I stared at him, two teams warring inside me. Around us, passengers were filtering off the train onto the platform.

There was Team Isabella, which narrated all the horrendous ways I could die by running off with a strange man. Team Isabella had a litany of names for me, all delivered with a mother’s sternness. You idiot! Why would you get off the GoneGodDamn train with him? That shouldn’t even be entering your cosmic conception of reality. Just walk back to the Cupids and drink your hangover away with bad train coffee.

And there was Team Cupid, flouncing around inside me and tearing down all my papier-mache walls. Here was young, sassy Isabella, flanked by Cupids, pointing a finger at me. Treat yourself, girl. (When had I ever used that phrase?) He’s hot. You’re hot. Run through that wheat like you’re separating it from the chaff.

What did that even mean? I didn’t know, but it sounded great. And it spoke to my runner’s instinct. Encantado were masters of avoidance, and with all our inhibitions removed? Well, dumb things happen. Like the word that was hanging on my lips—”OK”—just as someone appeared behind us.

↔

“Hold up just a GoneGod minute,” came a voice. I paused before I went down the steps, but Daiski grabbed my hand and yanked me toward the platform.

Three other hands had found my arm and were tugging me back.

The Cupids.

“That’s my encantado,” my Cupid yelled.

“What in Zeus’s name is she doing?” Philia asked as they tugged.

“She’s under the effects of my arrow,” my Cupid said. “And this guy is apparently hot enough to make her act stupid. Who the hell are you anyway, Hot Guy?”

Daiski hadn’t let go of my hand. “We’re getting off here, cherubs.”

“We’re Cupids,” my Cupid spat. “We just look cherubic, idiot.”

Justin’s face appeared behind the three Cupids. Worry etched lines across his forehead, and a pang of guilt bubbled up. “Isa?”

Then Hercules appeared next to him. “Let go of the lady.”

The train’s horn sounded, drowning us all out.

“You’ll need to step off or get on, sir,” said the conductor to Daiski.

“Well, it looks like I’m getting back on.” He stepped back onto the train with such suddenness that the Cupids all fell back together, and I with them. Justin caught me, and the conductor packed up the step stool on the platform and stepped in behind Daiski.

“Who the hell are you?” Justin said, helping me to my feet.

Daiski remained silent until the conductor yanked the outer door shut and disappeared into the next car. When we were alone, he turned back to us. “I’m the guy who’s here for her.” Daiski pointed at me. His other hand reached into the breast of his jacket. “And it looks like I’m also the guy who’ll have to deal with the lot of you.”

Two of the Cupids unslung their bows. “Excuse us?” they said in unison.

Daiski dropped to the ground and kicked Justin’s shins before he rolled away. With a groan, Justin hit the floor, and I grabbed his arm as he went down.

It all happened fast then. Hercules swept past me, making to leap on Daiski. A pair of arrows left the Cupids’ bows, but Daiski wasn’t there anymore. The space where he’d been was empty.

The arrows hit the ground and pinged off, and Hercules grasped air.

I and the three Cupids watched open-mouthed as Daiski rose to his feet three feet from where he’d been a second ago. He pivoted himself from a standstill into the air, his body turning like a gyre above us before he landed in the aisle behind the Cupids.

It was like he had flown. It was like he wasn’t human at all.

With a rap and an “Ow!” one of the Cupids sailed in amongst a row of seats and hit the window. When we turned, Daiski stood there leaning on a cane. “Between four demigods and one DNA-spliced human, I had expected more.”

“Who are you?” I breathed. The train started into motion, and I braced myself in a kneel. I slipped El Lobizon’s claw from my boot and held it in my grip like an extension of my hand.

“He’s a World Army operative,” Justin said. “And he’s spliced just like me.”

“I prefer the term ‘spy,’ ” Daiski said. “It sounds much more exciting.”

“He just hit Agape,” Philia cried.

My Cupid buzzed up into the air with a guttural roar. He had an arrow pointed at Daiski’s head. “Nobody—and I mean nobody—but me hits my brothers.”

Daiski swept the cane up into the air, one pointy end aimed at my Cupid. “Oh, you’re angry. Right now your little cherubic body is filling with fury, isn’t it?”

“Stop talking,” Cupid said. “You irritate me.”

Daiski pivoted off the seat beside him, spun around with the cane and struck Philia on the shoulder before he could get away. My Cupid’s arrow just missed his head, brushing his black hair as it flew by. With that cane, the man moved like he’d stepped straight out of an action film.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Quit hitting the Cupids.”

Daiski ignored me, his eyes on Cupid of Eros. “I mean to irritate you. All that adrenaline doesn’t make for good aim, does it?” Daiski straightened, glancing toward the arrow now lodged in the far wall of the car.

Just as he turned back, Justin’s fist came sweeping toward his head. Wow, my boyfriend had moved so quickly and quietly, even I hadn’t noticed.

Daiski leaned away, and the two of them danced down the aisle together, each throwing blows and countering, the cane rapping off surfaces and Justin’s shins and forearms. It was the first time I’d seen him fight like this. I didn’t know he could fight like this. And I realized he was tapping into his power again, taking on some of Daiski’s strength and quickness.

The key word being some. Finally the cane caught Justin in the chest, and his breath was knocked out of him. As he fell back, Hercules swung himself over a row of seats and landed next to Daiski with a thud so resonant the whole car rocked.

His club was out, and man oh man could he use it. I had seen him fight a hundred-headed dragon with that club and win, but of course, that was in a wide-open space. Here he had to fight in the aisle, avoiding the seats. Well, trying to avoid them—he took out an entire row with one furious swing. Daiski had to dodge all the debris, leaping onto the wall of the car and running horizontally along it back toward me.

“What the hell is this guy?” my Cupid yelled, shooting arrows off in Daiski’s wake. All three Cupids’ arrows lodged at intervals behind Daiski, marking his path. “Some sort of parkour master?”

Daiski dropped between me and the others. “That’s kind of you to say.” His gaze turned on me, and he winked as he started toward me. “Come on, Isa—let’s get out of here.”

I had time to do one thing before I turned and booked it down the aisle: I spat on the ground between us.

No way was I going anywhere with that guy. Ever.

Then I spun, and I did what I do best. I ran away so I could buy us enough time to figure out a plan.

Chapter 8

As I raced down the aisle of the next car, dodging passengers, I thought about what I had seen Daiski do. He was a master with a blunt weapon, he was lithe and aerobatic, and his reflexes were super-human.

“Hey!” said one of the train attendants as I darted by. “No running, miss.”

Nevermind that half the people in this car were buck naked after Cupid-bowl—let’s focus on the girl who’s running. Priorities, right?

I didn’t slow as I slammed on the button to open the doors, slid sideways through and into the gap between the two cars. I jammed the button for the next door, sliding through that one next.

Screams followed as Daiski came after me, and the Cupids, Justin and Hercules barreled in after him. I heard them catch up to him, and more fighting ensued. Justin yelled for me to keep running, and when I glanced back, Daiski knock him across the head with his cane.

Justin dropped, and my heart squelched tight.

Where were the Cupids? Two were missing. Only my Cupid was shooting arrows at Daiski. But in the tight space he got too close, and took one of Daiski’s elbows to the face. His cherubic cheek flatted against the hard bone of Daiski’s arm and he went spinning out of sight.

“Enough,” Hercules bellowed.

“Oh, I’ve heard all about you, big boy,” Daiski said. “Let’s go.”

Hercules roared, and soon the demigod and Daiski were battling it out, club versus cane. You’d think that cane couldn’t stand up to Hercules’s club, but you’d be wrong. The thing was, Daiski didn’t meet him blow for blow … he deflected like water, sending all of Hercules’s strength past him, around him. He was so fast, it was like he couldn’t be touched.

And he had something in his offhand. I stared at it as he kept angling that hand toward Hercules’s body. Whatever it was, he was trying to find an opening. All he needed to do was dodge long enough to get it.

Finally, Daiski got that opening. In the second he plunged it into Hercules’s back and withdrew it, I saw what it was. A needle attached to a syringe.

At first Hercules kept swinging, but within a few seconds, he had slowed down. Daiski dodged him easily, allowing the demigod to run through what was left of his strength before he couldn’t even hold his club up.

When he collapsed, I knew whatever tranquilizer was in that syringe must be the most potent stuff on Earth.

Keep running, Justin had said. But I couldn’t keep running.

Daiski was winning against all of us. He had the advantage: he knew who we were, and what we were about. We didn’t know a GoneGodDamn thing about him. Everything he’d told me was probably a lie, anyway.

Soon, this entire train was going to be aware of the fight going down, and we weren’t going to continue on to Phoenix or even Las Vegas. We would be stopped at the next station, the police would board, and if we were lucky, the World Army wouldn’t capture us. If we were unlucky, Daiski had already alerted them to our presence on the train, and they would be waiting at the next stop, anyway.

I needed to make this fight end quickly. Then the Cupids could go about doing their arrow magic on everyone who had witnessed what had transpired.

Make it end fast, Isabella.

What would make it end fast?

Then it clicked: Daiski needed distance. He was magical with an entire car at his disposal, but what about cornered? That was where the Cupids would shine—they needed a stationary target.

Which meant I needed a tight spot.

I needed a bathroom.

Daiski turned toward me. I was the last one left.

I glanced back. Down at the end of the car were two bathrooms, one on each side of the aisle. I raced down the long aisle toward them, dodging passengers and, finally, throwing myself against the handle to the rightmost bathroom.

Then I saw the red symbol.

Occupied.

One glimpse showed me Daiski moving like a panther toward me, his lungs barely moving under that unlined, miraculously sweatless button-down shirt. He would be on me in two seconds.

I thrust myself against the handicap door on the opposite side of the aisle, pulling the handle as hard as I could. It rolled open, and the stench of a hundred different gut biomes rolled over me like a wave. And I fell into that wave, falling to my knees on the toilet-papery, wet floor.

A second later, I looked around to find that Daiski had appeared behind me. He stepped through the doorway and rolled it shut behind him. He removed something from the breast of his jacket. “Well, the details about you were spot on.”

I stared at what he held in his fist. When he stepped forward, it glinted under the fluorescent light. Another syringe—another tranquilizer. I wasn’t about to let the World Army stab me with another needle. “What do you mean?” I breathed.

He knelt beside me. “You’re no fighter.”

Before he could stab me with whatever the hell was on the other end of that needle, I swung around with El Lobizon’s claw and nicked him on the arm, right below his elbow. If Daiski was burning a little time to enhance himself, then I could change that.

He glanced down at the spot where I’d made contact, a tiny line of blood appearing through the tear in his shirt. “Huh. Maybe you are a fighter after all.” Then he plunged the needle into the meat of my calf and depressed the stopper. “But that’s not very effective, because I’m about 5% Other. The rest of me is just plain old human.”

I screamed, lashed out again with the claw. His upper body drifted lazily back ahead of my swing. “This tranq works quick, I’m afraid.”

In the time I had left before I passed out, I fixed my gaze on him. “Watch your back, Daiski.”

“What do you—” he began before a hard clank interrupted him … the door handle being yanked.

Daiski’s eyes shifted away from me just as the door rolled open, and all three Cupids, their bows nocked, took a half-second to aim before they pincushioned him with arrows.

My plan had worked. Getting him in a tight spot was exactly what we’d needed to stop him. Yay me.

“Well done, boys,” was all I managed to slur before I passed out in the handicap bathroom.

↔

I woke in the same spot I’d woken earlier that morning. Except daylight didn’t flutter through the curtains above me. The only light emanated from a small lamp in the room.

And this time the headache was worse.

I became aware of my body one piece at a time—head, chest, arms, hands.

Hands. Someone was holding my hand.

My gaze shifted and fell on Justin. He’d fallen asleep on the chair next to the bed. Half of his face was as purple as a grape.

“Hey,” I croaked.

His eyes opened, and in a second he was fully awake. “Isa.”

I tried to swallow, but I didn’t have enough saliva. “Water?”

He grabbed a cup off the sill, passed it to me. I drank it like I was breathing it in. When I was done, I reached for the bruised half of his face, my fingers floating in the air. “So,” I said. “How bad are things?”

“On a scale of one to we’re dead right now, I’d say we’re at about a five.”

Well, on that scale we were doing all right. I rubbed my eyes. “How long have I been asleep?”

“All day. Something like twelve hours.”

“So it’s midnight.” I cleared my raw throat. “And we’re still on the train.”

“We’re still on the train. Still headed to Phoenix.”

“Was that the Cupids’ work?”

Justin nodded. “They’re very good at making people forget that they were aboard Snowpiercer for a day.”

“Snowpiercer?”

He waved a hand. “It’s a movie.”

Another human pop culture reference that I’d missed. I had learned to glide right past them. “What about Hercules?”

“He’s been out, too. Just woke up about an hour ago.”

I raised to my elbows. “Daiski got him and me with a tranq.”

“Daiski?” Justin asked.

Right … no one knew his name but me. “The World Army operative who tried to kill us.”

Justin’s eyes darkened. “I’m going to kill him. And it won’t be fast.”

“He’s not dead?”

He jerked a thumb toward the wall separating our two rooms. The other one was where Cupid and Hercules were supposed to be sleeping. “The Cupids insisted on restraining him in there. They said you wouldn’t want him killed. Well, Cupid of Eros said that, and the others agreed.”

“Why would they say that?”

He shrugged. “They were very insistent. Apparently he’s become quite pliant since he got hit with their arrows. He keeps saying he needs to talk to you.”

“Me?” If he was hit with each of their arrows, which one was he under the effects of? And how powerful would that effect be on a man like him? “Where are the Cupids?”

Justin rose, crossed to the door and pressed the curtain aside. Two of the Cupids had their ears pressed to the glass. He turned back to me. “Should I let them in?”

I nodded. As the door opened and my Cupid and Agape flitted over to me, I struggled up to a seat.

“Oh, Isa!” my Cupid cried, throwing his chubby arms around my neck. “You were so brave.”

Agape nodded, flitting like a hummingbird. “Very brave, very brave,” he hemmed. “How do you feel?”

“Very bad,” I said.

He lifted the empty hypodermic needle. “As you should. That man stuck you with a drug potent enough to put a human down for days.”

“How would you know what drug it was?” I asked.

“Philia’s a registered nurse,” my Cupid explained. “That was before we got our sugar mother.”

“Sugar mother?” Justin repeated. “Don’t you mean sugar momma?”

“This is a very common anesthetic in hospitals,” Agape went on. “Apparently not as effective on encantado as on humans, though.”

“Apparently,” I said. “Cupids, why did you insist that Daiski not be killed? And who’s guarding him right now?”

“Philia,” they said in unison. My Cupid, who hadn’t stopped hugging me, now lifted his face. “This man matters.”

Justin flared on them. “What do you mean, he matters?”

My Cupid’s eyes flicked to Justin, then back to me. He looked uncommonly afraid. He almost never showed fear.

“Tell me,” I said.

He leaned close, whispered to me so that Justin couldn’t hear, “He matters to your love story.”

Cold dread filled me.

Daiski mattered to my love story?

Daiski?

I didn’t know if I could ever look that man in the eyes again. I thought I might hate him, after everything he’d done to the Cupids, to my boyfriend, to Hercules.

And yet, I couldn’t deny that something real had passed between us in those brief, unfiltered moments we’d met eyes. Maybe lust, but another sort of attraction, too. Gravitic, like a moon to a planet.

“Whose arrow got him?” I said.

“We don’t know,” the Cupids said together. “Whatever sort of desire he feels, we won’t know until you see him. He keeps asking for you,” my Cupid added.

“Isa, there’s no chance the World Army doesn’t know we’re on this train,” Justin said. “We have to get off.”

“Where are we right now?”

“Somewhere near the Rockies. The next stop is in six hours.”

“And then what?” I sat up and my head pounded as I did. “We just … walk to Phoenix? If they know we’re on this train, they’ll be waiting for us at the next stop and in Phoenix.”

“I don’t think they know,” Agape whispered.

Justin and I looked at him. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“I heard that man saying things,” he said. “You should talk to him, Isabella.”

The last thing I wanted was to talk to Daiski. To be in a room with him again—the man who had attacked us, who had stabbed me with a needle, who was going to carry me off to them. He was the reason I felt half-dead right now.

But as of late, the last thing I wanted to do more often than not ended up being the thing I had to do.

“All right. I’ll talk to him,” I said, trying to climb out of bed. As I did, my stomach turned over and I threw a hand over my mouth.

“Puke incoming!” the Cupids yelled, and Justin grabbed a wastebasket just before I blew chunks.

GoneGodDamn tranquilizer.

Chapter 9

When Justin pulled the door open, a growing triangle of light revealed Daiski in the darkness. He was strapped to a railing on the wall, both arms behind him as he leaned forward toward his legs.

His face lifted, blinking into the brightness, just as Justin’s fist came down on it—knucklebones on cheekbone, a sickening sound. I could practically hear Daiski’s brain rattle around in his skull as his body ricocheted around, arms yanking on the restraints.

“Stop!” I said. I didn’t blame Justin, and I also did. Whatever Daiski was, however bad, my boyfriend had just sucker-punched a bound man in the darkness.

Justin straightened. “He had it coming.” He stared down at Daiski. “And you’ve still got it coming. Do you hear me?”

Daiski said nothing.

I set a hand on Justin’s shoulder. “I’m going to talk to him.”

“Then talk to him.” He made a be my guest gesture.

We stepped inside, Justin flicking on the light and closing the door behind us. In the corner, my tiny laboratory, courtesy of the resistance, sat unused. And on the floor around Daiski lay a spattering of blood from the new cut over his eye. Justin’s doing.

I crouched in front of him. “Daiski.”

“Not with him here,” Daiski breathed. His voice sounded like it issued between the dry cracks in an arid plain. “Only you.”

“No way,” Justin said. “You saw how he fought, Isa.”

I looked up at Justin. “You’re right. I want you to stay in here with me.”

Justin’s eyebrows went up like he’d expected me to fight him. He folded his arms. “I don’t know what Others they’ve combined him with, but they’ve definitely spliced him with Other DNA. I don’t know what he’s capable of, except that he can escape a leather belt around his wrists.”

“He’s right: if I wanted to, I would have,” Daiski said. “Except I don’t want to.”

I stared at Daiski. “Why don’t you want to?”

He lifted his blue eyes to me, and despite the blood trailing down one cheek, serenity washed over him. “Because you’re here. And I really like you.”

Well, that was just a little creepy.

I heard Justin move, and I shot up. “He’s under the effects of one of the Cupid’s arrows.”

Justin stared back at me, unwilling to move.

I slid my hand into his, raised myself to whisper, “I’ve felt the effects of Cupid’s arrow. I really think he’s just a happy drunk right now.”

With a tiny flinch, he nodded. He didn’t say anything else; his eyes only shifted to Daiski, narrowed, and then he went to the chair on the other side of the room and sat with his arms folded.

Which left me standing in front of the man who had tried to kill everyone who mattered to me on this train. All for the World Army.

“They’re not coming,” Daiski said, as if he’d heard my thoughts. “But they will be.”

I turned toward him. “What are you talking about?”

The belt shifted on the railing as he moved his crossed hands into my view. There, on his left wrist, the watch I’d noticed earlier. “If I hit the red button, they’ll know I’ve found you. If I hit the silver button, they’ll think I haven’t.”

“I’ll take that.” I knelt by him and removed the watch, inspecting it before I passed it to Justin. We would need to strip all his clothes off and inspect everything. “Why haven’t you hit the red button already, Daiski?”

“You mean before? Like say, back in Penn Station?”

“Yes.”

He let an enormous sigh. “GoneGods, those Cupids are potent. All my training is telling me to lie to you, but it’s like …”

“Like you can’t?”

“Right. It’s like being drunk, but worse.”

“And better at the same time. I got hit with one of those arrows yesterday,” I explained.

He breathed a small laugh. “I thought you were going to leap on me when I saw that arrow hit you.”

“I thought I might, too,” I admitted.

“But you love the other two—Justin, Hercules.”

My chest tightened. Behind me, I heard Justin shift in his seat. How would Daiski know I felt anything for Hercules? I couldn’t admit as much, even though every time I entered his presence I felt wobbly. It struck me as a betrayal of Justin, who was the most monogamous man I’d ever been with.

So I changed the subject. “Why didn’t you hit the red button?”

Daiski looked up at me, scrutinizing me. “Do you know, I’ve been with the government since I was eighteen? I’m thirty now. That’s twelve years of training.”

“I didn’t know that.”

His eyes glazed over, staring past me. “I joined as soon as I could, straight out of high school. It’s not easy in Alvin, Texas—you don’t get a lot of opportunities. But I was always fighting kids in school, and so I thought: this is mine. This is my opportunity.”

I said nothing; I just listened. If Cupid’s arrows were compelling him to tell me something about his life, then maybe he would tell me something useful about his involvement with the World Army. I just needed to be patient.

“After two years, special forces recruited me,” Daiski continued. “They asked me if I would die for their cause—to fight for humanity’s survival—and I was hooked up to a polygraph machine. I couldn’t lie. But I didn’t need to, because I said I would die. I hated Others.”

I tried to keep my breathing steady as he let that last phrase settle between us.

“Why did you hate Others?” I finally asked.

“Do you know what it’s like, being the kid in school whose father died to a chupacabra?”

I stared at him. “A chupacabra? Those are …”

“Real,” he said with a snort. “Even you doubt their existence, and you’re an Other.”

“Not anymore,” I said. “I’ve met enough Others in my lifetime to know that when someone tells me they’ve seen a chupacabra, they have.”

Daiski sighed. “That was the story my mother always told anyone who would listen, because she was there when it happened. She saw it drag my father off into the forest. And then I became the kid with the batty mom and the dead dad.”

“That must have been hard,” I said.

“For me? Sure. For her? It was absolute hell, because her only son thought she was crazy, too.”

“You didn’t believe her,” I murmured. “What changed your mind?”

He took a deep breath. “When the gods left.”

“And you found out we were real.”

His eyes refocused on me. “And I hated you.”

I forced myself not to move, to scoot back. I made myself meet his gaze. “So why didn’t you hit the red button?”

He sighed out an embarrassed laugh. “Because I met a woman who called herself the Oracle of Delphi.”

↔

I dropped to a seat on the floor. My hands found the carpet, felt the rumbling train beneath us. It was a comfort, a reassuring consistency in the face of shock.

The Oracle of Delphi. Pythia.

“When?” I said. “Where?”

“I was assigned to New York City. We all knew you were headed there when you crossed the border from Canada.”

“Because of the tracker in Justin’s car,” I whispered.

“One night, I decided to take some steam off. Some of the other guys talked me into going to a club.”

A club. A strip club.

“Called Nymphos,” I murmured.

His eyebrows raised. “Called Nymphos.”

I stared hard at him. “You met her there?”

“I wasn’t looking to have my palms read. I’m not that kind of guy. I just wanted to relax, get a little drunk, forget about the war between us and you.” He sat back, relaxing against the wall. His eyes rose toward the ceiling. “About an hour in, she came walking up to our table. That woman only had eyes for me. She said, ‘You—come with me.’ ”

“And what did you say?”

“The other guys laughed, and I laughed with them. We made jokes about her. She was old, you know?”

“I know,” I breathed. I had watched her burn her life away at the end, shriveling to a set of meatless bones just to save me. All to save me, and the future she felt I could bring. Immortality for Others. “But she eventually persuaded you.”

“I don’t know how. I think she was just so persistent, I finally agreed. It was a joke still. She led me into a bedroom, sat me down at her dresser. And then …”

“And then?”

“She touched my hands, and her eyes grew wide. She clapped her fingers to my cheek and she said that I was important. She told me to go to Penn Station on a certain day. That when I found the encantado—you—I needed to protect you.”

By now I was having a hard time not getting emotional. “What did you say?”

“I grabbed her wrist, pushed her hand away.” His voice sounded pained, and he paused before continuing. “I set twenty dollars on the dresser and walked out. Then I got so drunk I got in trouble with my superior the next morning.”

“You treated her like that?”

He shrugged. “I thought she was crazy.”

“Just like you thought your mother was crazy.” The words came out of me before I could stop them.

When his eyes found mine, I knew what I had said was beyond the line. But he only gazed at me with perfect affection. “You know,” he said, “I can sense that if I was in my right mind right now, I would have hurt you for that.”

“Watch it,” Justin growled.

I raised a hand for him to stay back. “What mind are you in?”

“The one that tells me, with overwhelming surety, you’re the best friend I’ll ever have. It tells me I can reveal every secret and fear and desire to you, and you’ll accept me without judgment.”

Philia. Philia’s arrow had gotten him.

“Is that true?” Daiski asked.

“Is what true?”

“Can I tell you everything?”

“I …” I didn’t know how to answer. A half an hour ago, I had felt something like hatred for Daiski. Now, under the effects of Philia’s arrow, he regarded me as his closest friend in the world. And, thanks to our conversation, I didn’t thoroughly detest him anymore. I wanted to, but I didn’t.

“Yes,” I said. For as long as he was this Daiski, he could tell me everything. And he could potentially save our asses from the World Army.

A smile touched his lips. “I knew I could.”

“Start by telling me why you didn’t hit the red button.”

“Because some part of me couldn’t forget what that woman at Nymphos had told me about protecting you. I wanted to see you—really see you—before I gave you to them.”

“What do you mean, really see me?”

“I observed you. At Penn Station, on the train.”

My brow furrowed. “You only walked by us at the coffee shop in Penn Station.”

He chuckled. “Isabella, I’m a spy. Do you really think that was all it was?”

“All right,” I said, an odd snappishness surging in me at the thought of being observed without my consent. “And what did you see?”

“I saw two men and three Cupids who would give their lives to protect you. Somehow you’d drawn them to you like a flame attracts moths.”

“I didn’t ask for that,” I whispered. “It just …”

“Happened? So it did. Light happens, and insects fly toward it.”

“You tried to kill them. And back in New York City, your beloved army shot me with something that took away my ability to use magic.”

“Ah, the magic suppression. Do you know they dredged up El Lobizon from the river in Montreal for that?” He pointed at the claw tucked into my boot. “They modified it a bit to suppress magic instead of stripping it away completely. But nonetheless, it’s all thanks to you.”

“To me?”

“You were being watched from the time you started at Dr. Russo’s laboratory. The same is true of every assistant she hired, so don’t take it personally. Dr. Russo isn’t exactly a trusting woman.”

Understanding filtered through me. “They watched me return to the river every day.”

“And they dredged that bad boy up,” Daiski added.

I stared hard at Daiski. “But whatever they shot me with … it wasn’t El Lobizon’s power. At least, not exactly. That creature could strip magic away forever, like you never had it at all. Mine isn’t gone … I just can’t use it.”

“You wouldn’t be any use to us if your magic was completely gone,” Daiski said. “Hence, Dr. Russo made a few modifications.”

“How long does it last?” I asked. “The claw’s power wears off in a few hours. But I haven’t been able to use my magic in days.”

“Dr. Russo didn’t base her formula on the claws.” Daiski parted his lips, set the tip of his tongue beneath one canine. He tapped his tongue on that tooth.

I thought back to what I had read about El Lobizon, the magical creature from South American lore. What had the passage said about his bite? “It’s permanent,” I whispered, the cold realization slipping through me. “She made it permanent.”

I would never be able to change illusions again.

Daiski clicked his tongue. “Let’s call it indefinite—until you use the antidote.”

Chapter 10

Justin and I both sat forward. “What did you say?” I asked.

“Dr. Russo made an antidote.” Daiski let out a little laugh. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this shit. The World Army has got to get some Cupid power.”

“Focus, Daiski. Tell me how to make the antidote.” A sudden fear of losing my chance to get the answers I needed thundered through me. “What goes into it? I need you to tell me exactly.”

“Do I look like a chemist?”

Merda. I slammed my hand on the carpet, which made an unsatisfyingly muffled patting sound. “Not in the slightest.” I leaned forward, pulling open the sides of his jacket to reveal the inner breasts. “But you do look like a guy who comes prepared.”

“I don’t even know if I would object to this if I was in my right mind,” Daiski breathed next to my ear. “Of course, I’m not usually the one tied up.”

“Shove it.” I patted his jacket on both sides until I touched it. Long, hard and tubular—another syringe. I yanked it out of his pocket, stared at the liquid inside. It wasn’t the same color as the tranquilizer. “Tell me what’s in this.”

He stared at it with vague curiosity. “That’s my super-special concoction.”

“Can you be a bit more exact about the ingredients, please?”

He gazed at me placidly, totally unaffected by my irritation. “It’s the stuff they injected into you in New York City.”

I stood up. “Let me guess, they give it to all you World Army agents as Other protection.”

Daiski chuckled. “Right-o. Except I didn’t even have to escalate past the tranquilizer. Your guys went down easy.”

He watched as I crossed to the tiny lab in the corner of the room. “What are you going to do with it?”

I set the tube down on the table. “I’m going to figure out the antidote. Then I’m going to get my power back.”

The leather belt’s buckle clanked against the railing as Daiski leaned forward. “Listen, I don’t know how long this arrow’s effects will last.”

I thought back to how long I had been under the effects of my Cupid’s arrow. It had only been about twelve hours. Would the same be true of Philia’s arrow and Daiski? I glanced back. “What’s your point?”

“When I’m myself again, I won’t hesitate to kill your friends and bring you to the World Army.” He said it with such unblinking sincerity that a shiver passed through me.

Justin rose. “You’re not going to get that chance.”

Daiski ignored him and kept gazing at me; the arrow’s effects made Justin almost invisible to him.

I stared at Daiski. “Why, though? You told me about the oracle, and not hitting the red button when you could have.”

“Duty,” Daiski said. “I’ve been with the World Army for a decade. They’re my family and they want you more than they’ve wanted anyone, at least since I joined. If I were to bring you back, it would be promotions, praise and pride.”

I turned fully toward him. “So what are you saying?”

He sighed. “I won’t lose—at least, not to you or those Cupids or your boyfriend. I’m like … version 3.0 of him.”

“Maybe, but you’re a lot uglier,” Justin shot back.

“Version 3.0?” I said. So Daiski was spliced. That explained a lot about how he’d kicked everyone’s ass. “How many Others have been spliced to your DNA?”

“Right now, about fifty.”

“Fifty?” Empty Hell, that was hard to comprehend. “And what do you mean by ‘right now?’ ”

“They want to make us amalgams of all the most powerful Others in existence,” Daiski said as simply as if he were ordering an appetizer at a restaurant. “And there are a lot of powerful Others.”

“But that would make you Others,” I said. “You wouldn’t even be human anymore.”

He laughed. “I know—isn’t that the craziest part of it? I’d have to become an Other to defend humanity. I’d have to become what I hated.”

“You said that in the past tense.”

“Did I? Well, I guess it was in the past. But if you asked me in my right mind, I would tell you I do hate them—and I would believe it. I do believe it. But I know I don’t hate you. I really don’t.”

“Because you’re under the effects of Cupid’s arrow.”

“Even if I wasn’t.”

My gut cinched. “But you’d kill Justin and my friends, and you’d bring me back to Serena Russo anyway.”

He shrugged. “I’m an arrogant son of a bitch whose only identity is the World Army.”

I set the syringe down. “Are you telling me that I should let Justin kill you before you’re back in your right mind?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you to do,” Daiski said. “Because I won’t stop. Ever. The World Army won’t ever stop. And as soon as I hit that red button—which I’ll do, oracle be damned—they’ll come straight to me. And to you.”

I just stared at him, the blood roaring in my ears. As I edged my way over to Justin, he didn’t stop staring back at me. “We’ll be back,” I whispered. “We’ll be right back.”

I took hold of Justin’s arm, and he followed me out into the hallway. When I closed the door, Justin leaned against the wall outside, his arms folded. “Well,” he said, “he’s asking me to kill him. I think I should oblige.”

I took his hand and pulled him down the hall.

“Where are we going?” he said.

I nodded my head forward, and he followed me to the doors and through them into the next car.

“Where are the Cupids?” I asked.

“You had to bring me over here to ask me that?”

“I couldn’t ask you back there because Daiski could probably hear us through the door. He’s spliced with fifty Others, for GoneGods’ sake. How many are you spliced with?”

“Five. And you saw what that did to my body.”

Oh, had I seen. If it weren’t for Hercules’s vial of water from the River Styx, Justin wouldn’t be standing in front of me right now. That DNA splicing business was a risky prospect.

“So how did Russo manage to splice fifty Others into that guy without his entire body melting?” Justin asked.

I shook my head. “I have no idea. But I think we should use this opportunity.”

“Which opportunity is that?”

“He’s willing to talk right now. He’ll tell me anything I want to know.”

Justin shook his head. “You want to keep him around as a hostage? Seriously? Isa, I’m not saying that’s a dumb idea … that’s actually the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

I stared hard at him. “And your solution is what? Execute him?”

Justin averted his eyes. “He would have done the same to us.”

“I trust the Cupids’ magic. I’ve felt it, Justin—it’s powerful. And it lasts a while.”

His black eyebrow went up. “That’s not very comforting. How long is ‘a while?’ “

“I need to ask the Cupids about that. I’m not even sure which one of them shot him.” I glanced through the window of the other room, which was empty. “Where are they, anyway?”

“They’re comforting Hercules in the glass-ceiling car.”

Comforting Hercules? I hadn’t realized he’d needed comforting. But I guessed I would figure out what that was about when I found him. “The glass-ceiling car? We have one of those?”

Justin nodded. “It’s the caboose—last car on the train.” He nudged me. “Go on. I’ll keep watch over Mr. Murder in there for now. But I have to warn you … Hercules isn’t in a good state right now.”

↔

The glass-ceiling car only contained four occupants. All four of them were demigods.

Of the four, only one had a wail loud enough to hear through the door. I bolstered myself before I stepped through, plugging my ears as I came into the car.

There, near the end, sat Hercules on one of the side-facing couches, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. Around him lay an array of empty wine bottles. He wept. The three Cupids sat at his sides, all offering consolation.

The lights had been dimmed to see the night sky through the glass. My eyes rose straight to the ceiling—they couldn’t not—to where the zipper of the Milky Way cut across the sky, stars pouring out of it as if it had been torn and spilled its contents.

The gods had left, but they hadn’t taken wonder with them. That lay with the world and its contents. That lay with the stars.

As one of Hercules’s wails died away, I heard my name. My Cupid had spotted me.

All three of them rose into the air, floated over to me.

“What’s happened?” I said.

“Herc isn’t in a good place,” my Cupid said.

“Not since he lost that fight,” Agape added.

“He’s always been like this,” my Cupid explained. “Full of fire and passion, for better or worse.”

Philia started to say something, but he was lost beneath another sob. As it turned into a wail, we all clapped our hands to our ears. The entire car seemed to shudder as he sobbed.

When he had reached the end of his lungs, we all lowered our hands. “Listen, Cupids,” I said quickly, “I need to know how long your arrows last.”

“It depends,” my Cupid said. “Mine can last anywhere from twelve hours to several days.”

“Agape is far more long-lasting than lust, so mine last anywhere from a week to several weeks,” Agape said.

Philia raised a finger to speak, but Hercules had entered another bout of wails. We all plugged our ears again until he was done.

“Friendship is like agape, but it’s not always as perfect,” Philia said.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Friendship can last a lifetime, or it can last as long as lust. It depends on the person.”

“So how long do your arrows last?”

Philia shrugged. “Weeks. Then again, it could only last half a day.”

“Which is it? Weeks or half a day? What does it depend on?”

“On the strength of the feeling. On whether the recipient of my arrow would have been friends with the object of their friendship anyway.”

“You hit Justin with one of your arrows,” I said. “That was how he became friends with Hercules.”

Philia nodded.

“How long did that last?”

“As far as I know, it hasn’t yet worn off.”

Well, that was heartwarming. I suppose Justin had only ever disliked Hercules because of our relationship, anyway. My eyes flicked to Hercules, who had grabbed a bath towel from the seat beside him and was blowing his nose.

“If it does wear off,” I said, “what happens when you shoot them again?”

All three Cupids shook their head. “It’s a one-time deal,” my Cupid said. “You can’t just string arrows together. You get greatly diminishing returns—much to Atë’s chagrin.”

“Atë?” I said.

“The Greek goddess of mischief,” my Cupid explained. “Not widely known, but man did she like us Cupids.”

I turned to Philia. “I think Daiski is under the effects of your arrow.”

“Daiski?” the three said.

“The guy who kicked everyone’s ass,” I explained.

“Ahh,” the three Cupids said.

With a roar, Hercules rose from his seat. “I shall eat this Daiski! I shall sunder him from the earth.” He went to pick up his club, which I guess the Cupids had brought in, but he’d barely even lifted it before he set it down again and dropped back into his seat.

Philia turned back to me. “Daiski was asking for you the entire time we were restraining him. He seems quite taken with you.”

“How long do you think your arrow’s effect will last on him?” I asked.

He closed one eye, a hand going to his chin. “Given what I saw, I would say three days.”

“How certain are you?” I gripped his shoulders. “Philia, I need you to be sure about the three days.”

His eyes widened. “I’m 92% certain.”

So there was an 8% chance that Daiski would, at some point, revert back into the man who had so easily defeated all of us. I’d lived with worse odds.

I nodded. “Good. Cupids, can you start a rotating guard outside the room we’re keeping him in?”

Philia and Agape straightened to attention. My Cupid just flicked his hand. “All right, as long as I don’t get the graveyard shift.”

“You three sort it out amongst yourselves,” I said, stepping past them. At the end of the car, Hercules had slumped back into his original pose.

A man in grief.

I crossed to where he sat, lowered myself to a seat beside him. He must have been four times my size—a muscled behemoth of a man. “Hercules.” My hand went to his back, where I felt the muscles rippling beneath the skin. I knew what I needed to say to reach him. “Tell me about one of your feats of strength.”

He angled his face partly out of his hands, one bloodshot eye meeting mine. “What?” His voice sounded thick.

“You were the most powerful warrior of the ancient world,” I said. “Surely you have a hundred tales to tell.”

“More than that,” he murmured. “Thousands.”

“Tell me one,” I said.

He sat up, rubbing his face. “None of it matters now. I failed you completely.”

My hand lowered to his wrist, slid into his enormous fingers. “Do you trust me?”

He gazed at my hand. “More than anyone I’ve met in the modern world.”

“Then trust me when I say you didn’t fail me in the war. That was only a battle, and we’re all still here to fight the next one.”

Hercules indicated my calf. “He stabbed you, and I wasn’t there to stop him. I was asleep—I was powerless.”

“My magic was stolen from me by the World Army,” I said. “But I’m not powerless. I’m going to use science to bring it back.”

His eyes shifted to mine. In this almost-darkness, the outline of Hercules’s face couldn’t have painted a finer portrait of a man. “And what is your point?”

“My point is that my power doesn’t just reside in my magic. And your power doesn’t just reside in your strength, demigod.” I smiled at the drunk hero. “We don’t just boil down to what we can offer people. We’re much more than that.”

“What are we?” he whispered.

“Many things,” I said. “All woven together into the tapestry of who we are. If you pluck one thread out you can’t define a person. You just have to accept the whole tapestry. And I accept you as you are, whether or not you win a battle for me.”

“Oh, Isabella.” His fingers folded over mine in a gentle way. I wasn’t sure if that was because he was so drunk, or whether he was simply being soft with me. “You truly embody the Grecian ideals.”

I was never good at accepting compliments, and particularly not those from attractive men sitting so close to me. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do,” Hercules said.

I cleared my throat as I rose. When I turned, all three Cupids had tears in their eyes.

“That was beautiful,” Agape sobbed. “A true show of the highest form of love.”

More compliments. More staring at me with big eyes. I suspected everyone in this car but me was at least a little drunk.

“All right, boys,” I said as I passed through the Cupids. “It’s time to get cooking.”

Chapter 11

I was a biologist. More specifically, I was majoring in genetics—quite a different specialty from chemistry. And while I had only taken two chemistry courses at McGill, I knew I could do this.

I stood in front of the three-beaker lab the resistance had given me, a now-naked Daiski restrained to the wall behind me, and the same words ran through my mind. You are a badass scientist, I repeated as I picked up each piece of equipment and cleaned it in the tiny sink. You know what you’re doing.

And I did, but I always needed the mantra to remind myself, too.

In the corner, my Cupid snored away. After I’d convinced Justin to let Daiski live, he had guarded Daiski for the first ten hours, and now Cupid had shifted in. After four hours he had lapsed into sleep, and I hadn’t tried to wake him. If anything happened, he would be up and out of that chair like an angry bee.

Meanwhile, I still hadn’t slept. The downside of Amtrak trains? Their coffee was pretty bad. But it helped a little, and right now, I needed to stay awake more than ever.

I had a day before we arrived in Las Vegas. I’d already pressed the silver button on Daiski’s watch to hold off the World Army, which meant I had bought myself some time to get myself back into fighting shape.

But those weren’t the reasons I knew I could handle this. I lifted the syringe I’d pulled from Daiski’s jacket, carefully uncapped it and pressed the stopper down to expunge the whole thing into a beaker.

“You’re a geneticist,” Daiski said behind me.

“I know.” As morning came, I held the beaker up in front of the window, swirled the liquid around in front of my face.

“And you don’t even know the ingredients to the antidote.”

I lowered the beaker, grabbed my phone. “I know.”

“So how are you going to do this?”

I pressed a button and held my phone out for him to see. “My two friends: Google and YouTube.”

The intro tune to a tutorial video echoed through the room. Daiski laughed. “Really?”

“Really,” I said. Google and YouTube hadn’t been gifts from the gods—they’d been gifts from humanity. Sure, they brought a lot of bullshit along with them, but so did every invention. If you knew enough about your subject, and if you knew who to listen to, you were golden.

It was in sifting through the detritus that you could change your world.

As I worked, Daiski chatted with me. It was unnerving at first, waiting for signs of his slow degradation back into the man who had fought us all. But after a few hours, it wasn’t at the fore of my mind.

Maybe because he made me laugh. He was devilishly funny, Daiski from Alvin, Texas—Daiski without inhibitions. Daiski who believed with all his heart that he was my friend. He kept me company as I experimented with one ingredient after another.

“You know,” he said after we had talked for two hours about the ethics of exotic dancing based on our mutual experiences at the Nymphos strip club, “I don’t hear that voice right now.”

“What voice?” I asked.

“The one that’s always telling me off. The one that calls me an idiot when I misspeak. The one that tells me I was meant to fuck up. The one that tells me I’m destined to blacken everything I touch.”

Silence fell, and I slowly lowered the two beakers in my hands, set my fingers to the edge of the table. I lowered my face, feeling caught off guard. He’s trying to get into your head.

And he was succeeding.

“It’s a voice in your head?” I murmured.

“Yes.”

“How long have you heard it for?”

“Always. I can’t remember not hearing it. I guess that’s why it’s so surprising.”

I turned to face him, folding my arms. “I thought you were an arrogant son of a bitch.”

He chuckled. “That’s what arrogance means, Isa.” He had taken to calling me Isa over the last few hours. I couldn’t say I found it un-charming. “It’s a desperate cover for the opposite of arrogance.”

It felt strange, uncomfortable, to watch this man step out of his clothes. He was going emotionally nude, as it were, just baring it all. In my younger years, I would have found this kind of sad truth off-putting. A lust-killer.

Back then, I liked arrogance. Cockiness—in every sense of the word. Mostly I liked it because it helped me distract myself from my own feelings of inferiority. And, as the centuries had taught me, humans and Others—all of us, every sentient species—will do whatever we need to do to avoid deep, driving pain. The kind of pain you can’t bandaid over.

I leaned back against the table. “I hear it, too,” I whispered.

His face lifted. “You hear the voice?”

“I hear it right now,” I said. “It’s telling me I’m an idiot for believing anything you’re saying to me. It’s telling me I’m deluding myself into thinking the three Cupids and Justin and Hercules actually care about me.”

“Oh,” he said. “That voice lies.”

My voice grew small. “It does?”

“I fought your people, Isabella—all five of them. The only thing stopping them from killing me was me. I mean, you’ve got fucking Hercules fighting for you. I thought he died like two thousand years ago.”

“Me too.”

He sighed. “But even Hercules doesn’t have the strength to change that voice.”

I wrapped my arms around my body. “Nothing does.”

“Except you.”

“Except me. And trust me, I’ve read all the self-help books.”

“Name one.”

I raised a finger. “Self-Compassion.”

“Read it.”

I raised a second finger. “7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”

“Read it.”

I raised a third finger. “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

“Come on, that’s child’s play.” He let out a small laugh. “You know, I’ve never told anyone this.”

“That you read self-help books?”

“About the voice.”

“I’ve admitted it to a few men.”

His eyebrows raised.

I shrugged. “How long have you been alive? Thirty years, you said?”

He nodded.

“Well, I’ve got four-hundred-something years on you. Not to mention a whole lot of bad romance. Stuff comes out, you know?” I paused. “But you’re the first person who’s told me about your demons without being asked.”

“Normally it’s you telling other people about yours?”

“Normally it’s me telling them, and them rejecting me. Well, after the lust wears off or they see my real form.”

“A pink mer-dolphin,” Daiski said.

I opened my mouth in surprise, but then I understood. “Let me guess, you read a file on me.”

“I know everything about you that’s relevant to my job.”

“Nothing more and nothing less, right? Because you hate Others.”

“People who hate themselves need a place to direct that hate,” he whispered.

I said nothing at first. What was the right response to such a thing? It required tact, finesse, diplomacy—

“But I’ve buried that deep,” Daiski said. “I’ve buried it so deep it took a demigod’s magic to bring the truth out of me.”

“And when that demigod’s magic wears off …”

“I’ll push it back under,” he finished for me. “Because I’m egotistical and arrogant and a son of a bitch … and most of all I’m afraid.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Of what?”

He met my gaze. “That I can’t be anything else.”

↔

I’ve always been drawn to men I fear. Maybe it’s a neurosis, or something broken inside me recognizing something broken inside him. For so long I thought meeting these men was an accident or coincidence.

It took the truth a hundred years to seep in. It took a constellation of relationships, of the same narratives playing out—lust and then vulnerability and then come and then go, and then stay gone—to understand.

Men I feared provided no constancy. They fulfilled the narrative in my mind that no man would stay, would want to stay, would truly love me. But even when we understand something deep and hard about ourselves, that doesn’t change a GoneGodDamn thing.

I feared Daiski. I had been drawn to him all the same. That was why the World Army had sent him after me—as a lure. They had a file on me, after all. They probably knew all my tendencies.

Daiski was dangerous, and perhaps incapable of being anything but dangerous. He had just told me as much.

There on the train, I hugged myself tighter. “How many of you are there?”

His eyebrows lowered; he sensed the shift in the conversation. “Just one of me, sweetheart.”

“No—how many did the World Army send out? How many plants are there like you?”

“Hundreds. They put us at every major and minor airport in New York, and then all along the transport hubs on the East Coast.”

“Just for me?” My palms were getting cold, sweaty. I rubbed them across my knees.

“Just for you.”

“Merda. We’re not going to escape you, are we?”

“Not likely.” His voice changed, grew softer. “Isa, why do you want to be a mother?”

He asked it so simply my heart beat like a bird in a cage. He’s trying to get more information out of you. Don’t let him in. “Did Russo put that in my file?”

“It was in the notes in her handwriting, yes.”

Of course she knew; I had revealed it to her once, when she’d asked me why I was mapping Other DNA. That didn’t stop the heat rushing up my neck. Why should I be embarrassed to want such a thing? And yet I felt ashamed by the clinical notation of my deepest desire. It was in a file tucked into some office drawer. And, moreover, I felt ashamed of wanting such a thing.

Some Others—and many humans—felt there was a reason pregnancy had been denied to Others. A reason why it had been granted only to humans. Because they were the true inheritors of the earth, or so the Make Earth Ours Again supporters believed.

Make Earth Ours Again was a scourge on society, and they were particularly prevalent in the United States. They held rallies all over the country, and I had even seen a few red hats in New York City.

“I …” I swallowed. “It’s an old story.”

“So you’ve wanted it for a long time.”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Since October 14, 1917.”

Amusement swept across his face. “You pulled that date out of the air.”

“No,” I said. Already I was slipping into the past—back to that day. “I didn’t.”

“What happened on that day, Isa?”

I closed my eyes. For some reason, I wanted to tell him despite all my reservations, because I wanted someone to know Hinata’s story. Hers was the face I wore, after all. Hinata was the only real friend I’d ever had in Brazil. I had many lovers, of course, and some of those men were even my friends—for a time.

But never the women. The women hated me.

To them, I was a demon, an evil spirit, a monster who stole away their young boyfriends and husbands. And they weren’t precisely wrong—men often ran away with me—but they also weren’t quite right, either. I didn’t blame them; they couldn’t see the situation except through their own eyes.

The truth was, for as often as I seduced men, they seduced me, too. I even fell in love with some of them.

But Hinata, an eighteen-year-old Japanese immigrant who had come to work on a coffee plantation, saw me for what I was and called me a miracle.

She liked me even when her mother hated me.

She liked me even when her mother stalked into the road with a shotgun and aimed it at me.

She liked me even when she heard her mother yell, “Monster!” and a bullet tore through my side.

Hinata nursed me back to health, and we became closer than sisters—we became kin. For three years we shared our secrets, our longings, our fears. I took her to see my home in the rainforest, and she told me about the man she loved who could not love her back except in small, midnight doses. In kisses and trysts. Sometimes, even, in the bushes.

Even the best of us, it seems, can end up falling for the worst of us.

So when she became a mother at twenty-one—too young, but life so often occurs out of the order we intend—I loved her boy, even if he wasn’t mine. We both cared for him, played with him, watched him sleep.

But I wasn’t his mother, and this is the hardest truth to admit: I wouldn’t have died for him. And I didn’t.

It was Hinata who died that night. October 14, 1917.

I opened my eyes. Only a second had passed, and Daiski was still staring at me, waiting for me to tell him my story—her story. “It’s none of your business,” I said.

He flinched a little, almost like he’d been stung. “All right.” He gestured with his chin at my jacket pocket. “It’s time.”

I glanced down at my jacket. “Time for what?”

“You have to hit the button on my watch. The silver one.”

“Oh.” I pulled the watch out of my pocket. When I depressed the silver button, nothing happened. No click, no beep, no acknowledgment. What a strange thing, to know that my fate depended on the push of a button. And I was the one pushing that button.

“Sometimes,” I said aloud, “life is so large and complex and wild. And sometimes …”

“Sometimes it all comes down to a little, unimportant thing like this,” Daiski finished.

I sat back on my legs, and our faces were closer together than they should have been.

“Well?” he said.

“Well what?”

“What happened on October 14, 1917?”

Hinata. Even now, the three syllables in that order struck through me like a physical pain.

Behind me, one of the beakers had begun fizzing like a can of freshly opened soda. I turned and picked up the beaker, eyeing it in the light. “Well, it looks like we’re ready for our first test.”

“Test?”

When I turned, I gripped the beaker hard. “We’re going to see whether this works.”

His eyebrows rose with skepticism. “You’re going to drink that? All right, let’s see it.”

“In front of you?” It was too risky to drink something like that in front of Daiski—I could react badly or pass out—so I would do so in the other roomette. I shook my head as I passed out of the room, “accidentally” bumping Cupid’s chair on the way.

The demigod woke up with a snort. “Did he escape?”

I pulled the door open. “Once. I caught him for you this time. Next time, you’ll have to answer to Justin.” I winked as I slipped out.

Chapter 12

The first concoction didn’t work. (And it tasted like socks.)

Nor did the second, or the third.

Four hours and twenty-five experiments later, I felt nauseous from all the chemicals in my stomach. And I was sick of Daiski and Cupid probing me every time I came back into the roomette to start over again. Daiski was like my persistent, unflappable friend who couldn’t take a hint—which was a role Cupid had already filled in my life. The two of them together were unbearably nosy. And even though I was used to endless fine-tuning and experimentation, I was getting too frustrated to work properly.

I just wanted my magic back.

I left the room in a huff. I had thought this would be easier than it was. Faster. Simpler. But of course, nothing big like this was ever so simple. I should have known better.

Next door, I found Justin, Agape, Philia and Hercules crowded together, all five of them poring over an Amtrak map set on the table between them.

When I came in, the hard lines of concentration between Justin’s brows dug even deeper as his face lifted to me. “You look like hell.”

I pointed at the two Cupids. “Eros needs a break from guard duty. Would one of you switch out?”

They looked at each other, neither moving.

“I thought you were going first,” Philia said to Agape.

“You were supposed to designate,” Agape shot back.

“I’m never the designator!” Philia cried.

“Cupids,” I interrupted, “would one of you please just volunteer?”

Both pairs of toddler eyes met mine before Philia floated up, fixing Agape with a glare. “I shall go.”

As he passed out into the hall, Justin rose. “Isa, we’ve got to get off this train sooner rather than later.”

“Because of Daiski?” I said.

“I don’t care what he says, or whether he’s been shot with one of the Cupids’ arrows—I don’t trust that he hasn’t let the World Army know where we are.”

“I don’t, either,” I admitted. Now that I was out of Daiski’s presence, I wondered why I hadn’t been more concerned about this. Of course, the answer was obvious: he’d sucked me in. Had he even met the Oracle of Delphi, or was that just a lie to mess with my head? And I felt stupid for telling him about the voice in my mind. About Hinata—even just mentioning her.

“Isa,” Justin said slowly, “Hercules, the Cupids and I talked about what to do with him.”

“And?”

He sighed. “We can’t just let him go.”

My stomach slid over. I didn’t like the idea of a man—any man—being executed. And us being the ones to kill him? Even worse. It put me in mind of my encantado sister, Ananda, who had killed countless people over the centuries. She and I were always at odds in a simple, stark way: she used her fists to solve problems, and I used my mind.

I glanced at the other two. Hercules and Agape wore grim faces. “You’ve all decided without me,” I said.

“Daiski’s a soldier, Isa,” Justin said. “He would have done the same to all of us.”

“We’re not him,” I said, grabbing his hand. “Let’s just get off the train.”

But I could tell by the way the three remained silent that it was decided. All had suffered at Daiski’s hands; little Agape was still wearing the bandages on his face from where he’d taken Daiski’s blows.

“I haven’t finished my work.” I held up a half-full beaker. Maybe this would distract them from wanting to kill a man. “Twenty-five experiments and no dice.”

Agape reached out a chubby hand. “May I see?”

“Uh, sure.” I passed him the beaker. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it definitely wasn’t what came next.

He held it close to his face, swirled it around. Without warning, he took a sip of the concoction. He closed his eyes as he considered it, like he was sampling wine. We all stared, and when Justin and I met eyes, he just shrugged.

When Agape’s eyes opened, he handed me back the beaker. “You’re missing one eighth of a liter of distilled dihydrogen monoxide.”

I laughed, but both Justin and Hercules looked confused. “Is that something we can obtain?” Hercules asked.

“Doesn’t sound like it,” Justin replied. “I mean, we’re on a train. And that stuff sounds complicated.”

My Cupid pulled open the door and looked around. “What’s up, gang?” He floated in proudly, his chest out. “I’ve successfully kept the prisoner quarantined. I can report that he was sleeping when guard rotation occurred.”

I ignored him. “Agape,” I said, “with all due respect, dihydrogen monoxide is not the issue.”

Agape raised a finger. “And what respect do you think is due to me?”

“Well, you’re a two-thousand-year-old Cupid, and you probably know a few things. But this is modern science,” I explained, “and I’m pretty sure water isn’t the missing ingredient to making this work.”

“Dihydrogen monoxide is water?” Justin said, his cheeks reddening.

My Cupid flew to my side and cupped his hand by my ear to whisper, “Agape has a degree in chemistry.”

I turned to him. “What?”

My Cupid nodded. “Graduated with honors exactly three years after the gods left. I like to give him shit because he’s Agape, but uh”—he seemed to be noticing my growing anger— “I probably should have mentioned this sooner, shouldn’t I?”

“Yes,” I said to both him and Agape. “You should have.” I stared hard at Agape. “You have a B.S. in chemistry?”

Agape nodded.

Elation warred with my frustration and quickly won out. Agape was exactly who I needed right now.

“All right, you’re my new bestie.” I took hold of the demigod’s arm and pulling him out of the room. “Dihydrogen monoxide,” I muttered as I closed the door behind us. “Are you for real?”

“Quite real,” he said as we came into the hallway.

As we did, Philia barged out of the second room clutching one hand over his eye. “YOU GUYS”—he threw his other arm out—“HE’S GONE!”

Agape and I just stood there, staring at him.

Philia danced up and down, his wings propelling him. “Did you hear me? I said he’s gone!”

“Who’s gone?” Agape asked.

Philia gestured with a frantic hand back at the roomette. “The ninja.”

My heart leapt into my throat. “Daiski?” I croaked.

Agape and I rushed to the adjacent room, pushing the door open. Inside, the belt still hung on the railing, but Daiski wasn’t there. The window was open, the wind rushing audibly by and throwing my hair up into my face.

“Nossa Senhora,” I murmured. “What happened?” I asked Philia.

“As soon as Eros left the room, the ninja started mumbling really quietly,” Philia began. “I kept saying, ‘What was that? I can’t hear you.’ But he kept his head down, so I kept getting closer to hear him.”

“And?” Agape said.

“When I got close enough, he kicked me in the face,” Philia cried. The little demigod was actually crying. “By the time I got back up, he was gone.”

“Oh Philia,” Agape said, throwing a hand over his shoulders. “You naive little cherub. You just wanted to hear what he was saying.”

Justin appeared behind us. “What’s going … Oh. Oh shit.”

Hercules piled in behind Justin with a growl. “He was to be my kill.”

My Cupid spun on Philia. “You had one job.”

Philia broke into loud bawling, and Agape patted him.

“Just calm down, Cupids,” I said as I stepped into the room.

Justin came around me and approached the open window. “He couldn’t have fit through there.” He proceeded to survey everything: the beds, the ceiling, even tapping the walls, like Daiski had disappeared inside them. But I suspected Daiski wasn’t even on the train anymore.

“Philia,” I said, “how slowly does your arrow’s magic wear off?”

“Gradually,” Philia said. “Sort of like coming down from a high.”

“Which means his emotions could have been mixed, right? He may still have been partially under the arrow’s effects.”

Philia nodded. “Right.”

I stared at the landscape passing by in the afternoon. If Daiski could have escaped, he could just have easily have come for me—for all of us. We were only in the next room over. We would have been unsuspecting. Vulnerable. Surprised. It would have been the easiest thing in the world.

But perhaps he didn’t want to hurt his “best friend.” Me. And perhaps, too, he didn’t want such an easy victory. And the two warring parts of him had led to this.

Daiski had chosen to escape through the window.

“He could still be on the train,” Hercules observed.

“No,” I said at once. A strange certainty filled me. “He’s not on the train. He doesn’t want it to go down like this.”

Justin turned to me. “Like what?”

“Capturing me on the train without any audience. He wants something that will feed the maw.”

“The maw?” Justin and Hercules said together.

All four of them were looking at me like I had inhaled too many fumes.

“His ego,” I said. “Everything he does serves his ego. He wants to impress the World Army.”

Justin eyed me. “How would you know that?”

“We talked. A lot. Well, it was mostly him talking.” An odd shame filled me—mostly because of the conflicting feelings I had about Daiski. I should hate him, and it felt like a betrayal to feel any sympathy for him. “He told me how he operates.”

“He could have lied to you. He probably did.”

“He probably did about a lot of things,” I agreed. “I can’t know for sure about anything, except … I don’t think he was lying about that.”

“How?” Justin insisted. “What we do now depends on how sure you are, Isa.”

Between the wind, my hair flowing into my eyes, and the focus of everyone else on me, I could hardly find the words I needed. “I just know,” I said. “I need you to trust that.”

To my surprise, Justin was the first to nod. “All right.”

“You know I trust you, Isa,” Hercules added.

“You know I do, too,” my Cupid said.

“And we trust him,” Agape and Philia said of my Cupid.

“So what’s the plan?” Justin asked.

I inhaled, pressed my hair behind my ears as I met their eyes. I had a feeling the Cupids weren’t going to like what I was about to say. But GoneGodDamn it, part of being a mature five-hundred-year-old is saying it anyway.

So I told them.

Chapter 13

The Cupids all gawked at me as we stood in the roomette. They didn’t just not like my idea—they detested it.

“Brilliant,” Hercules said. “It’s been eons since I’ve manned a chariot.”

“They are not chariots,” the Cupids said indignantly.

Hercules shrugged. “I imagine it’s a similar ride.”

Justin clapped his hands together with a certain finality. “Good. Let’s do it.”

“No way,” my Cupid said, rising into the air in front of him. “It’s forbidden. No one has ever done that.”

“It’s a little bit life or death here, guys,” Justin said.

Agape and Philia exchanged glances, both of their gazes drifting to Hercules.

“Well,” Agape began.

“You see,” Philia added.

Hercules eyed them. “You doubt you can carry my bulk.”

Both Cupids threw their hands up. “Oh no, it’s not that!”

“It’s exactly that,” my Cupid said. He folded his arms. “Our puffs aren’t just for you to ride around in like taxis, you know.”

“So I shall ride inside, and you shall hold onto the back,” Hercules said.

“Like a water skier?” my Cupid said. “No way. Not in my puff.”

“Puff?” Justin said.

“Yes, puff!” My Cupid huffed. “That’s the technical name. Yuk it up, human.”

“I thought you all were here to help me,” I said. “You know, serve my love story and all that.”

Philia clasped his hands together, his eyes as wide as medallions. “You have to understand that our puffs are designed just for us. They’re our safe spaces.”

“And quite delicate,” Agape added, his eyes darting to Hercules again. “If they sense we’re taking advantage of them, they won’t always come as cumulus. Sometimes they come as stratus.”

“Or even cirrus!” Philia said with a shudder.

“Not cirrus,” my Cupid groaned.

“It sounds like you’re saying these clouds are sentient,” Justin said.

“Oh, they very much are,” Agape said. “Kind of like canines.”

“Dogs?” I said. “So they have the mental capacity of toddlers?”

Justin snorted. “Fitting.”

My Cupid pointed a finger at him. “What did you say?”

We were digressing. And right now, we needed to be doing the opposite. “We just need them to whisk us to safety.” My fingers flitted through the air. “At the speed your puffs can travel, it’ll take … what? A minute?”

Agape sighed. “This is true, Isabella. But the puffs cannot carry us and you at once. If we summon them, then you will have to ride in them alone.”

“Oh,” I said. “Can’t you just fly after us?”

My Cupid spun around to show me his wings. “Do you see the ratio of wing to body here? We’re designed for short, quick spurts.”

“All right,” I said. “If you decline, then we’ll need to get off at the next stop. Daiski and the rest of the World Army may very well be waiting for us, so we’ll need to be prepared for a fight.”

All three Cupids gawked at me again.

“We have an option?” Agape asked.

“Of course you do.”

Philia flew forward, clasped his chubby arms around my neck and commenced crying again.

“All through history, we’ve always had to do what the gods commanded,” Agape said with tears in his eyes. “It’s only now, in this GoneGod World, that we’ve begun to exert our free will.”

“And you respect that!” Philia cried.

“Of course I do,” I said. One of my hands went up to awkwardly pat Philia on the back. “You can always say no.”

My Cupid folded his arms. “Empty Hell, Isabella.”

“What is it?” I said.

“No mortal has ridden on our puffs since the dawn of time. But you’re about to change that. And you even gave these two the option to say no. You’re not really good at forcing an issue, are you?”

Hercules leaned toward Justin, their shoulders touching. I heard him whisper something, and Justin gazed at me with appreciation.

Heat crept up my neck. “So that’s a yes?”

Philia swept back, appraising Hercules. “We’ll need all three puffs at once for the son of Zeus.”

“It’s a yes,” my Cupid said. “But we’ll need some way of getting out of the train while it’s in motion. Herc won’t fit through that window.”

I pointed at Hercules. “But he can pry open doors.”

“I don’t know about …” Justin began.

Hercules lifted his free hand, folded the fingers into a fist so that his enormous knuckles popped white under the skin. Then he drove that fist straight into the wall. The metal wall.

When he pulled it back, the wall bore a fist-sized—well, Hercules-fist-sized, which was about as big around as a cantaloupe—hole in its center.

All of us stared at the hole.

“OK,” Justin said. “He can open doors.”

A sudden thought popped into my head. The antidote. My magic. Dihydrogen monoxide.

“You guys get ready to leave,” I said. “I have to do something before we go.”

“Right,” Justin said, pulling open the door. “I’m going to get our things together. Cupids, you too.”

“We don’t have anything to get together,” Agape said.

“We’re minimalists,” Philia explained. He pointed to his bow and arrows. “Just the weapons and what we’ve got tucked under the loincloth.”

“I don’t even want to know what you’ve got tucked into your loincloths,” Justin said before he disappeared into the hallway.

I approached the container of distilled water, still sitting by my tiny lab. “So the only missing ingredient is water,” I said over my shoulder.

Agape came up behind me. “Yes.”

“But I have water in it.”

“Not enough of it,” Agape said. “You need four ounces more.”

This is ridiculous. I didn’t want to believe it, that I’d tried twenty-five times only to be missing four ounces of water. But I added that amount of distilled water and mixed it all together.

With a deep breath, I upturned the beaker and finished it all in one gulp. Meanwhile, the two voices in my head sparred.

This had better work, Isa. You’re out of time.

Agape knows what he’s talking about.

Why didn’t you figure this out sooner? Why didn’t you fix it?

And it occurred to me, as the concoction burned like acid down my throat, that I hadn’t really been aware of that potent, cruel voice inside my head until Daiski and I had talked about it.

I mean, I knew it was there. But it was like a chronic pain, pushed out of the foreground of my thoughts. Now that he’d reminded me of it, I felt like two Isabella’s warred inside me.

The Isa of Fear, and the Isa of Hope.

All of which was compounded by my nature as an encantado. We were the best actresses in the natural world—better than actresses, because we could very nearly become the person we pretended to be. In appearance, in spoken and unspoken language. In attitude.

And right now I was wearing Hinata’s face. Hinata had always brought me optimism, hope. It was Hinata’s voice I was hearing. Hinata was the Isa of Hope.

I started coughing, and then I didn’t stop.

“I think it’s working,” Agape observed.

Justin emerged from the room with our backpacks ready. He dropped them when he saw me keeled over.

Soon, I felt hands of various sizes helping me stand upright. And all the while, the antidote poured through me as though it was filling a vessel. Or, more accurately, burning El Lobizon’s poison out of me. I groaned, clutching my arms crossbody.

The Cupids flitted nervously, wrenching their hands together.

My first thought was: Isa, you did it again. You screwed it up.

No, the other voice returned. You did it right. Just trust.

Part of me wished I could push those voices into the background again. Another part of me was grateful to be aware of them. If I was aware of them, I could focus on one. The Isa of Hope.

“Is it working, Isa?” Justin asked. I could hear his voice right next to me, but I was drawn fully inside myself by the processes occurring in me. In this moment, I was fully biological: a beating heart, a wrenching gut, a throbbing head.

Justin stepped in front of me, both hands on my cheeks. Normally they felt warm to me, but now they felt cold. My entire body had flushed with heat. “Isa, tell me what’s happening.”

I met his eyes, and I was reminded of when this had all started. Back in New York City, when I had been hit with a dart and Justin had used a pocket knife to dig the implanted tracer out of my shoulder.

“It’s strong in me,” I breathed. By which I meant, El Lobizon’s poison had been in me for days. The infection was worse, harder to cure. “I’m OK. It just needs to do its thing.”

I slid down the wall as it worked its way through my body. The train rumbled under me, and all I wanted was to leap up and tell them that we could go—we needed to go, to get off this train—but I couldn’t.

Not until I could stand again.

As minutes passed, the burning subsided. It was pressed out by a growing feeling of well-being, and then euphoria.

My magic was returning. It was coming back to me.

↔

“It’s back,” I said when I could finally speak. “I’m an encantado again.”

And just because I could, I closed my eyes, and within seconds I had shifted to one of the other twelve thousand faces I had worn in my lifetime: a blonde beauty with blue eyes.

“Holy—” Agape began.

“—Hera,” my Cupid finished.

“I’ve told you never to speak her name,” Hercules growled.

“Sorry,” my Cupid said. “But you have to admit, that was pretty cool.”

“Did you burn time to do that?” Agape asked.

“A few minutes.” Even my voice sounded different. Higher-pitched, breathier. I extended my hand, and Justin helped me to stand. “I have been twelve thousand women, and I can be any of them at any time. It’s only becoming someone I haven’t been before that forces me to burn a lot of time.”

My Cupid whistled. “Baller.”

“Let’s go.” I grabbed my backpack off the floor and pulled the straps over my shoulders. “Cupids, call the puffs.”

My Cupid rolled his eyes. “We have to be outside to summon them.” Part of me regretted that I had gotten the sassy Cupid as my sidekick. Another part of me felt glad; sometimes he was the only one who called out nonsense.

We all followed Hercules toward the front of the car, where he descended the stairs to the door. He pressed his shoulder up against it, testing its resistance before he looked back at me. “Are you prepared?”

I nodded. “You only need to open it enough to—”

But my voice was lost beneath the sound of Hercules stepping back and, with a snarl, punching the door right off its hinges. At this speed, the thing flew straight out into the scrubby landscape and clanged out of sight.

“Well,” Justin said, “now we really can’t stay on the train.”

Philia clapped his hands. “Oh, I have missed Hercules’s feats of strength!”

Hercules leaned forward, his lush brown locks whipping around his head as he peered out. When he turned back, he waved me forward. “We have several miles of plains. Come, Isa.”

Justin and I met eyes, and he gripped my hand and pulled me toward him. He and I leaned into the hard kiss that followed, as if we had both had the same thought in the same moment.

He smirked as we parted. “Well, now I know what it’s like to kiss a buxom blonde.”

“What’s it like?”

“It’s like a different flavor of the same brand of gum.”

I stepped away. “Did you just compare me to chewing gum?”

“Yep.” He waved me toward Hercules. “Go on.”

I turned toward the open door, and in the next moment all my hair was gone. New muscles slowly filled out my clothes. When I turned my now-green eyes on the Cupids, all their mouths had fallen open.

“What?” I said. “Who wants long hair when it’s windy?”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the sound of your bones cracking when you do that,” my Cupid said. “Come on, your puff awaits.”

“One second.” I reached down and slipped El Lobizon’s claw out of my boot. I pulled off my backpack, set it down before me and unzipped it. “Just in case anything happens,” I murmured as I set the claw into the bag and closed it back up. I threw the straps over my shoulders and rose.

Hercules steadied me as I approached the hole in the train. Out there, the almost-desert went on and on, small rocks leading to big rocks and a forest that seemed endless. We must have been moving at least sixty or seventy miles per hour.

No puff awaited. “Where is it?” I said.

My Cupid set two fingers in his mouth and whistled. He pointed out and up, and we watched a tiny fragment of cloud detach itself from the cumulus above us and come dashing down toward the train. Cumulus, I thought with gratitude.

Another thought: at some point I was going to have to ask the Cupids how they got around on a clear blue day. What was the radius from which the clouds would come? Hundreds of miles? Thousands?

The puff hovered just outside the door frame at the same level as my feet, wavering back and forth. At times, I could see right through it to the rushing ground below.

“Are you sure it’ll hold me?” I asked.

My Cupid floated up behind me. “Absolutely positively not.”

I spun on him. “What?”

“I’m jonesing you.” He waved a hand. “Just go.”

“How do I steer it?”

The door to the car opened, and a woman’s voice yelled, “Stop—all of you. Step away from the door.”

“Time to fly,” Justin said, leaning around the corner. “It’s the conductor.”

Well, I’d have to figure steering out as I went. With a yell, I did what might have been the stupidest thing I’d done in my long life. And I’d done a lot of stupid things.

I threw myself out of a moving train and into the open desert.

Chapter 14

As I fell out of the train, I remembered something. Something important.

The reason I thought of the Cupids’ clouds—or puffs, as it were—was because of a recurring dream. In it, I fell from the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere, miles and miles toward the ground. Below, the world spread with impossible beauty, clouds swirled like whirlpools. Continents etched the edges of oceans more enormous than I’d ever imagined from the forests of Brazil.

A terrifying beauty, because I was falling toward it.

I passed through the high up stratus, and then the cirrus, and finally the cumulus swept up toward me like a blanket, and I closed my eyes and held my breath. Every time I felt that mortal fear.

And every time, the cumulus caught me. I fell into it like a feather duvet, and when I opened my eyes, I saw the moon above. My anxieties melted into a tremendous gratitude. I was alive, and the world wasn’t terrifyingly beautiful—just beautiful. And I had been granted the great fortune to live in it for half a millennia.

Somehow, I knew. The oracle’s power, I thought. She had shown me the past, but she had also told me about branching futures, and how mine would be a slender branch.

That recurring dream was of my future. It was of this moment. I just hadn’t known it until now.

When I fell into Cupid’s cloud, it was better than a feather duvet. It was like falling into silk. And for a moment, I wasn’t terrified. I was just grateful.

I rose to my hands and knees, my fingers clutching the cloud’s mass like cotton candy. I wanted to throw my hands out in the air and scream that Titanic line that my roommate was always quoting at me.

Then the train’s horn went off, and I clapped my hands to my ringing ears. I was back in reality, riding a cloud meant for a toddler-sized demigod. The world was passing by at sixty miles an hour, and I had no idea how in Empty Hell to steer this thing.

“Think of it like a swagway!” my Cupid bellowed from the train.

“What’s a swagway?” I yelled back.

“It’s a tiny motorized vehicle you stand on and steer with your weight,” Cupid said. Trying to picture that only confused me more.

Justin cupped both hands around his mouth. “Lean in the direction you want to go. Forward to go faster, back to slow down.” That made more sense.

The train’s horn blew again—two blasts. That meant we were coming to civilization. Civilization was bad—it meant people, and lately, people meant trouble. Especially when some of those people had a vendetta against you and knew which train you were on.

The conductor appeared behind Justin and Hercules. Time to make way.

I gripped the puff and leaned my right shoulder down. As I did, it veered me away from the train—and slowed down. Way, way down.

“Hey!” I yelled as the train started passing me by. “Not slower, faster.”

The puff remained predictably silent. I didn’t know what I’d expected by yelling at it.

Duh, Isa. Lean in.

I leaned forward, but I went too far. The cloud dipped so hard at the front that I nearly tumbled out before I could right myself. All right, so clouds were sensitive like that. I was getting the hang of it.

I leaned forward a little, and as the train’s caboose passed me by, I picked up speed. By degrees I leaned a little more, and a little more, until the train and I were moving at the same speed.

But the train wasn’t moving as fast as before. It was gradually slowing, and a couple miles up ahead I saw the platform. Except the platform wasn’t all I saw. There were vehicles directly in the middle of the tracks … and they looked mighty familiar.

“Merda,” I whispered. “Get off the GoneGodDamn train.”

The World Army was waiting on the train tracks. And when I say the World Army, I mean they had a whole legion of SUVs and two helicopters circling the skies overhead.

His watch was still in my jacket pocket, but Daiski had found a way to contact them.

If the World Army was there, Daiski was there. His promises of what he would do to us rang through my mind, and I rushed the cloud up to the car where Justin was now leaping off the train.

My heart clenched when I saw him in midair, but he landed just as I had—on his stomach. Except he was a quicker learn; within a second, he was on his hands and knees and maneuvering his cloud like he’d done it his whole life.

The World Army’s experimentation had truly made him super-human. I was almost jealous. Almost.

Hercules went last. Instead of jumping, he stepped from the train like he was passing down a flight of stairs. When his foot touched the cloud, it sank a little under his weight, but he didn’t fall through it as the Cupids had expected.

Instead, he mounted the thing like a king. Where Justin and I rode on our hands and knees, he stood upright, chest out, hands at his hips. He spun his puff right around and floated over to me, blocking the sun.

Empty Hell, Hercules was riding his puff backward.

“You’re a fine flyer,” he called over the wind. His fists never left the seat of his hips.

I squinted up at him. “Showoff.”

I could swear I saw him wink. “You know you like it.” Then he spun around, and I spotted the three Cupids flitting out of the train and toward us. My Cupid was waving his hands in the air, pointing at the helicopters and then toward the desert.

His body language couldn’t have been clearer.

Go the frig that way.

He wanted us to head to the far tree line, some four miles away.

The three of us got the message. We spun our clouds around and started away from the train, and as I began to lean forward, my Cupid grabbed the edge of the cloud behind me. “I can’t believe I’m letting you drive,” he muttered.

On my left, Agape fluttered over and gripped the edge of Justin’s cloud in that water-skier configuration they had mentioned on the train. Philia came forward and clutched Hercules’s cloud. He didn’t look happy about it, either.

“Go on,” my Cupid said. “Let’s move.”

I gripped the cloud harder. “By all means.” I slowly leaned forward and we began at a slow pace. Meanwhile, Hercules and Justin both shot off across the desert.

My Cupid shook his head. “Come on, Isa. Lean into it. And you need to be more aerodynamic or else you’ll fly off.”

“How fast can we possibly go?” But I got on my stomach anyway.

My Cupid let out a brief cackle before he slapped the edge of the cloud like a horse’s rump. “Oh, Isa. You don’t know the power of the puff.” And with a “HYAH!” we went from zero to so-fast-my-cheeks-were-pulling-back. I screamed as the desert turned to a blur beneath us and we blitzed toward the trees.

↔

Cupid had been right: if I’d been any higher up I would have blown right off his puff. As it was, a stray mosquito would probably have put a hole in my forehead.

All of which was to say, we were moving. The trees came at us with unfathomable speed, and just as it seemed like we were about to sweep in amongst them, Cupid leaned us back and I spotted the other two clouds arrowing upward above the trees.

I screamed again. This time because I found myself dangling from the puff, and even in this illusion, my upper-arm strength wouldn’t keep me on that cloud for long.

We leveled out just over the canopy, and Cupid hooted. “I haven’t had this much fun in three hundred years.”

I ventured a glare. “This is fun?”

The sound of helicopters drowned Cupid’s reply, and we both turned our faces skyward. Above us, the noses of both helicopters pointed downward as they arrowed toward us. “Well, scary-fun. Now it’s more scary than fun.”

“Fuck,” I said. Of course, they wouldn’t be very good at protecting humanity if they hadn’t noticed the fugitive Others escaping the train they knew we were on. And they definitely wouldn’t be the World Army if they hadn’t immediately given chase.

Then they got all shooty on us.

The bullets rattled off in rapid-fire, and I ducked my head under my hands. Below us—I could vaguely see through the bottom of the cloud like it was a glass-bottomed boat, which was a bit nauseating—the trees shuddered and swayed.

When the shooting paused, I lifted my head. “They’ve got machine guns on us?”

“We can outrun them,” Cupid said. “Just take us somewhere they can’t go.”

Where they can’t? Where couldn’t the World Army go that we could? I thought they had limitless purview—especially in the United States. This was a country that took almost aching pride in their military.

I glared over my shoulder. “You don’t know where we’re going?”

He pointed at me. “I thought you knew.”

Oh boy. I yanked my phone out of my jacket. By some miracle, we had signal out here. I pulled up Google Maps and started checking out the area with one hand and driving with the other in what was probably a highly illegal act.

“No way,” I whispered as I zoomed the map out.

“What is it?” Cupid said from behind me.

“We’re about three miles away from protected airspace,” I said. It was the perfect escape: chasing us out there would mean they’d be violating a couple dozen different laws. Plus, this place would have way too many tourists with binoculars for the World Army to avoid making a huge scene.

“Where is that?” Cupid said.

“Just keep them off us.” I whistled to Justin and Hercules. When I caught their eye, I gestured to two o’clock. They caught on, because all three of our clouds veered in that direction together.

“Aye aye, Cap,” Cupid said. And with that, he sat on the edge of the cloud and drew his bow from around his body. To our left, the two other clouds were level with us. By some miracle, Hercules still rode like he was surfing. I didn’t even want to know how he’d defied the laws of physics.

Cupid gestured to the other two Cupids on their clouds, and they also pulled off their bows. Cupid’s bowstring started twanging for all it was worth.

We were picking up speed. And the helicopters … they were, too. But things still weren’t as bad as all that. I mean, we were probably traveling a hundred miles an hour in wisps of congealed cloud through the desert, but they weren’t catching up.

I gripped the cotton-candy cloud so hard my fingers hurt. I managed to keep us from jerking or stalling or pitching forward, but my entire body shook with adrenaline. We were starting up a gradual incline, and I leaned us back to meet the angle.

“Keep her steady,” Cupid snapped.

“Sorry,” I shot back, “I’ve never driven a cloud before.”

“Apology not accepted.” He paused as he nocked his arrow. “If I miss, I blame you, woman.”

Was Cupid playing to stereotypes? I’d show him. I ground my teeth together as we climbed. Behind me, his bow twanged again as the arrow rocketed off toward one of the helicopters.

“Shit,” he muttered.

“What is it? Did you miss?”

“They’ve got reinforced windshields.”

“You were aiming for the windshield? That arrow can’t possibly—”

“Our arrows aren’t any old arrows, Isa.” He yanked another out.

I pressed the cloud as hard as I dared, and we shot upward along the incline. Not much farther. Just hang on a little while longer. As we came level over the trees, my mouth dropped wide. There, like a gaping wound in the earth, was our destination.

The Grand Canyon.

“Nossa Senhora,” I cried.

“Oh boy! I’ve always wanted to go here,” Cupid said as he let off another arrow. “Hope you’re not scared of heights.”

I didn’t answer; I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I knew as soon as I saw it that this was our best option for escape. I just needed to not look down.

Of course, that was impossible. As all three clouds sailed out over the precipice and the world dropped away. Cupid piled into the cloud beside me, and together we leaned forward. And forward. And forward.

We plunged straight down the side of the cliff, a vertical drop to the river below.

At some point I realized I was screaming again. The ground came at us so fast I thought we would splat right into it and then the World Army’s job would be done for them.

“Pull up!” Cupid shouted.

And we did. We barely leveled as the river rose up to meet us, and we grazed its surface, drawing spray all over us.

Cupid was laughing. Above us, the helicopters shot out over the edge, but were already starting to circle back.

I was crying. “That was the stupidest GoneGodDamn thing I’ve ever …”

“Me too,” Cupid said. “But we lived.”

He was right: stupid wasn’t so bad—if you lived.

The other two clouds swept in next to us.

“Good call,” Philia yelled.

Standing above him, Hercules slapped his leg. “Oh Cupids, for a moment it felt like the gods were back. I saw divinity.”

On my right, Justin yelled over, “Are you OK?”

“Just need a change of underwear,” I said. “You?”

He barked a laugh. “Same.”

“That was nothing,” my Cupid said. We were still flying just above the river, but we had slowed. Above us, I could have sworn I saw a tour group riding donkeys down the narrow edge of the canyon. They were all gawking. “You should have seen our race with Apollo.”

“But how did you know they would turn back?” Agape said.

I shrugged. “It’s a national park. Everyone knows it’s protected airspace.”

“So we’re free and clear,” Justin said. “Thank the GoneGods for environmentalism.”

At that moment, all three Cupids said, “Uh-oh.”

“No—no uh-ohs,” I said. “Environmentalism is a great thing.”

“It’s not that,” my Cupid said. He pointed down at the cloud we were riding on. “It’s this.”

And with a pop, all three puffs disappeared.

Chapter 15

Fortunately we were only about three feet above the water.

Unfortunately, it had rained quite a bit in Arizona over the past few days. And when I say quite a bit, I mean the river was swollen so large it almost obliterated the banks.

That was what we fell into. The rushing center of the GoneGodDamn Grand Canyon.

The three Cupids let shrill yips as all of six of us dropped straight into the current. Justin and Hercules made enormous splashes as their large frames crashed in.

And me? Strange to say, it was like slipping into my favorite old dress. The water felt as familiar and as calming as it always had. I wasn’t scared; this was my element, after all. My natural form was essentially a pink-tailed dolphin, which I’d spent most of my life being ashamed of, reviled for. Only recently—thanks to Justin—had I begun to reconsider that position.

And right now, my natural form was perfectly suited to the dilemma. Well, almost.

When I hit the water, I was submerged for one disorienting moment before my head surfaced. Around me, the Cupids flailed. I spotted Justin and Hercules floating downriver with less panic, but they were still being taken by the current.

“We can’t swim!” Agape cried.

“Fly, then,” I called out.

“Our feathers are wet,” my Cupid yelled. “Curse these dove-like beautiful and underpowered wings,” he said between gurgles.

“Hold on,” I said. “I’m coming.”

Philia’s small head disappeared, resurfaced. “So are the rapids!”

I followed his gaze to where the river churned white up ahead. Well, that definitely shortened my timeline.

But I didn’t need much time. Not in the water.

I closed my eyes, allowed myself to be, well … me. After how helpless I’d felt on the train and in the sky, it was the simplest thing in the world to be in a river. I’d grown up beside a river, bathed and played and sometimes lived in it for days.

But like I said: my natural form was almost suited to the dilemma. Right now, I needed hands. After all, I couldn’t grab the Cupids with pectoral fins.

I sank beneath the surface as my lower body shifted, my legs fusing together, my feet becoming the end of my tail. I allowed my backpack to slide off my arms, buoyed up to the water’s surface. My eyes gained a skein to protect them from underwater detritus, and when I opened them, I could see with crystal clarity. Better than I could on land.

And I could move. With a single flip of my tail I powered through the river toward the Cupids, sweeping one into my arms and rushing him toward the shore. I didn’t even know which ones I had grabbed, only that I spotted their flailing, chubby legs and made right for them.

When I had rescued two, I spun around beneath the water, searching for the third. Farther down I spied Hercules, who had managed to swim himself over to a massive tree branch and was now treading water.

Of course—Hercules’s strength probably made him the best swimmer in the ancient world. And his size gave him a terrific wingspan. A moment later he reached out and grabbed Justin’s arm as he swept by.

Beneath the water, I sighed through my gills; they were safe.

But one of the Cupids was still missing.

I powered toward the rapids faster than the current itself. After a few desperate seconds, I saw him tumbling beneath the surface, caught in a spin some twenty feet away from the rapids. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was open. I knew exactly who it was.

It was my Cupid. Cupid of Eros. And he was drowning.

I threw myself forward and into a downward arc almost to the river’s bed. Just before I hit it, I angled upward, scooping up my Cupid and rushing him straight up and out of the water. For a moment, we were both airborne, and I angled my body to land beneath his when we hit the surface.

With my scales, I could take the blow. He couldn’t.

We hit, and a second later the rapids took us. I tried to push off the rocks and maneuver us around them, but the current was too powerful. I grabbed Cupid in my arms as we were pummeled back and forth, sent around and down. At this pace, if I hit a rock at the wrong angle, I’d get a concussion. My only thought was:

Don’t lose consciousness. Don’t black out.

We just needed to get through this, and then we would be out the other side. We would be safe.

On the shore, I caught a flash of Justin and Hercules running alongside us. They were both sprinting, waiting for the moment we’d float close enough to grab. But the current was efficiently carrying us right down the center of a long aisle girded by rocks, and I knew this battle was mine and mine alone.

I was responsible for my Cupid and me.

Ahead, the water dipped in front of a massive boulder. This was the worst trap of any set of rapids you’d encounter: the underwater flumes. Many a young encantado had nearly died—we were immortal, but not impervious to mortal wounds—after being sucked and trapped under a rock. The current would constantly press forward, our bodies wouldn’t fit beneath, and we didn’t have the strength to fight our way to the surface.

I had always managed to avoid them. But given our trajectory and the current, I knew this time I wouldn’t. We were going into the flume.

Encantado could breathe for a long time underwater, but not forever. We needed air after a half hour, and would die after forty-five minutes.

But Cupid? Cupid’s lung capacity was probably about forty-five seconds.

I’d like to say my last thought as we were sucked into the flume was a pretty or a noble one. I’d like to say it was of Justin, or Hercules or the goddess Yemoja. But those are only shower dreams, shower thoughts. You think of them afterward, all the things you should have said and done. What was right, what was good. What mattered to you.

Instead, my thought was only this:

Merda.

↔

We went under.

As I had suspected, we were sucked right into the flume running beneath the boulder. I tried to swim us up, but the current was more powerful than anything I’d experienced in the Amazon. Just like that, we were tumbling around and around and with a painful thud, we were swept into the river bed and under the rock.

I wasn’t generally claustrophobic, but here at the bottom of things—all the sediment kicked up and obscuring my vision, water rushing at me with incredible force, pinned under a thousand pounds of stone—I panicked.

We were stuck. Cupid and I were stuck.

I wriggled to dislodge us, but it only lodged us more fully. My strength was quickly sapping, and I knew we only had a few minutes before I would be too weak—and Cupid would be too dead—for this to be anything but a tragedy.

I needed time to think, but I had none. I was being slowly squeezed to death.

Do something, Isa.

Fix this.

And because I didn’t know what else to do, I prayed to the gone gods. I hadn’t even believed in most of them when they were still around, but I prayed anyway.

An answer came. Not from the gods, but from one of my sisters. Ananda was the best swimmer of us all, and I was the worst. But because she was my sister, one afternoon she shared her secret to being the best swimmer.

Flow like water. Just flow like water.

It sounded obvious, but it wasn’t.

It meant I had to loosen every muscle in my body. It meant I had to let go, and flow with the water instead of against it.

I’d spent a hundred years practicing flowing like water, and I could never do it like Ananda. But I didn’t need to be Ananda … I just had to get us out of here. That was all—just out from under the riverbottom of the Grand Canyon.

Against every instinct, I let go. I loosened all my muscles, allowed the water to power us under the immensity of the boulder. I scraped along every inch of it, and Cupid right with me. I felt parts press and squeeze and break. I cried out, but I didn’t stiffen up.

Flow like water.

Just when I thought we would be buried under the boulder, the current dislodged us. We shot up the other side of it and popped up above the surface. Only one of my arms had the strength to pull Cupid close to me, and I did. I brought his face above the water and he floated atop me as we came into the stillness after the rapids.

When I opened my eyes, the sun nearly ripped a hole in them. Had the world always been so bright? And because I had no strength left, I lay back and just breathed under the warmth of the sky.

“Isa!” a voice yelled.

Someone was wading into the river. A hand came around my chest, a warm body pressing up behind me, and water laced over Cupid and me as we were pulled along.

“I think something’s broken,” I murmured as we were lifted up by that pair of arms and laid on hard ground. Beneath the adrenaline, I couldn’t feel my left arm.

“Eros!” I heard one of the Cupids cry. “He’s blue.”

A shadow fell over me, frigid coldness blocking the sun. I opened my eyes as the shivering began, and Hercules’s brown curls tickled my face as he lay his lionskin cloak over me.

“Cupid,” I said. When I lifted my head, Justin was already kneeling over his prone form, compressing the tiny demigod’s chest with both hands.

“You’re too large!” one of the Cupids exclaimed. “You’ll break his tiny bones. Allow us to do it.”

In my half-aware state, I caught a glimpse of one of the Cupids bouncing up and down, using his wings for leverage.

“You’re going to be OK,” Hercules said to me as he swept one hand under the back of my head to help me sit up. Only one of my arms responded; the other felt like a half-cleft tree branch. His body, hot as a brand, enveloped mine as he sat behind me, bracing me and and warming me at once. “You’ll both be OK.”

I didn’t think I had any strength left in me, but I had the strength to cry. The tears blurred my vision as I watched the Cupids work.

“Please,” Philia said. “He may be our little shit of a brother, but he’s our brother.”

Agape lowered his mouth to Eros’s and blew in.

This went on for thirty seconds or a minute until I lost track of time. But it was there in the Grand Canyon, when Cupid finally spat up a lungful of water and sucked in air—“Oh,” cried Philia. “He’s alive! Eros is alive”—that I slipped into a delirium.

And in that delirium, I felt only gratitude and love.

I loved Justin—really, truly. I thought I had before, but I hadn’t. Not truly. At first I’d loved him because I sensed he was good. I sensed he would do the right thing. I’d loved him on the promise of who he was.

But I’d never been certain. He would do a wonderful thing and a dangerous thing. He would kiss me and then threaten to kill a man like Daiski.

Now, as he came to kneel in front of me, I knew it wasn’t the promise of him I loved. It was Justin. But it was more than that.

“You’re safe now,” Hercules whispered in my ear. As I slowly warmed against his bare skin, he stroked my cheek with one finger. That finger was capable of incredible destruction, and—as I was discovering—an achingly delicate touch.

I loved the promise of Hercules, too. The encompassing safety of his arms. The cocksure way he stepped up to any challenge. His bellowing laughter. His merciful touch.

And, last and strangest of all, I realized I loved the promise of who I could be. The Isabella who saved her Cupid’s life. The Isabella who gave love as well as she got it. The Isabella who looked up at Justin, who looked back down at her, and said, “I’m so happy you’re all right.”

For the first time, I had the sense that I could be her.

Silence fell, and I sensed something wordless passing between Justin and Hercules. Something very bad had happened … I could tell in the way Justin’s eyes kept returning to my left arm.

He pulled off his jacket, threw it aside so he could take his shirt off. He ripped off a long strip in a hurry.

“What happened?” I whispered, trying to look at what Justin was doing. I willed my left arm into movement, and then the rest of me, struggling my way out of Hercules’s lion skin cape. But that was cut short by pain like I’d never felt in my arm. All the way down to the elbow.

I couldn’t feel below the elbow.

“I can’t feel my hand,” I whispered. “Why can’t I feel my hand?”

Hercules’s biceps were so large I couldn’t see past them. He kept a tight hold on me. “Shush,” Hercules said to me. “Be still.”

“It’s too much blood to heal with magic,” Justin murmured. “It’s way too much.”

“I’ll call my puff to ferry her,” Agape said. A second later, he let out a shrill whistle.

Nothing happened.

“Oh, come on,” the little Cupid said. Agape whistled again, louder and longer. After a few seconds, something long and flat slid from the sky and slowly made its way down to where Agape stood.

“Not again,” Agape groaned.

“What is that?” Justin asked.

“Do we have the pump?” Agape asked Philia.

“No,” Philia said quietly.

Agape groaned even more loudly. “How could we forget the pump?”

“What pump?” Justin asked.

Instead of answering him, Agape and Philia began arguing in hushed tones. It sounded like Agape was berating Philia. At the end, Philia flew over to us. “The only option is the ninja’s watch.”

“The ninja’s watch?” Justin repeated.

Philia began rifling through the backpacks. “Do you still have the watch?”

“Daiski’s watch?” Justin turned around, grabbed his backpack. “It’s in here.”

“The red button,” Philia said. “We need to hit that one.”

Agape flew over. “The red button?”

“To save her,” Philia said.

The red button. That meant Daiski. That meant the World Army. “No,” I said, starting up. “No, you can’t do that.”

Hercules growled. “I warn you now: if you send for them, they’ll find the wide end of my club a harsh mistress.”

“It has to be done,” Philia said. “The puffs won’t carry her right now, and you saw all the desert around this place.”

“Philia’s right,” Justin said. “If we activate the watch, they’ll come for us with cars and maybe helicopters. They’re invested in keeping Isa alive—at least until Russo gets what she wants from her.”

Hercules inhaled, preparing to speak. Then he let a long, audible sigh. “Isabella,” Hercules said into my ear, “trust me, I do not wish for this. I would continue the battle for as long as necessary, but if it comes down to winning the fight or saving your life, I will always choose the latter.”

Saving my life. So it was that serious. Some part of me sensed as much, though I didn’t know if I wanted to know the real extent of my injuries. I was glad for Hercules’s binding arms.

Justin let out a long sigh. “He’s right. If I don’t do it, you won’t make it, Isa. And I can’t lose you.”

I nodded. “All right,” I rasped, my consciousness slipping. “Thank you,” I said before lapsing into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Chapter 16

I had never been rocked by the goddess Yemoja, my mother. In fact, I had no memory of her holding me in her arms except in the first moment of my life. My time as an encantado began after an endless void—the darkness of non-existence. And then I simply was.

I was a young woman, and I lived in the Amazon rainforest.

But I have been rocked by sound. Lulled by it.

One of my favorite memories is of opening my eyes to a woman’s wordless singing in the morning light. There beside me sat a beautiful woman, cross-legged and naked but for the dark hair raining over her shoulders and down her chest. Ananda. She sometimes sang, and beautifully.

She smiled at me. “Isa.”

“Don’t stop,” I said.

So she didn’t. And though I had never been rocked like a baby—though I only knew the concept of it, the theory, the sight of a mother holding her child in the curve of her arms, I felt completely comforted by her voice. Rocked to sleep.

Right now, I was literally being rocked under the slanting sun. I recognized the deep and infinite comfort of it. I imagined I was in a mother’s arms, and she was singing to me.

Except her voice wasn’t a woman’s at all. It was a boy’s, and far more beautiful.

The boy’s song was punctuated by a long, low bray.

Was that a GoneGodDamn donkey?

And something was tickling my nose.

My eyes opened. Sunlight poured through the interstices of the brown curls so close to my nose. They’d been pulled back, but one had escaped and now taunted me with a feather touch over my face.

I was pressed against someone’s body, but it wasn’t a woman’s. It was too large, too hard with muscle. Too intoxicating with scent—the most potent man’s musk that had never been distilled into a bottle.

My arm was wrapped around him, the rest of me pressed to his body inside his lionskin cape. I lifted my head off his shoulder, and the rocking stopped.

“Hercules?”

His cheek dimpled as he smiled, his green eyes full on me. He carried a sadness in his gaze. “Welcome back.”

The singing stopped, too. “Oh, she’s awake!”

That was my Cupid’s voice. He was alive.

His hovering face appeared in my vision. Justin’s, too. My head pounded with all the noise, the heat, the disorientation.

“Isa,” Justin said, “drink this.”

I accepted the hard rim of a water bottle between my lips, drank greedily. Water escaped down my face, but I didn’t stop. Not until it was gone.

“Where are we?” I said, but my eyes were already drifting past them. A few feet off rose a sheer and muddy-colored rock face. I could almost see over the side of it—we were close to the top. And left of that, a donkey on an incline, my backpack and Justin’s lashed over his back.

So I hadn’t imagined the braying. I tried to lift my hand to point at the donkey, but even the impulse to move sent pain through me. I knew I was in a bad way.

“We’re very nearly there,” Hercules said as he kept walking. “You will get the help you need soon, Isabella.”

I closed my eyes, a sudden wave of dizziness rolling over me. Maybe I passed out again, because when I opened them, Hercules had stopped moving. I had heard a voice that wasn’t his or Justin’s or the Cupids’.

And my next thought: the red button. Daiski. The World Army.

“Did you call them?” I croaked. “The World Army?”

“They most certainly did,” replied that voice. A musical tenor. Daiski’s voice. “Go ahead and set the encantado down, demigod.”

↔

“She stays with us,” Hercules growled.

It was early evening, and I knew we were out of the canyon because a breeze was in the trees around us. How had we gotten out? The donkey brayed again as though in answer. Had Hercules carried me up the side of the Grand Canyon? He must have.

“Let me rephrase,” Daiski said. I heard the click of automatic weapons. “Put her down or I’ll teach you how long it takes you to die of a bullet to the gut.”

Hercules did as asked, gently lowering me to the hard ground with both hands. His cloak was still wrapped around me. When he rose, Hercules stood with his knuckles popping white underneath the skin.

He was furious.

Justin’s voice spoke now, the general sound of it becoming comprehensible words. “You’ll die if you shoot him,” he said. His words echoed out across the canyon. “I can promise you that.”

Daiski laughed. It was his laugh and it wasn’t. It was his laugh overlaid with something else—a haughtiness, a surety. “You want to test that?”

“We don’t want to test your mettle. We know how powerful you are.” A woman. I knew that voice. I knew it from life and dreams—so many nightmares about her in the past six months—better than almost any woman’s. “You’re Hercules, aren’t you?”

Hercules lifted a finger to point at her. “I’ve seen you.”

The pain was overwhelming, but I lifted my head anyway. I needed to see to know for sure. My eyes drifted from the early evening sky on down to the trees and finally to the people before us.

There she stood, black-haired and serene. Serena Russo. Here at the edge of things.

Beside her, Daiski.

Behind them, a whole lot of automatic rifles raised and aimed. More tactical vests than I could count.

“I’ve seen you, too.” Serena’s crystal-blue eyes shifted from Hercules to me. When they met my gaze, I nearly flinched. But she bore no hardness. Only a dreadful longing. “I’ve seen you all.”

Above me, I knew Hercules had lowered his eyes. “I will kill them if you like, Isa.”

I knew by his tone that he meant it.

“Where are the Cupids?” I said.

“We’re here,” came my Cupid’s voice from behind me. I raised to my right elbow with gritted teeth. They stood in a line, all three bows nocked and raised with the Arizona landscape and the canyon beyond.

“You came a long way to end things,” Justin said. I looked back around, found him standing not two feet left of me.

“End things?” Serena raised a placating hand. “I’m a geneticist. We don’t work to end things—we work to understand them. To perpetuate them.”

Beside her, I sensed Daiski staring at me. He had laughed so haughtily, and yet his look bore none of that. He was the man on the train. And yet that cane was in his left hand. In his other, a handgun.

I didn’t know why this decision was mine to make. All these lives, all this death.

“Then perpetuate them,” Justin shot back. “Isabella needs help. Urgently.”

For the first time, I ventured a look at my left arm. It had been wrapped so well in clothing that it looked three times its size, and yet I understood. The horror of it was almost too much. I opened my mouth, and no words came.

My hand was gone.

After five hundred years of having two arms and immortality, I now had one. I was mortal. I had understood this as a concept after the gods left, and I thought I’d fully processed the new truth of my life, but I hadn’t.

I was mortal, and I could die.

Not just could—would.

I would die.

The incomprehensibility of such a thing was interrupted by Serena, whose casualness would have suited an office break room. “I can fix that. But you all need to lower your weapons first. And then you’re going to be good boys and come with me.”

Justin spat in the dust. “Fuck you.”

“The problem with vulgarities is how brittle they are. Full of insecurity.” Daiski crouched, his eyes seeking mine. When he found them, he smiled. “I told you what I promised would happen if I found you in my right mind.”

He would kill them all. He would kill them and take me.

Through the morass of my horror, a certainty crept in: I could bear being taken, but I couldn’t bear their deaths.

“Don’t fight,” I whispered.

“What?” Hercules said.

“Don’t fight,” I repeated. “If we fight, you’ll die.”

“I’ve died once,” Hercules said. “And I will again.”

“Not for me,” I said. “First, you have to avenge a great wrong.”

Justin’s jaw twitched. “If we lower our weapons, do I have your promise you’ll save her?”

“Absolutely.” Serena’s eyes twinkled.

Hercules’s fist relaxed. Justin gestured to the Cupids, who slowly lowered their bows.

“Take them,” Serena said. “Careful with her.”

Behind me, one of the Cupids hissed as the World Army came forward. I knew it was my Cupid—he was the only one who would do such a thing.

I dropped back, stared into the sky as Justin and Hercules and the three Cupids allowed themselves to be restrained. Car doors were opened, slammed shut. They echoed across the canyon each time.

Finally, it was Daiski’s face who appeared over me. “Ready?”

“Not at all,” I said.

He slid his arms under me anyway, lifted me with excruciating quickness off the ground. I was walked to a black SUV, where he sat me upright in the back seat. No Justin, no Hercules, no Cupids.

And even though Daiski slipped in next to me, I was alone.

Chapter 17

Our driver, laden with muscle and the capacity for quiet, hadn’t spoken since I’d gotten in. He followed the winding road away from the Grand Canyon with two precise hands on the steering wheel. I spotted a wedding ring and wondered what he told his partner about his work days.

Just another day of abduction, honey.

“Faster,” Daiski instructed him as he set one hand to my shoulder. “Russo wants us there ASAP.”

“What are you doing?” I asked.

A warmth seeped from his hand. “Burning time off the end of my life to slow your bleeding.”

I went silent, hating that I didn’t lean away. He was pouring his life into me, and I felt myself gaining strength. Consciousness. Becoming lucid.

We had sped up, the SUV swinging hard and fast around the curves. In the opposite lane, cars and RVs plugged up the incline. I saw a family with two kids, and for a second, I thought they saw me, too.

Different lives, different fates.

In the back seat, Daiski watched me. His hand was still set to my shoulder. “You look different. But I can still tell it’s you.”

I refused to meet his eyes. “Of course you could. Who else would be out in the desert with Justin, Hercules and three Cupids?”

“It’s not that.” He paused. “It’s how you breathe.”

My eyes flicked to his. “How I breathe.”

“Fast. Always faster than normal.”

I was suddenly conscious of it, my breathing. Inhaling any slower felt wrong, like a movement toward mortality. “Bullshit.”

“You’re anxious. My guess would be you were anxious before all this business began.”

He was right. I hated that he was right. Who else would have noticed such a thing? Of course, the man who would had to be aligned with darkness.

Instead of pressing the point, he passed me a water bottle. It sweated in his hand with perfect iciness. “Do you need help opening it?” he asked.

I swiped it from him with my remaining hand. “No.”

He watched me anchor it between my thighs and twist the cap off. “It’s strange, isn’t it? The suddenness of missing a limb.”

I flicked away the cap, upturned the bottle and drank until the brain freeze hit me. I kept drinking anyway. Then I dropped the bottle and turned to him. “Strange? That’s your word?”

Those dark eyes glittered. “Strange encompasses a lot.”

“Does it encompass horrific?”

“If you like.”

I turned toward the shaded window. Outside, I could see two other SUVs following us in a convoy. Justin, the Cupids and Hercules were inside. “You didn’t kill them.”

“I didn’t need to.”

“I thought it would serve your ego.”

“It would have.”

“But Serena told you not to kill them. I bet that didn’t serve your ego.”

He chuckled. “Sometimes the ego’s got to be subsumed for the greater cause.”

I turned back to him. “You don’t believe in a greater cause. If you did, you would have listened to the Oracle of Delphi. And I wouldn’t be in this car right now.”

“You talk like there’s only one greater cause, Isa.”

“There is. Serena? The World Government? They don’t serve any greater cause, either. They’re selfish.”

“They want to save an entire species.” One of his elegant fingers lifted, pointed at me. “The Oracle of Delphi just wanted to save you.”

“The Oracle of Delphi …” I began. How to put this without sounding as egotistical as Daiski? “She never wanted to save me because of me. She did it for every other Other species in this GoneGod World.”

“You’re their savior?” His eyes flicked once—so briefly I might have missed it—to where my left hand should have been.

I rarely felt anger. Of course, the last six months had developed that emotion in me quite a bit. “You ableist ass.” I breathed deep. “People seem to think I’m one of them. The Oracle of Delphi was another.”

I expected a spat quip, like “She’s dead now.” But silence only returned from Daiski’s side of the seat. Then, gently, “What happened in the garden?”

What garden? I thought. Then I understood. “You mean the Garden of Hera?”

His eyes remained steady on me.

“I’m sure you heard,” I said.

“The only person—besides you—who came out of there alive was Serena Russo.”

“And you can’t ask her?”

“I’m a clandestine agent, not her intelligence. Not her friend, either.”

An image pushed to the fore of my mind. Pythia next to the enormous tree, both hands clasping the staff she would drive into the ground. A vortex of pasts and futures bursting from her chest. At the end, the wisps of who she’d been dissipating like bits of smoke into the sky.

That image would remain etched there for the rest of my mortal life.

Tears hit my eyes. “She burned her life away to save me. She’s bones now. Why do you want to know?”

For a second, Daiski looked like he might say something soft. That moment passed. He straightened, shrugged. “She was one of the most powerful Others.”

“You wanted her power.”

“We did,” he said vaguely.

Then it hit me. “That’s why you’re riding in the car with me.”

He turned to me. “What?”

“Because of the train ride we had together. Because they thought I’d trust you. Tell you things.”

“Do you trust me?”

I searched his eyes. He was that man again—that man from Penn Station. That man walking down the aisle of the train. He wasn’t the same one who’d been hit with Philia’s arrow. He was under his own power now.

“No,” I said.

“But you did.”

“I don’t know.”

“Will you tell me what happened on October 14, 1917?”

A lump formed in my throat. “Absolutely not.”

“Ah.” He lifted one shoulder. “It was worth a shot. Maybe before we part ways.”

I swallowed. “Daiski.”

One of his eyebrows rose, waiting.

“Are we going to die?” I asked.

“We?”

“Justin, Hercules, the Cupids.”

“And you?” he added.

I nodded.

Our driver turned the right blinker on. We decelerated as we came to an unpaved road. Daiski sighed, popped the center compartment and retrieved a black cloth. As he unfolded it, he said, “No.”

“What is that?”

“A hood. Perfectly breathable material. It’s just we can’t have you seeing our operation, you know.” He paused—almost as though for confirmation—before he slid it over my head. The world disappeared, and my heart sped.

I was breathing too fast again.

“Daiski,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Did you just say ‘no’ so I wouldn’t be afraid?”

“No, Isa.”

“Daiski.”

“Yes?”

“Stop calling me Isa.”

A pause. Then, “All right.”

↔

We didn’t talk anymore. I didn’t mind; even after Daiski’s help, my left arm still felt like the epicenter of the universe, or at least of my universe. It had grown worse—worse, even, than when Hinata’s mother put a hole in my abdomen with a shotgun blast.

I should say, holes.

How such a hard woman produced such a soft daughter, I had never understood. But people would be who they would be, regardless of whose womb they’d grown in.

Of course, softness doesn’t exclude strength. Somehow Hinata lifted me right from the road, carried me all the way to the village healer. I was fortunate that the healer believed in modern medicine and had plucked every piece of buckshot from my belly.

And it was there, amongst the pain, that the wonder began in me.

The wonder at what science could do. What it could bring.

Why should I care? I was a magical being. Immortal. I had spent most of my life in a forest, human civilization slowly encroaching—and I venturing by turns into it.

But this was my first true encounter with medicine. With science.

I felt the possibility of it like a living thing. It was there, then, that it coalesced in my mind.

Every scientific advancement had once been considered magic.

I had magic. True magic. What if that magic was science, too?

And what if a scientist could understand the root of it? Map the outlines, the curvature, gain a picture of the whole?

When I came out of the healer’s home, a bandage around my middle, I wanted to study science. To be a scientist. And when the gods left, I had become one. It had changed the course of my mortal life.

In the backseat of the car, the hood over my face, I eventually lapsed into a half-sleep.

I woke when the car’s engine shut off.

Beside me, Daiski said, “I’m going to open your door, Isabella.”

Two car doors opened, slammed shut. I sat up, and a moment later the hot Arizona air blew in at me.

“Step out,” Daiski said.

I swung my legs out of the car, found his hand waiting to aid me. I took it as I would have taken any hand, and he helped me to stand.

Then I was leaning against him. What remained of my left arm throbbed with insensible pain, and the dizziness was overwhelming.

“You need me to carry you?” he asked.

I screwed up my mouth—which he couldn’t see. “No.” I forced myself to stand on my own. “I just need painkillers.”

“Those you’ll get.” He led me across the dusty desert, still wrapped in Hercules’s lionskin cape. The sun beat hard through my hood, to the point where I experienced a bizarre, sweating claustrophobia. It was what I imagined you might feel if you opened your eyes in an MRI machine.

I pushed the feeling down and listened. I listened for the others. Hercules’s heavy footfalls. The Cupids’ yammering. Their hummingbird wings. Justin’s defiance, in whatever form it might take.

Daiski stopped us. I heard nothing. Only mechanical sounds—and the sensation of the earth moving. No, not the earth … an elevator. An elevator descending into the earth.

A glorious chill replaced the sun, and everything grew even darker.

In my mind, I listed the things I knew.

I knew we were somewhere in the southwestern United States.

I knew we were in one of the World Army’s bases.

I knew Serena Russo wouldn’t kill me until she had extracted from my mind all the research I had stolen.

I knew I would not give it to her.

When the elevator stopped, I knew something else I had not known before.

I was with the resistance. Completely, irrevocably with them.

Daiski led me down a hallway. Already the glorious chill had shifted into an uncomfortable cold, and I shivered as he opened a door and brought me into a room with the last person I wanted to see.

Of course, she was exactly the person I’d expected.

Serena Russo.

She leaned against a medical bed like we should all feel such casualness. “Come in, Isabella.” She gestured me forward from where I’d been standing in the doorway.

I came forward. Even under this harsh fluorescent light, she was so beautiful—raven-haired, eyes like lit blue crystal. And she was so smart, and most (worst) of all, like a dog with a bone.

She never gave up.

I stood in the center of the room with my hand out for balance. I wanted to lunge at her. As it was, I could just barely keep from fainting.

“You’ve lost quite a lot of blood.” Serena pointed to Daiski, who came to my side and led me to the bed. “Which, curiously enough, is pink. Or maybe not curiously—you’re still an encantado, even if you do look like a human.”

Daiski helped me sit on the bed next to Serena. I gritted my teeth with the movement. “I guess you don’t know everything after all.”

Her expression didn’t change. “That’s one of the foremost tenets of science. It’s why we spend all our time experimenting.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong. It was hard to forget that, for everything Serena had done in the past six months—and before that, before I’d even known her—she was still a terrific scientist.

Which made her even scarier.

“I’m not giving you back the research I took,” I said. “Let’s be clear on that.”

“It was never mine to begin with,” Serena said. “It was always in your head. And it was always incomplete. The third helix of Other DNA still isn’t mapped.”

I tried to hold her gaze, but the pain made it hard. “So, what, you’re going to force a one-armed encantado to be your research slave here in the desert?”

She shook her head. “That never works. You’d inevitably escape—and probably kill me first. And I can’t die right now.”

“Right now?”

Her eyes flicked to Daiski. Something silent passed between them, and he left us alone in the room.

“I can’t die before I do what needs to be done.”

Another wave of pain came over me, and I nearly dry-heaved. I set my right hand down, trying not to wilt onto the bed. “Exterminating Others, you mean.”

“No, Isabella.” She raised one leg, turning toward me on the bed. “Your Justin Truly did a fine job with that tourniquet. But you do know it’s the only thing between you and bleeding out.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s an offer.” She paused. “I’ll give you your arm back.”

I managed a weak roll of the eyes. “Are you going to go into the Grand Canyon to retrieve it?”

“No—we just need a DNA swab to regrow it.”

My gaze sharpened. “You have that technology?”

“You saw what Daiski can do.”

“He’s not an Other. Human DNA has been mapped for decades.”

“And Other DNA is partially mapped. Thanks to your efforts.”

“So you’ll give me an arm … in exchange for what?”

“An oath.”

My stomach slid over.

Oaths.

I hadn’t agreed to an oath in a hundred years. We Others took them far more seriously than humans, who would break them as easily as they made them. Among Other species, one of our greatest commonalities was this: If you made an oath, you were duty bound to fulfill it. Your oath was your word, and back when Others were immortal, your word resonated through the centuries.

We remembered oaths. Others always remembered.

Of course, we were also quite familiar with the fine print of oaths. Many decades ago, one of my encantado sisters had sworn an oath to care for one of her lovers when he became elderly. By the time he became elderly, their love had washed away some three decades earlier. But she was still oathbound to him.

But then, “caring” for someone was open to some interpretation. Her first interpretation—in the throes of love—had envisioned her wiping the sweat from his brow and feeding him mashed peas. Decades later, her interpretation was much more liberal, more intangible. Caring for him entailed showing up at his funeral with flowers, which she’d set on his casket.

I hadn’t ever been so callous with my oaths, but like any other Other, I was a master of the fine print.

So when Serena Russo—a human who had been alive for forty-something years—offered me my arm back in exchange for taking an oath, I couldn’t help the smirk that appeared.

All right, I thought. Let’s see what you’ve got.

“Tell me,” I said.

“We’ll regrow your arm,” she began. An uncommon tremor had entered her voice. Even through the haze of pain, I sensed her anxiety. “In exchange, you have to save my son.”

Chapter 18

My face fell. Had a Mack truck just driven through the center of the room? “Save your …”

“My son, Collin. You know his name.” Her tremor had grown. She paused, gathering herself. “I believe you’ve seen him before, too.”

Save Collin. Save Collin Russo. The boy in the wheelchair.

“He’s disabled,” I whispered.

Her eyebrows drew together. “You have seen him.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Cystic fibrosis.” She hesitated, then, “He’s drowning in his own phlegm.”That one hit me in the solar plexus. A human disease. One which, with the technology available to us, shouldn’t have persisted. But it had, and it would.

Unless I changed that. I could change that with my research. I could make splicing safe enough for sick boys to receive Other DNA and overcome illnesses like cystic fibrosis.

Serena, for all her money and power, could not.

“How long does he have?” I asked.

“Six months. Maybe less.” She clipped off the last word, her hand rising to her mouth. It was as though someone else had said it.

“You need to splice him,” I said. It wasn’t a question; it was a realization. “All of this—everything you’ve done—is for one boy.”

She fidgeted with her hands. I had never seen her so worried. “The oath. Do you accept?”

I stared at her. I was considering it, and it wasn’t because of my arm. If it meant keeping my research out of the World Army’s hands, I would spend the rest of my life as a one-armed encantado.

But Collin Russo had nothing to do with any of this. He was fourteen years old, and if I finished mapping the third helix, he could live.

And I knew I could do it. I knew I could save him.

Fuck. She had me.

“If I agree,” I began, “I need you to swear you’ll release the others.”

Her lips quirked. “You would trust my promise?”

“What other choice do I have?” I paused. “Besides, you need me to want to help you. You’re on a timeline, after all. Six months.”

“Well observed.” She folded her arms. “They won’t be killed, but releasing them is out of my hands.”

“What do you mean, out of your hands? You’re the big boss.”

She laughed softly. “No, I’m just one of them. And being the science arm of the Army—which is just an arm of the World Government—doesn’t exactly have the sway you’d think.”

She was underselling her power. Everything I had seen in the six months since I’d met Serena Russo told me she had incredible sway. She had chased me all the way here, after all, and brought me to this underground facility.

But I played along. “So somebody wants to keep Justin and Hercules and the Cupids here.”

She gave a single nod.

“Then I won’t agree to it,” I said.

She gave me a hard stare and spoke slowly. “If you take the oath, Isabella, you’ll be here for a long while. You’ll be able to see a lot of this facility.”

I stared back. Was Serena Russo sending me a telepathic message? It almost seemed like she was encouraging me to break them out.

No—that couldn’t be right. She was completely aligned with the World Government. She wanted to eliminate the Other threat.

I said nothing, my eyes shifting to her folded arms. Where her hand met her opposite elbow, she was tweaking a bit of her jacket between her fingers. A nervous tic.

She was afraid.

More than that—she needed me. She needed me as much as I needed her.

Maybe I had misjudged Serena’s motivations. I knew she wanted to save her son, but I’d thought she’d also been quite keen on exterminating Others.

Now I suspected it was only about her son. All of it. Everything she did was to protect him from an early death. Even if that meant allowing me to break Justin and Hercules out of here. Because, no matter what, I would still be oathbound. I would still have to save Collin.

I took a deep breath. If I was totally honest, some non-insubstantial part of me enjoyed making her wait. I enjoyed having power over the woman who had contributed to making my life a misery. To screwing up my boyfriend’s genetics and making him suffer. To the deaths of Roger, Selene and Mari.

With gritted teeth, I rose from the bed. My cleft arm started into fresh, stabbing pain, but I needed to be standing to do this.

As I stood, Serena stepped back. Did she think I was going to attack her? A one-armed encantado?

I turned toward her, stepped forward. My right hand came out, awaiting hers.

She looked down at my hand and back up at me.

“You have to clasp my arm to the elbow,” I said.

“Is this how Others agree to oaths?”

“This is how I agree to them.”

She rolled up the left sleeve of her jacket. Then she extended her hand, her elegant fingers sliding up my forearm until they reached the elbow. Mine did the same over her porcelain skin, and we stood close enough that I could see every pore on her face. (I could only see about five, GoneGodDamn her.)

“We used to swear to the gods,” I said. “But the gods are gone. So I’ll swear it on my love for Justin, for Hercules and for Cupid.”

“You love them.”

“I love them all.”

She assented with a nod.

“I swear on those I love and on those I have loved,” I continued. “Here, I take this oath: I will do everything in my power to save the life of your son, Collin Russo.”

Tears came to Serena’s eyes. “And I swear I will give you back your arm.”

I was surprised; she hadn’t needed to an oath. I was prepared to rely on her promise. “Thank you,” I said.

For a moment, neither of us moved. We stood together in a strange communion, and I felt the seed of something in my belly. Respect. Begrudging respect for Serena Russo.

Not because she had sworn, or because she was a good scientist. But because she loved someone so much that she would do anything—anything—to ensure his survival.

In this way, she reminded me of Hinata.

“Let’s get you ready for this surgery,” she said.

“Now?” I blinked. “Don’t you need to develop a DNA sample?”

The ghost of a smile appeared. “Oh, Isabella. We’ve had your DNA since the day you and I met.”

↔

Twenty minutes later, a nurse settled a mask over my face. She told me to count down from ten. I knew how this went—I’d seen the medical shows on TV. But that didn’t make it any less frightening.

I started counting. I got to seven before I dropped into a vast and dreamless void.

What felt like a second later, they woke me up.

She woke me up.

“Isa.”

I knew that voice.

I knew what hearing that voice meant.

I was in a bad situation.

Serena Russo.

Then I remembered: She’d sworn. She had sworn to help me. I had sworn to help her.

My subconscious hadn’t quite caught up with my new reality. Serena wasn’t my enemy—at least, not right now. Still, real consciousness remained far-off, elusive. No, that wasn’t it. I was awake, but my body wasn’t. It remained unresponsive, even as the impulses to motion sparked in my brain.

“Can you wiggle your fingers?”

I tried and couldn’t. But something had changed. Something had definitely changed.

“That’s it. Open your eyes.”

Bone-white light pressed at my eyelids, edging them open. A tiny flashlight flashed into each pupil. It flicked off, leaving a burnt halo in its wake. And the impression of a man in scrubs.

“She’s responsive,” he said. “Seems to be taking to it well.”

Another face darted into my vision. I had the brief, irate thought: You should ask permission. And then the longer, angrier thought: That’s the last face I want darting in front of my eyes.

“Look at how it’s affecting her,” that face said. “She’s already awake.” Then to me, “Isabella?”

I worked some saliva into my mouth. “Serena.”

“Did you dream?”

I slow-blinked. “No.”

“Pity.” She eased onto the bed, hit a button that slowly raised my upper body until I was mostly upright. “No flashes? Images?”

What was she getting at? “I saw nothing. Nothing at all.”

Her lips flattened. She turned to the doctor, nodded once. When he had left and the door shut, she set her hands in her lap. “Can you feel your left hand?”

“Should I be able to?” Despite her oath, I was still doubtful she’d actually done as promised. I fully expected to have a crab claw for a hand.

“Have a look.”

By degrees, my eyes inched down, and after a time my head followed. There lay the lower half of an arm I hadn’t had when I’d gone to sleep. It was wrapped in all sorts of gauze, but it was definitely an arm.

I stared at it, willing myself not to cry. I had a left arm again.

“I’ve made it significantly easier for you to do your work,” she said. My eyes flicked up to hers. “Would have been slow going with one hand.”

“My work,” I said. “You mean the oath.”

Her blue eyes didn’t waver. “The oath.”

“I expect this hand will be out of commission for a while, anyway.”

Her eyes shifted to my gauzed left arm. She reached across the bed, her fingers hovering over mine before she reached down toward it. “Can you feel that?” she asked, cupping my hand.

“I …” I could feel something, but it was strange. A different sensation than I’d ever felt before. Almost as though the limb didn’t fully belong to me. “Whose hand is this, Serena?”

“It’s yours.”

I had seen the flicker in her eyes. “Whose was it before it was mine?”

“Once you start using it, you’ll understand.”

She seemed too keen on me moving my fingers. I sighed, refocused on the hand. More accurately, I focused on lifting the sheet from over my legs. That would be step one in getting out of here.

As she watched me attempt—and fail—to work my left hand, Serena cleared her throat. “You know my son’s name.”

Collin. The name I had called out back in the Garden of Hera. The name that had forced Serena to look around, because what mother could resist the call of her child’s name? That was when Cupid had nailed her with an arrow.

“I do.”

“How?” she asked.

I didn’t answer. I focused on lifting up the sheet.

“Is it because of the oracle?”

I raised my eyes to her. “You don’t know anything about the oracle.”

Her eyebrows went up, and she canted her head to the left. “Actually, I know quite a bit.”

“Just because you saw a woman die doesn’t mean you know anything about who she was.”

Serena rose, gazed down at me with folded arms. “You’re a scientist, too. You know how much is contained in the genes.”

I still couldn’t move my GoneGodDamn hand. “Get to the point.”

“That’s one expression of your genes I hadn’t seen before. Anger. You used to be so uncertain, so shy.”

“Turns out six months of fighting for your life has a strong effect.”

“As does fighting for your child’s.”

I nearly flinched. Touche.

She pointed at my gauzed arm. “The oracle bonded with you before she died.”

“What do you mean, bonded with me?”

“I mean your genes and her genes are simpatico.” She lifted her hands before her, interlacing the fingers in a suction grip. “Hers was the only DNA we had that would work with yours. Which is just as well, seeing as how she had some of the most powerful magic I’ve encountered. Look at how quickly you’re recovering. It’s remarkable.”

A theory was quickly crystallizing in my mind. “How would you have her DNA?” But I already knew the answer. “Nossa Senhora … You took a DNA sample from her corpse.” I paused. “You dug up her corpse.”

“I re-buried it afterward.”

Finally, my fingers moved. The pointer and middle fingers twitched, the tiniest impulse movement.

Serena hadn’t seen it. “I know you’re upset.” She began the high-heeled pacing I had seen her doing so many times in her office, back when I was her assistant at McGill. “But you can’t imagine what this will do for the progress of your work. To be able to see pasts and futures as you figure out the secrets to Other procreation ...”

“You deceived me. You gave me no choice,” I snarled. “You really are a bitch.”

She raised a hand. “I don’t have time for that. Collin doesn’t have time for that.”

My breathing came faster. “How did you give me this arm?”

“Like I said: the oracle had some of the most powerful magic we’ve encountered.”

I finally got what she meant about the oracle bonding with me. “You spliced our DNA.”

A flame ignited in her eyes, and she stopped pacing. “It was the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen. Her cells are so alive—just the small sample we took. But they wouldn’t bond with anything else.”

Daiski had clued me in to how fast I breathed normally. I was breathing faster than that—too fast, too audibly. I pushed myself upright with my right hand, struggled out from under the sheet. I had managed to swing my legs out of the bed and touch the icy floor tiles with my toes when Serena came around and grabbed my wrist.

That was when it happened, like the glint of a blade under the light. That quick, but when we touched, I was transported to a different place.

Chapter 19

Instead of tile, I stood on grass. Soft, healthy grass. And before me sat a tree so large I had to lift my face to see the whole of it. High up, the boughs were laden with enormous apples.

I knew this grass. I knew that tree.

“Yes, encantado,” came a voice. “You are in the garden.” My eyes lowered, and a woman I had not noticed sat at the base of the tree with folded legs. She set one hand on a staff, propped it upright as an aid to stand. Her white robes flowed long as she did, and I gasped.

“Pythia?”

She cocked her head. “Who else would it be?”

I came forward, padding across the grass toward her. As her features became clearer, I knew it could be no one else but the Oracle of Delphi. Her white hair flowed away from her aged face just as when I’d first met her in New York City. “You’re dead.” I paused. “Does that mean I’m dead?”

Mirth touched her lips. “Do you feel dead?”

I flexed my fingers. When I lifted my left hand, it was still wrapped in gauze, but the wrapping felt excessive. Unnecessary. The hand didn’t even hurt. In fact, none of me hurt. I didn’t feel tired or hungry or afraid.

I felt perfectly serene.

I shook my head. “No.”

"Because you aren’t.” She set a hand to her chest. “Nor am I. When you live in all times at once, you never truly die."

Footsteps sounded behind me. “What the hell is going on here?”

I spun. Serena Russo stood not three feet away, and her face bore an expression I had never seen her wear.

Pure, abject fear.

“That depends on you, Serena.” Pythia swept a hand out. “And on which path you choose.”

Following her fingers, I realized the garden we stood in wasn’t exactly as it had been in New York City. For one thing, the treeline around us wasn’t flanked by Manhattan’s skyscrapers. Instead, a cloudless night sky and a million stars provided our light. No moon, though.

And instead of an unbroken expanse of grass, three shimmering portals hovered at intervals behind, beside, and before us. Their depths held nothing but blackness.

Serena took another step closer to us. Her mouth opened, but it was Pythia who spoke. “It’s not a dream. It’s not a hallucination. It’s real. You’re alive, Isabella is alive, and you’re both still in the McGovern facility fifty miles from the Grand Canyon in Arizona. But you’re also here.” Pythia raised a hand to her head. “Or at least, your minds are. And that’s why I can read your thoughts.”

To her credit, Serena took this incredibly well. She swallowed, her blue eyes traveling in the same arc mine had when I’d first stepped up to Pythia. She turned a full circle, taking in the garden around us before she spoke again. “Why has this happened?”

“You took my DNA.” Pythia pointed to my gauzed hand. “You bonded it to her because it would not bond to anyone else’s. And now she bears my powers. She has used them to bring you to this place, though she isn’t consciously aware of that choice.”

I squeezed my hand. The oracle was right: I had not consciously chosen anything when Serena grabbed my arm.

Serena swept an arm out. “And what is this place?”

“A means by which you may see the past, the present or a future.” Pythia inclined her staff at each portal in turn. “Depending on which portal you choose, of course.”

Serena turned toward the portals. “A future?”

“The future branches,” I said, Pythia’s words from back in New York returning to me, “depending on your choices in the present. You have thousands of potential futures.”

Serena turned toward us, her eyebrows drawn together. Deep lines sat between her eyes. Conflict twisted the canvas of her face.

“There's only one question that weighs heavy on your heart,” Pythia said. “That question can only be answered by the future. Do you have the courage to see it?"

The lines between her eyes deepened, and her lips folded. “I fear nothing.”

So Serena will never turn down a challenge. I filed that information away.

Pythia tipped her staff toward the portal behind the tree. “That is your way.”

We watched Serena approach the portal, pause a moment before stepping through. When she disappeared into the blackness, Pythia turned to me. “You are forbidden from seeing your future.”

I kept staring at the portal Serena had disappeared into. I had felt the pull to follow her, and Pythia had again read my mind. “Why?”

The oracle stepped toward me, brushed my hair over one shoulder. “Because the future is a complex thing, and I fear what you see there will weaken your resolve for what you must do now. Trust me, child, like you trusted me before—stay in the present. That is what you need to know.”

Our eyes met. “I trust you.” And I did. This was the woman who had sacrificed the remainder of her mortal life to save mine. Before us, the center portal waited with the serenity of a lake. “Will you be here when I come back out?”

Pythia smiled at me. “Of course.”

I approached it without hurry, because nothing felt hurried here. Not as in life, where anxiety palpated through me like a heartbeat. Even in real life, the garden of Hera had not seemed so serene, the stars winking like cats’ eyes above me.

When I stepped up to it, the portal didn’t reflect back at me. It offered only a diffuse inner light, as though something awaited me on the other side. And I found it easy—an allure—to take that first step through. Then the next.

And just like that, I became weightless.

As soon as I had passed through the portal, I floated into the sky. It felt like being buoyed by water to the surface, where a sea of stars greeted me. And where I had felt calmness in the garden, I experienced perfect serenity in the present like I had never known.

The blackness enveloped me like a warm blanket, and as I stared into the sky, my chest loosened with the prospect of life. I sensed I could go any way I liked, reach high into the sky, sink deep into the water. No problem felt insurmountable, and no desire unattainable.

The possibilities were infinite.

I don’t know how long I spent in the present, because that infinitude included time. I floated in it without worry, only an encompassing awe. Until, like a flower unfolding to catch sunlight, I eased back into the blanket of the stars. My eyes closed, relishing the warmth, until I felt grass under my feet.

Fragrant grass. And a voice from behind me.

“Welcome back, encantado.”

My eyes opened. When I turned, Pythia still stood under the tree, leaning on her staff.

I wanted to hold on to this feeling—of infinite possibilities. It still glowed in my chest, though it dimmed as time resumed. “I want to go back.”

Pythia chuckled. “To infinity? You’ve already spent the entirety of the universe’s existence there.”

“Time wasn’t even a concept.” I stepped toward her. “What was that place?”

“Where we all begin.” Pythia tilted her head. “And where we all end. The precipice at either side of the cradle.”

“Why did you show me that?”

“Oh child”—she gave a tiny shake of the head—”I did not. You chose it yourself. Just as you chose this place.”

I lifted my eyes to the tree. “This was where you died.”

“And apparently what your brain chose as the place where the incomprehensible could become comprehensible. It’s comfortable—safe. Soon you will be able to return here as you choose.”

“As I choose?”

One finger lifted to point at me. “Yes. Do you remember what I told you under the tree?”

I remembered. “You told me to be decisive.”

She nodded. “It is a tremendous and sometimes terrible thing to wield, but this power is yours now. Your decisiveness will allow you to harness it.”

I didn’t fully understand what she meant, but I sensed the intent of it. I knew I needed to trust Pythia’s words—that with time, I would come to fully comprehend what she meant. And I understood something of this place and how it allowed me to grasp the oracle’s power. But not the portal—not what I had experienced. “I don’t know what I saw in there.”

Pythia turned toward the portal to the future. “You will.”

A second later, Serena emerged from the future. When she stepped out, a tear streaked from her left eye to her jaw in a straight line. Her bloodshot eyes found mine, and she walked straight toward me. She came so close I thought she would attack me.

But she only wrapped her arms around me. A tiny noise escaped her throat. “You are going to help my son. I know you will.”

I swallowed, frozen in her arms. The woman who had made my life a misery was embracing me. I didn’t know what to do, except that something in my brain told me Serena’s feelings were as authentic as anyone’s.

This is real, Isa. This is true.

So I did what one does when hugged.

I hugged her back.

Over her shoulder, Pythia gazed at me with such deep affection, tears hit my own eyes. And I didn’t know why, but I hugged Serena that much harder. Sometimes, even between enemies, the world doesn’t have to be good or evil. It can just be.

As the thought crossed my mind, the vision faded. The night sky bowed and folded, and the garden slipped away. Pythia went with it, and time resumed.

↔

I was back in the hospital room, just risen from the bed, and Serena’s hand was on my wrist. We stared at one another. Her eyes had gone so wide I could see the whites above and below her irises.

She knew. She knew what had just happened. She had been there, too.

All the strength seemed to go out of her, and when I pulled my wrist away, she didn’t resist. She just let me out of her grasp.

I sidestepped to the edge of the bed, afraid to take my eyes off her. Neither of us said anything as I backed to the closed door. My fingers scrambled for the handle, and when I found it, I finally spun around.

“Isabella,” she said.

I paused, gripping the door handle.

“Soon we shall share the burden of motherhood. Prepare yourself.”

I slowly turned back. “What did you say?”

She didn’t repeat herself. Instead, she said, “Once you find the others and escape, Daiski will come for you all. He’s not under my purview.”

“Where can I find the others?”

“Room 17. Justin will be in the medical hall.”

I stared at her for a long while, debating whether I should thank the woman whom I had spent the past six months trying to escape, and she stared back.

“Go,” she said finally. “And don’t forget your oath to my son.”

I yanked the door open. When I glanced back at her, she still stood by the empty bed, her hands by her sides. She blinked once, and I let the door close between us.

The burden of motherhood. Had I imagined her saying that?

In the hallway, the cold air felt colder than it had when I’d entered. My right hand clapped to my body—I was in a flimsy gown. But I was alone. I was completely alone.

I looked left and right, found myself staring down two ends of a long, long hallway with no best option. Before me lay Room 5. On my right, the numbers went down.

I needed to go left.

I ran, my bare feet slapping the tile.

This shouldn’t be possible, I thought. I shouldn’t have been able to run like this. But the oracle was one of the most powerful Others in existence, and now she was part of me. So I didn’t know any longer what I should be capable of.

After all, I had just manifested a vision with Serena Russo.

I reached the end of the hallway, where two very secure-looking doors presented themselves. One led into the next section of hallway, and one led to my right. Room 17.

I grasped the handle and pushed. I was greeted with a bellow so loud my ears started ringing, and an enormous figure rose up before me like an angry bear.

“Oh.” Hercules said as he lowered his arms, his restraints clinking. “It’s you.”

I blinked hard, tweaking one of my ringing ears with a finger. “It’s me.”

On the other side of the room, three figures began bouncing in a cage. Agape, Philia and my Cupid, the three of them penned like misbehaving dogs.

Philia’s fingers pressed through the cage’s grating. “Oh, it’s her! She’s come for us.”

My Cupid shoved him out of the way. “Isa, get me out of here. I can’t stand another minute with these two.”

Hercules’s eyes drifted to my left arm. “You have four limbs again.”

“It’s a long story. And I’ll tell it after I get all of you out of here.” I dashed around behind Hercules, studying his restraints. They were about three inches of metal around each wrist, and both wrist-restraints connected to chains that were bolted into the wall. “I don’t know how to get these off you.”

Hercules inclined his head around. With a tiny yank of the arms, the chains broke right off the wall.

My Cupid glared up at him from the cage. “Why didn’t you do that before?”

“I like being restrained.” Hercules winked at me.

Really? I thought. The son of Zeus is into that?

Then: Of course he’s into that.

I pointed to the cage. “Can you get the Cupids out?”

“Step back, tiny demigods.” Hercules came forward as the Cupids backed up, set one forefinger between the grating, and ripped a hole in the cage’s side like he was splitting tin foil. He pressed the edges apart just as easily.

The Cupids jostled with each other to get out, and finally my Cupid won (of course he won) and popped out first. He flew up to me. “Where’s Justin?”

“The medical hall.”

Philia followed my Cupid. “How do you know that?”

“Serena told me.” I turned toward the door. “Come on.”

As we emerged into the hallway, Hercules gave me a strange look. “Serena? The woman whom you consider to be your ultimate nemesis?”

“It’s complicated.” I pointed at the still-locked door at the hallway’s end. “Can you open this?”

He observed the door, tilting his head, his eyes tracing around the edges. “It’s quite heavy.”

My Cupid scoffed. “Is that a no?”

He started backing down the hallway, the two chains still attached to his wrists dragging behind him. “No.”

We stared after him, and Agape lifted a finger. “Should we move?”

He kept walking down the hallway. “Yes.”

We moved back to the wall, flattening ourselves up against it. I had never seen Hercules charge at anything before, but I knew I didn’t want to be in the way of four hundred pounds of muscle.

“Isabella,” he called down the hallway.

I poked my head out. “Yes?”

“This is what I call ‘the Terminator.’ ”

I rolled my eyes. Justin and his pop culture references were finally rubbing off on the demigod. Before long, the two of them were going to be intolerable.

Hercules leaned forward and plunged down the hallway, his bare feet putting divots in the tiles as he gained speed. Soon the floor, walls and ceiling were rumbling as he powered down the hall and bolted by me in a blur.

In the next second, the door blasted right off its hinges, landing with a clang on the floor as Hercules disappeared through the frame.

When I stepped out into the hall, the dislodged door was on the floor with a perfect imprint of his face on it. In the hallway ahead, he skidded to a halt as the Cupids cheered.

“Good job,” I said. The klaxons went off, the white walls flashing red, and I dashed past him down another identical hallway. “Now do it again!”

↔

Hercules quickly caught up to me—and passed me. He rammed into the door at the end of the next hallway with the same BANG!, like a gun shooting off.

When the door hit the ground, yelling began from the other side.

The klaxons blared and red lights flashed over Hercules as he rose up to his full height, swung the chains dangling from his wrists around with dual clangs and strode into the fray of who-knew-what.

Scientists. Doctors. Soldiers. A bunch of people who hadn’t expected Hercules to knock down their door. Or maybe they had, because I glimpsed him nailing a soldier in the head with one of those chains.

He was using them like extensions of his arms. Man, was he ever. Every time those metal links clashed with a wall—or someone’s face—I flinched. Cupid’s words rose to mind: “He’s the worst enemy you could possibly imagine.”

And the most loyal friend you could ever have, I thought. That was the other part.

The Cupids flew after him, diving into the fray. They didn’t have their bows and arrows, but they sure knew how to use those little fists.

I stood some thirty feet behind, surveying the hallway they had just passed through. The doors here had small rectangular windows, set at the perfect height for someone like me to see through.

And inside the first one lay an empty gurney.

The medical hall.

I darted to each door, staring in. Empty. I ran to the next door. Inside, a pair of scientists crouched amongst all their lab equipment, staring back at me. Neither of them were Justin. But there, on the metal slab beside them, a male centaur lay unzipped from belly to sternum. They were in the midst of dissecting him.

To hell with the World Government. Or wherever it was you went now when you died.

Before I reached the third door, I shifted to a new appearance. I hadn’t shifted since that moment on the train, when I’d opted for no hair at all. Mid-stride, I knew exactly who I needed to be to get around in this place.

I needed to be Serena Russo.

I had been her once before, back at McGill. I’d burnt two months off my life to take on her appearance and infiltrate her office, and at the time I had wondered whether it would be worth the lost life.

Now I knew it had been.

When I reached the last door in the hallway, I had to duck a little to see in the window. Serena was tall, after all—really tall. And I had to tuck that long black hair behind my ear to get it out of my face.

Two doctors stared back at me. In the center of the room sat a medical table with one Justin Truly laid atop it. His head was covered in sticky nodules—an EEG? Were they monitoring his brain waves?

Whatever they had been doing, they wouldn’t be doing it anymore.

I gestured through the window for them to open the door.

One of the doctors stepped forward, hesitated a moment, then pulled the handle. “Dr. Russo,” he said as I passed inside the room. His eyes flitted over my hospital gown.

“Hercules has escaped,” I said. “I think he’ll come for Justin Truly. I need to get him out of here.”

“We’re about to put him under sedation,” the other doctor said. “Should we wheel him out?”

The first doctor was still staring at my hospital gown. He was clueing in to what was going on. “That’s the—”

Justin sat up on the bed, gripping both sides of it, and kicked him in the back. The doctor fell into a metal dresser, medical utensils went flying and Justin caught a scalpel in midair. He swung it around, pointed it at the other doctor. “Get this shit off me,” he called back to me.

I came forward, using my good hand to pull the sticky pads off his head and remove whatever they’d attached to the rest of him. It felt like endless gimmickry, especially with only one working hand to remove it all.

What the hell were they doing with him?

“You’re good,” I said. “Come on.”

Justin rose, the scalpel still pointed at the cowering doctor. “Don’t even think about moving,” he said. “I’ll be watching you. Even when I’m gone.”

It was a hollow threat, but it seemed to work; the doctor let out a little squeak and nodded.

As we came into the hallway and the door shut behind us, I said, “You’ll be watching him?”

He shrugged. “It sounded like a badass thing to say.” He took a second to look me up and down. “Are you OK?”

I made a face. “Not really. I’m running on adrenaline.” Ahead, I could still hear Hercules fighting in the next section of hallway. I grabbed Justin’s hand. “This way.”

“Wait.” He veered us back around to the start of the hall, where a windowless door sat almost abutting the wall. I had missed it completely. “It’s all in here.”

“What’s all in there?”

“Our gear.”

“It’s locked. We need Hercules to get to it.”

A glimmer of mischief entered Justin’s eyes. A second later, he breathed in hard, sighed the air out. “Baby, you don’t need Hercules.” He stepped back a few paces, and just as Hercules had done, he rammed right into the door.

I threw my hands over my mouth, expecting him to splat on it like a bug and fall to the floor, concussed. But that didn’t happen. The door didn’t fly off its hinges as the others had done for Hercules, but it did fly open. Before us lay a closet of a room, and there sat our backpacks and gear on a shelf.

“How did you …”

Justin pointed in Hercules’s direction. At that moment, a roar echoed through the hallway. “I can take on the powers of those nearby, remember? And our demigod is right over there.”

What a hunk, I thought—about both of them.

Justin was already unzipping his backpack, pulling off the gown they’d put him in and dressing in his own clothes. He was pulling on his boots by the time I had unzipped my own backpack.

There lay El Lobizon’s claw, exactly where I’d put it.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway; they sounded like a giant’s. Justin stood, grabbing his backpack as the footsteps neared and stopped right outside our door.

Hercules stepped into the doorway, dropped the chains he’d been using like whips. He looked from Justin to me. By which I mean, he was looking at Serena Russo.

“You,” he bellowed at me, his gaze darkening.

The three Cupids appeared behind him. “It’s Russo. Get her!”

Chapter 20

Hercules gathered up one of his chains, preparing to snap me clear in half.

Justin tried to step between us. “Stop!”

I threw out my hands. In a second, I shifted back to Hinata’s appearance. “It’s me.”

Hercules redirected the chain in mid-swing, and it swiped through the air past my ear with the high-pitched whine of death. “Isa,” he said. “Why would you choose that face? I nearly split you in two.”

“I had to.” I took a deep breath; I wasn’t in two pieces. “I needed to be her to get to Justin.”

The Cupids flew into the room. “Our bows!” They all raced to the rack where their bows and arrows had been stored, grabbing them up and throwing their quivers over their bodies.

Justin pulled his backpack on. “How many are still out there?”

Hercules’s eyebrows went up. “How many?”

“Soldiers.”

Hercules leaned back into the hallway to check, then back in. “None.”

I paused as I was pulling my pants on. “None?” Justin and I said together.

Hercules shrugged, his chains clinking. “They weren’t very good warriors.”

“And we were very angry,” my Cupid added. “You lock the Cupids in a box, you get the demigods’ fury.”

Justin and I exchanged a look. “There’ll be more,” he said.

I nodded. There would be more.

Daiski.

Daiski was coming. Serena had said he would come for me, and I believed her.

“We need to leave,” I said. “Immediately.”

But instead of moving toward the door, I slumped against the wall. As the adrenaline wore off, a sudden wave of fatigue had overcome me. Not now. Not right now.

“You are not well.” Hercules gestured to my bandaged left hand. “Not at all.”

“I’m OK.”

Agape floated close to my face. “Your eyes are crossing.”

“How are you even upright?” Justin asked. “After the surgery.”

I blinked slowly. Justin was right: I shouldn’t even be able to walk around right now. Evidently the oracle’s power, as great as it was, didn’t make me completely impervious to mortal cares.

“I know just the thing.” Hercules picked his rucksack up from the shelf and began rummaging. He pulled out an apple core and extended it to me. “Suck on this.”

I made a face. “Do I have to?”

Justin did the same. “Why did you save an old apple core?”

“This is no ‘old apple core.’ It’s from Hera’s garden.” Hercules dangled it. “And its power still runs through the remaining meat.”

“Oooh.” Philia clapped his hands. “What a treasure!”

Justin’s eyes flicked to Hercules’s belly, like he could see right through the skin into his stomach. “Did you … eat all three apples?”

Hercules shrugged. “A man must eat when he hungers.”

Justin groaned. “All that work to retrieve those apples and they became a kindergartener’s snacks.”

Hercules looked confused. “What does ‘kindergartener’ mean?”

My Cupid pointed at Justin. “He’s insulting you, buddy.”

“It doesn’t matter.” I shot Justin a keep the peace look. “Right now, I’ll take what I can get.”

I accepted the core. It smelled just as fragrant and appealing as the untouched apple I had tasted beneath the tree in Hera’s garden. I slowly lifted it to my lips and gnawed on what remained. As soon as it entered my mouth, it felt like pure life filtering down my throat. My entire body felt rejuvenated within a minute, and my eyes came into focus.

Hercules beamed. “You see?”

Justin set a hand on my shoulder. “Better?”

I met his eyes. “I feel like I want to get the hell out of here.”

Hercules nodded his head down the way he’d run. “I saw one of those up-and-down contraptions that way.”

My Cupid cleared his throat. “He means an elevator.”

Hercules just shrugged.

“I saw it, too.” I grabbed my spare boots out of my backpack. “It’s our best bet.”

“I’m your best bet.” Hercules’s dimples appeared. “Oh.” He reached around, retrieved what looked like a semiautomatic rifle from behind his back and extended it to Justin. “These seem to be helpful. Though I still prefer the simplicity of a cudgel.”

As Justin accepted the rifle, Hercules grabbed his club off the shelf.

I glanced at Justin. “Do you know how to use that?”

In one smooth motion, he slid out the clip, inspected it and shoved it back in. “Well enough.”

Well, that was good enough for me.

A minute later, I was wearing my own pants, shirt, jacket and boots. It felt good to grip El Lobizon’s claw in my hand again. I swung my backpack on and we followed Hercules into the hallway, where the klaxons still blared. He jogged ahead of us, the chains jangling over the ground behind him.

I was starting to think he was enjoying those GoneGodDamn chains.

As we came into the next section of hallway, even the flashing lights weren’t enough to hide the carnage. It was like someone had splashed red paint over the floors, walls and ceiling. My hand went to my mouth as we weaved amongst bodies and body parts.

“Damn Herc.” My Cupid lifted a soldier’s arm—no longer attached to a body—and let it drop. “You went full ancient Greek on them.”

Hercules beamed.

Justin reached down, grabbed up a soldier’s handgun as we ran. He extended it to me.

I shook my head. “No.” I had never shot a gun, and after five hundred years of watching people die to them, I didn’t want to.

“Take it.”

“I don’t know how to use it.”

“Better to have it and not know than not have it and wish you did.”

I sighed, accepted the gun and pushed the claw into the lip of my boot. The cold metal felt ominous in my hand.

Justin instructed me on how to use it as we approached the elevator. “That’s the safety. It’s on right now.” He moved my finger over it, helped me switch it off. “Now you’re ready to shoot.”

We came to the elevator, where Hercules stood with one finger hovering over the buttons. The Cupids began bickering over which floor we needed to go to.

Justin’s hand went over mine, and he eased my finger into the right spot. “Finger inside the trigger guard, aim, then pull.”

“Got it.” Though I wasn’t really sure how much I did have it.

He switched the safety back on. “So you don’t shoot yourself in the foot.”

“Thanks.” I slid the gun into the inner pocket of my jacket.

“This one says L, which could mean lower level.” Philia pointed at the elevator. “That could take us up.”

My Cupid groaned. “Why would L take us up?”

Agape folded his arms. “Some buildings use L as their ground level.”

“Why must there always be so many buttons adjoined to this wizardry?” Hercules growled. Of course, Hercules didn’t read English—he read ancient Greek.

I stepped forward and hit the button marked G, which I assumed meant ground floor. “This one seems promising.”

We waited. Nothing happened.

Then it hit me.

As if he’d read my mind, Justin cursed. “The elevators are on lockdown.”

Of course they were. Everyone knew we had escaped—hence the klaxons.

Boots squeaked over the tile at the end of the hall. Behind us, another contingent of soldiers was filtering through the doorway.

Hercules turned left, where an air vent blew over us. He sent his fist through the grating, yanked it completely out of the wall. “Inside there. All of you.” He took my hand, urged me toward the vent.

I hesitated. “You won’t fit in there.”

Hercules didn’t respond. He just helped me up and into the rectangular vent.

Inside, I turned around just as Justin climbed in after me. The Cupids hovered just outside.

“Wait,” I said.

Hercules leaned in, both chains falling around his face as he gazed at us. “Remember what I told you back in the Big Apple?”

I remembered. “You won’t fail me.”

“I won’t fail any of you.”

“They have guns,” Justin said. “Big ones.”

“Guns?” Hercules mimed wiping dust off his shoulder. “Guns are nothing when you know how to handle their bullets.”

We all stared at him. Was he that capable, or just that crazy? Maybe he was both.

My Cupid set a hand on Hercules’s shoulder. “I’ll see you up there, buddy.”

Hercules set his enormous hand on the demigod’s tiny shoulder, which nearly dropped him to the floor. His tiny wings worked hard to keep him up. “I’ll meet you on the surface.” Hercules glanced at me. “Then I’ll tell you about the real challenge of my life: fighting the Learnaean hydra. Do you know it had three immortal heads?”

“I didn’t.” My voice had gone thick.

Hercules turned away, gathered his chains into his hands. “Well,” he said over his shoulder, “it did. And in this world of mortals, I’m just having a grand time.” He gripped his chains in both fists, began swinging them alongside his body. They cracked on the tile floor like a serpent’s strike as Justin pushed me down the tunnel. The three Cupids piled in after.

As I set weight on my left hand, I cried out. Shooting pain ran from my fingers, along with the worst case of pins and needles I’d ever experienced. It felt like they’d been frozen and then exposed to heat all at once.

“We have to move,” Justin whispered from behind me.

I had no choice. I curled my left hand to my chest and shuffled forward on my knees and my good hand.

“Me first!” my Cupid yelled.

“Agape’s the oldest,” Philia shot back.

Agape sighed. “Just let Eros lead.”

Hercules’s war cry followed us as we all crawled through the vent, echoing behind and flooding ahead of us.

Then the shooting began.

“Hercules,” I whispered.

“I’m OK,” Justin said. “Which means he’s OK. Remember: his fate is entwined with mine.”

“I know,” I said. “I know.”

But that didn’t mean they would continue to be OK.

I blinked the tears away as we crawled the length of a continent (but was probably only a dozen yards). We came to a join in the vents, where two lanes forked off and one rose straight up.

There at the join, I spotted shifting sunlight. I came into the square of it, squinting up. There, high, high up, a fan’s blades cast shadows, sunlight appearing and breaking with its revolutions. “I think this leads to the surface.”

“Bingo,” Justin said behind me. “Now we climb.”

I stared up the long, smooth expanse of metal. Not a handhold in sight.

“Now we climb,” I whispered as my left hand throbbed.

↔

Before all this, I was never precisely athletic. I had a lithe form (even when I didn’t look like a human) and I always felt … if not powerful, then at least capable.

I had a mind. A good one.

As the centuries passed and technology advanced, that mind mattered more and more. By the time I arrived at McGill, I was a nose-in-books gal for eighteen hours a day.

And I was so good at my disappearing act, I didn’t expect to need strength. Never the physical kind, at least.

Sandwiched into the vertical vent, my right hand and feet my only leverage, I knew I was wrong.

Mortally wrong.

Beneath me, the klaxons echoed like a far-off siren’s call. A promise of what lay beneath—and what I could not return to.

“Keep going,” Justin called from above. He had sidled around me when we’d reached the vertical tunnel so he could break us out of here. Now he was very nearly at the surface, hand-footing his way up like he had suction cups on his palms.

“I can’t,” I said. I couldn’t use all my limbs; the fourth was gauzed and would only slip off the metal. Despite that, I’d managed to hoof it halfway up … which meant, if I fell, I’d probably die.

Tiny hands pressed into my legs. “We’ve got you,” my Cupid said. “Come on, boys. We’re going up.”

And before I could say anything, I was being pushed upward by three groaning Cupids. To them I might as well have weighed four times as much as I did. But progress was quick—a lot quicker than under my own power.

Justin reached the top, positioned himself opposite the fan. He started kicking, and dust swirled down around me. Justin gave another kick, and something detached with a screech. “Got it.”

I gazed up at him. He was safe, easing his way out of the tunnel. For a second, he disappeared.

Then I sneezed. It sounded like an explosion in the tunnel, and one of the Cupids shrieked.

“It’s OK, Philia,” my Cupid said. “Keep going.”

“Isa?” Justin’s face gazed back down at me. “It’s safe up here. Just ten more feet, Cupids. Come on—I’ll pull you up the last few.”

The Cupids kept lifting, and I kept rising.

“Almost,” Justin said. He leaned in, both hands waiting for me. I took his hand, and both of his gripped my arm. When he pulled me forward, I let a cry as my feet came loose and clapped against the far wall of the vent.

“Heave, boys!” Eros yelled, pushing hard.

“I’ve got you,” Justin said. And I knew he did.

He pulled me right up and out, and I came into a house of rock with a great gaping hole at the center where the sun shone through. No—not a house, but some kind of rock cairn the facility had hidden their exterior vent inside.

Whatever it was, I dropped to the ground beneath it and lay on my back and took the most glorious minute of my life to just breathe on the sand.

Justin sat next to me. I knew he wanted to move, but he didn’t say so.

“Are you all right?” My eyes drifted to Justin, inspecting him for wounds. And I spotted one—a cut on his cheek. “You’re hurt.”

Which meant both he and Hercules were hurt.

Justin shook his head. “It’s nothing. Superficial.”

All at once, the three Cupids popped out of the vent and shot straight into the air. We both gazed up as three small faces blocked out the sun in the gap above us.

“It’s the sun!” Philia pointed into the sky. “I think I was getting vit D deficient down there.”

“Sure you were.” My Cupid glanced back down at us. “Are you two going to lay there all morning?”

In my state that sounded like a fine thing, but then Serena’s warning sprang to mind.

Daiski was coming.

“Yeah.” I forced myself up to a seat. “We’re coming.”

Chapter 21

Five minutes later, the Cupids were leading us across the desert. And when I say the desert, I mean cacti. I mean an arid plain. I mean the sun was like a ball of angry heat in the sky.

At least they could fly. Justin and I had to use our two feet.

“Why can’t you call the clouds?” Justin asked.

Agape set two fingers in his mouth and whistled. When nothing happened, he shrugged and pointed. “They’re finicky.”

“This way.” Philia pointed off into the shimmering expanse. “I see something out there, off in the distance.”

We all squinted in that direction.

Agape shaded his eyes. “I don’t see anything.”

“We need to head north,” my Cupid said.

“Why north?” I asked.

He spun around, flying backward. “It’s colder north.”

“Do you even know where we are?” Justin asked. “Which desert we’re in?”

My Cupid shrugged. “I’m a city boy.”

Philia was wringing his hands. “I wasn’t meant to die like this.”

“We’re not going to die,” Justin said. “Philia, what does it look like?”

Philia flew a litte higher. “A gas station sign?”

“He does have the best eyesight of the three of us,” Agape said.

“Then we trust you,” Justin said. “Let’s go.”

We veered southwest. And though I kept moving, I felt the inevitability of what was coming as surely as quicksand would suck me in. There, in the mirage at the horizon, I saw the promise of him.

Daiski.

This wasn’t intuition; I felt the oracle’s power in me.

“Save your energy,” I said to Justin, who had fallen into a jog. “You’re about to need it.”

He eyed me, but he did drop to a walk. “What do you mean, Isa?”

Without even thinking about it, I turned, lifted my hand. The first finger extended, the others folding. Off in the distance, a rumbling had started like a thunderstorm.

But it wasn’t a storm. At least, not the kind nature made.

We all stopped.

“I see something,” Agape said. “It’s … It’s a …”

Justin stepped up to my side. “Isa, do you still have that gun?”

I opened my jacket, lifted the handgun from the inner pocket. The metal was refreshingly cool under my hand, which brought a strange and uncomfortable pleasure to holding it.

Justin knelt in the desert, pulled his own gun from the waistband of his pants. “Cupids, get your bows ready.”

Behind me, the Cupids’ bowstrings creaked as they nocked their arrows.

The ground rumbled beneath me, a drumbeat of footsteps. Enormous footsteps.

I lifted the gun, thumbed off the safety as Justin had taught me. I fought through my exhaustion to aim it at the form emerging from the swimming heat.

Twenty feet tall. Each limb as wide around as an ancient tree’s trunk, fists curled around a club three times the size of Hercules’s. A mane of black hair pooling around his enormous form.

“It’s a giant,” Agape whispered. “It’s … Alcyoneus. How can that be?”

Who is Alcyoneus? But my thoughts were drowned beneath a great bellow.

“ALCYONEUS!” he cried into the desert from some fifty feet off.

“He’s an immortal,” Philia cried from behind us.

“Was an immortal,” my Cupid shot back. “Now he’s perfectly killable.”

“He isn’t supposed to be alive,” Agape whispered. “Not after what Hercules did to him two thousand years ago.”

“So how is he alive?” Philia asked.

Alcyoneus stamped a foot into the sand, and the whole desert seemed to shake. A giant who shouldn’t be alive was alive, according to Agape. How could that be? And why would he be in cahoots with the World Army?

Then it hit me: science. More specifically, cloning. All Serena would need was a DNA sample. If she could grow me a new forearm and hand with a swab of my skin, then why not an entire giant?

I had read about these creatures. The giants of Greek mythology were different than giants of modern imagination. They were bigger, stronger, smarter and faster. They ruled entire swaths of ancient Greece and were not to be underestimated.

That was why only great heroes could defeat them.

And that was why the World Army had one in their arsenal … because a great hero had shown up—Hercules. Who was, to my knowledge, still fighting underground. But evidently this giant didn’t know that.

“I think he’s some sort of clone,” I said.

With a second stomp, the giant’s head lowered, his dark eyes on us. He let out another roar before he fell into a charge, both hands taking up their spots at the base of his club.

“Whatever he is, we’re about to get a close-up look at him,” Justin said. “Wait until you’ve got your shot.”

I swallowed. The closer the giant got, the more impossibly large he seemed. At first I’d thought twenty feet tall, but now …

Now he seemed to block the sun.

“Shoot!” Justin yelled.

His gun was the first to go off, a crack through the desert. Mine followed, jerking in my hand. Then the Cupids’ arrows followed, zipping past our heads.

They all missed.

Or, I should say, the bullets may have hit, but they made so little difference in his charge that they might as well have missed. And Alcyoneus, as hulking as he was, angled his body with perfect deftness to slide past all three arrows.

He swept in among us like a thunderstorm—“ALCYONEUS!” he yelled again—as the club swung up high and I threw myself as far from his trajectory as I could.

Justin rolled the other direction, and I caught a glimpse of the Cupids blitzing the hell out of there like little bees ahead of the giant.

I hit the ground in an explosion of pain, my left arm throbbing as I rolled to a stop on my stomach, staring after Alcyoneus.

There, amidst all his hair, sat a man.

A regular human riding that giant like a horse, two hands in his mane of black locks.

Daiski.

Another gunshot cracked through the plain. Justin was up on his elbows and pointing his gun at the giant.

This time, I saw the bullet penetrate the bare skin of the giant’s leg. It went in and created a minuscule hole. But Alcyoneus reacted not at all.

Well, that’s not entirely true. He got angrier.

He swung around, roared his name again and charged at Justin.

“Move!” I yelled, firing off my own gun in the giant’s wake. A waste of a bullet—I hadn’t even tracked him properly.

The club came around in an arc and slammed into the ground where Justin lay on his stomach. Dust rose up, and everyone but the Cupids disappeared from sight.

“Justin!” My voice sounded so small. I pushed myself to my feet as the three Cupids appeared by my side.

“We cannot defeat him,” Philia said. “Not unless …”

A roar rose from the dust—a man’s voice. Daiski’s or Justin’s? I stared at the spot where the giant had struck. Right now, I just wanted to see that Justin was alive.

As the dust settled and Alcyoneus came into view, someone rushed out of the cloud.

Justin, followed by Daiski.

He dropped, swept around to catch Daiski as he ran. Daiski leapt over Justin’s outstretched foot, his cane singing through the air as he swung it around and rapped Justin on the arm.

Behind the two of them, Alcyoneus lifted his enormous club for another swing at Justin.

Two on one was unfair in the first place, but if one of those two was a giant? Well, that was just wrong.

“Hey,” I yelled at Alcyoneus, both hands around my mouth. “Hey, dungface!”

“What in the Empty Hell did you call him that for?” Philia cried.

“She’s giving Justin a chance,” my Cupid said. “But she really needs to up her insult game.”

Even so, it seemed the giant didn’t appreciate slights on his appearance. Alcyoneus’s dark eyes shifted, his head raising toward us. He turned in our direction, lowered his face.

He was preparing to charge at me and the Cupids.

↔

I’ve been attacked by quite a lot of angry humans in my life—most with brooms, some with shoes and even a few with guns—but I’d never been charged by a giant.

I had never even seen a giant.

And now I knew I’d be happy never seeing another giant for the rest of my mortal life.

“ALCYONEUS!” the giant roared, stomping in our direction. The ground shuddered beneath us, and my brain decided to deliver a helpful theory: He could probably eat you like an hors d'oeuvre.

My brain was probably right. It was definitely right. But that was the least helpful thing it could have delivered in this earth-shaking moment.

“Does he only know one word?” Agape asked.

“I guess that cloning process didn’t include brainpower,” my Cupid said.

“We’ve got this,” Philia said.

All three of the Cupids launched arrows at the giant. They powered straight into his shoulders and chest, lodged there with the fletchings blowing in the wind.

And Alcyoneus reacted not at all.

“Holy …” my Cupid said.

“…Hera,” Agape finished.

“Has that ever happened?” I asked.

“Nope,” my Cupid said. “I don’t even think they penetrated the muscle.”

I started backing up as the giant began picking up speed. “So now we run.”

“Now we run,” the Cupids agreed.

I backed right into a wall—a warm wall. A wall of flesh.

A hand touched my shoulder. It was so heavy I nearly slumped to my knees.

A low voice rumbled behind me. “Move aside, Isa. This is my foe.”

I jerked around, my mouth dropping wide. Tears blurred my vision. “Hercules?”

The son of Zeus was here.

“How did you find us?” I asked.

“He was drawn to him,” my Cupid said. “Just like the odontotyrannos.”

Back when I had first met Hercules, he had defeated another creature he’d fought back in ancient times: an odontotyrannos. The two had been drawn together by an ancient blood feud.

“When I escaped the facility, I scented Alcyoneus like a festering cloud in the desert.” Hercules’s eyes never left the approaching giant. His cheek bloomed with a single horizontal cut, dried blood running out of it. An identical cut to the one Justin had received.

He stepped left of me, opened his mouth so wide his perfect ivory teeth gleamed in the sunlight, and Hercules leaned forward to roar back at the giant. In that moment, he had gone positively feral.

Of course, during this little interlude Alcyoneus had nearly closed the distance between him and us.

Things happened fast then—faster than I could process.

One of Hercules’s hands went out, the palm flat, and he pushed me so hard all the air in my lungs was pressed out through my mouth. As I flew through the air, the giant’s club swept down where Hercules had been. The demigod disappeared from sight.

Tiny hands grabbed each of my arms—two of the Cupids—and kept me from falling straight onto my back. They deposited me some twenty feet away from the new cloud of dust, out of which only Alcyoneus’s head rose as he examined the new crater he’d put in the earth.

When I touched the ground, I gasped for air, but my lungs wouldn’t take it in.

My Cupid patted me on the back. “Come on, Isa. Breathe.”

All at once, my lungs opened. I dropped to my knees with the pure loveliness of desert air circulating in me.

Already, arrows were singing past my head. The Cupids were firing off at the giant. “Go for the eyes,” Agape said.

“But they’re so little!” Philia complained.

Far off, I heard a man’s grunt. My eyes lifted to where Daiski had driven his cane into the dry earth instead of Justin’s chest. That was his grunt of annoyance I’d heard as my boyfriend rolled out of the way.

And some fifty feet to my left, I heard a snarl of pain. From out of the settling dust flew one of Hercules’s chains, cracking the giant on his leg.

“Ouch,” my Cupid said. “That had to sting.”

“Not like he can kill him that way, though,” Philia said.

“He’s just tenderizing him a bit first,” Agape said, letting loose another arrow.

“What did he mean,” I said, “about the giant being his foe?”

“Back in antiquity, Hercules fought Alcyoneus as one of his minor labors,” Agape explained. “And defeated him.”

My eyes darted between both fights. Hercules and the giant, Justin and Daiski.

In each case, the man I wanted to win didn’t seem like the obvious choice. He seemed like the underdog. Alcyoneus was impervious to the Cupids’ arrows, he must have been thirty feet tall and he was perhaps stronger than Hercules.

And Daiski was Daiski.

As a testament, Alcyoneus swung his club down on Hercules with lightning speed, and the demigod took the blow on his back, pitching forward. Across the sand, Justin—who had just gotten to his feet—suffered the same blow.

Almost as one, the two entwined men hit the ground face-first.

I rose to my feet. “That doesn’t look like defeating him.”

“He wasn’t fatebound to a human then,” Agape snapped. “That makes it harder.”

“How did Hercules defeat Alcyoneus back in antiquity?” I asked.

“By lifting him off the ground and choking the life out of him,” my Cupid said. “That was the only way. Alcyoneus cannot be defeated while his feet are on the earth.”

Alcyoneus went for a killing blow, but Hercules managed to roll away just in time. He got to his feet, swung his chains around to rap the giant on the calf once and then twice. Which seemed to irritate the giant more than anything.

At least Hercules had managed to move after receiving a blow from the giant. Justin, being human, hadn’t taken the hit nearly as well. He still lay on his stomach, and Daiski stood over him.

Justin was the one who needed me right now. And Hercules needed Justin.

“Cupids,” I said, “I need you to help Hercules survive that giant.”

Somehow I’d managed to keep hold of the handgun Justin had given me even after Hercules had pushed me aside. I gripped it hard as I started toward Daiski.

“What are you going to do?” my Cupid yelled from behind me.

I fell into a run. “I’m going to shoot a man.”

Chapter 22

“Daiski!” I shouted across the desert.

The World Army operative had dropped to a straddle atop a face-down Justin and was binding his hands behind his back. Daiski’s brown eyes lifted to meet mine. As did Justin’s, his face caked in dirt.

Left of me, the earth shuddered as the two titans duked it out. Just don’t lose, demigod.

That would mean the loss of Justin, too.

I kept approaching with the upraised gun. The barrel of it drew a straight line to Daiski’s heart. “You’re not keeping your promise.”

Daiski’s eyebrow went up. “I’m not?”

“You said you would kill them.”

“Are you disappointed?”

I kept walking. “Surprised.”

One of his shoulders lifted. “I’ve got superiors—they wanted him alive.” He didn’t seem concerned about the gun pointed at him. He reached into his pants pocket, pulled out a zip tie.

“Call the giant off,” I said.

Daiski joined Justin’s wrists and bound them with the tie. “Or what? You’ll shoot?”

“I’ll shoot.”

“You’re not that kind of woman.”

He wasn’t wrong; my hand was shaking so hard I was amazed I hadn’t dropped the gun. It felt foreign and heavy in my grip, like something not meant to be held so much as to behold, like a dangerous beast in captivity.

But he wasn’t right, either.

My finger slipped into the trigger guard, and with a deep breath, I depressed the smooth curve of metal until the gun jerked in my hand and the blast echoed through the flatlands.

Twenty feet away, Daiski dropped straight onto his back with a hole in his black shirt.

Justin turned, half-lifted from the ground. “Holy shit, Isa.”

I just stared. “Merda.” GoneGods, what had I done? I’d thought shooting Daiski might stop Alcyoneous, whose control he seemed to be under, but the giant’s next swing defeated that theory. He lifted the club high above his head and brought it down before him like he was trying to split the earth in half.

Or just one demigod. Hercules, who refused to be put down.

I ran to Justin, kneeling beside him. I reached into the lip of my boot for El Lobizon’s claw. “Hold on.”

Justin was still staring at Daiski. “You killed him.” He glanced around at me. “I can’t believe you did that.”

I couldn’t tell whether he was awed or dismayed. Maybe both. I know I felt a mixture of both as I pressed the claw’s deadly edge to the plastic binding Justin’s hands. This was more the purview of scissors, but you made do with what you had.

The zip tie was surprisingly resistant, especially with how my hand was shaking.

“Isa,” Justin said. I sensed his head turning.

I lifted my eyes. “What is—”

A hand settled around my neck, yanked me back. When I looked up, it was Daiski’s face above me.

“Next time,” he said, “shoot where the body armor isn’t.”

I screamed, tried to pull away. But the harder I pulled, the tighter his grip around my neck got. He dragged me away from Justin, my feet kicking and writhing in my wake. I felt his fingers right over my carotid, sensed the impending darkness.

I wouldn’t last more than fifteen seconds before I passed out.

“Daiski,” I gasped. “Please.”

My hands reached up—both of them—and gripped his wrist. When they did, it happened again.

I was transported to a different time.

This time there was no Pythia. No Garden of Hera. No tree. Just the same endless desert. But this was definitely the oracle’s power working. I could feel that something had changed.

I wasn’t in the present anymore. I was in the future.

A future, at least.

I lay on my back, the sun squintingly intense above me. I shaded my eyes, turned my face aside. There, running through the desert, were Justin, Hercules—and me, Isabella. The three Cupids flew alongside.

Twenty feet away, a low and dark hill jutted from the ground. No—not a hill. A giant.

The giant Alcyoneus lay still on the ground.

I understood; I wasn’t watching this through my own eyes … I was watching through Daiski’s. When I’d grabbed his arm, it had allowed a connection between us. It had allowed me to see into his future.

And I didn’t just see what he saw. I felt what he felt. I heard every thought.

A radiance grew inside Daiski like music, as did the soft, comforting memory of an old woman in New York City. The Oracle of Delphi, holding his palm in her two hands. “The encantado needs protection.” That was what she had said to Daiski when he’d met with her.

The memory stayed with Daiski as he lay in the desert, watching us run away. He could have risen then. He could have at least called in a force to deal with the escaped fugitives. But he had been egotistical and promised he could return them on his own (with the giant’s help).

No … it wasn’t egotism. It was another impulse.

He hadn’t wanted to capture me. Not at all.

He had wanted to save me.

He had wanted to protect me.

That was the radiance he felt. That, and what I said to him before I’d started running across the desert.

I had said: “Daiski, you’re …”

But I couldn’t hear the rest, because the words dissipated along with the vision. The future melted away, leaving me back in the present.

In a moment I was inside my own body again, seated on the ground with Daiski’s hand around my neck. My hands still gripped his arm as though no time had passed.

I raised my eyes to meet his. He stared back with something like terror.

“Daiski,” I began. What was it I had said to him in the future? “Daiski, you’re …” I had been inside his mind, but the vision had faded before I could hear the rest.

Now was the moment, I realized, for me to say whatever it was I needed to say to get him to release me.

What was it he would want to hear?

“Daiski, you’re …”

Daiski had told me his secrets back on the train. His pain. He had revealed many things to me: his childhood, his father’s death, feeling crazy. Joining the World Army. Always seeking glory, recognition. Through it all, I knew that we were alike in one important way.

We both heard that awful, damning voice in our head.

I knew what I needed to say. It was exactly what I would want someone to say to me.

“Daiski, you’re good,” I whispered. “You’re not—”

His fingers tightened around my throat. “Stop.”

I couldn’t stop, even though the words came raspy. “You’re not broken. You’re worthy as you are.”

Neither of us moved.

That is, not until his grip loosened. Slowly, by degrees, he let go until his hand fell away.

I let go of his arm, the two of us breathing hard.

Across the arid space, another boom sent sand forty feet into the air. Hercules and Alcyoneus were still battling. Except this time, when the dust settled Hercules held the giant above him. Alcyoneus was airborne, and Hercules had both chains wrapped around the giant’s neck. He was slowing squeezing the air out of him.

Nearby, my Cupid whistled. The other two were cheering.

“Fuck,” Daiski rasped above me.

I thought he meant the battle, but I caught a glimpse of El Lobizon’s iridescent claw arrowing through the air. My eyes fell on Justin, who’d freed himself from the zip tie and rolled onto his stomach. He had thrown it at Daiski.

He always did have good aim.

I spun around as Daiski took a step back, the claw jutting out of his bicep. He yanked it free, his face passing through a range of emotions. Shock. Annoyance. Anger. OK, maybe only three emotions. And two of them were variations on the same feeling.

Justin let out a yell and rose from the ground. He charged into Daiski, knocking him flat on his back. Given the force with which they fell, I could tell Justin was using his powers—his spliced powers. And he was channeling Hercules’s strength as he began wailing on Daiski’s face.

↔

I scrabbled across the hard ground to Justin. “Don’t kill him!”

He didn’t stop.

He had blood on his knuckles. Daiski’s blood. I had never seen him so vicious.

I knelt beside him, grabbed one of his arms. It swung like a piston in motion, even with my hand on it. “Justin, please don’t kill him.”

Some inkling of my presence penetrated Justin’s brain, because he slowed. With one last punch, he dropped sideways from his straddle atop Daiski. Justin fell on his back, breathing hard under the sun.

Before me, Daiski lay still. He had a split lip, a quickly bruising eye and a nose at an odd angle. Blood ran into his hair. But he was awake and aware. He groaned up at me. “That sucked.”

Justin lifted his face. “Good.”

I pulled the claw from Daiski’s bicep. I stared at it, turning it beneath the sunlight. Daiski hadn’t moved when Justin threw the claw at him. He hadn’t fought back. “Why?” I said. Why had he allowed himself to be beaten?

His white teeth appeared between his bloodied lips. “I wanted to hear what happened on October 14, 1917.”

“Oh, bullshit.” I wiped tears away with the back of my hand.

“Considering I just let your boyfriend beat me up, I think it’s the least you can do.”

Justin barked a laugh. “Let me?”

The earth rumbled. Behind me, Hercules dropped Alcyoneus to the ground, where the giant lay still—dead. He lay exactly where I’d seen him in the vision.

And Daiski lay exactly where he’d been.

This was the vision exactly. A potential future had become the future.

“How did you do it, Isa?” Daiski asked.

I knew what he meant: bringing us both into the vision of the future. I lifted my left hand, still in gauze. “Serena spliced me with the oracle.”

Daiski laughed, spat blood beside him. “She’s like a genie, isn’t she? You wish for a new arm, but you don’t get the arm you expect.”

Except genies were bound to their owners. In this case, Serena wasn’t bound to me—I was oathbound to her. Or, more specifically, to her son.

Justin pushed himself upright. “Serena spliced you?”

My eyes lifted to my boyfriend. I gave a nod.

“Well, shit.” He pulled himself to his feet. “So you’re part oracle now.”

“I don’t know what I am.” I certainly didn’t feel anything like the grand old woman I’d met in New York. She had experience, gravitas—and I’d just had two tinder-sparks of the future.

Justin’s hand extended to me. “We need to go.”

My fingers nearly settled into his, but I held back. “Just give me one minute. Gather up the Cupids and Hercules.”

His eyes flicked to Daiski and back to me. I saw the surprise, the discomfort in that eye-flick. But he only said, “All right.”

I watched Justin walk away.

Daiski gave a wet cough. “They did something to him.”

I turned back around. “What?”

“Down in the facility. I was instructed to bring him to the medical ward.”

That was where I had found Justin: on a medical bed, a constellation of electrodes attached to his head.

“What did you do?”

Daiski rolled his eyes, the whites flashing. “Hell if I know. I’m just the guy who brings them in.”

I took a quick breath, glancing back at Justin. He leaned down to grab up his backpack. He didn’t look different, but I could still see him laying into Daiski in my mind’s eye. The thought came to me again: I had never seen him so vicious.

I turned back to Daiski. With a deep breath, her name came out of me, “Hinata.”

Daiski’s eyes found mine. “Hinata.”

“There isn’t much to say.” I paused and took a long, dry breath of desert air. Then I told him everything I had only thought up to that point: about my friendship with Hinata, about her pregnancy, about the son I’d treated like my own. Everything up to the one night that changed our lives.

I lowered my voice to a whisper. “One night, three men from the local village came for Hinata and her three-year-old son.”

“Why?”

“Because of me.” I lifted my finger to my chest. “Because they thought the two of them were cursed. Over the centuries, villagers got things into their heads about encantado.”

Daiski said nothing. So I continued to the end.

“They brought them outside. Had them stand facing away. When they raised the only gun they had between them, Hinata threw herself in front of her son. She yelled for him to run away.”

“Did he?”

“He did.” My voice lowered almost to nothing. “But they got him anyway.”

Silence fell between us. Five, ten seconds of the wind blowing over the flatland.

He cleared his throat. “Hinata knew they would get him.”

My eyes refocused. “What?”

“She knew they would get her son. She wanted him to go knowing he was loved that much.”

He was right; I had thought the same thing when I’d heard. For some reason, that had made it hurt more.

“Isa,” Daiski said, “head straight south. In five miles you’ll come to a gas station.”

“What about you?”

“I think I’ll lay here a while. They’ll be around for me soon enough.”

I rose to my feet. “I meant what I said.”

“That business about me being good?”

“Yeah, that business.”

He pointed at my new arm. “Me letting you go has nothing to do with me being good. It’s to do with that oracle.”

I gazed down at him. “When I touched you, you finally believed what she’d said to you back in New York.”

He snorted. “How could I not?”

I took a step back. “Bye, Daiski.”

His eyes turned up toward the sky. But as I turned around to meet up with Justin and Hercules and the Cupids, I knew he would be watching me go. I had foreseen it.

Chapter 23

We had only walked half a mile when two of the Cupids stopped.

Philia and Agape.

“They’re coming,” Philia said.

The rest of us turned back toward them.

“We have to leave you now.” Agape pointed behind us, into the empty distance. “We’ll keep them occupied.”

“No.” I flashed a glance at my Cupid, who looked as surprised as I did. “Come with us.”

Together, both Cupids whistled. Their little clouds came floating down from the sky and hovered in front of Justin, Hercules and me.

“Take the puffs,” Philia said. “They’ll get you there fast.”

I took a step toward them. “Please don’t.”

Agape closed the distance between us, floating less than a foot from my face. “Don’t cry, Isabella. We knew we were only meant to help you get where you needed to go.”

Philia appeared next to him. “This is part of helping you. Let us help you.”

I choked a sob, stomped my boot into the dirt. “Merda. Not like this.”

“Sometimes, like this.” Agape lifted my chin with his chubby finger. “Just know that we believe in you.”

Philia set a hand on my shoulder. “We do. Goodbye, Isabella.”

My Cupid appeared in the circle. “You two asses,” he said. “You could have let me know you were going to pull this stunt.”

They shrugged. “Would it have changed anything?”

My Cupid glared. “I would have had more time to berate you.”

Suddenly we were all enveloped in a pair of enormous, powerful arms. “Oh, come on, all of you!” Hercules sobbed, squeezing the rest of us. And for one, glimmering moment since Hinata had died so many decades ago, I felt like I had kin.

Ten minutes later, the desert raced beneath us like water, the puffs casting tiny shadows over the earth. Behind me, my Cupid said, “How do you know we can trust Daiski about the gas station?”

“I just have a feeling.”

“Oh boy,” Cupid said. “Feelings.”

I made a face over my shoulder. “You’re a Cupid.”

“Yeah. It’s exhausting. Sometimes I dream about living in a commune of sociopaths.”

I snorted. “But you came to me.”

His dimples appeared. “But I came to you.”

When we arrived at the single-pump gas station set along the ribbon of highway, I wondered if Cupid had been right about distrusting Daiski. The place looked abandoned. The windows were foggy and blurred, so Hercules insisted on being the one to enter first.

When he ducked through, the door belled.

That was a good sign.

“Oh,” Hercules said as the door shut behind him.

I turned to Justin. “Oh?”

“I think that was a good ‘oh,’ ” Justin said.

“A good oh?” my Cupid said.

“I mean, he’s Hercules,” Justin said. “He doesn’t underreact too much of anything.”

He had a point.

Justin pulled open the door and we followed him into the small convenience store as the old-fashioned bell rang again. Around us lay a small array of foods and drinks in coolers … and one Hercules with his elbow on the counter in front of a young blonde.

He raised his opposite hand, three fingers up. “Not one, not two, but three immortal heads.”

The young woman popped her gum between her red lips. She looked as charmed as she did confused. “A hydra, you said?”

Cupid floated to my side, pointed at a payphone. “You have a quarter? We can call an Uber.”

“An Uber, out here?” Justin said. “That’s going to cost everything we’ve got.”

The woman leaned around Hercules. “You said an Uber? They don’t come this far out. It’s only about thirty miles to Dry Lake, though.”

“Dry Lake?” Cupid sighed and lowered his phone. “I miss New York.”

I approached the counter. “We have to get to Vegas.”

“Vegas?” She popped her gum again. “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Oh,” she said. “How did you all get here, if you need to call an Uber?”

“We walked,” Hercules said at once. He reached behind him without looking, slid open one of the refrigerators and grabbed a glass bottle of cola. He nipped the top off with his teeth. “Do you mind?”

Before she could respond, he began drinking. Everyone watched as he downed the bottle in one go. When he was finished, he set it on the counter between himself and the young woman. “Ahh.” His lips settled into a smile.

“You’ll need to pay for that,” she said.

Hercules winked. “I will.” He swept his hair back from his face. “What did you say your name was?”

“Sara.”

“Well, Sara, I’m Hercules. And I’m glad to meet you.”

I cleared my throat. “Sara, if you take us to Vegas, I’ll put you up for a night at the Bellagio.”

She glanced over at us and back at him. Well, at the bulging muscles of his arm still set on the counter. She turned toward the back room. “Hey, dweeb.”

“Yeah?” came a young man’s voice.

“Take over the register. I’ll be gone a few hours.”

“Hey,” I whispered to Sara when the others were busily grabbing HoHos and salted peanuts, “do you have any pregnancy tests?”

She shook her head. “Sorry.”

So I would have to wait until we got to Vegas.

When we came around the back of the station to Sara’s Toyota Corolla, Cupid groaned. “I am not riding on the roof of another compact car.”

Hercules elbowed him, and Cupid nearly went flying. “Don’t be rude to the lady. She’s being kind.”

“Fine—I call shotgun,” Cupid said.

We all piled in—Justin, Hercules and me in the backseat, and Cupid in the passenger seat beside Sara—and got onto the highway.

As we pulled away from the gas station, Cupid stared out the rearview window.

I glanced back. Nothing but desert greeted me. “Do you think your brothers are OK?”

“I don’t know.” He sighed. Then, “Wait a GoneGodDamn second … stop the car!”

Sara glanced over. “What?”

Cupid waved a frantic hand. “Pull over!”

She did, veering us off onto the shoulder.

As soon as the car stopped, Cupid threw open the door and leapt out.

In the back seat, the three of us stared out the window. Justin shook his head. “What the hell is he doing?”

I rolled down the window. “Cupid?”

“Shush.” He stared back into the desert, one hand shading his eyes. Suddenly, with a thwip!, an arrow lodged right in the center of his chest.

I gasped, but Cupid only began giggling. He yanked the arrow out of his chest and held it aloft. “They’re OK! It’s a love-gram from Agape.”

My mouth hung open. “A what-gram?”

“It’s how we communicate over long distances.”

Hercules snorted. “By shooting each other in the chest with arrows?”

Cupid spun toward the car. “That’s a lot of condemnation from someone who literally tries to screw everyone he meets.”

When Cupid got back in the car and we started off again, Justin leaned toward my ear. “How did you escape to find me down there, in the facility?”

I gritted my teeth. The last place I wanted to imagine was that facility—those medical beds, that centaur laid open on a metal slab. “I didn’t escape. I was allowed to leave.”

“Who let you leave?”

“Serena.” I stared down at my gauzed hand, but instead, I saw her face. Serena Russo, the woman to whom I was oathbound. I didn’t break my oaths. I would finish my research. I would save her son’s life.

But beyond that, her words had been ringing through my mind from the moment I’d escaped. “Soon we shall share the burden of motherhood.”

Motherhood.

I set one hand on my belly. I needed to figure out what those words meant.

Bloodbound

Chapter 1

Las Vegas—the heart of fantasyland. The city was at once more lively and more terrifying than any place I’d been. And after five hundred years of immortality and a recent escape from a secret underground army facility, that was saying a lot.

But at least we were free. For now.

I shielded my eyes from the kaleidoscope of colors outside the car’s backseat window. “How can anyone live here?”

“It’s the strip, Isa,” Justin said beside me. “People love it.”

I stared at my boyfriend. “Love this?”

“I love this!” Hercules boomed out the other backseat window, slapping one hand on the side of the car. He had rolled it down and leaned his head fully out. His brown curls whipped so gently he might have been in a photoshoot.

“Did you see that?” Cupid pointed out the window of the Corolla. “A guy in a Save the Planet shirt. The bigotry is spreading.”

“Save the Planet?” I repeated. It sounded vaguely familiar.

The little demigod spun to me, his blue eyes twinkling beneath his blond hair. “STOP, for short.”

“Where does the ‘o’ come from?”

Cupid shrugged. “There’s no ‘o.’ But STOP would have sounded dumb, I guess.”

Justin leaned toward me. “These guys are like fascists and survivalists had a tea party. They use an environmentalist slogan as theirs.”

I blinked. “And what do they stand for?”

“They hate Others,” Cupid said. “They think the Earth belongs to humans … and only humans. They have a point.”

I looked at Cupid in shock. “You agree with them? I mean, you’re an Other.”

Cupid shrugged. “This was their world first. We were kind of forced on them. I get why they’re frustrated. I don’t agree with them and hope that one day we can all hold hands and sing Kumbaya, but I get it.”

“No blind hatred, huh?” I winked at him. “You’re all love.”

“Love is understanding the other. The better I understand them, the better I can show them who I am and the faster we can all get to kumbayaing.”

“Huh.” I was impressed by the little cherub.

Hercules ducked his head back inside. “I’ve noticed a preponderance of men in blue shirts in this city. What does it signify?”

I couldn’t help smiling. It wasn’t that the demigod listened selectively so much as he seemed overwhelmed by all the newness of the modern world. He had only been in it for a few months, after all.

Cupid groaned. “Herc buddy, if you pass one on the street, give them a good wallop for me.”

“I’d be careful about that,” Justin whispered to him. “He’s—”

Hercules had already leaned back out the window as we passed another group of blue shirt-wearers. “STEP TOO CLOSE AND I’LL WALLOP YOU!”

“No violence, please,” I called out. “They haven’t done anything to us.”

Hercules slapped the side of the car again. “I did not need to understand the hydra to know its evil, just like I also need not understand these mongrels to know they’re evil.”

“Please stop hitting my car,” said Sara, the human who’d given us a lift from the gas station in the middle of nowhere. She’d been giving us increasingly dubious looks in the rearview mirror the longer we’d ridden in the car. I didn’t blame her; Hercules and Cupid together could be a bit … overwhelming.

Justin yanked Hercules back inside. “There’s a bunch of them walking around. Is there some sort of rally going on?”

“Yep,” Sara said. “Biggest rally of the year is happening this week in Vegas.”

“This week?” Justin, Cupid and I said in unison.

Hercules growled out the window at another group of STOP supporters. They stopped and stared after us as we slowed and Sara put on her turn signal.

“We’re here,” she said with what sounded like relief. No doubt she regretted agreeing to give us a lift to Vegas, especially after Hercules and Cupid arm wrestled on the center console a half-hour in. “This place is fancy.”

“Holy Hera!” Cupid said as we rolled up to the hotel.

“Do not speak that name,” Hercules growled. He really, really hated the goddess Hera. Which made sense, considering she had tried about a hundred times to kill him back in antiquity.

Cupid lowered his eyes with regret before looking out the window again. “Sorry, big guy.” He pointed at the hotel. “We’re staying here?”

I swallowed, staring at the hotel through the window as Sara pulled us into the driveway. “We’ll see about that.”

Five minutes later, we stepped onto the sidewalk, all our faces angling up, up, up. I had to squint against the lights, swivel my head left and right to take in the expanse of it.

The Bellagio.

This was where the resistance had sent us?

I had promised Sara that we would put her up here for the night in exchange for bringing us to Vegas, but I didn’t even know if we could cover half a night.

Hell, looking at the four of us—fresh from a fight with a giant and a World Army assassin in the middle of the Nevada desert—I didn’t even know if they’d let us into the lobby. We looked like we’d been to Burning Man and then spent forty days and forty nights wandering through the desert.

But we had nowhere else to go.

According to the note the head of the NYC resistance had left me on the train, I needed to find my sister, Ananda, who worked here. She was our only and best hope. Of course, we’d also had a … fraught relationship. But maybe four years of mortality had changed that. Maybe.

Justin stepped up to my side. “Just walk in like you own the place.”

My eyes met his, and I wondered how he so often sensed exactly what I was feeling. He was my boyfriend, but at some point he had also become the one person who never left my side. My friend. Ordinarily I didn’t mix lust and friendship—we encantado believed in a separation of the two, to avoid dullness and familiarity with our lovers—but with Justin, that seemed impossible not to do.

We had been on the run together for six months. And despite everything that had happened between me, him and Hercules, that bonded two people. Bonded us.

A smile touched my lips. “That I can do.”

“Ooo, time for a little encantado glamor,” Cupid whispered to Hercules.

“She’s never without glamor,” Hercules murmured as we started through the doors into the Bellagio’s lobby.

My heart squeezed, and I straightened; GoneGodDamn Hercules, always with the right words on his tongue. It was almost like he was a demigod. It was almost like he had charmed a thousand women.

Justin and I passed inside, Hercules and Cupid and Sara following behind. We came in to a chorus of chains dragging across the tile—Hercules’s manacles, still enclosing his wrists from when he’d been held captive at the World Army’s facility that morning.

And the army was still coming for us. In six months they hadn’t stopped coming for us, which meant we needed to find Ananda sooner rather than later. After my face had appeared on TV as a suspected arsonist back in New York, I didn’t even like being in public places anymore.

We stood beneath an enormous ceiling sculpture, which sent a hundred different wisps of colors beaming down on us. It was gorgeous, and befitting a hotel this fancy. Except no one was looking at the ceiling. I pretended every concierge and guest in the lobby wasn’t staring at our group, that we weren’t the biggest spectacle in this lobby.

Or, at least, not one worthy of being escorted out by security.

We approached a receptionist who looked overwhelmed, her eyes flitting between all of us. Every time she looked up at Hercules, her eyes rolled halfway into her head to see his face. She cleared her throat. “May I help you?”

I put my hands on the counter, leaned forward. “I’m looking for Ananda.”

She blinked. “Ananda?”

“A female.” How to describe my sister? She could look like anyone. I leaned closer. “A young woman who works here, maybe?”

The receptionist’s expression still maintained its professionalism, but I saw the dubious droop of her mouth. “We have many women who work here. I’m sorry, I don’t know an Ananda.”

A flutter of worry started in my chest. “Is there anyone whose name starts with the letter A?”

“We have many employees whose names start with the letter A.” I sensed the receptionist was being purposefully obtuse, maybe trying to get us to turn back around and drag our chains and dust back the way we’d come. Every guest in the lobby was gawking at us, after all. We were kind of an eyesore.

“All right,” I said slowly, “I think you’re not telling me the truth. I think there is an Ananda working here, and you know who I’m talking about.”

The receptionist’s eyes hardened at once, and I realized I wasn’t accomplishing much. “Listen, lady,” I began. When her eyes hardened even more, I knew I was digging myself farther in.

Hercules set a hand on my back and leaned in to whisper, “Is your womanly cycle blooming forth?”

I flared on the demigod. “I don’t get PMS,” I growled with as much control as I was capable of, “because I don’t get GoneGodDamn periods.”

But I might be pregnant, I thought, resisting setting one hand over my belly. It seemed like the most absurd thing in the world, but Serena Russo’s words hadn’t stopped running through my mind all day. “Soon we shall share the burden of motherhood.”

Serena Russo was an evil bitch, but she wasn’t a liar.

“For someone not blessed with the mortal burden of womanhood,” Hercules remarked to Cupid, “you’d think she’d be more chipper.”

I sighed. I had promised Sara I would put her up here for the night. I had to not get us kicked out of here. “I’m sorry, I’m just tired,” I said to the receptionist. “How much is your cheapest room for tonight?”

I sensed the receptionist’s relief as we crossed back into the realm of what was normal, what she had been trained for. “Let me look that up for you.” Her pretty pink fingernail tapped the mouse button. “We do have a room with two double beds available on the second floor.”

“How much?”

“$1,498.”

Nausea rose in me. “Any others?”

She clicked again. “We have a penthouse suite.”

Cupid flitted up by my side. “How much?”

“$2,998.”

“Do you always knock two bucks off the top?” I said before I could stop myself. It wasn’t just the prices—it was that we were alone. Completely alone. Even Roger, the head of the resistance in NYC who’d given me the tip about Ananda and the Bellagio, was dead. Another casualty of the World Army.

Hercules stepped forward, and Justin and I parted for him like a wave. It wasn’t even conscious—he was just that kind of demigod. “Good evening,” he said. His dimples appeared, and even though he was dragging GoneGodDamn chains behind him and he was matted with sweat and a little blood, I knew that receptionist was done for.

I saw it in the blush rising up the length of her neck.

Hercules leaned forward. “What’s your name?”

“Oh boy,” Cupid groaned.

↔

Five minutes later, we had a room. But we weren’t even the ones staying in it. Sara was.

“Thank you for getting us here,” I said to Sara as we stood in the middle of the lobby. “It means more than you know.”

“Oh, you bet.” Her eyes had gone all glittery and wide ever since we’d entered the city. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-one.

“We are in your debt,” Hercules declared, lifting her hand and setting a kiss to the back of it.

I eyed Hercules. “I think we’ve paid most of that debt off.”

Sara’s eyes flicked to what I held in my hand. “Can I uh …”

“Oh!” I extended the $1,098 room key out to her. “Of course.” Hercules had gotten $400 knocked off the bill, which still made it the most expensive single purchase I’d made in my entire lifetime—after my college education.

She took hold of the other end of the key, and the tiniest little tug-of-war took place in the lobby before I acquiesced.

“Thanks,” she said quickly.

As she disappeared toward the elevator bay, Hercules started after her.

Cupid flew in front of him and pushed Hercules back. Well, I should say he tried to—it was more like he put his hands on Hercules’s bare chest and floated backward as the demigod strode forward. “Hold up there, big guy.”

“Hercules,” Justin said, “we need to stay together.”

Hercules stopped, a sigh echoing through the lobby. His entire body seemed to wither. He blew a kiss to Sara, who looked disappointed as she stepped into the elevator. When he walked back to us, his great arms folded together. “Why was I brought back to this world, if not to partake in the spice of life?”

“To complete your undone labors?” I offered. As an encantado, I wasn’t even jealous if he wanted to have an evening of fun. But Justin was right: we needed to stay together. “You know, avenging a great wrong and all that.”

He waved a hand through the air. “What good is avenging great wrongs if you don’t also bring about great rights?”

Justin and I exchanged a confused glance.

“And what rights are those?” I asked.

“The rights of ultimate pleasure.”

“He’s talking about making whoopee,” Cupid chimed in. “And implying that he’s excellent at it.”

“Legendary, actually,” Herc said.

I groaned. “Thanks for the clarification.” Retreating to one of the plush couches, my hand slid over my belly. Was that what Serena had seen when she’d walked through the portal in the garden and seen into the future? Me, pregnant? But such a thing wasn’t even possible—Others were infertile, all of us. We had the parts, they just didn’t do anything since the gods had left.

Heck, I didn’t even have one of the necessary components to an actual pregnancy—sperm. Those little guys still had to …

My thoughts trailed into silence. That night when I’d been shot with Cupid’s arrow, I had slept with someone. Maybe it was Justin, maybe it was Hercules. Maybe it was both. The point was, I had slept with someone.

Maybe I did have all the components inside me.

But what would have made them work? After four years of nothing, why would I, an Other, become pregnant?

The bottom line was: I needed to find a pregnancy test, stat. But the little shop in the lobby was closed, we were car-less, and I still hadn’t found my sister.

When I sat and set my face in my hands, I felt the cushion depress next to me. I knew exactly who it was. “Are you all right?” Justin asked.

My hand slipped quickly off my belly. “Not in any sense of the word, no.”

“What about in the we’re-not-dead sense of the word?”

He was right. But right now I resented his rightness. “Oh, don’t start making me grateful for things. I just spent $1,000 on a room with two double beds, and I don’t even get to sleep in one.”

Hercules and Cupid sat on the couch facing ours. Cupid picked up a book on garden topiaries and opened it on his lap. He looked like a toddler reading a picture book.

Within a few seconds, Hercules was snoring, his arm slung across the back of the couch and his head on his shoulder. Over at reception, the charmed employee kept making eyes at him. That was probably the only reason we weren’t being kicked out.

I had no idea where to go next, or who to reach out to. We were alone in a strange city, with ...

My thoughts were interrupted by loud voices ringing through the lobby from a nearby hallway. They were getting closer. The voices grew distinct as they approached—a man and a woman. Neither of them sounded happy.

All three receptionists were staring in the direction the voices were emanating from. They sounded like they were walking fast, the woman’s shoes clicking across the tile as they argued.

Finally, with a yelp from her, they emerged into the lobby. A gorgeous bottle-blonde in a cocktail waitress’s outfit—still holding a silver platter under one arm—stalked across the tiles. She walked with admirable sureness in those six-inch heels, her big curls bouncing around her face as she headed toward the reception desk.

The guy following her wore a sloppy suit, still carrying a drink. “Come on, honey,” he slurred. “I gave you what you wanted. Don’t pretend like you didn’t tuck that $100 right into the neck of your dress.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the waitress said. “Leave me be.” Something about her voice—her cadence—sounded familiar.

But he didn’t leave her be. He was drunk, and she was beautiful—the perfect storm for harassment. As they crossed toward the center of the lobby, not twenty feet from where we sat, he grabbed her by the arm and tried to spin her toward him.

She spun toward him all right.

I’d just begun to rise when the waitress took the platter from under her arm, gripped the edges in both hands and swung the flat of it into his face. Metal echoed on bone as she clocked him right in the nose.

The guy dropped at once, sprawling like a starfish. The receptionists gasped together as a small line of blood ran out of one nostril.

“GoneGodDamn patrons making me wish I never took this job,” the waitress said.

I definitely knew that voice. I stared at her, still standing over the drunk, breathing hard with the platter in one hand. “Ananda?” I whispered.

As soon as I’d said it, she spun toward me. Her blue eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open. She recognized my voice, too.

Chapter 2

“Isa?” The cocktail waitress dropped her platter with a clang and rushed over to me on her high heels. When she reached me, she enveloped me in the tightest hug I’d received in decades.

It was my sister.

“I’ve thought about you,” she cried.

Not enough to look for me, I thought but didn’t say. The truth was, I hadn’t looked for her, either. When the gods left, we had gone our own ways, pursued our own delights. That didn’t make seeing her again any less a comfort. She was, despite everything that had happened between us, my family.

“So have I.”

“Isa?” Justin said. “Is this your ...”

Before he could finish, Ananda leaned back with both hands on my shoulders, patted my green pixie cut. “What in Yemoja’s name is this look? And why are you so dirty?”

I glanced down at myself. Ananda’s patting had sent dust swirling off me and onto the Bellagio’s tile floor. “We’re on the run from some bad people.”

“We?”

I waved my hand around to encompass Justin, Hercules and Cupid. They were all gazing at her with googly eyes. She had always been irresistible. “My boyfriend and …”

“Her friends,” Hercules finished, stepping forward.

When Ananda caught sight of him, she offered a single eye-flick from head to toes and back again. Then we weren’t embracing any longer; she angled her (voluminous) bust toward him. “You’re all quite dirty, aren’t you?”

She had taken on that tone. The encantado voice of seduction.

I needed her to focus—which was admittedly difficult the first time anyone met Hercules. I stepped between them. “We were sent by Roger.”

Ananda, still staring at Hercules, didn’t immediately acknowledge I’d spoken. Then the words processed, and her blue eyes practically leveled me. “You said Roger?”

A fresh tide of hope rose in me. “Do you know who that is?”

Ananda stepped closer to me, lowering her voice. “Roger was supposed to send us a biologist.”

So it was true: Ananda was with the resistance.

“Well”—I patted my chest—“here I am.”

Words didn’t come to her right away. She gave me another once-over, like biologist should be written somewhere on me. “You joined the resistance?” she finally managed.

I nodded. “Apparently you joined, too.”

“I didn’t just join.” She took another step closer, half a foot taller than me in her heels. Her eyes shone down on me with that same intensity I remembered. “I’m the head of the Las Vegas chapter.”

Before I could stop myself, I snorted. “You’re joking.”

Ananda made a face. “Really, Isa?” She rolled her eyes, angled her head to the side. When she flipped her left ear forward, I gasped.

The fish with legs. The same tattoo the centaur Mari had shown me back in New York City.

She wasn’t joking.

“I can’t believe you got a tattoo.” Even though she was wild and spontaneous enough to come to Vegas, she’d always been so particular about her body. It was an encantado thing—at all costs, we avoided tattoos, scars or anything permanent that would persist through our illusions.

She lowered her hand. “When you’ve only got a human’s lifetime left, you’ve got to live a little.” She paused. “And this isn’t just any tattoo.”

I shrugged. “It’s just that your motto when you left Brazil was ‘live fast and leave a beautiful corpse.’ You went to Vegas to forget that the gods had left. You’ve never …”

She pronounced her words with slow, definite enunciation. “I—never—what?”

I knew that tone, too. I straightened, flattening my mouth as best I could. Now wasn’t the time to get into one of our sisterly spats.

She waved a hand through the air. “Anyway.” Her eyes flicked around to reception, where a man was on the phone. “Let’s go.”

Cupid flitted up to our eye level. “Go where?”

“Back to my place.”

“What about that guy?” Justin pointed at the drunk still unconscious on the lobby floor.

“The staff has my back.” She started toward the doors. “Hey Jim, can you take care of that one?”

Over at the reception, one of the guys—presumably Jim—gave her a thumbs-up as we passed out of the lobby. Already two staff had appeared from somewhere and taken hold of both the drunk’s arms and were pulling him away.

I leaned toward Ananda. “Where are they taking him?”

She didn’t look back. “To his room, of course.”

Outside the Bellagio, Ananda turned to us. “Is your car in the lot?”

We all exchanged glances. “We don’t have one,” I said.

Ananda’s eyebrow went up. “How did you get here? By Cupid’s little cloud?” Her fingers wiggled.

I sensed Cupid puffing up next to me, but I raised a hand to stay him. He didn’t know how Ananda was—yet; she was always teasing, always with a finger in the side. “We got a lift here. Don’t you have a car?”

She grinned. “I may have one or two.”

One or two? She didn’t know how many cars she had?

We all watched as Ananda went back inside the Bellagio and returned a few minutes later holding up a pair of car keys.

Cupid narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m guessing those don’t belong to you.”

“Trust me, Mr. Drunk and Handsy won’t miss them for a while. Not after seven gin and tonics.” Ananda started us toward the valet. “Can you please pull this one up, Chad?” she said to the young man.

Chad the valet looked at Ananda like she was a goddess, and those keys were a precious offering. He accepted them with both hands before running off to retrieve the car.

“So we’re just participating in casual theft?” Justin said.

“Apparently so.” Cupid was clearly still miffed about Ananda making fun of his puff.

Ananda pulled out her cellphone and flicked through it, as if this conversation was too dull to garner her full attention. “They’re taking him to his penthouse suite. He won’t wake up until close to noon, and by then I’ll have brought it back. Some of us do have work tomorrow, you know.”

As the silver Hummer purred to a stop in front of us and the valet hopped out, I decided this wasn’t the hill I wanted to die on. That was how good relationships worked, right? Picking and choosing your arguments? Unfortunately, with Ananda there were so many hills it was like navigating a mountain range.

Ananda was already climbing into the driver’s seat. “I do love a car that says something.”

“Me too.” Hercules flung the passenger-side door open. For once he didn’t have to squeeze into a vehicle.

Cupid flew up and pulled the back door open. “This is like, the third car you’ve ridden in in your whole life.”

“Shush.” Hercules tried to pull on his seatbelt, but it was too short to reach all the way across his massive chest. He gave up and leaned toward Ananda as Justin and I got into the back seat with Cupid. “In my day, I captained ships and chariots. I could steer a steed with just my thighs.”

Ananda’s blood-red lips curled. She reached over, set her right hand on the gearstick and shifted it. “You’re going to be lots of fun.” She hit the gas, and we all flew back against our seats as she raced us along the Strip and through downtown Las Vegas.

↔

Ten minutes later, she parked us in a partially empty lot across the street from a low-slung apartment building. The Hummer rolled over one of the largest potholes I’d ever seen like it wasn’t there.

Justin ducked to see out the window. “Is that your place?”

“Sure is.” Ananda turned off the ignition.

“So why don’t we park where you live?” Justin asked.

Ananda sighed and ignored him, gathering her purse and unbuckling her seatbelt. She climbed out and shut the door, leaving the rest of us in silence.

Cupid leaned toward Justin, “Because she stole this car, bro. Parking at her own residence is a recipe for getting arrested.”

Justin pointed at the apartment building. “Even cocktail waitresses at the Bellagio can afford better than this.”

I shrugged. “She’s never been great with money.”

“And this woman’s the head of the resistance in Las Vegas?”

“So she says.”

Justin eyed me. “But you trust her.”

“Yes,” I said. “Do you remember my amulet?”

“The one you gave to your Brazilian stalker back in Montreal?”

The power inside that amulet had represented my second life—a chance to be young one more time. And where I should have felt guilt for giving it away, I only felt pride. The woman I had given it to had deserved it more than I. “Yes, that one. Ananda originally gave it to me, back when we were close.” I crossed two fingers together. “Once upon a time.”

“What happened between you two?”

I stared at Justin with an open mouth. I knew something had happened, but trying to access the memory was like turning a television to a blank station—nothing but white noise. It was a long, long time ago, after all. “I...don’t remember.”

Justin gave me a look like he didn’t believe me, but it was true. I really didn’t remember.

“Isa babe, you coming?” Ananda’s face appeared at the window. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, so the kissy-kissy with your boy toy can wait.”

I waved at her. “Coming.”

We all climbed out and crossed the road. Cupid pointed up at the building’s falling-down gutter. “Is it supposed to hang like that?”

“That’s 2B—not my problem,” Ananda said as we came to the stairwell. “We’re in 2A, sweeties.”

Justin and I met eyes again as she sauntered over to the outer staircase. Hercules and Cupid followed like puppies. “I know—she’s not like me,” I said.

Justin’s eyebrows went up. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“We encantado are like humans, you know. We each have our own personalities. Ananda was always more outgoing, less anxious.”

Justin allowed me to go first up the stairs. “You don’t have to defend the way you are.”

“SIS!” Ananda yelled over the balcony. “Come on.”

Up the creaking stairs, we found the door to 2A wide open and Ananda, Hercules and Cupid standing around a mini-fridge, the inside of which I caught a quick glimpse of before Ananda pressed the door shut with her leg.

Endless alcohol. Long-necked, short-necked, canned and bottled.

The rest of the apartment looked like someone had thrown a little girl’s birthday party and never cleaned up. A hot-pink loveseat sat in one corner, iridescent streamers separating the doorway between the living room and kitchen. And for some reason there was glitter in the carpet.

“Live fast and leave a beautiful corpse,” I murmured as Justin and I stepped inside.

Ananda spun around with a wine bottle in each hand. “Oh brother—or rather, sister. I was so drunk when I said that.”

“You said it more than once.” I closed the door behind us, which was more than just an automatic thing … it was compulsive. Over the last six months, I had gotten into the habit of scanning for all possible entrances and exits. And anything that might be used as a weapon.

“I was drunk a lot in those days.” She uncorked one bottle, upturned it into Hercules’s wine glass. Then did the same for Cupid.

I wandered to the loveseat. “But not anymore?”

“I’m totally clean.” She picked up two more glasses, set them on the low coffee table in front of Justin and me. “This is just for guests.”

Well, that was unexpected. Ananda had never been clean. “I’m good,” I said. Justin didn’t partake, either.

“Are you even allowed to drink?” Justin said to Cupid.

Cupid lowered his glass from his face with a groan. “Must we go over this every time? Don’t you recall Nymphos?”

Justin lifted both hands. “Sorry.”

Cupid huffed. “I’m the oldest GoneGodDamn one in this room, but doomed to be carded for all of eternity.”

Ananda raised a finger. “Just the rest of your mortal life.”

Cupid groaned again and drowned that fresh sorrow in his wine.

“I for one am pleased by my mortality.” Hercules had already finished off his glass and had set it on top of the mini-fridge in favor of drinking directly from the wine bottle. He swung the bottle around toward us, his chains still clinking from his manacled wrists. “It makes each moment precious.”

“Except you were always mortal,” Cupid said. “Even back in antiquity. You never tasted immortality.”

“All right”—Hercules turned to me and Ananda—”were you any happier as immortals than you are as mortals?”

Ananda and I exchanged a glance. I waited for her to respond first, as she always did. She went first, and I went second.

Ananda sat on a high stool at the tiny dining table, crossing her legs. “I’ve always been happy. Happy, happy, happy. Unlike sis here, who is always just that little bit worried.” Before I could respond, she pointed at Hercules. “I want to know all about how you got those chains, and what you like to do with them.”

Typical Ananda, avoiding anything verging on intimacy or vulnerability.

Hercules opened his mouth to answer, but I spoke up. “Sorry to interrupt this philosopical-cum-kinky discussion, but this is serious. Really serious. We’re in trouble with the World Army.”

Ananda gaze drifted over to me, and that hard look came into her eyes again. The same one I’d seen in the lobby when she’d clocked Mr. Drunk and Handsy in the face. She rose, pulled the shades down on both windows in the living room. Then she crossed to the front door, secured the chain and checked the bottom lock. “The first rule is, you don’t call them by their name.”

“What should we call them,” Justin asked, “They Who Shall Not Be Named?”

Cupid shot him a look. “Isa says this is serious, and you’re going all Harry Potter on us?”

I didn’t know what either of them were talking about. “All right. Ananda, the W-A took out the safehouse in New York City. Roger and Selene and Mari? They’re gone.”

Ananda folded her arms and took a deep breath. “I know.”

“You do?”

“The resistance keeps in communication,” Ananda said. “Plus, I watch the news.”

“With everything going on in the world, we made national news?” Justin asked with a groan.

“One thing you can count on: American media loves to feature pretty young arsonists.” Ananda smirked at me and Justin. “Which is why I skedaddled you out of the Bellagio and to my place.”

“Great,” Justin said. “So we can’t show our faces anywhere.”

“Eh, it’s Vegas,” Ananda said. “Just don’t make a spectacle of yourselves, and all the drunks and gamblers won’t look at you twice.”

I sighed and sat back in the loveseat. “At least the W-A isn’t here yet.”

Ananda gazed down at me with a tsk. “They’re everywhere, Isa. Even here.”

Chapter 3

“Whoa there.” Cupid lowered his glass, his mouth purple with wine. “They’re here?”

Ananda swept her hands through the air. “This is asshat central.”

Hercules lowered his wine bottle. “Is this how you’d like us to refer to them? Asshats?”

“Always.” The shadow of Ananda’s smirk appeared. She let out a soft exhale before she grabbed Cupid’s glass and downed the rest of it. When she set it on the table, her eyes unfocused. “Without New York, we’re alone in this.”

“Alone?” Justin and I said together.

“New York and Vegas were the two big outposts in this country. Everything else is just …”—she flitted her fingers like tossing confetti—“scraps.”

“Scraps,” I repeated.

“Just sympathizers. A network of contacts from place to place, but nothing centralized like in Paradise Lot.”

Paradise Lot. The headquarters of the resistance. “Back in New York, Roger wanted me to get to Paradise Lot. To see an angel named Miral.”

Ananda nodded. “She’s the leader over there—the Commander of the Lord’s Army, once upon a time. She’s quite a woman. But it’s not so easy to get from here to there.”

An entire ocean separated us.

“I’ve pulled together as much as I can here,” Ananda continued, “but it’s hard to sift the chaff from the wheat in Vegas. Anyone could be an asshat.” She took a deep breath. “So that’s the state of things. And now they’re after my little sister.”

Her little sister. That tiny note of protectiveness sent a flutter through my chest, just as it always had. “I need your help, Ana.”

As soon as I used that tone, her eyes flicked to me. Hundreds of years of kinship had that effect. “Why are the asshats interested in you?”

“Because of my studies.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What did you study?”

“It’s not important. The point is—”

Ananda raised a hand. “I think it is important.”

So I explained it all. How, after the gods left, I’d enrolled as a biology student at McGill so I could research Other DNA, which was different from human DNA. Where the human DNA helix bore two strands, Others had three. It was the third strand that I was attempting to map, under the guidance of the World Army’s lead scientist, Serena Russo. And if I managed to do that …

Ananda gasped. “Isa, are you oathbound?”

I stopped mid-sentence, staring back at her like I had been caught. “How would you know that?”

“I’ve seen you oathbound before, remember?” She ticked a finger back and forth at me. “It’s that look in your eyes, like you could put a hole in the wall. I’ve rarely seen you so intent except when you’re oathbound.”

I swallowed. Everyone was staring at me, and I hadn’t yet told the others about my oath to Serena. I wasn’t ready to tell them, to explain myself. At the very least, Justin would be upset with me, and I couldn’t handle that right now. “No, I’m not.”

Ananda gave me a hard stare, and I gave her a look in return that said, “Please don’t say anything.”

“My mistake,” Ananda murmured, letting me off the hook … for now. My chest loosened as I resumed breathing. “I get it—you’re so intent to finish your research because you want to be a mother.”

Nossa Senhora. She had let me think I was free of her scrutiny, only to pin me harder against the wall. A flush started at my neck, and I resisted touching my belly. Serena’s words rang anew—“Soon we shall share the burden of motherhood.” Was it even possible to impregnate an Other, given where Serena was at in her research? Or had she used me like a guinea pig, testing a theory? Which brought me back to the thought that had been running through my head for hours: I needed to find a pregnancy test.

“I’m not doing it just to be a mother,” I said.

“You always wanted that,” Ananda said. “After Hinata and her boy.”

Hinata. My best friend and the first human who’d taught me to really trust. I’d loved her and her son … until they were killed because of me.

Even thinking about Hinata hurt. And right now, I just wanted to keep my head long enough to say what I had to say.

This was how it went with Ananda and me. Every conversation felt like an interrogation, and she was always doing the interrogating.

“Others need a future,” I said. “As it stands, entire species are poised to die out within the next seventy or eighty years. Unless we can procreate. We have all the parts, they just … don’t work.”

Or maybe they do, with the right manipulation.

Ananda nodded. “A fact which I’ve taken advantage of a time or two. Or three.” She winked at Hercules, whose eyebrows went up over his second bottle of wine. She had always been irreverent that way when things got heavy—especially when they got heavy. It was her means of deflection.

Justin leaned forward. “The … asshats have been splicing their soldiers with Other DNA. They’re desperate for Isa to finish her research so they can gain complete control over Others.”

Ananda eyed him as though seeing Justin for the first time. “And you’re one of them.”

He straightened. “I’m not with them.”

“You don’t move entirely like a human.”

I had forgotten about that particular quirk of hers. “Ananda is a fighter,” I explained. “She’s attuned to how people move.”

“And everything about how you move tells me that you”—Ananda pointed a red fingernail at Justin—“were human, but now you aren’t. Not completely.”

Justin sat still. I could tell he was uncertain how to respond, whether she would lambast him for his species.

“He’s not with them anymore,” I said. “He’s with us. He sacrificed to help the resistance … more than once.” He had nearly died for me more times than I cared to count right now. Certainly more than I could list on one hand.

“Good.” Ananda’s blue eyes returned to me. “There’s something else. I can see it on your too-pale face. That really isn’t your best look, Isa.”

I sighed, shifted to an olive-skinned brunette of the same size and musculature so my clothes wouldn’t fit me any differently. “Better?”

“Change your illusion every time you leave this apartment,” she said. “At least until I get you your placement.”

“My placement?”

“You’re the biologist the resistance sent me, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes …” I began.

“If you’re what we’ve got, then you’ll have to do.”

That stung. It sounded like I was a pale approximation of what Ananda had been hoping for. I leaned forward, petulance entering my voice. “Do for what, exactly?”

Her hands folded to fists beneath the table. “The Other extermination event.”

↔

A pall fell over the room, and Cupid spat out his wine. “Can’t a demigod catch a break?”

Justin leaned closer to me, which was the first nice feeling I’d felt since entering Ananda’s apartment. His initial instinct upon hearing about the “Other extermination event” was to move closer to me—his Other girlfriend. “Tell me that’s not what it sounds like,” he said.

Ananda took a long, deep breath.

Cupid pointed at her. “That sigh means it’s exactly what it sounds like.”

Hercules swung his wine bottle wide. “Extermination? Well, it sounds like the only thing for us to do is drink and f—”

A tremendous yelling echoed through the window, coming from the street below. And it wasn’t precisely yelling so much as a deep and mournful lowing, like a depressed cow. And when it tapered off, it was followed by, “Hey yo, Ananda!”

Ananda and I met eyes before she rose, turned toward the window. She peeked through the shades before groaning and flattening herself against the wall. “Not this again.”

“I saw you looking,” a man’s voice called out.

I rose and crossed toward the window. When I went to look, Ananda swatted my hand away. “Don’t encourage him!”

Cupid was already at the other window, his whole body hidden behind the shade. “There’s a minotaur down there. And he has a boombox.”

“Is that a chubby boy you’ve got up there?” the minotaur called out. “Wait, is that the Cupid impersonator from the Strip? And you brought him back to your place?”

Cupid scoffed. “I prefer pleasantly plump.”

“Now you’ve done it.” Ananda sighed, patted her blonde curls. She reached to the shade over the window I was at, yanked it so hard it rose high and spun a few times around the roll at the top. She shoved the window up and leaned out. “What do you want, Johnny?”

Justin and I crowded behind Ananda. Hercules—who had at some point acquired a leg of chicken from the kitchen and was quickly demolishing it—peered out the other window with Cupid.

Down below stood exactly what Cupid had described: a minotaur with a large black boombox. He gazed up at us, his ebony horns jutting out two feet at either side of his head. His huge, muscular body was covered in a brown mane, one arm wrapped around the boombox on his shoulder. His septum was pierced with a big gold ring, and apparently his name was Johnny.

“One of my exes,” Ananda whispered to me. “Very persistent.”

“I just wanted to say …” Johnny fumbled with the boombox. Finally, a song I didn’t recognize started playing. But it sounded thin and garbled beneath the street noise, so he had to turn the dial.

“Is that friggin’ ‘In Your Eyes?’ ” Justin said. “He stole that from that movie.” He snapped his fingers several times as he searched his memory. “That’s right. He’s John Cusack from Say Anything. Iconic scene.”

Ananda wasn’t impressed. “You stole that song from a movie! A shitty one, at that.”

“Actually, it was pretty good,” I said.

Ananda ignored me.

So did Johnny, because he shouted up, “I just wanted to say I love you.”

“And I once loved you,” Ananda shot back. “But that’s the thing about love—sometimes it ends.”

I stared at Ananda. Here was my encantado sister, the head of the Las Vegas resistance, doing what she’d always done best, better than I ever had or could: outright rejecting the people she didn’t want in her life.

And owning that choice.

Johnny kept standing there as the song played out, as though it could speak for him. I saw faces peering out the windows of the other apartments.

“We’re drawing a lot of attention,” I whispered.

Cupid’s wings fluttered. “What should we do now?”

“Hey.” Johnny pointed up at Hercules in the window. “Who the hell’s that? Did you bring friggin’ Fabio to your apartment, too?”

“Who is this Fabio?” Hercules dropped his bare chicken leg bone and gathered up one of his chains. Evidently, he’d taken the comparison as an insult. “I can send this bovine creature away, if you like.”

Ananda waved him off. “The sentiment’s appreciated, but that won’t be necessary.” She leaned farther out the window. “Johnny, if you don’t leave I’m going to have to get the cops back out here.”

Back out here? As in, again? When Justin and I met eyes, I could tell we’d had the same thought.

“Just one minute,” Johnny said. “Give me one minute to talk to you.”

Ananda folded her arms. “No.”

He didn’t seem prepared for that response. The song kept playing, and he adjusted the boombox on his shoulder. “Then give me back my pants.”

“What pants?” Ananda said.

“The ones I left in the bedroom. My Wranglers.”

Ananda slapped her hands on the windowsill. “Seriously?”

His great black nostrils widened as he huffed. “You reject me, I want my pants. They’re my favorite.”

Cupid shrugged. “Every man is entitled to his favorite pair of pants.”

“Minotaur. He’s a minotaur,” Ananda corrected with a glare as she swept toward the dimly lit bedroom and rustled around.

“She’s getting your pants,” I called down.

“Who are you?” Johnny called up.

“Her sister,” I called back.

“You look nothing alike.”

I shrugged. “Different fathers.” Which wasn’t actually true—we didn’t have fathers. Encantados aren’t born. We are … well, were created. And we had both been created by the goddess Yemoja.

“Sure, whatever,” Johnny said.

We all went silent. The song kept playing through the parking lot.

A minute later, Ananda rushed out with a pair of jeans and threw them through the window. They fluttered down to the parking lot and landed in a wad in front of Johnny. “There’s your GoneGodDamn Wranglers.” Then she pulled the window shut and yanked down the shade.

When she turned and folded her arms, the song kept playing five, ten more seconds—just barely audible through the glass—before it stopped.

“He’s leaving,” Cupid said from the other window. “Those horns are hanging pretty low.”

Ananda slid a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from somewhere in her dress, lit one as she crossed to the loveseat. “I don’t have time for him.”

I turned after her. “Now, or ever?”

“I don’t have time for a relationship.” She sat, took a long puff. As she exhaled, she surveyed Justin, Hercules and Cupid. “Anyway, I guess you three will do.” Another of her talents: changing the topic of conversation on a dime. Whatever Ananda wanted to talk about was what we were talking about.

Period.

“We’ll do for what?” Justin asked.

Ananda tipped her cigarette toward the ashtray on the coffee table. “You’re part of the resistance now, aren’t you?”

It felt like the question applied to me, too, as we all looked around at one another. Yes, we had been working with them since Egya told me to find them in New York City, but always as contacts. As peripherals to their organization. Like associates, or contractors. And we’d always been too busy running or fighting for our lives to truly articulate our alignment.

As one—and for the first time—I saw Justin, Hercules and Cupid realize we were a part of this. Together.

We were the resistance.

Ananda had seen it, too. “Don’t get all teary now, Isa. We’ve only got two weeks, after all.”

I wiped my cheek. “Two weeks?”

Ananda lifted two fingers. “Yes, two. We have this many weeks for you to prevent the asshats from killing every Other living in this city.”

And just like that, things had gotten really real.

Chapter 4

“So,” Cupid said as we stood in the living room, “I vote we do a little dance, make a little love … then get the heck outta Vegas.”

“I agree with the first two,” Hercules said. “But I find I’m fond of this city already. The lights, the loudness—the company. As for extermination, I shall stay and fight. A thousand men and monsters have attempted to exterminate me, and they have only succeeded once.”

Now I could tell we were all curious. “Once?” I said.

“A poisoned cloak, given to me by my jealous wife,” Hercules said. “My third wife. Never marry three times.” He wagged a finger at all of us. “Find the right one the first time.”

I hadn’t known about the circumstances around Hercules’s death. After all those battles, the demigod had been brought down by a piece of cloth. He had actually died, unlike the rest of us. And yet here he was, unafraid.

It embarrassed me to acknowledge, even to myself, that I had initially agreed with Cupid. In fact, leaving Vegas had sounded downright wonderful. Old me wouldn’t have bothered to say anything; she would have rolled out of the city the second she heard “Other extinction event” leave Ananda’s lips. But old me wasn’t me. Not anymore. She was just a shadow.

I guess the six people you spend the most time around really do rub off on you. Hercules especially so.

I turned to Ananda. “How can they possibly kill that many Others? They’re just going to roll in here with tanks?” And why does the resistance need a biologist’s help? I thought but didn’t ask.

Ananda shook her head. “Oh, it’s far more elegant than that. They won’t need to use a single tank or bullet.”

We all stood close as Ananda explained how the extermination event would go.

“It’s the World Government’s experiment. They want to bring us to our knees—or our backs, in this case—with as little blood shed as possible. Enter OtherX.”

“Nobody ends anything in X and means well,” Cupid said. “They just don’t.”

“That sounds like some sort of chemical compound,” I said.

“Well done, my little scientist,” Ananda said. “It’s a compound that only interacts with the biology of magic users. Once it’s inhaled or tasted, it forces a quick-burn of all their magic in a single go, aging them to death within a few hours.” She swept her hands together as if clapping away dust. “Easy.”

“That doesn’t sound easy,” Cupid said. “They’ve got to get 300,000 Others to ingest it.”

I stared at my sister. “It’s the easiest thing in the world.”

She gazed back at me knowingly, waiting for me to finish my thought.

“You rain it from the sky,” I said. “Or send it through the water system.”

She pointed at me. “Bingo.”

“Why Vegas?” Justin said.

“I’m sure you noticed the Make Earth Ours Again rally going on. Here in Vegas, Otherism is a thing,” Ananda said. “They just don’t give a damn about them, or their fate. So it’s as good a city as any to test out OtherX. And if it works here, they’ll take it worldwide.”

“How can they possibly do that?” I asked. “They can’t get away with it.”

“They got away with releasing serial killers into Montreal,” Justin said.

Ananda looked surprised. “Oh?”

“The asshats wanted to inspire fear of Others,” Justin said. “So they called two monsters from Greek mythology into our city: Empusa and the stymphalian birds.”

Hercules growled. “Those birds were mine to slay.”

“Isa and I killed them,” Justin said. “But not before they killed a number of humans and put our campus on lockdown.”

Ananda sighed. “Brilliant. And psychopathic.”

“World Government 101,” Cupid said, going for his next glass of wine.

“What happened in Montreal is different,” I said. “I still don’t understand how they can kill 300,000 Others in one go and get away with it.”

“You’ve always been a little naïve, sister,” Ananda said. This piqued me, as she knew it would, but I held my tongue. “Money is power. And they’ve got gobs of it, courtesy of a whole bunch of new taxpayers post-GrandExodus.” She indicated herself.

“But how will they explain all these deaths?”

She shrugged. “It’ll be a bizarre Other biological reaction to something in the Nevada air. A new compound that was sprayed on lawns and—whoops—killed all the Others. Scientists will study it. The city will swear off its use on their lawns. Bigwigs will pretend to care.”

“It’ll be like the Taylor oil spill,” Justin murmured.

I glanced up at him, shocked. “You know about that?” As a biologist, I had studied it in more than one of my classes—but it certainly wasn’t mainstream knowledge. And for good reason: the Taylor oil spill happened off the coast of Louisiana in 2004, and because they never knew how to fix it, it had been releasing hundreds of gallons of oil into the Gulf for years. It was a disaster for the marine life, for human life, for the whole area. But if the world really knew how big of a disaster it was, it would cut into Big Oil’s profit margins. So they had hushed the whole thing up.

“I heard about it in one of my classes. The company padded it over with money,” Justin says. “But my science professor is an oceanographer. She was horrified.”

“We can only be horrified for so long,” Ananda said, “before it dulls away into fatigue.”

She was right. Compassion fatigue was a thing, but it also applied to the spectrum of emotions. We could only feel them so strongly, so brightly, for a limited time, like a flare shot into the dark. Eventually, we all came down. Six months of living in fear had taught me that.

But I still didn’t know why Ananda had shifted the conversation that way. “What are you saying?”

“We need to be clear-eyed and judicious,” she said. “Each of us has a purpose in this new world, the thing that drives us. This is mine—the fight I choose to fight, here in Vegas. It’s the one horror I choose to look at straight on.”

I understood; the Taylor oil spill was one among thousands of unconscionable things in this GoneGod World. If she diverted her gaze from her purpose in Vegas, she might lose her edge.

I had focused on the horror of Other extinction in the same way. If we couldn’t procreate, we would be the last generation of Others to walk this Earth. Changing that fate was my purpose.

“But why me?” I said. “Why a biologist?” I said.

Ananda gazed at me. “Because you’re exactly what Las Vegas needs to fight this.”

↔

There in the living room, I refocused on her. “Me?” Then, when Ananda just kept staring at me, “You don’t need a biologist—you need a chemist.”

She shrugged. “What’s the difference, really? We need a scientist.”

“There’s a big difference,” I said. “For one thing, I don’t study chemical compounds. I study anatomy.”

Her hands went out as though she couldn’t be asked to explain any of this. “Listen, that’s what Sparkle called for.”

“Sparkle?” Justin and I said together.

“You’ll be meeting soon enough,” Ananda said. “Any description I give you wouldn’t do your benefactor justice, anyway. You know those larger-than-life sorts you have to meet to really understand.”

“Tell me what you and this Sparkle need me to do,” I said.

“We need you to figure out how OtherX interacts with our biology. And we need you to create a counteragent.”

Oh, that was all.

I took a deep breath. “I understand now why you need a biologist.” Whoever this Sparkle was, he understood that he needed a biologist who could pinpoint which part of our DNA the OtherX was targeting—which meant figuring out where magic existed along the third strand of the helix. “I … I would need samples. I would need to get my hands on the OtherX.”

“We can get you that,” Ananda said as simply as if I had asked for a glass of water.

“How?” I said. “The World … I mean”—I finally gave in to the nickname— “the asshats must have it on extra-tight lockdown.”

“Knowing them, they definitely do,” Justin said.

“They do.” Her smirk appeared. “But Sparkle knows someone who knows someone on the inside.”

“Does Sparkle work for a university?” I said hopefully.

Ananda snorted. “Afraid not, Ms. Ivy League. But you will have access to top-notch facilities.”

“What kind of facilities?” I said, wary.

“Meth facilities.”

Silence fell.

Justin cleared his throat. “Are they in an RV?”

He was overlapped by Cupid bursting into a round of clapping. “Oh boy,” he said with the least excitement I’d ever heard from him. “I can’t wait.”

Ananda’s blue eyes flicked to Cupid. “You won’t be at the meth lab, sweetheart.”

“If you think I’m going to work the Strip …” Cupid began.

“Oh no.” Ananda waved a hand. “Your unique talents will be put to much better use inside the Bellagio. All three of you.”

Hercules perked. “Tell me more.”

“You three can’t live with me rent-free. You’ve got to earn your way,” Ananda explained. “So I’m going to get you work at the hotel. Justin, you’ll be a dealer. Hercules, you’ll be the best-paid security they’ve ever had.”

Cupid looked grim. “And me?”

Ananda smirked.

Cupid fluttered back. “Don’t you give me that look.”

She lifted an innocent hand to her chest. “Moi?”

“You’re going to make me into a living ornament, aren’t you? I’m going to have to giggle.”

“Well,” she said slowly, “you won’t have to giggle all the time. Just when the customers are around.”

“Which will be all the time!” Cupid’s chubby hands went up in the air. “I refuse.”

“You don’t even know the details,” Ananda said.

“He’s really particular about this sort of thing,” I explained to Ananda. “He doesn’t like being made fun of.”

“They’ll find you charming,” Ananda said. “Especially when you take selfies with them.”

Cupid turned to me. “I refuse.”

“All right, it was fun teasing the toddler, but let’s get serious,” Ananda said to the other three. “These jobs are just covers for what I actually need from you.”

“Which is what?” Cupid said skeptically, not turning back around.

“Finding a murderer,” Ananda said in a low voice. “Or maybe multiple murderers. We’re not sure yet.”

“A murderer at the Bellagio?” Justin asked.

Ananda crossed to the coffee table and picked up a newspaper. She passed it to Justin. “Near the Bellagio. The thing is, there have been isolated OtherX attacks going on for weeks now. Tests, most likely.”

Justin studied the article on the front page. “This isn’t about OtherX murders. This is about Others committing suicide using some crazy drug that burns all their magic.”

Ananda’s hands found the seat of her hips, and she gave him a look.

Cupid cleared his throat. “That’s code for murders, buddy.”

Ananda set a finger on the paper. “And they’ve all occurred on the Strip.”

“So what you’re saying,” Hercules said, “is that I will wear the uniform of a protector, and I will be protecting the citizenry at large.”

“Basically,” Ananda said. “We’ve had no luck pinpointing a suspect, but given you’re a former super soldier for the asshats and you two are demigods, maybe we’ll be able to catch whoever this is.”

I met eyes with Cupid. He still looked a little skeptical, so I turned to Ananda. “Can we have tonight to talk it over?”

She rose in one elegant motion, crossing toward the bedroom. “Of course. You all can use the shower—it’s through the bedroom—and sleep in the living room. Oh!” She retreated into the kitchen, rustled around and came back with cellphones that she passed to each of us. “I keep a stash of these for emergencies. Nothing fancy, but they’re better than using your local library’s computer.”

I accepted the cellphone. “Thanks, Ana.”

“Anything for you, sister.” Though that wasn’t strictly true—she wanted our help, and she was being exceptionally accommodating, given what I knew about her and her personal space.

“Um.” I raised a finger, gestured toward Hercules. “Do you have anything to get those manacles off?”

She glanced at the chains dangling from Hercules’s wrists. “I have some bolt cutters. Pity, though—I wanted to see what he could do with those chains.”

Hercules stepped toward her with a jingle. “I can keep them … for tonight.”

She lingered there for a long moment, but turned away. “Maybe when you’re cleaner.”

Hercules actually leaned toward her as she disappeared into the bedroom as though he was drawn by an invisible force. Man, the encantado power of seduction was one thing to embody and entirely another to witness. We were some potent Others when we wanted to be.

An hour later, we had all taken (separate) showers and sat with clean skin and wet hair in the living room. Hercules, who hadn’t actually needed the bolt cutters, had simply torn the manacles from his wrists like they were paper bracelets. Ananda had closed the bedroom door, so it was just the four of us.

Justin broke the ice. “A meth lab, huh?”

“It’s apparently excellent,” I said quietly.

“Excellent at creating meth,” Justin said. “You know what they’ll expect.”

“I know.” Maybe they’d want me helping with their meth production, but at the very least, they’d require complete silence about their operation. I really didn’t want to get tangled up with drug dealers.

Hercules rubbed his wrists. “This seems below you, Isa.”

He wasn’t wrong. This went against everything I believed in—aiding the drug crisis in this country (and worldwide)—but I also knew I had to do it. Two weeks in this lab would be more time to devote to my research than I’d had in six months. And for once, we wouldn’t be so worried about being captured or murdered by the World Army.

Plus, there was also the fact of saving 300,000 innocent Others.

“This is a huge commitment,” I began. “I’ll understand—“

“I’m with you,” Justin said.

“As am I,” said Hercules.

Cupid said nothing. He folded his arms. “I’ll do it. As long as you don’t let her turn me into one of those frou-frou cherubs.”

“What?” I said.

“I saw the way she looked at me, like I was a gold nugget.” Cupid pointed two fingers between his eyes and mine. “She’s going to make me float around in my puff and giggle.”

“Which part do you object to?” Hercules asked. “The floating or the giggling?”

“ALL OF IT!” Cupid exclaimed.

I raised a finger to my lips. “Ana’s sleeping.”

“All of it,” Cupid whisper-shouted. “I’m not going to become like Philia and Agape, decorating that rich lady’s mansion.”

“It’s just a cover, remember?” Justin said.

Cupid’s lips had folded to a straight white line. “Why do you two get respectable jobs and I have to be the clown?” This was obviously touching a real nerve with him.

“What is it, Cupid?” I said.

“Cupid of Eros was always looked down upon as the clownish cherub of the three,” Hercules said. “The buffoon.”

“You won’t be made a fool of,” I said softly. “None of us think of you that way.”

Cupid harrumphed.

“Say.” Hercules lifted a finger. “How much did Ananda say the Bellagio would compensate us for our work?”

Justin shrugged. “You mean our non-work? Probably pretty decently.”

Cupid huffed and pulled his phone out of his loincloth. “I’ll tell you right now,” he said as he touched the screen, “it’s not going to be enough.”

“What are you doing with the tiny glowing box?” Hercules asked.

Cupid didn’t lift his eyes. “I’m looking up wages at the Bellagio on Glassdoor.”

I turned to Justin, and before I could say anything, he said to me, “Do you think Ananda would let me use that phone?”

I followed his gaze to a regular landline phone in the corner, a spiral cord jutting from the receiver. It looked about twenty years old. “I don’t think she would mind. Who are you going to call?”

“My parents,” he said, but the look in his eyes wasn’t the look you got when you thought about calling your parents. Parents brought on softness, wistfulness, a sad wholesomeness. The look in Justin’s eyes was of conflicted hope and anxiety. Kat, I thought but didn’t say. That was the look he got when he thought about Kat.

But now wasn’t the time to ask.

“Sure,” I said. “Go ahead.”

“Holy guacamole.” Cupid slapped his free hand on his leg. “I’ll do it.”

My gaze returned to him. “You’ll do what?”

“I’ll do the whole two weeks at the Bellagio. Flying around in the puff, shooting the arrows, selfies with the customers.”

“It’s just a cover,” I repeated. “You’re actually going to be working with Ananda to hunt down the OtherX killer.”

Cupid waved a hand through the air. “Whatever. As long as I get paid. The money is unreal.”

Good to know Cupid had his priorities straight.

Chapter 5

Early the next morning, Justin, Hercules and Cupid took a bus to the Bellagio, where Ananda had told them they would “start training.” I didn’t know if that meant legitimate training or something to do with their undercover roles, but I didn’t ask.

I was too focused on my own personal hurdle. Meeting “Sparkle.”

When the apartment door shut behind them, Ananda looked me up and down. She took a long sip from her mug of coffee. “That outfit will not do.”

I glanced down. I was wearing my backup clothes: the same dirt-encrusted jacket, t-shirt, jeans and boots I’d spent much of the past six months in. When you’re on the run, you become super minimalist. And a little smelly. “Won’t do for what?”

“To meet your benefactor.” Ananda took my hand, led me into her bedroom. “Your access to the lab counts on this, so you’ll want to make the right impression.”

Despite the size of her apartment, she had a wide closet. When she opened the doors, a rainbow of clothes spilled onto the carpet. “Pick something with carnation pink as one of the accent colors.”

I stood among all the clothes. I had to admit, even though I’d always been a cerebral encantado who loved science, there was another reason I had taken on the illusion of Katrina Darling (besides wanting to know what it would feel like to kiss Justin).

The girl had a great sense of style.

“And,” Ananda said before she disappeared into the bathroom, “change your illusion to something more stereotypically girlish.”

Stereotypically girlish. So my benefactor oversaw the production of meth and liked his workers in carnation pink. I could see exactly where this was going. I already didn’t like the guy, whoever he was.

But it was only two weeks. Two crucial weeks.

I sifted through the clothes and found a soft-pink, sleeveless dress that cinched at the waist and hung to below my knees. Elegant, unassuming, sweet. And also a size two, which meant I’d have to pick the right illusion to match. With over twelve thousand at my disposal—hey, when you’re a five-hundred-year-old magical being who can take on any appearance you like, any time, you take advantage of that—I had a whole lot of size twos to pick from.

For me, picking an illusion was like sorting through the closet of my mind. I remembered each one of them with crystal clarity, because at one point (and sometimes for long stretches) I had been those faces. Those women.

Within a few minutes, I had found the right one. The thing about changing my illusion in the GoneGod World was this: while I had to burn two months off the end of my life to create an entirely new illusion, I only had to burn a few seconds to bring back an old one. Practically negligible; I’d just need to eat more veggies to make up for it.

Not entirely scientific, but it made me feel better about burning time.

As I stood in front of the mirror, my brown hair shimmered over to a strawberry blonde as though it had caught the light. My skin lightened, eyes gleaming over to a pale blue, my features refining to something elven, girlish.

When my body had shrunk to the young woman’s willowy shape, my clothes practically hung on me. I changed into the pink dress, which fit like it was made for my (new) body. Last of all, I slipped El Lobizon’s claw into the waistband of my dress. With all the folds, you couldn’t even tell I was hiding a sharp-edged weapon.

Ananda came out of the bathroom, stopped with her hand over her toweled chest. “Girl, you scared the crap out of me. When you haven’t lived around encantado for a while, you forget.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ve always wanted to be a creepy blonde girl trying on your clothes in your bedroom.”

She surveyed my appearance. “You did nail it.”

“The creepiness?”

“The illusion. You look like my innocent younger sister.”

I half-smiled. “That’s what I am, right?”

She side-eyed me, sweeping around the bed and grabbing up a dress. “Younger, yes. Innocent … well, I’ve seen the way that human and that enormous demigod look at you. And how you look at them. The only thing innocent about that is the fact that you’re only looking.”

A flush touched my neck. Before I could figure out what to say, she pointed at the vanity. “Do your hair and makeup. We’ve got to be there in fifteen minutes.”

Ten minutes later, we rushed out of Ananda’s apartment and to the Hummer still parked in the lot across the street. As we climbed in, I turned to her. “How in the hell are we going to get there in five minutes?”

Ananda threw her arm over the passenger-side headrest, backed us up with a jerk. “Sister, you seem to have forgotten my driving skills of last night.”

As she pulled us out of the lot and narrowly avoided being t-boned by a sports car, I did the mom thing—then, and for the rest of our wild ride.

I grabbed the passenger-side door handle and screamed.

Four minutes and thirty-eight seconds later, we pulled into the half-circle driveway of the nicest restaurant I’d ever seen. It had steps up to double front doors, a colonnaded entry and, in the driveway, a fountain bigger than my dorm room, atop which eight tiny Cupids urinated water to its lower tiers.

Ananda slipped out, threw the keys over the car’s roof to the valet. He stepped up to open my door before he went around to the driver’s side.

“Ana,” I said, still breathless as she hooked her arm into mine and we high-heeled it up the red-carpeted steps, “the Hummer … The guy at the Bellagio …”

“It’s eight in the morning.” She flashed the doorman a dazzling smile as he pulled the handle and cool air swept out from the entryway. We didn’t even pause in our steps. “Trust me—that guy won’t be up until one at the earliest. I’ve got it down to a science.”

Inside, the main room rose twenty feet to a cupola ceiling, both side walls nothing but floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Every round table bore an elegant ivory cloth, and every high-backed chair was padded in red satin.

As a topper, we were greeted by a maitre d’ in a penguin suit. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so out of place.

“Good morning,” Ananda said. “Sparkle party.”

The maitre d’s eyebrows lowered, and he bowed. “Of course. This way.” His hand went out, and he led us through the half-full restaurant. Around us, rich people drank mimosas and ate scones off five-tiered silver platters.

As we walked, Ananda took my hand and whispered, “Don’t turn down the cookies.”

“Why? What if I’m not hungry?”

“Just eat the cookie.” She shot me a severe, sisterly look. “Throw it up later if you have to.”

“Sure,” I said. “Eat the cookie. Got it.”

We threaded past all the tables toward the back of the restaurant. At the far end, we passed through a curtain and came into the equivalent of a sunroom with two couches, a coffee table with a tea spread and a chandelier tray full of delicacies, and several armchairs set around it.

There, standing in the shadows and looking out over the too-green lawn, was my new boss. The drug lord.

“Ms. Sparkle, your party has arrived,” said the maitre d’, gesturing us forward.

Ms. Sparkle?

We stepped in, and my benefactor turned around. “Ananda!”

I stopped hard.

My benefactor was a drug lady.

↔

There under the sunlight stood the most fabulous woman I’d seen in a long time. Her light-brown hair had been drawn around and up into a bun at the back, not a strand astray. A pair of simple, pin-straight gold earrings hung an inch off her earlobes, and the hands that she set on Ananda’s arms glittered with rings.

She might have been in her forties or her fifties—it was hard to tell. Her high cheekbones shimmered with powder under the light, full lips adorned with a pastel pink. And she had uncommon violet eyes beneath long, dark lashes.

She literally dwarfed Ananda—not in height, but in width. That was in part thanks to the flowing blue shawl that swept from her body like a cape, but also her literal width. But her size seemed to suit her; her white shirt and black trousers and kitten-heeled pale shoes were all perfect. Perfectly tailored, perfectly suited to her.

“Julia, how are you?” Ana crossed to the center of the room, where she and my benefactress kissed each other on both cheeks.

“I’m better now that you’re here.” Ms. Sparkle’s voice was gravelly, full of emotion and gravitas and the odd, comforting sense that she would bring me warm milk if I were ill. She sounded completely, effortlessly sincere. That was a rarity for anyone. I wanted to like her already. Her violet eyes shifted to me. “Oh, aren’t you darling!”

Ananda’s hand went out toward me, and I stepped forward, feeling out of my depth (and socioeconomic class). “This is my sister. She’s the biologist we need. Isabella, this is Ms. Sparkle.”

“I like you already.” Ms. Sparkle clasped my hand in both of hers. For some reason I hadn’t expected her palms to be so warm. “Please, have a seat so we can get to know each other.”

The two of us sat opposite Ms. Sparkle, who arrayed herself on the facing sofa. As soon as she had, a white bichon frise jumped onto the cushion next to her. With one spin to tamp down the pillow, it promptly settled by her side, two black eyes gazing at me from the mass of white curls like it could penetrate my innermost thoughts.

A server I hadn’t even noticed hovering in the shadows stepped forward and began pouring us all tea from a steaming pot.

Ms. Sparkle set one bejeweled hand to the top of the tall display of treats between us, gave it a small turn. “Take as many as you like. I recommend the sugar cookies.”

Ananda was unusually silent beside me; in fact, she hadn’t spoken since our introduction. Was she intimidated, too? But her voice sounded in my head: “Don’t turn down the cookies.”

I smiled, picked up a small serving dish and lifted two sugar cookies from the chandelier of treats.

“Tell me, Isabella,” Ms. Sparkle said, “what kind of biologist are you?”

According to Ananda, this woman was a resistance sympathizer. She was going to procure me the OtherX, after all. She deserved honesty.

“I’m a geneticist.”

Ms. Sparkle’s manicured eyebrows rose as she dropped a sugar square into her tea. The bichon frise kept staring at me. “Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Tell me about your work.”

“I’ve been studying Other DNA, if you’re familiar with that.”

She smiled as she lifted her tea. “Mildly. I know the human genetic code involves a double helix.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Unlike humans, Others have three strands on that helix. That third strand has remained unmapped throughout history.”

Her eyes twinkled. “Until you.”

“Until me.” I paused. “Well, I’ve finished about three-fourths of it. I need to finish mapping the rest.” It didn’t quite work that way, but for non-scientific people, giving them a percentage eased their souls. And from the way Ms. Sparkle nodded, I knew I was right to present it that way.

“Why Other DNA?” she asked.

That question, though a natural follow-up to what I’d just said, came so swiftly it took me off guard. My gaze shifted at once to Ananda, but she was busy stuffing sugar cookies in her mouth.

Ms. Sparkle redirected my attention back to herself. “Ananda hasn’t said anything.” Her bichon frise lifted its head slightly, staring at me. “So, let me repeat myself. Why are you mapping Other DNA?”

I pursed my lips, looking for a truth while keeping my truth hidden. “For all the same reasons human scientists studied their genetics. To cure diseases, to know more about homo sapiens.”

A tiny curl appeared at one side of Ms. Sparkle’s mouth. She lowered her cup to her lap. “That’s not why you’re here in Las Vegas. You’re far, far from home, asking me for the use of my lab.”

“Asking for the use of” your lab? Wasn’t I called for by the resistance?

Despite the casual softness of the room, I realized I was sitting bolt upright. Ms. Sparkle was like the mother whose respect you wanted to earn with your posture. “You all asked for a biologist,” I murmured. “I was sent here.”

“That’s true,” Ms. Sparkle said. “But clearly your research dovetails with our needs. And I assume you’ll want to continue your work in our facilities.”

“How would you know that?”

“I can see it in your eyes.” Ms. Sparkle took a small sip from her cup, lowered it. “A fervor, a need. I want to know why.”

“Curiosity,” I said slowly. It was easier to allow my gaze to travel over the pastries on the table than meet Ms. Sparkle’s scrutinizing eyes. “I’ve always been curious about Other DNA.”

The bichon frise let out a bark so sharp I flinched.

Ms. Sparkle set her hand on the dog’s head. “Edward knows you’re lying.”

Beside me, Ananda remained silent.

“That’s the truth,” I said.

Edward barked again.

Ms. Sparkle took a long, thoughtful sip from her cup. When she set it down on the table, she gazed at me with those gorgeous violet eyes. “I don’t mind working with Others, darling, but liars I can’t abide by. It’s bad for my circle, and for business.”

“Your circle?”

Ms. Sparkle traced a circle in the air in front of her. “I only spend time with people who help me grow. You know that saying—you are the six people you spend the most time around? It’s the truth.”

Even though I was being interrogated, and even though I was technically way, way older than Ms. Sparkle, a small, eager part of me decided she wanted to be Ms. Sparkle when she grew up. In that moment, I had almost forgotten she was a drug lady.

“Tell her exactly why you’re here,” Ananda whispered. She didn’t sound afraid, precisely, but stern and clipped.

My eyes flicked to the server in the corner.

“Oh, don’t worry, dear,” Ms. Sparkle said. “I’ve paid him well.”

“I’m here to help the resistance,” I said. “I need to stop the World Army event, and I can’t do that without continuing my research.”

Ms. Sparkle laughed. “Oh, you think I didn’t know that. Why do you believe you’re here, if not to fix this city’s imminent extinction problem?”

Now I was confused. “If you knew, then why did you ask?”

“Because,” Ms. Sparkle said, “nobody ever does anything that selfless in a city they’ve just arrived in, for people they don’t know.”

GoneGodDamn, Ms. Sparkle was a boss. Literally and figuratively.

“I’m oathbound,” I finally admitted, “to save a boy’s life.”

“Ah.” Ms. Sparkle leaned forward. “Now we’ve reached the penultimate layer of the onion.”

I blinked. “The what layer?”

She sighed. “Have you ever peeled an onion, darling?”

I nodded. I wasn’t much of a chef, but I had cut the odd onion here and there.

Ms. Sparkle mimed pulling an onion apart as she spoke, her long fingernails clicking. “You begin with the outermost layers, the little half-truths we tell ourselves and others—like your curiosity. Once you get past those, you arrive at the first real truth. This is the OtherX counteragent.”

Beside her, Edward kept watching me with his tiny head raised.

Ms. Sparkle peeled another invisible layer. “Probe further, and you reach the penultimate layer—the second truth. This is your oath to save a boy’s life.” She held up what remained of the invisible onion between her pointer finger and thumb. “But still one layer remains. Once we remove it, we arrive at the real truth—the one we never share except with those we love, and with ourselves.”

I swallowed. She was right; there was a deeper truth. The thing that had driven me to become a scientist in the first place. “If you’re correct, then you can’t possibly expect me to share it with you.”

She smiled so softly that I wanted to smile with her. “Of course. You don’t love me—you hardly know me.”

“No offense,” I added.

Her gaze traveled to Ananda. “But you love her. And she knows what’s at the center.”

Fear struck through me, and I turned to my encantado sister. Was Ms. Sparkle asking Ananda to tell her?

Ananda set her plate on the coffee table. She took a deep breath. “Her truth won’t interfere with her work.”

The tightness inside me uncoiled a little. Ana had been loyal to me, at least in this moment.

Silence fell, and I realized Ms. Sparkle was awaiting Edward’s bark. But it didn’t come, and she straightened. “Good.” She took a last sip of her tea, passed it off to the server. “I hope you’re a quick scientist, Isabella. Two weeks isn’t very long.”

“Two weeks until …” I said, but I already knew.

Ms. Sparkle made a tiny explosion with her fingers. “Kapow-ee.”

Chapter 6

As we stepped out of the restaurant and waited for the valet to pull the car around, I turned to Ananda. “You could have warned me about ‘Sparkle.’ ” My heart was still beating fast. “That woman’s a force of nature.”

Ananda flitted a hand through the air. “Ms. Sparkle’s onion analogies are the least of our worries.” She was right, of course. Two weeks. Two weeks until this extinction event. My sister was looking at me like she could divine some truth from the planes of my face. “Can you do it, Isa?”

“I …” I sighed. “I can’t make promises when I haven’t even interacted with the compound yet.”

The Hummer pulled up, and we both climbed in. Ananda started us out of the driveway. “If you can’t do this, we’re screwed.”

“Gee,” I said, “that’s a real stress reliever.”

We stopped at a light, and Ananda turned to me. “I’m not here to relieve your stress, Isa. I would have thought you’d know that by now. What Ms. Sparkle needs—what we all need—is someone who can stop this shit. Because even if we thwart this OtherX, the World Army can just make another OtherX.”

Irritation warmed my cheeks. “I didn’t ask for this. Any of it. Suddenly I’m in a car with my sister who’s always hated me for whatever reason, and I have to promise you I can permanently fix something that I haven’t even laid eyes on. And I’ve only got two weeks to do it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot that the poor baby didn’t ask for problems.” The light turned, and Ananda kept staring at me for a beat before she shifted the car into first gear and we started off. “Welcome to the world, sister.”

I had hoped she’d say, “I don’t hate you, sister.” Or, “I’ll help you figure things out.” Or even, “I understand.” But that wasn’t Ananda. It never had been.

You know the saying, “An iron fist in a velvet glove?” Well, Ananda was the iron fist sans the glove. She was just the fist.

So I took a long, deep breath. I counted to eight before I said, “If I finish mapping Other DNA, the World Army won’t be able to use chemical warfare. That’ll take longer than two weeks, but I think I can figure out where along the DNA strand our magic resides in the time we have.”

Ananda shifted into second gear. “I don’t know what much of that means, except it sounds like you’re saying you can do it.”

I resisted sighing. “Maybe. When can they get me the OtherX?”

“This afternoon.”

“What? I’m starting today?”

“I’m taking you to the lab now.”

“I need time to … to …”

“Think about it? Work yourself into an anxious tizzy?” Ananda waved a hand through the air. “Sister, if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that giving you time is the worst thing in the world. You start this afternoon.”

“Listen, first I really need to make a stop at a pharmacy.”

Ananda didn’t respond; she just pressed down on the gas. Outside, Vegas turned into a blur.

“Uh, Ana,”—I was doing the mom-grip on the passenger-side door handle again—“you’re a bit over the speed limit.”

“I know. We’re being followed.” Her eyes kept flicking between the rearview mirror and the road.

I turned around to stare out the back windshield. Four cars were behind us. “Which one?”

“Watch.” She slowed, took a hard left turn. Sure enough, a gray sedan did the same. It was the only car to do so.

“How did you know for sure?”

“Honey, it’s me, Ananda—I’ve been followed by stalkers more times than I care to count. I know when I’m being chased.”

“Right.” I kept staring at the gray sedan a few car lengths behind us. After six months of fleeing the World Army, this whole scenario felt sickeningly familiar. “They’re not gaining on us.”

“And they won’t,” she said. The Hummer roared as we powered down the road. “I’m going to lose them.”

I spun around just as she swerved us onto a highway onramp. We merged into fast-moving traffic, and I watched in the side-view mirror as the sedan also got onto the ramp.

She was right—we were being followed.

“Where are we going?” I said.

“I’ll lose them on the highway, then circle back around.”

If traveling with Ananda through the middle of Vegas was scary, riding with her on a highway was how you developed early-onset incontinence. In one motion, she poured the Hummer across four lanes and powered us down the left lane for a half mile before threading us through the other lanes and back to the right.

“There,” she said. “Easy enough.”

I was plastered to the seat, my hands gripping whatever they could like I was on a wild carnival ride. I just stared at her, breathing hard.

She glanced at me. “Oh, chill out. No one even honked at us.”

Blue and red lights flashed in the mirrors, and a sleek police car appeared behind our car.

“Shit,” Ananda slowed. “Maybe it’s not us ...”

She was cut off by the siren, and the police car sped up until its nose almost touched our bumper.

I sat low in my seat. “It’s us.”

↔

Ten minutes and two displays of encantado sultriness later, we were driving down the highway again. We hadn’t even gotten ticketed.

Ananda laughed, clapping her hands on the wheel. “Oh my GoneGods, where did you learn to touch your neck like that?”

“Me? Ana, he couldn’t take his eyes off you—or how you were wiggling. I mean, even for an encantado, that was …”

“Amazing?” Ananda wicked her nails across her chest. “I know.”

I gazed behind us as the cop car disappeared into the distance. “He even started giggling. Like, full on little-boy giggles. A cop.”

“It’s like I told you: always, always find a way to touch a man’s fingers.” She took the next off-ramp, and we headed back into Vegas. “It’s that first touch that does the trick.”

I gazed at my encantado sister, who wasn’t even breathing fast. She looked positively radiant, her cheeks touched with a little pink from the excitement. Thrill became her.

And she’d gotten better at this. It had been less than five years since we’d parted in Brazil, and she’d become more effective at what she did. Well, at what our species did. Ananda had always embraced the most thrilling part of being an encantado.

Seduction.

However many people I had seduced in my time, she tripled that—easy. But while I had actually fallen madly in love with a number of them, I had never seen her in love. Lust? Sure. Wild lust. But love … never.

She was the ultimate bad girl. And I had constantly struggled with wanting to be simultaneously more and less like her. More self-possessed, more brazen in the face of insult. Less impetuous, less cursory.

It seemed mortality had only enhanced everything about her. Which made sense: the absolute surety of death added spice to everything. Especially lust. “Lust, my dear sister,” she’d once said, “is what makes the world go ‘round.”

She and Cupid had more in common than either realized.

“Where are we going now?” I asked as we came back into downtown.

“The Bellagio. I need to return this little honey”—she tapped the steering wheel—“before Mr. Drunk and Handsy wakes up. Then I’ll find another ride to get you to the lab.”

Behind us, an engine roared like a lawn mower, and a car pulled up on our left.

The gray sedan.

It had followed us all the way off the highway. Atop the trunk sat a spoiler as big as ship’s rudder. Inside, four faces stared back. I recognized one of them immediately. “Is that … Johnny?” How he drove so well with cloven hooves I’d never know. “I think he took the muffler off his car.”

Ananda made a noise of disgust. “Minotaurs are infuriatingly persistent.” We were coming to a red light, but Ananda gunned the Hummer and took us straight through it. I did the mom thing again, screaming as we bolted through the intersection.

Miraculously, the gray car did the same. It was definitely modded.

Up ahead, a detour sign blinked at us to veer left into a single lane. We were coming up on roadwork. But the gray car was still alongside us, and it wasn’t slowing down.

“Uh, Ananda,” I said.

“It’s fine.” She gunned the Hummer, glancing back and forth between the other car and the road. “It’s just a friggin’ Corolla.”

But Johnny kept perfect pace—and he didn’t give her an inch.

“Slow down,” I whispered. But Ananda wasn’t slowing down. “Ananda!” I yelled, throwing my arms in front of my face as the detour sign grew to enormous proportions as we sped toward it.

Ananda was in the process of rolling the window down when my yelling caught her attention. She jerked the Hummer right just before we hit the sign, and orange cones flew through the air as we blasted right into the work zone. Workers leapt aside as we came off the road and into sand. I slammed into my seatbelt as Ananda slammed on the brakes.

We skidded to a stop as sand blasted all across the windshield. The Hummer stalled. Both of us sat there, breathing hard. Somehow she had turned the windshield wipers on, and they now pressed sand aside to reveal a congregation of roadside workers staring and pointing. One of them came around to the driver’s side and gestured for her to roll down her window.

Ananda rolled it the rest of the way down, fluffing her hair. We had just barely avoided death, but an encantado was gonna encantado. “Hi there,” she said as though we weren’t sitting in the middle of their work zone. “How may I help you?”

“Uh”—the guy’s eyes flicked between her and me—“are you two OK?”

“Oh sure. We were just …” She trailed off as she—and I—caught sight of Johnny. He had parked the Corolla on the far side of the road, and all four occupants were getting out. “We’re fine,” Ananda finished. “We’ve got somewhere important to be.” She started rolling up the window.

I watched her move the gearstick. “Maybe you should just talk to Johnny.”

“No.” Ananda tried to drive, but the Hummer only moved a foot or two through the sand before the wheels began spinning. She slapped the steering wheel. “No! What GoneGodDamn good are you if you can’t off-road.”

I unbuckled my seatbelt. “This car isn’t going anywhere without a tow.”

She grabbed my arm. “Don’t get out.”

I stared at her. Was that a touch of fear in her eyes? “Why not?”

A cloven hoof knocked on the window.

We both turned. There was Johnny, waving. He was flanked by three others—one satyr, a female arachne and … some kind of octopus-human hybrid with tentacles coming out of his mouth. He was so ugly I could hardly look at him, his eyes tiny and red, his skin green and wrinkled and moist.

I pointed at the sea creature. “What is that?”

“A descendent of Cthulhu,” she said irritably.

“Hop on out of the car, Ananda,” Johnny’s voice was muffled by the glass.

Ananda started hitting buttons, which activated just about everything in the car: the stereo system, the hazard lights, the four windows. Everything but what I assumed she was looking for.

The locks.

The arachne came around to Ananda’s door and tried the handle. It opened right away.

Ananda sighed, unbuckled her seatbelt. “All right, Isa,” she said. “Let’s do this.”

“What is ‘this?’ ” I asked, but she was already climbing out of the Hummer with both her hands up at chest level.

“I’m so happy to see you,” she said. “All of you.”

When I got out on the other side, Johnny was pointing one accusatory hoof at her. The other one was set at his hip. “Don’t you try that.”

“Try what?” Ananda said with a touch of hurt.

“You’ve played us,” the arachne said in a quavering voice. I couldn’t tell if she was on the verge of tears or if that was her natural cadence.

“All of us,” the satyr added with a goatlike grumble.

The descendent of Cthulu made a noise that sounded like he was trying to expel phlegm through his tentacles.

Johnny shook his head. “You thought we wouldn’t find out about each other?”

No, I thought. No, it can’t be.

Not the sea creature, too.

“Ana,” I said as I stepped around the front of the car, “are these all your exes?”

“Yes,” she said. “All four of them.”

Another rule she had once told me came to mind: “Never let your lovers know about each other.”

So it was going to be one of those kinds of mornings.

Chapter 7

Johnny and Ananda stood opposite each other in the work zone. He was flanked by the other three—Cthulhu, satyr, arachne—like they were his backup singers.

His angry backup singers.

Meanwhile, the congregation of roadside workers sat down to take their lunch under a nearby tree … all while watching this go down.

Ananda sighed like this whole scene was unnecessary. “Listen, you’ve got it completely wrong.”

Johnny raised his hoof for her to stop. He pointed at the arachne. “Is she your lover?”

“Of course,” Ananda said. “I totally heart you, Sylvia.”

I turned to Ananda. “I never knew you swung that way.”

Ananda leaned close. “It was one time, and she ended up glued to me.”

“Literally, or …”

The arachne hissed. “You never returned my calls.”

“I don’t believe in talking on the phone!” Ananda said. “You know I only have a landline becomes it came with the apartment.”

Johnny pointed at the satyr. “How about him? Is he your lover?”

“All the things I’ve done for you.” The satyr let out a sharp bleat. “Running around like your errand boy for your ‘secret cause.’ ”

“I risked my legs climbing up the side of a building,” Sylvia the arachne said, “just to spy for you.”

“You told me I was the only one you’d ever loved,” the Cthulhu said in a deep, wet voice, all his tentacles wiggling like they each had brains of their own. I briefly wondered how he and Ananda could even kiss before I pushed the thought far, far from my mind.

I glanced at my sister. Was she manipulating her lovers to help the resistance? That seemed exactly like the sort of thing she would do.

I had seen her pull similar moves many times in Brazil. Her lovers became like puppets, and she the string-holder. She played them off one another, made them fight over her. Mostly she had innocent fun, but sometimes her lovers did actually fight one another.

I never partook in her antics myself, but it also wasn’t abnormal to me. When you’re an immortal living amongst humans, you begin to lose sight of their joy, their pain. You forget that they share the same emotions you do.

You forget that turning away from your sister’s bad behavior doesn’t absolve it.

“Listen,” Ananda said. She saw where this was going. And if there was one thing she hated, it was not being in control of the situation. “You’re all my lovers. You see, we encantado don’t discriminate. We’re not monogamous—we love equally.”

That wasn’t precisely true—encantado encompassed all types of love, though many of us were into polygamy. But I wasn’t about to bring that up now. Right now, I just wanted to get the hell out of here.

“And her?” Johnny pointed at me. “Is she your newest lover?”

My finger rose to my own chest. “Me?” I snorted.

Johnny took a step toward me. “You think this is funny? She played me—she played all of us.”

Ananda stepped between us. “Don’t go near her.” Her voice had gone to straight steel. Even in the Nevada heat, I shivered.

Johnny took this to mean exactly what he’d thought: she was protecting her new, favored lover. His big nostrils flared as he snorted. “I never wanted to believe what I always heard about you encantado trash.”

Ananda rolled her eyes. “Jealousy isn’t becoming of cows, Johnny.”

If Johnny’s eyes could have flashed red, they would have. “You’re the ugly version of a succubus.”

She scoffed. “Whatever.”

The arachne stepped forward. “You’re barely even a mammal.”

The insult bounced off Ananda like a rubber ball. “At least I’m not an insect.”

Cthulhu stepped in and somehow made squeaking dolphin noises by vibrating his tentacles.

Ananda folded her arms. “Are you all done yet?”

Last, the satyr stepped toward me, raising one hand like he would slap me.

My breath caught. I wasn’t prepared for this.

Ananda stepped between us, grabbing him by the wrist and tossing his hand away. I could practically see her hair rising as she bristled for a fight. She rounded on her other lovers, her hands folding to fists. “Don’t you dare touch my sister.”

“Sister? So you’re both monsters.” Johnny pointed a hoof right past Ananda, brushing my chest and sending me back a couple feet. It wasn’t much of a blow, but it was enough to set Ananda off.

Before anyone could say anything else, Ananda’s clothing ripped away from her body as she grew outward and upward. All four of her limbs bulged with muscle, and her lush blonde hair turned to a burnt straw. The rest of us darted away as she took on an illusion I had forgotten she was capable of.

Ananda had transformed into a giant.

↔

“DON’T—YOU—DARE!” Ananda bellowed in a deep voice. My naked giant of a sister shoved the Hummer aside with one hand and stamped an enormous foot. Sand billowed up in a wave, raining over all of us.

I stared up at her in awe. She must have been fifteen feet tall. Somehow, in the long stretch of my immortal life, I had forgotten she could take on the illusion of a giant.

And it had all started with an evil man.

Back in the 16th century, Ananda had been raped by one of her lovers. She never got retribution, and he died a natural death of old age. But she also never forgot, and she never fully recovered.

That was why, unlike any encantado before her, she learned to fight.

In the decades and centuries that followed her rape, she went through a delirious phase. She would get drunk, seduce a known wife-beater, then start a fight with him. What began as a verbal altercation would evolve into a fistfight—which she would invariably lose. And then she would return beaten and bruised to the forest where we lived. But because she was immortal, these fights never truly hurt her. They only helped her become better. More skillful. She could at least fend certain men off.

But she wasn’t truly powerful until she saw the giant.

She was always the most daring of us. My sister enjoyed testing the limits of our abilities, defying the innate encantado desire to be beautiful, to be attractive. Ananda enjoyed beauty and attraction, but what she enjoyed most of all was control.

Greece gave her that control. She traveled there in the 19th century, living for some months like a local, fascinated by their culture, their food, their men.

One night, she glimpsed a female giant—what she called a “gigante”—roaming the plains by night outside Athens. She became fascinated by the creature and began following her in secret, observing how she moved, how she fought. She even witnessed the giant’s death at the hands of humans. She described to me how the giant uprooted trees and used them as blunt weapons, grasped the humans in her great hands and squeezed them until they dropped their pathetic guns.

Of course, those pathetic guns eventually overcame the giant. Such has been the course of humanity, their ruthlessness and brainpower leading to their absolute rule over the world.

Even over this GoneGod World.

When Ananda returned to Brazil, she came back with her new illusion—the giant. She and I were still close then, and she shared all her stories about Greece with me. Most of all, she told me of the power she had gained.

It was because of Ananda that we encantado discovered we were capable of greater illusions than we thought possible. We choose to look like humans, but our powers aren’t limited to taking on a human appearance. Ananda showed us we can take on a variety of human-like illusions—elves, orcs, giants. Basically, the cousins to humans. But those illusions weren’t as easy as becoming a human. Looking like other creatures took work, practice, study.

Things changed after Greece. Ananda became powerful, unstoppable. She wanted to teach me how to protect myself, but I had always refused. I wasn’t interested in violence.

So if I ever got into trouble, she was my protector.

I had forgotten about her fighting skills until I saw her clock the drunk guy in the Bellagio with a platter. That wasn’t just a lucky shot—that was pure, honed ability. The kind of ability I would have put money on her refining since becoming mortal. Because if there was one thing that mortality promised, it was vulnerability. Vulnerability to pain, to suffering, to death.

And in this mortal world, only the strongest survived.

“She’s a GoneGodDamn monster,” the satyr cried. “Someone call the cops.”

But Johnny, Sylvia and Cthulhu didn’t seemed to hear the satyr. Or if they had, they weren’t fazed.

Instead, they looked angry.

Johnny pulled a long, dual-bladed axe from the belt of his Wranglers and got into a fighting stance. Sylvia spat some webbing out of her spinneret and gathered it up in her clawed hands. Cthulhu unfolded a pair of black, enormous wings that popped open like a firecracker going off.

He can fly, too? I thought as I pulled El Lobizon’s claw out of the waistband of my dress. No fair.

I wasn’t exactly in the right shape to do anything in this fight. Not with my left arm still out of commission. And maybe a baby in my belly. I just had to keep out of the way.

Bolstered by the other three, the satyr pulled out the most ominous wooden flute I’d ever seen. (It was mostly in the way he held it, like it promised a cacophony of sound.)

Well, Ananda had always been good at riling people up. Especially her lovers—when they found out about each other. But this was on another level.

All four Other lovers were pissed. And they all looked like exceptionally capable fighters.

The satyr set the flute to his lips and began playing a raucous tune. Rats spilled forth from what felt like everywhere—out of the streets, out of the sewers—and squeaked and squealed toward Ananda. When they reached her, they ascended her feet and legs and began biting her all over.

Cthulhu’s wings flapped, lifting his large, ungainly body into the air. Half his tentacles shot out toward me, and I dashed backward, dodging as they flicked through the air by my head. I dropped down behind the Hummer, and the tentacles pinged off its hood like hail.

The remaining tentacles shot toward Ananda, reaching out as though to grasp her, but she dodged and slapped them away until she had backed up behind the Hummer. Ananda scooped up the enormous car in one hand and threw it at Johnny.

The minotaur didn’t move as the car hurtled toward him; he just lifted his axe and sliced the Hummer in half. Both sides of it fell away like two halves of a cantaloupe, revealing a very intact minotaur.

“And to think,” he bellowed, “I played ‘In Your Eyes’ in a parking lot. For you.”

“I don’t even like that song,” Ananda yelled so loudly from beside me I clapped my hands over my ears.

Sylvia the arachne shot her webbing at Ananda’s leg and used it to pull herself onto my giant sister. Man, but that spider was fast. Sylvia leapt on, crawling up the length of Ananda’s arm toward her face in less than two seconds.

“I showed you my soft underside!” Sylvia cried. Whatever she said next was muffled by her biting my sister on the cheek.

“Augh!” Ananda spun around and grabbed Sylvia, tossing her off. From behind, one of Cthulu’s tentacles wrapped around her ankle and yanked hard. She stumbled to one knee, and as she did, more rats jumped onto the tendrils of her hair and started climbing up.

“Isa,” Ananda called as she grabbed rats and flung them like footballs. “I need you!”

I stood there, Ms. Scientist, and my first helpless instinct was to grab my phone and call Justin and Hercules and Cupid. To bring in the cavalry. But I didn’t get that chance, because Johnny the minotaur came at me swinging his double-sided axe.

↔

I could count on one hand the number of times I’d been attacked by a minotaur.

Actually, I could count them on one finger.

This was the first time.

Johnny bore through the sand toward me, his axe cleaving the air at the exact angle to separate my left shoulder from the rest of my body. Evidently he thought I was like Ananda—a monster or a fighter. Probably both. But of course, I wasn’t.

Move, Isa.

Sure, I didn’t have a fighter’s instincts. But I had been in lot of scraps over the past few months, and I knew how to get out of the way.

But right now, it felt like my brain had stopped responding, like my whole head was packed with cotton. The feeling had begun when Ananda told me she needed me.

I wanted to move, but I couldn’t. I simply could not make my limbs respond, and all the while, it felt as though something was pressing at my mind. A thought I couldn’t process right now.

I stood there for a precious second as Johnny came at me. In other words, I went all Bambi versus a minotaur.

Move, you dummy.

Ananda’s voice cut through the space between us, that deep giant’s yell. “Come on, Isa! Remember what I taught you.”

What she taught me? She hadn’t taught me anything. I’d strictly refused to learn to fight. In fact, I was as much a pacifist as they came. All my life, I was so much more a lover than a fighter that a pie chart would have been useless; it would be 100% lover, 0% fighter.

But I did have survival instincts. And right now, they were warring against the baffling impulse to remain frozen.

Move. Move or die!

Just before Johnny’s axe got me, I forced my body to leap out of the way. It felt like breaking out of a block of hardened concrete just to get myself to do that much, and it made my head ache.

I ate sand as I landed on my stomach, but at least I was still intact. I rolled over just as Ananda’s huge foot stomped the ground between me and the minotaur.

She spun on me, the satyr in one hand and rats crawling all over her. “Get it together, Isabella,” she said. “I need you to change right now.”

Then she was back in the fight, dodging Johnny’s next swing.

I sat up, and webbing hit my outstretched arm and encased my wrist, forcing me to drop El Lobizon’s claw in the sand. I was jerked to my feet and toward Sylvia, who let a screech of pleasure on seeing she’d caught me. She shot more webbing at my other arm, and soon I could barely keep my feet under me as she pulled me toward her fanged teeth.

“I didn’t even do anything to you,” I yelled at her.

“Show me your real form, encantado,” Sylvia hissed. “Are you a giant like her?”

She had it all wrong. Our real form was something between a mermaid and a dolphin. But I doubted she’d listen to my explanation—or that she’d even care. Ahh, scorned lovers. The GoneGods knew they were impossible to reason with.

As I got close, she reached out to me with her clawed hands like an evil grandmother wanting an embrace. I leaned away, slapping at her hands. As she made to claw at my face, I grabbed her wrist to restrain her.

That was when it happened. Again.

The oracle’s power rose in my chest like a bloom of anxiety, coursing down my left arm and into my hand. Before I understood what was happening, I had flashed into the future.

I saw myself through Sylvia’s eyes, still in my pink dress. I was fighting Johnny in the sand, evading his attacks with the ease of water over rocks. He swung down, but I leaned my body aside. He charged forward, but I stepped left and sidelong.

All the while, the rats came for me. They leapt, but I danced around them. At some point I had lost my shoes, and my small feet bore more grace in the sand than I had known was possible.

I spun, I jumped, I leaned. And then, as Johnny came around for his next pass, he paused when he saw me. I had grown to enormous proportions, the same size as Ananda. Except I didn’t have her brawn; my giantess form was lithe by comparison.

Before he could react, I grabbed him up in my giant hand and tossed him like a dirty tissue through the air. He flew out of sight, dropping his double-bladed axe as he went.

In this future, I was a GoneGodDamn fighter.

Wait a second … I was a fighter?

Like I said: this was the future, but memories of the past were woven into the scene. Old experiences came back to me as I watched myself fight. I knew those movements, that style. I knew that illusion. I had used it to spar with Ananda, and she had taught me how to evade.

We had fought thousands of times.

And I hadn’t just fought Ananda. I had fought others. Many others.

Then, all at once, I recalled the memory of blood.

I had spilled blood.

Once upon a time, I had been violent.

That was impossible. I had never been violent; like I said, 100% lover, 0% fighter. And yet I couldn’t deny the memories returning to me. They were as real as anything.

I, Isabella, had spilled a man’s blood.

I flashed back to the present, where I was still grasping Sylvia’s wrist. She and I stared at one another, the vision of the future almost palpable between us.

“What was that?” she whispered in her quavering voice.

“I don’t know.” My head hurt even more now, throbbing with everything I had seen. My eyes shifted to the fight still raging between Ananda, Johnny and the satyr. I wasn’t there, but I could still see the ghost of myself fighting the minotaur, dancing around the rats. “Something from the future.”

“What are you?” Sylvia asked, a note of fear in her voice. I felt the webbing loosen from my arm.

I looked down at my hands. One belonged to me, and one coursed with the power of the Oracle of Delphi. Pythia’s power had shown me my future. And it had uncovered a past that had been locked away for two hundred years.

A past in which I had killed someone.

Chapter 8

As I stood in the sand in Las Vegas, a place inside my mind came unlocked. It happened that simply: as though a key had been turned, and all at once, fifty years of my life came back to me.

A man had died by my hands.

I remembered first the taste of his blood. Metallic. Tangy.

I had killed him. He was a man the entire village wanted dead. But why? I could not remember.

What I knew was that he was a no-good drunk, a bandit, a thief. The last one I knew well, because he had stolen something from my sister. Something she greatly valued.

I had chased the bandit to the riverbank after he’d stolen from Ananda and taken off into the woods. I chased him because he was evil, and I knew it, and I knew he should finally suffer for what he’d done to her and anyone else he’d inflicted himself on.

I was four hundred years old, and most of all, I wanted to be like Ananda. I wanted to protect the world from humans who would take advantage of those who were weaker than them. That was why I had learned how to become a giantess.

That was why I had learned to fight.

When I caught up to him, he was stripping off his shoes to leap into the river and swim to the other side, where he would find safety in the village. But I didn’t even let him take his second shoe off.

With a roar, I threw myself at him, knocking us both to the ground. He’d had a pistol, which flew from his hand and plunked into the river. I unleashed myself on him with fury like I’d never felt, clawing at his face with my fingers. I had forgotten all the techniques Ananda had taught me because I was so very, very angry.

Why was I so angry?

What was it he had stolen from Ananda?

I only knew that a particular rage filled me. I felt so angry I wanted to end his life, and I tried to. At some point my fingers folded to fists, and I punched him so hard I drew blood from his nose.

It spattered across my face, and I tasted it. Metallic. Tangy.

But I had never truly comprehended the strength of a man … especially not one fighting for his life. Before long he had gotten the upper hand, and I was beneath him. He straddled me, pinning my arms beneath his knees, his blood dripping from his nose to his chin.

And I was terrified.

You see, I had never been overwhelmed. Not like this. I was always cautious, and the goddess Yemoja had always taken care of me, coddling me like her golden child. She had ensured for four hundred years that no harm befell me.

But she couldn’t stop me from seeking it out.

There in the forest, pressed to the ground beneath the bandit, panic took hold. I couldn’t remember anything I needed to do to protect myself. All the times I had sparred with Ananda, all the times I had shifted into a giantess—all forgotten.

I screamed and I struggled and I cried as his hands came to my throat. And no matter what happened from that point, I knew I would not forget this moment. This feeling of complete vulnerability, exactly as Ananda had described.

What a fool I’d been, seeking out revenge. I’d thought I could be a vigilante, but I was just Isabella. The quiet one, the fearful one. The lover—not the fighter. And I screamed like a child as his fingers closed around my throat.

That all changed the moment he slapped me across the face. “Shut up, demon,” he said, and the sting of my cheek brought the entire scene into complete clarity. When he’d gotten atop me, my flight-or-fight instinct had shifted to flight. But I couldn’t fly—not here, with this man over me.

And I could see it in his eyes: he would not let me go until I stopped trying to fight or fly. He would make sure I never moved again.

Ananda, I thought. But I knew she couldn’t help me. I don’t recall why, but my sister was unable to come to my side. I was alone.

But her words returned to my mind. Ananda had given me a command—over and over again, she had yelled the same words: Kill him, Isabella. Kill him!

He had stolen something valuable from her.

Ananda had told me I must kill him.

I trusted my sister. And she had always told me to trust myself.

I remembered what I had come to do, the power I possessed. When his hands came to my throat, I waited. I waited until his face shifted into a grimace and he tried to press the life out of me, all his attention directed to one aim: strangle the encantado.

It all happened quickly then. I shifted forms, growing so much larger than he could ever be. When I grabbed him in just one of my hands, he flailed. He screamed until I squeezed his trachea shut.

He was dead when I threw him in the river and watched him go under.

I shifted back to a human illusion, sat down by the river at the spot where he had disappeared. I set my hands over my face and I cried. I cried until the sun went down and the night insects began to call.

I still tasted his blood on my lips when I heard her voice beside me.

Yemoja.

Her hand came over my back like a breeze, and when I lifted my face, she bore a sweet smile. Her cheek was lined silver in the moonlight, the long locks of her hair interwoven with vines. The mother goddess. My mother, who had brought me and the rest of the encantado into the world.

“What is it, Isabella?” she asked. The trees bore her voice along, whispers in the leaves.

“Mother,” I said, clinging to Yemoja. It had been a hundred years since she had last shown herself to me. “I’ve missed you.”

Her body felt airy, like she could disassemble if I squeezed too hard. “I haven’t been gone,” she murmured by my ear. “I’ve always watched over you.”

I leaned away, wiping my cheeks. “I did a terrible thing.”

Her emerald eyes narrowed just slightly. “You killed a human.”

I held in a sob. “I won’t ever forgive myself. He did horrible things, but I also wanted him to suffer.”

“Has he suffered enough?”

“Yes.” I paused. “I’m not like Ananda.”

Yemoja sighed. “No, you are not. And you needn’t be.”

I stared out over the river. “I can’t live with what I’ve done. A man lived, and now he doesn’t because of me.”

“You were always the softest of the encantado.” Her cool hand came to my cheek. “The orchid, slow to bloom. Quick to shrivel. You required the right sunlight, the right water.”

I turned to her. “What should I do?”

Yemoja stared back at me, and I could see the tears in her own eyes. “I can’t stand to see you suffer, child. Lower your face, and I will make you forget this moment, this time of violence. All of it.”

I didn’t know what Yemoja meant, but I had always done as she told me. And in my grief, I wanted only an end to my pain. So when her lips pressed to my forehead and the memories of everything Ananda had taught me leading up to the moment beside the river all disappeared, my grief lifted.

I felt lightness and joy as I raised my eyes to Yemoja.

“Oh,” I said with pure delight. “Mother, you’re here.”

Yemoja, the mother goddess. She had taken my memories away.

Yemoja had sealed away fifty years because of one man’s death.

↔

As I stood under the Nevada sun, I could almost feel Yemoja’s lips on my forehead. She had spared me my grief. But in doing so, she had taken away a portion of my life. I had never wanted to fight again—and not just because of Yemoja’s doing, I now realized.

Somehow, my body still carried the grief over the man I had murdered. I hated violence because it had led me down a path of darkness. I had killed a man, and that knowledge couldn’t be completely erased. Even by a goddess.

Now I remembered his drowning. And I remembered everything that came during the fifty years that preceded it. I knew how to fight, even if I didn’t want to.

And right now, my love for my sister obligated me to.

Before me, Ananda was losing. Even with Sylvia out of the fight—still stunned by what she had just seen when we touched—Johnny the minotaur, Cthulhu’s descendent and the satyr had the upper hand.

They had brought Ananda to her knees, and she was covered in rats and tentacles.

I stepped toward the fight, testing my body. The past and the future were coming to me fast now, as much as I didn’t want them to. I remembered that I needed to keep my muscles loose, to avoid tensing them. I shouldn’t use my left hand—it wasn’t strong enough yet. But one hand would be enough.

Together, Ananda and I had pioneered an early form of aikido before aikido was even a thing. She had helped me develop it because she knew I didn’t want to grapple. I just wanted to defend myself and my loved ones.

Ananda was one of those loved ones.

I took a deep breath as I approached. “Step away from my sister!”

Johnny glanced over at me, his axe poised to swing. The satyr paused in his flute-playing. Cthulhu let an aggrieved sigh through his tentacles. Even the rats seemed to twitch their whiskers.

It had been a long, long time since I had yelled like that. And it felt good—it felt powerful.

“You deal with her,” Johnny said. “I’ll take the little bitch.”

Well, I had hoped they would run away screaming. Now I was actually going to have to fight the satyr.

All at once, I thought again of the child who might or might not be growing in my belly. GoneGodDamn Serena Russo, playing with my mind. But if she wasn’t playing—if I was pregnant—I needed to protect my core. I needed to make this be over quickly.

Johnny turned toward me. With one crack of the neck, he sized me up. “You’re a small one.”

“Leave her alone,” I said. “Just walk away—you and the satyr and Cthulhu and Sylvia.”

Johnny snorted. I was getting really sick of that; I could see why Ananda had dumped him. “Or what? I can practically see your heart beating against that tiny chest. You’re terrified.”

He wasn’t wrong; my heart felt like it was on overdrive. But I had one piece of critical information that Johnny didn’t.

I had seen what would happen in the future.

“Or I’ll have to make you walk away,” I whispered.

Apparently threatening a minotaur doesn’t make them back off. Not that I expected him to. After all, I knew what would happen. And it did happen—exactly as I’d seen.

Johnny came at me, swinging his axe through the air. I leaned away, catching a glimpse of Sylvia as I did. There she was, at the exact spot I had watched myself from. She stood there with her mouth open, the webbing hanging from her hands like limp noodles.

I didn’t just remember leaning away like this … I knew it in my muscles, a long-honed memory. Fifty years of memory, practicing every morning. Honing the art of defense until I was untouchable.

The rats came next. I allowed my body to take over, stepping and jumping and careening through the sand in the exact dance I had witnessed. It became a game to find the ground, to avoid the rodents. They sailed past me, overtop, passing through the veil of my blonde hair.

Behind me, Ananda was regaining ground. Some of the rats had diverted over to me, and she had managed to swing an arm and force the satyr to stop playing his flute to evade.

The moment of my transformation was here. Johnny would come around for his next pass, but I would already be a giantess. I would grab him up into my hand and fling him through the …

No. I stopped hard, and I felt a rat’s claws dig into my calf as it climbed on. I didn’t care; I couldn’t move.

We were all mortal now. If I grabbed that minotaur and flung him through the air, he might die. I might be his murderer.

Even as more rats leapt onto me and Johnny began to charge, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t become the giantess. I couldn’t inhabit the future I had witnessed.

The oracle had once told me that each of us held thousands of possible futures. They branched off at each moment, morphing and shifting. Every time I had seen the future—with Serena, in the desert with Daiski, and now—I had naturally sought to live it. To fulfill it. But I didn’t have to do that.

And as I dropped to my knees, rats biting me all over, my hands went over my belly.

I knew I wouldn’t become a murderer. Not again.

My only desire was to create life—not end it.

Except that minotaur’s axe was still coming toward me.

Well, until a car screeched up next to us and red and blue lights flashed over our faces. A siren drowned out all the noise of our fight.

I had never been so happy to see the police. Especially when the first cop who leapt from the car pointed a gun at Johnny and yelled, “Freeze, all of you!”

When you’ve got a gun pointed at you, you do as told. Even if you’re a minotaur with a double-bladed axe.

Chapter 9

Across the cell, Ananda picked at her uniform. It hung on her buxom blonde body in all the wrong places. “You’d think they’d just have some regular clothes. We’re not criminals.”

I drew my legs up next to me on the cot, pulling the shredded carnation dress over them. I hadn’t ripped out of my clothes because I hadn’t transformed into a giantess, which spared me having to wear a uniform. The rats had done a number on this dress, though. “You did throw a car at someone.”

Ananda shot me a glare. “Don’t you get all judgy. I had to stop a minotaur from charging me.”

The outer door opened, and an officer passed into the hallway. Ananda stepped up to the bars, waiting for him to approach us, but he only passed on by to the next cell. “All right,” he said as he disappeared from sight, “the four of you have made bail.”

“What?” Ananda pressed her face between the bars. “Our attackers are getting out before we are?”

The officer didn’t reply. Shuffling preceded the sound of Ananda’s four exes following the police officer down the hallway. Johnny took the lead, his large head lifted indignantly. He wouldn’t even meet Ananda’s gaze. The satyr followed, his eyes narrowed on her as he passed by. Cthulhu came third, his tentacles flopping together wetly. Still gross.

Last came Sylvia, whose eyes found mine. As soon as she saw me, fear returned to her features. Together, she and I had seen the future. She still didn’t have an explanation for that.

And to be frank, I didn’t know how it all worked, either. The oracle’s power was in me, that was for certain, but I didn’t know how to control it. I only knew that it had shown me futures and pasts when I most needed them—in times of crisis.

As the officer and the four exes left and the door shut, silence resumed. Ananda hated silence.

She turned toward me, arms folded. “What the hell do you make of that? Who would bail them out, anyway?”

I shrugged, returned my eyes to the door. My hand had hardly left my belly since we’d been taken in; all I wanted was to get into that lab and figure out what was going on inside me. “When is Ms. Sparkle getting here?”

“Soon. She’s a busy woman.” Ananda leaned against the wall, folded her arms. “You could have helped.”

“I did help.”

“How, exactly? Because from what I saw, you didn’t shift once.”

I turned to her. “I nearly got webbed by an arachne. I fought a minotaur for you.” I pointed to my arms and legs. “I got bitten by rats!”

She huffed. “It would have been easy.” By which she meant, it would have been easy if I had just shifted into a giantess and flung Johnny into the air.

I rose. “You know what would have been easier? If you didn’t do what you’ve always done.”

Her eyebrows went up with surprise, and maybe a tinge of excitement. She loved it when I got spicy. “Which is what?”

“Johnny, Sylvia, the satyr, Cthulhu.” I raised four fingers in front of me, waved them. “Playing with lovers you don’t even give a damn about. You really know how to work them into a frenzy, don’t you?”

She pointed at me. “That is victim blaming. They didn’t have to attack us. They’re responsible for their choices.”

“As are you.”

Her blue eyes narrowed. She looked like a pissed Marilyn Monroe. “And what about you, golden girl?”

“I’ve taken responsibility for my choices every step of the way.”

She keeled over with laughter. I folded my arms and waited for her to be done, which took her a purposefully long time. When she straightened, she waved a hand. “If you think that’s true, I don’t even know what to say to you.”

I stepped closer. “Don’t do that.”

She had turned away, was staring at the door of our cell. “Do what?”

“Start this and then dismiss me.”

“You haven’t changed in five hundred years, Isa. There’s no point in going there.”

“Except I have.” I stood in front of her, forcing her to meet my eyes. “Yemoja came to me, Ana, a hundred years ago. She took away my memories. She sealed away the fifty years we spent together, learning to fight.” I paused. “You made me kill a man back then, didn’t you?”

Ananda slowly turned toward me, her eyes wide with fear and something else … a low-burning anger. “So you finally remember something. Why now?”

I swallowed, lifting my left hand. “The World Army did something to me. They modified me—bonded my DNA with a powerful Other called the Oracle of Delphi. She could see into the past and the future.”

Ananda gazed at the hand like it was a weapon. Her eyes returned to mine. “And how much do you remember?”

“I killed someone because of you,” I spat. “And you … you’ve hated me ever since. It didn’t matter whether we were immortal or mortal—you’ve held a grudge against me. Why?”

“He stole something from me,” Ananda whispered, her eyes searching mine as though for recognition.

“That’s no excuse.” I knew my emotions were overcoming my rationality. Words spilled out—long-held resentments—and I didn’t try to stop them. “You were violent. Lustful. Hedonistic. You wanted every man to suffer after you were raped, didn’t you?”

She turned fully toward me now. In one motion, her hand rose and slapped my cheek so hard my head swiveled on my neck and my hair flew into my face. “How dare you. You think you remember everything,” she whispered, breathing audibly. “But you don’t. You’re still just a naive child who thinks she’s grown.”

Tears came to my eyes, shivers of terror and anger passing through my limbs. My cheek stung, but I couldn’t allow myself to cry. I couldn’t allow myself to be the child she thought I was.

“Then tell me everything.” I lifted my face, blinking the tears away. “Set the record straight.”

“No. You don’t deserve it.” Ananda seemed to see right through me. Once she decided on a course of action, she usually followed it to its conclusion. In this case, that meant she was done with this little heart-to-heart. She turned toward the cell entrance. “Someone’s coming.”

The door opened, and the same officer came into the hallway. He unlocked our cell, gestured us out. “Come on. You’ve been bailed.”

As we came through the door into the station lobby, Justin, Hercules and Cupid all rose from their chairs in the waiting area. They were wearing the uniforms from their new jobs at the Bellagio: Justin in a navy-blue janitor’s onesie, Hercules in a security guard’s button-down and slacks and Cupid … well, Cupid was dressed exactly like he hadn’t wanted to be: in a pink tutu with a glittery wand in his hand.

Justin came over, wrapped his arms around me. “You look terrible.”

I hid my face in his shoulder, grateful for his solidity. “Thanks.”

Hercules appeared behind Justin. “I’m so very glad to see you, Isa.”

I smiled at him over Justin’s shoulder. “Me too.”

Cupid floated over. “We leave you for one minute,” he said with crossed arms, “and look what happens.”

“Is that a tutu?” Ananda reached out to touch the frilly lace. “Oh my GoneGods, they actually put you in a tutu. Bet you get a lot of tips.”

Cupid pointed his wand at her. “Shut it, blondie!”

I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. I was just grateful to be back with my friends.

But that moment was short-lived. As we came out of the police station and into the afternoon light, we heard a scream.

Not just one scream—multiple screams.

The way people screamed if they were dying.

↔

Justin and I exchanged a look before we all took off running in that direction. Ananda, Cupid and Hercules followed. The noise couldn’t have been more than a block or two from where we stood; I wondered what in the GoneGods could possibly be happening this close to the local police department.

We came to the edge of a building, and the five of us came around the turn and stopped hard.

Ahead of us, four people burned like superheated candles. Their bodies had gone completely to white flame, and they staggered in nonsensical circles as they burned and burned and burned.

Ananda gasped. “It’s Johnny.” She pointed at the biggest figure.

I squinted, managed to spot his gold nose ring in amongst the flames of magic flickering around him. That meant …

“The satyr,” I said. “Sylvia the arachne. Cthulhu.”

Yes, those were definitely Sylvia’s many spidery legs shriveling as she dropped against the side of a building.

The exes, all four of them, had been attacked.

This was OtherX. They were burning their magic away.

Cupid whipped out his phone. “I’m calling for help.”

“Is there anything we can do?” I asked Ananda. “We have to help them.”

Ananda shook her head, one hand going up to her mouth. “Don’t go near them, Isa. You’ll breathe it in.”

“Hey!” Justin yelled. One second, he had been beside me. The next, he was sprinting down the street.

I spun. “Justin?”

But he didn’t acknowledge he’d heard me; he tore down the sidewalk at full speed.

Hercules stared after him, set one hand on his hip. “He’s chasing that man.” He pointed. “One of the bigots in a red hat.”

I shielded my eyes from the light, squinting. Hercules was right: Justin was closing in on a guy in an STOP shirt. He was short and chubby and didn’t look like he’d be able to run very fast, but he was booking it.

“Does Justin hate STOP that much?” Ananda said as we watched.

I shook my head. “Not that I know of.” Then it dawned on me. “He thinks that’s the attacker. He’s trying to run him down.”

The two of them were way too far off to catch up now. All we could do was watch as Justin ran after him.

Cupid cleared his throat, floated a few feet away as he talked to the 911 operator. Meanwhile, the exes had all slumped against the wall as the last of their magic flared away. Sylvia let out a tiny, high-pitched squeal that nearly broke my heart, especially because there was nothing I could do.

“The bigot is headed for that crowd of blue shirt-wearers,” Hercules said. “If he makes it, Justin will lose him.”

I turned back to watch, holding my breath as he got close and closer to the STOP attacker. But just before he could grab him, the guy slipped in amongst the crowd. Within seconds, he was just another STOP supporter.

Ananda’s hand fell on my forearm, gripping it hard. Se dragged me down the sidewalk. “We need to leave. Right now. It’s in the air.”

“Hey”—Cupid floated behind—“we need to tell them what we saw.”

“We absolutely do not,” Ananda said. “We don’t want to be linked with this. Not any of us.”

We walked a block to the closest bus stop, and Justin met us there, completely out of breath. Our bus came just as the paramedics arrived.

As we all climbed on, everyone on the bus stared as the ambulance opened its doors and the paramedics jumped out and ran over to the four burnt-out Others.

Only Ananda didn’t look. She had pulled out a pair of sunglasses and put them on. She appeared to be hiding her face.

I sat down next to her as the bus pulled away. “I’m so sorry, Ananda. I know you—”

She waved a hand. “Forget all that. I’ll mourn them later.”

Well, that wasn’t unlike Ananda. She only knew two emotions: lust and anger. “What’s going on?” I asked.

She glanced around to make sure no one was looking at us or close enough to listen. Then, “That was a message.”

“A message from whom?” Hercules asked loudly, his head poking between the two of us.

Ananda pressed a hand to his face, pushing him back into the seat behind us. “Do you have an indoor voice?”

“Indoor voice?” Hercules stroked his dimpled chin. “Sounds like another of those modern idioms. I suspect you want me to be quieter.” I had to give it to Hercules: for how ridiculous and over-the-top he often seemed, I sometimes forgot how smart he was until his flashes of brilliance. Under all that, he had a keen mind.

“That guy Justin was chasing,” Ananda continued. “He was sending me a message by releasing a batch of OtherX into the air. He knew I was at the police station and would see the attack.”

Justin dropped into the seat beside Hercules. “I nearly had him.”

“You did.” I turned back to Ananda. “What message was he sending?”

“I’m being watched.” She cast another glance around the bus, which had fallen back into the apathetic slouch familiar to public busses. “They suspect I’m with the resistance.”

Cupid floated between Justin and Hercules. “If that’s the case,” he said, “then they must know you work at the Bellagio.”

Justin caught on immediately. “If they suspect Ananda, they must know where she works.

Cupid snapped his fingers. “We can do a stakeout at the hotel.”

Ananda shrugged. “I guess it’s not the worst idea—better than walking into the STOP rally and sifting through all those assholes.” She paused. “I’m friends with the guy who works in the security room at the Bellagio. We can ask him if he’s seen any suspicious characters on the cameras, and I can get him to let us in there.”

“That makes you bait,” I said. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”

Ananda rolled her eyes. “Not like I haven’t been before. You forget, little sister: I do what has to be done.”

That stung. Because what she meant by that was, in contrast, I didn’t always do what had to be done. I was the coddled one, the one who got off lightly. And it was embarrassing to have that brought up in front of Justin, Hercules and Cupid.

“Meanwhile …” Ananda leaned toward me, and suddenly the insult was forgotten as she lifted her sunglasses and her intense blue eyes held mine. “You saw what the OtherX does. You saw it firsthand.”

Four candle flames burning away. The screaming. The dying. “I saw.”

“So you know now why we need you. Desperately. If you develop a counteragent, we’ll at least have a way of fighting it.”

That was the other thing she did: she didn’t ever apologize, but the sting of her verbal slap dissipated under the brightness of her undivided attention. She needed me.

I nodded. Once I got into Ms. Sparkle’s lab, I would be able to do more than just work on a counteragent. I would have access to everything I needed to figure out whether Serena Russo was telling the truth about the shared burden of motherhood.

“I’ll start today.” I paused. “After I get some neosporin and a new dress.”

Chapter 10

Two hours and a thorough shower and change of clothes later, Ananda and I pulled up to my new place of work. Ms. Sparkle’s meth operation was in the most nondescript office building I could have imagined. Two stories, dark little windows, no signage. Two cars sat in the parking lot.

I stared up at it as we came to a stop. “Do real businesses work out of here?”

Ananda chuckled. “You don’t count Ms. Sparkle’s?”

“Well …”

“It’s neither here nor there. Just get out of the car.” She patted me on the shoulder. “Oh, and Isabella?”

I paused with my hand on the door handle. “Yes?”

“When you go in, ask for Lux. She’s a meth-cooking pixie.”

I gave a quick laugh, but Ananda’s face remained flat as dried cement. “Oh, you’re serious.”

“Not as serious as she is.” Ananda winked, then reached into her purse. “Here, take this.”

She handed me what appeared to be a folded map. “What’s this for?”

“It’s the bus system. I can’t be ferrying you everywhere, you know.” She waved. “See you at the Bellagio later. We’ll be doing our stakeout.”

I climbed out of the “borrowed” sports car. This one was a black Porsche, also courtesy of the valets at the Bellagio. Seemed Ananda had endless favor with them. “Good luck.”

When she had left, I turned toward the building. Time to meet Lux.

As I passed through the front door of the office building, a high voice rang out. “YoumustbeIsabella.”

I spun in the hallway, caught a glimpse of tiny wings. They flitted left, then right. I felt like a cat watching my owner dance a feather in front of my face. “What did you say?”

The flitting didn’t stop. “IsaidyoumustbeIsabella.”

“Can you … hold still?” I was getting dizzy. “And speak a little slower?”

The flitting stopped … right in front of my face. I blinked, going cross-eyed as I tried to focus on the tiny creature before me.

A pixie, exactly as promised. The beautiful, tiny pixie hovered directly in front of my nose, her wings fluttering like a hummingbird. She had—of course—a pixie cut, her blonde hair cropped close to her head. Beneath that, her elfin features regarded me with something like mirth or annoyance. I couldn’t tell. She also wore the smallest pair of white scrubs I’d ever seen.

“I said”—she demarcated each word with her hands, slicing them through the air—“you must be Isabella.”

I swallowed. “Yes.”

“What happened to you?”

I glanced down at the rat bites visible on my calves beneath my skirt. “It’s a long story.”

She gave the tiniest huff. “What are you?”

“What do you mean?”

She set her hands to her hips as she flitted to my left eye, then to my right. “I mean, what Other are you?”

“An encantado.”

She flitted back a half-foot. “I’ve never heard of an encantado.”

“We’re from South Amer—”

“Well, all right.” She zipped left, then right again. It seemed difficult for her to stay still. “I’m Lux.”

“Nice to meet you, Lu—“

But she was already flying down the empty hallway. “This way. Come on.”

I stared after her. Was this pixie on uppers, or was this how they all were? I hadn’t gotten the chance to know any of the ones attending McGill, and we didn’t have pixies in Brazil.

Lux was already floating in front of a security reader, which beeped. A light flashed green, and the door opened inward.

I followed her into a one-room office. Here, two desks sat with antiquated computers atop them. They had the look of being used, and one even had a fake plant in the corner.

Except there were no windows.

“Is this a real office?” I asked.

Lux arrowed toward a door at the back of the room. “Of course not.” She hovered in front of another reader, which beeped and turned green.

We came into a small anteroom fitted with benches. “Here’s where you gown up and clean up.” Lux floated close, pointed a finger at a set of rules on the wall. “You must always gown up and clean up every time you go in and out. In the proper order.”

I nodded, cross-eyed again. “Right.”

So I followed the rules. After I’d washed my hands in a sink, Lux pointed at a pair of human-sized white scrubs hung up above the bench. “Those are yours.”

She turned away as I stripped down and set my clothes in a hamper, keeping her eyes averted from my naked body. Even meth-making pixies had propriety, it seemed.

Once I’d dressed, we came through a clear-glass door into a sparkling setup. Enormous machines spread across the room. Barrels sat in one corner. A long desk full of lab equipment sat on one end, and on the other …

Lux zipped toward the side of the room I had been eyeing. “This is your side. You work here.” She flew to the center of the room and straight down the middle. “This is the division.”

I stepped to the center of the room. “The division?”

Lux flitted to one side of the invisible line she had drawn and pointed. “My side.” She flew to the other side and pointed. “Your side.”

An antisocial, fastidious pixie who couldn’t stay still. I had to give it to Ms. Sparkle: she had found the perfect Other to make her meth. And I didn’t even mind; I was an introvert, so I’d prefer not to spend all day chattering away with my labmate.

I just needed to do my work, and fast.

Lux flew close to me. “Did you hear me?”

I flinched backward. “Sure did.”

“What did they hire you to do here, anyway?”

Correction: an antisocial busybody. Apparently the two could exist in one pixie.

I wagged a finger at her. “I’m afraid that’s confidential.”

Her hands went to her hips; this seemed like a familiar pose for her. “All right.” She began to flit away, stopped and turned in midair. “Don’t try to leave without consulting them. They’ll know. And if you want to talk to someone outside, use the panel on the wall.”

I followed her tiny finger to a rectangle the size of a lightswitch cover sitting on the far wall near the entrance. “Who will answer?”

“Somebody.” And with the smallest little hmph of annoyance, she flew to her side of the room.

I turned toward my side of the lab. My eyes grew wide as I stepped closer, surveying the endless array of brand-new equipment available to me. Burettes, microscopes of several sizes, tongs and clamps, test tubes and beakers, distillation equipment.

My fingers hovered over each item as I passed from end to end. This was even better than the setup I’d had at McGill. I wasn’t as good a chemist as I was a geneticist, but the high-tech stuff available here could carry even a novice scientist along.

Down at the end, I found a mid-sized box just for me, a hazard symbol on the side. It came with a handwritten note atop it.

I—

When interacting with O-X (I guessed that meant OtherX), wear gloves and the provided gas mask. Don’t forget, because we don’t have a counteragent to save you if you expose yourself. That depends on you.

Remember: two weeks.

—Ms. S.

I set the note aside, my hand sliding to my belly. OtherX would have to come later. This came first. Finally, I had the tools to figure out the answer to the question I’d carried since I’d escaped Serena Russo in the desert.

And if the results were positive, they would change everything.

↔

It’s embarrassing to admit that I know more about pregnancy tests than just about anyone. Everything from the old, natural ways to the pee sticks, I know it inside and out.

Why is it embarrassing? Because encantado have always been infertile, even before the gods left. Five hundred years of infertility, and I still tried. I still wanted. I thought Yemoja, the goddess of womanhood, would gift it to me. She loved me, after all.

I suspect she would have given it to me if she could have, but love wasn’t enough, even for a god. It wasn’t in Yemoja’s power to give me a child.

After the gods’ departure, I thought mortality would change things.

It had not.

The truth was this: I was destined to die, but never to procreate.

I spent a year depressed, like so many Others. What was the point of anything, after all? Now that we were mortal, the GoneGod World felt like its axis revolved on death and decay. I became a morbid encantado for a while there.

But even after the gods left, technology changed. Scientists had mapped human DNA. They were developing CRISPR, a method of splicing human DNA.

What about Others? I thought. Where are the scientists studying Other DNA?

There were none. Others were other, after all. We didn’t matter to humans. I had always been brainy and analytical, so I thought, why not me?

Why not?

The thought brought me out of my depression. It gave me a purpose, a role. And I wasn’t just going to map the third strand of the Other DNA helix … I was going to give Others the power to procreate.

So when I enrolled at McGill, it was because of Ms. Sparkle’s innermost layer of the onion. She had been right: beneath everything else resided my deepest desire.

To be a mother.

How ironic that it would be Serena Russo who would know first.

I tried several times throughout the day to get the items I needed to create a makeshift pregnancy test, but Lux watched me with hawk’s eyes. Every time I stood up from my stool, I sensed her attention diverted to me. At one point she even spun toward me. “What are you doing?” she barked out when I neared her side of the invisible line.

“Getting the lay of the land,” I’d said with my hands up.

Even worse, one of the items was on Lux’s side of the room, staring at me from its jug. Apparently she was the only one who had been granted access to bleach.

And I really, really needed bleach.

Fortunately, even pixies needed pee breaks. After four hours of work, Lux finally zipped into the tiny bathroom. As soon as she’d shut the door, I ran on tiptoe to her side, grabbed the bleach and hid it under my desk.

When she came back out, I felt sure she’d somehow know. “Where did my bleach go?” she’d yowl.

But she didn’t notice. GoneGods be good, she just flew back to the tray of clear shards she’d been sorting through.

After I was certain I was in the clear, I grabbed a beaker, tucked the bleach under my arm and sidled into the bathroom. Inside, it was the easiest thing in the world: mix the bleach and a few drops of my urine while I covered my mouth with my arm.

The bubbling started immediately.

A positive result.

I was pregnant.

After I’d emptied the beaker into the sink, I stepped out of the bathroom with the back of my hand over my mouth to hide the sounds of my crying.

I was pregnant. After everything, life had taken hold inside me.

Lux noticed, of course. “Are you OK?” she called across the room.

I crossed to my side, set my hands to the desk’s surface for balance. “I’m …” My voice had come out too weak. “I’m fine,” I said, louder.

Serena Russo had known how to get an Other pregnant.

How had she known?

How in the GoneGods had she known?

I retraced to the beginning of our conversation in the World Army facility, after I’d woken from surgery. I had lost part of my arm in the river, and she had promised to use a sample of my DNA to grow me a new one.

And she had. Except she’d spliced an unknown amount of the Oracle of Delphi’s DNA in with it. She’d made me her guinea pig, imbued me with new powers for one purpose alone: to save her son’s life—a task to which I was oathbound. He needed Other DNA in his body to survive. He needed me to finish mapping the genome to make the splicing process safe enough for a weak, sickly boy.

But that didn’t explain how Serena had known how to get me pregnant.

Had she known? She hadn’t mentioned anything of pregnancy until after she’d entered the Garden of Hera and seen into the future.

Think, Isa.

“Now we both share the burden of motherhood,” she’d said after we had left the garden. Was it the oracle DNA that had done it? Had her powers changed how my physiology worked?

Was it some sort of magic?

I turned back toward the desk, stared down at the reflective surface. There was my pale face staring back at me. It couldn’t be magic. Magic had never allowed Others to procreate—not once.

Back when the gods first left, I had thought that pregnancy might be possible because I was now mortal. I could shapeshift into a human, so I wondered if there were any real differences between humans and encantado who transformed into them.

We had their anatomy, after all. It was all the same.

But it didn’t work. The DNA was different.

I pressed my fingers to my eyes, but I couldn’t figure it out. Especially not now, with my heart hammering. I’m pregnant. That thought ran in a circle through my mind, pushing everything else aside.

But who was the father?

I had slept with Justin or Hercules—or both … I wish I knew—after I’d been hit by Cupid’s arrow on the train from New York City. That was less than forty-eight hours before the surgery, which meant it was possible.

It was possible.

Serena had spliced in the oracle’s DNA, and just like that, everything inside me had jerked into sudden motion. I still didn’t know why, but that didn’t change the reality of the situation.

I’m pregnant.

I stepped away from the desk, lightheaded. I needed to be alone, and I could only find solitude in one place. Lux watched me as I crossed back toward the bathroom. “Hey,” she said. “Hey, you were just in there!”

But I didn’t answer. I could barely hold it together.

When I closed the bathroom door, I sat on the toilet and I cried. I let it all out, because that wasn’t just happy crying. It was, yes, but it was also anger and fear and sorrow. Everything had changed. None of this—the place I was in, the OtherX, finishing my research—mattered anymore.

It was the most unabashedly selfish moment of my five hundred years, and I couldn’t even stop it. A switch had flipped, and I was no longer just Isabella.

I was a mother.

A surge of maternal instincts began to course through me. I was a mother. I was forever different. I was forever changed. And that changed everything.

I felt suddenly and unrepentantly selfish like I never had before. Justin, Hercules, Cupid, Ananda … I cared about them, but they were all adults.

My child was not.

I would live a different life. I wouldn’t put myself at risk, OtherX be damned. Everything I’d do would be for the fetus inside me—and when I gave birth, we would live in peace.

But only if the child lived.

I needed to protect my child. And protecting my child meant that I needed to get out of Ms. Sparkle’s lab, out of this building and out of Las Vegas. I needed to protect my child.

At all costs, I needed to protect my child.

Chapter 11

A knock came on the bathroom door. It was like the smallest pebble known to man repeatedly hitting the surface. Hard.

“Time’s up,” Lux’s muffled voice called. “And I need to go.”

She definitely didn’t need to go again so soon; more likely she just wanted to figure out why I was acting so squirrely.

I stood. “Just a minute.” I had to figure out my next step—because I wasn’t about to stay here.

Option 1: I could keep working the rest of my shift. Then I could leave, get on the bus and end up back at Ananda’s apartment. From there, it would be bon voyage Vegas.

Option 2: I could just walk out of this bathroom and right out of the building. Who would stop me—a pixie the size of a prune? Then I wouldn’t have to touch the OtherX, which I felt certain was a terrible idea for a pregnant Other. And I could change my face once I’d gotten onto the street—no one would know who I was.

I stared at myself in the small mirror over the sink. I still looked like the blonde who’d gotten in a fight with Ananda’s exes and been taken in by the cops. I could be—should be—anyone else.

But how would that affect my pregnancy?

Would shifting interfere with it?

These were things I had never had to think about before. The answer was: I had no idea how shifting illusions would affect things.

But I wasn’t about to risk it.

Between the two options, my avoidant brain clung to the second one with almost frightening ferociousness. Even if I couldn’t shift, I could still walk away from all this. I could do what I’d always done: escape, disappear, get lost in a crowd.

And once that familiar bundle of neurons fired together, I knew I only had one option.

When I pulled open the bathroom door, Lux hovered two inches away. “That was way longer than five minutes.”

“Sorry.” But I wasn’t sorry.

She flew around me in a huff and somehow managed to push the door closed behind me. Which left me alone in the lab, the only sounds the noises of meth being processed—and my blood thundering in my ears.

I was doing this. I was definitely doing this.

I turned right, opened a door and passed into the gown room. It felt like a huge pain, but I followed the rules of decontamination; I didn’t want to infect anyone outside with anything. I stripped out of the scrubs, washed my hands, grabbed the clothes I’d borrowed from Ananda.

I left the scrubs on the floor where I’d stepped out of them and changed back into my clothes. Then I passed into the fake office, which remained as empty as it had been three hours before. Actually, I had expected the door between the lab and the office to be locked. But it wasn’t. Nor was the door out of the fake office and into the exterior hallway.

I came out, and to my left, bright afternoon light formed a rectangle over the floor. I could see the outside.

I started toward it.

When I got to the door, I stopped with my hand on the bar.

Something wouldn’t allow me to leave. Not the door itself; that I could have pushed open with ease. It was something deeper. Something far, far more powerful.

My conscience.

It was saying: You’re doing that thing again, Isa.

I was avoiding my problems. I was very, very good at avoiding my problems.

Even if I had no good reason to leave, I always conjured one up in my mind. And even though pregnancy was a pretty damn good reason, my conscience was still keeping me from walking out the door.

Ever since I’d become mortal, my conscience had been getting in the way of my choices. It used to be that the goddess Yemoja or my sisters would hew a simple path for me, remove the brambles and the divots. If my actions had consequences, they were few and small. And if bigger ones did crop up, I had gotten in the five-hundred-year habit of avoiding them.

I was so good that you could call me Isabella “Avoidance” Ramirez.

But Yemoja was gone. We weren’t immortal anymore, and the GoneGod World didn’t offer prettily hewn paths and small consequences. The wrong choice meant real death, and not just for me.

My hand slid over my stomach.

Every time I’d closed my eyes today, I’d seen them. The minotaur, the satyr, Cthulhu and the arachne lit up like iridescent Christmas trees, all their magic burning away into the ether as they screamed.

That was no suicide. Ananda hadn’t been lying about the OtherX. Which meant she hadn’t been lying about the World Army’s intent to conduct large-scale chemical warfare. If they got brazen about it, so few of us would survive we’d become endangered species.

And what future would that provide for my child?

It was more than that. It wasn’t just my child—it was the knowledge that I was walking away from 300,000 Others who didn’t know they were reliant on me to save them.

This would have been the largest consequence I’d ever walked away from. And how could I ever look my child in the eye and teach her anything of pride if I chose to run instead of fight?

My job was simple: map the DNA, create the counteragent.

Ananda’s job was harder—she had to hit the streets, talk the talk, fight the dirtiest fights. That had always been the case. It was what she was good at, and it was what she had insulated me from.

She used to have a crude saying: "You always use your mind as a weapon. My fist and my vagina are far better weapons.”

I hated when she said that. But it was also true.

Ananda was doing her job. My job was the least I could do—for her. For my child. For all the Others.

So I went back inside the last place I wanted to be. I took off my dress again, cleansed in the shower, put on a new pair of scrubs and came back into the lab just as Lux was exiting the bathroom.

She stared at me. “Where did you go?”

“To get some sun,” I said with a shrug.

She didn’t believe that for a minute—I could tell by the way she rolled her eyes—but she also didn’t say anything else. I didn’t know why she just flew straight back to her work. But I was grateful she hadn’t pressed the matter.

I went back to my station and I got started on my work. The work that would someday make my child proud.

↔

As I climbed on the bus that evening, my brain felt like it was on fire.

It was a familiar feeling, one I’d experienced many times as I conducted my research at McGill. But right now it was tinged with something that amped the “fire” part up a few notches.

Pure, potent anxiety.

About my baby, yes. But also about my boyfriend, my sister and the two demigods. The whole time I’d been working in the lab, I hadn’t heard a peep. Not a text, not a phone call. For all I knew, Ananda had been attacked by the STOP guy and had burned away all her magic.

I’d sent Justin, Cupid and Ananda a slew of texts and called them a few times, but they hadn’t replied. Not any of them. I felt completely cut off, and it was strange. Isolating. Not to mention, Lux the pixie wasn’t exactly talkative. She only conversed with me when I did something she found annoying.

“Don’t mind me,” I whispered to myself as the bus slid through Vegas, “I’m just over here saving Otherdom with science.”

Across from me, an older woman glanced up. We met eyes, and I forced a smile. What do you say when strangers notice you talking to yourself? You smile and try not to make insane eyes.

I noticed her holding a newspaper with a headline about the quadruple Other suicide outside the Las Vegas police station. It included the words: “going out in flames of glory,” like they were proud of dying that way.

If she only knew the truth.

Thirty minutes later, the bus dropped me off outside the Bellagio. When I went into the lobby, a brightly-colored Cupid met me there, and some of my anxiety dissipated. “Hey,” he said, grabbing my hand. “This way.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“Duh, we’ve been watching the security cameras. In a place this fancy, they’ve got them mounted everywhere.”

I allowed him to guide me. “You didn’t reply to any of my texts.”

“We’ve been busy. Super busy.”

I surveyed him as we passed into a hallway. “Do you have to wear that every day?”

He didn’t even turn his head. “Don’t go there, Isa.”

I reached out to touch the lace. “Does it always have to be pink, or—”

Cupid stopped hard and swatted my hand away. His face came close to mine. “Any more comments on my cover and you don’t get to be part of the stakeout.”

I cocked my head. “I don’t think you get to decide who’s in.”

Ahead of us, a door opened. Justin’s face appeared. “Come on in.”

As we came into the small security room and Cupid shut the door behind us, I found Hercules and Ananda sitting in front of a whole array of monitors. They were surrounded by vending machine junk food—well, mostly empty junk food wrappers—and sodas.

Justin grabbed a Twinkie, tossed it to me. “Welcome to the clubhouse.”

I’d been worried about them all day, and they’d been having a sleepover. I wanted to be annoyed, but I was mostly relieved. “Where’s the actual security guard?”

Ananda spun on her stool toward me. “I offered him a night he’ll never forget in exchange for a few days in the camera room, no questions asked.” Surely that had worked like a charm; I hadn’t ever seen a man turn Ananda down. “How close are you to developing the counteragent?” she asked.

I stared at the Twinkie and resisted tearing off the wrapper and shoving it straight into my mouth. It was my favorite junk food. “I’m making progress finding the section of DNA that interacts with magic. Today I started with a shortcut by breaking the genome down into about 150,000 likely pairs—”

“OK, Miss Scientist, I don’t need to hear the deets,” Ananda said. “Just tell me how much longer.”

I sighed. “It’s hard to know exactly. Where human DNA has two strands, we have three. That means the Other genome has approximately 5 billion pairs.”

Ananda took a long, loud sip of cola as if she hadn’t heard me, then lowered the can. “We need it faster.”

“I’m going as fast as I can.”

“You don’t know how fast you can go,” she said, “until your mettle is tested.”

I gritted my teeth. How could she even know—

Cupid pointed at a monitor. “There’s a hat guy.”

We all crowded around the monitor he was pointing to. On screen, a guy in a STOP shirt wandered the casino. “Nah,” Justin said. “Not chubby enough.”

“How many of these hat guys have you seen today?” I asked.

“So very many,” Hercules said around the three beef jerky sticks he’d just pressed into his mouth. “I tried to give them wallops when I’d see them, but Justin and Cupid of Eros stopped me. Apparently these ‘monitors’ are just renderings of the person.”

Cupid groaned. “Can I just retract that whole statement about walloping?”

Hercules shook his head. “A man must think carefully before he speaks, and then he must stand by his words. Retractions are for cowards.”

Cupid fluffed his tutu. “Dude, I’m the only one here brave enough to wear this frou-frou getup. Meanwhile, you get to be Mr. Muscle in your button-down.”

Hercules beamed at me. “The Bellagio didn’t even require me to speak before they chose my services.”

I glanced over at Justin, who wore a black uniform. “How’s it going over there?”

“It’s like stirring molasses,” he said, still staring at the monitors. “After this, I’m never going to find drunk people entertaining again.”

Ananda stood, fluffed her blonde hair. “I’ll make another circuit.”

Cupid gave her a thumbs-up.

“Another circuit?” I felt so out of the loop.

“She’s trying to draw the attacker out,” Cupid explained. “He knows her face.”

I stopped her before she reached the door. “Ana, I have a strange request.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I’m five hundred years old. I doubt anything you request will seem strange to me.”

Well, let’s see how she took this one. “I need to get into the morgue to see your exes’ corpses.”

Her perfectly groomed eyebrows went straight up. “All right. I’ll give it to you: that one is pretty friggin’ strange.” She folded her arms. “Why?”

“They were killed by OtherX. If I can get a blood sample, it’ll help me develop the counteragent.”

She considered this for a moment. “Didn’t Ms. Sparkle provide you with a sample in the lab?”

I nodded. “Yes, but that’s undiluted. If I can see how it’s interacting with the cells in your exes’ blood, I might be able to figure out where it’s interacting with the DNA.”

She shrugged. “All right. Tomorrow morning before work, we go together.”

“Together?”

“Yeah. You and me.” She winked as she stepped around me. “It’ll be like old times.”

Chapter 12

The next morning, an unfamiliar face appeared over me in the predawn darkness. “Ready?” came the low voice.

I tried to bolt off Ananda’s couch—my sleeping spot—but a hand shot out and gripped my wrist. “Don’t wake the others,” she rasped. “It’s just me.”

I blinked. “Ana? Why are you so …”

She half-smirked, the nasolabial lines around her mouth deepening. “Unattractive? Is that what you’re too polite to say?”

“No.” I rose from the couch and followed her into the kitchen. “Older.”

Coffee was brewing on the counter. Ananda filled a mug and passed it to me; I could see the tendons sticking out on the back of her hand from natural loss of fat. She had shifted into a woman in her forties. “Drink. It’s going to be a long day.”

“Are we still going to the morgue?”

She folded her arms. “Why do you think I burned two months off my life to take on this illusion? For shits and gigs?”

Two months of life. In the grand scheme of our new life spans—probably sixty or seventy years—it didn’t seem like a lot. But just imagine, with every new illusion we took on, we burned another two months. Another two months. Another two months.

It only took six new illusions to burn a year. And given how much we loved shapeshifting, six illusions were nothing. But a year to take on six new faces? A year felt pivotal. It felt like inviting death.

That human saying—her saying—floated into my mind again. “Live fast and leave a beautiful corpse.”

I wondered how many times she’d burned two months off the end of her life in the four years since we’d become mortal. I really had no way of telling, but I did know one thing.

It was a big deal that she had done this for me. It meant she considered this trip to the morgue important. Really important.

“Thank you,” I said. “For taking on that illusion.”

“Don’t thank me.” She passed me a little milk container for my coffee. “It had to be done.”

I poured the milk, surveying her as I did. I didn’t even know she owned clothes like that: loose-fitted, covering all her limbs, shoes without heels. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“Johnny’s first wife.”

I lowered the milk container and mug to the table. “You know what she looks like?”

She lifted one shoulder. “I slept over at his place a few times. The poor minotaur hadn’t gotten over her—all he did was tip the framed portraits on their faces when I came over.”

“That must have been hard for ...”

She raised a finger to stop me. If there was one thing Ananda hated, it was hollow sympathy. “Drink. We’re leaving in fifteen.” Then, “Oh, and you need a different face.”

A different face. “About that.” I paused, breathing deep. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

She stopped mid-pour into her own mug. She set the coffee pot down and turned. “Please don’t stop with the vague ominousness.”

I came forward. “Ananda, I’m pregnant.”

Her dark eyes flitted from my face down to my belly and back up in one instant. She couldn’t help her grin. “OK, I deserve that one.”

“You deserve …?”

She turned back around, waved her hand through the air. “I’ve been kind of a bitch to you since you came to Vegas, always harping on you being the golden child. I got you bitten by rats, attacked by a minotaur and I slapped you a good one. I get it.”

I stepped up to the counter, right beside her. My hand went to her arm. “It’s not a joke. I swear to Yemoja.”

If there was one thing all encantado took seriously, it was swearing to Yemoja. Even if she was gone.

Ananda went still. Seconds elapsed, and she only stared down at the coffee in her mug. Finally her eyes raised with aching slowness to meet mine. “What?” she breathed.

“I know it sounds impossible. It’s a long, long story.” I leaned against the counter. “But I tested myself at Ms. Sparkle’s lab yesterday. I’m sure it’s true.”

“It is impossible.” She looked almost afraid of me. “No encantado has ever been pregnant.”

“The GoneGod World has brought a lot of changes,” I said. “One of them is modern science. It’s possible now, Ana.”

No thanks to the gods, I thought but didn’t say. This had been possible thanks to my work. Thanks to Serena’s work, for as much as she had done to make my life a misery.

Tears filled Ananda’s eyes, and she pulled me into a hug. The force of her grip blurred my own eyes, and a small sound emerged from my throat. It felt so good to be held by her. Comforting. Unexpected. “I believe you,” she said by my ear. “And I won’t even chide you for not using protection.”

That raised another, louder noise from my throat—something between a sob and a laugh.

When we parted, she set both hands on my shoulders. “How far along are you?”

“I can’t be more than a few weeks.”

“Who’s the father?”

I glanced toward the living room. “That’s a good question.”

Surprise colored her face. “Just say it isn’t Cupid.”

“Oh my GoneGods, Ana.” I shook my head. “That’s four kinds of wrong.”

“So it’s either Justin or Hercules.”

I raised both hands, palms up. “It happened on the train. I got hit with one of Cupid’s arrows, and then … I was with someone. Or multiple someones. It was all kind of a blur.”

She was nodding. “I’m going to have to see about borrowing one of those arrows someday.” Then, “In the meantime, you can’t take on another face. It would be too risky.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“So you’ll be this little blonde for a while.” She stroked a tendril of my hair, which sent a shiver through me. I’d rarely seen her so gentle, and I relished it.

“Can you get me into the morgue like this?” I asked.

The ghost of a smile touched her lips. “What can’t I do?”

Ah, that old cockiness. Right now I needed it. I needed her faith in herself, even if it wasn’t fully felt. Just the promise of it made me feel more confident, more capable.

She pulled the mug from my hands. “No caffeine for the pregnant encantado.”

I raised a finger to my lips. “Ixnay on the pregnancy talk, please. You’re the only one I’ve told.”

She leaned closer, whispered, “And no more Twinkies, either.”

My mouth dropped. “Hey now.”

“Sister, if I had to venture a guess, you’re the only pregnant Other in the GoneGod World. We’re not compromising that with dough and cream.” She handed me a glass of water instead. “Drink that and get dressed. We’re going to see four dead Others.”

↔

The morgue where Ananda’s four exes had been taken sat like a low, dark box on the Las Vegas North hospital grounds, the unwanted black sheep of the medical complex. Outside, well-manicured topiaries and a running fountain worked to belie what we found inside.

In there, we discovered the most put-upon night shift orderly who’d ever worked a morgue. Fortunately, he was a young man. And even if his eyes began half-lidded and his shoulders curved in, when he saw me, that all changed.

His brown eyes opened wide as he took me in. All at once, he sat ramrod straight on his stool.

I stepped up to the counter and I did my thing. “Good morning.” Chin down, eyes up. How long do eyelashes have to be before they form a perfect, endearing veil? About one tenth of an inch. That’s a fact I doubt anyone but an encantado would know.

“Good morning,” he said. “I’m sorry, but we aren’t open to visitors until—”

Ananda stepped up, her face a mess of mascara over puffy cheeks. “My Johnny. They said my husband’s here. Is he here?”

The orderly noticed Ananda for the first time, and between the two of us, he looked completely out of his depth. “Johnny?”

“Real name Asterion,” Ananda sobbed. “Born in the year 200 B.C.E., guarded the Labyrinth at Crete. Please, I have to see him. I have to know for sure.”

“Of course,” the orderly said. When his eyes flicked back to me, I gave him my under-the-eyelashes look again. “And are you related, too?”

Ananda gripped my arm. “She’s my daughter.”

We stared at him with tears in our eyes.

What else is a young man to do when two encantado forces of nature walk through your sliding doors at six in the morning?

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “This way.”

As we followed him down the hallway, Ananda leaned toward me. “This takes me back to that time we snuck into the governor’s mansion in Manaus.”

I hid my grin. I had completely forgotten about that; it was during the fifty-year span that Yemoja had sealed away my memories. Ananda and I had been close then—the closest we’d ever been. “We convinced both his sons to run away with us.”

She gripped my hand. “The bastard deserved it. He wanted to cut into the rainforest for industry.”

Of course—that was why we had done it. She and I were like vigilantes then, making right in our own way. That was before things had gone too far. That was before she’d started doling out lethal justice to bandits. And forcing me to take part.

I pushed the darkness aside. Think of before. I gripped her hand as we passed through a door and into a freezer of a room.

The orderly crossed to a bank of drawers, studying the name tags until he found the right one. He pulled on the handle, and out slid a large body under a sheet.

When the orderly turned down the sheet, there lay a very dead Johnny the minotaur. His face had gone gray and sunken, and when I threw my hand over my mouth, it wasn’t an act.

The OtherX had completely ravaged him.

Ananda threw her hands up and burst into a guttural sob. “My Johnny!”

The orderly raised a finger to his lips. “Please be quiet. I’m not supposed to have brought you back here.”

Ananda nodded, wiping tears and mascara from her cheeks. “Of course. Of course.” She stepped toward him, her shaking fingers reaching out. “Johnny boy.”

The orderly waited in an awkward way, hovering halfway between us and the door. When he and I met eyes, I whispered, “Could we have a few minutes alone with him?”

Again, he was dazzled by me. He seemed suddenly embarrassed, his hands pressing along his sides like he should have thought of that already. “Sure. A few minutes.”

When the door closed behind him, I pulled the syringe out of my purse.

“GoneGodDamn.” Ananda wiped her tears away. “I thought he would never leave.”

I stepped up to Johnny’s corpse, pulling the sheet back until his chest was exposed. It was like the OtherX had taken all the color out of him, everything that made Johnny an Other. And maybe that was true: it had blown all his magic from his body in just a few minutes.

But he still had blood.

When I touched his arm, it was colder than the air in the room. This wasn’t the first time I’d touched a dead body—so many human lovers who had passed, and then there was my best friend, Hinata, and her son—but it was still completely unnerving.

I knew the OtherX was in his bloodstream, but right now, logic was nothing next to the irrational fear of somehow being exposed to the agent. Plus, I was drawing his blood straight out of his arm.

I pulled a pair of gloves from my purse, slipped them over my hands. Before I started drawing from the crook of his arm, I noticed something under the hair on his chest.

“Ananda,” I said, pressing aside the hair. “What’s this?”

She leaned close. “Looks like some kind of insertion point.”

“For a big, big needle.” I touched the spot, which was raised. “And it’s right over his heart.”

“What do you think it is?”

“OtherX is airborne, right?” I said.

“That’s what Ms. Sparkle told us.”

I glanced around me. “Are the other three exes in here?”

Ananda passed around Johnny’s body. “I’ll look.”

As I drew the blood from his arm, she searched. Finally, “Yes! Here’s Sylvia. And Alonso. And Brett.”

“Brett?”

Ananda pulled out another drawer. “The descendent of Cthulhu.”

“The descendent of Cthulhu is named Brett,” I said in deadpan.

She shrugged. “I always thought he was saying Brett, but he might have been saying something else. With all those tentacles, it was a wonder we could communicate at all.”

I capped the syringe, tucked it into my purse. In the little time we had left, we examined the bodies of Ananda’s other exes.

First came Alonso the satyr. He too had a lot of hair on his chest, but I was able to find a puncture wound in virtually the same spot as on Johnny’s chest.

Next came Sylvia. I searched her chest, but I couldn’t find any marks. “Strange.”

Ananda was flicking through her phone—one which she pretended not to have, I’d noticed, when Sylvia had pressed her on the matter—and I glimpsed a picture of food before she looked up. “What is?”

“No puncture mark. But Johnny and Alonso both had them over the heart.” I reached out for her phone. “Give me that. I need to take pictures.”

I pulled the sheet the rest of the way off Sylvia, cringing when I saw all eight of her legs curled up, and Ananda and I proceeded to search for a puncture mark anywhere on her.

“Bingo,” Ananda said from the other side of the slab. When I came around, she was pointing at a wound on the spider-section of Sylvia’s body—the large abdomen. I snapped an image.

Brett was last. We found the puncture mark near the back of his bulbous head.

“I don’t get it,” I said as I surveyed all four bodies, taking pictures of all of them. “There’s no pattern to this. But they were definitely all stabbed with the same instrument. A large needle.”

She shook her head. “I’m as lost as you are. But unfortunately, we’ve got to skedaddle. I hear footsteps.”

We pushed all the bodies back into their drawers just as the attendant came back in. The two of us offered sorrowful smiles, and I clasped my hands before me.

“That’s all the time I can give you,” he said.

“It’ll never be enough time,” Ananda cried. “My Johnny.”

“That was very generous. Thank you,” I said as I led her out into the hallway. Behind my eyes, I couldn’t stop seeing those puncture marks on their bodies.

There was more going on here than I’d originally believed.

Chapter 13

Three days passed. Three days of working at Ms. Sparkle’s lab, trying to find the section of Other DNA that interacted with magic. Three days of bussing over to the Bellagio in the evenings, waiting for the STOP guy to show his face.

No dice on the STOP front. And I still couldn’t puzzle out what had been going on with those puncture marks at the morgue. But I had made a breakthrough.

I always considered three a magical number. Biblical, sure, but also magical. If you survived three days of heartbreak, you would survive. If you kept a habit for three days, you were more likely to repeat it. And if you studied Other DNA for three days straight, set your mind to the task after so many years of research, sometimes you’ll find the magic you were looking for.

On the third morning, I pushed my stool out with a scrape across the floor. I had found the segment of DNA I was looking for.

“Can you not do that with the chair?” Lux called from across the room. “It’s like nails on a—”

“Lux.” I rose, turned toward her. “Lux, you beautiful bescrubbed pixie. I’ve done it!”

She paused in her flight from one enormous machine to another, a tiny pair of tongs gleaming in one hand. “Are you making fun of my uniform?” I crossed toward her, but the tongs darted up into the air. “Hey, no coming over to this side of the room. Remember?”

I stopped, looked down. The line she had drawn wasn’t really there, so I couldn’t exactly tell if I had crossed it. “Uh, sorry.”

Like a little photon of light, she flew down and scrubbed a rag over the spot where my shoe had touched her side. “It needs to be clean over here. Much cleaner than your side.”

I crouched so we could be level with one another. “Lux, do you know about Other DNA?”

She kept scrubbing. “I’m a chemist. Why should I?”

“Because it’s inside you.”

She looked up at me. “And a whole host of the world’s chemicals are inside you, but I don’t require you to know about chemistry, do I?”

I smiled down at her with perfect benevolence. In this moment, I found her curmudgeonliness cute. “No, you don’t.”

My kindness seemed to have killed her, as the phrase went. Or at least, it softened her. She shrugged. “All right, tell me. Quickly.”

I grinned. “I know which segment of DNA our magic comes from.”

“Which segment our …” She looked horrified. “Our magic is from the gods.”

“No, Lux. Our magic is from ourselves. The gods may have created us, but we carry our magic separately from them. That’s why, when they left—”

She raised a hand. “Stop. I don’t want to hear any more.”

I was stunned. “But you’re a scientist.”

“I am. But our magic is sacred.” She rose into the air, flew back to her station. She busied herself with testing a fresh batch of crystals with her tongs.

I straightened, watched her for a minute. I had met Others like her before; it was a common divergence of thought. Those like me believed magic was understandable, dissectible, able to be controlled. And those like Lux viewed magic with near religious fanaticism; they considered it beyond our understanding. A gift from the gods, not to be questioned.

But she was the first religious scientist I had met.

I turned back to my station. Right here in this lab in Vegas, I possessed one of the keys to power. The World Army—Serena Russo—had learned to splice Other DNA into humans’ bodies, but in the way a novice could swing an axe and still manage to split lumber. They got the job done, but without understanding exactly how they were doing it.

That was why they’d created super soldiers like Justin and Daiski. They made them into guinea pigs, leapt into the technology without fully understanding how it functioned. It was why Serena had used me as a guinea pig for her theories about oracle DNA. It burned me through and through that she had violated me, used me. By splicing a little bit of oracle DNA into my body, she’d tested a theory. And that theory had proven correct.

Even though she’d burned me, she had also—somehow—given me what I most wanted. And that certainly complicated our relationship. The point was: the World Army sought to retroactively understand the finer science behind what they did. But they didn’t—not yet.

But I did. This was information the resistance needed. This was information Ananda needed to give us leverage over the World Army.

First thing’s first, though. I walked over to the intercom on the wall, hit the button. “Hello?”

I could sense Lux watching me from where she was still sorting shards of meth on her tray. She’d paused to eavesdrop. Fine by me.

“Go ahead,” returned a male voice. Probably Ms. Sparkle’s security.

“I’d like to have a meeting with Ms. Sparkle tomorrow afternoon.”

A pause. “Why?”

“Tell her I’ll have what she needs.”

Another pause, this time for longer. Finally, “She’ll meet you in a car outside the office building tomorrow afternoon at three.”

“Perfect.”

I stepped back from the intercom, and Lux pretended not to be watching as I turned around. I winked at her, but she only scowled and lowered her tongs to the crystals.

I doubted she knew the kind of jeopardy her life was in, and that her annoying labmate was the one working to save her.

But as I lifted the vial of Johnny’s blood from where it had been waiting, I realized it didn’t matter if she knew or not. I wasn’t doing this for glory. I was doing it because it was right.

“Lux,” I called out as I stared at the vial, “you know a lot about needles.”

The pixie gave a little groan. “Don’t patronize me, please.”

I turned toward her. “I’m actually doing the opposite. I need your expertise.”

The little shard of light jumped, and I sensed her turning her face toward me. “Why?” she said warily.

“I’m trying to figure out a puzzle, and it involves needles. If I figure out the puzzle, it’ll help me save a lot of lives.”

She flew over with crossed arms. “I’m not interested in puzzles. And I really doubt you’re saving anyone’s life, but fine. Tell me.”

I raised four fingers. “Let’s say four Others of different species each had a single needle puncture on their body. A minotaur and a satyr both have punctures in the center of their chest, right over the heart. An arachne has one at the back of her spider’s abdomen. And a descendent of Cthulhu has one at the back of his head.”

Lux just stared at me. “And?”

I lowered my hand. “Why?” I said. “What’s the connection between all those spots?”

“That has nothing to do with chemistry or needles,” Lux said, rolling her eyes. “It’s just basic anatomy, biologist.”

“Anatomy?”

“Not every Other’s heart is in their chest.” She sighed. “I can’t believe I have to tell another Other that.”

My mouth dropped open. I had to double-check to confirm, but I felt almost certain Lux was right. A spider’s heart was in the abdomen, and an octopus heart—which was probably what the descendent of Cthulhu had—was in the head.

“Are we done here?” Lux asked.

I grinned at her. “Go make your meth, you brilliant little spot of light, you.”

↔

The next afternoon, I climbed into the back of the black sedan parked outside the office building. Inside, I found Ms. Sparkle on the facing bench seat, her camisole draped like a queen’s robes across the black leather, and Edward the white bichon frise with his face on his paws.

The two of them gazed at me, and I wasn’t sure which face unnerved me more.

I pulled the door shut behind me. “Thanks for coming.”

“It’s not me to be thanked.” Ms. Sparkle opened a mini-fridge. “Sparkling water?”

I nearly laughed before I realized she wasn’t making a pun. “Sure.”

She lifted a long-necked Perrier from the fridge and plucked two tumblers from the holders by the window. She filled both three fourths of the way, then extended hers to mine for a toast.

“To saving all of Otherdom,” she said.

Our glasses clinked. “I hadn’t even told you …”

She took a short sip. “You said you had what I needed.”

“I have the counteragent.” I pulled a syringe from my purse, extended it to her.

She received it with both hands, holding it up before her eyes to examine under the car’s roof lights. “Yellow, just like the poison itself.”

“Yes, but it’s definitely not poison,” I said. “I found the section of the third strand on the helix that interacts with magic. OtherX attacks that segment, but what I’ve given you neutralizes that attack.”

She glanced at me. “Completely?”

“Well, in theory. I haven’t exactly had any test subjects.”

She nodded. “Does it matter whether it’s administered before or after the OtherX injection?”

“Before. It has to occur before, like a vaccine, or it’s not nearly as effective. And …” I paused.

She lowered the syringe, and the dog lifted his head. “What is it, Isabella?”

“I think we have another advantage over them.”

Ms. Sparkle set a stroking hand over Edward, obscuring his eyes with her fingers as she petted. “And what is that?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to reveal to her that Ananda and I had snuck into a morgue and stolen blood samples from dead bodies. “My sister and I were present when the OtherX attack occurred a few days ago. I saw the attacker stab one of the victims in the heart with a syringe.”

Ms. Sparkle’s eyes fluttered. “Are you saying the syringe had something to do with the OtherX attack itself?”

“I think that was the attack,” I said. “I don’t think it was airborne.”

“You’ve gathered one data point,” Ms. Sparkle pressed. “In a moment of crisis, I’ll add.”

“I could be wrong,” I hedged. “But that’s what I believe. I think OtherX is currently more limited in usage than we realize. I think it has to be injected directly into the heart … but my counteragent doesn’t.”

A tiny smile appeared. “Interesting. You can inject it anywhere in the body?”

I nodded.

“Well, I’ve no doubt you’re right about the heart. You are a biologist, after all.” As if to punctuate her statement, Edward sneezed twice in succession. She sighed. “You’ve done good work, Isabella. But we’ve got bigger problems.”

“Bigger problems?”

“We’ve gotten new intel. It may be limited in its capabilities right now, but this group is on the verge of taking OtherX airborne. As in, within the next few days.”

My heart punched against my chest. “A few days? How is that even possible? To go from what I witnessed three days ago to ...”

She leaned toward me. “They’re getting dark money from the World Army. Do you know how much money the World Army has?”

My eyes narrowed. Why did the GoneGodDamn World Army have to be such a pain in my behind? “A lot.”

“More than a lot.” She handed me back the syringe. “This country has the biggest defense budget of any nation in the world. And they’re backing the World Army’s efforts.”

I sighed, staring down at the yellow liquid. “So you want me to take what I’ve just created airborne.”

“Can you do it?”

The eternal question. It pinged around inside me day and night, a fact which Ms. Sparkle wasn’t even aware of. Can you do it, Isa?

I closed my fingers over the syringe, lifted my eyes. “Depends on how long I’ve got.”

Ms. Sparkle took a sip from her tumbler. “Less time than you need. That’s always the answer.”

Chapter 14

I returned to Ananda’s apartment after midnight. I’d skipped the stakeout, instead choosing to spend all evening at the lab working on sending the counteragent airborne.

When I knocked on the door, Justin’s face appeared. Normally he looked happy to see me, but tonight something else crowded in there. Trepidation? Uncertainty?

“You look like hell,” he whispered as I came inside.

Before me, Hercules and Cupid were asleep in the living room, both snoring at lung capacity. Which meant Hercules sounded like a bear, and Cupid sounded like a teacup pig.

“When I close my eyes, all I see are DNA squiggles,” I said. “That’s a bad thing, isn’t it?”

“Probably. But no worse than living on a diet of caffeine, sugar and saturated fat. I feel like a Dorito.”

“I take that to mean you haven’t caught the guy.”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“Ananda?” I asked.

“She’s asleep in the bedroom.” He took my hand. “Come on, let’s go on the balcony.”

I followed him through the sliding glass door onto Ananda’s tiny balcony, where two wrought iron chairs encircled an ashtray set on the floor. I didn’t even know she smoked, but the ashtray was full of butts.

Live fast, I thought.

Justin closed the door and sat down in one of the chairs. When he looked up at me, his eyes told me exactly what he wanted.

So I sat down across from him. “What’s up?”

He shrugged. “Does anything have to be up for me to want to talk to my girlfriend alone?”

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” I gazed out over the parking lot.

“It’s been a while since it was just you and me,” he added. “Before Cupid and Hercules entered the picture.”

“Feels like a lifetime.” But it had really only been maybe a month. And we had evaded death more times than I cared to count in that month. So that saying about your life flashing before your eyes? That certainly held true when it came to my sense of time now.

“Kat used to do that sometimes,” Justin said.

I glanced back at him, found him gazing at my hands. I was rubbing my fingers together without thinking about it. “It’s a nervous habit.”

“She never would admit she was nervous about anything. It was always hidden under layers of sarcasm.”

My gaze settled on him. “Did you hear from her recently?”

He shook his head. “Not since we left Montreal.”

“But you’re thinking about her.” I wasn’t jealous of her. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. If I knew that Justin was completely over her, then I wouldn’t be jealous of her. But I didn’t know.

And he confirmed my fears by rubbing his own fingers together. “I’m worried about her.”

I reached out to touch his hand. “I’m sure she’s taking care of herself.”

Normally he reciprocated my touch, but this time he didn’t. He only met my eyes with a certain distance. “She and I … One of our issues was that she didn’t tell me everything I needed to know. She kept things from me sometimes.”

Now I understood what I was seeing on his face. It was distrust. “Something’s happened.”

“I talked to Ananda.” He paused, eyes flicking to my abdomen and back up. “Can you guess what I talked to her about?”

So Ananda had told him about my pregnancy. Why had she told him? I swallowed. “Justin …”

“Is it true?” He shook his head. “I mean, I thought she was being crazy at first. Others can’t get pregnant.”

“It’s true,” I whispered.

“How?”

So I explained to him what had happened to me while we were in the World Army facility in the desert. What Serena Russo had done to my DNA that had somehow allowed a pregnancy to take. When I was finished, I went silent with my hands folded in my lap. I had no idea how he would react.

As it was, he just stared at me with liquid eyes, his lips parted a few degrees. He looked like he’d seen an apparition. But he was just staring at me. This wasn’t how I’d hoped he would react when I told him.

“I’m the father,” he finally said, but his tone made it into a half-question.

“I …”

“You?” he pressed.

“I think so.”

His eyes darted left across the parking lot, then back to me. “You think so? Do you think Russo did something—inseminated you?”

“No. I mean, I checked myself out down there afterward, and I didn’t find anything.”

“So why do you only think so?”

I tried not to look at Hercules sleeping on the sofa some eight feet away. “That night when the Cupids had their fight ...”

Justin waited for me to finish. But when I didn’t continue, he said, “I remember.”

“I got hit with one of Cupid’s arrows.”

“Our Cupid.”

“Our Cupid. Cupid of Eros.”

“So you were consumed with lust.”

“That’s right. And I went looking for you in the sleeping car.”

“You found me, Isa.” He hesitated. “Don’t you remember?”

My blood rushed in my ears. “Sort of. It was all a blur.”

His gaze darkened. “So maybe you found other men, too.”

I couldn’t lie to him. Not after what he’d just told me about Kat. Not after the deception that had kicked our entire relationship off. I had pretended to be his girlfriend, and he had forgiven me for that. I had promised myself I would never deceive him again.

“Maybe,” I breathed.

“Maybe you found a demigod.”

I reached out for him. “It doesn’t matter.”

He accepted my hand this time, but he stared down at it. “Why did I have to find this out from your sister? Why not you?”

“I would have told you.”

His face lifted. “Everything’s different now that this has happened. You’re pregnant, Isa.”

“Is that why you miss Kat? Because things were simpler then?”

“Maybe.” His gaze didn’t waver. “Maybe I miss her because I loved her, and I’m twenty years old, and things are supposed to be simple. I mean, didn’t you ever wonder why I wasn’t more upset about you deceiving me? How easily I slid into a relationship with you after Kat?”

And because I loved him, that stung. I wanted him to feel the way I did about my pregnancy … not like this. And especially not missing Kat because of it. That part really stung.

It used to be that if a lover said something cutting to me, I would take that cut like an incision right to the artery. I might cry, or I might get angry. But I would definitely get up and walk away for a time. I would remove myself from the source of pain.

But that wasn’t what happened. The rational thought eased into my head: I don’t get to choose how he feels. He does.

It seemed pregnancy had changed me.

I squeezed his hand. “I tried not to think about it. I guess I just thought you were forgiving. Easygoing.”

“You had sex with me,” he said, “while you were pretending to be Kat. That’s a big deal.”

I swallowed. All of this had been there for the past six months, and it had taken this moment—Ananda telling him about my pregnancy—to bring his simmering resentments to a boil. It finally occurred to me that Justin wasn’t big on conflict. He wanted to be strong, to be powerful, yes, but mostly because he was afraid.

He was terrified of confrontation. Of powerlessness and failure.

I could see that fear in his eyes, even now as he was justifiably angry at me over what I had done six months ago, and what I had done a few days ago, too.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. And I meant it. “For pretending to be Kat. For not considering your feelings more when you and she broke up. For not telling you about the pregnancy.” I rose from my chair. “I know you’re upset and feeling confused. I want you here, and I’m willing to talk about all of it, but I’ll understand if you want something else.”

Then, like the absolute boss of feelings that I wasn’t, I left Justin on the balcony. It was only when I got into the bathroom that I allowed myself to feel that incision.

A lover’s rejection was always arterial and bloody.

↔

Justin and I didn’t speak for the next two days.

We inhabited Ananda’s apartment, but I slept in the bedroom with my sister, and he slept in the living room with Hercules and Cupid. The four of them went to the Bellagio every day, and I went to the lab. And while it killed me not to talk to my own boyfriend, I got it.

He was dealing with a lot more than a twenty-year-old should have to deal with.

But I did have a bone to pick with my sister. The first night, I confronted Ananda in the bedroom about telling Justin my secret. Except she’d looked at me like she always did: with a certain infuriating amusement. She always thought I took things too seriously.

She folded her arms. “Were you going to tell him yourself?”

I lowered my toothbrush. “Yes.”

“That’s not true.” She stepped around the bed. “When?”

“Once we’d dealt with everything in Vegas.”

“Bullshit. I know you, Isa.”

I thrust the toothbrush at her. “What does that mean?”

“You were scared he’d reject you if you told him the truth.” Then, “Regardless, you do know that this is kind of a life-or-death situation, don’t you? I mean, a guy deserves to know if he’s a baby daddy before he dies.”

“I was going to tell him,” I growled. “After things calmed down.”

She made a face. “Go spit. The inside of your mouth looks like you just took Hercules’s—“

“GODDESS YEMOJA!” I yelled as I stalked into the bathroom. I spat in the sink and turned. “Can’t you just apologize for anything? Anything at all? You always have to make it out like I’m being oversensitive.”

“All right.” Ananda leaned against the doorway. “I’m sorry for not correcting you before. It’s actually GoneGoddess Yemoja.”

And that was how I ended up sleeping in Ananda’s bathtub for two nights.

On the other hand … those two days brought a significant upside. I worked like a demon in the lab, spending all my waking hours there. And by the end of those two days, I had created OtherXF.

The F stood for “flight.”

After I’d created the injectable counteragent, making it airborne was the easy part. It took me forty-eight hours of—admittedly backbreaking—work to make it fly. But when I did, I knew it was bombproof.

That afternoon, when I delivered it to Ms. Sparkle in the back of her black sedan, I could almost see tears in her eyes. “You’ve done it.” Her glossy eyes lifted to me. “How is it administered?”

“Any way you like. Inject it directly, or take it up in a crop sprayer plane—it won’t have an effect on humans, but it will protect Others. But it has to go out before the OtherX, or it won’t be as effective. Think of it like a vaccine.”

She turned the stoppered bottle before her face. “I don’t believe anyone else could have done this.”

Naturally, I deflected. “I doubt that’s true. I’m just a—”

She looked past the bottle to me. “You’re a good person. A passionate one. You want to save lives.”

“If that’s true, then my sister is a good person, too. Even more than me.”

“She doesn’t have your mind.” Ms. Sparkle lowered the bottle. “But most importantly, nobody—Ananda included—knows Other DNA like you do. It took you to find that needle in the haystack.”

I blinked. “The needle?”

“The exact segment of DNA that interacts with magic. That was the only way to fight OtherX—to find that needle.” She paused. “You’re special, Isabella. Don’t forget it.”

Warmth crept up my neck. “What will you do with it?”

“The counteragent? You want to see?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, at the very least you deserve to see where we’ll release OtherXF.” She lowered the glass between us and the driver. “Take us to the plant.”

As we started into motion away from the office building, I looked out the window. “I need to meet up with my sister at the Bellagio in an hour.”

Now that I had resolved our imminent OtherX problem, I was ready to spend my evenings with the others at the Bellagio, waiting for STOP guy to show his face again. A thrill went through me as I imagined his reaction to his syringe full of OtherX having absolutely zero effect.

Of course, considering I hadn’t spoken to Justin in two days, going to the Bellagio was awkward. But I wanted to show solidarity. Justin, Cupid and Hercules were all here because of me, after all.

“Don’t worry—I’ll drop you off at the hotel,” Ms. Sparkle said. “And this won’t take an hour.”

Fifteen minutes later, we stood outside the municipal water supply plant for central Las Vegas. Even in the late afternoon, the building swam in the mid-summer heat.

I stared at the expanse of it. “You’re going to release OtherXF into the water supply,” I said slowly.

Ms. Sparkle held Edward in her arms. “That’s right. We’re going to mass-produce what you’ve created and release it tomorrow night, well ahead of the extinction event.”

The counteragent would quickly siphon through the entire supply. It wouldn’t just hit every household and office in Vegas, but also all the public water fountains.

It was quick, efficient, and universal.

I turned toward her. “That’s brilliant.”

She shook her head. “You offered the brilliance. I just know how to run a good production line.”

“As a human, why are you doing this for Others? I mean, really?”

She and Edward looked over at me at the same time. “Are you asking me what the center of my onion contains?”

“I … I guess I am.”

“Like I said to you the first time we met, we only share the center of ourselves with the people we love.” She winked. “But I will tell you something.”

My breath caught. A brief fluttering started inside me, like I was standing before a fount of wisdom. I had felt the same way every time I’d seen the goddess Yemoja, and when I’d been in the Oracle of Delphi’s presence.

“When I was a little girl,” Ms. Sparkle began, “my mother died at the age of six. My father quickly developed a gambling problem, and he took it all out on me. It was a lonely time, and I hated to go home.” She paused, stroking Edward’s head. “When we ran out of money, we became homeless. Do you know what it’s like to be homeless at the age of nine?”

I shook my head. I really didn’t.

“It makes you … different, Isabella. You don’t look at life the same way again. Especially not after you come back into society.”

“What do you mean?”

“To survive in this world, you have to climb a ladder. Get an education, find a job, save your money. But when you’ve been outside society, you realize that there are multiple ways to climb that ladder.” She locked eyes with me. “Some of them are legal. Some aren’t. But legal and illegal are just a two-letter difference to a homeless girl.”

A chill swept over me, despite the heat. “Ms. Sparkle ...”

“Julia,” she interrupted. “My name’s Julia. And you’re going to be late to meet with your sister.”

Before I could finish my meaningless platitude, she had opened the door and gotten back into the car, leaving me standing alone outside with everything she had just told me about her life. Her philosophy. Her onion.

That’s the center of her, I thought as I climbed in after her.

For whatever reason, Ms. Sparkle had told me what was at the center of her onion.

Chapter 15

Twenty minutes later we pulled up to the Bellagio, and Ms. Sparkle looked over at me. “You’ve been coming here some evenings after your work.”

I paused in my scoot toward the car’s door. “How did you know that?”

“My dear, I run a massive operation, and you’ve been working in my lab. Don’t you think it prudent for me to have kept tabs?”

And all at once, I remembered: Julia Sparkle was a drug lady. Probably one of the biggest in Las Vegas. Of course she’d keep a KGB-like eye on me. “I’ve been trying to help Ananda find the guy who’s been attacking Others with OtherX.”

“The guy?” Ms. Sparkle repeated.

“A guy wearing a STOP shirt. We saw him last week during the quadruple-OtherX homicide.”

One of her manicured eyebrows went up. She pointed out the window. “Like that?”

I turned in that direction. Outside, a group of STOP shirt-wearers walked by. All men, all of the same general appearance as our guy. I sighed. “Yeah, like that.”

“I wish you luck,” she said. “Though after we deploy your OtherXF, my hope is that we won’t need it.”

I offered her a smile. “Me too.”

When I stepped onto the sidewalk, I turned in the direction the STOP group had gone. Blocks down the street, hundreds of them all headed in the same direction. They looked like a bunch of unlit, bobbing match heads. And I felt all right about thinking as much, because I knew what they were there for.

Another Otherist rally.

It was a frustrating sight, not least because of the hitch it would put in our attempts to find the one bobbing match head who was actually a psychopathic murderer.

I approached the Bellagio’s lobby, expecting another night of awkwardness and watching black-and-white cameras. What I didn’t expect was Hercules to come barreling through one of the glass panes. The entire thing shattered in a waterfall of shards as his enormous, muscular body burst through the glass like it was paper.

In the next second, Justin sprinted out through the sliding glass doors, dodging a big group of Japanese tourists who had stopped to stare after Hercules.

I had done the same as the tourists. I turned and watched as a STOP-wearer who’d been seated on a nearby bench rose and booked it down the sidewalk toward the rally. He wiped at his sweating forehead.

Short, chubby, an inexplicably good runner—

I pointed. “That’s our guy!”

“We know!” came Ananda’s voice as she tore out of the hotel. She grabbed my arm and pulled me into motion. And somehow she ran with even more inexplicable finesse in her heels. “Come on. We’re taking a shortcut.”

We took a different route than Hercules and Justin, who’d gone down the main avenue. Ananda led me onto a narrow side-path that ran parallel to the road, her heels clicking.

“There’s an STOP rally,” I breathed as we ran. “A huge one.”

Ananda groaned. “Shit. We’ve got to cut him off.”

As we ran, Cupid flew up alongside us in his cloud. “I’ve got this.” And then he raced past us down the path, veering left around the corner of a building with his bow and a nocked arrow at the ready.

“GoneGodDamn flying Others,” Ananda growled. She and I ran as fast as we could, but precious, uncertain seconds passed before we too came around the side of the building and into view of the intersection Cupid was now careening toward.

There at the corner, a scream erupted.

First it was a single scream. Then it was a second, and a third, as all the tourists and pedestrians processed that a penanggalan—a vampire-like Other whose entrails (naturally) dragged behind her—had been taken hostage in the middle of the street.

And a syringe was poised right over her heart. Our guy was holding it.

Cupid came to a halt, his bow raised. “Let the Other go,” he yelled.

People weren’t panicking, but they also weren’t moving. Most had gone completely still, staring at the scene unfolding before them. Some had even pulled out their phones and raised them aloft. An indictment of the state of the GoneGodWorld, if there ever was one.

Ananda and I pushed past pedestrians, trying to keep a clear view of Cupid and the killer. When we finally got close, Justin and Hercules burst into view from the other street.

Justin stopped hard, but Hercules didn’t. He just kept barreling toward the OtherX killer and the penanggalan.

“Stop!” the killer yelled. It was the first time I’d heard his voice, and I wondered if he always sounded so nervous and high-pitched, or if it was the effect of a demigod of legend racing toward him.

Hercules didn’t stop. And what happened next was heartless beyond even what I’d expected.

The killer stabbed the syringe into the penanggalan’s heart. He pushed her away as she burst into a flare of magic and took off toward the rally. I had never seen an angry penanggalan, but I knew they were capable of tremendous things.

And this penanggalan went into an absolute manic frenzy.

Her magic flew out of her like a bonfire, spitting and sparking as her head separated from her neck and went flying and snapping amongst the screaming crowd. Meanwhile, her entrails flew in every direction. One of them shot out toward Hercules and wrapped around his forearm.

I didn’t think Hercules could be yanked, but I was wrong. A penanggalan combusting with magic could pull Hercules right off his feet.

When she grabbed him, he landed so hard on the street that he put a new pothole in the asphalt.

“Go after him!” Ananda yelled at Cupid. “If you don’t get him now, we’ll lose him.”

Without a backward glance, Cupid struck into motion on his puff, arcing up over the penanggalan and the people in the streets to chase down our killer.

When I looked back, it wasn’t just Hercules who had fallen. It was Justin, too. Over the past few weeks, I had almost forgotten: their fates were still bound. If one was hurt, the other was, too. And Justin was no demigod. Blood ran down the side of his face as he rose.

Amidst the penanggalan’s horrifying death throes, Ananda, Justin and I pushed on after Cupid and the killer. If we didn’t get him now, we wouldn’t get him. Not after this. His face was too familiar to us. He would be careful, quiet, discreet.

Ananda was right: if he disappeared into this rally, we’d lose him forever. And we needed to catch him, to get him talking. I was certain he had vital information about the World Army’s plans.

He was just a few hundred feet from the STOP crowds when Cupid’s arrow rang out from up high. He’d taken a tough shot, and it had paid off. Our short, chubby killer stopped hard with the arrow protruding from his shoulder. He turned around and looked at Ananda.

“Oh,” he said. His voice was just as high-pitched as before. “You are so beautiful.”

And then the three of us tackled him.

Cupid floated down. “He won’t run away, guys. He’s totally bedazzled by Ananda.”

Justin and I had stood, but Ananda straddled the killer. She gave him a good sock to the nose. “You terroristic fuck,” Ananda roared, sending her other fist into his cheek.

Even then, the guy just stared up at her like she was heaven-sent.

Justin reached down, grabbed one of her arms. “We’ve got him.”

Ananda jerked her arm away. “You saw what he did to that Other.” She delivered another blow so hard his cheek hit the pavement.

I knelt by her. The guy’s lip was broken, his nose bloodied. “Ana,” I whispered, “we’ve got him. Come on—people are staring.”

Her eyes flicked up to me, enkindled with fury. I nearly dropped back; I had seen those eyes before, back when she and I used to fight. To kill. I remembered that look—one that had been locked away from my memory.

Sometimes, Ananda was hateful.

But she stopped. She sat back as Hercules trudged up, rubbing his scalded forearms. Tears were running down his face. “She is dead,” he moaned. “The woman of entrails is dead. It’s my fault.”

Ananda and Justin hauled the killer to his feet. “We need to get this guy somewhere where we won’t be seen,” Justin said.

“I know a private spot.” Ananda gestured for the OtherX killer to follow her. “This way.”

A wide grin spread across his bloodied face as he started after her. The rest of us followed.

↔

We crossed into an empty alley, the killer happily following at Ananda’s heels.

“What now?” I asked.

“The police will be here any minute,” Justin said.

Ananda whipped out her cellphone. “We’ll be gone before then.”

Within two minutes, a blue sports car zipped up to the alley’s entrance and one of the Bellagio valets hopped out. He didn’t ask questions as he threw open the four doors.

“Everyone in,” Ananda said. We all made for the car, except …

I paused. “Hercules?”

He wasn’t amongst us.

Ananda was already in the driver’s seat, and the killer had climbed in shotgun, dripping blood on his lap, the arrow still sticking from his shoulder. She leaned past him to catch my eye. “Are you coming?”

Justin pulled me toward the back seat. “Come on, Isa.”

I couldn’t see Hercules. “I’ll meet you there,” I said. “You’re going back to the Bellagio, right?”

“Back entrance, where the staff go in and out,” Ananda said. “We’ll be in the camera room, interrogating the shit out of Mr. Syringe here.”

I slapped the hood. “Go ahead. I’ll be there.”

Justin gave me a long look before he pulled the door shut. Then the three of them sped off back to the hotel.

Which left me standing in the alley. In the distance, I heard sirens.

When I emerged, it didn’t take me long to find Hercules. He was enormous, after all, but he was also openly sobbing in the middle of the street. He knelt before the corpse of the murdered penanggalan, and I thought I heard him beg for forgiveness.

When I approached him, he didn’t even notice until I set a hand on his shoulder and whispered his name. “We need to go.”

“This was my doing,” he said with a thick sniff. “She was an innocent, and he stabbed her because I did what I do.”

“What you do?”

“I’m headstrong. I don’t pay heed.” He wiped a hand over his eyes. “I’m the strongest, handsomest man alive, but what good does it do me?”

I suppressed an eye roll. “We wouldn’t have caught him without you,” I said. “If he’d been allowed to get away, who knows if we would have ever had another shot.”

His streaked face lifted. “There must have been another way.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. We couldn’t have known.”

What I didn’t want to tell him was that I was at fault, too. If I had brought a vial of the counteragent with me, I might have been able to save the penanggalan’s life. But I hadn’t thought of it. Stupid.

When Hercules looked at me, his green eyes blazed. “Promise me,” he said. “Promise me that we will avenge a great wrong.”

He was referring to his labor—his final labor. Back in New York City, Hercules had agreed to remain by my side until his final labor was completed. The oracle Pythia had told him he needed to slay the goddess Hera, but that was impossible—the gods were gone.

So he’d agreed to come with me, to help me avenge great wrongs. Perhaps someday we would accomplish something important enough to free him from his bondage.

I took one of his hands in both of mine. “I promise you.”

He gazed at my hand, rubbing his callused fingers over mine. The heat off his skin felt like a furnace. “And that this Other did not die for nothing.”

I had always sensed that Hercules wore his emotions on his non-existent sleeve (the guy never actually wore anything but a lion skin loincloth—well, except the past few days, when he’d been in his Bellagio security uniform), but I hadn’t seen them on such display since he’d gotten drunk on the train from New York.

And where some cultures painted a man’s tears as emasculating, unbecoming, I found them admirable. Death was never easy, and neither was grief. Hercules wasn’t afraid to inhabit those feelings.

It also honored me that he had chosen my side to stay by.

“She didn’t die for nothing,” I said, lifting my voice to be heard above the sirens. “We’re going to save every Other in this city.”

He nodded, his curls waving in the breeze. “I trust you, Isa.”

I half-rose. “But right now, we need to leave.”

With a last look at the faded penanggalan, he rose with me.

When I tried to remove my hands, he only let one go. The other remained in his grip—gentle and firm all at once. And I didn’t even mind that he continued to hold it as we jogged away from the awful scene and toward the Bellagio.

“Isabella,” he said as we ran.

After everything, I could barely get out the words over my heaving lungs. He ran way, way faster than me. “Yes?”

“I know about your pregnancy.”

I nearly stopped, but I managed to keep going. “How?”

“I have exceptional hearing. Always have. It’s part of what made me such a good fighter.” He paused. “I overheard your sister telling Justin of the baby.”

I glared at him. “You eavesdropped?”

“Absolutely not. I was merely seated on the sofa and could hear them in the bedroom.”

“Was the door shut?”

“Perhaps. It made no difference to me.”

“So you were eavesdropping.”

“It’s an undignified term, but if you insist.” Then, “Isa, could the child be mine?”

This time I did stop. We were just a block away from the Bellagio now, running down a mostly empty side street, and the sirens were ringing loud and fierce behind us.

Hercules stopped with me. He turned, but didn’t let go of my hand.

There was only one way the child could be his: that night on the train when I was hit with Cupid’s arrow.

“I thought …” I swallowed. “I wasn’t sure if it was you.”

“It was me,” he said. “You came in like a lioness. How could I resist you?”

So I had slept with both of them that night.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked.

Good humor touched his full lips. “I heard a saying recently. A man doesn’t kiss and tell?”

“That … doesn’t apply when I’m the other party involved in the situation.”

Both his large hands enveloped mine, and he stepped toward me. “Just know, Isabella, that if the child were mine, I would consider it one of the great honors of my long life. Even the life I lived before my first death.”

I stared up at him, completely immobilized. Emotion squeezed my chest, and I didn’t know what to say. Which was all right, I guessed, because Hercules pulled me to him and wrapped his arms around me until his drumbeat of a heart sounded louder than the sirens.

Amidst death and the promise of it, I relished our moment of stillness.

Chapter 16

When we came around the back of the Bellagio, one of the security guards flagged us down.

“Are you H and I?” he asked.

I looked at Hercules, then back at the guard. “I think so.”

He opened the back door and waved us in. “Down the hall and take a left. First door on the right.”

We followed his instructions until we came to the same security room the four of them had used to stake out the hotel for the past week.

Except this time, it wasn’t full of soda and junk food.

Inside, Cupid hovered beside the killer. Justin stood at his other side with his arms folded

And for his part, the killer sat on a chair with his hands clasped and gazed at Ananda with pure adoration. Meanwhile, she was leaning against one of the desks with her arms crossed, her face radiating disgust.

When Hercules and I came in, Cupid, Ananda and Justin looked up. The killer didn’t even bother—he was already gazing at the most important person in the room.

“About time,” Ananda said. “What took you two so long?”

Hercules and I weren’t touching anymore, but I still felt suddenly guilty. Especially with Justin’s eyes on me. “We didn’t have a car,” I said.

Ananda swept a hand through the air. “Whatever. Cupid, tell me how to make him talk.”

Cupid shrugged. “He’s been hit with an arrow. He’ll probably tell you whatever you want to know if you just ask him.”

“Tell us who you are,” Justin said to the killer.

“Screw off.” The guy didn’t even meet Justin’s gaze. He just kept staring at Ananda.

“She has to ask him.” Cupid flitted forward and yanking the arrow out of his shoulder. In his infatuated state, the killer didn’t even groan.

Ananda sighed and stepped forward. “Who are you?”

“Mark Engleton Rissetto,” he rattled off.

“Easy enough,” Ananda said. “All right, Mark. Why are you killing Others with OtherX?”

He didn’t answer. But in his lap, his hands began to shake. “I … I …” he stuttered.

Ananda took another step forward. “Mark, why are you killing Others?”

In the chair, Mark kept on with his stuttering until he let a little yelp, which startled us all. “I can’t tell you,” he blurted, suddenly out of breath.

Cupid looked surprised. “That’s odd.”

Ananda glared at him. “I thought he was in love with me because of your arrow. I thought you said he’d tell me anything.”

“My arrows are the most potent love drug in the GoneGodWorld,” Cupid shot back. “He is completely in love with you.”

I stepped forward. “What’s going on?”

Cupid threw his hands up in the air. “I don’t know. This rarely happens.”

“But it’s happened?”

Cupid flew back and forth, one hand at his chin. “Yes. It happens when an outside love or lust is so overwhelming that the arrow’s powers can’t make them betray their true love.” He paused. “My arrows are more about influencing than commanding, you see.”

“So that question was forcing him to betray someone,” I said. “The question Ananda asked about why he’s killing Others.”

Cupid nodded. “I think so.”

Ananda cocked an eyebrow, her hand touching her chest. “This guy has a great love who isn’t me?”

“Apparently.” Cupid turned to Mark. “Do you love someone else with all your being?”

Mark glanced at Cupid. “Screw off.”

Cupid floated back. “You have to ask him, Ananda.”

“Mark”—Ananda lowered to a crouch—“do you love someone else more than me?”

Mark nodded. “But I still love you dearly, my sweet lady.”

Ananda scoffed. “Do you even know my name?”

“Ananda,” Mark intoned like a prayer.

“He just knows that because Cupid of Eros said her name,” Hercules whispered to me.

“I think you’re right,” I whispered back.

I caught Justin’s eye, and I stepped away from Hercules and over to an empty side of the room.

“If you tell me why you’re killing Others,” Ananda said, “will you be betraying someone you love more than me?”

Mark’s hands began to shake again. “Yes.”

Ananda set a hand on Mark’s leg. “Who is it that you love?”

He gasped when her fingers touched his leg. “Oh, you are divine,” he murmured.

“Focus, Mark.” Ananda snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Who is it?”

He stared down at her hand, then lifted his eyes to hers. “That would be a betrayal as well.”

“Someone’s directing him to kill Others,” Justin said. “And he loves that person.”

“Sounds about right,” Ananda murmured. She leaned closer, running her fingers down Mark’s face. Doing the encantado thing. “Won’t you just tell me the first name?” she whispered into his ear. “Just tell it to me and no one else.”

Mark trembled. This time, I thought he might break. “I … I’m sorry,” I heard him mumble. “I can’t.”

Ananda snapped up straight, her hands going into the air. “All right, Justin—torture him.”

“Woah,” I said. “We don’t torture.”

“That’s right,” Justin said. “No torture.”

Cupid shot a finger back at Hercules. “Herc buddy—do your thing.”

We all looked around at Hercules, whose chest went out.

“We agreed on no torture,” I said.

“He doesn’t torture,” Cupid said. “And there’s no one better at getting a man—or a woman—to talk.”

Ananda looked skeptical. “Better than an encantado?”

Hercules stepped toward her, flicking his hair over his shoulder. “It’s not always about lust, I’m afraid.”

Ananda gestured toward Mark. “All right. Go ahead, then.”

Hercules glanced down at the captive. “I need two minutes alone.”

She scoffed. “Really?”

Cupid was already ushering me and Justin toward the door. “Trust in the method.”

“Fine,” Ananda said. The four of us filed out and into the silence of the hallway.

Justin made a point of addressing Cupid and not me. “What’s his method?”

“To be honest,” Cupid said, “I don’t even know what he does. It just works.”

Ananda leaned against the wall. “Sounds like bullshit.”

For the next ninety seconds, we didn’t hear anything from the other side of the door. The only noises were echoes from the lobby and Ananda’s heel tapping on the tile floor.

Just under the two minute mark, Hercules stepped out of the room with a placid look, not a hair out of place. “He says,” Hercules began with a flourish, “that he’s been killing Others under the orders of a woman named Julia Sparkle. His aunt.”

↔

“What?” Justin and I said in unison.

Hercules one-shoulder shrugged. “It’s what he said. Do you know her?”

Cupid patted his shoulder. “That’s who we’ve been working for, Herc buddy.” He leaned close to whisper, “How’d you do it, anyway?”

Hercules shook his head. “My secrets are my own, Cupid of Eros.”

“How is that possible?” Justin asked. “She’s …”

“She’s an ally,” I finished, bracing myself on the wall. I thought of the times I’d met with her, what she’d said to me about being a good person. Had she meant any of that? Hercules had to be mistaken. “He’s lying,” I said. “Mark must be lying.”

“Oh no,” Hercules said. “I always get the truth.”

Cupid peeked in the door. “And there’s not a scratch on him. Remarkable.”

I spun on Ananda, who hadn’t spoken. Her face had gone pale, and she stared at the opposite door like she could divine some greater truth from it. “Ana?”

She didn’t respond, but her chin quivered. I couldn’t recall ever seeing her chin quiver.

“Ananda,” Justin said, “how did you meet Ms. Sparkle?”

Ananda still didn’t respond. Not even with her eyes. She seemed shocked beyond comprehension.

I stepped in front of her, set both hands on her shoulders. “Ana. We need your help right now. If Ms. Sparkle is behind all this, that means she’s got OtherX. She’s been using it to kill Others.”

Her eyes finally focused on me. “It can’t be her.” Her voice sounded like sand over a dry plain. “I’ve known her for years.”

I nodded. “I believe you. Mark could be lying.” My eyes flicked to Justin before I said what I didn’t want to say next. “But I think we need to go talk to her about this.”

Ananda shook her head. “It’ll insult her. Do you know what it means to insult Julia Sparkle?” Her chin quivered again.

I had never seen my sister afraid like this. Never.

“I just delivered her an airborne counteragent to OtherX,” I said, “effectively saving every Other in this city from going up in magical flames. The very least she can do is answer a few questions.”

Ananda didn’t answer. I saw her pulse distend the skin in her neck, though.

“Where can we find her, Ananda?” Justin asked.

“Man,” I heard Cupid murmur to Hercules, “and I thought things were spicy enough in Vegas.”

“We always meet at the restaurant,” Ananda whispered. “But she told me I could meet her in her office whenever I want.”

“Her office?” I said. “Do you know where that is?”

Ananda nodded once, slowly. She pulled a pastel-colored business card out of her purse and handed it to me.

Justin and I read it.

“Sparkle Nails?” he said.

“Oh my GoneGods.” Cupid rose into the air. “That nail place with the big glittery fingernail sticking up from the roof? So gaudy.”

“ ‘A family-run business,’ ” Justin read off. “That’s sweet.”

“That’s exactly what Julia Sparkle isn’t.” Ananda finally seemed to have regained herself. She swiped the business card back from me. “But it’s a great facade.” She stalked down the hallway toward the entrance Hercules and I had come in by.

“Ana!” I called after her. “Where are you going?”

“To prepare,” she called back. “We’re going to get some answers vis-a-vis this string of dead Others.”

“So we’re going to see her?”

“You bet your mer-ass we are.”

“What should we do with Mark Rissetto?” Hercules asked. “I wouldn’t mind squeezing his head like a grape, after what he did to the penanggalan.”

“We’re not murdering anyone,” Cupid said. “But if anyone’s head deserves to splatter like a grape, it’s his.”

Meanwhile, the killer had somehow sensed that Ananda was departing, and was banging on the door of the security room to be let out. “My sweet lady,” he crooned. “I miss your dulcet tones.”

Justin made a face at Cupid. “Do your arrows make everyone so corny?”

“It’s all about what’s on the inside,” Cupid said. “That cheese you’re hearing? It was just waiting to come out of him.”

“Ananda Ananda, sweetie sweetie pea,” Mark Risetto sang through the door. “Have you got a kiss for me?”

“I’m going to turn him over to the police,” Justin said over the noise. “I’ll say we caught him sneaking into the hotel.”

I hovered in the hallway, gazing at my boyfriend. I wanted to say so many things to him, but I didn’t know which one to start with. “Hey Justin,” I murmured.

His hand was already on the doorknob when he turned to me. “Go with your sister. I’ll meet you back at the apartment.”

I blinked. “How do you know she’s going to the apartment?”

“You haven’t noticed?” Cupid said. “She goes to her apartment to primp before absolutely everything. Doesn’t matter if she’s working or chasing bad guys.”

I stared at the cherub, not fully comprehending. Then I thought back over the past week, and I realized that was true. “You’re right.”

She hadn’t used to do that back when we were immortal. A strange pang of sadness hit me; I didn’t fully know her anymore. After four years, she had habits I didn’t know about. An entire life.

Even if we’d been at odds for decades, we were still the only two encantado in Vegas from the same matriarchal cluster. My only sister. I loved her, after everything.

“Go with her. We’ll meet you there after we’ve disposed of Mark Rissetto,” Hercules said with steel in his voice. “And we’ll be by your side when you go to meet with this Julia Sparkle.”

I beamed at the three of them with gratitude. But mostly I felt it toward Justin, who, despite his cold feet about potentially being the father to the only Other-baby in the world, was still here, too.

“All right.” I backed down the hallway after Ananda. “I’ll see you in a little bit.”

“Let’s give Mr. Screw Off a nice little send-off,” I heard Cupid say with a tinge of deviousness as I ran down the hall after my sister.

Chapter 17

I followed Ananda through the Bellagio’s doorway, bursting into the bright light of the afternoon. She had already slipped into the driver’s seat of the blue sports car. She started the engine, but I ran out in front of the car before she could hit the gas. I threw my hands on the hood and met her eyes through the windshield.

She stared at me for a second. Then she gestured for me to get in.

I climbed in, and the car started into motion before I had even shut my door. She careened through the parking lot, taking us onto the Strip, and we rode in silence toward her apartment.

When we squealed into the lot across from the apartment and came to a jerking stop, I turned toward her. “Ana …”

But she was already stepping out of the car, closing the door behind her.

I followed her out and across the street. “Ana!”

She didn’t respond; she just kept walking. Together we clanged up the metal staircase to the second story, and her keys jingled as she pulled them out of her purse. When we came into the empty apartment, she tossed her purse on the sofa and stalked toward the bedroom.

“ANA!” I yelled as the door slammed behind me.

She turned around just before the doorway. “Speak.”

“We need to talk about what’s happening here. We need to think about this before we go barging into Ms. Sparkle’s office to interrogate her.”

She let a long sigh. “Talk, talk, talk. Think, think, think. That’s how you ended up with fifty years of memories gone.”

I stepped forward. “Maybe I wouldn’t have wanted my memories sealed away if you hadn’t told me to throw a man in a river.”

She scoffed. “Really, Isa? That’s what you think?” She pointed at me. “That man you threw in the river was how you assuaged your guilt. He was what came after.”

I went stock still. Something was pressing at my head, and whatever it was felt grave. Terrifying. I didn’t want it. “My guilt?”

“Seems you didn’t unlock all your memories,” she spat. “At least, not the most important one.” She turned, disappeared into the kitchen. I heard a metallic clang, and then the click-click of her heels as she passed into the bedroom.

I remained in the living room, gazing at the spot where she’d been.

The most important memory. The most important.

That thing still pressed, still wanted to be seen and heard. It sought my attention—my full attention. But I sensed if I gave it that, I would not be able to do what needed to be done.

Right now, I needed to walk into the bedroom and talk to my sister.

When I stepped into the bedroom doorway, she was using a butcher’s knife to cut open her mattress. Its insides puffed out like guts, and she reached past them, pressing her arm deep inside the mattress.

“Ana,” I whispered.

“Save it.” She removed her arm from the mattress, and with it came a ferocious little blade, the point of it arrowhead-sharp. All at once, I remembered the overhand grip with which she held it. I recognized the gleaming tip of it cutting a horizontal swath through the air.

I knew that blade.

“Salvagem,” I whispered.

She rose, stepped around the disemboweled mattress toward the closet. “Ah, so you remember some things.” She pulled off her dress, the porcelain swath of her body coming into view, and I automatically averted my eyes to the window.

That graveness pressed at my mind again with clawing force. The blade was part of the memory. It was the blade Ananda had used that day I’d killed a man. For her part, she had killed ten men.

But not in time. Not in time to save him.

All at once the memory bloomed, unfolded, came into clarity.

Enzo was a simple man, a farmer. He wasn’t terribly handsome, his skin dark and callused from the sun and his labor. He was in his thirties when Ananda met him. But she loved him. She loved him like she’d loved no one else before or after.

Because love didn’t know the difference between simplicity or complexity. It saw beauty where it wanted to, and in her case, it lay in Enzo’s belly-laugh. It lay in the way he set his hand to her cheek and called her his swan.

Those ten years, she was different. We had been fighters together for forty years until she met him. Then she became softer, kinder, less scathing in speech and action. In lieu of cutting men down with Salvagem, she learned to plant simple vegetables. She went to live with him on his farm for years, a different life than she’d ever known. Hard, back-breaking, full of uncertainty and prayer for rain.

But she had never been happier.

I was happy for her. She and I had been close, yes. We had been fighters, yes. But I had only fought half-heartedly. She had always been the spitfire, the one who killed.

I’d just wanted to be close to her. I had adored her that much.

The afternoon the bandits came, the three of us were seated around the table in the farmhouse. I had come to visit—I came every week—and we had just finished eating.

When the door opened, they didn’t hesitate. They shot Ananda first, right through the center of her chest. She fell over backward in her chair, hit her head so hard it might have fractured. Then they shot me through the shoulder, and I spun to the floor, landed on my belly. That was where I stayed as they dragged Enzo outside.

It seemed he’d gotten the better end of things. They hadn’t shot him, after all. But of course, we were immortal. He was the one in true danger.

Ana’s voice came to me through the darkness. “Isa,” she rasped.

When my eyes opened, I realized I had been unconscious. For how long? I still heard the bandits outside, heard them whipping Enzo.

“Help him,” Ananda breathed. “Save him.”

I crawled to her, found her with a gaping hole in her chest. We were immortal, yes, but we could still be wounded. We weren’t invincible. A wound like she’d sustained would heal, but it would take weeks to fully close.

And Enzo didn’t have weeks.

Outside, one of the bandits said, “He lays with the creatures. He’s poisoned with their evil.”

They knew what we were. And if there was one truth throughout my five hundred years of life, it was that humans feared encantado. And human fear easily twisted into hate.

Her eyes flicked down to her leg, where Salvagem lay sheathed at her calf. “Kill them all.”

I nodded, reached out for the blade with my unhurt arm. It was the first time I’d ever held it, and the metal sent a chill through me. I’d always fought with my fists, my feet. Never a weapon.

I’d never killed.

I dragged myself up from the floor, staggered through the doorway. The sunlight nearly blinded me before my eyes adjusted to the sight.

“Ah,” said one of the bandits. “You see? They bleed pink.”

Ten men stood around Enzo, who sat on his knees. A smear of blood ran down the side of his face. “Run, Isa,” he said.

The bandit beside him slapped him across the face. “No … she’s staying right where she is.”

Ana had told me to kill them all. All ten. It had been years since I’d fought, and it had always been by her side. Never alone. I wasn’t a killer. I didn’t know if I could take them all.

But only one amongst them had a pistol. The others had crude weapons—belts, blunt clubs, machetes. Even with one arm dangling by my side, I had Salvagem, and I had my secret illusion.

When they approached, they didn’t expect to fight a giantess.

I grew so fast that by the time they reached me, I knocked the first man on his back with my fist. The second tried to slash at my arm, but I shoulder-checked him into the dirt. Two others struck at me with clubs, but given my size, I hardly felt the blows.

They, too, hit the dirt.

The rest ran, tearing off across the farmland. Except for one. The one with the pistol.

I had made a crucial error. I had forgotten Ananda’s teaching: always go after the most dangerous opponent first.

Men with guns always have an overabundance of pride. Of belief. Of reckless menace. The last man had pulled Enzo to his feet, stood behind him with the pistol to his temple. “If you come one step closer, I’ll shoot him.”

I didn’t move. I could have swept in and thrown him aside in one motion, but I didn’t.

Even with how fast I was, a bullet was faster.

“Let him go,” I whispered.

“KILL HIM, ISA!” came a sickening yell from behind me. “KILL HIM NOW!”

The bandit took one step back, then another, dragging Enzo with him.

I still had Salvagem in my hand. I could have thrown it, maybe struck the bandit in the center of his forehead before he had time to pull the trigger. It might have worked.

Instead, I hoped he would let Enzo go once he’d gotten far enough away.

“Just release him,” I said. “Release him and I won’t hurt you.”

He took another two steps—he was outside my range now. “OK,” he said. But before he turned and ran, he shot Enzo through the temple.

I had never heard a scream from Ananda like the one that followed. I think if she weren’t immortal, she would have died right there in that doorway. She would have screamed until her lungs closed up forever.

The sound of that scream was why I chased the bandit down and threw him into the river.

The sound of that scream was why I had begged the goddess Yemoja to take my memories away.

Chapter 18

My sister had loved once. Ananda had loved someone.

“Enzo,” I whispered.

Ananda spun toward me with a hiss, Salvagem still in her hand. “What did you say?”

“Enzo. He was your love. Your only love.”

She took two steps toward me. “You don’t have the right to say his name. You, of all people.”

I felt so heartbroken for her—for what I’d done—I wanted the goddess to come take my memories away again. I understood now why Yemoja had done what she’d done.

I had failed my sister in the worst way.

“Ana,” I said, “I’m so sorry about Enzo.”

She stared at me so long I saw tears enter her eyes. Just as they grew glassy, she reached out and slapped me across the face. This time stung worse. “How dare you say his name. I should kill you now. I should have done it then.”

Her fingers burned on my cheek long after they had slipped away. I raised my eyes through the veil of my hair. “I killed him. I killed the bandit who shot him.”

“Not soon enough,” she growled. All at once, a tremor of emotion overcame her, and she slumped onto the edge of the bed, hands at her face.

I couldn’t remember seeing her cry. Not once. Well, that wasn’t true … I had seen her cry on that day outside the farmhouse. Never before, and never after.

At the risk of another slap, I approached the bed. I sat wordlessly next to her, our thighs touching. She didn’t reject me, so I set a hand on her back as she allowed herself this moment of vulnerability.

When her sobs trailed away, she looked up at me. “I hated you for so long. I spent decades hating you. Even when you showed up in Vegas.”

That pierced like a knife, but I nodded. “I understand.”

“But after a few days ...” She reached out, flounced my hair. “I just couldn’t any longer. You were my sister. You always have been.”

“But you never fully forgave me,” I whispered.

“I resented your weakness. I hated that the goddess had taken the memories from you, and I had to live with them. For a hundred years I’ve remembered the day Enzo died with crystalline clarity, but you got off scot-free.”

“I don’t know why she favored me.”

“I do.” Ananda stared at the dagger in her hands. “You were softer, sweeter. Yemoja couldn’t stand to see you suffer, precious child that you were.”

“That’s not true.” But even as I said it, I knew it was. I hated to acknowledge that the goddess favored me. It felt so arbitrary, so unearned.

“Bullshit. You know it is.” Ananda wiped her face and rose.

I stared up at her. “What are you going to do with Salvagem, Ana?”

“I’m going to keep it in my boot.”

In her boot. That was where I kept El Lobizon’s claw, the dagger I had carried with me since I’d left Montreal. That was what she had always done, back then. She had carried Salvagem in a makeshift sheath around her calf, just as she did that day at the farmhouse.

And that was why I did the same. It was a blood memory, an instinct. I had admired her all this time, not even remembering Salvagem or that we had been so close once, true sisters and fighters.

I rose with her. “Are you going to kill Julia Sparkle?”

Ananda finished dressing, pulling on jeans, tall boots, a white blouse and a black leather jacket. “If I have to,” she said in an unnervingly placid voice. “I’ll do what I have to, Isa.”

“She was your ally. She was the resistance’s ally.”

“I thought so. But if I was wrong, then I was wrong.”

“Ana,” I said, “we know now the OtherX was never airborne. What if she needed me to make it so?”

She paused. “What are you talking about?”

“I made the counteragent airborne. OtherXF. All she has to do is reverse-engineer it.” I crossed to the doorway and leaned into it, the full weight of this potential reality settling over me. The water plant. She had taken me to the water plant to show me where she would release the OtherXF.

But what if it wasn’t the OtherXF she was planning to release into the water system?

“If she’s behind all this,” I said, “then I’ve made things worse. I’ve given her exactly what she needed.”

Ananda slid Salvagem into the lip of her boot. “That’s why I’m going to see her.”

“I’m coming.”

She scoffed, moved toward the doorway. “You’re pregnant, Isa. And you won’t do what needs to be done.”

I stepped in front of her. “I’m the one who understands the pathogen. I manufactured the counteragent. You need me there.”

She raised her eyes to me. “It’s too dangerous. Move aside.” She tried to push past me, but I grabbed her wrist.

And once more, I glimpsed the future.

We stood in a lavish office, a wide, shuttered window backing a tall chair set behind a desk. Around me, all the trappings of wealth—a very particular kind of wealth. Ms. Sparkle’s kind of wealth.

A hot-pink settee in one corner, two rhinestone-encrusted pillows atop it. A framed portrait of Edward the bichon frise on the wall. The wide swath of desk glittering with a purple gemstone facade.

And in the center of it all, I saw me.

I saw my small back and my blonde hair sweeping down it as I straddled someone. A pair of purple-clad legs jutted out from beneath me, the feet tucked into kitten heels.

Kitten heels.

Ms. Sparkle.

I was straddling Ms. Sparkle, who writhed to be free of me. But I was overpowering her, getting the better of her.

This had happened to me twice before. The first time with Serena Russo, and the second time with Daiski, her super soldier. Both times I had seen the future through their eyes.

Which meant I was seeing myself through Ananda’s eyes.

↔

I never got to find out what happened next, because as quickly as the vision had come on, it departed. The glimpse into the future was gone, and I wasn’t able to see all I needed to see.

We were back in Ananda’s apartment, her wrist still in my grip. Her fingers shook. But instead of pulling away, she remained there, frozen. Staring at me.

I released her hand and stepped back. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know which part I was apologizing for, but it felt like the right thing to say. It felt like I had violated my sister’s mind. And—possibly worse—her future.

“What the hell was that, Isa?” she whispered. “I saw …” But she didn’t finish. She looked thoroughly shook.

“You saw me in Ms. Sparkle’s office,” I finally said. “Straddling her.”

She nodded once, her eyes glazing. “I felt my own heartbeat, heard the blood in my ears. It was as real as you and me standing here right now.”

“It’s … it’s the oracle’s power,” I said. “I don’t know how it works, but”—I lifted my left hand—“I told you this arm was spliced with the Oracle of Delphi’s DNA. The World Army did this to me.”

Ananda gazed at the arm. “And you didn’t think to mention what would happen if you touched me?”

“I should have.” That was another thing I was sorry for. “There was so much else going on. The killings, the OtherX, my pregnancy.”

“And what does that mean, you having oracle DNA?” She studied my face, her eyes flicking between mine. “What just happened between us? Why were you inside my head?”

“I think we saw a future.”

“A future? Not the future?”

“The oracle once told me that there are thousands of futures. They all branch off from our choices.” I paused. “But the few times this happened before …”

“What? Tell me.”

“In each case, what I saw became the future.”

She exhaled hard, looked around like she was trying to find something. Then she passed by me and went into the kitchen, where she opened the mini-fridge. “I need a drink.”

“Is that really the best thing right now?”

She took a long swig of white wine from a bottle. “You bet your ass it is.” She set the bottle down on the counter. “How does it work, this power? You just grab someone?”

“Sometimes, I guess. It doesn’t happen all the time … just when my emotions are high.”

Three sharp knocks sounded on the front door. My spine went ruler-straight, but then Cupid’s voice rang out. “Open up. It’s the po-po.”

Ananda rolled her eyes as she crossed to the peephole in the living room. “Is he always like that?”

“Just about.”

She let Cupid, Justin and Hercules into the apartment.

“We’ve accomplished our labor,” Hercules said, wiping his hands together.

“Labor?” I asked.

“Herc buddy, don’t say labor when you mean task or goal—it’s super confusing.” Cupid turned to me and Ananda. “That means we took the killer to the police. Well, more like Hercules tossed him in the lobby and yelled out that he had captured the Other killer.”

“And we told them what we’d witnessed,” Justin said. “Apparently some eyewitness accounts corroborated that we had all tackled him in the middle of the street, so we’re heroes. They didn’t even notice that I also happened to be a suspected arsonist, thank the GoneGods.”

Hercules set his fingers to his chest. “I, for one, have always been a hero.”

“That’s great.” Ananda grabbed the car keys off the table. “Enjoy your heroism as you protect my sister. I’m off to see about a drug lady.”

I started after her. “Wait. We need to talk about what just happened. What we just saw.”

She glanced over at me. “No we don’t. If you aren’t with me, what we saw is not a potential future. Problem solved.”

“You saw something?” Justin asked.

I cringed; I didn’t want to tell Justin about the vision I’d had. Nor did I want to tell Cupid or Hercules—none of them would agree to me going to this meeting. Not after they found out about what I’d seen.

But I had seen myself with the upper hand. Ananda needed me there.

In her purse, Ananda’s phone began ringing. We all watched as she lifted it out and stared at the screen. She made a face as she answered. “Hello, Julia.”

My breath caught. The rest of us crowded around Ananda like her ducklings, listening in.

“Ananda dear, we’ve got an emergency,” Ms. Sparkle said over the line. “I need to meet with you in my office.”

Ananda’s eyebrows rose. “Funny thing. I was just about to come see you.”

“Perfect.” Ms. Sparkle sounded completely unsurprised. “Please come immediately. And be sure to bring Isabella.”

Ananda froze, her eyes flicking to me. “Why?”

“The emergency has to do with the OtherXF. We’ve encountered a major issue that only she can deal with.”

I nodded hard at my sister. I wanted to be there—needed to be at that meeting with Ms. Sparkle. Because, despite what Mark Risotto had told us about Julia Sparkle being the source of the OtherX killings, I sensed that if I wasn’t there with Ananda, all of this would turn out very badly.

I had begun to realize something about the visions: they were guideposts. Directions. I needed to make that vision happen. It was the right path forward—maybe the only true path—even if that meant I would have to fight Ms. Sparkle.

Say yes, I mouthed. Trust me. Trust me, Ananda.

And despite the hundreds of years of ups and downs between us—despite Enzo, and the future we’d just seen, when one of us asked the other to trust her, we did it. Because we were sisters. We always had been, and we always would be.

“All right,” Ananda said slowly. “We’ll be there. Both of us.”

Chapter 19

Somehow, all of us managed to cram into the blue sports car. Well, that wasn’t true—Cupid had to ride on the roof. “Won’t be the first time,” he said as he flew up and sat cross-legged.

When they’d found out I was accompanying Ananda to Julia Sparkle’s office, Justin, Hercules and Cupid had insisted on coming. In fact, Justin had refused to let me go unless he could be there.

Which, despite the whole not-having-free-will aspect, I found endearing. He felt protective of me—just as I did of him.

When we pulled up in front of Sparkle Nails at sunset, it looked just as Cupid had described: an enormous nail sticking up toward the sky in all its glittery, phallic glory.

“Ugh,” Cupid said as he floated down to the sidewalk. “Like I said, so gauche.”

We all came into the nail salon, whose pale, pink overhead lights were still lit, nail technicians working away into the evening. Not a single one lifted her eyes as we came in, which was strange.

What was stranger was that Lux the pixie floated straight down the center of the aisle, past all the pedicure chairs and the manicure tables and right to me.

“It’s you,” I said.

Justin glanced at me. “You know her?”

“That’s Lux. She’s, uh …” I didn’t want to tell them her occupation—not in semi-public.

Lux shot me a don’t go there look. “I’m Ms. Sparkle’s assistant,” she finished in her ornery, high-pitched voice as she surveyed the lot of us. “She asked me to bring the two of you back.” She pointed a finger at me, then at Ananda. “Not you three.” By which she meant Justin, Hercules and Cupid.

Justin stepped forward. “We’re not leaving their sides.”

“You can remain in the waiting area,” Lux said with a small, haughty exhale. “Otherwise, we’ll have you removed.”

“I guess that’ll have to do,” Hercules said. I could hear the wariness in his voice; he didn’t like this one bit. I didn’t like it, either. In fact, a predictable anxiety had been growing in me ever since we’d left Ananda’s apartment. Was I right to believe the vision I’d seen was the path forward?

I wished the oracle was still alive. And not just because I needed her help. I just missed Pythia. With some people, the world felt solid, manageable. Graspable. She was one of them—like a brief and encompassing mother to me.

But a part of her was with me now. Would always be with me.

I turned toward the other three. “We’ll be OK. You stay in the waiting area.”

Justin looked deeply uncomfortable, but he nodded.

“So are we decided?” Lux folded her arms, looking eminently bored.

“Take us back,” said Ananda.

The pixie spun around, gestured with one finger over her shoulder for us to follow. Ananda took the lead, I followed her, and Justin, Hercules and Cupid came in order behind us.

The five of us struck a line through the center of the pedicure chairs, from which the workers and the patrons—all humans—never looked up. They just kept filing, kept reading their magazines.

I’d like to say that their casualness made me feel better. Less worried. But the fact that they’d been privy to our entire conversation and didn’t even look up only heightened my anxieties.

Perhaps this was normal to these workers, these patrons. And that was truly scary.

We passed through a curtain. I’d expected to enter a small back office, but as it turned out, the curtain was only the portal into the true depths of Sparkle Nails. Beyond, the real operation began.

Lux led us down a long, bare hallway, off which windowless doors promised nothing but unanswered questions. They bore no indication of what lay inside, although behind each I imagined another Mark Rissetto, a waterboarding room, dead Others.

My imagination had always been impossibly vivid. Chalk it up to hundreds of years of coddling by a mother goddess. Often, it’s those who have the least experience who imagine it most ardently.

At the end of the hallway, Lux set one tiny thumb to a reader beside the doorknob. This pixie dealt in much more than meth. The thought occurred to me: had she been planted by Ms. Sparkle to keep an eye on me in the lab? To give me the necessary piece to the puzzle I’d found in the morgue? Because her privileges greatly exceeded that of a low-level cook.

When the reader blinked green, Lux pointed at Hercules. “You. Open the door.”

Hercules stepped forward, turned the knob.

“What’s that about?” Cupid whispered to Justin.

“It’s about doorknobs not being sized for pixie hands,” Lux shot back. “You try turning a knob the size of your entire body and tell me you don’t feel like you’ve had a two-hour workout.”

“I like her,” Cupid whispered even more quietly to me. “What did she say her name was?”

“Lux,” the pixie threw over her shoulder as we passed into a room clearly designed for waiting. And when I say waiting, I mean Ms. Sparkle-style.

As evidence, a three-tiered fountain gurgled in the center of the room. Purple, overstuffed couches sat at either side of it against the walls, and a corner-to-corner painting of a field in bloom covered one entire swath of wall.

In each corner, well-tended plants pressed toward the ceiling, which offered a chandelier dangling with delicate crystals and a diffuse light that made Ananda’s skin look poreless. Heck, it made us all look bedroom-sexy.

Lux turned to Justin and the two demigods. “Water? Coffee?”

Cupid half-turned his face with a simper. “How about your number?”

Lux gave a bigger eye roll than I imagined a pixie was capable of. “I’m not interested in toddlers in loincloths.”

Cupid raised a finger. “I’m not—”

Justin cleared his throat, probably from discomfort over Cupid’s attempts to flirt. “Nothing for me.”

“I’ll take three cups of your best brew, if they come in the miniature vessels you modern humans use,” Hercules said. “No cow’s milk, no sugar, none of the adornments you slather atop your drinks—just black.”

Lux stared at him a beat. “So you want coffee,” she said in a deadpan. Then she flew off into an anteroom.

“When do we get to see Julia?” Ananda called after her.

“When she calls for you,” Lux shot back.

“She said it was an emergency,” I called. And on our end, it was; I suspected Julia Sparkle was in the process of orchestrating something with the OtherX. Something big.

“When she calls for you,” Lux repeated, a little edge to her voice.

Ananda and I exchanged a glance. “ ‘An emergency’ my Brazilian ass,” she murmured as we all sat on the purple couches.

↔

Five minutes later, Lux flitted out from the anteroom. “Hey,” she said. “Big guy in the faux-lion skin getup. You really expect me to lug all three cups over to you?”

Hercules rose. “Absolutely not, my—“

“Are you really about to ‘my lady’ me?” Lux cut in. “Because if so, I need to teach you a thing or two about modern culture.”

A grin split Hercules’s face as he crossed toward her. “I would be honored if you were to teach me.”

“For one thing,” she said as they disappeared through the doorway, “you need to learn the meaning of the phrase ‘nice guy.’ ”

Cupid peered after Lux. “I really like her.”

“I don’t think she likes you back, buddy,” Ananda said. “Sorry to tell you.”

“Oh, she will.” Cupid sat back on the couch with his hands behind his head.

Ananda scoffed. “What, are you going to bean her with an arrow?”

Evidently that was the wrong thing to say. And when I say “wrong,” I mean she triggered the demigod—hard.

Cupid flew up into the air in front of Ananda, both hands on his hips. “I would never do such a thing. That would be a complete violation of her free will, her rights.”

Ananda looked completely unaffected. “But that’s what you do. That’s your schtick.”

He threw his hands up in the air. “That’s the problem with this GoneGodWorld—everyone thinks everyone else has a ‘schtick.’ There’s no genuine vulnerability anymore, no belief in your fellow Other.” He glanced at Justin. “Or human, as it were.”

“I believe in two things.” Ananda raised her pointer and middle finger in the air. “Lust and selfishness.”

I shot her a glance. Was that really what she believed in? The starkness of it surprised me, but maybe it was how much it rang of truth. Maybe, in the end, it was the stark truth, stated without adornment, that shocked us the most.

“Wow,” Cupid said. “That’s cynical.”

“Or realistic,” Ananda said. “And your arrows perfectly serve those two beliefs. Hence, that’s your schtick.”

Cupid took a long, calming breath. “All right, I can see you just need a little educating. That may have been true back when the gods were around. I was created to serve their will.” He leaned toward all of us to whisper, “Hera was particularly bossy about that. But don’t say her name around Herc—he’ll go berserk.”

“She made his life miserable,” I said. “From beginning to end.”

“That’s right,” Cupid said. “Many of the gods did. That’s why, after the gods left, me and my brothers swore to only use our arrows in times of great need.”

I gazed at Cupid, thinking back over all the times he’d shot someone with his arrows. It was true: he had never done it willy-nilly, without someone being in danger. He was a demigod of honor.

Justin remained conspicuously silent beside me. His leg jittered, jumping up and down.

I turned toward him. “You OK?”

His eyes slowly met mine. “Not one bit. Hercules is bantering with the pixie, Cupid’s telling stories about his arrows, you and Ananda are just sitting there chatting away, and …” He swallowed. “I have a terrible feeling about all of this, Isa. I don’t know how you can just sit here so calmly.”

I lifted my hand into the air between us so he could observe its nervous tremor. “Hiding our feelings is an encantado thing. We’re good actresses.”

“If something happens to you in there—anything—you yell, OK? You yell as loud as you can, and I’ll be there.”

I lowered my hand. I knew for sure now I couldn’t tell him about the vision; he wouldn’t even let me into the room with Ms. Sparkle. “All right,” I said. “Thank you.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to thank me, Isa.” He opened his mouth as though to say more, but closed it after a few seconds. So silence prevailed between us, and the conversation between Cupid and Ananda filled the air.

“Would you consider sexual desire a ‘time of need?’ ” Ananda asked the demigod. “I just want to know what qualifies.”

Cupid scoffed. He was about to launch into a long, irritable explanation when Lux appeared, followed by Hercules. He easily held his three cups of coffee in his hands, and they really did look miniature in his grip.

“She’s ready for you,” Lux said.

Ananda and I rose, glanced at the office door. “How do you know?” I asked.

Lux tapped one ear. “Miraculous, advanced technology. We call them earpieces.”

Well, an earpiece for a pixie was kind of miraculous. It must be the size of a pinhead.

Ananda looked at the door again. No knob, and it clearly wasn’t a push-in. “So how do we enter?”

Lux swept a tiny hand out. “Just walk up to it. But only you two.”

Ananda and I approached the door and stood before it. After a beat, it slid open, revealing a tiny standing room with an identical door at the other side.

I looked over at Lux. “We go in there?”

“You go in there,” Lux monotoned.

I glanced back at Justin, gave him a tiny smile. He nodded once at me as Ananda and I stepped into the standing room.

The door closed behind us, and the other one didn’t open. So we stood shoulder to shoulder for a few seconds. This was the kind of security a truly paranoid drug lady would employ.

“Do you think we ought to knock?” I said.

Just as I did, the door in front of us started into motion, also sliding into the wall.

Her office came into view. The exact one I’d seen in my vision—the long, gemstone-surfaced desk, the settee along the wall. The hot pinks, the purples, the rhinestone-encrusted pillows.

But the window was different. It wasn’t shuttered. Instead, the sunset blazed red and orange through its clear pane, and before it stood Julia Sparkle.

She held Edward in her arms, and she stared back at us.

Chapter 20

“Ananda, Isabella!” Ms. Sparkle swept around the desk, enclosing each of us in a one-armed hug. When her arm came around me, her body pressing to mine, the memory of my vision flashed into my head. I suppressed a flinch.

“Thank you both for coming so quickly,” she said.

“You bet.” Ananda pulled away from the hug early.

If Ms. Sparkle noticed, she didn’t give any indication. “Please, have a seat.” She gestured to the two chairs—also gemstone-encrusted—in front of her desk.

We both sat. Ananda set her arms on the rests. “Julia,” she said, “we need to talk about the OtherX.”

“You’re absolutely right.” Ms. Sparkle lowered herself into the high-backed chair opposite us. “It sounds like you have something important you’d like to talk about, Ananda, so I’ll allow you to go first.”

Ananda gazed at her a moment, and the two women exchanged a long look. I knew that look—it was the mutual acknowledgement of two chess players. Both knew they were maneuvering pieces around the board, and both knew the other was aware of it.

“Thank you.” Ananda’s eyes flicked to the dog. “There was another, very public incident today involving a murdered Other. How close is this terrorist group to making OtherX airborne?”

“Incidentally, that’s the very emergency I contacted you about,” Ms. Sparkle said, stroking Edward. “The last intelligence I received indicated that they have gone airborne with it.”

My gut cinched. “When did you receive that intelligence?”

“This morning,” Ms. Sparkle said slowly. “Quite early.”

“Do you think they’ve had time to mass produce it?” Ananda asked.

Ms. Sparkle nodded. “They have incredible resources. You see, I’ve recently learned that this group has World Army backing.”

Almost directly on the heels of Julia Sparkle’s statement, Edward barked. One shrill, resounding noise.

Ananda and I stared at the dog. So did Ms. Sparkle.

“You just lied,” Ananda whispered.

Ms. Sparkle’s eyes flashed. “I very much did not.”

Edward barked again as punctuation to her statement. This time, louder.

Ms. Sparkle glared at the dog. “I did not lie.”

He barked twice this time, a double-staccato in reply.

“You and I are going to have words after this is over.” She turned toward us. “Sometimes he gets confused. I would say he’s accurate very nearly all the time.”

“I don’t think he is confused,” Ananda said. “I think you need to tell us the truth, Julia.”

Ms. Sparkle leaned back, reached under her desk. We both tensed; I was preparing for the handgun to appear. But before we could truly react, she emerged with a flask and a tumbler.

Julia Sparkle uncapped it and upturned the flask into the tumbler. “All right,” she said as the golden liquid poured out. “I hope you don’t mind. It’s been an absolute headache training this dog.”

Neither of us said anything.

Ms. Sparkle capped the flask, replaced it under her desk. She eased back into her chair, releasing a sigh as her spine curved. “Do you know how hard it is to teach a dog to recognize a lie? You have to attune them to body language, to the minor intonations of speech.” She considered the bichon frise, fingernails tapping the side of the tumbler. “And then you have to teach them to bark to notify you. So many false positives, and I had to listen to his yapping all the while.”

Neither of us said anything for a moment. Then, Ananda’s low voice, “Why did you do it, Julia? Why kill Others?”

Ms. Sparkle’s eyes trained on Ananda. “So we’re being honest, then.”

“We’re being honest.”

Ms. Sparkle sighed, took another sip. “They’re encroaching on my territory. In the past four years, two new Other-led operations have sprung up.” She shrugged. “Besides, I don’t like them very much.”

“So you’re a psychopath,” Ananda said.

“Says the encantado who believes only in lust and selfishness,” Ms. Sparkle returned.

Ananda stared at her.

“What?” Ms. Sparkle’s mouth turned up. “You thought I wouldn’t overhear your conversation in my waiting room? I thought you said you weren’t as naive as your sister, Ananda.”

I leaned forward, both hands gripping the chair. “Why did you involve me in all of this? What difference did it make for me to map the DNA strand?”

Ms. Sparkle’s quirked mouth shifted into a full-on smile. “You developed the airborne counteragent, did you not?”

My mouth remained open, my insides squirming. All at once, the truth stabbed through all my confusion, straight to the core of my brain. So it was true. “I’m responsible for making OtherX airborne. I helped you with your chemical warfare.”

The puncture marks on the victims’ bodies. They had been stabbed with a syringe full of OtherX, each one of them, because it was the only way to kill them. The OtherX had been of limited use, transferrable only directly from a needle into the heart.

That is, until I manufactured an airborne counteragent.

After that, reverse engineering an airborne OtherX pathogen would be simple. Any scientist worth even half their weight could accomplish it in no time. The real hitch in the whole process was identifying the section of the third strand that interacted with magic.

“How did the OtherX work,” I said, “if you didn’t know where our magic lay along the strand?”

“Brute force,” Ms. Sparkle said.

“So the pathogen just … attacked everything.”

“Now it’s more precise than that. And it’s got wings, thanks to you,” Ms. Sparkle said over my thoughts. “You really are quite a good scientist.”

I had made OtherX eminently more powerful than it had ever been before.

My eyes flicked to the window, where outside the last of the light was dying away. “The water plant,” I said. “It’s the OtherX you’re releasing there, not the OtherXF.”

Ananda went rigid beside me. “I’m no scientist, but what I think I just heard is that Julia Sparkle is going to start the extinction event through the Las Vegas water system.”

“Correct, dear,” Ms. Sparkle said. “Which is why I called you both here.”

“When?” I asked.

Ms. Sparkle’s bejeweled hand rose, flicked the shutters down on the window. Just like in my vision. “I’m keeping you safe until the event is over.” Her eyes lifted to Ananda. “If what you told me about your sister being pregnant is true, we’ll want to be as cautious as possible.”

The room tilted, and I set my hands on the desk for stability. The sickness in my stomach only grew.

“You bitch,” Ananda said to her. She turned her eyes on me. “I had to, Isa. It was just a precaution. I didn’t want her putting you in any dangerous situations.”

A quick breath escaped my throat. “And you say I’m the naive one.”

“Ah, sister tension,” Ms. Sparkle observed. “There’s nothing quite as electrifying as a pair of siblings at odds. I sense a long, long history—“

“Shut your GoneGodDamn mouth!” Ananda bellowed. In one motion, she vaulted from the chair and over the desk, both hands reaching for Ms. Sparkle’s diamond-encircled throat.

↔

In a fight between a fifty-something human female and a five-hundred-year-old scrapper of an encantado, I wouldn’t have put my money on Julia Sparkle.

I don’t think anyone would have.

As Ananda flew across the desk at her, I caught a glimpse of the older woman just before my sister obscured my view of her. And, despite everything, I didn’t see fear on Ms. Sparkle’s face.

I saw pure, ruthless determination.

A moment later, the two of them clattered to the floor with a splash of golden liquid, Ms. Sparkle’s chair flipping onto its back as Ananda landed atop her.

The tumbler dropped to the floor, shattered, and Edward was left sitting on his velvet seat, staring down at his mistress and the encantado who had just leapt onto her like a spider monkey.

Someone screamed. But it wasn’t Ms. Sparkle.

It was Ananda.

I rose, and the two came into view. Ananda had straightened, her hands at her face. She was rubbing at her eyes.

“Stings, doesn’t it?” Ms. Sparkle said from beneath her. She had a bloodied lip where I guessed Ananda had gotten a punch in. “Meth isn’t the only thing we’ve got cooking, missy.”

I blinked. Julia Sparkle’s dialect had completely changed from nouveau riche to saloon matron. Was this who she really was? Back at the water plant, she had described growing up homeless. And she had been holding Edward in her arms at the time.

Which meant she hadn’t lied about that.

The facade of Julia Sparkle had fallen away, and the woman whose blood now ran from her lip was that same homeless girl. The one who had existed outside society, who would do whatever she needed to do to ensure her safety. Including hiring her nephew to do her dirty work. Including killing every Other in Las Vegas.

It was her suffering that gave her the ruthlessness she needed. It had made her into the drug lady who’d sat before us with perfect placidity.

“I can’t see.” Ananda rubbed at her eyes. “Yemoja, it burns.”

Ms. Sparkle tossed Ananda off. My sister fell off her as easily as a rag doll, her face a rictus of suffering. Meanwhile, a muffled pounding started at the outer door.

The others. Justin, Hercules, Cupid. They had heard. They were trying to get through.

“I made that one special for you.” Ms. Sparkle pushed herself up. “Always were a hothead, weren’t you, Ananda?”

Anger flooded into my veins. Julia Sparkle didn’t know Ananda. She didn’t know her one bit. And if anyone in this world deserved a come-down, it wasn’t my sister.

It was the woman who was now rising to her feet.

When I swept around the other side of the desk, her eyes weren’t on me. If she expected the hothead, then she expected the opposite from the passive sister. I was the one who would negotiate, talk things out, try to work out a solution.

Here was my solution: I would rip every dyed hair off her head.

I yelled as I balled my fist, drove it right into the side of her head. Her silver chandelier earring flipped up, her eyes straying to me as she lost balance. Even in my current illusion, with the little strength I had, a hit like that to a woman of her age wouldn’t leave her standing.

And it didn’t. She fell to the shag carpet with a thud, and I was right there as she did.

I landed atop her, my other fist driving into her jaw. Her teeth clattered together, and her eyes rolled into her head with the blow.

For my part, I hardly felt the pain in my hands. The adrenaline muted it all to an undercurrent. But the sound of her teeth knocking together stopped my third punch.

If I hadn’t broken her jaw, I’d come close to it.

This was hardly even a fight.

“Please,” Julia Sparkle moaned.

The pounding continued on the outer door. It had shifted into what sounded like a battering ram—what must be Hercules throwing himself against the metal.

I breathed hard in my straddle over her, reason pushing back into my brain. I needed to know certain things. I needed to know about the OtherX. “When is the extinction event?”

Ms. Sparkle’s eyes rolled around, finally settled on me. She let a tiny noise, and I felt her struggling to get out from beneath me. “Please stop hitting me.”

Ananda’s pained voice sounded behind me. “Kill her, Isa.”

“I can make her tell me,” I said over my shoulder.

Ms. Sparkle’s eyes floated around the room as if she was in a delirium.

“Kill her now!” Ananda yelled as if she hadn’t heard me.

I could kill her. I should kill her.

“Please don’t,” Ms. Sparkle rasped, a bubble of blood appearing with the airy sound of her voice. Like a child—helpless, vulnerable. An image of young Julia Sparkle sleeping on the street appeared in my mind. She curled fetal against the cold, and beside her lay a small, white dog. Just like Edward.

I didn’t know if this was the oracle’s power to see into the past, or if I had imagined it. But when I saw that little girl whom I knew to be her, I knew I could not murder Julia Sparkle like this. It wasn’t within my right to end her life with my hand. Her one, precious life. I had killed once, and it had nearly ended me.

I gripped her jaw, turned her face toward me. “Tell me when it is.”

Her eyes settled on mine. When she spoke, her bloodied teeth appeared under the light. “Soon enough,” she whispered. As she did, her arm slipped free, rising until I could see into a handgun’s muzzle.

Straight into it.

Ananda saw it, I thought. She saw the handgun in my vision.

She had noticed it, but I hadn’t. That was why she hadn’t wanted me to come. That was why she had told me to kill Julia Sparkle.

And now I was going to die.

Isa, you are truly a fool.

A hand hit my shoulder, pushed me aside. The blast sounded as I fell off Ms. Sparkle and hit the carpet, a deafening noise. Edward yelped and scrabbled down from his velvet stool.

In the moment that followed, everything faded to a ringing silence. From my view, I saw Julia Sparkle rising to her elbows, the gun still pointed elsewhere.

My eyes lowered to my chest. Pink blood. There was pink blood on me.

But it wasn’t mine.

When I sat up, Ananda came into view. She had a hole in her chest.

Chapter 21

My sister met my eyes, and I saw fear.

Real, aching fear.

It felt wrong—Ananda wasn’t supposed to fear. She wasn’t supposed to fear death.

But she feared it now.

She’d been shot through the chest before, but she had been immortal then. She hadn’t feared for herself, but for him. The human she loved.

When Enzo was shot, she let out that scream I didn’t know existed. It sounded as if her throat would catch fire. As if she could light a match and enkindle, burn alive right there in the farmhouse.

I wished I’d never known that scream was possible. I never wanted to hear it again.

After the bandit shot Enzo, I’d turned back to the farmhouse, found her eyes as wide as medallions as her pink blood spread around her on the entryway. When I came to her side and knelt, she wouldn’t look at me.

“Leave me,” she screamed. “I hate you. I hate you.”

I tried to lift her. “I need to get you back.” But she writhed from my grasp, lay as she fell with her face to the wall. I could see straight through the center of her, where her heart had been. Her grief was a stolid immobility, a desire for death.

That was when I chased the bandit down and killed him. That was when I took vengeance for my sister. Then my memories were wiped, and I forgot about Ananda in the farmhouse.

Weeks later, I saw her by the river and she would not speak to me. I didn’t know why, because Yemoja took it all away. She took away our closeness, our pain, every memory I had of Enzo and their love.

And now the memories were all back, but Yemoja was gone.

Immortality was gone.

My sister would die.

It felt like an inviolable law had been violated. For all her talk of living fast and leaving a beautiful corpse, it hadn’t seemed possible. She could not die, and the sky could not fall. She could not die, and the Earth could not stop spinning.

But she would.

As the blood spread across her white shirt, everything was different. She lay on her back just as she had then, but it wasn’t the same. Not at all. She would die.

The only thing I wanted to do was to be by her side. But Julia Sparkle had a gun. She had a gun pointed at Ananda.

“Dolphin bitches,” Ms. Sparkle spat, swinging the gun around.

Toward me. She was angling it toward me.

I pushed myself up, threw my body at the older woman with a scream. I hit her arm with all my force, and the gun flew aside, slid to the wall. I lunged after it and hit the wall myself, knocking my head and sending every loose gem in the room tinkling.

From somewhere, Ananda groaned. In my periphery I thought I saw pink blood spreading, but I was too dazed from hitting my head to see clearly.

I felt cold metal in my hand. Somehow I had managed to grab the handgun when I hit the wall, and now found it in my grip. At least I had managed that much. But before I could raise it, a growl echoed through the room and a piercing pain shot up from my ankle.

Edward the bichon frise had attached himself to my leg, all his tiny teeth sunk into my skin.

I swung my leg, but he wouldn’t let go. GoneGodDamn, tiny dogs were the worst.

No … it wasn’t that the dog was too strong. It was that I was too weak. I was losing strength, and not only that …

“Good boy,” Ms. Sparkle crooned through her bloody teeth. “Hold her there a little while.”

As I lifted my eyes to Ms. Sparkle, I lost my grip on the handgun. It clattered to the floor as, between us, a white haze appeared.

A haze of magic.

My magic.

It was escaping through my skin.

The flask. To my right, Ananda began to convulse as her body was also enveloped in magic, her face most of all. She began to pass through illusions, one and then the next, fast and faster, burning her magic away.

How?

“It’s in her now,” Ms. Sparkle whispered. “And it works so fast.”

Before me, the older woman gazed at Ananda with anticipation, and I understood with a twist of the gut. The tumbler. The drink.

Julia Sparkle had poisoned the flask with OtherX. And because she wasn’t an Other herself, it had no effect on her. Just Ananda.

“Congratulations, dear.” She pushed herself to her feet, wiping blood from her mouth. “You’ve successfully helped OtherX go airborne. By the looks of you, it works wonderfully.”

I lifted my eyes to her, but a wrenching in my stomach forced my head down. I had inhaled the OtherX, and it was in my system now.

“That’s the awful irony, isn’t it?” Julia Sparkle murmured from somewhere far, far above me. “Dying to your own creation. Not what any of us wanted, but you did try to kill me, after all.”

Any of us? Of who? But I didn’t have time to consider her words.

Something deep, deep inside me began to move on its own. It felt like a long-dormant creature had twitched to life, and its eyes were finally opening. And that creature’s name was Magic.

For the first time, I wasn’t in control of my magic. It was in control of me.

Goddess Yemoja, this pathogen was a cruel mistress.

↔

So this was the power of OtherX. I had seen its capabilities, even watched an Other die to it, but I had never imagined this. This helplessness, this pain.

Shifting from one illusion to another involved a certain reconfiguring of my skin, my muscles, even my bones. Each time I had to make myself shorter or taller, change my entire frame, my makeup.

In my heyday, I might shift from one illusion to another in a few seconds. I had once passed alongside a house as a black-haired young woman, emerged from behind it as a blonde. But one illusion had always completed before the next began. Always. It was a necessary part of shifting.

Or so I’d thought.

As the pathogen filled my body, took control of me, the OtherX hastened that process to almost blinding speed. I was a passenger in my body; I watched as my skin changed color, felt each bone snap and grow, the muscles shrink and twist, everything in a constant process of permutation and reconfiguration.

The accompanying pain was almost incomprehensible. I had never experienced anything like it. I felt as though I was being snapped like twigs, again and again.

And all I could think in my frenetic, spasming brain was that my baby would die. It would never survive this.

I had failed her.

I had failed the little girl inside me.

How could I have known it was a girl? I couldn’t, but the feeling of her coalesced inside me, and I felt a certainty in the way some people look into a clear sky and predict rain.

My baby was a girl. She had been, until she was poisoned by Julia Sparkle.

Meanwhile, the bichon frise held onto my leg.

“Down, boy.” Ms. Sparkle snapped her fingers; Edward let go at once and trotted to her side. “She’s done.”

I watched through half-lidded eyes, slumped against the wall, as she turned toward her desk, reached for something on its surface. It was purple and studded—an old-fashioned phone.

She was calling someone.

She was calling someone as we died, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

I closed my eyes. I didn’t want her to be my last sight.

I tried to think of the people I loved. Hinata, my best friend. Aimee. Ananda. A face arose in my vision—one I hadn’t expected. A chiseled face, a comforting one.

I loved that face? So I did.

At the same time, something changed inside me. The pain had felt like it would never end—as agonizing pain always did—until it didn’t.

A tiny bloom began in my stomach, a balm. It started there, where the magic had activated. And it stayed, issuing its way through my core with slow, soothing tendrils.

I focused on that. I focused on where it didn’t hurt.

It was what allowed me to stand, even as my magic forced me into illusion after illusion, smoke hissing from my skin. I was losing months—maybe years—off my life, but I had control.

Julia Sparkle’s long nail clicked as she touched the buttons on her phone, the receiver set to her ear. She pressed them slowly, deliberately, without any concern.

Through the receiver, I heard a ringing. And then a female voice answered.

“It’s me,” Ms. Sparkle said. “I have them both here in my office.”

When I took a step toward her, she turned. “Oh,” she said, her eyes widening. The phone lowered from her ear.

It may have been the magic, or it may have just been me. But my hands folded, and Julia Sparkle appeared smaller and smaller. Her chin lifted higher and higher as she gazed up at me, and it only occurred to her to swing the phone at me after I had become so tall my head brushed the chandelier.

This was the last thing Ms. Sparkle would ever see—a giantess. It was what my sister would have wanted.

“You killed her,” I whispered. And I didn’t know whether I meant Ananda or my unborn child—maybe both. But the effect on me was just the same.

Julia Sparkle didn’t have time to scream before my fist swept around and knocked her over the desk. She slid across it, hit the tiled floor at an angle so odd her head seemed momentarily to join with her shoulder.

Then she lay still.

Chapter 22

Ananda was alive.

Barely. Just barely.

The moment Ms. Sparkle hit the floor, I dropped to my sister’s side. I shrank as I knelt, that balm now greater than the pain inside me. I shifted to the elfin-featured blonde, the young woman my sister had known me as all week long. The woman she had fought her exes with. The woman she had snuck into the morgue with.

The woman who would stay by her side until the end.

I grabbed what remained of my jacket from where it had fallen when I shifted, pulled a syringe from the pocket and injected it straight into her heart, next to the gunshot wound. Her mouth opened in a silent gasp, eyes widening.

“It’s the counteragent,” I whispered. “It’ll stop the poison.”

The office door opened, and I heard the voices of Lux, Justin, Hercules and Cupid all speaking in turns, or maybe all at once. I wasn’t sure, because I didn’t look up.

I removed the syringe with a faint wisp hope in me. But the OtherX had already burned through decades, and she only had a little life left. Even then, the counteragent needed time to work.

Time she didn’t have.

My two hands took hold of one of hers—so small, so wrinkled with sudden age—as the last of her magic rose from her like a soft fog.

After five hundred years, my time with Ananda was down to seconds. And I wouldn’t waste even one.

She gazed up at me, the OtherX forcing her eyes to shift colors—blue to brown to green to violet. It was mesmerizing, horrifying. Around her, only gray hair now splayed around her head. Within a moment, the gray shifted to white. And then her hair receded completely into what became the bare orb of her scalp.

I brought her hand to touch my chest. “I’m so sorry. I should have done as you—”

She interrupted me with a small squeeze of the hand. Her mouth opened, and a thin stream of air escaped. Along with it, words so quiet I had to lean close to hear. “You finally grew up.”

That was the last of her air. And that was the last of her. Her hand shriveled in mine, still gripping me, as her magic sapped completely. Her eyes unfocused, and she curled in on herself like a wilting flower.

A sob sounded, and I realized it had come from my own throat.

Not like this. She wasn’t supposed to die like this.

Not because of me.

I gathered the remnants of her into my arms and held her as I would a child, close and tight. And it might as well have just been the two of us alone together, because the room had gone silent except for the wailing that, like my magic, had taken control of me.

When my sobs finally ebbed away, a small hand touched my shoulder. Cupid stood before me, and as I lifted my face, he set a gentle finger on my chin to help it rise.

“What happened?” he said.

The words came out slowly, in a tiny voice. “She sacrificed herself for me. The OtherX—” My eyes widened, focusing on Cupid and then Hercules and Lux in the doorway. “You three can’t be in here.”

Lux’s arms folded over her chest. “After all that work to get in, you want us out?”

I didn’t know why Lux was suddenly on our side, but I didn’t have time to question it. “Julia Sparkle threw a glass of OtherX at my sister. It’s airborne. You all need to get outside, immediately.” I paused, reaching into my jacket for the syringes I had stashed away, which I tossed in turn to Cupid, Hercules and Lux. “All of you need to inject yourself with this.”

Justin crossed to me, knelt as Hercules and Lux passed back down the hallway. “We need to get you out of here, too.”

I clutched Ananda’s remains closer to my chest, as though he would try to take them from me. “I’m fine. It’s already gone through my system.”

He surveyed me with one flick of the eyes. “But …”

“I injected myself with the counteragent,” I said. “Yesterday afternoon.”

Cupid had already inserted the needle’s point into his chubby arm. He grimaced as he pressed the stopper.

Justin gazed down at Ananda. I knew what he was thinking—what he would never say. Why not Ananda? Why didn’t you give the counteragent to Ananda before this?

My heart squeezed as I followed his gaze. I didn’t have a good answer—it was an oversight, a forgetting in the rush of her dervish whirl from place to place. In her anger, in the way she’d slapped my face. In her tears and talk of Enzo.

I just didn’t think of it.

My throat threatened to close over my words. “I failed her. I failed her in so many ways.” I looked up at Justin. “She knew. She knew she was a goner, and she took a bullet for me because of it.”

“Maybe,” said Cupid. “Or maybe she took a bullet because she loved you.”

I gazed at the demigod. “How could she? You don’t know what’s happened between us. She hated me for decades.”

Cupid shook his head. “Whatever happened between you, all I know is what’s here in this room. You know it, too, Isa. She died for you. It was an act of pure love.”

Some part of me didn’t want to believe what Cupid had said. It was a punishing, degraded part of me that loathed who I was, the choices I had made in my life. It said, You don’t deserve her love. You aren’t worthy.

But another part of me knew what Cupid had said was true. In the end, everything came down to what was here in this room. And here in this room, my sister had pushed me out of the way of a bullet. She’d taken it through her heart, and in the end, she had squeezed my hand and looked me in the eye.

She had forgiven me. And maybe, just maybe, she loved me after all.

I was about to thank Cupid when the phone rang.

Julia Sparkle’s rhinestone-studded desk phone.

↔

Justin, Cupid and I stared at each other as the phone rang.

“Should we answer it?” Cupid asked.

I nodded. I had a suspicion about who was on the other end. “I will. Help me set her down.”

Together, Justin and I gently lowered Ananda’s body to the floor. We wrapped her in her jacket as the phone continued to ring. I reached for Salvagem, Ananda’s dagger. It had clattered to the wall and lay sad and alone on the tile floor.

I lifted the dagger, held it in both hands. My sister had once told me that great weapons must always have an owner. If they didn’t, then like a person, the weapon’s history would be forgotten.

“Salvagem,” I whispered, slotting the blade into my other boot. “You won’t be forgotten.”

When I rose, I was already burning a little magic. After how much I had already burned this evening—all for no good reason—this felt like a gift. I had never appreciated so well having the choice to make this sacrifice.

I stepped to the desk and picked up the phone’s receiver, which still swung on its cord. When I lifted it to my ear, I sighed. “So sorry about that. The dog got wound up in the cord again.”

After a few moments, I heard a female voice. That voice. “Julia? What about the encantado? You said you had them both.” She sounded breathless. “What happened? Are the encantado still alive?”

“Serena,” I said, my voice now low and aged, “You’ve got nothing to worry about. Ananda ran into an issue with the pathogen, but Isabella’s fine.”

Around me, I sensed Justin and Cupid go rigid.

Serena paused. “I’m sure I’ve told you many times how dangerous the chemical is around Others—even in its original form.” Many times. Which meant the pathogen hadn’t originated with Julia Sparkle. It had originated with Serena Russo and the World Army. “Was Isabella exposed to it?”

“No,” I lied. My eyes flicked to Edward, who had settled next to the body of his mistress. His head rose, but I set a finger to my lips. He thankfully didn’t bark.

Serena breathed her relief into the phone. “Wonderful. Be gentle with her until we arrive—we don’t want her to miscarry. There’s a significant bonus in it for you if she’s unharmed.”

I set my hand to the desk for balance. A piece had clicked into place in my mind. So this was part of why Serena had let me leave the facility. The thing about encantado was this: we withered in captivity, much more so than most creatures. We are meant only to be free. If she had seen what I thought she had in the garden, did that mean Serena Russo had given me my freedom to allow my pregnancy to take?

A shard entered my heart as I thought about my child. My pregnancy had taken. And now it might be over.

But I pushed the thought away. Right now, I had to get as much information as I could out of Serena. How did she know Julia Sparkle? I thought back to what Ananda had told me when we’d first arrived in Las Vegas.

The resistance had needed a biologist in the city. And Julia Sparkle had put out the call for that biologist. Julia Sparkle had procured the OtherX with incredible ease … because the World Army had given it to her.

It was a sudden, urgent need that had brought us here instead of going to Phoenix. Which meant that, from the moment Serena Russo had allowed me to escape that facility in the desert, she had pulled the strings to bring me to Vegas.

She had called Julia Sparkle.

She had let me go free, but she was keeping me on a tight leash. It wasn’t freedom at all.

But I needed to confirm. “I assume the terms are still the same, despite losing the second encantado.”

“Yes, of course. I only need Isabella out of the city before the event. She cannot be harmed.”

Of course they had agreed to terms. Julia Sparkle had planned to hand me over. But why now? Why this moment?

I stared down at Julia Sparkle’s desk, surveying the lot of her useless post-it notes and paper clips … and her calendar. Today’s date was circled with a red X drawn in the center.

The day of the extinction event had been moved up because I had solved the OtherX problem so quickly.

It hit me: freeing me from the facility and sending me to Las Vegas had all worked perfectly for all parties involved. Because I had been free, I had continued my research and my pregnancy had taken. Because I had mapped the section of the DNA strand that interacted with magic, Serena Russo had received important information about Other DNA. Because I had made the counteragent fly, Julia Sparkle had gotten her airborne OtherX.

The extinction event would serve Julia Sparkle’s interests just as well as it would serve the World Army’s. And all of it served Serena.

She was getting everything she wanted: my womb and the knowledge inside my head. And I was already oathbound to save her son—a promise I could not break.

She had won on every front.

Or so she thought.

My fingers tightened around the receiver. She would have neither. If she got me, the World Army got me. And if the World Army had me, they would have a powerful weapon against the resistance: an understanding of how Other DNA interacted with magic.

Plus, they’d have the only pregnant Other in the world.

She would never capture me again.

“When will you arrive?” I said.

“We’ll use the event as cover. After it has begun, meet us at the airport outside the city. Kilby will send you the information.”

I turned automatically toward the shuttered window. We only had a few hours before the extinction event, and I realized I’d had no idea how I was going to save the Others in Las Vegas.

But Serena had given me my solution.

“That’s fine,” I said.

“And Julia?”

“Yes?” I said.

“Bring along as much of the airborne pathogen as you’re able. We’ll compensate you well.”

I tried to keep my breathing steady. “We will,” I managed before I hung up.

As I set the phone on the receiver, I met eyes with Justin and Cupid. “Julia Sparkle was a pawn,” I said. “The OtherX wasn’t her creation—it was given to her by Serena Russo and the World Army.”

“Ho-ly Hera,” Cupid said.

“How do you know?” Justin asked.

“Serena just told me over the phone.” I paused, leaning against the desk. “And it makes sense. She made meth, not killer pathogens.”

Hercules and Lux came back into the room. I opened my mouth to object, but Hercules pointed to his shoulder. “I’ve done as you asked.” He gazed around the office, his eyes passing over Julia Sparkle’s prone form. “What a temple! What taste and extravagance.”

As Hercules circulated around the room admiring Julia Sparkle’s decor, Lux flew up to me. “Is it true?” She pointed to my belly.

“Is what—”

She interrupted me. “About the child! The baby.”

I swallowed. “Yes.” It was true, I thought but didn’t say.

Her hands clapped together, and she became a different pixie. Tears glimmered in her minuscule eyes. “A miracle from the gods. When the human told me”—she gestured to Justin—“I didn’t believe him, but the two demigods insisted it was true. And I knew Hercules of legend would not lie.”

“She was the one who opened the doors for us,” Justin said. “Not in time, but …”

Lux spun on him. “This one’s still alive! And the baby, too.”

“Thank you, Lux.” My throat felt thick. “But there are still 300,000 Others who need to be saved tonight, and we don’t have much time.”

With a bang, we all turned to find that Hercules had pushed aside one of the paintings on the wall and yanked off the door of a small safe hiding behind it. He stared at the metal door before dropping it to the floor. “I only meant to test it.”

“Herc!” Cupid flew over and stuck his hands inside, emerging with two fists full of cash. “You’ve hit the Vegas jackpot, buddy.”

Justin and I met eyes, and we clearly had the same thought, because he nodded and gestured at Julia Sparkle. “She doesn’t need it anymore, anyway.”

Chapter 23

Two hours and one trip to the water plant later, we watched as a series of little sprayer planes taxied down the runway.

“They’re very small air boats,” Hercules observed. “Are you certain they can fly?”

“I’m certain,” I said.

“I don’t see why this is necessary,” Lux said from my other side. “I mean, we’ve already saved everyone. You made such a convincing Julia Sparkle, even Edward allowed you to hold him. I thought that was impossible.”

Behind us, the dog yapped away in the sports car. We had planned to take him to a no-kill shelter, but Lux had insisted she would take responsibility for the dog. And I felt obligated, since he hadn’t barked when I’d lied about the counteragent being the “latest version” of the OtherX.

“Because I don’t trust the World Army,” I said. “I want to make sure every Other in this city is safe.”

That was a reason, but it wasn’t the real reason. I could have just released the counteragent into the city’s water supply—which we had.

The first sprayer plane started down the runway, picking up speed. And as it prepared to lift into the air, I stopped breathing.

I wasn’t certain which plane contained Ananda’s remains. It could be that one, or it could be one of the other five. Which meant all of them mattered equally to me. Each one of them needed to get off the ground.

I remained still as, in turn, each one did what had seemed impossible for humans a hundred years ago.

They flew. They swept over the city, and from their bellies siphoned the counteragent to the poison the Others below hadn’t known would poison them. It drifted over the glowing city like long swaths of rain.

As did my sister’s ashes. Unlike the others who had died to OtherX, she had burnt away so fully that not even her bones remained. The scientist in me wondered at that, but the sister in me understood.

It wasn’t that she had more magic. It wasn’t that the pathogen had affected her more than the others. It was simply that she was Ananda, and everything she did, she did completely. Even dying—even death.

Somewhere, her ashes floated over Vegas like snowflakes. One would land on someone’s shoulder, and they would wonder at it. Their eyes would lift, and they would see the softly falling remnants of the encantado who had saved them.

Not me.

Ananda.

My sister.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Cupid said from beside me.

I didn’t remove my eyes from the sky. “What is?”

“How we so often can’t express our love for each other in words.”

I nodded, my face still lifted. “It’s strange.”

Footsteps approached from behind us. “The plane’s ready for you.”

“We’ll be there in a minute,” Justin said. His hand touched my shoulder. He didn’t need to say anything—his grip said it all.

“Oh, it’s such a joy to return to Paradise Lot,” Lux gushed to Cupid. “You don’t know what kind of hell making meth is on your hands. My sisters just don’t get it.”

“Sisters?” Cupid said.

“Glint, Dazzle and Phosphorescence,” Lux rattled off. “They’re school teachers. They just play with glitter and glue all day.”

“All three of them?”

“The pay’s terrible, you know. Hence the meth dough.”

Hercules stepped up on my other side. “I kept watch in the eastern sky, as you asked.”

I glanced over at him. “And?”

“I saw two air boats descend.”

As confirmation, Julia Sparkle’s cell phone buzzed in my hand. When I lifted it, I saw a text from a name just listed as K. That was Kilby. Arrived. Bring cargo for immediate extraction.

“That’s her,” Justin said. “We need to go—now.”

We would slip from her grasp again, but she would pursue. That was a hard truth I’d come to accept: when Serena Russo wanted something, she didn’t stop. She didn’t accept defeat.

I would see her again. Not tonight, but soon.

The fingers of my left hand tingled with the knowledge.

I took one last look, searching out the sprayer planes. Only one of them was visible now, its contents raining over the nearby neighborhoods. The counteragent, and perhaps the ashes.

“It wasn’t for nothing,” I whispered. Ananda hadn’t died in vain—I would make sure of that. I would make sure the resistance knew who had saved this city. She had sacrificed, and that sacrifice would allow Others to become immortal.

I turned toward the group, who were flanked by the hangar. We had gone to the airport, as Serena had instructed. Just not the airport she’d gone to.

We were at the local airport, with private flights.

Inside the hangar, a six-seater jet awaited us, paid for by one Julia Sparkle—or, at least, her blood money. It seemed appropriate that the woman who had attempted to kill Others en mass should now be footing the bill for the resistance.

Because that was who we were—members of the resistance, flying to the one place in the world where Others were safest. Paradise Lot.

All we had to do was climb inside. After everything, it seemed so simple, so easy. So wrong. My sister should have been with us. Or at least, here to see us off.

But that was another hard truth. We didn’t always get to keep the people we loved by our sides. And sometimes we made mistakes so awful, we had to spent the rest of our mortal lives making up for them. These were memories I would always have.

I lowered my eyes to the dagger I’d been holding in my left hand. Selvagem. It had a name, a history, an owner.

I knelt and slipped it into my boot, where it would stay until I passed it on. When I rose, I sensed a small change in me. A mettle I hadn’t felt before. Maybe it was the dagger, or maybe it was my sister’s words.

Either way, I knew for certain that I would do what needed to be done.

“I’m ready,” I said.

It was time to see about an angel.

Mortality Bound

Chapter 1

Twinkies. With pregnancy came dreams of Twinkies.

Who knew?

When I opened my eyes, I’d been dreaming of a deep-fried Twinkie the size of my head. I didn’t even know they came deep fried. But for a delirious minute after waking, it was my life’s mission to find out.

A thought came: The ramidreju would know.

Three months ago, I’d heard scraping behind the wall of my bedroom, which lay deep under Paradise Lot. And as I’d approached the wall, a little bit of its cement surface had crumbled away, and a tiny creature’s face had appeared, blinking into the bright lights.

He was an Other called a ramidreju, and he quickly became my friend. Well, my friend and my black market dealer in Twinkies.

And I was in luck—today was Monday. For some reason, the ramidreju always came on Mondays.

I needed to prepare.

In the safehouse, I sat up, swung my legs off the bed and lifted my shirt to evaluate my belly. Still mostly flat, but protruding a little now. According to every baby book ever, my child should be about the size of a plum. And I hadn’t felt movement yet—not even a hiccup.

But I knew she was there, still growing inside me. I had confirmed as much almost as soon as we’d arrived in Paradise Lot. It had been almost as great and humbling a surprise as finding out I was pregnant in the first place, especially after my exposure to OtherX in Las Vegas, and changing illusions a few dozen times.

One thing was undeniable: this fetus wanted to live. And she wanted Twinkies, stat.

I lowered my shirt. Before me, the room lay bare except for a painted portrait of a field blooming with marigolds, a locker for my belongings and a rectangular table in the opposite corner.

My first great comfort was the shag carpet I now dug my toes into. I stood, crossed to the corner where my second great comfort grew in three dirt-filled trays.

My mushrooms.

Beneath two lamps grew twenty-five indigo blue leptonia, a species native to the Amazon rainforest. And also especially scrumptious, as fungi went. I had spent three months cultivating them after I’d encountered my first ramidreju quite by accident—those little buggers can tunnel through cinder blocks, as it turns out—and now I had, to my knowledge, Paradise Lot’s only supply of this delicacy.

Which made me, Isabella Ramirez, a hot commodity among the ramidreju.

A scratching sounded behind the portrait of marigolds. Above my fungi table, the clock read six on the dot. “Right on time,” I called, picking one of the trays up off the table and carrying it over to the portrait.

When I lifted the portrait off the wall, my ramidreju poked his head into the room. Though much like weasels in appearance, ramidreju had exceptionally weak eyesight. They navigated mostly by sonar, kind of like bats, and their fur carried more of a green hue in the light.

The ramidreju I’d nicknamed Bandit gazed back at me, his two dark eyes blinking at the sudden light.

“Sorry.” I crossed to the door, flicked off the overhead fluorescents. Only the lamps over my table of mushrooms remained illuminated. “Better?”

The ramidreju chittered, climbing out of his hole and into my room. Coiled in his long tail was the prize I’d been awaiting.

A box of Twinkies.

But these weren’t just regular cream-filled pastries …

“Bandit”—I knelt by the ramidreju, who’d dropped the box to the ground as soon as he scented the tray of mushrooms—”chocolate? This can’t be real.”

The creature chittered again with obvious pleasure as I lifted the box of Twinkies and pressed it like a cherished valuable to my chest. “Take all the mushrooms this time,” I said.

Bandit rose, his front paws coming together in surprise.

“I’m serious,” I said. “Go crazy on those things. You brought me chocolate Twinkies.”

The moment I finished speaking, Bandit let out a squeal, diving into the tray of leptonia and plucking them one by one to set like a bouquet in the coil of his tail.

And as I sat in my bedroom, laughing at the ramidreju and unwrapping my first cream-filled, chocolate artery clogger of the day, another thought came to me: You’ve gotten strange, Isa.

I had been in Paradise Lot for five months. The day I’d arrived, the resistance had smuggled me into this safehouse. And after a couple months below ground, I’d started acting … different.

For exercise, I walked morning circuits of the safehouse’s six rooms. Three bedrooms, one canteen, one research laboratory, one bathroom.

I knew how many steps I had to take from my bed to the bathroom—twenty-five-and-a-half. (An important bit of knowledge for a pregnant encantado.)

And I’d gotten involved in the Twinkie black market.

In the seconds it took me to consider my own habits, I’d stuffed down three Twinkies. And I was ready for more.

Three tiny raps sounded at my door. “Isa? Are you up?”

As one, Bandit and I spun toward the door. That was Lux’s voice. For a pixie who used to cook meth for a living, she really hated any illicit goings on.

I flapped my hands at the ramidreju. “Go, go!”

He didn’t need to be told twice. Within a second, he had finished picking all the leptonia and slipped back into his hole in the wall. Just as I replaced the marigold portrait and threw the box of Twinkies under my bed, the door opened.

Lux flew in, hands preemptively on her hips. The pixie’s iridescent wings cast enormous, fluttering shadows on the wall. “So you’re up.”

I managed a tight smile. “So I am.”

She flitted toward the tray on the ground, now emptied of mushrooms. “What’s this about?”

“Oh. Well ...” When I couldn’t find a good lie in the first two seconds, Lux knew. She always knew. And so, because I took longer than two seconds, I pressed my thighs together and made for the door. “Nossa Senhora do I ever have to use the bathroom.”

And that’s how you evade a curmudgeonly pixie who’s supposed to be your lab assistant but ends up judging every one of your life choices.

Actually, there was one life choice she agreed with: living in this place to evade the World Army, which would stop at nothing to capture me. The past year of my life had proven as much.

↔

As I left the bathroom, I opened the door to find a flying toddler staring back at me. The dimples on his cherubic boy’s face deepened as his wings flitted like a hummingbird’s. “Yo.”

I flinched back before I caught myself. “Really? Do you always have to float that close to the door when it’s clearly occupied?”

“What else is there to do for fun down here?” Cupid muttered as he pushed past me and into the only bathroom the five of us shared.

As if in answer, a booming laugh sounded from the canteen across the hallway.

Hercules, the son of Zeus. No one laughed louder or more infectiously than him.

I was already half-smiling as I stepped into the canteen, where my boyfriend and the demigod were deep in conversation, heads bowed. Except, given Hercules’s size, his back had gone as crooked as a question mark to lower himself to Justin’s seated height.

Hercules stabbed a finger straight down toward a steaming mug of coffee set between them. “This is not hot. Hot is the acid spewed by the immortal, nine-headed Hydra of Lerna.”

Justin folded his arms. “All right. Test it, then.” Clearly he’d been the one to brew the coffee.

The thing about Hercules: he didn’t hesitate. Not even when it came to scalding liquid. We all winced as he drove his finger deep into the mug. But it was Justin who suffered most of all.

He let out a yelp as he grabbed the first finger on his own left hand. “GoneGodDamn!” My boyfriend flew up from his seat and ran toward the sink to run his hand under the water.

Hercules removed his finger from the mug and bellowed with laughter, slapping his thighs. “Oh, that doesn’t get old.”

It had been six months since Justin’s fate had become entwined with the demigod’s. It was a long story, but what it boiled down to was: if one of them died, the other would, too. And as far as we knew, that wouldn’t change until Hercules completed an important labor: avenging a great wrong—slaying the goddess Hera. At least, that was what the oracle Pythia had told him he needed to do.

But the gods had been gone for four years, Hera included. So in this GoneGod World, how did a demigod fatebound with a human get his kicks?

Finger in hot coffee.

Cupid had flown into the canteen and dropped onto a stool in time to catch the tail-end of Justin’s mistake. “He’s a human. You’re half god, buddy.”

I crossed to Justin’s side, directing a glare at Hercules. “Which is besides the point. It’s wrong.”

Hercules’s eyes lit on me, and a tiny firework burst in my stomach. That was the effect of Hercules’s gaze. Not just on me, but on almost anyone he looked at. “Isa. I didn’t see you come in.”

I set a hand on Justin’s back. “You OK?”

He shut off the water, withdrew his burned finger and extended it for me to see. “Could be worse.”

I shot Hercules a glare. “Could be better, too.”

“You shouldn’t have asked him to test it,” Cupid said to Justin.

Hercules shrugged his enormous shoulders. “I don’t bluff, I’m afraid, when it comes to tests.”

Justin pointed at Hercules. “I’ll test your cojones tonight.” He really did have the worst comebacks.

Hercules’s eyebrow went up. “Is that an offer?”

Cupid’s wings fluttered once. “I can’t tell whether you two are at odds or wanting to make out.”

Justin groaned. “It was supposed to be a threat.”

Hercules smirked. “Unfortunately for you, Justin Truly, my balls are harder than Zeus’s golden shield.”

I swept a hand through the air. “Enough. You two are still bound. Until that changes, no hurting each other.”

But as we all sat down to breakfast, I knew the real problem. I could see it in the slump in Justin’s shoulders. I could see it in the way Hercules tapped his foot on the floor and everything rumbled. I could see it in the way Lux flew in and landed on Cupid’s shoulder without so much as a word to any of us.

We had been living in a six-room underground safehouse in Paradise Lot for five months. They had guarded me day and night. We were all sick of this life. Especially because we had no other choice.

“They put clocks up yesterday,” Justin said around a spoonful of oatmeal. He’d been above ground yesterday on a supply run, a fact of which we were all jealous—me most of all, since I was the only one who strictly could not leave the safehouse. As it was, I just told the others what supplies I needed for my lab, and they provided.

Cupid lowered his mug. “Ugh, clocks.” He knew as well as I did that time sped up when an Other used magic. And here in Paradise Lot, where the World Government had full run of the island, things were getting stricter. “Where?”

“On every block,” Justin added. “Big ones.”

My eyebrows went up. “There’s going to be a lot of spinning second hands.”

“You’d be surprised,” Justin said. “I think it’s having the intended effect. Others are too spooked to use magic.”

Lux’s wings fluttered from her seat on Cupid’s shoulder. “My sisters don’t even use their glitter anymore.”

I leaned toward her. “What does pixie glitter do, anyway?”

Lux made a noise of disdain. “If you don’t know, I’m not telling you.”

Cupid and I met eyes, and he gave me an apologetic, she can’t be reined in look. And for my part, I couldn’t help but laugh; the pixie was almost comical in her curmudgeonliness. I didn’t even take it personally.

A throat cleared at the doorway of the canteen, followed by the clacking of pincers. I knew who it was before I even looked up.

“Hey, bug dude,” said Cupid. “We’re not gonna bite. Come on in.”

More clacking—a nervous tic of his. When I lifted my eyes, Colel Cab’s enormous insectoid eyes rested with unblinking intensity on me. Only the front of his centipede-like body was visible, the rest trailing off down the hallway. Apparently he was a god amongst insects—because even insects have gods—but wasn’t invited to leave during the GrandExodus with the other gods. A fact which, if I could speak bug, I’m sure angered their kind.

And now Colel was the PR department for the resistance. As in, the whole department.

“Excuse me, Isabella,” Colel said, his enormous insect’s eyes still unblinking on me. GoneGodDamn, would he ever blink? “Miral would like to see you in the lab.”

“Miral?” I pointed at my chest. “Me?”

I had only seen the angel once since arriving in Paradise Lot, and then only briefly. I had been almost too overwhelmed by her presence to say much more than a word or two. In fact, I couldn’t remember what I had said—maybe I’d just stared.

She was something else.

“Yes,” Colel said. “You.”

Hercules nudged me. “Don’t keep the boss waiting.”

I rose with my mug to my chest. “All right.” And I followed the bug god to my lab, his dozens of legs brushing along the tiles ahead of me.

Chapter 2

Colel Cab left me alone at the entrance to the lab I’d spent the past five months working in. I knew this room with my eyes closed, but a strange uncertainty filled me as I pushed the door open.

Inside, the angel Miral stood facing away, gazing over the long workstation. Her folded wings almost glowed under the light, each one taller than me. She wore a white physician’s long coat fashioned to accommodate those wings, her dark hair falling long over the collar. I knew she worked at the Paradise Lot hospital by day, but for some reason the simple fact of her profession hadn’t hit home until I saw her in that coat.

As I let the door shut inaudibly behind me, I found I didn’t know what to say. What did you say to one of God’s angels who now headed the resistance? “Good morning, creature of light.” “Hello, former Commander of the Lord’s Army.”

Everything felt pale and meaningless—a sure sign I was in the presence of someone who intimidated me.

But she let me off the hook. “Hello, Isabella,” her voice belled through the room. When she turned, her ivory hands clasped together before her. “Have you had breakfast?”

I lifted my mug of coffee. “I don’t really eat breakfast.”

“I don’t, either.” Her incandescent face lit with almost imperceptible amusement, a curl appearing beside her lips. “Have to watch this angelic figure.”

I laughed harder than I should have, if only because it was such a surprise to hear an angel make a joke. All at once, my uncertainty melted, and I stepped forward. “Have you come to see my work?”

She half-turned back toward the workstation. “Yes, actually. In part.”

In part? What’s the other reason? I thought but didn’t say. I approached the table, touched a microscope. “If you look through the eyepiece, you can see a DNA segment.”

“Really?” Miral came forward, bent over to set her eyes to the microscope’s view. “Fascinating. Whose is this?”

“It’s mine,” I said. “An encantado’s.”

She kept staring, turning the knob on the side a degree to focus it. “And how far along are you with the immortality research?”

The immortality research. Such a name felt too grand for my work—maybe even inappropriate. I was researching reproduction, not living forever. But I wasn’t about to contradict the angel. Our genetics did live forever through our offspring. So in that sense, she was right.

“I’m closer.” And though that was true—I spent so much time processing DNA segments that I dreamed about them many nights—I knew it was also a frustratingly imprecise answer.

Miral straightened, gazed down at me. “How close is closer? I need a timeframe.”

“It’s impossible to say,” I said. “Humans spent thousands of hours mapping their genome, and there were a lot more of them working on those two strands on the helix. We have three strands, and this project’s just me.”

Her lips twitched. “Yes.”

I set my mug down. “Miral, what’s wrong?”

Her blue eyes surveyed my face as she considered my question. “The work you’re doing here in Paradise Lot is imperative,” she said in a low, steely voice. “Because we’re losing. You’ve been underground, but I’m sure you’ve heard about the cordoning off of Others into a single sector. We’re enclosed now, under the World Government’s watch. Other rights are being infringed upon with more brazenness every day. The resistance is losing, and it’s our lost children—the unborn future—who will suffer most if you don’t finish this.”

I swallowed.

Before I could speak, she turned toward me in full. “And the World Government wants you desperately, Isabella. You are the most important Other alive right now. You are the key to our immortality.” The angel reached a hand toward my belly, her fingers hovering a few inches away. “And not just because you carry a child. Because you carry the keys necessary to unlock that possibility for all of us.”

Even though she wasn’t touching me, I somehow felt the warmth of her hand. And as if in response, the baby kicked. My own hand slid over the spot. “Oof. She’s got a good windup.”

She smiled at me. “A strong one.”

I gazed down at Miral’s hand, still hovering between us. “There’s something else wrong. Did something happen?”

She took a deep breath, lowering her fingers. “You’re a perceptive one.”

“Your smile didn’t extend to your eyes.” I lifted my face. “And there’s a furrow between your eyebrows.”

She exhaled. “I guess we’re more like humans than we think.”

“I’m just very good at reading people—humans and Others.”

Her hand fell away, the two clasping together once more. “Well, you’re correct. There was a terror attack.”

“What happened?”

“It was inside an Other-friendly restaurant. Apparently a human came in with a device he activated once inside. But …” Miral paused. “It wasn’t chemical like anything we’ve seen. It wasn’t like your OtherX back in Las Vegas. The Others didn’t burn magic.”

I stared hard at her. “What do you mean?”

She squeezed her hands together. “The pack Others became … wild. But they weren’t burning any time.”

“Wild,” I repeated.

“Animalistic.” Her eyes flicked to me. “They climbed on tables, attacked one another—they even attacked the Others who weren’t affected.”

“But it wasn’t OtherX.”

She shook her head. “We don’t believe so. One of the ex-werewolves managed to scratch all her hair off her head. She put awful gouges in her scalp before she killed herself.”

My eyebrows went up. “Killed herself? That’s definitely different.” OtherX hadn’t been responsible for suicides—only a drastic burning of magic all at once, like a flame with gasoline poured on it.

Miral set a finger by her ear. “It was something aural, we think.”

“And you want me to study it.”

The angel shook her head. “No, Isabella. This isn’t something you can counteract with the right compound—at least, not without devoting too much time to it. I need you to continue your current work.”

“But you came here for a reason,” I pressed. “And not just to tell me my work is important. I know you’re busier than that.”

That faint smile appeared again. “Correct. I came to ask you for a large favor.”

“Of course,” I said at once, my natural politeness and awe of Miral escorting the words right out of my mouth. Then, when I’d processed the large part, “I mean, what’s the favor?”

“Put simply, I need you to make the council believe that we shouldn’t attack the World Government.”

I barked out a laugh. “Me. You need me to convince the council?”

I felt singularly unqualified. I mean, we encantado were exceptional actresses—it was a perk of our ability to take on the illusion of anyone we wanted—but Miral was an angel. She was the head of the resistance and one of the most compelling, charismatic creatures I had met in five hundred years.

And I had met quite a lot of creatures.

“Yes,” she said. “You. They need to understand that your work is our first priority—that we need to remain peaceful until it’s complete. They need to know what mapping the third strand of the helix will accomplish for Others. As yet, they do not.”

“Babies,” I said quickly. “We’ll get babies.”

It seemed easy enough.

Miral gave a gentle laugh. “Do you know, I heard about your research before you even arrived in Paradise Lot. Months before. Word came through the grapevine that an Other was studying the key to our immortality.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

Miral stepped closer. “I didn’t believe it. I thought it was ridiculous, Isabella. Not until you arrived and I saw you. You, an Other, pregnant.”

I wanted to back up, but I felt myself in a sort of angel’s thrall. I couldn’t do anything but gaze back at her. I saw a confluence of emotions in her wide eyes—hope, worry, even a jag of … envy. Did Miral envy me? It was a strange thing to think of an angel. But like I said: I’m excellent at reading people. And I definitely saw a twinge of it in those beautiful blue eyes.

I understood now why she wanted me to convince the council. It wasn’t just about what I would say—it was about seeing me. “I’ll do it,” I said. “Or at least, I’ll do my best.”

“Good.” Miral set a hand on my shoulder. “Because the two people you’ll need to convince are quite set in their ways.”

Chapter 3

I gazed at Miral’s hand on my shoulder, then into her eyes. “Who are these people?”

Her eyes flicked down, all the way to my boots. Instead of a proper answer, she said, “You carry two daggers.”

I was taken off guard. How did she know such a thing? Oh, right: Commander of the Lord’s Army. “I do.”

“One in each boot. Why?”

“For safety.”

“They make you feel confident, capable.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Keep them with you.” She stepped away, turning toward the doorway. “Bring the confidence your daggers instill in you.”

“Miral?” I called after her. “Where are you going?”

She started toward the hall. “To the council meeting.”

I fell into a jog after her. “Excuse me? You mean the meeting—like, the one I’m supposed to be at?”

“Yes, that meeting.”

She already knew I would agree to her favor, I thought but didn’t say. Of course she knew—she was an angel. How many people said no to Miral?

Miral talked as we walked. “You already know one member of the council—Colel Cab, who guides public perspective. Or at least, he tries to,” she said as we passed into the safehouse’s hallway. “But there are two others whom you haven’t met.”

“Don’t you think it would be better for me to prepare?” I struggled to keep alongside her; the tall, lithe angel had an enormous stride, and my current illusion put me a hair over five feet tall. “Maybe know their names ahead of time, have some idea of what I’m going to say?”

Miral nodded as we came to a door at the end of the hallway—the same one I had passed through once before, when I first came to Paradise Lot and was brought here to the safehouse. I paused in front of it, my brain shooting off the psychological trigger to stop.

Here was the barrier I could not pass beyond. I had tested this door so many times, tried to sneak out of it more than once. When Justin or Cupid or Hercules had left through it, I’d stared into the darkness beyond while Lux floated nearby, ready to throw a fit if I tried to pass through.

Of course, I’d been told what lay beyond: the resistance headquarters, where the leadership met, where members could come for safe haven, where we kept supplies, intelligence.

But knowing wasn’t the same as seeing. I understood my importance to the resistance, but being stuck down here made me feel more like a child without autonomy than a five-hundred-year-old encantado.

Now, after five months of wanting to leave the safehouse, I hesitated.

Miral noticed, and she reached for my hand, set it on the knob. “Go ahead. No one will hurt you down here.”

When I pushed it open, new air rushed over me. Not fresh air, precisely, but it was refreshing all the same. On the other side lay another hallway, except this one was lined in stone and cobwebs, dust and dirt—just an artery between two sections of the underground structure the resistance had fashioned to stay hidden from the World Government.

Here, no fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling. Only a faint and disconcerting glow filled the passage, originating from somewhere above—perhaps a highly diffused sunlight that had somehow made its way down to us.

And I relished it. I missed the sun.

“Have you heard of principles, Isabella?” Miral asked as we stepped through.

“I know that one can have principles.”

“I’m referring more to laws. Like those of gravity or physics.”

“Of course.” I’m a biologist, I thought but didn’t say.

Miral ducked beneath a spider’s web as we came to the other end of the hallway. “The council members you are about to meet were once a single principle: Chaos and Order. Now they are Chao and Ordo. It is Chao you must convince.”

I stopped, staring after her. Had she just said that people were principles? “Ah, Miral …”

She opened the door, turned back to me. “Come, Isa. We’re already late.” From the other side, the fluorescent lights haloed her in brilliance, and she looked positively … well, angelic.

What else do you do when a haloed angel tells you to come? You GoneGodDamn well come.

↔

I don’t recall much about my arrival in Paradise Lot. It was nighttime, and I had been on planes for twelve hours. It had been a long journey from Las Vegas. Longer still, knowing we were pursued by Serena Russo and the World Army, who had learned almost immediately of our escape.

This was how badly the World Army wanted me: they had chased us across an entire ocean.

So when I was brought to the resistance’s safehouse, it was in a blur of movement and running. Various hands took hold of my bicep at various times, leading me into cars. Leading me through streets. Leading me into the house which led underground, into these tunnels.

Surely I had passed through the tunnel I now entered—it was the only way in or out of the safehouse. And yet as I stepped out of the cobwebbed hallway after Miral, I found I had no memory of what lay beyond.

Before me spread an underground base. Others I had never seen before passed in and out of my vision, crossing from one room to another with clipboards in hand. On my left, I spied two people in a small room, both seated in front of computers as though they were working a regular office job.

On my right, the door had been left open to reveal a kind of supply room. I glimpsed folded blankets, stacked boxes of protein bars, even guns and grenades set in a neat row on a shelf.

I stood in the doorway. “Grenades?”

“Courtesy of Chao,” Miral said from behind me. I could hear the disapproval. “At present a last resort for us, if we were attacked.”

I turned toward her. “At present?”

“Like I said, there is a faction among us who would prefer to fight. To end all this in war.”

I took in a deep breath as I prepared to convince the council of what I believed to be obvious. But the Principles … if they were the avatars of Natural Law, then they’d think differently than any normal creature—mortal or once-immortal. Logic would be different for them and I needed to know more. “You said they used to be a single principle. But chaos and order are not the same—they’re opposites.”

Miral graciously inclined her head. “It would seem so. But one cannot exist without the other.”

My eyebrows pulled together. “How is that?”

“Think of the evolution of homo sapiens. The chaos of nature drove humans to adapt, to evolve into the creatures they are now. But they also require order to function at their highest capacities: order in their thoughts, regularity in their daily habits, systems by which they can live.”

“And chaos forces them to adapt still,” I said. “Like the suddenness of our arrival in their world.”

Miral’s lips quirked a moment. “Correct.”

“Madam Miral?” a voice said from our right. Beside us stood Colel Cab, his enormous eyes offering a single, long blink. Finally, I thought. I had been waiting to see him blink all morning. He held a cellphone in one hand and a Bluetooth earpiece shone blue in one of his earholes. I wondered if he’d had to have that specially crafted for an Other like him.

Miral turned a patient smile on the bug god. “You don’t need to call me madam.”

“Miss?” Colel said.

“Not that, either.”

“Commander of the Lord’s—” Colel began.

The angel raised a hand. “Please. Of all things, not that. Just Miral.”

Colel nodded. “Miral,” he said with what he seemed to perceive as irreverence, “the council is ready to begin.”

“By which you mean we’re late,” Miral said.

Colel shook his head. “Oh no.”

“Well, we are.” Miral glanced at me. “I’m sorry for this, Isabella. I know what I’ve done, and how I’ve done it. But if you’d believe it, this was the first moment I had to speak with you. My life as a resistance leader has been far, far busier than it has as a doctor.”

“I believe it,” I said at once. And though it entered my mind to tell her everything was all right, everything was fine, I didn’t say it. Because truthfully, it wasn’t all right. If an introvert prefers time to mentally prepare, you could say I was a super introvert. The introvertiest introvert. And five months of relative isolation had only exacerbated that.

But at the same time, I was eminently grateful to Miral. Not just for her work, and not just for her offer to sneak me into a hospital for an ultrasound, but because she had taken me out of the safehouse.

I was GoneGodDamn sick of the safehouse. I would rather be standing in front of Chao and Ordo, trying to muddle my way through a speech I hadn’t had a minute to prepare for, than spend another day with my face set to a microscope. A fact which I’d never known about myself prior to being kept underground for five months.

So, I thought, let’s do this.

Miral seemed to be watching me. “You’re finished thinking.”

I blinked, focused on her. “What?”

She appeared amused. “Do you know, when you’re deep in thought your eyes travel like lightning bugs?” Her elegant pointer finger zipped between us from spot to spot. “It’s like you’re watching a film.”

“I …” No one had ever told me that. How had I never known that about myself? I felt suddenly exposed. “Well, you’re right. I guess I was deep in thought.”

Another smile tugged at her lips. “I like you, Isabella. And not just because you’re going to change everything about our world.” Before I could respond, she turned toward Colel Cab. “Let’s not keep Chaos and Order waiting. I can only imagine the empires that have risen and fallen and risen again in the span of time they’ve had alone in that room.”

Colel nodded, set one of his appendages to his earpiece and whispered something into it. I noticed he didn’t otherwise move—not until Miral stepped forward.

But then, I hadn’t moved, either. And not because Miral was the head of the resistance. Not because she was an angel. Simply because her presence flowed off her like a palpable thing. When Miral moved, the room moved. When Miral moved, everyone did.

We walked to the third door, set at the far end of the hallway. On it, the etching of a fish with legs. It was the same tattoo the centaur in New York City had shown me to indicate she was a member of the resistance. The same tattoo my sister Ananda had shown me when I’d arrived in Las Vegas.

The angel stopped before the door, took a long breath. Her eyes closed as she did so.

“Miral,” I whispered.

Her blue eyes opened, turned to me.

“It’s not the daggers that bring me confidence.” My hand slid over my belly. “It’s her. Everything changed with her. Everything I’ve done—everything I will do—is because I must. For her. That’s why I won’t fail you.”

She lowered her head—a single nod—before she opened the door to the meeting room.

Chapter 4

The large semi-circle table before us wasn’t the most interesting aspect of the room. Nor were the walls—bare. Or the ceiling—cinder block, lined with more tubed fluorescents. It wasn’t even the green-haired nymph standing in the corner beside what looked like a bird bath, full to the brim with water.

It was the man and woman standing at the center of the room, both of them clearly in the middle of an argument. The man, of middling height, in a bespoke gray suit with a great head of groomed black hair, bore a flush on his face. One of his perfectly polished leather brogues tapped the floor, his arms folded over his chest.

The woman, also of middling height, was nearly drowned beneath the crop of white hair in frizzy disorder atop her head. A pair of spectacles sat on her nose, and her hands were set to her hips, from which flowed a floral skirt. All her movements spoke of a certain agitation particular to anxiety, from the way her eyes swiveled in her head to the curve of her spine, like she was protecting her internal organs.

These two were the principle of chaos and order? They looked like, well ... ordinary, middle-aged humans. And these two were clearly at odds, though I had no idea what over, because they stopped when we entered.

Both had now turned toward us.

Well, I thought, there was a reason Miral didn’t tell me who was who. It was clear enough. The man displayed order, and the woman, chaos.

“I apologize,” Miral said at once, “for keeping you waiting, Chao and Ordo.” She crossed around toward the chair set at the center of the semi-circle.

Colel Cab’s centipede-like body swept from seat to seat, placing a piece of paper before each. “I’ve brought an agenda.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said the woman—Chao, I thought. Her green eyes had fallen on me. “We only have one point on the agenda.”

The man ran a hand over his hair. “Who is this?”

“You’ve brought a human,” the woman said.

“A nervous one,” the man said.

He can tell? How could he tell I was nervous?

Miral cleared her throat. “If everyone will be seated, I’ll get to that.”

I waited until the others had filed to their chairs to take the only empty one remaining, next to Colel Cab. The bug god didn’t so much sit as he did place the first segment of his long body atop the seat, the rest of it trailing away beneath the table.

Miral spread her hands. “Council members, can you please introduce yourselves?”

Beside her, the man in the suit swiveled his eyes to me. “Chao, tactical strategist.” He tapped his short nails on the table.

My mouth opened, closed again. The man was chaos. Apparently, chaos wore a fitted suit and used hair gel.

“I am Ordo. I lead our negotiations,” the woman said next. She was also looking at me.

“Colel Cab, PR,” the bug god said.

After a pause, I realized Miral was waiting for me.

“Isabella,” I said. “I’m a biologist.”

Miral gestured to the nymph beside the bird bath. “Galaxy?”

The green-haired Other turned toward us, one slender arm folding as she set a hand to her chest. Though we had little in the way of air circulation in this room, it looked as though a perennial breeze blew over the waiflike creature, her hair always lifted and flowing. She struck me as nature incarnate. “I am Galaxy. Though not a council member, I will be watching the proceedings and providing security, as necessary.”

“Galaxy is humble,” Miral said. “She’s a skilled medic and also adept with a scrying pool.”

Ah, so that’s what the bird bath is. I had never seen a scrying pool before, and I was deeply curious. But this wasn’t really the time to pester Galaxy.

Chao continued tapping his fingers. “Why did you bring a human here, Miral?”

Miral raised a hand. “As I said, I’ll address that. For now, I’d like to discuss the matter at hand. We are short on time and long on the consequences of wasting it.”

GoneGodDamn, the angel sure knew how to redirect a conversation.

Chao sat back in his seat, one brogue-clad foot coming to rest on the opposite knee. “You know my stance. Especially now that the clocks have gone up. It’s only a matter of time, as it were.”

Colel Cab paused in his typing on his phone. Was he transcribing the meeting? “Can you please repeat your stance for the room?”

“We should fight the World Army.” Chao pronounced each word as though he were biting into it.

“I respectfully disagree,” Ordo said at once, pressing her unruly hair behind her ears and sitting forward. “The disparity in military power between the resistance and the World Army is so vast, we would lose thousands in a single fight.”

“I thought I was the military strategist,” Chao said without looking at Ordo. “I believe I have a much keener sense of Others’ capabilities in battle. And we’d operate by attrition, not toe-to-toe.”

“Toe-to-toe and attrition both create similar disorder.” Ordo’s hands wrung above the table. “We’ve already been labeled a terrorist group by the World Government more than once, and the results have been devastating for Other rights.”

“Colel?” Miral asked. “What is your opinion?”

Colel Cab tapped away on his phone for a moment longer, then looked up. “I would prefer for us not to fight in the way Chao suggests.”

Miral nodded, her eyes returning to Chao and Ordo. And I couldn’t help but wonder at Chao’s calmness, his assertiveness, and its contrast with Ordo’s open anxiety, the sense of disorganization that seemed to inhabit every part of her.

I knew I shouldn’t judge books by their covers, but these two were principles, for GoneGods’ sake. I figured they’d at least embody what they represented.

“Ordo is right,” Miral said. “Our acts of aggression, few as they have been, have not been received well by the World Government. You all know that Others cannot even use hospitals since the Paradise Lot Hospital attack.”

“That was one rogue banshee who shouldn’t have been in there, anyway,” Chao shot back.

“The effect was the same,” Ordo responded.

Colel Cab paused in his typing and set his big eyes on Chao. "We are like the pantheon of Olympus, and you are the god Ares advocating for war."

Wow. Go Colel.

A fire entered Chao’s eyes. “You wouldn’t even be on the pantheon, bug god.” In one motion, Chao turned to Miral. "And that makes you the bitch, Athena, who never did anything.”

My spine straightened as though Chao had insulted me—such was the bite of his tone, and the gravity of what he had said to Miral.

But the angel remained composed, her gaze unwavering on the principle of chaos.

Chao took a single breath, his eyes sweeping over all of us. “We're going to die, do you understand that? We are all going to die. And when the last of us breathes our last breath, all the mythical creatures of this world will be no more. And whether that happens five hundred years from now or today, I for one would rather die on my feet. This is why I will never forgive death, and I will never forgive the gods."

Once more, silence fell. At the end of his speech, I could hear Chao’s breath through his nostrils. His heart rate was clearly up, adrenaline in his system.

All at once, Miral rose from her seat and turned to Chao, both hands clasped. "We may yet have forgiveness for you.” The angel’s hand swept out toward me. "And we are not going to die. Before us sits our birth mother."

Ordo adjusted her glasses. “Birth mother?”

Chao’s eyes swept to me. “The human?”

“I’m not a human,” I said quietly. “Though my species takes on the illusion of one.”

Ordo lowered her spectacles. “How interesting. What are you?”

“I’m an encantado. From Brazil.”

The room stilled. Chao’s fingers stopped tapping. Colel Cab’s big eyes gave a huge blink. Across the table, Miral gazed at me with warmth and a single, encouraging nod.

“An encantado?” Chao said. “What is that?”

“We’re shapeshifters,” I said.

“Your natural form is something between a mermaid and a dolphin.” Colel Cab had lifted his phone and, I guessed, was reading about my species on the internet. He lowered it. “And apparently you like to seduce men by taking on the appearance of young women.”

I raised a finger. “We don’t strictly seduce them. It’s often as much about love as it is lust.”

Chao’s hand went out to my belly. “Look at her. She’s not an encantado. This is a pregnant woman.”

“I am,” I said. “I’m both of those things.”

“That’s very much impossible,” Ordo finally said, tweaking the thin metal arm of her glasses between two fingers. “Others cannot reproduce. This is a human.”

Miral lifted the slide from my lab—the one with my DNA in it. Apparently she’d swiped it without my noticing. “She is an encantado. You may inspect the evidence later, if you like.”

Galaxy gasped in the corner. Then a hush fell, every set of eyes drifting to me. Seeing me anew.

Ordo blinked like something had flown into her eyes, her head swiveling between Miral and me. “How?”

“Science, Ordo. Just science.” The angel stepped around the table toward me, and I almost felt a warm glow emanating off her as she came behind me. “This one possesses the key to our future. If the resistance survives, Others will survive. Now you know the stakes of our fight.”

Colel Cab let out a tremendous clacking which sent my hands over my ears. He dropped his phone, which clattered to the floor. “A miracle. This is truly a miracle.”

Tears had come to Ordo’s eyes. She already believed Miral—believed me. But I couldn’t place her expression, whether those tears were of joy or something else. I only knew she was overwhelmed.

My gaze fell on Chao, who stared hard at me. If I was the key to our future, he was the key to our present—to ensuring that the resistance didn’t do anything foolhardy in the interim. “Explain yourself, encantado.”

He said it like he was arbitrating a court case.

I rose, pushing my chair out. “I can’t fully explain it. Not yet. I only know that I slept with my boyfriend”—I wasn’t about to mention the fact that I’d also slept with Hercules—“and my DNA was spliced shortly afterward. Then I became pregnant.”

“Spliced?” Chao said. “By whom?”

I swallowed. “By Serena Russo.”

A steely tension filled the room, like I had cursed everyone’s mother. They all knew who she was—the World Army’s lead scientist, the brilliant, awful woman who had pioneered the super soldier program and the deadly OtherX compound. Who had made my life at times a misery.

Ordo had begun shaking her head, muttering something I couldn’t make out. And, even more concerning, Chao’s expression had turned downright devilish with delight. I had no idea how to read the two principles.

So I barreled on to my final point. “It was the DNA splicing that allowed for this.” I gestured to my belly. “It may have been a miracle, but I can recreate this. Not just for myself—for every Other capable of reproduction. It’s just a matter of finishing my research. It’s a matter of time.”

Colel Cab’s enormous eyes had gone unblinking again. “What will finishing your research do for us?”

I turned to the bug god. “It will grant us immortality.”

If the knowledge of my pregnancy had created a sense of awe, those words sent every Other around me into their own expression of joy. Ordo had removed her glasses and put her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking.

Colel Cab had once more commenced his clacking. "I have literally created and given birth to billions of my children insects and loved each one of them as a mammal loves their single child,” he said. “And seeing you stand before me is a greater miracle and fills me with more love than any of them."

Galaxy took Miral’s hand, and the two stood together like a pair of ethereal sisters.

Except for Chao. He had leaned forward and was gazing at me like I possessed the answer to a question he’d had in mind for eons. “Such a thing would create …”

But Chao’s words were drowned beneath a tremendous rumbling.

Chapter 5

Dust sprinkled down on us, and Miral’s hands gripped my shoulders as the rumbling continued. Beside me, Colel Cab emitted a tremendous shrieking, every one of his hundreds of legs quivering as he writhed out of his chair. My hands had clapped to my ears again, and I couldn’t take my eyes off Colel Cab, whose suffering seemed to go on and on.

Chao rose, fists clenched. “We’re being attacked.”

Ordo had risen as well. “Perhaps. Don’t jump to conclusions.”

Behind me, Miral’s voice boomed out. “What’s happening, Galaxy?”

The nymph set both hands on the edges of the scrying pool and stared into the water. “Give me a moment.”

From outside the door, a thudding sounded in the hallway, like pieces of the ceiling were dislodging and dropping to the floor. Except ceilings didn’t cry out in pain when they fell.

Despite Colel’s shrieking, my hands lowered from my ears to hear the noises in the hallway better. Those cries sounded just like …

As Colel shrunk farther and farther into himself, I turned a full circle and found Miral, Chao, Ordo and Galaxy completely unaffected. Alarmed, but unaffected.

The same was true of me.

Galaxy touched the water, sending ripples to its edges. “World Army forces have congregated in the Other sector, half a mile from our location. They have some sort of … drill they’re sending into the earth. It’s definitely an attack.”

A scrabbling sounded at the door, like claws, followed by a terrified chittering.

I turned just as Miral, in one terrifying moment, unsheathed a longsword whose blade was wider and taller than me. The tip nearly touched the ceiling as she held it close to her body. “Intruders. I will strike down every one of them. I am both a healer and an ender.”

But I knew who those intruders were. And they weren’t with the World Army.

“Let me.” I stepped past her and toward the door. “I think I know what’s happening.”

Miral’s eyes narrowed on me. “Isabella, step away from there. It’s not safe.”

But I didn’t. I was trusting my instincts on this.

Miral came forward, that longsword still raised, and she reached out as though she would take hold of my arm. But I evaded her, pulled the door open and ran through it.

As I stepped out of the council room, the rumbling stopped. Within a second the headquarters were as still as if nothing had ever happened. The only evidence was the fine layer of dust sprinkled over everything.

And, of course, the dead ramidreju in the hallway.

One lay before me, its eyes wide open, its body still warm as I knelt by it and set my hand on the green fur. The sad thing, I thought as I surveyed the ramidreju, was that I couldn’t even tell if this was Bandit.

I only knew he had clawed his way straight through the ceiling and fallen to the floor with his claws driving grooves into his small head, like something had burrowed into his skull.

“It’s safe,” I called out, my eyes sweeping over the otherwise empty space. “It’s just a few ramidreju.”

But they’re all dead. It was an awful thing to see.

The door opened behind me, and I heard the metallic ring of Miral sheathing her longsword. Her feet appeared in my vision. “Ramidreju?”

“They’re harmless Others—underground burrowers.” I glanced up at the angel, remembering the darkness that had crossed her features when she’d heard their cries. “You would have killed them, wouldn’t you? No matter what you found out here, you would have killed it.”

“Yes,” Miral said, not an ounce of shame in her voice or eyes. “I would have, to protect you.”

But they died anyway. I surveyed the hallway, where half a dozen ramidreju had burrowed through the dirt and stone, only to die by clawing grooves in their own heads. I wondered if my own ramidreju had been affected. Likely so, if the attack had at least a half-mile radius. I’m sorry, Bandit.

The door to the council room opened, and Galaxy’s face appeared. “The attack has ended.”

No kidding, I thought but didn’t say.

“Colel?” Miral asked.

“He’s all right,” Galaxy said. “In pain, but otherwise unhurt. I’ll escort him to the medical room.”

Chao and Ordo came into the hallway. “Oh!” Ordo gasped, rushing to kneel by one of the ramidreju farther down the hallway. “These poor things.”

“Well,” Chao said with folded arms, “that was a fair bit of chaos. Not that I mind.”

Miral set a hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right, Isabella?”

I nodded. “I’m fine.” I kept staring at the ramidreju. Something was percolating inside me—a theory. This had only affected Colel Cab and the ramidreju. Why not the rest of us? What was the commonality there?

He looked so pitiful, his furry paws still set at either side of his small head. The claw marks he’d made were right over his ears.

His ears.

As Galaxy helped Colel Cab into the hallway, he clacked once, weakly. “I know what has happened.”

I stood up at the same time. “It was a large-scale aural attack.”

The bug god ceased all motion. “Correct.”

Everyone turned to me. “Another one,” Miral murmured.

“I think so. They were a half-mile away, but Colel Cab and the ramidreju were still affected.” I touched a finger to one ear. “Both have exceptional hearing, and both are pack Others with weaker eyesight. The ramidreju, in fact, have such poor eyesight and such powerful hearing that they’re almost like bats in their navigation. Which is why they were killed, and Colel was only hurt.”

Chao raised an eyebrow at me. “How do you know such things?”

“I … may or may not have had a ramidreju friend who came to visit me.”

Ordo pushed her glasses up her nose. “Why?”

Well, the gig was up. I sighed. “He delivered me Twinkies.”

Both principles just looked at me. “Twink-ies?” Ordo pronounced the word like it stemmed from another language.

“I believe they are a pastry,” Galaxy offered.

Miral turned to Chao and Ordo. “I believe Isabella and Colel are correct about the nature of this attack. And given what Galaxy saw through the scrying pool, it seems the World Army has some sense of our headquarters existing underground.”

Chao raised a finger. “This is precisely why—”

Miral extended her hands to both principles. “For now, I think it best we table this meeting until we’ve attended to Colel and Isabella’s health, and ensured the security of the headquarters.”

She’s purposefully delaying the discussion. She doesn’t want Chao pushing for a retaliatory attack.

And even though Chao looked keen to say more, Ordo set a hand on his forearm to stay him. “We’ll return to this soon,” she said.

Chao gave a single, unwilling nod. Before the principles turned away, Ordo’s eyes strayed to me. They flicked down to my belly for a half-second, and then Miral was beckoning them to the far end of the hallway.

As Galaxy escorted Colel Cab into the medical room, Miral led Chao and Ordo to the far end of the hallway, through a simple door. On it hung an intricately woven charm that looked like a Native American dreamcatcher. How strange, to see such a decoration down here.

It meant something, I suspected. I had studied a map of this building in the weeks since I’d arrived, and I knew its exact layout—not very large, comprising only the safehouse on one side and the four-room headquarters on the other—and that particular entrance was the only one in and out. It led up a flight of stairs, and the map didn’t show anything more.

Early on during my stay, I had been told by Lux that the stairs led up to Galaxy’s home—though I hadn’t met Galaxy then—and that the nymph had bought it from a human “prepper,” who had long ago constructed the underground base I now stood in. That explained why the safehouse had human-sized everything.

When Miral had seen the principles off, she returned to me with a grimness lining her features. Her words from earlier returned to me: “We’re losing.” And with holes drilled in this building and dead Others around us, her words had become almost tangible.

I cast a hand around at the deceased ramidreju. “I suppose this did more in favor of Chao’s argument to attack the World Army than anything I said about procreation.”

Miral shook her head. “You would be surprised, Isabella. The very fact that I was able to send the principles off without argument is something of a miracle. But Chao seeks chaos above all, and this attack has certainly given him fodder for it.” She paused, her eyes straying to my abdomen. “You said you were unharmed, but I would like to check on your fetus. May I?”

I nodded, a fresh spike of concern etching through my chest. “You may.”

↔

Miral performed the physical in my bedroom, where she felt I’d be calmest. Most comfortable.

So I sat on the bed, lifted my shirt and allowed the angel to place the longest stethoscope I’d ever seen to my belly.

As she listened to my child’s heartbeat, I watched her features. Eyes have always been called the windows to the soul, but hundreds of years of observation taught me that the rest of the face is equally expressive. The eyebrows, the forehead, the lips, the chin.

And though Miral tried to hide it—she closed her eyes as she listened—I saw the way her chin quivered as she picked up the heartbeat.

Something was wrong.

“What is it?” I whispered.

Her eyes opened, a gorgeous blue under this light, and fixed on mine. “The heartbeat.”

“What about the heartbeat?” I said before she could continue. As though, by interjecting, I could change the outcome of what she was about to say. Or at least delay it.

“I need to perform an ultrasound.”

What had been a spike of worry in my chest now struck me with twice the force. She was avoiding telling me something. Whatever it was that had made her chin quiver, she was hiding that thing.

She didn’t want to stress me out.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

Miral held the stethoscope to my skin a moment longer, listening as though for confirmation, before she removed it. Her eyes avoided mine. “It’s standard procedure. We’ve gone too long without an ultrasound anyway.”

I reached out as Miral’s hand retreated, grasping her wrist. For how large the angel was, her bones felt unexpectedly fine beneath my fingers. “I deserve to know, Miral.”

She sighed, did not fight my grasp. When her eyes lifted to mine, a certain pity had entered them. “The heartbeat is exceptionally slow. It could be a temporary thing, but I can’t confirm anything until I’ve conducted an ultrasound.”

Slow. Exceptionally slow.

My throat swelled. I should have known this would happen, after everything I had been through. It was a miracle the fetus had persisted at all. And yet, I had hoped. I had hoped she would be healthy.

Miral’s hand grasped mine, the fingers warm and firm—just what I needed as I lowered my face. “I can’t begin to understand what you’re feeling, but I’m here, Isabella. And so is your baby. I just need to get a closer listen.”

She was here. My baby was here.

When I could, I gathered myself. I forced my face to lift, my composure to remain steady. “I take it we don’t just have an ultrasound machine laying around down here.”

She rose, removing the stethoscope from her ears. “Unfortunately not. They’re quite large and expensive. But there is an option, much as I’d prefer not to go this path.”

I rose with her. “What path?”

“Paradise Lot hospital.”

“That’s off limits to Others.” In the past month, Others had been banned from the hospitals in Paradise Lot, reduced to quick clinics and urgent care centers as their best options. Or, in some cases, black market doctors. None of which were ideal. Just like humans, Others sometimes needed major treatment. But the World Government didn’t seem to think so.

Miral nodded. “That’s true, but one of the staff at Paradise Lot’s main hospital is sympathetic to the resistance. I think he would agree to allow us inside to use the ultrasound machine for one night.”

“Above ground. You’d need to conduct the ultrasound above ground.” To breathe fresh air again—the thought was intoxicating. And to see my child, to hear her heartbeat …

Miral nodded. “It will be dangerous. But I see no other way.” I could hear the concern in her voice. She was worried. “I cannot bring the machine down to you. Believe me, I’ve tried, but hospitals tend to notice when you borrow something like that. And as for buying one …” She shook her head. “So you must go up, if you are willing.”

A frisson ran up my spine and the length of my neck. “I’ll go as soon as possible.” I wanted to hug the angel. As it was, I stared at her with glassy eyes. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, Isabella Ramirez,” Miral said. “Not yet, at least. We still need to get you there and back. Justin, Hercules, Cupid and I will accompany you.”

“They know already?”

“Not yet. But I’ve seen the way those three look at you. You’re at the center of their orbit.”

A flush rose up my neck. I suspected she was right.

She set a hand on my shoulder. “Please let the others know to be prepared—we will need their help. I will arrange to take you all tonight.”

I nodded, turning away.

Tonight.

We would go tonight.

We had to prepare.

↔

“Prepare for what?” Justin asked when I had found the others in the safehouse’s canteen.

“An ultrasound,” I repeated. “In Paradise Lot’s hospital. Tonight. Miral’s sneaking me in.”

Cupid sat back on the couch. “You’re not exactly selling this, Isa.”

“I won’t be out there alone,” I said. You three will be with me, I thought but didn’t add.

Meanwhile, Justin sat forward on the ottoman, his elbows on his knees. “There was an attack up there today, not far from us.”

“The aural attack?” I shook my head. “No, that was …”

Justin’s eyebrows went up as he waited.

“It won’t affect us,” I said. “None of us are pack Others, and we don’t have exceptional hearing.”

“I don’t like it,” Justin said.

Cupid folded his arms. “Me either.”

Hercules gave a long sigh. “I’m afraid I agree with them.”

I didn’t want to reveal the true urgency of the situation—the absolute necessity of this ultrasound after what Miral had heard through the stethoscope. That would alarm them too much.

“But I’ll be safe.” I swallowed. “Because, in addition to Miral, I’ll also have you three with me.”

Justin’s expressive eyebrows rose even higher than I thought capable. “Oh?” And I knew his surprise was as much about his own participation as it was about the angel’s.

It was about fatherhood, too.

My pregnancy had set a wedge between us, in part because it wasn’t clear whether the child was Justin’s or Hercules’s. A long story, which involved being shot with one of Cupid’s arrows, but the upshot was that Justin was only twenty. He hadn’t even finished college.

He just wasn’t ready.

We had reconciled since Vegas—I still thought of him as my boyfriend, despite everything that had happened between us—but we hadn’t been as close as we used to be. Down here, we didn’t even sleep in the same room anymore. And I missed that.

My hand went out to his knee. “Listen, I know you don’t want to be a father. And that’s all right. I—”

He shook his head. “No, Isa. It’s not that.”

I waited for him to clarify.

He sighed. “Regardless of my feelings about being a dad, I care about you. I have ever since I got to know you, and I don’t like the idea of you leaving the safehouse, least of all at night.”

My cheeks flushed. I had once learned about the five love languages, and discovered one of mine was words of affirmation. Even with that knowledge, it still felt surprisingly good to hear him say that.

Of course, him caring about my safety would only make getting out of here even more of a challenge. “But the ramidreju—”

“The ramidreju incident was an attack,” he cut in. “It was a message. You don’t think they’re unaware that Miral leads the resistance?”

“If they know about Miral and the safehouse, then why aren’t they down here already?”

“I’m not saying they know about the safehouse. I think if they did, they would be down here. You’re too valuable.” He took a breath. “But they watch Miral. That’s why her council—and all the rest of the resistance members—enter and leave by a secret entrance.”

I sat forward. “I hear you. I hear everything you’re saying, and I think you’re right.” I squeezed his knee. “But if I’m going to get through this pregnancy, I need to have an ultrasound. And you know how I feel about this child.”

“Can’t they bring the machine down here?”

“Uh, it’s like $100,000, genius.” Cupid pivoted from his conversation with Hercules, which had descended into semantics. The acuteness of the demigod’s hearing always caught me off guard.

“Currency is the institution’s way of occupying the people,” Hercules declared. “Give me a sword and shield, a boat, a broad sky under which to sail. These are all a man needs.”

Cupid raised one finger, then two, then three as Hercules named each thing. “Unless you’ve got several ten thousand dollars to pay for the first three, you’re shit out of luck on all counts except the broad sky.” He paused, glanced at me. “And I’m in for tonight.”

I blinked. “In?”

“To escort you to the hospital. Assuming it’s happening after midnight—I’ve got a date with Lux.” Since we’d left Vegas, Cupid had become crazily infatuated with Lux. Somehow he’d managed to woo the little pixie.

“It won’t interfere with your date,” I promised. Actually, I didn’t know for certain, but I didn’t think Miral would bring us out until the dead of night. That would incur the least risk.

Hercules rose, slapped a fist across his chest. “And you know I’m with you, in whatever capacity you need.” He flipped his hair. “Though my physicality is most often requested.”

Justin rolled his eyes. “How about your modesty?”

I glanced at Justin; I could tell he was trying to avoid the real subject. Probably he didn’t know his own answer yet.

“Ah, modesty. A most underrated virtue,” Hercules said. “Was it modesty you displayed when you took on the form of the dragon Ladon in Hera’s garden?”

“Well, that was …” Justin began.

“Or when you challenged me to a fight outside Nymphos?” Hercules pressed.

Justin cleared his throat.

“Or perhaps when you told me that if I ever looked at Isabella that way again, you would show me the meaning of pain?” My eyes widened on the demigod; I hadn’t heard about that incident. “Of course, you never did show me the meaning of pain. It seems you gained some degree of modesty, because you allowed me to rescue us from the facility in the desert. And you allowed me to defeat the giant Alcyoneus in the same afternoon.”

Well, that had taken an unexpectedly savage turn.

“Oh snap,” Cupid said.

When I looked back at Justin, he had risen.

“Justin,” I began, “he didn’t mean …”

Justin lifted a hand. “It’s fine,” he said as he passed toward the doorway.

I stood. “Are you not coming?”

He stopped at the doorway, turned back with dancing eyes as he pointed at Hercules. “I’m going to get ready for tonight. I can’t let that guy show me up, can I?”

When he turned and left, we all stared after him. Warmth filled me.

“I for one am impressed,” Hercules said. “I had fully expected to have to fend off his puny fists again.”

“Man, it’s no fun when you can’t get his goat,” Cupid said. “I hate maturity.”

Chapter 6

It appeared Justin had left the safehouse. I didn’t know where he went; I only knew that he was doing something I had not been allowed to do in months. Go outside.

Made sense. He wasn’t holding the key to Others’ future; he wasn’t carrying a child.

Humph, a child. I rubbed my belly and looked at the door that I wasn’t allowed to exit—alone, at least—and felt like the child I was about to bear.

Well, not tonight. I sat on the bed’s edge with my booted feet on the floor, staring up at the clock on the wall. It had just passed one, and I still hadn’t slept. I couldn’t—not after Colel Cab had come to me earlier in the evening and told me that Miral would make good on her promise.

I just didn’t know when.

When the knock came closer to one-thirty, I rose at once. After this many months of being guarded day and night, I knew whose knuckles those were on the door.

“Yes, Hercules?”

The three locks began clinking as Hercules made his way through them. When he opened the door, Miral stood in the hallway behind the demigod, her hands clasped. She regarded Hercules with an expression I hadn’t seen from her before.

Sadness? Regret?

The expression disappeared from her face the moment she caught my eyes.

“There’s an angel to see you,” Hercules said, his voice hushed like I had never heard before. Miracle of miracles—it seemed there was one creature capable of creating a sense of awe in Hercules.

“Isabella.” Miral stepped forward. She wasn’t wearing her white jacket any longer; instead, she had covered her wings in a black trench coat, the rest of her covered in dark jeans and boots. Strange as it was to see the angel wearing such a getup, it made a lovely contrast with her brown hair and porcelain skin. “I see you’ve taken on a new face,” she observed.

“It’s what we encantado do.” One hand rose to the braid over my shoulder. I had over twelve thousand illusions to choose from, and this was one the World Army hadn’t yet seen: ebony skin and long, dark hair.

“It doesn’t hurt the child,” Miral said, half in question.

I shook my head. “I found that out the scary way, when they got me with OtherX back in Vegas.” The pathogen had forced me to use my magic—which meant shifting illusions. I had suspected doing so would interfere with my pregnancy, but the baby had been unaffected.

Miral set a thankful hand to her chest. “All the more reason, however, to perform the ultrasound.”

“All the more reason,” I agreed.

“Have you prepared?”

“Hercules and Cupid will come with us,” I said. “But Justin …”

Before I finished, a figure stepped into the doorway.

“Is late as usual,” Justin finished, pulling on his jacket and a beanie to hide his hair. “I’m here, though.”

Hercules just as quickly clapped my boyfriend on the back. “Good man.”

Justin pointed a finger at him. “Do that again and I’ll show you the meaning of modesty.”

The two men stood staring at one another for an electrified moment before Hercules burst into barking laughter. In the middle of it, Cupid floated up, staring between one and the other.

When he and I met eyes, I shrugged and shook my head, as though to say, Don’t worry about it. I don’t get it, either.

For my part, my heart had quickened as soon as Justin appeared. Despite everything, he hadn’t let me down since I’d known him. He had his moods, but he always came through. I’m sure he saw the gratitude on my face, because he shot me a little smile as Hercules laughed.

Miral eyed Justin, then returned her gaze to me. Clearly she sensed a moment between us, though she chose not to comment on it. “Are we ready, then? If so, we’ll leave at once.”

I nodded. “Ready.”

Cupid set his thumb under his bowstring, which was slung crossbody, and twanged it. “Ready, boss.”

“As am I,” Hercules said as he patted the club at his waist. He’d put on more clothing, too—a long-sleeved dark shirt and jeans, though I had no idea where he’d procured the right sizes from. Still, they seemed to fit him.

Justin gave a single nod. “Let’s do this.”

“Excellent.” Miral swept out of the room and started down the hallway, debriefing us as we went. “I will lead the way. Isabella, you will follow me. Cupid will remain on your left side, and Hercules on your right. Justin will bring up the rear.”

“We’re walking?” Justin asked. “It’ll take half an hour.”

“Unfortunately,” Miral said. “We could go by car, but the World Army tracks the movement of all Paradise Lot registered vehicles—a fact which I’m sure is new to Isabella. This puts us at risk.”

It was new to me. How much hadn’t I been told since I’d been underground?

“We could take my puff,” Cupid said.

“All of us can’t fit on that,” I pointed out.

We came to the doorway leading from the safehouse to the resistance headquarters I had entered earlier that day. “Correct,” Miral said. “And it is best that we all stay together.”

“I assume we’ll take the path through the park,” Justin said. “It’s the quickest route.”

“The lighting is not great in the park,” Cupid said. “Which makes us better targets for any ghoulies with bad intentions.”

“But it also makes us less visible to them,” Hercules said. “Which is good.”

“We’ll take the park if it comes to it, but I’d prefer to stay out of its depths,” Miral said. “And we have another trick up our sleeves as visibility goes.”

We came to the door I had seen Chao and Ordo leave by earlier—the secret entrance. It hummed with magical energy; clearly a seal had been placed over it. I reached out, touching the door. As I did so, an invisible current tickled my skin. “What power is this?”

Miral’s fingers lifted to the intricately woven item hanging from the door. Fine pieces of leather had been tied together, beads strung at intervals through the strands. “Is that a dreamcatcher?” I asked.

“Sort of.” Miral’s finger hovered just next to it. “This is like a dreamcatcher, but where dreamcatchers filter out bad dreams, this particular item filters out those with bad intentions. It is called Odium, and it was made from Anansi’s webbing. The trickster god made many enemies, and he created this so he could sleep in peace. When he left, he also left Odium behind.”

“Guess he was leaving behind his trickster ways, too,” I said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. How does it filter out those with bad intentions?”

“It is exceptionally rare, and was donated to the resistance by Ordo, who controls its power. When hung over this door, anyone who carries anything but love in their hearts for Others will not even be able to see the entrance.”

“Remarkable.” I wanted to reach out and touch it, but I sensed that would be in bad form. So I ripped my eyes from Odium and set them on Miral. “You mentioned a trick?”

Miral’s hand extended to the space before the door. “Right here.”

There, in the shadows, I saw … nothing.

“Uh,” I began. “I don’t—”

“GONEGODS!” Cupid cried, flitting forward into the empty space. “Did you recruit a monster-under-your-bed?”

“A what?” Justin said.

Cupid looked back, pointing to the emptiness. “You can see where the light from the ceiling ends oddly. Do you see how, given the angle, it should end about a third of the way from the ground, but actually does so halfway up the door?”

I squinted, glanced up at the overhead light and back down at the door. Cupid was right.

“You are correct, Cupid of Eros,” Miral said. “This is Yeknalb, and he has graciously left his residence in Paradise Lot to assist us tonight.” Miral gestured to me. “Yeknalb, this is Isabella, the encantado I’ve told you about.”

I didn’t know what to do. To be honest, I still didn’t see anything in the darkness except, as Cupid had pointed out, the unnatural absence of light.

Then, red words appeared in the blackness, scrolling as though on a screen. A pleasure to meet you.

Miral turned twinkling eyes on me. “Have you ever been invisible, Isabella?”

↔

It’s not often you meet someone and wear them on your head straightaway. Generally there’s a period of getting to know them: their look, their smell, their personality. Then again, humans buy leather jackets and hats adorned in fox skin and set them on their bodies almost as soon as they’ve touched them.

So maybe this was a little less strange than that. After all, the monster-under-your-bed had at least consented to being worn.

Within sixty seconds of meeting Yeknalb, he lay draped over me. Cupid described him as a shadow that didn’t need a light source, which was how he’d spotted him in the first place.

Apparently he was an amorphous shadow, because when Miral picked him up and draped him over me, I disappeared completely from view. He felt weightless on me, less than a cloth veil’s heaviness. Plus, I could see through him; his body acted only like a thin skein, darkening my vision, but not obscuring it completely.

And for the record, Yeknalb smelled like nothing. Which actually seemed fitting, because as Cupid explained while we exited the resistance headquarters, monsters-under-your-bed hated being noticed.

Their greatest joy was simply living under a child’s bed. And not in a malicious way—in fact, most of their species felt a fondness, even a kinship, with the children whose beds they lived under.

They were completely innocuous Others. If not somewhat agoraphobic.

Red words scrolled in front of my vision. Are you comfortable? Yeknalb asked.

“Yes,” I said. “You’re light as air.”

So I’ve been told, the red words scrolled in reply.

With Yeknalb atop me, Cupid led the way through the secret, magical exit as Miral left us to enter her own home. The plan was to meet up a block away and begin the walk to the hospital.

The four of us walked through a long, narrow passage even duster and cobwebbier than the hallway between the safehouse and the headquarters. At the end of it, we came through a door into a room full of …

“Junk,” I said, slowly turning in the light from Cupid’s phone, which he held aloft to guide our way.

“Yeah, she’s a hoarder,” Cupid said as he floated up the staircase at the far end of the room.

“Where are we?” I asked, following. Each step creaked with my weight.

“Galaxy’s basement,” Justin said from behind me. I remembered her: she was the nymph who had stood over the scrying pool during the council meeting.

“So there’s just a whole subterranean world leading into people’s homes?” I asked.

Cupid opened the basement door, and a rectangle of light shone over us. “Basically.” He waved me forward. “Come on.”

When I came out of the basement, I stepped onto grass.

Literal, lush grass.

I was surrounded by a forest. Or something like it, at least—the whole place had been filled with dirt, grass, and plants. Somewhere I heard tinkling water. And I could have cried for how beautiful and fragrant it all was. It had been so long since I’d seen grass.

Except Cupid rushed us through with a finger set to his lips. “Shh, her husband’s asleep upstairs.”

“Are we allowed to be in the nymph’s abode?” Hercules whispered. Even his whisper was louder than most of our regular voices.

“Yes, it’s fine. This is the kind of stuff in the job description when you join the resistance,” Cupid said as he flew through what I was realizing was Galaxy’s kitchen. At least, I thought I’d spotted a basket of oranges from the actual orange tree growing right there in the room.

We came to her front door, and Justin stepped forward before Cupid could open it. “Wait.”

Cupid appeared confused, but a few seconds later, a growling engine passed by the house, its headlights briefly illuminating the room through the blinds.

A World Army patrol car.

“They go by every thirty minutes,” Justin explained as he opened the door and peered out. A second later, he waved us forward. “Isa, don’t make any noise from this point forward.”

I couldn’t tell you the thrill that went through me. As terrifying as that patrol car passing by had been, most of the adrenaline in me was thanks to the prospect of seeing the night sky.

We encantado are creatures of the earth, much more so than most species. We were created in the Amazon river, spent most of our lives sleeping under the rainforest canopy. I had thought leaving Brazil to attend school in Montreal was my greatest sacrifice, but there I’d been able to take daily walks.

The past five months had been my greatest sacrifice, hands down.

As we came into the night, a breeze ruffled Yeknalb. I smelled Paradise Lot, glorious and sewery. I could only imagine what creatures had contributed to the awful scent that hit me.

I set a hand to my mouth, trying not to gag. When we’d flown into Paradise Lot, Lux the pixie had looked out the plane’s window and called it a city unto itself. By which she’d meant there was no place like it. The island where the most Others had fallen to Earth after the GrandExodus, and the place where they had since taken refuge.

A shame it was controlled by the World Government, the entity devoted to eradicating us from the planet.

A real shame.

As soon as I felt sure I wouldn’t retch, I raised my eyes to the sky. Up there, it was cloudless. A sea of glittering gems hung above, each one winking to me in turn.

That was my moment just for me.

I lowered my eyes. This next moment, and each one following, would be for the child inside me. I had to be quiet, quick and brave.

I found Justin standing before me, a question in his eyes. Are you ready?

I reached out, sought his arm through the skein of Yeknalb laid over me. When I found his bicep, I squeezed it.

Justin glanced over at Cupid and Hercules. With a single nod, we started toward the street corner where Miral would meet us.

Chapter 7

We found Miral standing exactly where she’d promised she would be: outside the cone of the streetlamp, standing beside a tree one block from the resistance headquarters. Even in the darkness, her skin threw off a faint, ethereal light.

When we approached, she straightened. She cast a single glance over all of us before turning and starting around the corner.

We followed. Miral led, Hercules and Cupid took my sides and Justin brought up the back. Except Hercules and Cupid walked so close to me it was almost as though I wasn’t there, which I guess was the point.

But pretending I didn’t exist between the two of them wasn’t ideal for me. Cupid brushing up against me was fine, but Hercules? You could be running full speed at the stationary demigod, and even then you’d bounce off him like a water balloon. Except the damage to you would be worse—imagine a water balloon thrown from a fifth-story balcony, and then you’ll have some sense of what it was like.

Walking beside Hercules was like passing along a brick wall that was always moving in toward you. I kept sidling into Cupid, who had to move farther and farther aside until he finally said, with irritation, “Herc buddy,” and gestured straight ahead. Which helped some.

I did my best to remain silent as I walked, which was helped by Yeknalb. Apparently monsters-under-your-bed were so good at remaining hidden not only because they were virtually invisible, but because they made almost no sound. They were like shadows, after all, and a shadow was silent.

The effect of him draping over me was a dampening of my own noises—the scuffing of my boots along the sidewalk, the natural sounds of my clothing brushing together, my breathing. It was like being there, but not. And if it weren’t for the two demigods beside me and Justin following, I could almost forget I was there at all. It was as strange and surreal as the times my sister and I used to eat mushrooms together.

We would never do that again.

Ananda, I thought with a pang. GoneGods, she loved mushrooms.

Around us, Paradise Lot’s Other sector was so silent my thoughts felt audible. For a time we passed through the residential area, where hovels pressed up against tenements with broken windows. The farther we went, the more I realized that the block Miral lived on was an anomaly.

Most Others didn’t have proper roofs. They didn’t have brick construction. In one case we walked by a mud pit, where a clan of pig-like Others I couldn’t properly identify snored in a huddle.

Within a few minutes we were in the commercial area. We passed a closed-up bar, its neon signage dull and unlit. We passed street shops, their wares removed and only the simple stall remaining. Most notably, I came to realize, we were the only ones out.

I mean, it was late, but many Other species were nocturnal. It struck me as abnormally empty, even for this time of night. Though as we came to the next block, closer to the human sector, an enormous face greeted us. It didn’t belong to an Other, or even a sentient creature.

Above us, a clock’s face ticked away. It kept us in check.

If you burn magic, the clock’s face said, I’ll know.

Now I understood why we were so alone.

Even under Yeknalb, I felt chilled—and that didn’t fade as we passed the clock. Because the block following offered another enormous clock’s face. And I realized, gazing down the narrow street, that they populated every block like sentinels.

Watching. Never sleeping.

I wondered what would happen if I had to use magic. Were the clocks all linked to a central computer? If one sped up, how quickly would the World Army patrol car arrive?

Don’t worry, came Yeknalb’s response across my vision, as though he’d read my mind. I’m not burning time.

I didn’t dare respond, but I hoped Yeknalb sensed the little slump of my shoulders that signified my relief. It was clever of Miral to enlist an Other who wouldn’t have to burn time to help us on this little mission. All he had to do was, well, drape over me.

All at once, I felt the monster-under-your-bed tighten around me. Ahead, a low growling sounded. Not human or Other, but mechanical.

A patrol car was approaching.

Miral slowed as the car turned the corner and swung toward us, its lights flashing over her. In fact, she slowed so fully that I nearly ran into her before I realized what she was doing.

The angel was shielding me from the car’s headlights.

The car approached, decelerating as it neared us. As it came alongside, Miral grabbed Hercules’s hand and pulled him up beside her, interlacing her fingers with his. Shoulder to shoulder, the angel and the demigod were practically the same height—a feat in itself, given Hercules must have been closer to seven feet tall.

Together, they looked like they belonged in a Calvin Klein ad.

The car’s window rolled down. “What’s your business?” called the driver. Inside, I could make out the World Government symbol on the arm of his uniform. He was an officer.

Miral stopped, and the rest of us did, too. “I’m a doctor,” she said. “And this Cupid desperately needs medical attention.”

Cupid must have taken an improv class at some point, because as she said it, he wilted toward the ground and burst into a round of coughing. And the little demigod really sold it, too—I thought he would actually cough up a tiny lung.

The officer observed Cupid, who had flopped onto his back on the sidewalk and lay sprawled. “And the other two?”

Miral gestured to Hercules. “My husband.” And then to Justin. “And my human escort, as required.”

Others needed a human escorting them to go outside now? That was news to me. And the thought of Miral needing an escort was laughable in itself. It was possible she could best Hercules in a fight.

The officer considered what she’d said, his car idling. Finally, “There are medical serves in the Other sector.”

“They aren’t fit for what this Other needs,” Miral said. As she spoke, Cupid launched into a new round of coughing. “He can’t wait until the morning.”

“This seems awfully …” the man began, but Miral stepped toward his car. She gazed down at him, her face almost incandescent in the darkness, and whatever he was saying drifted away into silence.

I didn’t know what Miral was doing, but I suspected the man felt exactly the way I had when I’d described being in the angel’s thrall. Right now, he was probably considering given Miral a lift in his own car. That was how powerful her gaze had been on me.

I glanced up at the clock across the street. It hadn’t sped up at all, which meant she wasn’t burning time—she was just using her presence. And her presence was as powerful as any magic.

“As a doctor, I have this right,” Miral said softly. “And I will get this Cupid the care he needs.”

I almost heard the officer swallow. At least, I saw his Adam’s apple bob in his neck. “All right,” he said. “Move along, then.”

And we did. The angel didn’t hesitate in her stride down the sidewalk, and the rest of us followed. Well, except for Cupid, who dragged himself along on his hands.

GoneGodDamn, I wanted to be Miral when I grew up.

↔

When we were alone again, Cupid sprang up into the air and dusted off his wings. “Ho-ly Hera.”

“Must you invoke her?” Hercules growled over his shoulder.

“I must,” Cupid said. “Because she was nuts, and what just happened was even more nuts.”

“Which part?” Hercules asked. He hadn’t let go of Miral’s hand, and didn’t seem to be terribly displeased with the whole husband schtick. “The part where we were questioned by the authorities, or the part where my wife gave a human lifelong fantasies about angels?”

Cupid resumed his place beside me. “The part where I pretended to be dying, obviously.”

“I did not notice,” Hercules sniffed. It was obvious he had, but the demigod particularly enjoyed taunting Cupid when the opportunity arose.

“What?” Cupid’s hands flew out. “I just saved the whole party. If the cop hadn’t believed it, we would have been donezo. You didn’t see me on the ground?”

Hercules’s shoulders shrugged once. “I’m afraid not.”

Cupid turned to Justin. “You saw, right?”

From behind, Justin didn’t answer. I sensed an almost palpable tension floating off him.

“Be quiet, Cupid of Eros,” Miral whispered without slowing her stride. “We are being watched.”

By who? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. I wasn’t allowed to make a noise—a rule I was having increasing difficulty abiding by.

To his credit, Cupid shut up. In fact, no one spoke following Miral’s pronouncement. Around me, Yeknalb’s clinginess had increased; I wondered if he was protecting me, or if he had become suddenly afraid. Maybe both.

But afraid of what? There was, in fact, nothing around us. Past the downtown, we had come into a sort of dead zone—what Cupid had explained earlier as the space between the Other sector and the rest of Paradise Lot. Here only wide swaths of dirt ruled, empty lots supposedly destined for some sort of construction, but nobody wanted to build here right now. Not Others, not humans.

Not with the island divided as it was, and this dead zone almost right on that dividing line. This wasn’t an ideal time for real estate, or for being an Other in Paradise Lot. On the spectrum between feast and famine, these were lean times—times for survival.

Except it wasn’t food we needed. It was equality.

Ahead, spotlights illuminated a twenty-foot fence. Miral had warned me about the fence, that it would be the last real barrier to getting to the hospital. We would need to pass through the barrier.

What she had neglected to mention was that the length of the fenceline—including the street we were walking down—was lit up like a football stadium at night. The beauty of a monster-under-your-bed was how it stayed invisible in spaces that tended to stay relatively dark anyway, like bedrooms.

This was the opposite of a bedroom.

When we passed through the checkpoint along that fence, I would look like a black hole migrating down the street. And, worst of all, a guard stood at the barrier.

Miral led us off the road and into the dirt of the dead zone, where she stopped and turned in the sheer darkness. Somehow she seemed to have put a dimmer on her natural glow. “We cannot pass,” she whispered. “The barrier ahead is manned.”

Justin cursed under his breath. “When did that happen?”

“Tonight,” Miral said.

“Can’t we just fly over the fence?” Hercules asked.

“Do the angel or I look like we could possibly carry you?” Cupid shot back.

“So we ride your puff,” Hercules said. “It has carried me before.”

“We must pass through the barrier,” Miral said. “If we try to pass over the fence, we will be seen. We will be chased down as fugitives.”

“We can’t go through the barrier,” Justin said. “He’ll see her, even with the disguise.” By which he meant me, who wasn’t supposed to exist.

“We can do it,” I said at once.

Everyone turned to me in the darkness. Or, at least, I sensed their bodies shifting. “Did you say something, Isa?” Cupid whispered beside me.

I swept Yeknalb up so that my face came exposed to the air and my voice wouldn’t be muffled. “I said we can do it.” I paused. “We have to do it.”

“What are you doing?” Justin grabbed Yeknalb’s edge and attempted to throw the monster-under-your-bed back over me. “You’re exposing yourself.”

I resisted. “I’m not letting us turn back without a say in what happens. I’m speaking for two people here.” My baby couldn’t speak for her needs, so I was responsible for being her voice. And what she needed was an ultrasound.

A hush fell over the group, or maybe a reverence.

“You wish to continue to the hospital, Isabella?” Miral said quietly. She was the only other person who knew the importance of this procedure.

“I do.”

“But how?” Justin said. “There’s a guard.”

“I have a way,” Miral said. “But it will depend on the guard’s goodness. And while I can assess a man’s kindness in his eyes, I cannot do so until I see those eyes.”

“So what you’re saying is if Mr. Militia Man over there is a sociopath,” Cupid said, “we’ll be McScrooged.”

If I could see Miral, I would imagine she was raising one eyebrow as high as it would go in the demigod’s direction. “Something like that.”

I squinted past the spotlights toward the guard at the barrier, who stood twisting his finger deep into one ear. A semiautomatic rifle peeked out from behind his back. He looked young—really young.

An enormous hand fell on my shoulder, and I smelled Hercules’s scent beside me. “I have met and felled many men in my life,” he said. “And while some are inherently good and some inherently bad, most are somewhere in between.”

“So what are you saying?” I asked.

“If he’s in between, I can’t think of anyone more capable of persuading him than this angel,” he said. “And if he’s not, then I’ll slap him so hard his head will spin around until he’s on our side.”

“Well,” Justin said, “I can’t argue with that.”

“Me either,” said Cupid.

Miral stepped up on my other side. “So we’re agreed.”

“Yes,” I said, one hand sliding over my belly.

“All right.” Miral took a deep breath. “This will happen quickly. No matter what, Isabella, stay with me.”

Chapter 8

As we approached the barrier, Miral removed her trench coat, and into view came her enormous wings, folded tightly to her back. Until tonight I had only caught a glimpse of their tips beneath her clothing, and I had imagined they looked like the wings of angels I had seen in movies and illustrations.

Big, white, like a goose’s feathering, but more.

Oh, I was so wrong. Irreverently wrong.

Equating an angel’s wings to an illustration is like describing a person without ever meeting them. You just don’t grasp the fullness—all the colors and dimensions—of a person without actually seeing them, talking to them, hearing them speak.

In the same way, I couldn’t have imagined the beauty of Miral’s wings without setting proper eyes on them. As we passed under the cone of a streetlamp, each one shimmered as though coated in a clear polish. The feathers themselves were perfect replicas of one another from largest to smallest, their edges tapering down to the tips as if a bowyer had run a sharp blade over each one.

And this all contributed to one visual effect.

Beauty? No.

Lethality.

Her feathers weren’t made of metal like those of the stymphalian birds Justin and I had defeated back in Montreal, but they were far, far larger. And given the vertical length of her wings—some six feet from tip to shoulder—there were many more of them attached to those muscular bones jutting from her back.

The Commander of the Lord’s Army, she had been called, and I now truly understood why.

Miral passed her jacket off to Hercules, who accepted it without question. “Cupid,” she said, “come here and lay in my arms.”

Without a word, Cupid floated over to her and dropped onto his back in her arms.

A moment later, she fell into a jog toward the checkpoint, her wings unfolding only partly. When they did, a great wave of air washed over me, and I could have sworn I smelled mountain flowers.

Stay with me. Stay with me. Miral’s words flashed through my head as I watched her wings unfold, forming a shadow behind her.

A shadow.

Not only was the leader of the resistance a badass, but she was also GoneGodDamn clever. I fell into step behind her, keeping in the shadow of her wingspan as she came into the spotlights, her musical voice ringing into the night.

“I’m a doctor!” Miral yelled, rushing forward with a limp Cupid in her arms. I stuck to the darkness between her wings. Hercules remained by her side, and Justin behind us. “This patient is gravely ill.”

At the checkpoint, which was really just a low, makeshift barricade with barbed wire atop it, the young guard stared with wide eyes and one hand inching toward the semi-automatic rifle hanging crossbody.

My chest clenched. If he was going straight for the gun, that put him in the “inherently bad” camp that Hercules had mentioned.

So Mr. Militia Man was a sociopath after all.

“Please,” Miral called out in a tone so plaintive even I forgot it was all a ruse.

After a moment’s hesitation, the guard’s hand lowered, moving away from the instrument of our sudden deaths.

Which meant he wasn’t inherently bad.

Thank the GoneGods, he was somewhere in between.

Miral was already in front of the guard, and I didn’t know any twenty-two-year-old man who wouldn’t freeze at the sight of a gorgeous, desperate angel running toward you with her marvelous wings spread.

“I have to fly him to the hospital at once,” Miral said, breathless.

“Gods be true,” Cupid cried out in a hoarse toddler’s voice. He let an enormous moan, pressing all the air out of his lungs until he wheezed like an empty bellows. “I see them. I see the promised light.”

He may have been overplaying it just a little.

“But … You … ” the guard stammered.

“I’ve already spoken with the patrolling officer,” Miral said. “Did he not radio the situation over to you?”

That was sort of true. We had talked with the patrolling officer, and he had let us go. But the way Miral described it, our passage was written in fine-point pen in the books.

I was standing close enough to Miral that I couldn’t see the guard’s reaction, but he must have been eyeing Hercules and Justin, because Justin stepped forward. “I’m her escort,” he said. “I’ll ensure she returns to the sector after she brings this Cupid to the hospital.”

I heard the sound of Hercules slapping his barrel of a chest. “As will I, her husband.”

I couldn’t see him from behind Miral, but I could imagine Hercules’s fingers tensing in anticipation of delivering the biggest bitch slap this guard had ever received. As long as I’d known the demigod, he didn’t make hollow promises. He really would make his head spin around on his neck.

Just say yes, you idiot. Just say yes.

“He will die if I do not go now,” Miral pleaded. At once I sensed a warmth radiating off her, and all around me that incandescence grew like a heated ember. Her wings lifted, spreading just a little.

The guard sounded flustered. “Fine—go. Go.”

And with that, Miral swept forward, and I with her, the two of us passing through the low barricade and out from under the spotlights. She waited until the moment the lights were off us to take off into the sky with Cupid, her wings flapping so hard that Yeknalb fluttered around me.

I watched in awe as the angel rose into the sky, her wings extending to their full breadth under the moonlight. A sight like that could almost make you forget the gods had left.

Justin’s hand touched my shoulder. “Nearly there,” he whispered, pointing over the buildings. Up ahead, rising like a McDonalds sign along a highway, the universal symbol for help shone in the night.

A red cross.

↔

We kept moving through the city, the red cross floating closer and closer as Justin, Hercules and I—with Yeknalb still atop me—navigated the streets of Paradise Lot. The two men ran at either side of me, keeping me close between them.

Here, outside the Other-only sector, I almost felt like I was back in Montreal. No ruddy, falling-down buildings. No blinking streetlamps. No clocks on every wall.

Well, there were still clocks—big ones. But now they appeared on every other block. Because while Others couldn’t leave the Other sector at night, we could still enter this part of Paradise Lot during the day, and it seemed they wanted to keep track of our magic use no matter where we were.

Even if we were in the fancy part of town.

As if he’d heard my thoughts, Hercules let out a low whistle as he pointed toward a large building on our right. “The architectural flourishes on those pillars put me in mind of our Grecian construction.”

“That’s because they are Grecian,” Justin said.

“Ah,” Hercules said. “Another pale simulacrum of the greatness of the Greek empire.”

Under Yeknalb, I couldn’t help but smirk. After their fistfight in New York, my boyfriend and Hercules had developed the kind of relationship that involved constantly poking one another in the ribs just a little too forcefully. At least Hercules didn’t want to kill Justin anymore, thank the GoneGods.

“Whatever you say.” Justin pointed ahead and to our right. “The hospital should be just past that pale simulacrum of a building.”

As we came around a corner, the lit-up emergency entrance came into view. Across the front, PARADISE LOT HOSPITAL was written in bold lettering.

In the same moment, a great flap of wings sounded above our heads.

Miral.

She descended from the sky before us, wings extended to bring her to an elegant, silent landing on the street. We came to a halt as her feet touched the ground, and Cupid—who was still cradled in her arms—lifted his head to grin at us.

“That was awesome,” the little demigod declared.

“Do not waste your energy,” Miral said with a wink. She glanced from Justin to Hercules. “Are we all here?”

By which she meant me, since I was still invisible under Yeknalb. And still not allowed to talk.

“We’re all here,” Justin said. “Lead the way.”

Miral led us by the lit-up emergency entrance, which was thankfully quiet right now, keeping us out of the light as we snuck around Paradise Lot’s hospital. The building was absolutely enormous and sprawling, which made sense, given it was the primary hospital for an enormous population. Enormous and growing bigger, now that other countries were trucking in their Others and leaving them on the island. The irony was that the one sanctuary for Others in the world was also run by the government that wanted more than anything to eradicate us.

We came around the back of the hospital and Miral led us to an unmarked, unlit door. She set Cupid on the ground, who whined like a little boy who didn’t want to go down, and gave three soft knocks on the door.

After a few seconds, the door opened wide, fluorescent light spilling out into the night. A balding man popped his head out, surveyed us all in one glance and then waved us through.

“Come on, come on, then,” he said in an Irish accent. “They’ll be on you in a second if you dally out there.”

Miral stepped in first, and the rest of us followed. We came into a narrow hallway lined with storage crates and trays.

The man waited until we were all in before allowing the door to swing shut behind us. When he turned, I finally got a good look at his brown uniform. He seemed to be a custodian.

“Miral,” he said with reverence, both hands going out to clasp one of the angel’s. “You made it.”

She smiled at him. “Only just.” She gestured to where I stood. “We don’t have much time.”

His eyes, nervous and darting, drifted to where Miral was pointing. “Is this her?”

“It is,” Miral said. “Isabella, it’s safe now.”

I lifted Yeknalb from over my body like a sheet. The monster-under-your-bed seemed to retract as I did so, his shadow-like body shrinking until he dropped behind me and disappeared into a corner where a mop and bucket stood.

Cupid watched him go. “Hey buddy, no need to hide.”

“He’s quite shy,” Miral explained. “It took a great deal of courage for him to escort you this far, Isabella. Their type will just as quickly run back home at the first sign of danger.”

I gazed at the spot where I knew Yeknalb had slipped into the shadows. “Without you, I wouldn’t have made it. Thank you.”

“You are no human,” the custodian said. When I turned, he stared at me with wide, meaningful eyes. Well, he was staring at my belly.

“Isabella, this is Cilian.” Miral gestured to the custodian. “Cilian, this is Isabella the encantado.”

I shook his hand, and he clasped mine with both of his. “You are pregnant.”

My eyebrows went up. “I am pregnant,” I repeated slowly.

A grin spread across his face, and he shook my hand with glee, his gaze shifting to Miral. “It’s a miracle. This way to the room.”

As he led us down the hall, Miral walked beside me. “Cilian’s wife is an Other,” she explained.

I stared at his back. The implication was clear. “And she wants to have a child.”

Miral nodded. “Indeed.”

“My pregnancy gives him hope.”

“Yes, Isabella. Your pregnancy gives us all hope. The gods haven’t returned, but the possibility of forever has.” She smiled down at me. “That’s why I’m grateful you’ve endured the months we’ve kept you in the safehouse. That’s why it’s only now we’ve dared to bring you into the heart of Paradise Lot—because we must, for the future of your pregnancy.”

Cilian opened a door, and an automatic light came on in the examination room. “It’s one of the older models they’re about to replace,” he explained as we all entered. “It’s not perfect, but it still works.”

“We cannot ask for perfection in this GoneGod World. We can only ask for what is.” Miral stepped toward the machine. She pressed a button, and the machine lit up. “Have a seat, Isabella. We’re about to see what the first encantado child looks like.”

Chapter 9

I didn’t have a childhood. I wasn’t even born.

I was created by the goddess Yemoja in the year 1501.

My awakening occurred on the rainforest floor, and the first sound I heard was the Amazon river. When I opened my eyes, I saw the canopy through the second eye we encantado are afforded in our natural form—a protection against water.

“Hello, sweet Isabella,” a voice said. And because I had been created with the understanding of language—the encantado language—I understood my name at once. “I am Yemoja, your mother.”

My mother. Yes, even we Others could have mothers, and mine had been an earth goddess. My head was cradled in her lap, and above me, the earth had come to life. She bore a head of grass, skin of leaves, eyes of blue water. And she looked at me with infinite patience, infinite love.

Yemoja. In the first seconds of my life, I imprinted on her with an easy gladness. I was fortunate to have a kind, devoted goddess for a creator, one who would claim me as her child, even if I was created an adult.

As children and as adults, we still crave a parent’s unconditional love.

“She’s quite small,” came another voice. My eyes shifted, fell on a different creature, who crouched and looked on. This one wasn’t like Yemoja in appearance—no hair of grass, no skin of leaves. I didn’t have words for the other one.

“I created her that way,” Yemoja said.

“Why?” said the crouched one.

“Because, my Ananda, I’ve learned that if you start small, you must grow.”

Ananda. She also belonged to Yemoja.

“She’ll grow strong.” Ananda shifted to her other haunch. “I’ll make it so.”

“She is your sister,” Yemoja said, stroking my face with her fingertips. “And she is my daughter. Show her love before you teach her strength.”

For my part, I couldn’t stop staring at the shifting radiance of Yemoja’s hair in the shafts of light from the trees. It was the most beautiful thing I had seen in my short life.

And the warmth. The warmth began at her lap and spread through my body in soothing tendrils. I hadn’t known then that that warmth hadn’t stemmed from Yemoja. It had come from inside me, suffused my body as I lay in her arms.

It was safety. I felt loved and safe.

In Paradise Lot’s hospital, as Miral spread the clear gel across my belly, I remembered Yemoja’s fingertips. That warmth started in my chest, and I was reminded of why I had wanted for so long to bear a child—to share the love and safety the goddess Yemoja had given to me.

She was gone, but her love wasn’t. It remained with me, and I would share it with my child for as long as my mortal body lasted me.

Cupid sat on the edge of the examination bed, watching everything with wide, keen eyes. “Is that stuff cold? It looks cold.”

“It’s cold,” I said.

“In my day,” Hercules said from beside Justin at the far side of the bed, “an oracle simply set her hand to a woman’s belly and could tell you every detail to the eye color, and the course of the child’s life from birth to death.”

“That sounds terrifying,” Justin said.

Hercules clapped Justin on the shoulder. “Just be glad you don’t have the gods to meddle in every affair. That was truly terrifying.”

The two of them rarely stood together like this, and it was even rarer for both to look so uncertain. But I didn’t blame them—neither knew if he was the father. Thanks to one of Cupid’s arrows, I’d slept with both of them in a single, wild night on a train. Which, in retrospect, should have told me something about my feelings for the two men. Cupid’s arrow should have made me seek Justin. But I had sought out Hercules, too. Since then, my feelings for the demigod had only grown deeper.

But I hadn’t acted on them. I couldn’t, with how I still felt about Justin.

Cilian the custodian bowed out of the room. “I’ll leave you to your privacy.”

“We will be just a few minutes,” Miral said as she lifted the ultrasound reader from the machine. She stepped up beside me and held it just over my belly. “Are you ready, Isa?”

I nodded. I had been ready for years before I had ever been pregnant—before I had even conceived of such a possibility through science. I had dreamed of what it would be like to carry a child.

When Miral lowered the reader over my belly, a rhythmic sound filled the room.

A heartbeat.

But it was slow, lethargic. Far too slow for a baby’s heartbeat.

The sob that escaped me had come on so suddenly I hardly knew I was crying until I was, and then a warm hand clasped mine. Those were Hercules’s fingers. He was kneeling beside me.

“It’s still too slow,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

Miral nodded.

“Slow?” Justin came forward. “What’s wrong with the fetus?”

“Bradycardia,” Miral said. “It was what I heard through the stethoscope, and I hoped it was an anomaly. But it appears it was not.”

“That baby must be a runner,” Cupid said, but the joke returned only silence.

Hercules squeezed my hand. “The child will live.” But he only hoped—he couldn’t know.

“Bradycardia. What does that mean?” I asked as the heartbeat continued at its metronomic pace through the room.

“It could be a number of things.” Miral listened hard, her eyes closing. “I think I hear a murmur.”

A murmur. “Does that mean a hole in her heart?”

“Perhaps.” Miral adjusted the device, and the heartbeat faded. “I would need a more advanced machine to perform a fetal heart ultrasound. As it is, I can only speculate. Just know, Isabella, that this doesn’t mean she’ll die—it only means I need to monitor the child as she grows.”

“She?” I said, everything else lost beneath that one word.

A faint smile appeared on Miral’s face. “This is her, Isabella.” She pointed to the monitor beside me.

“It’s a girl,” I breathed.

Miral slid the reader along my belly. “Most definitely, yes.”

Hercules squeezed my hand again. “I have no idea what I’m looking at, but I know a heartbeat when I hear one.”

Cupid squinted at the monitor. “It could be a baby, or it could be a mountain range. Hard to say.”

Justin came forward along my other side, sat on the examination bed. When we met eyes, he still bore that fear, that worry. But it was also tinged with something else. He took my other hand. “It doesn’t matter whose blood runs through her. She’s yours, and that makes her mine.”

“For once, the human speaks wisely,” Hercules intoned. “She is mine as well.”

Cupid’s head appeared from around Hercules’s massive arm. “And I’m the cool uncle.”

I closed my eyes. Here in this room, I wanted to relish this warmth, this safety. I knew it was transient. I knew we would leave the hospital, return to the clock faces and the barricade and the world that wished to end us.

But here, none of that existed. Here, her heartbeat echoed off the walls and ceiling, and for this one pristine moment, nothing could go wrong. Because, after all, we mortals only had this moment. And this moment was pure.

Cupid tapped the monitor. “She’s small, isn’t she?”

I opened my eyes. “That’s all right. She’ll grow.”

↔

After she had finished, Miral turned off the ultrasound machine. Even as the screen went blank I continued staring at it, memorizing the image of the baby I had seen on that monitor. My baby.

Ananda, I thought. Her name would be Ananda.

I had just finished cleaning the jelly off my stomach when the door opened. Cilian’s face appeared, looking worried.

Miral stepped toward him. “What is it?”

“You all need to leave,” he rasped. “Right now.”

Cupid started flitting around, cleaning up our mess, but Cilian snapped his fingers to get his attention. “Don’t worry about any of that. Just go—all of you.”

Miral crossed to me, extended her hand. When I took it, she pulled me to my feet. “Come, Isabella. We’re leaving.”

“What is it?” Justin asked Cilian as we filed out into the hallway. “What’s happened?”

Cilian rubbed a hand over his bald head. “There’s a World Government inspection taking place.”

“In the middle of the night?” I asked.

“It’s the damndest thing,” he said. “Never happened before.”

Miral and I met eyes.

“They know, don’t they?” I said.

“It is very likely,” the angel replied, turning away. “Yeknalb?”

A shadow dislodged from behind the mop and bucket by the door—the exact spot where we’d left the monster-under-your-bed when we came into the hospital. It passed along the corner and down the length of the wall toward us.

“How long do we have?” Justin asked Cilian.

Cilian’s eyes were wide as coins on the monster-under-your-bed. Evidently this was his first time seeing one, too. “Uh, they were in pediatrics last I looked. A whole lot of them led by a tall, skinny guy and a black-haired woman.”

“Pediatrics? They thought I was a baby she was carrying!” Cupid exclaimed. “I’m definitely more toddler than baby.”

Hercules patted his head. “That you are.”

“A black-haired woman?” I repeated. That had to be Serena Russo. “Did you notice anything else about her?”

“She was pretty tall, too.” Cilian sniffed. “Taller than me.”

“It’s her, isn’t it?” Justin said.

“It’s her,” I whispered. There weren’t many tall, black-haired women who would be leading World Government inspections of hospitals in the middle of the night. But she had that power as the lead scientist for the World Army.

Knowing she was in the same building as me brought back a fear I hadn’t felt in months. My insides felt arctic, cold as permafrost. She was the woman who had used Justin as her guinea pig. She was the woman who had spliced my own genes. And she was the geneticist who was leading the crusade against Others. Cutting up our DNA, tucking it into their super soldiers, using our own powers against us.

All to save her son, who was dying. She ravaged our kind for love, which made her scarier than just about anyone.

Hercules stepped in front of me. “If she is here, then allow me to find her and show her the true meaning of strength.”

My eyes refocused as I looked up at Hercules. I knew if I assented, the demigod really would go looking for her. And if he found her, he really would do as he promised. Hercules didn’t bluff.

“No.” Justin came to my side. “We need you to get Isa back to the safehouse. You’re the strongest among us.”

My eyebrows went up as I turned to Justin. That was a rare show of humility, especially when it came to his own strength.

Hercules’s chest puffed up like a bird’s as Miral set a hand on the demigod’s forearm. “He is right,” she said. “I suspect the day will come when we confront Serena Russo, but it will not be this evening. Our first and only priority is to return Isabella and her child to safety.”

I felt a cool breeze on my ankle; Yeknalb had wrapped himself around me and was slowly rising up the length of my leg. It looked like the sun was setting on just one of my legs.

Cilian stepped forward, both hands out like he was trying to herd ducklings. “Go, the lot of you. This isn’t the time to faff about.”

Miral started toward the back door we’d come into the hospital by. “We’ll return through the park. I will lead, and Justin will take the flank, so we should not encounter any issues there. If we’re separated, meet in the safehouse. Understood?”

The park. I thought back to the map of Paradise Lot I had studied in the safehouse in the hours leading up to our mission. There had been a few parks, and it was hard to figure out which was which in my mind in our rush.

But the others seemed to know what Miral meant, because they were all nodding.

“Good call,” Justin said. “We can avoid the barricade.”

Miral nodded once. “Exactly.”

“Do I get to ride in your arms again?” Cupid asked.

“Do not count on it,” Miral said.

Cupid sighed. “Drat.”

As we came to the door, Yeknalb slid up and over me as he had done before. The veil came over my head and eyes, and all sounds became muffled. It was still strange, wearing a monster-under-your-bed, but I was surprised by how comforting it was to have him there.

With him wrapped around me like a blanket, I felt safe.

“Thank you,” I whispered to the monster-under-your bed.

No, scrolled the red text across my vision, thank you. You bring us hope.

Cilian passed us up as he went to open the door. “Avoid the front of the hospital. They came in that way, and there’s a few vehicles out there, maybe some eyes. Best to keep a wide radius.”

Miral set a hand on his shoulder. “We won’t forget what you’ve done for Others.”

He let out a little sigh. “Is it selfish to say I did it for my wife first, and the others later?”

“No,” Miral said. “It’s human.”

Cilian pushed the door open, and Miral led us into the night. Except this time we would have to move faster, quieter and be on guard. They were searching for us.

Serena was searching for me.

Chapter 10

We came out the door single file. Ahead, Miral’s stride reached so far I practically had to jog to keep pace. She didn’t turn her head, even as we heard voices around the side of the hospital. Even as vehicle lights emanated over the building like the sun’s rays promising a scalding center—if only we could see over.

It was that guard at the checkpoint. It had to be. He had tipped the World Army off about Miral’s passage through the barrier. That was the only explanation for why they had shown up here. Why Serena Russo was in pediatrics.

I knew the others were thinking it, too. But none of us spoke … we just moved. Hercules and Cupid walked at either side of me as they had done on the approach, but their attitudes had shifted. Their body language had changed.

I sensed both demigods on guard, prepared to quickdraw their weapons. Hercules’s massive club swung at his hip and Cupid’s bow rested solidly across his body, but both had their hands ready to go.

For my part, both my daggers had been cleaned and slipped solidly into each boot. If it came to it, I would fight just as my sister had taught me to do. Being with her in Vegas had helped me remember what I was capable of, and I knew I’d never feel so physically vulnerable again.

Thank you, Ananda, I thought for the thousandth time since I’d spread her ashes over Las Vegas. She hadn’t just brought me physical strength—she’d brought me mental fortitude. Now, I would do what needed to be done. Whatever that entailed.

Miral took us westward, parallel to the Other sector and through the residential area fielding the hospital. Here the houses were large and brick, the windows lighted, the yards mowed.

I mean, the fact that they had yards to mow was impressive in itself. These humans were living the Paradise Lot dream. I wondered if they even knew it, even knew the segregation Paradise Lot’s newspapers had failed to report.

But that was how it happened: quietly, pieces moved in the darkness, and soon there was an Other sector we weren’t allowed to leave at night. For decorations, we had a thousand clocks ticking away. And to ensure we got our beauty rest, an early curfew.

By contrast, this part of the city felt like a wide-open breath of air.

When we had gone a quarter-kilometer and were well away from the hospital, Justin whispered from behind me, “We have a tail.”

I glanced back, saw no one. Behind us, the street only came into clarity under the streetlamps, their narrow cones affording enough light only to navigate the sidewalk by.

Whoever it was, they weren’t walking in the light.

Ahead, Miral didn’t make any indication she’d heard. But she clearly had, because she quickened her pace as we came to a corner, making a sharp left that put us on a perpendicular course with the fence enclosing the Other sector.

In fact, I could see the fence lit up along its length. We weren’t more than a few minutes’ walk away at this pace. Though I still wasn’t sure how we would get through, if not by the barrier. Miral couldn’t possibly carry all of us over—or any of us, for that matter—without being seen. Not now that we had a tail.

But she kept moving toward the fence, so the rest of us did, too. We all trusted her that much, even if it meant coming to an impossible boundary. Whatever her plan was, I knew she had one.

“I hear something’s feet,” Cupid whispered.

“I hear nothing,” Hercules tried to whisper, but even his whisper was like a regular person’s talking voice.

Cupid shushed him as the rest of us simultaneously pretended to be unaware and listen at the same time.

“I hear them as well,” Miral breathed without turning her head.

These two Others must have had extra-sensory hearing, because I couldn’t make out anything except the sounds of Hercules’s extra-loud breathing—which was his normal way of breathing … he just had enormous lungs—and our own footsteps.

When I turned, I still saw nothing.

As we came under one of the enormous clocks, the ambient light shining over all of us, Miral stopped so hard I actually bumped into her. She stood stock still, shrugged off her jacket onto the ground so that her wings came free.

“They are here,” she said.

Behind us, I finally heard those feet. They trotted over the pavement, and I had only a second to glance behind me before I heard the howl.

A creature’s face appeared in the light off the clock’s face. Low, black-eyed, a long snout and pearl-white, sharp teeth. It let out a hard growl.

“What the hell is that thing?” Cupid exclaimed as he flew up on his tiny wings.

“A canine,” Hercules said. “I like the noble look of him.”

An identical long-snouted face appeared a couple feet from the first. Then a third and a fourth. A pack of them.

“Ca-nines, plural,” Justin said as he grabbed my arm and we both started backing away. It seemed he and I both had the same thought: we needed to get to the fence.

“Run,” Miral said, her wings flaring wide. “Run now, all of you.”

↔

We ran. Justin and I bolted past Miral, who had spun on the dogs. With a sharp whistle, Cupid called his puff down from the sky and leapt onto it. As we ran, he floated up alongside us.

“What’s going on back there?” I said. Yeknalb had tightened around me, and it felt like he was practically moving my body for me.

Justin let go of my arm. “Keep quiet. They can’t know about you.”

Cupid shot arrows while flying backward. “We’ve got dogs. Mega dogs.”

“Mega as in big, or as in a lot?” Justin asked as we raced toward the fence.

“As in both.” Cupid unleashed another arrow, and a dog yelped. When I looked back, Miral had drawn her longsword from somewhere in her clothing. Nossa Senhora, but it was enormous. It gleamed under the streetlamp as she swung.

Beside her, Hercules was swinging his club. He struck a dog so hard it went flying over a building.

“We can’t leave them behind,” I said.

“We can’t fight them here. Those are World Army canines,” Justin said. “I saw them back when I was training in Montreal. They aren’t like normal dogs.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean they’re spliced. They’re not dogs anymore.”

“But what about Herc? Miral?” I asked.

“Herc’s Herc,” Cupid said. “And trust me when I say Miral can take care of herself. I’ve flown with her, remember?”

A rumble started from blocks away. A motor. It sounded like it was coming from the direction of the Paradise Lot hospital.

Serena.

She was coming. She was coming hard and fast.

I knew why. I had sworn an oath to her, promising to save her son’s life, and I still hadn’t fulfilled it five months later. And though I intended to, five months was a long, long time. By now, she was probably pissed.

We were approaching the fence. “How are we supposed to get through?”

“Here,” Justin said, rushing forward and kneeling. He grabbed a section of the fence, pushed it. It gave easily, as though it had been cut at some point. And as I got closer, I realized that it had been. The serrated section formed a perfectly sized gap for a human-sized person to fit through.

I didn’t know how Justin knew about this, but I didn’t have time to ask. He waved me through while Cupid covered my flank on his puff, his bowstring twanging every few seconds.

I had dropped to my knees in front of the fence when a bellow rose up behind me. When I turned, it felt like I was staring into an impossible brightness, even through the veil of Yeknalb over my eyes.

A spotlight. Someone had turned a spotlight on Hercules and Miral, still fighting side by side. The spliced dogs leapt at them, and they fought them off with fury I had never seen before in Hercules, and hadn’t expected in Miral.

They were the closest things I had seen to gods since the gods had left.

But it wasn’t enough. Something shot out of the darkness—a cable—and wrapped around one of Hercules’s ankles. He fought on with his remaining limbs, swinging his club with a two handed-grip.

That is, until another cable shot out and wrapped around his right wrist.

Beside me, Justin groaned.

“What is it?” I said.

He shook his wrist out—the right wrist. “Nothing.” But his teeth were gritted, and I knew he was in pain. Real pain. It was their bound fates. If Hercules got hurt, Justin did, too. His ankle was probably hurting right about now as well.

“We have to help them,” I said.

“No, Isa,” Justin said. “Remember our priority? It’s you.”

I swung around. “If they kill him, you’ll die.”

Cupid shot off another arrow. “Isa, go.”

Under the spotlight, a third cable shot out and grappled Hercules’s other wrist. They pulled tight, and the demigod’s hands shot out to either side of him. Given his strength, I knew they must have been using extra-special, anti-Other material for those ropes.

I had seen Hercules yank chains off walls. I had seen him break through walls. Whatever this stuff was, he couldn’t fight it.

Miral swung her longsword at one of the cables binding Hercules’s wrist, and the sword—which was probably as long as two of me put together—just bounced right back off.

“Leave,” I heard Hercules say to Miral. “Fly!”

He wasn’t just saying it to Miral. I saw him try to turn his head, to see if we were still at the fence. He was saying it to me, too.

“Stop this!” Miral called out, flaring on the invisible forces outside the spotlight. “Stop this at once.”

For a moment, nothing happened. Cupid stopped shooting arrows. I could see Hercules’s lungs rising and falling, Miral standing with her sword at her side. Around them, the dogs growled and barked, preparing to lunge and bite.

They were surrounded.

Then, for some reason, the world went crazy. Beside me, Justin grabbed his head and moaned. He started slapping his scalp, his eyes screwed shut.

“What is it?” I asked him. “Justin?”

He didn’t answer. He just kept moaning like something was clawing around inside his head.

“Isa, look.” Cupid pointed back in the direction of Hercules and Miral. In the spotlight, the remaining dogs had begun yelping and crying, dropping to the ground and pawing at their heads.

I just stared. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t affecting any of us—not me, not Cupid or Hercules or Miral—except for Justin and those World Army dogs.

Then, all at once, they stopped. The dogs, Justin—they simply stopped. Justin let out a long exhale as his hands dropped, and I helped him stay upright. He practically slumped into my arms.

A few seconds later, the dogs crawled and slunk into the shadows. In their place, out stepped two people. One in military uniform, and the other in a simple black suit.

Sergeant Johnson and, her face pooling into the light as though rising from underwater, Serena Russo.

Chapter 11

Beside me, Justin tensed. Sergeant Johnson had trained him in Montreal, taught him much of what he knew about fighting Others. I wondered if he had taught Justin about the tactics the army had just used to defeat Hercules and corner Miral.

The two of them approached Miral in silence. Johnson was holding something in his palm—a small black box. It looked like the right size for an engagement ring.

“What is that thing in his hand?” Cupid asked.

Justin breathed heavily. “Nothing good. We have to go.”

“I think it has to do with the aural attacks.” It had affected the dogs—but why Justin?

Serena Russo came forward like a specter from the night, her black hair swinging in a tight ponytail. Two of the dogs followed on her heels, their eyes roaming. She was dressed to the nines, as per usual, black slacks and a jacket setting off her porcelain skin. And those blue eyes.

Those blue eyes could freeze me to the spot.

Something had changed since I’d last seen her in New York. She had always been tall, but now she seemed larger than ever. Not in a definable way I could set a finger on … it was more about her presence.

Just like Miral’s presence. Except where Miral brought incandescence, Serena’s sucked light and brought darkness. I could almost see the spotlight dimming around her as she approached Hercules and Miral.

As she came closer, her eyes flicked to the fenceline, where Justin, Cupid and I had stopped. I saw her lips move, but I couldn’t make out the words.

She can’t see you, Isabella. I still had Yeknalb wrapped tighter than ever around me. The monster-under-your-bed was actually shaking around my body, which was a strange sensation.

Serena wasn’t looking at me. She was eyeing Justin and Cupid. And it was at them she flicked an almost lazy hand. Her two dogs rushed forward, barreling toward us.

From behind her, one of those long cables shot out toward us, reaching for Cupid. The demigod rose into the air on his puff, shooting off arrows at the dogs. The cable hit the fence with a clang and fell useless to the ground.

As for the dogs, they dodged the arrows as easily as if they were moving at half-speed.

Meanwhile, Serena had focused on her capture.

Hercules and Miral.

She approached Hercules with wide, covetous eyes. Which gave Miral a chance to escape.

Fly, Miral. The angel wasn’t captured—she could take to the air at any moment. But she didn’t. She only faced Serena Russo head-on.

Because she doesn’t want to leave Hercules, I thought. She couldn’t leave the demigod behind. I doubted she could leave anyone behind.

Cupid whistled from above us. “Time to vamoose!” Because the dogs were still coming. They were getting close enough to see the foam on their lips. And Justin was still too out of it after that attack to properly fend them off.

I had an advantage: they couldn’t see me. And they weren’t running alongside one another; instead, one dog had taken the lead, the other following.

I got onto my back, preparing.

Hold, I thought. Hold on. Just wait.

I remained still until they got close enough that the first one vaulted off the ground and made to land on Justin. Then I kicked it in the chest as hard as I could with both feet.

The dog yelped as it crashed through the air into the one behind it, both of them hitting the ground in a pile. That gave Cupid enough time to plant an arrow in one’s rear end, and the two of them almost immediately began fighting one another.

This drew the attention of three more dogs, who broke off from the group and raced toward the fenceline.

Three was one too many. I didn’t think I could pull off my little trick again.

Justin’s hand came out, grabbed me. He shoved me through the gap in the fence and crawled through after me. Overhead, Cupid floated up and over the fence on his puff.

Justin fell against the fence as the dogs slammed into it, growling and snapping. He was holding them back. “Go!” he said. “Go now.”

This time, Yeknalb really did take control of me. He actually started running me through the dead zone, my shoes scuffing over the dirt away from the fence.

“Stop,” I whispered to the monster-under-your-bed.

We have to leave, the red words scrolled in front of me. Run. We have to run. The words kept scrolling, faster and faster. Run, run, run.

Great, Yeknalb was having a panic attack while attached to me.

“Then get off me,” I said as the monster-under-your-bed ran us farther and farther from Justin. “Just let me go.”

Run, run, run, the red words said. Run. Run.

“Cupid!” I yelled into the air. “Help Justin.”

Cupid nodded, swinging around on his puff and aiming another arrow. When he let it go, it nailed one of the dogs right in the chest. “Bull’s eye.”

It yelped and sprang away, shaking its head. After a moment, it leapt at the other dog and threw it to its side. The two of them commenced wrestling and snapping at one another on the ground.

Yeknalb kept me moving out of the dead zone. I watched over my shoulder as Cupid swung down and allowed Justin to climb onto his puff. Together, the two of them zipped away from the fence.

Beyond the chainlink, Hercules roared and struggled against his restraints. Meanwhile, Serena and Miral were in intense conversation as the remaining dogs closed in around them.

They disappeared from sight as Yeknalb ran me into a park. Soon we were rushing through the darkness with only the moon as light, bushes brushing against my legs and leaves scraping against my arms and face. I couldn’t see much of anything, but I knew we didn’t want to be in this park.

Not at night.

Going into a major city’s park at night was always a risk, especially as a woman alone. But going into the Other sector park in Paradise Lot, just me and Yeknalb? Amp that up a few notches and throw in a side of you-must-be-crazy.

I didn’t know if Cupid and Justin were behind us, or if they even knew where we had gone. They couldn’t really see us, after all.

“Yeknalb!” I whispered. “Please, for GoneGods’ sake, stop.”

But that same word kept scrolling in red.

Run.

“Who’s there?” came a gravelly voice from somewhere in the darkness. I sensed us passing a large figure—not a tree, but a sentient being—as we ran. That was when I learned it was better to keep my trap shut.

“Hello?” he said as we passed by.

I prayed he wouldn’t follow.

From somewhere, giggling emanated through the trees. It could have been pixies or banshees—I had no way of telling. And the night made everything seem more sinister.

Finally we reached the other side of the park, and I burst onto the street into the full moonlight.

“Please,” I began, but apparently Yeknalb didn’t believe in breaks.

We kept running.

↔

This was only my second time passing through the Other sector—the first time had also occurred this evening—but I quickly realized Yeknalb wasn’t taking me where I wanted to go.

Wherever he was taking me, it wasn’t to the safehouse.

We tore through the same commercial area, Yeknalb still having his panic attack while I begged him to stop. Either he didn’t hear me, or he didn’t care to. And even though he wasn’t audibly hyperventilating or vocalizing anything, he was still making himself clear.

Actually, the sight of that same word scrolling in red letters in front of me—Run. Run. Run.—was more than a little terrifying to someone who had spent the past five months isolated underground.

We came to a corner, and all forward momentum stopped. I felt like I was encased in saran wrap as Yeknalb considered where to head next. That only lasted half a heartbeat before he jerked me hard right and took us down another unknown street.

Where was he taking us?

Where would a monster-under-your-bed go when they felt afraid?

Duh, Isa.

They would go under their bed. Wherever that was, whoever that belonged to. From what I knew about monsters-under-your-bed, they picked a person to belong to and remained under that person’s bed for life, even when they changed beds.

Even when they changed homes.

Above us, a clock face shone over the road. I glanced up at it, my eyes widening. Its second hand was moving fast—faster than normal. In fact, it was in constant, smooth motion.

Either Yeknalb or another nearby Other was burning magic. Both scenarios were bad. Both cases would call the World Army to where we were.

Burning magic after-hours was strictly off limits.

I had to get away from the monster-under-your-bed.

How would I get him off me? Miral had told him to protect me. That I was his first priority.

There was only one way that I could think of.

“Yeknalb,” I began, “if you don’t get off me, I’m going to destroy your bed.”

That didn’t seem to have any effect. We kept running.

Come on, Isa. Get scary.

“Yeknalb,” I began again, “if you don’t let me go, I’m going to find the nearest lighter and torch your bed to ashes!”

He definitely reacted to that, slowing a little. There was a blip in the red letters scrolling in front of my eyes. Then they resumed again. And we picked up speed.

All right … I was a scientist. I needed to use that to my benefit.

It was time to get anatomical.

“Yeknalb,” I began, “IF YOU DON’T LET ME GO, I’LL RIP YOUR PERSON’S HEAD OFF THEIR NECK AND DRINK THEIR BLOOD FROM THE FOUNTAIN OF THEIR CAROTID ARTERY!”

That did it.

We stopped hard in the middle of the street. Like a yanked shade, the monster-under-your-bed rolled right up from my feet to my head and slipped off me. The veil came off my eyes, and I could see properly again … Well, as properly as one could see with only moonlight as their aid.

Here, Paradise Lot didn’t offer streetlamps. Around us, falling down and clapboard hovels lined the rutted, uneven road. I didn’t have any clue where we were.

“Yeknalb,” I said, “where have you taken us?”

The monster-under-your-bed didn’t respond. Or if he did, I couldn’t see it. In fact, I didn’t even see his shadow any longer. It was possible he’d slithered off.

But I did register one familiar sound.

Was that the ocean?

I took one step and then another toward the lapping water I heard somewhere in the darkness. The Other sector did lay near the edge of the island.

An equally rhythmic noise began behind me. Thud-thud, thud-thud, a soft patting. When I turned, that clock face had returned to normal. No time was being burnt.

So Yeknalb had been burning time to get me out of there, and once he’d let go of me, that had stopped.

But that didn’t mean the burnt time hadn’t registered.

That thud-thud grew until I recognized a helicopter’s blade whirring through the air. They had sent an air patrol to investigate.

I struck off toward the water, rushing over the gravel and hitting a wooden barrier. I caught it with my sternum and let out an “Oof” just as the helicopter roared overhead.

“All Others remain in your homes,” came a voice through a megaphone. “Stay where you are.”

This wasn’t the typical response to an Other burning time. It couldn’t be.

This was about me.

A floodlight appeared over the road beneath the clock, tracking its length as it searched for signs of life. The hovels and clapboard homes lit up in all their piecemeal glory, but no signs of life appeared.

The Others were terrified. All of them.

As the floodlight rushed toward me, I threw myself over the wooden barrier and landed on sand. The beach. But the ground dropped off quickly, and I ended up slide-running down the slope toward the water.

Had the light hit me? I couldn’t tell. If it had, it had only been for a millisecond.

The floodlight paused, scouring the road leading up to the barrier.

Between the wind off the water and the air off the helicopter, my hair wrapped around my face like it wanted to strangle me. Why had I chosen a long-haired illusion?

Well, I would change that.

The helicopter began an approach, the light sweeping toward the barrier and past, onto the sand.

I kicked off my boots, the daggers still in them, and spun away. I would have to come back for them. As I raced down the beach, the floodlight followed, capturing me for a moment at the edge of its radius. Now I knew they had seen me.

But if I could get to the water, I would be safe. Home-free.

“Stop,” came the voice through the megaphone. “Stay where you are.”

Like hell.

I ran barefooted until the sand clapped under my feet and stuck. Until the foam crested to my ankles. That was far enough.

When I leapt in, I shifted as I passed through the air.

In my true form, I could swim as fast as any creature in the sea.

Chapter 12

The ocean rushed over me like a living thing, pulling me into its irresistible sweep and pull. And I went willingly. I slipped out of my clothes as easily as a fish … because that was what we encantado were.

A hybrid of a mermaid and a dolphin.

We weren’t very pretty, but boy were we good swimmers.

Don’t ask me why Yemoja saw fit to create us so. Or why she imbued us with the neverending desire for eternal love—the love we could only have with humans. She made us immortal, and she picked as the objects of our obsession a short-lived creature.

Or so we had thought. When the gods left, we met other Others. And we had realized that our capacity for love was far beyond what we had ever imagined.

Beneath the water, a different world reigned. No helicopter blades, no dogs, no World Army. It was a foreign ocean, but it felt as familiar to me as the Amazon river.

With a flip of my tail fin, I pushed myself straight past the shallows and toward the deeps, angling for the places no floodlight could reach. They wouldn’t find me here; I could stay thirty minutes underwater, and by the time I had to surface, I would be far away from their search radius.

Well, that had been the plan.

I’d swum about fifty feet in when I hit it.

Netting.

The tight netting swept out of the darkness so fast I was up against it before I’d even processed what it was. I slammed into it, and it gave only a little, the tight knitting of it resisting my much-too-large body.

What in the Empty Hell?

The ocean pulled and tugged, urging me out to sea. I watched as a tiny school of fish passed through the netting by my head and disappeared into the deeps.

I touched it with my fingers.

Steel cables, tough as anything.

This wasn’t a fishing net. Well, it was, in a sense. It was a net designed to fish for Others.

I struggled along the netting, searching for the bottom. The cables extended right into the sand some ten feet below, and left and right for as far as I could see. And under water, I could see a long way.

I pushed myself along it, hoping to find its inevitable end.

They couldn’t net in the whole island, could they?

No, returned the rational part of my brain. Just the Other sector.

But I wasn’t rational right now. I was panicked, swimming hard. I even tried to rip it apart, which only hurt my fingers.

I was trapped. I had always been trapped, and I just hadn’t known it.

The sea lit up around me, and any fish that had been near me flitted away like bolts of lightning. Above me, a cone of white-hot light. The helicopter, hovering above the water like a watercolor painting, slip-sliding in my vision.

I considered my options.

I could try to leap over the netting.

I could stay down here for the next half hour, but eventually I would have to surface.

I could try swimming along the netting until I got far away from this World Army search party and swim into the shore.

The first option wouldn’t work. Sure, my tail fin was as powerful as a small boat’s motor; with one good flip I could be up and over the netting and into the ocean proper. But even if I escaped the netting, where would I go then? Where would I swim to? I didn’t have any way of contacting the people who could save me.

So I’d have to go with the second option: surface elsewhere.

I dropped to the bottom, swam leftward along the sand away from the floodlight. It didn’t follow; the water was too murky down here for it to penetrate. I swam hard, pulling away from the helicopter and to the quiet safety of other waters. All the while, my fingers grazed along the netting. Maybe, after all, it did stop somewhere.

Well, I was right.

It did stop somewhere.

I only swam about thirty yards before the netting took a hard turn toward the shore, reining me in. Forcing me back to land.

Which left me with one option: surface and leap over.

This would have to be far enough. I’d just have to hope that I had put enough distance between me and the helicopter to go unnoticed.

With a hard flip of my tail, I surged toward the surface. I prepared to angle my body up and over like a high-jumper. I had done this many times—we encantado were fantastic swimmers, and a bit egoistic about our abilities because of it—and just needed one second of air to clear this World Army bullcrap.

I broke the surface and glimpsed the sky above as I rose. The moon sat perfectly round and white in the sky, the centerpiece to a swath of crystalline stars. I arched back and over in the air, and the move I made would have been pure artistry if not for one troubling fact.

The netting didn’t stop at the water’s surface.

I bounced off it and back into the water in a disorienting tumble. When I got my bearings, I knew I had been a fool. The netting rose ten feet into the air … just like the fence surrounding the Other sector on land.

We Others were fully enclosed. We just didn’t know it.

Then the floodlight swept over me, sending the water into relief, and I knew I was defeated. I slowly turned, staring up into the blinding spotlight as the helicopter closed in on me.

If Serena was in that thing, I wasn’t going to shrink away. I would look straight on in my last act as a free encantado.

The helicopter came to hover thirty feet over me, the ocean’s surface rollicking under all the wind it created. I stared back, awaiting my fate.

It came fast. Something shot out of its belly, and as it came toward me I realized it was another net. Smaller, meant to sweep up Others like me.

But something else came faster. Or, I should say, someone else.

Just as the net’s maw opened toward me, a pair of arms wrapped around my body and yanked me straight out of the water.

↔

I was flying through the air. And not in a I-jumped-out-of-the-water-for-a-glorious-second way … I was actually flying.

I heard the sound of wings, spotted them past the arms of the person carrying me. White feathers, all working in synchrony to carry us straight up into the air.

It could only be one person—or one angel—carrying me. I blinked up at the underside of her jawbone. Perfectly sculpted—a model’s jaw if there ever was one.

It was Miral.

Miral had pulled me from the water.

She didn’t say anything. We just rocketed up, her wings working so hard it sounded like we were breaking the sound barrier every time she flapped them. We shot up well past the helicopter, so high into the sky that when I looked down, I could see the whole of the Other sector.

It looked minuscule. If I wasn’t terrified of heights (we encantado are land and sea creatures, after all), this would have been amazing. As it was, every muscle in my body clenched.

Little did I know, things were about to get a lot more bracing.

We hovered for a second, Miral breathing hard, water still dripping off me into the endlessness below us. Somewhere down there I heard the faint thundering of the helicopter, but it felt so far off we might have been in a different realm.

I shifted back to a human illusion so I could use my voice. The beauty of our powers: if we were using an illusion we had already taken on once before, we could shift within a couple seconds.

“Miral—”

“Brace yourself,” the angel said, her grip on me tightening.

“What?” was all I had time to say before she folded her wings tight to her body and angled us straight down. We began falling—rocketing, as Miral flapped her wings for speed—in the opposite direction.

We went straight down.

I’d once ridden on Cupid’s cloud over the Grand Canyon. That had been a unique experience, but as thrilling as it was scary. I’d also felt a certain sense of safety, being inside his cloud. What he called his “puff” almost felt like a sentient being in itself, like it would catch me if I fell off. And, the best part: I could decide where we went and how fast we traveled. I was the one manning the cloud. I was in control.

But being in Miral’s arms was like skydiving without knowing the first thing about it. And I couldn’t deploy my parachute; everything was in her control. In this way, we raced toward the earth so fast my skin tugged against the muscles connecting it to my body.

As we flew, something exploded in the air near us, and the world went to silence. All I could hear was a deep and persistent ringing as the air flooded over my body.

Were they shooting at us?

Something else exploded beside us, blooming like a smoke bomb, and Miral strafed, flapping her wings once and then folding them tight as we continued downward.

Yes, they were shooting at us.

The Commander of the Lord’s Army, my brain reminded me in the face of mortal terror. She was the Commander of the Lord’s Army.

In other words, Miral had seen some shit.

We kept strafing, flying in serpentine, dodging everything the forces below were throwing at us. I couldn’t see much of it, but from the evasive maneuvers Miral was making, I knew it was a lot.

They wanted us. They wanted us bad.

Then, a thought: We had been headed down for a long while. There was only so much sky before you hit the ground.

I forced my face into the wind to see how close we were to the earth.

And that? That was a mistake.

The ground rose up toward us with such incredible speed that I didn’t know how we could possibly survive this. Or, I should say, how I could possibly survive. Who knew what Miral could live through? Probably an atomic bomb.

But Miral opened her wings wide at the perfect moment, slowing us as she righted herself. She landed in a kneel; I think the pavement cracked a little with the impact.

We were back on the ground. In front of a row of houses.

Miral’s house.

The angel rose, her wings enfolding me as she ran us to the stoop of the next house over. I couldn’t even hear her feet on the ground ... all I could hear was the ringing in my ears.

She looked down at me and said something, but none of it filtered through my eardrums. The thing about Miral, though, was that you didn’t have to hear what she was saying to feel comforted.

I felt it in the way she looked down at me. Her pale blue eyes were filled with warmth.

Blue eyes. Why did all the women in my life have blue eyes? And how was it that a woman like Serena could share an eye color with an angel like Miral, and the effect was so very different?

Serena was the blue of the arctic. Miral was the petals of a blue summer flower.

Miral climbed the stoop. I saw her knocking, but couldn’t hear it—I only felt the vibrations of it through her arm and chest.

A few seconds later, the nymph appeared. Galaxy, my brain told me. She ushered us into her house, and we passed through her living room and kitchen toward the basement.

The safehouse. That was the entrance to the safehouse.

Justin. Cupid. Hercules. Where were they?

“Miral,” I said. My voice sounded strange in my skull, like I had a terrible head cold. My head wasn’t my biggest concern right now, though. “Let me down.”

Miral glanced down at me. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t be sure of what she was saying. She did let me down, though. My feet touched the dirt, and as soon as I landed, I puked all over Galaxy’s all-natural kitchen.

Rule number one of pregnancy: don’t skydive after you’ve gone swimming.

Chapter 13

As soon as I’d stopped throwing up, Miral and Galaxy led me back down into the safehouse.

I pressed my hand across my mouth. “Where are the others?” I asked as we descended the basement steps.

Miral didn’t respond. Nor did Galaxy.

I asked again as we came into the resistance headquarters, which lay quiet and dark around us except for the automatic overhead lights that flicked on at our passage.

Again, no response.

We moved through the hallway connecting the headquarters to the safehouse, and it was only when the three of us had stepped inside that I was assailed by a pair of chubby arms.

Cupid kissed me all over my face before leaning back with two hands set to my shoulders. “You’re naked.”

“It’s a long story.” Galaxy had disappeared into a side room, and now reappeared with a blanket she threw over me. I pulled it tight around my body. Ever since I’d left the water, I had been cold. But now that the adrenaline had worn off, I couldn’t stop shivering.

I glanced over Cupid’s shoulder down the hallway. Behind him stood Ordo, her white hair in even more disarray than earlier today. She looked like she’d been woken from sleep.

Her large eyes peered at me from beneath her spectacles. “I’m glad to see you safe, Isabella.”

I nodded at her, offered a small smile. I couldn’t see anyone else down the hallway. “Where are Justin and Hercules?”

“I’m here,” came Justin’s voice before he stepped out of a side room.

My hand went to my mouth. He looked like hell.

He limped forward, head low. He had two black eyes and deep purple bruises around his wrists.

“GoneGods, what happened?” I approached him and set my hands to either side of his face. But I already knew; those were Hercules’s wounds on Justin’s body. It was their bound fates that had done this.

I turned around. “Where’s Hercules?”

I waited for Justin to answer, but he didn’t. When I looked at Cupid, he lowered his face, too. Finally I turned to Miral, lifting my eyes to the angel. “Tell me.”

“Hercules is in their hands,” she said softly, clasping her hands in front of her. “I could not save him.”

Ordo was shaking her head, tapping her foot. “Chaos brought to chaos.”

“I saw it happen,” Cupid added, looking like he would cry. “They dragged the big guy into a truck.”

I kept staring at Miral, waiting for her to say more. But she had nothing more to say.

“Is that all?” I swept my eyes over everyone present. “What’s the plan for getting him back?”

“That’s still undetermined,” Galaxy said. “But I’ve arranged a convening of the resistance council tomorrow—”

“Tomorrow?” I shook my head. “Tonight.”

“We must wait, Isabella,” Miral said. I didn’t know it was possible, but I actually saw bags under the angel’s eyes. “After everything that occurred this evening, I must answer to the World Government. They already have me under heavy surveillance.”

I set my hand on Justin’s arm. “If they kill Hercules, they’ll kill Justin.”

Ordo lifted her eyes to me, staring. “How is that so?”

“Hercules’s fate is bound with Justin’s,” Miral said to Ordo. “But they will not kill the demigod.” Of course, I knew she was right—Serena had been covetous of Hercules’s power from the first time she’d seen him in New York City. She would not kill him so quickly or easily, or perhaps at all.

She would use him.

“The things she’ll do to him …” I began. “Maybe a demigod could handle those things, but a human?”

“I’m spliced with five Others, remember?” Justin managed the smallest smile ever. “They won’t do me in that easy.”

Ordo appraised Justin like a specimen, her eyes traveling the length of his body from head to toe. “How can such a thing be?” she muttered. “Bound fates seem outside cosmic order.”

“Does Dr. Russo know their fates are bound?” Miral asked me.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. At least, I don’t know how she could have found out.”

“Then we have that fact as our advantage,” Miral said. “She must not know that capturing Hercules means she has also captured Justin, in a sense. And I promise you, Isabella, that we will find him.”

She had hardly finished speaking when Justin let out a groan and fell to his knees with his hands on his stomach.

I dropped with him. “What is it?”

Cupid flew over to his other side, setting a hand on his back. “That didn’t look pleasant.”

“A gut punch,” Justin ground out. “I’m OK.”

But the way he was doubled over, he didn’t seem at all that way.

Galaxy stepped forward. “Let’s get you to the medical room.”

“Go with her,” Miral said. “The nymph will treat your wounds—which will also treat Hercules. She has powerful healing magic.”

“I don’t want her burning time for me,” Justin managed. He still hadn’t moved since he’d dropped to the ground. “That’s her life.”

Galaxy stepped forward, her green hair shimmering around her as though carried by a breeze I knew didn’t exist down here. “It would be my honor to make a sacrifice for your sacrifice.”

I lifted my face to the nymph, tears springing to my eyes. She hadn’t known Justin more than a couple months, but she treated him like family.

“Thank you,” Justin said as Cupid and I helped him to stand. He walked with Galaxy down to the medical room at the far end of the safehouse. “Not too much time, OK?” I heard him say to her.

The nymph gave a little nod. “How much time is too much?”

“Anything more than smoked-a-few-cigarettes time.”

Then they disappeared through a doorway.

Ordo went to stand next to Miral, and the two of them were whispering in low tones.

Cupid gave an enormous sigh, his wings drooping as he dropped to the ground. “I’m going to get some shut eye.”

“Hey,” I said to the demigod as he padded down the hallway, “we’ll get him back, OK?”

He didn’t look back. “I know,” he said, but he didn’t sound entirely convinced. In fact, he looked and sounded demoralized. Hercules and Cupid weren’t related, but they were close. Back in antiquity, the two of them had gone on many adventures together.

Since I’d met Cupid, I hadn’t seen him this down. He was trying not to show it, but his grief was written all over him as he went into the sleeping room.

When I turned back, Ordo was leaving in a hurry. Which left me and the head of the resistance alone in the hallway.

When my eyes focused on Miral, she fixed me with a grave look.

“What is it?” I said.

“The child.” She stepped forward. “Is the child well?”

I set a hand over my belly. At once, I felt her kick. “I think so.”

She took another step forward, this one hesitant. “May I?”

I wasn’t sure at first what she was getting at … until I followed her gaze to my belly. “She kicked,” I said. “Would you like to feel her?”

Miral’s eyes flitted up to me. “Very much,” she breathed reverently.

I reached out and took Miral’s hand, guiding it between the edges of the blanket until her fingers fell over my stomach. I had expected them to be colder than my core, but they felt warm and soothing.

We stood in silence for a moment as nothing happened. Then, with a start, she met my eyes.

I smiled at her. “You felt that one.”

Miral’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes.”

That was how we stood a while longer, her hand on my belly, two Others finding some consolation that miracles still existed in this GoneGod World.

↔

When I went to sleep, it came fitful and restless. I dreamt of leaping into the ocean again, racing to the netting surrounding the island. But this time it wasn’t I who swam to its edges … it was the netting which came to me.

Closing in. Encircling. A tightening grip.

I woke to screaming.

Justin.

The clock on the wall said it was just after six in the morning. When I ran into the medical room, Galaxy stood over a writhing Justin on the bed. Her hands were set to his chest, restraining him from rolling off onto the floor.

I rushed over to hold his arms down. He jerked like he was being pummeled by an invisible force, and red marks had appeared on his torso, his arms, his legs. I recognized some of them as knuckle prints.

Hercules, wherever he was, was being tortured by the World Army.

Galaxy fixed terrified eyes on me. “What should we do?”

“It will stop,” I said, more out of hope than belief, as I gripped his arms. It has to stop. “Just keep him from hurting himself until it does.”

Cupid appeared in the doorway, tying his loincloth around his waist. “What the—”

“It’s Hercules,” I said. “They’re hurting him.”

Cupid understood at once. He flew over to the end of the bed to survey the scene. “What if I shoot Justin with one of my arrows?”

I was too distracted by my boyfriend’s screaming to fully consider Cupid’s question. “How would that help?”

“I don’t know,” Cupid said. “It might end up being like a kinky fetish for him. You know how some people like a little pain.”

I groaned as Justin jerked with another invisible fist to his side. “This isn’t funny.”

“I’m serious!” Cupid shot back.

“Just hold his legs,” I said. Justin’s legs were flailing; he kicked over a tray beside the bed, its contents spilling over the floor.

Cupid sat on Justin’s legs, but he only ended up clinging onto his ankle as the pint-sized demigod was thrown around. “Drug him up!” he cried.

Before I could answer, Justin spit up blood. It shot out of his mouth and spattered all over my face.

“They broke something,” Galaxy said. “A rib, maybe.” She tried to inspect Justin’s ribcage, but it was impossible with how much he was suffering.

Along the wall lay an assortment of medical equipment, gauze, all sorts of bottles … and morphine.

Bingo.

I grabbed up the bottle of morphine. “Where are the syringes?”

Galaxy pointed to the fallen tray. “On the ground.”

I knelt and grabbed one up. When I’d filled the syringe completely, I handed it to Galaxy. “I probably couldn’t hit his vein even if he wasn’t moving.”

Galaxy accepted the syringe, and Cupid and I held one of Justin’s arms as still as we could as she tried to shoot the morphine into his arm. GoneGods was he strong. I felt like Cupid trying to hold onto one of Justin’s legs.

Finally, Galaxy found her opening. In a moment of stillness, she drove the needle in and pressed the plunger.

After a few seconds, Justin slowed. A lightness came into his eyes, and even though he was still being tortured from afar, he didn’t scream. He just took the blows, grunting and jerking as they came.

I set both hands to the side of his face. “It’ll end. Believe me, it’ll end.”

He gazed up at me, his voice like wind through a long, long tunnel. “One way or another.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“That’s the thing about being mortal,” he said with a bloody cough. “Every moment feels like forever.”

My brow furrowed. Was he even talking to me? He sounded delirious.

Finally, finally, the torture stopped. I didn’t know whether it had been a minute or an hour, but Justin had been right: every moment had felt like forever. Especially when you had to endure someone you loved being put through agonizing pain.

Cupid, Galaxy and I fell back to catch our breaths as Justin stilled on the bed, his eyes closing.

Galaxy let out a long exhale. “I will heal him.” But she didn’t move. The nymph leaned against the wall in her exhaustion, her eyes on the ground.

I didn’t blame her. This hadn’t just been physically trying … it had been an emotional trauma.

On the other side of the bed, Cupid let a sob. “Oh, Herc.”

Hercules’s face appeared in my mind. I didn’t know where he was, but we all knew what was happening to him. It was written all over Justin’s body. Even if he was a demigod, he was still a mortal. He still suffered.

Cold rage filled me. I had felt many bad things about the woman behind this, thought many awful thoughts, but this was a new sensation. It seeped through me with icy fingers, gripping my chest.

Hercules didn’t deserve this. He had done nothing to her.

And so I desired revenge. I wanted to make her suffer like she had made Hercules and Justin suffer.

Wherever you are, I thought, I’ll find you. And while one part of me—the Isa of Hope—saw Hercules in my mind’s eye, the other part of me—the Isa of Fear—saw another face.

Ice-blue eyes. A waterfall of black hair.

Dr. Serena Russo.

Chapter 14

An hour later, I was invited by Colel Cab to attend an emergency council meeting. Before Colel led me into the meeting room, he led me into the supply room and passed me a familiar pair of boots. “These were delivered to us early this morning,” he said.

Inside, I found my two daggers. “How?”

His mandibles clicked. “An apologetic monster-under-your-bed named Yeknalb brought them to us. He begged forgiveness and was certain he would face eternal damnation.”

Yeknalb. I was wondering what had happened to the fearful little guy. Eternal damnation seemed excessive, but maybe a few weeks of it seemed about right for the trouble he’d gotten me into. But he had rescued my shoes—and my daggers—from the beach. It felt good to have them back.

When Colel and I stepped inside the meeting room, the heads of the resistance—Ordo, Chao, Miral—had all assembled in their spots.

And they were all staring at me.

Silence followed us as Colel and I took the same seats we’d sat in the day before. Chao turned a pencil between his fingers. Ordo observed me from behind large, black reading glasses. After last night’s events, she appeared almost like a worried creature of prey.

And Miral … Miral looked like hell. Or at least, as much as an angel could. She still could have walked in the Victoria’s Secret runway show that afternoon, but her eyes would have been haunted. Dark.

Finally, Miral cleared her throat. “As I’m sure you’re all aware by now, our mission last night was compromised. Hercules was captured by the World Government.”

“Did he go peacefully?” Chao stared hard at his pencil, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Ordo leaned toward Chao, whispering something I couldn’t hear. Her body language looked like she was giving him a reprimand. That was confirmed when he shrugged a shoulder like a petulant teenager and scoffed.

“No,” Miral whispered, “he did not. He fought the entire way, and I fought beside him.”

“How did you escape?” I blurted out.

Miral’s eyes shifted to me. “I did not. They allowed me to go.”

Chao gestured at the angel with his pencil. “Even the World Government knows that Others wouldn’t stand for their precious Miral disappearing in the night. It would be a flashpoint. It would cause rioting. And they want us good and docile.”

“I saw you talking to them,” I said to Miral. “Last night, I saw you talking to Serena Russo just before Hercules was captured. What were you talking about?”

“I was attempting to negotiate with her.” Miral twisted her fingers together. An uncommon show of agitation for the angel. “She was … uncompromising.”

That’s one way of putting it, I thought. Another way would be a ruthless murderer.

Ordo adjusted her glasses, gazing at Miral. “What do they want with the demigod?”

“She’s planning to harvest his DNA,” I said. “He has unparalleled strength. She wants to use that.”

The others turned toward me. “Can you please explain?” Ordo asked.

I cleared my throat. “The World Army’s science branch has pioneered DNA splicing using an advanced version of the CRISPR method. I’ve encountered their latest super soldiers”—Daiski’s face sprang to mind, and the memory of how badly the World Army soldier had defeated all of us on the train to Phoenix—“and they can have the DNA of up to fifty Others spliced in with theirs.” I raised my left hand. My oracle hand, given to me by Serena Russo. “It imbues them with those Others’ powers. That is how I came to possess the power of the Oracle of Delphi.”

Chao went still. “Fifty? I thought your boyfriend had five.”

“He was a prototype,” I said. It was strange to describe Justin, someone I loved, in such a clinical way. “Even six months ago, their methods were still unrefined. He barely survived their experimentation.”

“Six months,” Ordo breathed. “They must be devoting incredible resources to this project.”

“Everything,” I said. “I believe the OtherX and whatever else they’re using is just a distraction from this. This is how they plan to defeat us.”

“By using our own powers against us,” Miral said.

“By using our own demigods against us,” Chao added.

I nodded, swallowing hard.

Chao gestured to my hand. “And why were you spliced?”

I gazed down at my left hand. It looked no different than my right hand, but it felt different. Mine, but not. “Because I swore an oath to Dr. Russo. She needs me to finish mapping the third strand of Other DNA, and in exchange, she gave me my hand back after an accident.”

“Why does she need you to map the strand?” Chao snapped.

I forced myself to meet his hard gaze. “Because if I do not, her teenage son will die.”

A tension settled over the room. I knew it wasn’t just because I had made a deal with Serena Russo, our enemy. It was also because all four people sitting around me were Others, and when Others spoke of oaths, that brought along a certain gravity. We took them Very Seriously.

“You haven’t told us of this oath,” Miral murmured. “Why?”

My stomach clenched up. I felt suddenly duplicitous. Why hadn’t I told the resistance about my oath to Serena? It seemed important for them to know. “Because my oath won’t interfere with the resistance’s work,” I said. “If I finish the mapping, it will only aid us.”

But that wasn’t really true. Completing my oath would require me to go to Serena, to find her son. It would compromise me—and the resistance. It also wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was something deeper, something I couldn’t even articulate to myself yet.

Chao ground his teeth. “Seems treasonous to me.”

Colel Cab spoke up for the first time with a clack-clack of his mandibles. “I find it admirable. I doubt the boy has anything to do with the World Government.”

“As do I,” said Ordo with a small nod. “It is a boon for us to know that one of our enemies is driven by the same love that has brought us all here. It may help us in negotiating with her.”

Miral said nothing, but I could tell by the way she looked at me that she agreed with Ordo and Colel.

“So they have taken Hercules,” the angel said. “And they will harvest his strength from him and put it into their own soldiers.”

“That’s likely already done,” Ordo said. “Must we risk ourselves further by retrieving him?”

My gaze flashed to Ordo, my heart skipping with a sudden shot of betrayal. On the one hand, Ordo admired the principles behind my oath. But on the other, she had just proposed leaving Hercules to the wolves.

Then it dawned on me: she always favored order. And order didn’t involve risky rescue missions. Order meant sacrificing one to preserve many.

We had to rescue Hercules. This couldn’t be an option.

Blood rose to my cheeks. I half-stood from the table, my hands slapping the surface. “Yes, we must.”

Every head swiveled to me.

“Should that even be a question?” I felt suddenly out of breath, my face hot. “Have any of you even seen how Justin is suffering? This morning they tortured Hercules, and the two men are fatebound. Whatever Hercules suffers, Justin suffers—even death. Besides which, why wouldn’t we save them? They’re both members of the resistance.”

Ordo seemed unfazed. “We don’t have the slightest clue where Hercules is, for one thing.”

On the other hand, Chao’s eyes glinted as he sat up straight. “If we extract the demigod, this could be a statement. We could show the World Government what they haven’t yet understood about the resistance.”

“Please elaborate, Chao,” Miral said.

“We won’t just roll over as they expect,” Chao shot back. “We’re prepared to fight for our people. To do whatever it takes to resist. Why call us the resistance if we do nothing but cower and accept the blows we’re thrown?”

I got the feeling Chao just wanted a fight and the resulting disorder, but I wasn’t about to question his motives. As long as they resulted in us rescuing Hercules, I was on his side.

“The demigod is a bit of a loose cannon, isn’t he?” Ordo asked. “As I recall, a month after his arrival in Paradise Lot, he left the safehouse and destroyed the interior of Hera’s Hops & Brew with nothing but his fists.”

“This is true,” Miral said. “But he was quite inebriated, and he did help to rebuild it over the following week.”

“What’s to say that man won’t fly off the handle again, in a worse fashion?” Ordo said. “He does drink frequently.”

If my blood wasn’t rising before, it was downright boiling now.

“That man,” I growled, “has been by my side for months. He’s not just the strongest Other we have—he’s one of the most loyal. He’s the best of what we have to offer this GoneGod World. If we don’t go after him, I’m out.”

Miral’s eyes slowly rose to me. “Out, you say?”

“Yes,” I said. “I can’t align myself with a group who chooses not to rescue the best among their members. One who, even as we speak, suffers at our enemies’ hands. Cupid and Justin and I will find Hercules ourselves, if we need to.”

It was rare in my life I had been this outspoken. In fact, I couldn’t think of another time I had acted this way—I was always passive, shy. As it turned out, a lot could change in a year. And the past year had turned my life upside down.

Nowadays I had to fight for what I believed in, tooth and nail.

Ananda’s influence, I thought. My sister always did what needed to be done. And now that she was gone, I had to carry on her legacy.

“I see,” Miral said slowly. “Well, this was unexpected.”

“Which part?” I asked.

The angel took a breath. “Some differing opinions have been shared as to whether or not we should divert our resources to rescuing Hercules.”

I waited for the angel to lay down her ruling. She was the head of the resistance, which meant she got the final say. And I knew she would choose to save the demigod.

Miral rose. “As always, our actions will come to a vote. And as we always have a fifth in our meetings for this reason, Isabella will be able to participate in this vote.”

“A vote?” I exclaimed. “Nossa Senhora. This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve—”

One of Colel’s insectlike appendages gripped my forearm and urged me back into my seat. The bug god leaned toward me, his whisper more like a whine, “Do not worry. We will act in Hercules’s favor.”

That was vaguely reassuring, though it did raise questions. Who’s we? I thought but didn’t ask. At least it suggested that Colel was sold on getting Hercules back. Still, I couldn’t believe this was even in question. And that Ordo was leading the opposition, of all people. She looked like a flower goddess, a hippie who would make peace signs into a camera, but I’d read her all wrong.

Order didn’t always entail doing the right thing. Sometimes it involved doing whatever created the least commotion.

And without question, rescuing Hercules would cause a hell of a commotion.

Across the table, Ordo and Chao bickered with each other in hushed voices, clearly in dissension.

Miral gestured around the table. “Those in favor of rescuing Hercules, please raise your hand.”

My hand went up. So did Miral’s.

That was it.

I waited for one of Colel Cab’s buglike appendages to go up, but it didn’t happen. Nor did Chao’s hand go up.

“Chao,” I said, “I thought you wanted to fight for our people.”

Chao twisted his pencil between his fingers like he wanted to break it in half. “Ordo’s opinion in this case is stronger than my own.”

“We are two halves of the same,” Ordo explained calmly. “Without order, you cannot have chaos. And without chaos, you cannot have order. We vote together. In this case, the need for order outweighed the need for chaos.”

I threw up my hands. “Then what’s the point of having you both vote on the council?”

“Please, Isabella,” Miral said.

I spun on Colel Cab. “And what about you? I thought you said you’d act in his favor?”

The bug god clicked his mandibles. “It did not seem prudent for us to risk ourselves at this time, given the events of last night.”

I just stared down at him. He had whispered one thing into my ear and voted another way. Liar.

I lifted my eyes back to Chao and Ordo and Miral. “Well, I’m done, then. Good luck to you all.”

I turned and left the council room. I’d expected someone to come after me, a voice to ask me to stay—and if I was completely truthful, I wanted that—but only silence followed me.

When I came into the hallway, Galaxy had just stepped in through the passage leading to the safehouse. “Isa?” she said.

I started past her, determined to fully inhabit my anger. But the nymph’s hand fell on my shoulder. “It’s Justin.”

I stopped hard. “What is it?”

Her eyes were round as planets. “You should come see.”

Chapter 15

Back in the safehouse, Cupid flew over to me with his hands clasped in front of him. Lux rode on his shoulder, looking sorrowful. “Oh Isa! Justin, he’s … he’s ...”

I kept walking. “He’s in a bad way?”

“A very bad way.” He followed alongside as I came to the medical room, where I heard nothing from inside. I braced myself, my muscles tensing as I touched the knob.

For once, Lux was uncannily silent. Which meant it really was bad.

When I opened the door, I found my boyfriend with new wounds. Except that was the gentlest way of putting it. He lay where I’d left him, still under the effects of morphine, but now he was covered in blood. Slash marks covered all four of his limbs, his torso, his face. Blood ran off him and dripped onto the bed, and from there onto the floor.

He looked like an animal prepared for slaughter.

“Merda.” I rushed to his side.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Galaxy said from the doorway. “It all happened so quickly.”

“Maybe treat his wounds?” I grabbed up gauze, pressing it to the places where the blood oozed. It was like trying to clean up a spilled bucket with a single square of toilet paper. “Help him?” The sight of Justin had stripped away my normally firmly-in-place politeness filter and left behind only rawness.

Galaxy appeared by my side, following my lead. “It was so much, all at once.” For a nymph trained as a medic, she seemed especially clueless.

“Think of what they’re doing to Herc!” Cupid threw up his hands. “He must be so scared.”

“He’s a demigod”—I began treating a particularly large cut on his bicep—”he’ll be OK.” For some reason a clear-eyed pragmatism had filtered in. I knew I needed to take care of Justin. I knew I needed to keep Cupid calm. And I knew I needed to find Hercules, the resistance be damned.

I turned to Galaxy. “More morphine, if his body can handle it.”

Galaxy nodded, the constellations in her eyes growing. She prepared the morphine, and as she injected it into his vein, Justin’s body seemed to relax without moving. A certain peace came to his face. His mouth moved, whispered words escaping.

I leaned closer. “What was that?”

From deep in his throat came three syllables, almost incomprehensible: “Me-ga-ra.”

Me-ga-ra?

I didn’t know what he meant.

I set a hand to his cheek. He didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t respond. I’ll fix this, I thought. I will fix this. I just needed to find one demigod on an island of two million humans and Others. No problem.

After twenty minutes of treating Justin, we had done all we could. Down at the end of the bed, Cupid was crying. And not just weeping—full-on sobbing.

I glanced at Galaxy. “Could you give us a minute?”

The nymph’s green hair flowed like water as she nodded. “Of course.”

When the door had closed behind her, I crossed around the bed and set both hands on the small demigod’s shoulders. “Cupid, I need you to hold it together.”

Snot ran from one tiny nostril as he met my eyes. “You don’t understand, Isa. You don’t understand what he’s been through. Did you know, when he was a wee Grecian babe, Hera sent vipers to kill him in his crib?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t know that.”

“She tried to kill him a hundred times, in a hundred different ways,” he went on. “And when she couldn’t do that, she drove him insane. She forced him to kill his wife and all six of his children. He was never the same.”

I went silent, just listening.

“Hercules had always been prone to passions, but after that, he became angrier, more vengeful. And he married again, yes, and completed his labors, and traveled all over the ancient world. But after he killed those children, something hardened inside him, and he became a different man than the hero he once was.” He hiccuped. “And when he died, I wept for the demigod I had known before. The one who embodied kindness and compassion in equal measure to his anger. The one who never resurfaced.”

Unexpected emotion welled in me. It was the thought of losing a part of oneself, an aspect of goodness that could never be refound. To me, that was tragedy. “I’m sorry.”

Cupid shook his head. “No, Isa. You don’t have to be sorry for that, or anything. Because when Hercules returned to the modern world, I began to see glimmers of the man he once was. The true Hercules.” He set a flat palm just below my collarbone, like a child seeking the reassurance of his mother’s presence. “And that was because of you.”

Tears hit my eyes. I didn’t know what to say.

Cupid sighed. “You know, he was my friend back in antiquity, and I liked him then. But now? Now he’s my best friend.”

“He really does love the large demigod.” Lux stroked some of Cupid’s blond hair, affectionate like I’d never seen her before.

I nodded, wiping my eyes. “I care for him, too. Very much. That’s why I need your cherubic brain functioning at full capacity. The council has voted against rescuing Hercules.”

He stopped crying like someone had flipped a switch. Within seconds, rage filled his blue eyes. “They WHAT?”

“I know. I can’t explain it.”

A knock sounded at the door, and we all spun.

I wiped my eyes. “Yes?”

A clicking of mandibles sounded, then, “May I come in?” That was the voice of Colel Cab. And the GoneGodDamn fool who had voted against rescuing Hercules.

I wanted to wring his carapace, but I only lowered my hands from Cupid’s shoulders and cleared my throat. “This isn’t a good time.”

One more click, then, “It’s quite important.”

Cupid and I met eyes, and he nodded.

I straightened, heat rising in my chest. “Come in.”

When Colel Cab came in, he had to lead the long length of his centipede-like body in through the door before he turned around and gingerly pressed it shut.

Cupid, Lux and I waited and watched in silence—and, for my part, a little bit awed by how many legs he possessed. I also wondered how many appendages a bug god could lose before he wouldn’t be able to walk any longer.

After half a minute, Colel straightened, clasping both hands before him as he turned his enormous eyes on me. He didn’t even seem to notice Justin. “I’ve come to tell you something about the council vote.”

I lifted a hand. “I don’t answer to the council anymore. I’m done working for the resistance.”

“That’s right.” Cupid flew up next to me. “And if Isa’s done, I’m done.”

“Me too,” Lux spat.

Colel blinked. “That seems rather rash, considering you haven’t heard my message.”

“All right.” Both hands found the seat of my hips. “What is it?”

“Miral knows that rescuing Hercules is the right thing to do. The principles of Chaos and Order voted against it, and—”

“You voted against rescuing Hercules, too. The deciding vote.” I pointed at him. “Why?”

Colel’s antenna swayed. “It isn’t so simple. A direct attack would be devastating for us, and—”

I narrowed my eyes. “So you share Ordo’s sense of morality. Do good for the greatest number, right? Even at the expense of one or two.” I gestured to Justin.

“That isn’t it. You see, I—”

The door swung open, and Cupid groaned. “Private conversation going on!”

No response came. Just footsteps. The three of us turned toward the doorway, where a cadre of assassins in black had just swept in. Like, full-on kill-you-without-making-a-noise assassins.

How did I know that? Because they didn’t say a GoneGodDamn thing.

↔

I’ve met a few assassins in my life. Most recently, I’d fought a cane-wielder named Daiski, but I hadn’t known he was an assassin until he’d attacked us. He’d been dressed like anyone else—in nondescript clothes—and talked a good, boisterous talk.

These guys, on the other hand, didn’t waste time. Four of them piled with silent intent into the medical room, all clad in black pants and tucked shirts, all with masks covering their faces right up to their eyes.

“Are those …” I began.

“Ninjas?” Cupid finished.

Out came an array of weapons, most of them gleaming under the fluorescent lights. But to clinch it, one even removed a pair of nunchucks and tucked them under his arm in a ready position.

Definitely ninjas. And assassins. Ninja-assassins.

How did they get down here? This was supposed to be the resistance’s most secure holdout.

The front-half of Colel Cab’s appendages began clicking, bringing him around to face the group. “Excuse me, but this is …”

They didn’t give him a chance to finish—they just moved. I’d expected them to come at us, but all four swept around us like river water at either side of a rock.

They weren’t making to attack us. Their eyes weren’t on any of us.

They were laser-focused on the man behind us.

I knelt, sliding El Lobizon’s claw from one boot and Savagem from the other. “They want Justin.”

An arrow thwipped through the air, bit into a cabinet door in an assassin’s wake. Cupid cursed, preparing a second arrow. “No shit.”

Cupid’s arrow had missed? His arrows were fast and he aimed true, which meant these guys were at least halfway competent. Another point in their favor was that they had gotten down here at all. With the magical seal on the entrance, that shouldn’t be possible.

Lux rose into the air and landed on top of a set of cabinets. She grabbed up a bottle of some yellow solution in her arms, ready to chuck it at our enemies.

Our one obvious advantage was that the room was too small for them to maneuver past us without dealing with us. Especially Colel Cab, whose long body filled up about half of it. As the two central assassins made for Justin, the bug god moved his back half with surprising speed, the legs clicking as he flung the end of his body up into the air just as the assassin was about to leap over him. Face met carapace, and the carapace won.

The other one launched something small and shiny from his hand toward Justin, but that too was blocked by Colel Cab’s body. But his carapace wasn’t as hard as I’d thought; whatever had been thrown, the pointy end was now lodged in his body. A small stream of dark blood ran out.

I rose as another arrow zipped through the room behind me. I knew Cupid and Lux could take care of the third assassin. Or at least keep him distracted until help arrived.

Which left me with Nunchucks.

He stood between me and the emergency button by the door that I needed to press to set off the klaxons. If I could set off the klaxons, I could bring in the cavalry. Or maybe just Miral. And if I could bring in Miral, that would be good enough. I mean, just the upper half of Miral probably would have been good enough.

I lowered into a fighting stance. It came easier now; I had been re-honing my skills in the five months since we’d left Vegas. At first everything I had learned from my sister so long ago had come slowly, with aching practice, but in sifting through my memories—the memories that the goddess Yemoja had locked away from me—I had discovered that it wasn’t about remembering what Ananda had taught me.

It was about muscle memory. Blood memory.

Nunchucks and I stared at one another, the two blades in my hands between us. When I gave a slight tick of my head as though to invite him forward, he didn’t move.

He was waiting for me to have the first go.

Well, if he insisted.

I feinted left, and though I didn’t have much experience with nunchucks, what I expected to happen, happened. The end snapped out from under his arm in a straight shot toward me, cracking like lightning. But because I had feinted, it only met air. If that had been my arm, it would now be in two distinct pieces.

Stupid, Isa, I thought. You’ve let him get too close with those things.

Before he could reorient, I tossed El Lobizon into the air and flipped my hand over to catch it with my open palm. I threw it at the button near the door, but he managed to deflect with his nunchuck, and the claw clattered to the ground.

I leapt back to put distance between us, but he didn’t come after me. I should have known by now he would go straight for Justin. After all, the other three had.

Behind me, a thwip! preceded a grunt. Lux tossed the bottle of solution, which clunked on one of the killers’ heads. His body clattered against Justin’s IV stand, and the whole thing crashed to the ground. I spotted the feathering of Cupid’s arrow jutting out of the black clothing just as Cupid said, “Got ‘em!”

Meanwhile, Colel Cab had managed to wrap the end-half of his body around one of the assassins, pinning his arms to his torso.

But that still left one rising from the ground—and Nunchucks, who was free and clear to get to Justin.

I pointed at Nunchucks. “Cupid!”

The demigod turned, his next arrow already nocked.

I spun around, threw Savagem at the emergency button by the door. This one made contact, striking hard. A half-second later, the room filled with the awful, jarring sound that would save us.

Or, I should say, save Justin.

But Nunchucks was still making his last and best attempt to get at my boyfriend. Cupid’s arrow sailed by him, whiffing his clothes, and Nunchucks was angling one of those polished slabs of wood to come down right on Justin’s face.

That is until Colel Cab, with speed I didn’t know he possessed, leaned forward and gripped Nunchucks’ swinging arm with his mandibles. It was only when Nunchucks let out an awful cry I could hear even over the klaxons that I knew for certain Colel Cab hadn’t betrayed Hercules.

Without the bug god in this room, Justin and Hercules both would have died.

Chapter 16

Miral appeared in the doorway, her sword brandished. It was so long that she would have to lower it just to get it through the door frame, and so wide that both my arms put together wouldn’t have equaled its width.

In a single glimpse, she surveyed the scene and ducked through the doorway. Around the room, one assassin lay on the ground, one bore Cupid’s arrow from his arm and had locked lustful eyes with Miral, the third writhed in the grasp of Colel Cab’s long body and the last one was still struggling against the bug god’s mandibles.

Miral grabbed the last assassin by his other arm. “You can let go, Colel.” He groaned as the bug god complied, blood running down his bitten arm and to the floor. He had an enormous gash, through which I could see tendon and bone. “Do you have a firm grasp on the other?”

Colel’s legs clicked as he enclosed the assassin even more tightly. His blood still ran from his carapace to the floor. “Quite.”

“What in the Empty Hell is going on?” Cupid slammed his bow back over his body, drove one of his arrows into his quiver. Lux came to rest atop his head.

An excellent question. Who had sent these killers, and why?

The World Army? Serena Russo? These guys were good, but they clearly weren’t super soldiers—if they had been, we’d all have been defeated as soon as they walked in the door.

Still, they could have been sent by Serena. Except something told me that wasn’t the case—Serena didn’t want Justin dead, because she didn’t want Hercules dead. After all, she already had Hercules in her hands, which meant she had Justin, too. She could kill either of them any time she liked.

So it had to be someone else.

“I don’t know yet.” Miral nodded toward the assassin who had been hit by Cupid’s arrow. “But I assume given the way that one is eyeing me, we can find out without much trouble.”

Cupid glanced over. “Yeah, he’s pretty sweet on you.”

I retrieved my daggers, raising my voice over the klaxons. “They were going for Justin.”

Miral’s eyes fell to Justin on the bed. “They didn’t touch him?”

I approached her. “We made sure of it. How did they get in here?”

“It shouldn’t be possible. We’ll have to check the seal on the entrance.” Miral had begun stripping the assassin in her restraint of all his weapons. Metal clattered to the floor like he had stolen someone’s entire silverware drawer. Miral gestured at the doorway, where two other resistance members had appeared. “Take them all into the adjacent room. Strip their weapons and restrain them.”

I stood back as the assassins were removed from the medical room, leaving behind streaks of blood—both human and Colel’s—and an assortment of weapons. When the klaxons finally turned off, Miral, Cupid, Galaxy, Colel and I still remained.

“Galaxy and Lux,” Miral began, “please treat Colel.”

The nymph and the pixie moved into immediate action. Meanwhile, Cupid and I just stared at Miral.

“Well”—Cupid folded his arms—“so much for the uber-protective door seal.”

Miral shook her head. “This safehouse has been compromised. I do not know how, but I will. Until then—“

“Until then, the four of us”—I gestured to Cupid, Lux, Justin and me—“are going elsewhere.”

Miral seemed unsurprised by my interruption. “Precisely what I was about to suggest.”

I set my jaw. “And we’re going to find Hercules.”

Miral nodded once. “Perfect.”

“And we’re not—” Cupid’s eyebrows went up as he processed Miral’s words. “Wait, ‘perfect?’ ”

“Yes.” Miral gestured around the room. “As you can see, the resistance does not at present have the coordination or unification we need to ensure your safety, or Hercules’s.”

“Or Justin’s.” I pointed at my boyfriend. “What was that about, anyway?” My eyes strayed to Galaxy and Lux, who across the room were wiping at Colel Cab’s puncture, the three of them chatting in low tones.

Miral followed my gaze. “Don’t worry—Galaxy and Colel Cab are among the most trustworthy Others in the resistance. We can speak freely in front of them.”

That still didn’t explain why Colel Cab had voted against rescuing Hercules. But I knew now, at the very least, he wanted Justin to survive badly enough that he would take wounds for him.

I turned back to Miral, awaiting her explanation for the attack.

Miral sighed. “I cannot say for certain whether the attack was targeting Justin, Hercules, or both. The human and the demigod each carry their own worth to the World Army. But I can say for certain that I will figure out that answer in your absence.”

“Our absence? So, what …”—Cupid folded his arms—“you’re sending us off? See ya? Buh-bye?”

I shot Cupid a look. “You want to go anyway.”

“Yeah, but I want the angel to want me to stay.”

“I do want you both to stay.” Miral folded her hands. “But your safety is of paramount importance to me. And I know of no one else as invested in Hercules’s survival as the two of you.”

I tilted my head. “You want my safety, but you’re OK with me hunting down Hercules?”

“Isabella, you of all Others can be anyone you want to be. I have confidence in your ability to evade capture.” She shifted her gaze to Cupid. “The demigod, on the other hand, should remain inside. I have a place in mind for you to go.”

Cupid raised a hand. “Uh-uh. No more ‘safe’ houses. We’re going somewhere the World Army would never think to look.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Where’s that?”

He used his wings to dramatically shift his angle toward me. “Ever stayed at a pixie commune?”

Across the room, Lux rose into the air with a gasp. “Perfect.”

I scoffed. “Of course I haven’t. For one thing, I’ve only known one pixie. And for another thing, I don’t think I’d fit inside a pixie commune.”

Cupid made a face. “It was more of a rhetorical question.”

Lux flitted over. “It’s the exact place you should be.”

“Brilliant idea, Cupid of Eros, and Lux.” Miral set a hand on Cupid’s shoulder. “You should go tonight. And I would present your dilemma to the pixies … such creatures often have insight that others do not.”

When Miral and I met eyes, I could have sworn she winked at me. Did angels wink?

I glanced between the two of them. “What just happened here without my consent?”

Cupid jerked a thumb at his chest, gazing up at Miral. “She can count on me. Always.” His gaze flicked to Lux. “Tonight?”

Lux nodded. “Tonight.”

Mirth touched Cupid’s lips. “Time for a field trip.” His cheeks flushed a little. “You’re quite a gal, Lux.”

Lux turned to me. “I know my sisters would welcome you.” For as curmudgeonly as the pixie often was, she had her moments of absolute, unabashed excitement. And this was one of them.

I made a face. “That still doesn’t resolve the issue of me fitting inside this commune.”

He shrugged. “It’ll be tight, but doable. Skip dinner tonight.”

I made a face at him. “Really?” I muttered a choice phrase in Portuguese.

Cupid gestured to me while talking to Miral. “That means she’s agreed to it.”

Lux clasped her hands together. “Yes, precisely.”

Miral set her hand on my forearm. “You should prepare yourself. You, Justin, Lux and Cupid will leave the safehouse tonight, and you will not be able to return.”

↔

That night, I stood in my laboratory in the safehouse for a final time. I had spent five months here, trying to map Other DNA.

And I still hadn’t finished. I was nowhere close.

The truth was, it couldn’t be done. Not in the time I had been given. Mapping the human genome had taken years and many, many scientists at consistent work. So for me to map the third strand would take at least a decade. By then, I wouldn’t be able to fulfill my oath to Serena Russo, because her son would be gone.

I ran my finger around the rim of a beaker. Here was a truth I couldn’t admit to anyone, not even myself. Not until now, when I would be leaving this laboratory and the safehouse behind.

I couldn’t do it alone.

I didn’t know when I would next get access to a lab. I didn’t know how much it mattered, anyway. The World Army had the resources I didn’t, they had—

“You’re doing that thing again.”

I spun. At the doorway, Justin leaned against the frame, gauze encircling his hands, his arms, blocked the sight of wounds on his face. Despite it, he had a backpack slung over his shoulder. What was he doing here? I wasn’t planning to wake him for another hour.

“What thing?”

He tried a smile, managed only the twitch of a muscle in his cheek. “Letting the negative voice rule your thinking.”

I had told Justin about the competing voices in my head—the Isa of Hope, and the Isa of Fear. Since then, he’d started cluing in to which one was dominating my thoughts just based on my body language.

“I’m afraid.” I folded my arms. “I’ve been afraid so long I don’t remember what it feels like to have regular anxiety.”

I didn’t mention that this all felt hopeless. That I felt like a mouse between a cat’s deft paws. That I was starting to believe the resistance would not overcome.

He laughed, a soft exhale through his nose. “You’re telling me. Try having your fate bound with a demigod who’s been captured by evil, powerful forces now torturing him every six hours.”

Six hours. I hadn’t known that. My own thoughtlessness struck me hard, and I came to him in the doorway. “I’m sorry. We’re going to find him, Cupid and I. We’re going to make this end.” I paused. “What are you doing up?”

“I’m ready for our little adventure. Though I still can’t imagine how we’re going to fit into a pixie commune.”

My eyebrow went up. “I hadn’t told you about …”

Justin tilted his head, as if confused. “You had the whole conversation in front of me, remember? You, Cupid, Miral.”

“You were awake during that.”

He made a sort-of gesture with his hand. “In and out. I hear there was a big fight.”

In which assassins were trying to kill you. But I wasn’t going to mention that if he wasn’t. “Something like that.” I blinked. “You said the torture is every six hours?” I didn’t know how long ago the last one had been.

He nodded. “But don’t worry, I’m keeping track. You see, I’ve got a super-magical piece of tech that’ll help me predict when that will be.” He lifted Daiski’s watch—the same one he had used to call in the World Army when I’d been injured in the Grand Canyon. The same one with a big, dangerous button that could ruin us.

I went to snatch it from him, but he slipped it away from my grasp. GoneGodDamn genetically modified reflexes. “Justin, we need to destroy that. You’ve had it for five months?”

He shrugged. “It’s a watch, isn’t it? And a nice one. A shame to get rid of it, I thought.”

“But the button!”

He flipped the watch, pointed to the spot where the gray button—what Daiski needed to press to make the World Army aware of his location—should have been. But it was gone. In fact, the whole watch looked different. “What button?”

“Did you mess with it?”

“Sure did. As it turns out, the homing mechanism built into the watch wasn’t too difficult to disable. I did so back in the Grand Canyon, just after we called the World Army in. All it takes is something thin and sharp to wedge under the bottom.”

I lifted my eyes to him. “How would you know how to do that?”

“I spent my whole childhood hanging around my dad’s shop. He’s a watchmaker.”

I had never known that. Why hadn’t I known that?

Because you never asked, Isa.

I wanted to ask him if he was sure the watch was totally safe, but I stopped myself. They hadn’t found us in five months, which lent what he was saying credence. Plus, the act of asking would reveal how little I actually knew about Justin.

A watchmaker for a father.

Why hadn’t I ever asked more about him?

The answer came at once: Because infatuation doesn’t require deep knowledge of a person. It only requires your imagination.

And that answer stung. Especially because it occurred to me that Justin knew very little about my past, too.

“OK.” I pointed at the watch. “How long do we have?”

Despite his incredible poker face, I knew he was suffering. He was anxious. He was worried. I could see it in the way his fingers angled the watch with a tremor. “Three hours. That’s if they keep to the same schedule.”

“All right. Since you’re up, we’re leaving now. Cupid will take us to the commune.” I set a ginger hand on his gauzed forearm. “Can you handle that?”

He sighed, his eyes on my hand. “I think so. But I might need a breather.”

For as long as I had known Justin, he would never admit weakness. He could only be strong, through and through, no matter how he felt. Maybe he trusted me more now, because I finally sensed I was getting his real answer.

I nodded. “We’ll go at your pace.”

Chapter 17

Fortunately, Cupid and Lux had a way of getting us there extra fast.

The plan was this: to get to the commune, Justin and I would ride in Cupid’s puff and Cupid and Lux would hold onto the back like water skiers.

We came out the back entrance of the resistance base to a clear, cloudless sky. Post-midnight stillness had enveloped Paradise Lot, and a fingernail moon sat high among the stars.

All three of us stared up from the street. “I don’t even see cirrus,” Justin said.

I shook my head. “There’s nothing.”

Cupid’s response was to grin, stick two fingers in his mouth and give a shrill whistle. As we waited, he circled his hand through the air. “Just give ‘er a chance. She’s coming.”

As promised, something did eventually appear over the rooftops—a type of cloud I had seen once before, back in the Grand Canyon. It moved slow, sluggish, and as it got closer, I saw it had exactly the same problems as the other one.

It was wide and flat, like a deflated air mattress, except where a mattress at least had a surface, the center of this one was so wispy I would have fallen right through if I attempted to climb on it.

As it came down to ankle-level and hovered in front of Cupid, Justin pointed. “That’s not going to work.”

I shrugged. “He’s right, I’m sorry to say. I guess we’re walking.”

“Not to worry, Blondie.” By which Cupid meant me. I had already changed illusions from the night before. With twelve thousand to choose from, I would never run out of faces the World Army had never seen. And since there was a good chance they had seen mine that night, I wasn’t taking chances. “I’ve brought the pump.”

“What is ‘the pump?’ ” Justin air-quoted.

Without further ado, Cupid pulled what looked like a bicycle pump from his loincloth. Don’t ask me how he fit it inside there—those underpants were like a magic bag with an endless bottom. He showed it to the two of us. “You thought I was bullshitting you back in the Grand Canyon. Well, now you know that Cupid of Eros never bullshits.”

Cupid connected the pump’s tube to the edge of the puff and proceeded to do exactly what you’d do to reinflate a flat tire. He pushed the handle up and down, using his wings as leverage to give him more thrust. If we weren’t in such a rush to get out of sight—and if it wouldn’t have wounded Cupid’s ego—I would have laughed. It was kind of adorable.

Lux floated around him, giving directions. “This side still needs some air. Keep going. Come on, put your back into it.”

Within a minute, the puff had inflated to cumulus-levels and was ready to be boarded. Cupid made a grand gesture, bowing. “Step on, my lord.”

Despite his show of casualness back in the safehouse, Justin didn’t even have the energy to comment. He climbed onto the puff, sat down and nodded back at us. “Let’s go.”

I didn’t blame him; he only had two hours before he might have to undergo another round of torture. To that end, I’d brought along medical supplies in my bag, including a lot of morphine.

Cupid grabbed the back edge of the puff, waved me over. “Time’s a wasting.”

When I climbed on, I grasped the puff with both hands. It felt just like the last time I’d ridden on it: as if I were grabbing hold of a mound of cotton candy. Which didn’t exactly inspire feelings of security, especially since I didn’t have wings to save me if I lost my grip.

I looked back over my shoulder. “You’re sure this is safe?”

“Absolutely not.” Cupid patted me on the back as Lux came to rest on the puff, gripping with her tiny hands. “But what has been safe since I came into your life?”

Touche. I turned back around, gripping harder.

Cupid gave the puff a slap as if it were a horse and he had hold of its rump. And the puff did in fact rear up, Justin and I gripping hard to keep hold. A second later, we were off. My hair blew back from my face as we careened down the road and around a corner toward the pixie commune.

And it occurred to me, as we flew through Paradise Lot, that I hadn’t even asked Cupid and Lux where we were going. I knew we were headed toward the pixie commune, but I didn’t have the vaguest clue where pixies would live. In a tree? A house?

Of course, everything shot by at such a clip that I barely had time to process the question before we emerged into a relatively uninhabited section of the Other sector.

Well, uninhabited by living things.

We passed the wrought iron entrance to an old, old graveyard. I knew it was much more ancient than your typical graveyard because it didn’t just have headstones—it had crypts and barrows.

Barrows, also known as tumulus, were something I had read about before. We didn’t have them in Brazil, but they were prolific in Europe and also existed in North America and Asia. They were a form of a crypt, but inside a mound of earth.

I wasn’t so easily spooked by dead things, but being in a graveyard with barrows in the dead of night did send a chill up the length of my spine. And we were only heading deep and deeper in, beyond where the paths led into the untended section.

I glanced back at Cupid and Lux. “There’s a pixie commune here?”

They only grinned at me, which I didn’t find comforting in the least.

Soon we slowed directly in front of a low, sloping barrow covered in grass. As we came to a stop, Cupid and Lux flew to the dark entrance and waved us over. “Come on, then.”

I shook my head. “Inside there? No. Nope.”

Lux gestured toward the entry. “It’s really very nice once you go in. A bit cramped though, so watch your heads.”

Before we could make up our minds, the puff dissipated as quickly as you’d snap your fingers. Justin and I both dropped to the ground—which was thankfully covered in soft grass.

I groaned, assessing the damage. Just aching wrists and knees. “You OK?”

Justin pushed himself to his feet. “In terms of the past twenty-four hours, this wasn’t too bad compared to the rest.”

When we faced Cupid, he wore a tiny, mischievous smile.

I got up. “You did that on purpose.”

“Of course I did.” He nodded toward the entrance to the barrow, into which Lux had already disappeared. “Come on. They’re waiting.”

Justin stepped up beside me. “They?”

“He said it’s a commune.” I stared into the dark depths of the barrow’s entrance, which looked like little more than a hole in a hill. “Communes mean at least three people, right?”

“I’m not sure what anything means in the pixie world.” Justin shrugged, leaning over. The barrow’s entrance barely came to his chest. “We’re going to need to duck walk.”

↔

I followed him in, though I didn’t need to crouch as much as he did; I was at least a half foot shorter. As we passed into the barrow, the moon’s light disappeared and for a moment left us in complete darkness. Around me, the scent of dirt and dust blanketed the space. The entrance was tight enough that I nearly felt the earth brushing my shoulders. Trickles of it fell on my head.

I wondered how many had been buried here. I wondered if reaching out and setting my left hand on the tight-packed dirt would show me memories.

The truth was, I still didn’t fully grasp how the oracle’s powers worked. They seemed to operate independently of me, choosing the time and place. And yet I sensed they served my best interest, because every time they’d come to me, they had saved me.

Just like the oracle herself.

Justin reached back, found my hand. “I see a light.”

I couldn’t see past him, so I had to trust. He kept guiding us forward until we came into a small chamber where our shadows flickered over stone coffins set two apiece at either side, over Cupid rising into the air and making lovey-dovey noises and finally, over the candles which were creating the light.

Justin straightened. We had come into the centermost point of the barrow, where the ceiling rose highest. “Well, this isn’t—”

With a squeal, a tiny pair of arms attached themselves to my cheek. “YoumustbeIsabella!”

I flinched, resisted the urge to grab whatever had attached itself to my face and throw it as hard and far as I could. I wasn’t in danger. I wasn’t being attacked.

I was being loved on by a pixie.

With a soft sweep of air, two more pixies flew close to me, their wings iridescent as they caught the candlelight. My eyes weren’t great in this space, but I could have sworn they were wearing tiny flannel pajamas.

“She doesn’t look like Lux described,” one murmured to the other.

“Apparently she’s some kind of changeling,” the other murmured back.

“But pregnant?” At once, the first pixie zipped down to my belly, hands on hips to inspect.

The third remained attached to my cheek, and I wasn’t sure what to do or say to disattach her. Maybe speaking would jostle her. “I’m Isa.” I squeezed Justin’s hand. “And this is my boyfriend, Justin.”

“They all know who he is!” Lux flew around the other pixies, her general orneriness back on display. Most of the time it was as though she’d gotten too little sleep and hadn’t had her coffee. Behind her, Cupid couldn’t stop staring—or grinning—at the tiny pixie.

He was truly smitten.

“Lux”—I forced a smile—“I’m so glad to be in your home.”

From somewhere in the shadows, a dog barked. I knew that bark. That was Ms. Sparkle’s bichon frise—the dog she had somehow trained to suss out untruths.

“Edward knows you’re lying.” Lux gave a tiny whistle that sounded like someone blowing on a strand of grass. Out from the shadows trotted the little white dog. He came to a seat beneath Lux, who dropped to his head.

“Hello again, Edward.” Despite his yapping, I felt gratitude toward the bichon frise; he had betrayed his owner—Julia Sparkle—in a crucial moment by calling out her own lies with his barking.

The dog’s black eyes stared at me in the candlelight, blinking once.

Lux settled into his fur. “So how do you really feel about our little commune, Isabella?”

“Well, since I’m bound to tell the truth”—I sighed— “I’m cold. I’m scared for Justin and for Cupid and me and Hercules. I’m wondering if we’re any safer here than we were before.”

“Youverymuchare,” said the pixie still attached to my face. “Saferthananywhere.”

Lux pointed behind me. “Dazzle’s right. We pixies live in places of ancient power, of which this barrow is one.” She gestured around to all of us. “And since we are creatures of magic, and places of power gravitate to magic like a cat to milk, it lives in synergy with us.”

I glanced back toward the entrance. “But why does that make this place safe?”

Lux raised a finger. “The only ones who can see the entrance are those we want to.”

“Like your booboo.” Cupid pointed to himself.

She snorted. “No.”

I pointed to the pixie on my cheek. “You called this one Dazzle?”

Lux nodded. She gestured to the one in the blue pajamas. “That’s Glint. And the one beside her in green is Phosphorescence—we call her Phos.”

“I’m pleased to meet—”

Dazzle squeezed me harder. “Wearesoveryhappytofinallyhaveyouhere.”

I tried to turn toward her, but as she was still on my cheek, she only turned with me. “Sorry, what was that?”

Lux gave a hmph. “Slow it down, Dazz. Their brains don’t comprehend as fast as ours. And give her some space.”

A moment later, Dazzle, Glint and Phosphorescence hovered in front of me. They all looked terribly excited, but none said anything.

I cleared my throat. “So—”

“Oh!” Glint flitted in a worried circle. “She’s parched. Drink. You need a drink, don’t you? I’ll get it for you. And the human.” Glint disappeared into an antechamber of the barrow, leaving the rest of us in a brief silence.

Cupid folded his arms. “What about me? I’m thirsty.”

Lux flicked a disdainful hand. “You know the way to the kitchen.”

As Cupid disappeared through the same tunnel Glint had, Justin turned toward me. He was about to say something when Phos snapped her fingers. “They can’t see each other in this light! We need better. Twinkle lights.”

“We’re fine,” I started to say, but Phos was already floating up, and a second later the ceiling of the barrow illuminated with several strands of what did in fact appear to be twinkle lights.

Justin gazed up. “You have electricity in here?”

Dazzle giggled. “Cupid of Eros may have aided us with tapping into Paradise Lot’s power supply.”

“Illegal,” I mouthed to Cupid.

Cupid shrugged. “So sue me.”

Justin went to speak again, but Lux rose up from Edward’s head. “Will you show me your belly? Please?”

I glanced at Lux, back to Justin. And because he could say nothing over the pixies, he only lifted his wrist and tapped the watch face.

Six hours had nearly elapsed. If the timeline we’d figured out held true, we only had thirty minutes left before the next torture session.

Chapter 18

When Glint had returned with a thimble of water for me and we were all assembled, I lifted my hands. “Pixies, I’m more than happy to show you my belly and to answer any questions you have. But right now, I need your help.”

Miral had told me that I should seek the pixies’ insight. It was worth a try.

At once, the pixies’ frenetic motion shifted to a stillness that surprised me. Their eyes even seemed to widen on me as they all came to a seat before me, like I was a storyteller and they my children. Even Edward flopped to a seat in front of me, Lux resting atop him.

So I did what any good storyteller does: I sat cross-legged and started to explain Justin’s predicament. His fate being bound with Hercules, Hercules being kidnapped and tortured by the World Army, the resistance vote against rescuing him, with the principles of Chaos and Order deciding together, and Colel Cab falling in line. And, finally, the attack on Justin.

As I talked, the pixies by turns threw their hands over their mouths or to their faces, gasping and yelping. Phos had at some point acquired an acorn’s bottom of milk, which she clasped between her hands and drank furiously when she heard about the torture.

Apparently I wasn’t the only stress eater among us.

At the end, I let out a sigh. “And that’s where we’re at. We’ve got fifteen minutes to go before they torture Hercules—and Justin—again.” I paused. “Ideas?”

All four pixies began talking at once, their voices blending and jumbling in such a way that I couldn’t make out any one of them. Two of them started participating in what looked like a game of charades, Glint standing upright while Dazzle placed something atop her head.

Justin, seated beside me, just stared. When we met eyes, we both shook our heads. Neither of us could make out what they were talking about.

Cupid walked over and gave a whistle that echoed through the barrow. “Ladies, ladies! Please remember that Isa and Justin go at a slower pace.”

The pixies seemed to wilt a little, their wings drooping as they re-remembered this frustrating truth. They all came together and whispered at a pace which I couldn’t even begin to make out. It sounded like leaves rustling in the wind.

Finally, Lux turned toward me. “Come into the sitting room.”

Justin and I began to stand, and they all flew over and urged Justin back to his seat. “You won’t fit. It’s quite a small passage.”

My eyebrows went up. “But I will?”

“You’re a changeling.” Glint touched my shoulder. “Surely you can change into a smaller form.”

“I don’t have …” But I didn’t finish, because that wasn’t true. I did have a smaller form among the twelve thousand I had taken on over the years. Once I took on an illusion, I never forgot it. It remained with me forever.

And this one was a child’s form.

The only time in my life I had ever taken on the illusion of a child was a hundred years ago. But I hadn’t done so since then—not only because it hadn’t been necessary, but because it would hurt too much.

I forced my voice to remain steady as I spoke. “Can you just tell me your ideas out here?”

“Too many distractions.” Phos shook her head. “Too much space.”

It seemed silly, with Justin’s life at risk, not to do this simple thing if it meant the pixies would give us a chance at finding Hercules. But at the same time, it felt like a greater trial slaying the hundred-headed dragon Ladon in Central Park.

A trial of the heart—of grief. Those were always the most challenging.

I didn’t know what changing into this form would mean for my pregnancy. I had been forced to change illusions many times over the past five months, and the baby had persisted inside me through all of them. But in a child’s body? It felt strange—wrong.

I closed my eyes. “I’ll come. Just give me a moment.”

When I saw him in my mind’s eye, I couldn’t stop the wave of emotion. I clenched my teeth together, because right away I was remembering my godson’s delight at seeing his own three-year-old image before him, a perfect replica. We used to play hide and seek when I babysat.

When I shifted into him, my clothes grew enormous on my shrinking body, and soon I was the size of Hinata’s boy as he’d been—would always be, in my mind—before he’d died.

Joao.

I opened my eyes to Cupid snickering. “Uh, how does that all work anatomically?”

I glanced down. I was a three-year-old, but there was no indication of my pregnancy. A moment of panic ripped through me and my hand shot to my belly. Right then, I felt something. I didn’t know whether it was encantado power or the oracle’s power, but my baby was still alive. Still inside there. Of course I couldn’t see it—my fetus was only the size of a tennis ball at this point.

I got up, pressing both hands to my legs to leverage me upright. “Don’t ask.” Even my voice sounded like his: small, airy. I wasn’t in the mood for jokes; I just wanted to get this over with.

Justin stared down at me. “Who are you?”

I shook my head. I hated hearing Joao’s voice because I had loved it so much, so I just turned away.

The pixies threw my own shirt around me as a blanket, and I followed them on slow, uncertain feet through the passage that led into the sitting room. Here, a much smaller room in the barrow, the five of us barely had room to fit without being pressed up against each other. A single candle illuminated the space, where a hole in the wall suggested someone important had long ago been buried here.

“Sit.” Lux pointed at the center of the room, where a circular mat sat on the floor.

I did as she instructed, and all four pixies came in front of me.

“All right”—Dazzle clapped her hands together and pointed at Glint—“it’s very clear what’s going on. She’s the tree, and I’m placing the acorn atop her.” Once again, Dazzle mimed setting an invisible acorn on Glint’s head. As she did, Glint’s hands went out in an isn’t it obvious? gesture.

I just stared. I didn’t get it.

Lux harrumphed and rose into the air. “It’s like grass growing on a leaf!” When I didn’t follow, she threw her hands out. “A triangle balancing on its head?”

Phos lifted a finger. “The fruit inside the seed.”

Glint leapt onto Dazzle’s shoulders. “The ground above the sky.”

I just shook my head.

With a cleared throat, Lux snapped her fingers together for the other three. Soon they stood in a line in midair, their wings fluttering like crazy to keep them completely still. Lux turned to Glint, and with a suddenness that surprised me, pointed straight up in the air.

As she did, Glint stared down at the ground.

Then Phos turned to Dazzle. With the same suddenness, she pointed left. As she did, Dazzle looked straight up.

This strange game of Simon Says continued between the four pixies, with each “leader” pointing in one direction, and each follower looking in the wrong direction.

Finally, when I was about to ask what in the Empty Hell was going on, Lux pointed straight down and said, “It’s never where you point!”

“Never where you point,” the others repeated in synchrony.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “I don’t get it at all.”

The four pixies stopped at once, all turning to me. They looked baffled, and began whispering to each other in low tones. Phos shrugged, folded her porcelain arms. But the other three seemed to have come to a consensus.

As one, they sent Lux over to me, who hovered in front of my belly. She extended one minuscule finger toward it. “It’s this. Can’t you see? It’s this.”

My baby?

One protective hand slid over my stomach. “My child?”

They all nodded ferociously, which made me even more wary. Soon they were chattering about acorns and seeds again, trying to cement their point. The pixies seemed so sure of themselves, but none of what they were saying made any sense. What did any of this have to do with the attack on Justin? With Hercules? They kept going with their charades, babbling and making strange, inexplicable noises until I couldn’t take it any longer.

We had been sitting here for fifteen minutes and we had accomplished nothing.

I slapped my tiny fists on my legs. “This is all just chaos!” Joao’s voice came out of me, high and musical as a three-year-old’s would be, and tears sprang to my eyes with sudden force.

Lux waved her hands through the air. “Exactly! Look. Look closely.” She and the other pixies flew toward the back of the room, and as one all four lifted what looked like a flat portrait. When they turned it around, I found my reflection staring back at me in a broken mirror.

Joao’s reflection stared back at me. The dark eyes, the black hair. The perfectly formed face. Except it was all distorted, broken. A child’s sob escaped my throat, and I began backing my way out of their sitting room, tears streaking down my cheeks.

This was the wrong choice. Even after a hundred years, it was too soon to take on this illusion. Maybe it would always be too soon. The hurt of losing Hinata and Joao was too raw, too real. The wound hadn’t even begun to close, and Ananda’s death in Las Vegas had only deepened it.

As I came into the central room, Cupid and Justin stared at me with wide eyes. “Isa?” Justin reached for me.

I crawled out of the sitting room. “I need to get outside.”

Cupid set a staying hand on my head. “That’s a bad idea, baby.”

Within a second, I had shifted into the illusion of a fully-grown woman. Cupid’s hand looked tiny set to the crown of my head, and I shrugged it off. “Don’t test me right now.”

As I pulled my shirt and pants back on, the pixies sprang out of the sitting room behind me. Glint flew right up to my face. “Isa, listen!”

Phos clasped pleading hands together. “It makes complete sense.”

I ignored them. “Justin, what time is it?”

Beside me, I heard a certain relief in his voice. “We’re past time. Nothing happened.”

My eyes shot up to meet his. “No torture? Nothing?”

“Not this time.”

“Thank the GoneGods.” I pulled on my boots. “Pixies, we’re going outside for a few minutes.”

Lux groaned. “But you just need to understand …”

My throat was closing, a wave of sorrow threatening to take me over. “I can’t.” I half-stood, crouching as I crossed toward the barrow’s entrance. “Not right now.”

↔

As I passed into the cemetery and straightened, the cold enclosed me at once, forcing my arms across my chest. Not ten feet away, a marble bench glinted under the moonlight. I could only imagine how frigid it was, but I crossed toward it anyway.

Right now, I felt as though I deserved frigidity. I deserved to shake with cold. And as I sat down and the coldness of the stone seeped through my pants, I just bore it.

Justin sat down next to me. “What happened?”

“I went into the pixies’ little room and I listened to them chatter on about nonsense for the last fifteen minutes.” I breathed out, the air leaving my mouth like smoke. “And meanwhile, I accomplished nothing. Here we are, still in a cemetery, and you and Hercules are in the same predicament.”

His warmth seeped into my side. I wanted to press toward it, but I felt like I shouldn’t. Like I couldn’t. I didn’t deserve warmth.

“This is something else. Something deeper,” he whispered. “I can hear it in your voice.”

Even in his suffering, he was focused outward. On me. That was a remarkable thing, especially as suffering pressed us inward. Like it was doing to me.

I stared at the grass. I couldn’t explain to him why becoming Joao had hurt me so badly—why it should matter to him. If I had ever told Justin about Hinata and Joao, he would understand at once. But I hadn’t. I hadn’t told him about my best friend from Brazil, the little boy she’d borne, the way they’d died. Brutally, tragically.

But he did know about my sister and how she’d died. He’d been there for it.

And he’d been with me the entire time. He deserved an honest answer.

I forced myself to voice the thoughts echoing in my head, terrible as they were. “I fail people, Justin. A long time ago, I failed someone so badly that even seeing the face of her son is too painful. I failed Ananda, my own sister. And you and Hercules …”

I didn’t finish. I couldn’t.

His warm breath issued next to my ear. “Why do you think you’re failing me and Hercules?”

I closed my eyes. I didn’t speak.

“Isa,” he said again, calm and patient, “why do you think you’re failing us?”

My fingers curled, the nails digging into my palms. “Because I’m doing this—right now. You’re both suffering, and I’m pitying myself instead of figuring out whatever the hell it is the pixies are talking about.”

“I’ll admit, the past two days have sucked. Really sucked.” His thigh touched mine. “But it’s not your fault, Isa. Not Hercules, not me. Not Ananda. You blame yourself for things so often it’s like you enjoy the shame.”

Something wrenched in me. It felt like Justin had touched on a truth I hadn’t even known existed, and I recoiled from that like I’d had a thumb tack pushed into my arm. I leaned away from him on the bench, as though he was the source of my pain.

In a way, he was. He was the truth-teller.

He’s right.

“Maybe I deserve shame.” My hand slid to my belly. “You know, this baby …”

“What about this baby?”

I opened my eyes and allowed everything the Isa of Fear was telling me to pour out my mouth. “After everything that’s happened—shifting forms, poisoning with OtherX, all the stress—how is it possible she’s survived? She might not even come to term. She has a slow heartbeat. And if she does make it through, she might not even be healthy. She might have to live with a hole in her heart.” I swallowed, whispered, “Maybe this baby shouldn’t be.”

Justin gripped my hand away from my belly, as though I could do something reckless. “That’s insane.”

“Is it?” I turned on him. “Or is it just being clear-eyed about the whole thing? You didn’t want to be a father, anyway. You wanted to be with Kat.”

He flinched, but didn’t break eye contact. “Maybe that was true. Maybe it still is, a little bit. But I’ve been with you longer than I was ever with Kat, Isa. And even if we didn’t know each other very well at the beginning of all this, the past year has forged something between us. Something real. I know you now, through your actions, your choices. And I know that wasn’t you talking just now.”

Maybe it still is, a little bit. A little bit. And despite the beauty of what he’d said, my neurotic brain fixated on the hard, awful seed mixed in with it. I wanted to scream and cry at once. I wanted to rip my arm away from his hold. I wanted to … to …

To wreak chaos.

This is what the pixies meant, Isa.

He must have seen the conflict pass across my face in the stillness between us, because he said, “What are you thinking?”

“Chaos,” I whispered. I stared at him like he possessed the answers to life. The rational part of me surged forward. Something had clicked into place—a clue. A clue to what the pixies meant. “Grass growing on a leaf.”

Justin stared at me like I’d lost all sense. “Grass?”

My eyes widened. “It shouldn’t be.”

“The ground above the sky,” I went on, repeating their phrases. “Never where you point. It’s all chaos. It all shouldn’t be.”

His grip slid up my arm, as though he could tether me to sense with his hand. “Isa, please. I don’t understand.”

My gaze fixed on him. “It makes total sense. The pixies were trying to explain to me that Hercules shouldn’t be.”

Justin’s brow furrowed. “Hercules? What does he have to do with this?”

“Hercules died two thousand years ago.” I rose from the bench, the cold forgotten. “But now he’s back. That defies the order of life and death. Of the universe.”

Justin stood. “What are you getting at?”

I kept pacing, all the connections unfolding in my mind.

Ordo had sent the assassins to kill Justin.

It made total sense. Ordo had voted against rescuing Hercules because she wanted him dead, and she wanted the easiest possible path to the greatest possible order. Only one person would have to die in order for her to get to Hercules: Justin.

Ordo had removed the Odium from the door and allowed the assassins into the headquarters. She had sent them to kill Justin.

A single death presented the least chaos. It subverted the possibility of Hercules being broken and turning against the resistance. It maintained order. Which, in this case, made Ordo my enemy. The woman with the wild curls, the woman with the floral skirt and glasses, for whom I’d felt an almost immediate affection.

She wanted Hercules dead. She wanted Justin dead.

Which meant I had to stop her, one way or another, before she accomplished that goal.

“Isa?” Justin said.

I stopped pacing. “Ordo doesn’t want Hercules alive. By trying to kill you, she’d be killing Hercules and restoring order to the universe.” I stared at him without seeing him. “And that explains the pixies.”

“What explains the pixies?”

“They were trying to show me the meaning of chaos.” I mimed setting an acorn on top of a tree. “Hercules’s very existence creates chaos. That’s why Chao wanted to rescue him—because a battle would create chaos just as well as Hercules himself. Hercules’s existence serves chaos.”

Justin looked totally baffled. Of course, he hadn’t really talked to the principles of order and chaos. He had no idea what had transpired at the council meeting.

But I knew.

It was Ordo who was working against us. She wanted to see Hercules dead. And from what I understood about the principles, whichever had the stronger opinion on a matter overruled the other. Which meant that Ordo’s feelings about seeing Hercules dead were stronger than Chao’s over his rescue.

That also meant I had a potential ally in Chao.

If I was correct about all this, he was who I needed to see.

↔

I led Justin back inside the barrow, where Cupid was standing in front of all four pixies, singing a ballad.

I didn’t even know Cupid could sing, much less ballads. But it seemed love brought out all those exceptionalities—especially in Lux, whom I had never seen with such a smitten look as she swayed alongside her sisters.

Justin and I sat, patiently awaiting the finish of Cupid’s song. Anxiousness ran through me like a live wire, so I wasn’t totally listening to his words—but one line did leap to the fore of my mind.

Hero of old, hero of everyone. The man turned god.

Cupid was singing of Hercules.

Hercules, whom I had promised I would help avenge a great wrong if he remained by my side. Hercules, who had done as promised, day in and out, always there.

Until now.

His absence felt like a palpable thing, a hole in my side through which someone could see. Without him, none of this felt right. Until we had avenged a great wrong, I would not fulfill my promise to him. And if there was nothing else I would be remembered for, I wanted to be a creature who kept her word.

When Cupid’s song ended, the pixies all sighed.

Glint’s iridescent wings fluttered. “Oh, that was lovely.”

“Wasn’t it?” Phos agreed.

“Say, are there any other Cupids floating around?” Dazzle’s fingers waggled through the air, her expression mischievous.

“Two, actually.” Cupid grinned. “But none like me.”

Lux floated to his side. “And this one’s mine.”

I cleared my throat. “Pixies?” Every face turned to me, as though they had only just noticed us. “Back in the sitting room—”

Glint’s hands clapped together. “Are you all right now, Isa?”

“She seems much better.” Phos pointed at my face. “No tears, see?”

Before they could all chime in, I interjected myself. “I need to talk to Chao—the principle of chaos.”

The pixies all stared at me with incomprehension.

I needed to put this in their terms. “I have to explain to the principle of chaos that sometimes grass can grow on leaves.”

The pixies’ faces brightened up. “Yes, of course!” said Glint. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Well, at least they got it. “Does anyone here know where Chao lives?”

All the pixies tittered.

Justin looked as baffled as me. “What’s so funny?”

“Every Other in Paradise Lot knows where Chao and Ordo live.” Dazzle mimicked the outline of two houses with her hands. “Side by side, Bread Street. One house nearly overgrown, the other a perfect construction of brick.”

I pointed at Dazzle. “You know how to get there.”

At this, all four pixies leapt into motion, showing me the route to Chao and Ordo’s homes. Except each pixie was describing a different route, their hands zigzagging through the air. Then they began arguing with each other over which path was fastest.

I leaned toward Cupid. “Are they always this exhausting?”

“Sure, but think of all that energy in the sack.” Cupid winked at me.

I made a face. “Just to clarify, that was not a mental image I ever wanted.”

“How would you even … ?” Justin began pushing invisible parts together with his hands.

“Oh, you sweet child of the GoneGod World.” Cupid laced his fingers together. “When you want it bad enough, you make it happen.”

Justin and I exchanged a look. An invisible thought passed between us, and we both nodded. We were never going to ask about the intimate details of Lux and Cupid’s relationship.

“Right.” I circled a finger, finally landing on Phosphorescence. “I pick your route. Phos, tell me how to get to Chao’s house.”

Justin cleared his throat. “Us.”

Cupid nodded. “And me.”

I shook my head. “No, Justin. Your death would be as good to Ordo as Hercules’s death.”

“And we’re not going to see Ordo.”

“According to the pixies, they live next door to one another.”

Dazzle nodded. “They do.”

I gestured at Dazzle for effect. “So if Ordo glimpses you having tea with Chao through the window, we’re screwed.”

“And what are you and Cupid going to do?” Justin had that hard look to his jaw. I knew that look well. “Convince Chao to betray Ordo and help you rescue Hercules?”

“I hadn’t thought through it fully, but something like that.”

Cupid set a finger to his chin. “I wonder if I could shoot him with an arrow.”

Lux gasped. “Oh, you idiot. Principles wouldn’t be affected by your arrows. They’re all-powerful.”

Justin turned his gaze from Lux to me. “You’re going to convince an all-powerful principle to betray the yin to his yang?”

An idea flowered in my mind. “Not me … Miral.”

Glint’s eyes widened. “You can become an angel?”

“Well,” I began, “I’ve never tried. But we encantado can take on the appearance of cousin races to humans, like elves and giants. Why not angels?”

Cupid nodded slowly. “Your words would carry a lot more weight.”

Lux shook her tiny head, her blonde hair swaying. “I doubt it’ll work. He’s the principle of chaos, and you think he can’t see through an illusion? He perceives life and death, order and disorder on a cosmic scale.”

I eyed Lux. “Are you sure about that?”

“Well, I …” Lux appeared flustered. If there was one thing I knew the pixie hated, it was being wrong. And her moment of uncertainty told me everything I needed to know. “Yes, I’m sure.”

She wasn’t sure.

“I’ll just test the water.” I cast my eyes around the assembled group. “No betrayal—just a chat to suss out as much of the truth as I can without threatening any strictures of chaos or order. In case you’ve forgotten, we encantado are marvelous actresses.”

Cupid folded his arms. “You’re not going without me.”

“Please take him with you.” Justin’s jaw had softened. “If I can’t be there, I want someone who loves you by your side.”

Lux patted Cupid on the head. “Bring him as your squire. He’s very good at taking orders.”

The look Cupid gave me wasn’t at all what I expected. Normally he’d be complete indignant about a rib like that, but his eyes flashed with devious merriment.

I cleared my throat. “Sure, fine.” I didn’t even want to continue down that line of conversation. “We go first thing in the morning, then.”

And with that agreed, I spent my first night sleeping in a cemetery. I didn’t know if I dreamed it or actually heard it, but I could have sworn I heard tiny moans of pleasure from the barrow’s nether realms.

I really hoped I’d only dreamed it.

Chapter 19

Six hours later, I woke to Justin screaming. A soft morning light issued in through the barrow’s entrance, which allowed me to see the outline of him on his knees, keeled over and clutching his head.

“They’re digging in,” he groaned.

I rose at once, both hands going out to support him. I didn’t know what to say. There was no point in asking him what was happening, because I knew it was another form of torture. And there was no reason to tell him he would be OK, because I didn’t know.

I only knew that whatever he was suffering, Hercules was experiencing identical suffering. And I couldn’t make it stop.

“Where are they digging in?”

He slapped at the side of his head. “Here. Here.”

I couldn’t see anything where he indicated—not a cut or even a red mark.

Two of the pixies shot out from one of the side chambers, clutching their hands together and fretting.

Glint flew to me. “Oh! What do we do?”

Phos came to my other side. “Milk? Would that help?”

Cupid and Lux drifted sleepily from another chamber. “What is all that—” Cupid began, then blinked hard. His mouth closed, and he seemed awake and sober all at once.

Justin screamed, leaning into my arms. I couldn’t stop this, but maybe I could ease the pain—for both him and Hercules.

I snapped my fingers at the pixies. “There’s morphine in my bag.”

By now all four were in the center of the barrow with us, and three of them flew at once to my bag. One gripped the zipper with both hands, tugging at it like she was trying to drag a millstone. Another came to her aid, and together they pulled the zipper open and began rooting around inside.

A minute later, one lugged the bottle of morphine and another an empty syringe above her head. At that moment, Justin threw up.

Cupid came over, setting one hand on his back. When the demigod and I met eyes, the look exchanged between us was one we had never shared before.

Pure resolve.

We were both determined to rescue Hercules. Maybe not for precisely the same reasons, but both our paths led to the same place. So that by the time I had given Justin the dose of morphine and laid him down with the pixies attending to him, Cupid flew to my side with his bow and arrows already strapped on.

“I’m ready,” he said. “Let’s go talk to Chao.”

I had known him long enough that it was rare he was ever completely serious. But right now, he bore not an ounce of humor.

And staring down at Justin, I felt the same way.

This suffering couldn’t continue. It simply couldn’t.

That dark, burning anger I had felt toward Serena Russo prickled my skin. She was responsible for this. She was doing this to them.

I had to save them. And to save them, I had to become Miral. If I was going to convince Chao, I would take on the illusion of the angel. I would burn two months off the end of my mortal life.

Burning time to change illusions was always a painful sacrifice, but if there were ever a worthy cause, it was this one.

“We’ll go.” I sat, crossing my legs. “I just need to change first.”

When I closed my eyes, I envisioned the angel. Her dark hair, strands of it chestnut under the sunlight. Her blue eyes. The arch of her wings folded to her—

Cupid tapped my shoulder. “Can’t you do it on the way?”

“Oh no!” Dazzle exclaimed. “Too dangerous. She cannot be outside during the day.”

“Agreed, agreed,” Phos said.

I shot Cupid a Was that really a necessary interruption? look, which resulted in a shrug. “Do your thing, baby.”

My thing. Since we’d become mortal, I relished my “thing” and feared it all at once. Illusions were my power and the quickest way to my end. As it turned out, mortality was full of contradictions.

Once more, I closed my eyes. I pictured Miral as she had looked from my vantage as she’d carried me into the sky. The flex of the muscles in her neck, the perfect jawbone in the moonlight as she gazed upward. It was easiest to carry off an illusion when I had seen the person I would become in motion—how they swung their arms, how their cheeks dimpled when they smiled.

Because, without motion, an illusion was just a picture. It was in motion—in speech, in idiosyncrasies—that I became the person. Or the angel, as it were.

I heard one of the pixies gasp, but I had already sunk away from the world around me. Magic sailed over me like a cool, intoxicating breeze. I was completely enveloped by my body, a caterpillar in a cocoon, as my bones lengthened, my muscles rebound themselves, the skin took on fresh pigment. All these I was familiar with, but it was the wings that threw me for a loop.

I had never experienced the sensation of sprouting wings from my back. And because an angel’s feathers were held to their wings by an intricate overlay of muscle over bone, I had the unique experience of knitting together the best approximation of an angel’s wings as I could manage.

It was only when my head pressed up against the ceiling of the barrow that I came back to the present. From the much-farther-down floor, everyone stared up at me.

Lux flew up to my face, which was pressed nearly straight down. An unexpected claustrophobia hit me as the pixie touched my nose. “That was impressive.”

Ten minutes and one costume change later, we left Justin the care of the pixies and emerged from the barrow as angel and demigod. Well, I should say I struggled out of the barrow as an angel.

More accurately, I had to grip Cupid’s hands as he pulled me out of the entrance. I fell to my knees once my wings came free, dirt dribbling all around me in the graveyard.

Cupid wiped his brow. “They don’t pay me enough for the work I do.”

I rose. The world came into view below me, and I turned a slow circle. “Nossa Senhora, I’m tall.”

Cupid started toward the graveyard’s entrance. “Probably best to keep the Portuguese exclamations to a minimum.”

“Right.” I took a deep breath, thinking of Miral’s speech. No Portuguese, few contractions.

“Say”—Cupid flew up behind me, touching my wings—“do these work?”

“I … I don’t know.” I tried to unfold my wings. “Are they moving?”

“I think so. the feathers are quivering.” He clucked his tongue. “Never mind. That’s just the wind.”

“Yeah, don’t expect any free angel rides any time soon.”

“Drat.” Cupid zipped out from around me. “It was worth asking, anyway.” He flew a few yards, then stopped and turned. “Are you coming?”

I stood up straight in my makeshift robes—what were actually some sheets the pixies had gotten from the GoneGods knew where. “I am always ready, Cupid of Eros.”

Cupid’s fine-haired eyebrows rose, and I knew I’d nailed the impression.

Which meant it was time to see about chaos.

↔

As it turned out, none of the pixies’ directions had been good ones. We ended up taking a circuitous route through the Other sector—by the end of which Cupid was complaining with shameless fervor—until, just after eight in the morning, we came to what were unmistakably the principles’ houses.

Just like the pixies had said: a house nearly overgrown, and one of brick. They sat almost at the center of the Other sector, nestled deep into the city, along the sort of side street where you were guaranteed not to have to deal with a homeowners' association. Except where the other residences looked like apartments and rundown tenements, the principles’ houses were separated by an alley, the two nestled together.

The overgrown house had once been of brick, but was now covered in vines. And not just covered—they sprouted from wide-open windows and the half-shut front door. What had once been a postage-stamp front lawn was now grown up so far the grass was nearly as tall as me. The sidewalk to the door was lost to overgrowth. Birds twittered, flew in and out of the windows and landed on nests set in the gutters or the windowsills.

Cupid whistled as we approached. “Well, it’s pretty clear which one is chaos’s home.” He started toward the front door of the overgrown house, but I stopped him with a hand set to his chest.

I pointed at the manicured house beside it. The lawn was perfectly cut, the windows shut, the door freshly painted red. It even bore a wreath on its front. “That’s the house we want.”

Cupid laughed. “Oh, come on.”

“I’m not joking.”

He gestured at the overgrown house. “Uh, pure chaos? Come on.”

I started toward the manicured house. “That’s the order of nature, Cupid. It’s natural. This”—I pointed at the cared-for home—“is unnatural. It’s chaos.”

Cupid sighed with flapping lips and followed after. “Whatever you say. You’re the Commander of the Lord’s Army.”

“And don’t you forget it,” I whispered as we approached. I clasped my hands before me, gathering myself up to Miral’s perfect posture. I didn’t see signs of life in either house, which I took as a good thing.

If my theory was correct, I didn’t want to see Ordo.

Cupid and I came to the stoop of the manicured home. I pressed the door chime, and a soft, pretty set of notes caroled inside the house. But they weren’t birdlike—they were a human ditty. Definitely Chao’s place.

My heart had been hammering in my chest since we’d left the barrow. But as always happened when the moment on stage came, a certainty filled me. I could do this. No one but an encantado had ever seen through my illusions.

We were the most masterful illusionists in the world.

When Chao opened the door, he stood in a red, silk bathrobe. His black hair was expertly combed to his head, and his chin shone like he’d just shaved and moisturized. Those keen eyes sized me and Cupid up in one glance. “Miral.”

I lowered my chin. “Good morning, Chao.”

“Please, come in.” He indicated Cupid. “Both of you.”

I extended my hand to ferry Cupid in beside me as I ducked through the door frame. I had to be mindful about the proportions of things relative to my new size. “I apologize for the unexpected visit.”

“Not at all.” Chao led us through a perfectly decorated foyer, the wooden walls glowing with a golden lustre. Everything had been placed just so—paintings on the walls, the deep red carpet set at the exact center of the room, the coat rack equally balanced by an umbrella and scarf on one side, a trench coat on the other. He must live better than any Other in all of Paradise Lot.

“Given the state of things, I wasn’t surprised to find you at my door.” Chao led us into his living room, where a mug of coffee sent clear wisps of heat into the air. On the same end table, Paradise Lot’s Financial Times sat open to the second page.

In the same moment that I wondered what it was Chao did for work, the answer came to me. The financial industry. And such an industry was, of course, based on an entirely human construction.

Money.

This was the truth of chaos: it was everything unnatural. It was the hewn blades of grass on his front lawn and the upholstered couch Cupid and I sat on. It was the clock ticking on the wall, the pendulum being swung by a mechanical device I couldn’t see.

It was the silk pajamas that folded softly to Chao’s form as he resumed a seat in his armchair. It was the tea or coffee he offered us to drink.

“Coffee,” Cupid said at once. “Black.”

I lifted a hand. “I am fine.”

I had no idea how I was going to convince Chao to rescue Hercules. Was it even possible for me to entice the principle of chaos to follow a different path than the principle of order?

I would have to find out.

When Chao had set Cupid’s coffee on the table before him, I set my hands in my lap and sat forward. “Chao, I have come about the council’s vote.”

Chao picked up his own mug, crossed one ankle over the opposite knee. “As I expected. It was a controversial thing.” His eyes drifted to Cupid, clearly wondering why I had brought the demigod.

I set a hand on Cupid’s leg. “Have you met Cupid of Eros?”

Chao shook his head with slow assurance. “I have seen him throughout history. He brings delicious chaos with those arrows.”

I swallowed. “He came to us about six months ago, and he has since become a valued member of the resistance.”

Cupid lowered his mug from his face, leaving a wet mustache. “The delicious chaos-bringer is pleased to meet you.”

“And you.” Chao’s dark eyes returned to me. “If you’d like to talk about the council vote, you’re in luck—Ordo will be arriving shortly.”

My chest seized, and I nearly lost Miral’s composure. “Oh?”

The tiniest hint of mirth touched Chao’s lips. “Trying times require the principles of the world to meet regularly. And the imminence of this war is what you would unequivocally call ‘trying.’ Is it not, Miral?”

He was staring at me, but I could only process one word.

War. He had said war.

Chapter 20

Cupid coughed. “Sorry, the imminence of what?”

Surprise crossed Chao’s features, his eyes returning to mine. “Has the demigod not been informed?”

I tried to keep my face neutral. Miral hadn’t mentioned the possibility of a war to me. With whom? Over what? I could only guess it had to do with the World Government. “Not as yet. But we can speak freely in front of him. I have full confidence in Cupid of Eros.”

“Very well.” Chao sat forward, setting his mug down. “Clearly something brought you here. I assume it has to do with Hercules.”

My mind was still revolving on Chao’s reference to war, but I forced a modicum of attention toward the conversation. “Yes. I sensed quite strong dissension between you and Ordo over the vote.”

“Your sense was correct.” Chao lifted a mug set atop the Financial Times. “If war will come regardless, I would have chosen to bring the pot to a boil sooner than later. At the least, we would have had the opportunity to bring the demigod to our side.”

“To our side,” I repeated. “He has always been on our side.”

“But he will not be. Not for long.”

Cupid bristled beside me. “You’re wrong.”

“Oh?” Chao eyed Cupid. “Why is that?”

“Hercules has become the paragon of strength and goodness he embodied in his earliest days.” Cupid set his mug on the table, a few drops sloshing out. “He would never leave our side.”

Chao turned his own mug between his hands. “He was broken in antiquity. Ordo is convinced he can be broken again. In any case, it does not matter—in this instance, I was overruled.”

“But aren’t you two like yin and yang?” Cupid drew the symbol in the air. “Equals?”

“Something like that, yes. Which means we must always act together to maintain such a balance. And in the case of Hercules, he presented too great an imbalance toward chaos for Ordo to accept his existence.”

So I was right: by Ordo’s standards, Hercules should not be. He defied the natural order of life.

“You believe a war will come,” I said.

“Oh yes.” Chao pointed at me. “You know as well as anyone, Lord Commander of God’s Army, that with humanity comes war. It’s just a matter of when. And with the capture of Hercules by the World Government, such a thing presents itself with aching keenness.”

I had to be cagey about this without giving myself away. “Humanity leans toward war, yes. But what part does Hercules play in that keenness?”

“Breaking us,” Chao said at once, his eyes flashing. “Can you imagine Hercules, the paragon of ancient strength and courage, turned against all of Otherdom? Can you see his club raised against his own? The loss of morale would be devastating.”

I couldn’t picture such a thing. I didn’t want to. It wasn’t possible. Hercules would never do such a thing—he had sworn to remain by my side.

Cupid’s voice had turned low and grave. “Millions would die.”

“Which is why,” Chao continued, “Ordo overruled me. War will come with or without Hercules on our side. I do not mind either path.”

Cupid rose to his feet, standing on the couch. He pointed at Chao. “Your GoneGodDamn other half removed Odium from the door to let those assassins at Justin, didn’t she?”

“Why, of course she did.” Chao glanced toward the front door, which had just begun to open. “Though you can talk to her about that yourself, if you like.”

↔

“We’re in the sitting room!” Chao called. “And your tea is steeping in the kitchen.”

“Excellent,” Ordo’s breathy, anxious voice returned. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

Cupid remained standing on the couch, my hand still halfway out to pull him down, as we listened to Ordo rustling around in the foyer. She took the other doorway into the kitchen, clattering around in there for a time.

Cupid and I met eyes. His left hand moved almost microcosmically toward his bowstring in such a small motion that only I would have noticed. But I had, and an understanding passed between us at once.

He would fight the principles to save Hercules.

Would I?

How could I? I had no concept of Ordo and Chao’s power, but I knew it was far, far beyond what Cupid and I were capable of. Even if we were somehow able to convince Chao to our side, a fight would ultimately be between the two principles.

Which was, I realized, my best hope.

I had to convince Chao to our side. Could Chao be made to fight Ordo? Was that even possible?

Across from us, Chao lifted his mug and sat back. “It sounds like you feel some strong emotions about what’s occurred, Cupid of Eros.”

Cupid shot him a glare. “You’ve been around since the world was formed. You know better than almost anyone why I would object to Hercules’s death.”

Chao tapped his fingers on the mug. “I actually quite adored him in his original incarnation. He brought a great deal more chaos than most humans who preceded or came after him. He even defied cosmic order by ascending to godhood. Of course, Ordo always hated him for many of the same reasons.”

Ordo swept into the room, a cup and platter in her hands, tea sloshing out the sides as she walked. “That’s not so. I don’t hate anyone, Chao.” She set the cup on the coffee table with a small splatter and her hands went out to Cupid and me. “Oh, welcome!”

Seeing her again, Ordo seemed so … average. So thoughtless and uncertain. Perhaps she wouldn’t even fight, if it came to it. Maybe she was a pacifist, and she and I could talk our way through this situation.

I just had to understand the tenets of order to appeal to her.

I resisted flinching as she came near, but I realized she only awaited my hand. When I lifted it to her, she clasped my fingers between her hands. She gazed at me a moment, gave a single blink and released my hand. “I’m glad to see you, Miral. We have much to talk about.” Her eyes lifted to Cupid, surveying his stance. “Cupid of Eros, the bringer of sudden and unexpected lust. Welcome to you, too.”

I had heard that tinge of discomfort in Ordo’s voice as she described Cupid. The bringer of sudden and unexpected lust.

Cupid’s power defied order. She felt a natural aversion to him.

Cupid turned toward her. “So it was you who sent assassins to kill Justin.”

I cringed. Not wasting any time, are you, Cupid?

Ordo straightened. “Oh, your blood is quite up, isn’t it?”

Chao gestured toward Cupid. “You may recall from antiquity that Cupid of Eros and Hercules were quite close.”

“I do recall. They both dealt in chaos in their own ways.” Ordo took the armchair set beside Chao’s, completing our circle. “Fitting that they would both congregate around you, encantado.”

My whole body started as my gaze sharpened on Ordo. “I am not—”

“You are chaos.” Ordo brought her tea cup up to her lips. “Right now you seethe with it.” She took a careful sip.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Chao observed me with admiration. “She defies the very basic concepts of physiology in such a powerful way. Most remarkable is that the pregnancy survives through such changes.”

Well, GoneGodDamn.

So the principles could see right through my illusion. Now I understood: changing faces defied order and brought chaos, which was their trade. There wasn’t even a question in their minds as to whether I was actually Miral. The gig was totally and completely up.

Ordo sighed. “Scientific intervention. Another of humanity’s scourges on the way of things.”

My cheeks heated. I would teach Ordo a thing or two about—

“HERA BE GOOD!” With speed like I’d never seen before, Cupid drew his bow and nocked it with an arrow. Before I could even rise, he shot it straight at Ordo’s forehead.

He really wasn’t wasting any time.

Ordo simply tilted her head forty-five degrees to the left. The arrow embedded itself into the padded back of the armchair with an anticlimactic pfft.

She glanced at the shaft beside her face and burst into laughter. “Oh, but Cupid—who would you make me lust for? I am a principle. Surely you hadn’t thought such a thing through.”

Chao sat up, his elbows on his knees and bloodlust in his eyes. “How exciting was that? More, please.”

Ordo huffed, pulling the arrow from the armchair and setting it on the coffee table. “Boorish.”

With a yell of frustration, Cupid drew another arrow and nocked it. This one pointed at Ordo’s heart. “You may be a principle, but you’re a mortal now, too. And you’re in no place to dodge this one.”

“Cupid”—my hand went out to him—“not like this.”

“Too late.” Cupid kept his arrow aimed. “I’ve already given the signal.”

A series of tiny thuds sounded on the front door, and every face turned toward the foyer.

“More visitors?” Ordo said to Chao, completely unconcerned by Cupid’s arrow trained on her.

Another series of thuds sounded. That wasn’t knocking—it was more like someone throwing pebbles at the door. Or … tiny knuckles that sounded like pebbles. I knew that sound.

Pixies? I thought. Please no.

Chao rose. “I suppose so.” As he passed into the foyer, one of the glass windows beside the front door shattered and something I couldn’t see came through.

Ordo, Cupid and I all stood, angling ourselves to see what was going on. There, surrounded by glass, Justin was rising to his feet. He straightened as four tiny, iridescent creatures filtered in through the shattered window and came to a hover by Justin’s shoulders. The pixies, as I’d thought.

Justin stared at Chao. “Where’s Ordo?”

No, I thought. Justin, you GoneGodDamn fool. He was playing the knight in shining armor again.

“Cupid,” I whispered, “did you plan this with Justin and the pixies?”

“Maybe.” Cupid kept his arrow trained on Ordo. “My answer depends on how forgiving you are.”

That was a definitive yes. Which meant I was the only one who hadn’t known about Justin and the pixies’ plan to follow us to this house and bust through the window when Cupid gave the signal—which was, apparently, “Hera be good.”

“How wonderful!” Chao clapped his hands together. “You’ve delivered yourself to us and broken things in the process. Well done.”

Cupid unleashed his arrow, and this time it found its target: Ordo’s back. It lodged right in the center of her left wing blade. “The other principle’s right here!”

Ordo started, giving a little “Oh!” as the arrow sank into her body.

Not exactly the reaction you’d expect.

When she turned toward Cupid, she gave him an indulgent smile. “You do try, don’t you?”

Cupid’s throat bobbed as he swallowed and lowered his bow a few degrees. “Well, dang.”

Ordo reached up and dislodged the arrow from her back. “Chao, take care of that room, will you?”

Justin started toward the sitting room, but Chao stepped in front of him. He wagged his free finger at Justin. “I sense lethality brimming inside you. And while I can’t allow you to harm Ordo, I’m more than happy to deal in a little chaos. What do you say?”

And without further ado, Chao became chaos incarnate right there in his foyer.

Chapter 21

I’d had no preparation for what it meant to fight a principle—an integral part of the universe. I couldn’t even conceive of their power.

Now I wished I had prepared.

The principle of chaos swept in such a tight circle, quickly blurring into something beyond a dervish. Chao became a spinning cyclone, moving so fast and with such force that he sucked the pixies toward him. They flapped their wings furiously against his force, screaming as they did.

Cupid rose into the air. “Lux!”

But Justin was there to meet Chao’s intensity. In the same second that the principle of chaos went tornadic, Justin did, too. Because he could take on anyone’s power. Even, it seemed, a principle.

I gasped as Justin struck against Chao, throwing him into the door. The pixies escaped as Justin and Chao pinged off each other, ramming into walls and furniture and blowing out drywall as they plowed into the kitchen. And I don’t mean they went through the doorway.

I mean they put a new doorway in the wall that used to separate the foyer from the kitchen.

Dust filled the air, obscuring my view. But I knew the fight was raging, because the banging and booming and screaming of the pixies didn’t stop. Soon plateware rattled, crashed against surfaces as the entire kitchen’s contents were sucked into the dual vortexes.

I caught the occasional glimmer of pixie wings as they flew around raining what looked like glitter down on the whole scene. I didn’t know exactly what they were doing, but they were doing it with enough vigor that I trusted it was helpful.

Ordo turned toward Cupid and me, snapping Cupid’s arrow between her fingers. Her lip raised in disdain. “Unnatural filth.”

“Hey”—Cupid pointed a finger at her—“I only have so many of those.”

I reached into my sheet-robes, sliding El Lobizon’s claw and Savagem out of their hiding spots with the hope I wouldn’t be noticed.

Ordo’s eyes never left Cupid, but she had seen me do it, because she pointed at me. “Those blades won’t work, either. I’m a principle, you little fool.”

I stood, still holding the daggers. “You’re a principle, but you rely on chaos to save you?”

“In the same way he relies on order. We used to be one and the same”—Ordo stepped toward me, moving around the coffee table—“before the gods’ departure separated us. We always worked in tandem. You came here to split our allegiances, didn’t you?”

“I did.” There was no point in lying. “Because you’re wrong in your beliefs, Ordo. You adhere to them with such rigidity that you can’t see what Hercules brings to this world. You would kill an innocent man to destroy Hercules. And you can’t see what my child means for the future of Others.”

Back in the graveyard I’d had my moment of weakness about my child, and now I was done with that. I would not question whether she was meant to be.

To me, she was. And that was enough.

Ordo rolled her eyes. “Such myopic intensity. You love this Hercules, just as you love your own flesh—that fetus inside you. We will reach for the most impossible excuses to justify what we love.”

I said nothing. Talking to Ordo was pointless; there wasn’t anything I could say that would sway her. She had closed herself to me as a violation of order. Instead, I lifted the daggers into sight, preparing for the fight I knew would come.

Ordo took another step closer, angling her body to dodge another of Cupid’s arrows. The little demigod cursed, and Ordo laughed. “You think your rules apply to us. Shoot an arrow and encourage lust. Stab me with your dagger and nullify my magic. None of these things are possible with me. I know about El Lobizon’s power, encantado, because I understand all creatures living and dead. I am as old as the world itself.”

A boom sounded in the foyer, and one of the pixies flew through the doorway in a spray of glitter. She caught herself with a flapping of wings and dove right back into the fray.

Ordo took another step. She could almost reach out and touch me now.

Cupid shot another arrow. It missed, the head burying itself into the far wall. “Get away from her, Isa.”

I stood my ground, daggers ready. “You don’t understand though, do you? Not really, except according to a specific code. Order and chaos, natural and unnatural.”

Ordo’s eyebrows went up over her glasses. “What other way of understanding is there?” Her eyes flicked to my daggers as she took another step closer. “Stab me with those if you like. You’ll feel better, I’m sure, knowing you fought.”

Ordo’s arm went out as an offering, the underside of her wrist exposed, ready to accept whatever blood I would draw in the one or two attempts I got at her before she did whatever the principle of order would do to end the chaos living inside me.

And I didn’t know what to do. I was cornered, powerless against the principle of order. I couldn’t run, couldn’t say anything to get out of the situation.

Options poured through my mind, but nothing felt like the right choice. Nothing would lead to survival, to the outcome I wanted.

Think, Isa. Think.

I just needed time to think.

Time.

I needed time.

A memory hit the fore of my brain—an aged woman’s voice: Be decisive, encantado.

Pythia. She had told me I would eventually be able to choose to return to the garden. I hadn’t understood then what she’d meant about harnessing her power, but I did now.

I only needed to be decisive.

I dropped Selvagem from my left hand. Here was a secret Ordo wasn’t privy to—a thing beyond order and chaos. A way of understanding the world that didn’t adhere to her strictures.

I grabbed Ordo’s wrist. This time, I chose the oracle’s power. I felt it building inside me as the situation darkened, familiar anxiety welling in my chest and waiting for release.

Every other time the oracle’s power had caught me by surprise, but not this time.

This time I bent the anxiety to my will.

Ordo’s eyes widened with understanding in the same moment the world melted away and we were transported to the garden.

↔

When I opened my eyes, Ordo and I stood before the tree. My heart squeezed, hopeful that Pythia would be standing under it.

But she wasn’t there. It was only Ordo beside me in the Garden of Hera, her hand shaking in my grip. Her fingers shone with uncommon brilliance here, and as I followed the length of her arm up to her face, I understood the true nature of Ordo.

She shimmered with geometric perfection, with natural serenity. She was order incarnate. Suddenly her wild hair and her discombobulated ways seemed completely natural. Every part of her adhered to the golden triangle of symmetry, her body a tapestry of fractals. It was almost hard to gaze at her for how beautiful she was, how utterly pleasant and at once uncannily perfect she appeared.

Her chest moved with quick breaths, her dark eyes shifting from spot to spot as she turned a full circle. “What have you done?”

I stepped back to give her the space to contemplate where we were. “I’ve brought you to the garden.”

Her eyes snapped down to me, quivering with terror. The principle of order was afraid of me. What a thought. “This is … incomprehensible. Who are you?”

Once more, I wanted to look for Pythia under the tree. I wanted her to answer this question, to take me into her motherly embrace and give me the response I needed. Because the truth was, I didn’t know who I was. Not here. Not anymore.

But there was only me to answer Ordo’s question. I was the one under the tree, explaining this place to someone who had never understood its existence until this moment.

So I told her the only answer I knew. “I am an encantado.”

“No. This is not possible for an encantado.” Ordo swung her hand toward the three portals hovering in the distance. “You encantado are bound by terran rules.”

“Terran rules?”

“The rules of order and chaos are tiered. Encantado are creatures of the earth, which makes you beholden to terran rules.”

“As opposed to cosmic?”

Ordo nodded, her eyes darting like lightning bugs, taking in the space around me. “But this is not cosmic. I do not understand this power. It feels completely outside my understanding of order.”

“That’s because it is.” I inclined my head toward the portals. “Not everything adheres to your rules, Ordo. And the power to see through time is one of those things.”

“The oracle,” Ordo whispered. “Only the oracle possessed such power.”

I nodded, lifting my left hand. “Her power is with me.”

Ordo turned to me, shoulders bowed inward. Here, the immense power she possessed was completely nullified. She and I weren’t on equal footing so much as I had complete domain over her. “How?”

“The human scourge of science.” A tiny smile touched my lips. “Another defiance of order.”

“And why have you brought me here?” Ordo stared at my hand. “What would you have me do?”

What would I have the principle of order do? Understand, I thought. I simply wanted her to understand.

And the best route to understanding was through time.

The oracle’s words came to me as I stood before Ordo.

“You must choose your path.” I indicated each portal in turn. “Past, present or future.”

Ordo turned toward the portals. “I must pass through one of these?”

“Yes.”

“And what will I see on the other side?”

“I don’t know.” That was the truth. “Except that whatever you see will be what you need.”

“I am a principle. Such things are—”

“Completely applicable to you.” I touched her shoulder. “Because now you are also a mortal, just like the rest of us.”

Ordo tensed under my touch, but she didn’t move away. It was only when I urged her toward the portals that she started off across the grass, leaving me with the swaying leaves of the tree as company.

She paused as she neared the portals, deliberating. After a moment, she struck toward the future. Ordo wanted to see what might happen going forward. I couldn’t blame her for such a thing—she had witnessed so very much of the past that it probably bore different meaning for her than the rest of us.

The future was much more a foreign thing.

When she arrived at the portal, she stopped as though she’d run into a wall. Ordo turned to me. “I cannot enter.”

I crossed through the garden, came to stand next to her. “What do you mean?”

She reached out one glowing hand toward the portal, and it pressed up as though touching invisible glass. “A principle cannot move through time alone, it would seem.” And her eyes settled on me, as though awaiting my reply.

Cannot move through time alone.

She needed me to accompany her, just as Pythia had accompanied me when she’d taken me into the past, into Serena’s home. Perhaps some minds could not weather time alone as a first foray, and Pythia had sensed as much.

The same was true of Ordo. She was still as afraid as she’d been the moment we’d entered the garden.

I reached for her hand. “Come. We’ll go together.”

Could order be felt? And what would it feel like? In the next moment, I knew it did—and I knew exactly how it felt. When she took my hand, her fingers felt like perfection in my grip. They threaded perfectly with mine.

When we stepped into the future, I had expected to move into a place. To stand on ground. To turn my head and take in a vista, maybe, or a room—a space. I had expected … logic. Sense. Order.

But we didn’t just enter a future. We entered every future.

My body distended, warping as though it had no bones, no structure as we passed through futures as quickly as flipping the pages of a book. Flashes appeared before my eyes, glimpses of people and places that melded into a cacophony of color and sound that my brain could not process. The world had no solidity, no meaning.

Passing through the millions of futures, the only thing that kept me trained to reality was Ordo’s hand in mind.

And one thought entered my mind: This was what Pythia meant.

The future branched. It branched far and wide as an ancient tree, its trunk the past and present, its canopy the future. Trillions of creatures—humans, Others, all species of mammals and reptiles and insects—all lived lives possessing pasts, presents, futures. All ran parallel, intersected, pinged off one another, intertwined, diverged.

It was too much. The futures swept by faster, if that was possible, until I had to close my eyes and clutch my head to retain any sanity.

And that was when I lost Ordo’s grip.

I was thrown out of the portal, landed on my back in the garden. Above me, the night sky moved with such exquisite slowness I could hardly believe it. My hands clamped on the grass, my breath still coming too fast. My head was a muddle, a swirl.

I had borne witness to every future and none of them.

It was too much. Too much.

As I stood, Ordo reappeared just a moment later, her face flush with an emotion I couldn’t read. She just stared at me. Whether with fear or awe, I couldn’t say. But as she approached, I held my ground.

Whatever she felt, she could not hurt me here.

She came to me, clasping both my hands in her own. “Thank you. Thank you for showing me. I saw it all—so many possible futures.”

“How?” I whispered. “I couldn’t possibly process them all.”

Her eyebrows went up, back down. She understood. “Ah, but you are only a young creature. Your brain is small and slow.”

Thanks, Ordo. I knew she hadn’t meant it in the way it came out, but my ego didn’t. “I couldn’t even see one future. It was too fast.”

“For now.” The ghost of a smile touched her lips. “In every future, I saw one constant.”

“One constant?”

“You. You were in every future. You, my child, will bring chaos and order to this world.”

How can that be? I still didn’t know what her superhuman brain had seen, and I wouldn’t ask. Whatever it had been, it was what she had needed. I only squeezed her hands.

“This world needs you, Isabella.” Ordo gripped my hands with such fervor that it almost hurt. “It needs what resides inside you. When you grant Others childbirth, you will bring chaos, but they will strive to make this world a more orderly place. And I can help you in my own small way.”

“You’ll help me?”

A tear rolled down Ordo’s cheek. “To reach the future I’ve seen? Yes. A million times, yes. But to help you, we must return to the world.”

“What about Chao? Justin? Hercules?”

“I will take care of Chao. You must take care of Justin and Hercules.”

“That’s just the thing … I have no idea where Hercules is.”

A soft, sad smile touched Ordo’s face. “You will. You will know.”

With those words, the anxiety filling my chest began to dissipate. I would find Hercules. I would save him and protect Justin in the process. And it was that assurance that allowed me to leave the safety of the garden.

As we returned to the world, the last thing I heard was the leaves on the tree. They sounded like an old woman’s voice, soft and natural, soothing me back into the world to enact the future Ordo had seen.

A very different world than the garden.

The first noise I heard: the tectonic boom of Justin plowing Chao right through the doorway into the living room.

Chapter 22

Back in Chao’s living room, things were getting messy. Chao himself had just landed against a cabinet of fine china, cracking the thing in half. Glassware spilled out, hitting the floor in a cascade. The wall gained a crack. An end table toppled onto its side.

Amidst it, Chao’s laugh echoed through the house.

Not malicious laughter. Not dark laughter. Not even maniacal. It was the laughter of a little boy being tickled. Of a child discovering they can surprise their parent with a simple “Boo!”

It was a reminder that Chao was not my enemy. Nor was Ordo. They were simply principles abiding by their belief systems. And it so happened that their beliefs and desires had chafed against my own life and desires.

Not any longer.

I dropped Ordo’s wrist in the same moment that she and I both yelled out to our respective rabble-rousers.

“Chao!”

“Justin!”

Neither of them responded. Well, not in the way we’d hoped. Chao lifted a bronze lamp from where it had fallen, swung it around like a shot-putter and flung it at Justin and the pixies, who had congregated around him like his rainbow posse.

All the pixies shrieked and scattered as the lamp hurtled toward Justin, who strafed just in time. The lamp hit the wall with such force it opened another hole in what was already becoming a pockmarked house.

Before we could say anything else, Justin used his brute-force method again, plowing into Chao and sending him right through the back window of the living room. A second later, we heard a thud from outside.

Chao’s body hitting the ground.

Justin looked like he was about to jump right through the window after him, but I leapt over the fallen end table and got in his path. “Justin, stop! We’re done.”

My hair was pulled in front of my face by the cyclonic force of Justin’s power, obscuring my view of him. But he didn’t throw me aside, and slowly my hair drifted back down to my shoulders.

Before me stood Justin, battered and heaving for breath. Blood had seeped through what gauze remained on his limbs. He looked terrible. The pixies came to hover over him, drizzling faint glitter over his head and making cooing sounds.

I still didn’t know what the glitter did in exact terms, but it did have something of a soothing effect.

Behind us, Ordo stood at the window and leaned out like she was corralling a child back indoors. “Chao, come back inside, please. We have things to discuss.”

I slipped under Justin’s arm, helping him to a seat on the couch. “You followed me.”

“You expected anything else?” He dropped to a seat, dust rising around him. I knew he was only accepting this because he was purely exhausted, and probably couldn’t have fought on even if he had needed to.

He had spent everything on that fight with Chao. It was a miracle he had taken on a principle at all—that he’d been able to mimic his power and utilize it in the first place.

“I suppose not.” I sat beside him. “But that doesn’t account for you pixies.”

All four pixies came to hover in front of us, Lux at the fore. “You really thought I’d let Cupid walk into danger without me?”

Glint patted Lux’s shoulder. “And we don’t let our sister go anywhere without us anymore. Not after what happened in Vegas.”

Cupid came to stand on the coffee table, his bow still trained on Ordo. “I don’t know why we’re all sitting, because as far as I can tell, there’s still a principle standing behind you, Isa.”

Ordo turned from the window. “I will not hurt her. Nor will Chao.”

Cupid didn’t lower his bow. “And why should I believe that?”

“The encantado bears the oracle’s power.” Ordo passed around the couch and came to stand on my other side. “Time lays outside the strictures of order and chaos. She is beyond our purview. And her wishes supersede ours.”

Above me, Ordo’s hands were clasped before her in a soft, maternal way. I sensed complete earnestness from her.

The front door creaked, footsteps sounding across glass. When Chao appeared in the doorway, he bore a bloody gash on his forehead. His finger lifted toward Justin, a grin spreading on his face. “You’re a ringer. Let’s do it again.”

Beside me, Justin was still catching his breath. “Let’s not.”

“The encantado wishes his safety.” Ordo lifted a folded tea towel from the table, brought it over to Chao. “And we must ensure hers. She is the only remaining possessor of oracle power.”

Chao set the towel to his forehead, dabbing. “Her?”

“It would seem so.” Ordo turned toward me. “She showed me a future, but one only achievable if she properly learns her way around the power.”

“Ah.” Chao balled the towel in his hand. “And you think we can teach her to navigate chaos and order.”

“Why not? She can see into the present. That much was clear to me in the vision she showed me.”

“She is not the oracle, Ordo. Not even close.”

Justin leaned toward me. “What are they talking about?”

Cupid still hadn’t lowered his bow. “Whatever it is, I don’t trust either of them a whit.”

“Ancient power.” Dazzle flitted to my shoulder. “Principle power, combined together.”

Phos landed on my other shoulder. “Time and order and chaos. Very difficult.”

Glint flew to Justin, began tending to his wounds with handfuls of glitter. Lux landed on Cupid’s shoulder, and the two of them engaged in intense whispers.

Ordo gestured toward me. “What is the oracle but the possessor of such power?”

“One who can use it properly,” Chao returned. “To the right ends.”

As I listened to the principles, I found my fingers wringing together in my lap—my nervous tic. I was being discussed, considered for something. My worth was in question, and Chao’s estimation of me clearly wasn’t very high. Ordo, on the other hand, seemed to feel otherwise.

But the two principles had to be in agreement.

“Whatever it is you’re discussing”—I rose from the couch—“I can do it.”

The two principles turned toward me.

“Well,” said Chao with obvious regret, “I suppose that means the fighting’s over.”

↔

Chao and Ordo resumed their seats in the armchairs, dust spreading around them as they lowered themselves. They whispered with their heads together, periodically glancing at me. After a minute, Chao’s eyes widened. He nodded.

When they were done, Chao crossed his legs, folded his hands over the top knee. “So,” he began, “for some reason beyond me, you have oracle power.”

I nodded, ignoring the obvious insult of the statement.

“Which Miral is apparently unaware of.”

“Nobody knew except Justin, Hercules and Cupid. And …” My mouth closed.

“And?” Ordo and Chao leaned forward.

Daiski. Serena Russo herself. Serena was the one who had given it to me, after all—though I doubted she understood the full extent of what she had done. Mine had been the only DNA the oracle’s would bond with, and in all her egoism, Serena had expected that my possession of it would ultimately serve her, help her further her science, her genetic research.

And I doubted she grasped the extent of its possibilities.

“Serena Russo.” My fingers squeezed to fists as I said her name. “She spliced my genes with the oracle’s. She’s well aware.”

“Ah yes, you’ve mentioned her once before. And she’s the World Army’s lead scientist.” Ordo removed her glasses, wiped them with her shirt. “That’s problematic.”

Cupid slung his bow back over his body. “You said it.”

“She said the oracle’s DNA wouldn’t bond with anyone else’s.” I lifted my left palm. “Only mine.”

Ordo nodded. “I don’t claim to understand genetics the way you do, but I’m not surprised. The oracle’s power is unique in the world, and one that was passed on not through bloodlines but through choice.”

Choice. “She chose me?”

“It seems so.” Ordo blinked, continued cleaning her glasses.

Justin had finally caught his breath. “I don’t understand what’s happening here.”

Chao turned twinkling eyes on him. “Something unprecedented. We’re about to teach your girlfriend how to navigate chaos to see into the present.”

Cupid glanced at Justin. “Did you get that?”

Justin shook his head.

“It’s quite obvious.” Lux knocked her fist on Cupid’s head. “Just listen.”

Cupid sighed. “If I didn’t know the things you could do with those hands, I’d …”

Lux folded her arms, still on his shoulder. “You’d?”

Cupid swallowed. “I’d be a respectful cherub nonetheless.”

“But Chao”—I sat forward—“why do I need to see into the present?”

The last time I’d entered the present had been at the oracle’s suggestion, and I’d seen … an endless void. A sea of infinite possibilities. I still didn’t understand what it all meant, or what purpose it had served.

Ordo replaced her glasses on her nose. “Why, to find Hercules, of course.”

I blinked. “So if I wanted to, I could go back into the garden and enter the portal to the present to find where he is?”

“Not quite like that. The present doesn’t operate like the past or the future; it’s quite muddy, full of treacherous turns and impasses. But”—Ordo pointed at Justin—“you have him as your throughline.”

“Her throughline?” Justin looked totally woo-wooed out. “Listen, we need the Oracle 101 course.”

Chao sighed. “Fine. You were a worthy opponent, which is the only reason I’m addressing you directly, human. Your fate is bound with Hercules’s, which means Isabella can use your connection with Hercules to find her way to him.”

“Find my way to him through the garden?” I asked.

Ordo nodded. “Precisely.”

“This sounds off to me.” Cupid pointed at Chao and Ordo in turn. “All I know is, you’ve both tried to kill two of my friends.”

Glint and Dazzle rose into the air. “Oh, don’t say such things!”

Phos waved her hands. “They’re honoring Isabella.”

Lux knocked Cupid in the head again. “Do I have to send you outside?”

The ghost of humor crossed Cupid’s face. “That tickles. Do it again.”

“I’m safe in the garden, Cupid.” My eyes were on Ordo, who gazed at me with steady calmness. “They aren’t trying to take advantage of me, or any of us.”

Chao exhaled through his nose, that disconcerting look of pleasure still on his face. “Much as it pains me to be constantly overruled by Ordo, it also pleases me to rescue Hercules. All of what we do serves chaos.”

Ordo shot him a look. “After a fashion. But it also serves order.”

I inched forward again, to where I was perched on the edge of the couch. “What did you see, Ordo? In the future.”

She shook her head. “That is not the oracle’s way, to needle for knowledge. She should possess it herself.”

Embarrassment warmed my cheeks, followed by a tinge of petulance. “I’ve already said I’ll do what needs to be done. We need to find Hercules. Tell me how to do so.”

“He must agree”—Chao inclined his head toward Justin—“to enter the garden with you.”

“And to go into the present alongside you,” Ordo added.

This was new. “The two of us have to go through the portal together?”

Ordo’s eyes appeared enormous behind her glasses. “Yes.”

Justin looked up from where the pixies were still glittering his wounds. It actually did seem to be having a healing effect. “I don’t know what any of this means, but if you need me, Isa, I’ll do it.”

I turned to him, emotion hitting my eyes. “It might be dangerous.”

“Oh, it will be,” Chao said. “Especially since you are not the true oracle. You could just as easily be swept into chaos as follow the throughline. In fact, your chances of failure probably exceed those of success.”

Cupid huffed. “Wow, you’re an encouraging one.”

Chao looked slightly amused. “I am the principle of chaos.”

“Well, touche,” Cupid muttered.

I turned back to Chao and Ordo. “Tell me what I have to do to follow the throughline.”

Ordo lifted her teacup, still miraculously on the coffee table, and wiped dust from the fight off its rim. “Listen closely, because once you’ve entered, you’ll only have the memory of what we’ve told you.”

So I did. I brought all my faculties to bear on Ordo’s voice and her hands as she described exactly how I could navigate the present through Justin’s mind to see into Hercules’s. And, ultimately, to find him.

Chapter 23

When Ordo had finished explaining how to find my way through the present, silence overtook the living room.

It was broken by Cupid bursting into laughter. “You’re not actually going to do that, Isa. Right?” He doubled over, hands on knees. “I mean, it’s just … it’s ridiculous.”

“Well …” I began.

“It’s a death sentence.” Cupid drew a finger across his throat. “Absolutely skull and bones.”

Chao and Ordo remained stone-faced. Meanwhile, the pixies flew around us with frenetic speed—I wasn’t sure whether they were also humored or terrified.

That was cleared up when Phos came to a landing on one of my knees. “I most highly advise against this.”

Dazzle landed on the other knee. “Remember the acorn atop the tree? It’s like that.”

Even Glint came to a hover about three inches from my nose. “Or like grass in the sky!”

Lux, who had been thrown off Cupid’s shoulder when he’d doubled over, had dropped to the coffee table with her arms folded. She observed me with a stern expression. “You’re the future of Others. Why would you risk such a thing?”

She meant my baby. The child who had survived so much to continue growing inside me.

Ordo indicated my belly. “If she survives, the child will survive.”

Chao looked way too delighted by the whole situation. “If she survives.”

So those were the stakes: I would be risking my life and my child’s life to find Hercules. They were high—so very high.

But what were the consequences of failure? A broken general, a demigod twisted by the World Army. The end of the resistance, and ultimately, the death of all Others.

My child would die if I didn’t act.

It was obvious what I had to do.

I turned toward Justin, but he spoke before I could. “If it’s what you want, I’ll do it.”

I lifted my left hand, found the fingers already shaking. In the moment I had made my decision, my body had already begun preparing for it. This was anxiety, familiar and tangible. It was what I needed to properly utilize the oracle’s power, but all the same, it felt deeply uncomfortable.

The paradox of the anxious: we didn’t know how to navigate the world without our nerves, but we hated the way they made us feel. Ready to fight or fly or even freeze, off balance and uncertain.

Though for the first time, my anxiety served me like it had never done. It had allowed me to access the garden. It allowed me to see through time.

Cupid straightened, suddenly solemn. “Don’t do it, Isa.”

I didn’t even meet his eyes. I had to focus. “It’s already decided, Cupid. I’m going.”

Ordo, who had been observing me, pointed at my hand and said to Chao, “She’s building herself to it, it seems.” Then, to me, “Is that how it works?”

I nodded. “The only way I know of, at least.”

Chao set a thoughtful hand to his chin. “I can see the logic in that. Stress is a necessary component to change, to evolution.” He smirked. “Shall I help you along?”

Cupid flapped his wings so hard it sounded like he was slapping a whip on the ground. “Don’t you dare.”

“Let me just give it a try.” I turned my hand over, the palm up, and extended it toward Justin.

He gazed at my fingers. “What will it feel like?”

“Entering the garden is painless. It only takes a second.” I paused. “It’s passing through the portal that I’m uncertain about.”

Justin laid his hand over mine and gripped it. “Well, we won’t be alone, will we?”

His warmth seeped into my skin, and I focused on the stopper plugging my chest. That was where the nerves resided: right there in the center of the chest, radiating outward.

I held my breath, intensifying the feeling. As I closed my eyes, Ordo’s voice poked through the skein of my focus. “Remember: picture what you want. Be decisive, Isabella. You will find him.”

Be decisive.

Pythia’s words.

How had Ordo known? Or had she known at all?

Was it just a grand coincidence?

When I opened my eyes to ask, she was no longer there. Justin and I stood in the garden, the tree beside us, his hand in mine. He wore none of the wounds, none of the gauze. Here, in this place of the mind, his body was unmarred. He was so pristine, so perfect.

He turned toward the tree, his face lifting to its highest boughs before he opened his mouth and let out a “Wow.”

“This was where you became a dragon.” I smiled at him. “It was where you saved us.”

Justin released my hand, stepped toward the tree. He closed in on it, touching the bark. “It was more of a group effort.”

I remained where I was, allowing him to explore. Here, time didn’t mean what it did in the world. We could stay for a long, long while and not lose any of our mortal lives. “So if I saved us and you saved us, that still means you saved us.”

Justin looked up at me. “I guess so.” He made a full pass around the tree, pulling a leaf from a low branch. When he approached me, he extended the leaf to me. “What is this?”

I accepted it, twiddling it between my fingers. “A construct of my mind, I suppose.”

He shook his head. “You are far more remarkable than you’ve ever known, Isa.”

Before I could stop it, a tear had welled in one eye and threatened to fall. I swiped it away. I didn’t want to leave here, to pass into the darkness of the portal I could see in my periphery.

I didn’t want this moment to pass.

Sometimes—times like this—it was so very tragic that our world was one in which everything ended.

“Thank you.” I tucked the leaf into the pocket of my jeans. “Shall we?”

Justin turned toward the portal into the present. “I’m ready when you are.”

We rejoined hands, and as we crossed toward the portal, my boots disappeared from my feet. In this place created by me, I didn’t need shoes. I just needed the soft comfort of the grass. The wind through the tree. Justin’s warmth beside me.

We didn’t pause at the entrance. I’d expected Justin to say something before we went through, but he only stared straight ahead as he stepped into the darkness.

He went first.

He’s brave.

The thought came like a revelation.

Of course, he had always been brave. I’d only just now begun to see him clearly.

↔

Inside the portal to the present, a storm raged.

As I stepped through, I didn’t let go of Justin’s hand. He didn’t let go of mine. But when I had passed inside, he was no longer there.

It was me. Just me, hovering in the middle of a thunderstorm.

The stopper in my chest grew larger, more stifling. “Justin!” My voice carried out into the cumulus clouds, was caught and diffused into muffled particles.

No Justin called back.

The only response? A crack of thunder, booming through the clouds and my own body until my teeth clattered together.

This is chaos. This was what Ordo had promised me.

I had entered the chaos that bound Justin and Hercules together. And I had to navigate my way through it to the demigod.

The throughline. Find the throughline.

Back in the living room, Ordo had described the throughline as the strand which would carry Justin’s mind to Hercules’s. The force that bound them. I needed to find it, and once I did, I had to follow it all the way through.

The strand. I didn’t even know what that meant. Why hadn’t I asked Ordo for more clarification? All I had to say was, “Hey, Ordo—do you mean like a thing I can grab? Or is that more of an intangible?”

A bolt of lightning followed the thunder, breaking through the clouds before me with such white-hot vibrancy I was temporarily blinded by the sight of its core. But not before it branched into the sky, its tendrils streaking like roots.

I crushed my eyes shut, my retinas scalded with the image of the branching lightning. It remained there, as vivid as ever, for me to observe in my mind’s eye.

Cold swept over me, forcing my eyes back open. The clouds roiled, rushing upward.

No—I was moving downward.

The unfortunate truth of appearing in a thunderstorm, in real life or in the mind: you’re still bound by the laws of gravity.

It was only when I slipped into the cover of a cloud that I realized I was falling.

I had been falling since I’d entered. Fast—faster than I could even imagine. And as I passed through the cumulonimbus, thunder raged again, vibrating the world around me so well even my own brain rattled inside my skull.

A second later, I passed through the bottom of the cloud. And where I’d expected to see the ground, only the void of space greeted me. Endless blackness lay below, terrifying and opaque.

Chaos. Down there lay chaos.

Ordo had promised this.

The wind whipped me onto my back, so I fell looking upward at the storm I’d once been inside—my only anchor to sanity, to the world as I knew it. I sensed I could fall and fall and fall, that the falling would not end even when the clouds had disappeared completely.

This was the risk that Ordo and Chao had warned me of. This was the gauntlet I had to survive.

The throughline. Find the throughline. The strand connecting Justin to Hercules.

Ordo had described everything to this point. But the throughline? “That,” she’d said, “is up to you to figure out.”

Because no one except an oracle had ever seen such a thing. Not even the principles of chaos and order.

And there were no oracles around to help me figure it out.

Which meant I was alone. Falling and alone.

I still had time. I wasn’t lost yet.

All the same, a certain inevitability had bloomed inside my chest. This was the Isa of Fear, destined for failure. She spoke to me in jagged, harsh lines: “You never would have figured it out.” “You’re not really the oracle.” And, simplest of all, “You damn fool.”

Soon the clouds darkened, and I knew I was being enveloped by chaos. I felt it tugging at me, its tendrils prickling over my skin like hundreds—thousands—of fingers.

It would rip me apart. If I fell too far, it would destroy me.

I closed my eyes, the lightning still burnt into my vision. It resembled a tree, branching wide and far. The tree in the garden. The one Pythia had given to me, an anchor by which to understand her power.

She chose you, Isa.

There was the Isa of Hope. Sometimes her voice was so faint, so small, that I could hardly hear her—like right now.

But I heard her. Even in chaos, I heard her.

She chose you, and she told you exactly what you need to do.

It was also what Ordo had told me to do.

Be decisive.

Just that—be decisive.

My greatest challenge. My struggle, and my weakness.

I opened my eyes. Be decisive, Isa. Just picture the throughline.

What if the strand Ordo had referred to was as simple as a rope?

As I thought it, something appeared beside me, whipping down from the clouds.

A rope. It was a GoneGodDamn twine rope, dropping from the heavens like someone had thrown it down.

The throughline.

As it fell toward me and unspooled into the ether, I reached out and grasped it with one hand. At my speed, it burned like a rope would, scalding my palm as my grip tightened.

Correct that: it burned like I’d been set on fire.

But I didn’t let go. Instead, I swung around with my other hand, solidifying my grip and screaming as I fell down its length. When I looked down, I found I was reaching its end. And though I was slowing, I was falling much too fast still to stop in time.

The throughline is a rope. And it has no end.

As soon as I’d thought it, the rope continued on below for as far as I could see, disappearing into blackness. It was as though it had never been any different.

When I finally came to a stop, I wrapped my legs around the rope, clinging to it with heaving breaths. Somehow my hands hadn’t burned off.

No—my hands weren’t burned at all.

As soon as I’d made the decision, the pain stopped. Far, far above me, the storm raged, and I hung in stasis between the clouds and chaos, relishing this moment.

If I wanted, it was possible I could reconfigure the rope into a hot air balloon and climb into its basket. It was possible I could give myself wings.

But I didn’t want the rope to be anything else. This was my burden—my task to fulfill. I needed to climb this rope back into the sky because I could. Because I was strong enough to do so. Because I didn’t want the journey to be simple or easy.

And once I got there, I would follow the throughline straight to Hercules.

So I began climbing. One hand over the other, right up into the ether.

Chapter 24

I climbed for a long, long time. Hand over hand, my feet grasping the rope.

I climbed until I reached the clouds, still gray and laden with rain. When I passed inside, the rope swung with the storm, casting me back and forth until the creeping feeling I would lose my grip edged at my mind.

No, came the Isa of Hope. You won’t lose your grip. You can’t.

And because I couldn’t, I didn’t. Here, in this place of the mind, my own thoughts could make certain things real.

And what I wanted to be real was the rope, and my ability to climb it.

I kept on, thunder and lightning raging around me in the dark, obscuring thickness of the cumulonimbus, until I reached up once more and I found a set of fingers extended out to me.

I recoiled, lifting my eyes. I couldn’t see who it belonged to.

But the hand struck me as familiar. I knew those fingers.

I understood at once I should take it.

So I did. when I reached out, the hand closed around mine, pulling me straight up out of the cloud and onto its uppermost surface. I can’t fall through, I thought. And so I didn’t. I climbed atop the cloud, rising to my feet on its pillowy surface.

“Well done, encantado.”

Before me stood Pythia, as simple and austere as the day I’d met her, the lines around her mouth deepening as she smiled at me.

The original Oracle of Delphi.

Her eyes bore certain a serenity, one hand grasping her wooden staff as though she had used it to walk herself across the clouds.

“Is it you?” I reached out to her. When I did, her own hand met mine, real and warm. “I’ve so wanted to see you again.”

She squeezed my hand. “And I you.”

“How are you here?” I turned, found only an endless cloud cover at our feet and a starry sky above. “In this place.”

“This is a place of time. As I told you once before, I’ll never truly die. Not while someone possesses access to the past, the present and the future.”

I turned back to her. “You gave the power to me. You meant me to have it, didn’t you?”

She inclined her face, her eyes twinkling. “Why do you think I fought a dragon and a military contingent for you, dear?”

“That future you saw back in New York City … the slender branch, the one that was hard to walk. It was the future in which Serena took your DNA from your grave. In which I lost my arm. In which I became pregnant, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was.”

A question which had been pressing at my mind for six months poured out of me. “How did I become pregnant?”

“Why, my DNA, of course.” Pythia smiled at me, and I could sense her awaiting some leap of logic she knew I was capable of.

“Your DNA …” I rubbed my thumb over her hand. Her very human hand. She wasn’t an Other. My gaze flicked up to hers. “You were a human once, weren’t you? Before you became a demigod.”

Pythia nodded slowly. “Quite human, yes.”

My heart barreled into a gallop. “Human and Other DNA creates the fusion necessary to pregnancy. It’s the mixture of the two.”

“A thing I imagine the principle of order would find quite scandalous, don’t you?” Pythia chuckled.

This was important. Vitally important. I still didn’t have the whole helix mapped, but now I knew that the right configuration of DNA could allow for reproduction.

I needed to study this. I needed to tell Miral and the resistance about it. But first, I needed to find Hercules and get back to the world.

“Pythia, that future you saw—the slender branch I must stick to. Where does it lead from here?”

“If I were to tell you that, I doubt you could live it.” Pythia sighed, gazing at my hand. “But you are still on the branch, encantado. And someday, if you keep on, you will be able to see it in full. You will see it all.”

I knew enough by now to recognize when I had reached an impasse with the oracle, a place I could not go until I was ready. At the very least, I was ready for what came next.

Pythia turned, gesturing behind her. Beyond her lay another portal, swirling with darkness. The rope I had climbed reached into its depths, disappeared inside. The throughline.

I stepped forward, wrapping my arms around the oracle. “I need to find Hercules now.”

She kissed my shoulder. “I know.”

When we parted, I blinked away the tears. There would be time for those later. “Will I see you again?”

“You know the answer to that. At least, you will.”

More mysteriousness. “I’ll say goodbye for now, then.”

I crossed to the portal, reaching down to grip the rope. It was taut—something was pulling it from the other side.

“Isabella,” came Pythia’s voice from behind me. It was the first time I could recall her using my name. “Do not fear what you find.”

I paused in front of the portal. “I won’t.”

When I stepped inside, I didn’t look back. Didn’t hesitate.

I was decisive, as much as it hurt me to leave the only woman who had felt like a mother to me since the goddess Yemoja had left the world.

And she had given me my daughter. She had given me a chance at my deepest wish.

Thank you, Pythia.

As I came through the portal, the sounds of the storm dissipated. On the other side, only blackness.

Blackness and a deep, rhythmic breathing.

“If you make it through the present,” Ordo had told me, “you will enter Hercules’s mind. There, I can’t say what you will find.”

The answer, it turned out, was nothing but darkness and that breathing. And something new in my chest—a feeling of raw hate. It was foreign to me, a feeling I had only experienced a modicum of in my long life.

But inside Hercules’s mind, that hate was almost overpowering. It was so potent I could almost see it pulsing red like arteries.

I hovered there, my grip still on the rope, for only a few seconds before a voice rang through my head.

“Hercules, awaken.”

That voice. Her voice. With all the hate rushing through me, I found all my anger fixed on the terrible cadence of that voice.

Before me, two ovals of light opened. Hercules’s eyes, bringing the world into view. In front of me stood Serena Russo, completely unarmed, her head cocked a few degrees left as though observing the demigod. Beyond her lay a window overlooking a lush, green garden with a rearing centaur fountain trickling water down its tiers.

“I need you to do something for me.” Serena lifted a cage where a small creature was locked inside. It looked like … a brownie, from images I’d seen in the past. And it was terrified, huddling against the bars as far from Hercules as it could get. “This creature—it participated in the murder of your children. Of your wife, Megara.”

Megara.

Me-ga-ra.

That was the word Justin had been saying while he was tortured. The name of Hercules’s slain wife.

“This creature,” Serena said, “was sent by Hera herself.”

Before I could brace myself, a growl rose up from Hercules’s depths and poured out his mouth as a roar. He grabbed the cage from Serena’s hands, ripped the side off in one motion, and—

I couldn’t watch the rest. I didn’t want to.

I had to go.

Back, I thought as the brownie let a tiny, gargling scream, I need to go back.

And with suddenness I could hardly process, the throughline yanked me right back through the portal, through the stormy connection between Justin’s mind and Hercules’s and straight into my own head.

I was back inside myself. Me. Just me.

When I opened my eyes, I was hyperventilating. The pixies fluttered around me, Justin’s hand on my back. He was telling me to breathe.

Across from me, Chao and Ordo had risen from their armchairs.

“She made it,” Ordo whispered. “She made it through.”

“But is she still herself?” Chao returned.

Between gasps, I nodded. “It’s Hercules.”

Justin rubbed my back. “What did you see?”

I lifted my eyes to him. I couldn’t control the tears, much less any part of my autonomic nervous system. “They’ve changed him. He’s not Hercules anymore.”

Cupid stared at me with wide eyes and a grave mouth. “I feared this.”

“Feared what?” Justin asked.

Cupid’s wings drooped as he stared into nothing. “In antiquity, following the death of Megara and his children, he was called the Soulrender.”

The Soulrender.

“And why is that?” Justin asked.

Cupid’s blue eyes found mine. “Because when he killed someone, he left behind not even a body for the soul to leave.”

“So he is broken,” Ordo whispered. “As I feared would happen.”

Fear.

As my breathing slowed, Pythia’s words came back to me.

Do not fear what you find.

Do not fear.

I sat up, pressing my hands onto my thighs. I took a deep, controlled breath as I met Ordo’s eyes. But before I could tell her anything, Justin screamed.

Beside me, the same murderous rage I had felt in Hercules darkened Justin’s eyes. His bloody hands folded to fists. His lips parted, and his teeth ground together.

Hell of a time for me to have a fight with my boyfriend.

Soulbound

Chapter 1

Justin Truly had broken.

In Chao’s living room, the man I’d spent a year calling my boyfriend stared at me with green eyes I couldn’t see into. He breathed hard and ragged, like someone had punched him in the solar plexus. His blood ran hot up his neck, blotching the skin on his cheeks.

“Justin?” I whispered.

He rose from Chao’s couch, his knuckles practically distending as he folded his fingers to fists, and when he opened his mouth, nothing but a scream came out. I could see every tooth in his mouth. I could see into the dark maw of his throat.

On the coffee table, Cupid swung around as all four pixies came to land on his head and shoulders, their iridescent wings quivering. “What in the Empty Hell …”

Ordo stood, her white hair wilder than ever around her head. “Get away from him, Isabella.”

Get away from him.

Away from who?

I’d never had to consider such a thing with Justin. He’d spent so long by my side it was hard to imagine him being anywhere else.

But this wasn’t Justin. Not really. The man standing over me had been possessed, his whole body tense as a strung bow. This was Hercules’s rage. This was the thread that bound them taking control.

It wasn’t Justin. It wasn’t.

On the carpet by my feet, my daggers lay where I had dropped them. El Lobizon’s claw and Selvagem, glinting in the early day light. Waiting to be held. Waiting to cleave into skin and muscle and maybe bone. Not bone, I thought. You don’t want to kill him.

You have to save him. You have to save them both.

The moment my eyes flicked back to Justin, he moved, his open hand darting out toward my arm with a predator’s speed. That wasn’t an attack—it was a grappling move.

He wanted to get hold of me.

I rolled off the couch, landed on the carpet. I managed to grab of one of the daggers as I rolled, though I wasn’t sure which one, only that my fingers clasped a handle.

The plan was to roll back over and slice Justin before he could reach down and grab me. Or, at least, give Cupid, Chao and Ordo a chance to react and subdue him.

As I rolled over, my hair whipped into my face, obscuring my view of the room. This was Chao’s power, drawing a storm around him like a whirlwind—creating chaos.

But it wasn’t Chao using it.

The whirlwind picked up as Justin’s hand reached straight down through the veil of my hair. I swiped with the dagger in my hand, felt it rake across his skin. Blood appeared in a long, arcing cut on his forearm, but I saw none of the white mist that would accompany a cut with El Lobizon’s claw.

Merda. I had grabbed Selvagem. It didn’t have the power to nullify magic like El Lobizon’s claw did. Which meant I had only added a cut to the wounds already covering Justin’s body after his torture sessions and his fight with Chao.

What was one more cut atop all that? He didn’t even notice.

Justin’s hand closed around my throat, lifting me straight up off the carpet and into the air in a movement so quick, so deft that I hardly heard the cry escape my throat before his fingers were around it. His other hand squeezed the dagger out of my grip.

He gripped me so hard he began cutting off air. Those fingers would leave marks.

This wasn’t Justin. This wasn’t him at all.

I hardly had time to process the debris whirling around us—Chao’s power, but magnified ten times—before Justin pulled me to him and struck through the living room and out the already-broken window.

He was using the splicing given to him by the World Army: the ability to tap into the powers of any Other in his vicinity.

And right now he was using the most potent power of all—Chao’s, to create chaos.

I sucked in a hard breath while the magnitude of sound in the swirling vortex around Justin obscured everything else. I only heard the bellows of his lungs and the hard, fast thrust of his heart against his chest as he leapt through Chao’s living room window, landing us with a hard grunt on the asphalt of Bread Street.

The whirlwind around Justin spread, thinning into the open air outside Chao’s home. It allowed me a glimpse of the others—Cupid, Ordo, Chao, the pixies—at the window as Justin began running, his arm tight around me as a vise, down the street and away.

He’s taking me, I thought. He’s taking me to the World Army. To Serena.

I couldn’t let that happen.

Words came out of me—the sorts of words you say when you’re not really thinking of the words, precisely, but only the feeling of terror. “Justin,” I may have rasped. “Justin, stop. Please.”

He didn’t stop.

He ran fast.

And when I say fast, I mean faster than I’d ever seen him run. With super-human speed. He was still channeling Chao’s powers, except with far more potency than I’d ever witnessed from Justin. The World Army had spliced him to be able to take on the powers of those around him, but he’d either been immature in his use, or never truly tapped his abilities.

Now? Now it seemed like he was almost as powerful as the principle himself.

As we turned off of Bread Street, I managed to turn my head enough to spot an enormous clock on one of the buildings. Instead of ticking along, the second hand was spinning. So that was why he could run this fast … he was burning time.

I craned my head around to see what Justin was running toward. Before us lay the Other sector’s heart. Here was the main thoroughfare, already filling with Others on a bright Saturday morning. This was where the stalls had been set up with fruit and little wares, where all the species of Others could forget the fact that they were quarantined. That they were unwanted.

And Justin was about to plow right through it all.

Cupid’s cloud swept around the corner behind us, the little cumulus racing hard with an arrow jutting over its edge. Thank Yemoja for magical clouds and Cupids who drive them like Mario Andretti.

As Cupid came into view, he shot an arrow straight down into the center of the tornadic swirl Justin’s power had called up. He had a perfect angle on Justin, and Cupid had terrific aim.

But the arrow missed.

Justin swerved out of the street and onto the sidewalk. He ran straight into a stall, wood splintering, papayas and artichokes flying, finding their spot in the growing tornado around us. And that was when I knew the fruit had really hit the fan.

↔

“Hey, you!” a centaur yelled after us, stamping one hoof and snorting. Apparently that had been his food stall Justin had absolutely obliterated. “That guy’s burning magic. He’s lost his mind.”

Above us, another enormous World Government clock had been mounted to the side of a passing building. Like the first one, its second hand wasn’t ticking—it was spinning, fast.

Stop, Justin, I thought with a pang. He was burning months or years off his life, and it wasn’t even in his control. Please, stop.

But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t.

He was possessed.

Justin struck back out onto the street, his heart still hammering hard as his bones started to crack. I knew that sound—it was the sound my own bones made when I changed to a new illusion.

He’s taking on another power.

He didn’t lose speed, didn’t even make any noise as, still mid-run, the lower half of his body became a centaur’s. And with his hand still around my throat, the other one pinching my arms to my body, I couldn’t do anything to stop him.

A second later, we were clopping across the asphalt at a gallop. We passed through the wall of debris as Chao’s power dissipated and Justin possessed the centaur’s form and speed. Ahead of us, Others rushed aside, some screaming and some staring at us in wide-eyed confusion.

My eyes swept over a banshee, a catoblepas, a yara-mara-ya-who, a fairy, and even a GoneGodDamn lamia. This, I realized, was the worst place to be.

I struggled hard against Justin’s grip, but I only exhausted myself against his strength. I considered shifting into my giantess form—he would have a hard time carrying me around then—but I was still too weak after entering Justin’s mind and finding my way through into Hercules’s. Actually, I was downright exhausted.

I would have to bide my time and wait for my moment, if it ever came.

As the swirl of dust shrank behind us, an apple came shooting out of the mess, clocking Justin right in the back of the head. It cracked on his skull, fell in two pieces on the street.

Good shot, whoever that was.

Soon, all four pixies emerged—Lux, Dazzle, Glint and Phosphorescence—each of them lugging fruit and vegetables that they were teaming up to throw at Justin. A second later, a pineapple struck Justin’s dappled rear end and nearly made him lose his footing. For such tiny creatures, they had great arms.

Except Justin had an advantage over them: he was burning time. Lots of it.

“Hey everyone,” Dazzle yelled into the crowd of Others behind us. “That centaur just abducted that pregnant woman!”

Something about a pixie yelling with her little hands around her mouth had a rousing effect on the whole crowd. Or maybe it was the fact that I was pregnant. Whatever it was, about a third of the Others who had been out and about to enjoy their Saturday morning suddenly turned on Justin.

“Who kidnaps a pregnant woman?” Lux snapped, goading them on.

“Yeah,” Glint added. “What a degenerate.”

Finally, Phos delivered the coup de grace, surging forward with one finger pointing at Justin. “Get him!”

And with that encouragement, a whole group of Others started chasing us. I must have heard half a dozen different war cries. But it wasn’t enough. They didn’t want to burn magic—it was a sacrifice of life, and it was against the World Government’s rules to boot—and so they could only give chase.

Unfortunately, few creatures could run as fast as a horse. As a centaur, Justin quickly pulled away from the whole crowd. We passed an intersection and were onto the next block, at which point he was already onto his next source of Other power.

Within moments, he was no longer a centaur. His body returned to its two-legged form (sans pants, this time), and as he swung us into an alley, his bones began cracking again. His muscles reformed themselves in the darkness of the alley we had turned onto, and by the time I realized I knew the sounds of this magic—he was using my powers—Justin had already finished his illusion.

Miral. He had taken on the illusion of the angel, brown hair and wings and all. Her slender arms grasped me with the same strength as before, her long fingers around my throat. Those were her blue eyes, but emptied of all beauty and compassion and wisdom.

All that remained was the husk of the angel, filled by whatever wrathful power it was that filled Justin. And I knew exactly what he intended to do as Miral: throw the others off his trail long enough to get me out of the Other sector and to Serena.

My boyfriend was using my own powers against me. And he was using the love and respect Others had for Miral against them.

Except, when he tried to extend his wings, he couldn’t fly. I sensed his body tensing with the effort, his brow furrowing, but nothing happened. He couldn’t fly because he wasn’t Miral—he just bore the appearance of the angel.

I could have told him that, because I couldn’t fly when I had pretended to be Miral—the wings hadn’t been functional, even if I’d looked like her—and of course, Justin was channeling my powers.

Which meant he still had to run. And I don’t think he’d expected the alley he’d turned onto to have a dead-end.

Justin, still in the illusion of Miral, swung back around toward the street, started running us toward the main thoroughfare again.

Something crashed like a meteor into the open end of the alley, pieces of the cement breaking apart and flying up into the air. My hair flew back with the force of it, and as Justin skidded to a stop, the dust began to settle.

Then it began to swirl again.

There, rising from one knee, was Chao.

The principle pointed at Justin. “Put the encantado down.”

Chapter 2

Ordo appeared behind Chao, stepping off Cupid’s cloud like royalty. She and Cupid were followed by the four pixies, still lugging fruits and vegetables. A second later, the whole crowd of angry Others appeared at the alleyway’s entrance, including the centaur whose fruit stand Justin had destroyed.

It wasn’t looking good for my boyfriend.

“Hey,” I whispered. “Hey, darling.”

That was a name we had rarely used with one another, and only in secret moments, when we knew we wouldn’t be overheard. Neither of us were much for pet names, and over the past few months we hadn’t used that name at all. But now seemed like as good a time as any.

I couldn’t tell if he’d heard me; he didn’t acknowledge me except with a flutter of his eyelids. And I didn’t even know if that was really acknowledgment so much as a tic.

“Justin,” I barreled on, “let me go and they’ll—”

He breathed hard, and where I expected him to attempt to use Miral’s voice to talk Chao down, he only leaned forward and growled. Except what came out of his throat was Miral’s growl, low and guttural and absolutely terrifying.

Trust me, you never want to hear an angel growl.

In the second he leaned forward, his grip on me loosened just a hair. It was the moment I had been waiting for. Nothing else had distracted him long enough, but the principle of chaos was already summoning a dust storm around him. And when a principle wanted to fight you, that was a pretty good distraction.

It left me open to slide one hand out of his grip. It allowed me to do the one thing that my sister Ananda had taught me to do to your aggressor when you get access to their face.

I jerked my hand out and folded all but my first two fingers, which I left straight as knives.

I’m sorry, Justin.

Amidst the yelling and the swirling storm and the tapering of Justin’s growl, I jammed those two fingers as hard as they would go into his left eye.

And it worked.

He roared as he straightened, took a step backward. Still I pressed into his eye, tears hitting my vision. I was unrelenting, as Ananda had taught me to be. Even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, and he the last person I wanted to do it to.

He gripped my wrist, threw me wide like a child would toss a ragdoll. But he didn’t let go. I had been prepared for this. “Your assailant will enter a primal state,” Ananda had told me. “He will seek to remove the source of pain at all costs.” I bunched up one leg, kicked off him as he threw me. That gave me enough momentum to break his hold on my wrist, wrenching it in the process. Pain lanced up my right forearm, the beginnings of a sprain.

But I was free. I was free of him.

For a second I was airborne, and I knew the landing would hurt; nothing surrounded us but concrete and bricks. I braced, tucking my head to avoid the worst of it. But before I hit the wall of the building Justin had launched me toward, I was caught in a pillow.

Strike that—I was caught in Cupid’s cloud. It felt like I’d fallen into a papasan chair.

“Gotcha,” Cupid’s voice rang out behind me.

I didn’t have time to reply. Justin—still in the image of Miral—spun on me and Cupid, his left eye closed. The right eye burned with rage.

Cupid started to veer the cloud away, but Justin reached out and took hold of my ankle. This was the speed I had first witnessed back when he’d been spliced in Montreal. He had wanted to show me how he was changing, and he’d tossed a coin in the air. When he caught it, his hand had been a blur.

Inhuman speed. Super soldier speed. That was the speed he possessed. His blur of a hand caught my ankle and squeezed. He squeezed until I cried out. And then he yanked.

Cupid caught hold of my arm, pulled me back toward him. And I felt a whole series of tiny hands on that sleeve—three of the pixies, pulling for all their worth. “You can’t have her!” Lux yelled from behind them, and chucked an avocado at Justin. It bounced off his shoulder to zero effect.

They were no match for his strength, either. I slid down off the cloud, hitting the cement, cringing with pain at his grip. This wasn’t my boyfriend—not any part of him. This was a man possessed, a man without morals or qualms. He’d hurt me as needed, and he was.

“Isa,” came Cupid’s voice from behind me. “Catch!”

I glanced up, spotted a curved glint under the sunlight as it passed through the air. El Lobizon’s claw, thrown to me. Cupid must have grabbed it before he left Chao’s house.

I reached out, just barely caught it by the edge of the grip. I got a proper hold on it, leaned forward and, with a scream, drove it into the hand around my ankle.

Even with one eye open, Justin saw it coming. Of course he did. He yanked hard, and I fell back just enough that the claw’s tip almost missed his hand entirely.

Almost.

I nicked the edge of his finger. And from that finger rose the white smoke of his magic—his power. That was the potency of El Lobizon’s claw: it could nullify a person’s magic for days with just a needle’s poke.

His good eye met mine, fierce recognition passing across his face. His upper lip rose a degree, his white teeth—Miral’s teeth—coming into view just before Chao plowed into him with all the force that the principle of chaos can bring to bear.

Justin’s hand disappeared off my ankle, was lost in the cloud of debris as the two of them hit the far end of the alleyway in an explosion of bricks.

↔

Cupid flew to my side. “Ho-ly Hera.”

I staggered upright with a throbbing ankle, the claw still in my hand. Don’t let him be dead. Please don’t let him be dead.

In the next moment, a second explosion sounded from the center of the warehouse whose wall they’d just crashed through. A piston of wind shot through the building’s roof, and out of it rose Justin or Chao, or both of them. It was hard to tell, because I couldn’t see Miral anymore. I could only see two dark vortexes as they gathered everything loose around them into their orbits, which quickly slipped up toward the clouds. Which meant Justin was channeling Chao’s power again.

A hand fell on my shoulder. Beside me, Ordo stared up at the sky, her white hair blown back until its wildness was tamed. “Chao will destroy him. Even if the human can battle him now, he will burn all his magic into the air long before Chao is exhausted.”

“No.” I stared with her. “Tell him he can’t. Overrule him.”

Ordo ticked her head left and right. “I cannot overrule what I agree with. I would see Justin Truly destroyed, just as I would see Hercules destroyed. There is a reason he was once called the Soulrender.”

I spun on the principle of order. “You saw millions of futures in the garden, Ordo. After all that, you would still destroy them in the name of order?”

“It is you and you alone whose chaos I saw bringing order.” She raised a finger. “Not him. Not Hercules. Especially not now that Justin and Hercules are possessed by darkness.”

Up on the roof of the warehouse, the two vortexes had expanded into full-on tornadoes, lightning sparking as they glanced off one another—Chao and Justin battling.

Possessed by darkness. I couldn’t keep my hair from whipping into my face because of Justin’s chaos, but even so, I couldn’t acknowledge that as the final truth of his life. A man like that could not die possessed by darkness. If karma existed, he had accumulated enough of it for such a death to be wholly wrong.

But how could I change Ordo’s mind?

A spark kindled in me—an idea. “Ordo, the future you wanted isn’t a sure thing. Not by a long shot.”

Ordo glanced at me in her periphery. “What?”

Heat rose into my chest, up my neck. I didn’t know if what I was about to say was a bluff or the truth. “I will not give you the future you want if Justin and Hercules are dead. I cannot.”

Ordo faced me in full. “It doesn’t work that way. You cannot choose.”

I raised my left hand. “Oh? Do you know more about the oracle’s power than me?”

A shadow crossed her face, the tiniest cloud over the sun. “You can choose which path into the future you will follow?”

Cupid flew up, grabbed my arm to lead me away. “Isa, this is beyond us. We have to leave.”

On the rooftop, the warehouse was quickly disassembling to gale forces. The Others behind us were fleeing back onto the main thoroughfare as the tornadoes gathered a second layer around their inner spires.

Pure chaos.

I pulled my arm from Cupid’s grip, pressing my hair out of my face. I couldn’t leave; I sensed I was on the right path with Ordo. For a principle, her logic seemed suddenly immature to me. “Why would you have seen millions of futures in the garden if a single future was an inevitability?”

Her mouth opened, closed, words attempting to form. Finally, “Are you saying you’ll spite me if I allow Justin and Hercules to die?”

Good. So she believed me, even if I didn’t fully believe myself. I wasn’t sure I had the power to navigate the future in such a way—the last time I’d gone into the future with Ordo, I’d nearly had my mind melted by the magnitude of possibilities.

“Not spite, Ordo. Heartbreak. If they die, I will never find the will to live that future.”

Still a bluff, or the truth? I didn’t know. But as I said the words my voice quavered, and I knew their deaths would present a keen and lasting pain.

Ordo registered this with a straightening of the spine, like a bodily jolt. Her nostrils widened, her gaze swiveling to Chao on the rooftop. Heretofore I hadn’t seen Ordo’s power in play, though I knew she must possess it in immense quantities.

Now she closed her eyes, raised one hand to where the two vortexes battled it out on the rooftop. Nothing appeared to happen around her, except that, before us, the twin tornadoes were doused with invisible rain, scattered so quickly and finally that I gasped.

Ordo’s power was, simply and unequivocally, to restore order. She could end chaos so thoroughly it was as though the battle had not happened—except for the debris raining down, pieces of brick clattering and disassembling with little shrieks from the pixies attempting to dodge it all.

A moment later, order prevailed. The sun shone. A bird tweeted.

On the rooftop, Chao stood alone.

Where was Justin?

I squinted, shielding my eyes. He wasn’t up there.

“Where is he?” I whispered.

“He fled,” Ordo said simply, gazing at Chao as he stepped off the building and landed in the alley in some strange defiance of gravity. His brogues tapped the ground as he approached us, wicking stray dust off the shoulder of his suit.

“He must have burned ten years,” Chao said when he arrived. “A remarkable display of my power, though. I’m ashamed to say I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Ten years. Ten years of his life.

In the course of fifteen minutes, Justin had turned thirty.

Chapter 3

“Such chaos can only be possible through science,” Ordo scoffed in the alley. She pronounced science like it was a watermelon seed to be spat out.

“Remarkable, isn’t it?” Chao’s dark eyes shifted to me. “Change your illusion, encantado. You have a target painted on you.”

He was right, of course: Justin knew what I looked like, and he had been compromised. Soon, the World Army would know what I looked like, too.

When I changed illusions, Ordo set a hand over my shoulder. In the distance—beyond the fence line separating the Other sector from the rest of Paradise Lot—a faint rumbling had just become audible. “They are coming. We will take you to Miral.”

Good—I needed to talk to the angel. “Let’s go.”

Cupid raised a finger. “She can ride on my puff.”

Chao snorted as the little cloud drew near. “We have no need for such things.”

I was about to ask what he meant—was I about to be whisked into the center of a cloud of debris and ferried right through Paradise Lot?—when the principle of chaos pointed to a low building two blocks down the street.

The sign across the front read, in cursive handwriting, Ancient Tomes and Modern Rhymes.

A … bookstore.

Pride swelled in me. Some Others in Paradise Lot valued literacy! And reading! And learning! If I weren’t being hunted down by an evil government and forced to live underground, I would spend hours in there.

Cupid looked put out. “That’s just a bookstore.”

Chao was already hustling down the street, and Ordo’s hand squeezed my shoulder. “The owner is a resistance sympathizer. He will protect you.”

We started forward, Cupid and the pixies following.

“Just a bookstore?” Lux shot at Cupid. “If you ever read a book, you’d know the true value of them. That bookstore is the oldest in Paradise Lot, and it contains priceless volumes—”

“Excuse me, Glitter—‘Ever read a book?’ I’m two thousand years old. I was reading the Odyssey before you were even a thought in your goddess’s head.”

“Did you just call me Glitter again?” Lux growled.

The other three pixies, who had gone totally silent after the battle, now found their voices again. “Oooh,” they chorused. “Never call her Glitter.”

Chao glanced over his shoulder. “Can you please silence the pixies? And the demigod?”

I sighed as we came under the bookstore’s signage. “It’s impossible.”

When Chao pushed the door open, it gave a merry tinkle. That was followed by a thud, and a voice crying, “Oh!”

An enormous tree had unfolded to the ceiling, one brown and gnarled branch folded to touch the top of its head, from which sprouted a canopy. He’d bumped his head.

And he was a tree. A living tree.

No—this was …

“A treant,” Cupid whispered. “A treant working a bookstore. GoneGods, nobody tell him what books are made of.”

Lux sniffed. “Talk about a fire hazard.”

The treant, whose approximation of a face came clear in the gnarl of branches—two deep inlets in the gnarls made up his eyes, which drove deep and dark into his trunk beneath a set of black-rimmed glasses—laughed at once. More gnarls separated into what I took to be a mouth. It sounded like bark grating over itself, a hard and sandy noise.

And yet I found him endearing; he reminded me of the rainforest, of the trees which had lived longer than me, and whose canopies formed the roof of the only home I’d known for hundreds of years.

“Oh, that’s funny,” said the treant when he caught a breath, the rumbles of humor still in the belly of his trunk. “Light a match and ‘poof,’ am I right?” The branches of his arms swept up, narrowly missing the tight shelves of books taking up nearly all the floor space. “Poof!”

He broke into a new round of chuckles. For a bookstore proprietor, he seemed especially nonchalant about the prospect of his whole livelihood—and his own body—turning into charcoal.

Cupid seemed to have the same thought. “Uh, do you have property insurance?”

What were clearly gnarled eyebrows rose on the treant’s face. “Insurance?”

“That’s a no,” Cupid murmured.

As the door shut behind us, the pixies floated around the most marvelous bookstore I’d ever seen. The shelves were tight, yes, and tightly packed. And the walls, too, to where I couldn’t even have told you what color they were for how many spines lined every surface.

But the ceiling came to a beautiful cupola, into which someone had carved space for a skylight that offered a perfect and golden light over the entire space, gilding the tops of some of the books so prettily I had to resist touching them.

“This is wonderful,” I said. All the urgency from a minute ago seemed to puddle under the calming weight of the skylight, the treant’s gravelly voice, the smell of books.

“Barkley,” said Ordo, “we need you to close the store for an hour.”

“Of course.” The treant raised a slow, rustling hand, one twig of a finger circling in the air. “As I’m not able to move with the speed you require, can you all please shutter each window, lock the door and turn the sign?”

The pixies moved right into action, each of them flying to a different window to yank on the cord for the blinds. And Cupid had locked the door, flipped the sign and lowered the blinds before I even turned around.

The treant let a rumbling noise as he considered us all. “I heard quite a commotion outside.”

Ordo’s hand found my shoulder again. “The World Army wants this one. She’s the most valuable Other alive.”

“To some,” I qualified. I hated to be talked about that way.

“Oh,” said the treant, one hand folding to his chest. “You’re darling. What are you?”

I resisted leaning back to take in the full scope of his face; it would seem rude. So I just stared into one of his eye holes. “An encantado.”

The treant’s eyebrows went up again as he leaned down toward me, the lenses of his round, black-framed glasses catching the light. “Encantado. Forest creatures of South America. Seductresses of the night, though that’s more an aspersion cast on your kind, isn’t it?” He winked. “And what is your profession?”

“I’m a biologist.”

He beamed down at me. “Excellent. You, encantado, have a brave soul.”

A brave soul?

“You see her character?” Ordo asked. “That quickly?”

Barkley’s dark eyes shifted to Ordo, returned to me with new consideration. With two uncannily precise fingers, he shifted his glasses. “Why, yes. It’s quite obvious under this light. And even if it’s not brave, precisely, then it’s certainly not a cowardly soul.”

Three of the pixies gravitated to Barkley, coming to land in his branches like birds. Gazing up at the treant, I almost felt as though I could sense his soul. As though the form containing him was much smaller than his presence.

He was the first to ever call me brave, and I didn’t know if I ought to put any stock in it. Though I wanted to. “Treants can see souls?”

“Ahh, not precisely.” Barkley sighed—not in agitation, but with thoughtfulness. “How to describe it? I can see … motivation. No, that’s not it,” he muttered, reaching out to lift one book, then another. He paged through what was clearly a tome, flicking from one page to the next and pressing his stick of a finger to the lines. He was surprisingly precise with branches for hands. “Goals? Design?”

“You can see intent?” Ordo offered.

Barkley raised his face. “Yes, that’s it! I can see intent. There’s always a perfect word for the situation—it’s just a matter of finding it.”

I was even more confused. “What do you mean, see my intent?”

The treant tilted his head, and with it, the three pixies tilted, too. He swirled a finger in the air. “You resonate with powerful good intentions, like an aura off you. A light. Though I’ve rarely seen one so urgent—I practically have to squint to look at you.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“It’s her love story,” Cupid said simply, sliding his finger over the spines of books as he flew around the store like he was window shopping.

“Ahh.” The treant nodded. “So that’s why you’re with her. And what of you two principles?”

“She has oracle power,” Ordo said. “It was passed down to her by Pythia. And I have seen the future because of it. This encantado will bring order.”

“Is that so?” With that, Barkley let out another grating laugh. He slapped one leg so hard a few splinters flew off. “Order and chaos and order and chaos. On and on they go, one gaining ground and the other scratching it back. Ordo, may I recommend this for your next read?”

Barkley reached with one long arm to a far shelf, plucked a book from it without even looking, and passed it to order. I glimpsed the title as it passed by: A History of the World to Now.

Ordo scoffed, folded her arms. “Do not mock me, treant.”

Lux had floated over to the front counter. She was gazing at a framed portrait. “Is this your family?”

“Ah yes.” Barkley set the book aside. “My Furte Eliza and our three twiglets.”

Cupid chuckled and whispered to me, “Get it? Furte Eliza. Fertilizer.”

Phos picked up a die from the counter and held it up to the light. “Is this a D20?”

Barkley replaced the book, his good humor unwavering. “Why, yes. Though that particular item’s not for sale.”

Cupid’s attention was caught by something behind the counter, and he flew over to what appeared to be a … treant costume. “Is this LARPing gear?”

“LARP-ing?” Ordo and Chao said together. I was as confused as the two principles.

“Yes indeed. Though that is not for sale, either.”

Cupid lifted one of the costume’s arms—or branches, as it were—and stared at Barkley. “You LARP as your own race?”

“Well, I did, once upon a time.” Barkley chuckled. “I was Treebeard, and the humans in our group adored me. I’d carry them on my shoulders when I wasn’t feeling arthritic.” He paused, gave a long and deep exhale. “That was before Others were cordoned off into our own sector.”

A grim silence descended. The Other sector. Hearing it invoked reminded me that this was, for all intents and purposes, the only part of Paradise Lot I’d really seen.

In the awkwardness, I surveyed the enormous selection of books. Endless words, endless knowledge. Barkley had placed signs above all the different sections: FICTION, NON-FICTION. And within those sections, dozens of sub-sections. In non-fiction alone, I even saw a sign for knitting.

But one sign hit me like a sack of potatoes.

In the corner, I glimpsed two words written above one of the shelves.

Paradise Lot.

GoneGodDamn, Isa.

What if I didn’t have to take my question to Miral? What if I could just ask a book?

I crossed to the Paradise Lot section, began pulling books out one by one and replacing them just as quickly. “Barkley, do you have any Paradise Lot picture books for adults?”

The treant began a slow, slouching movement across the store toward me. “Tell me what it is you’re searching for, encantado, and I will give you the book you need.”

I closed my eyes, trying to remember what I had seen through Hercules’s eyes. “I’m … looking for a fountain with a rearing centaur. It’s amidst a green—”

“Say no more.” The treant had already reached past me, pulled out a hardback which he set in my hands. “You will find it in here. The perfect book for a brave soul like yours.”

The book in my hands was titled The Savvy Traveler’s Guide to Paradise Lot, by Alphonse C. Aphid. When I opened it, I was presented with endless pictures of gardens and greenery and restaurants and hole-in-the-wall and obscure tourist destinations, all ranked in order of preference. It was also ten years old.

I didn’t realize Lux had landed on my head until her ornery voice filled the store. “Thirty dollars? For that?”

I looked up at the treant. “Are you certain this is the book I need?” I really didn’t want it to be the book I needed, if I was being honest.

The treant exhaled a rumbling assent. “This is the one.”

Before I could respond, a rumbling emanated through the floorboards. Everyone seemed to sense it, because we all fell to complete stillness. I pressed the book to my chest with both hands.

The rumbling grew, materialized into the distinct sound of an approaching engine, and the little bell over the door began to sway. Cupid flew to the window, peeked out the blinds. “There’s a gas guzzler with a logo we all hate coming down the street. And it’s slowing down.”

“They’ve trailed the burnt magic to its source,” Barkley murmured. “Now it is time for you to leave, all of you. Out the back.”

I resisted as he pushed me along. “What about you?”

Barkley straightened, his eyes shifting to the tiny, four-pane window overlooking the street. “I will delay them.”

Delay them. I didn’t know what that meant, but from a treant it sounded ominous. “Don’t put yourself in trouble for me. Please.”

The treant continued ferrying us all toward the back door as though he hadn’t heard me. Beside me, Chao gripped Ordo’s wrist. He whispered something to her, and her eyes widened. She nodded.

The treant opened the back door, ducked to glimpse outside. When he ducked back in, he waved an arm, the leaves on it rustling. “This way.”

“Ordo and I will stay,” Chao said. “Magic has been burnt, and the World Government is looking for perpetrators. We will forestall them. And even if they arrest the principles of order and chaos, it will only inflame the Others of Paradise Lot further.”

I stopped at the back door. “Chao—”

Ordo lifted a hand. “We have decided, Isabella. Chao will remain, and I must stay with Chao, lest he cause the chaos he most desires. Find Miral and do what you must to bring about the future I’ve seen. We will be there when you need us most.”

The vehicle’s brakes whined as it stopped in front of the bookstore. A car door opened and slammed shut. I didn’t have time to argue with the principles or with the ent.

So, the book pressed to my chest, I turned and stepped out through the bookstore’s back door.

Chapter 4

Barkley, Cupid, the pixies and I stepped into a shorter, darker alley than the one Justin had escaped to with me. The treant closed the door behind him, looked left and right—the cross street lay empty, for now—and nodded to my right.

Directly behind the bookstore sat a large, square dumpster which Barkley pushed aside as easily as if it were on wheels—which it wasn’t. Beneath the dumpster lay a manhole, whose lid the treant removed with a single finger slid through one air hole. The manhole revealed a metal ladder into the darkness, from which a putrid scent emanated.

“Oh great,” Cupid groaned. “After New York, I thought I’d smelled the worst smell. I was wrong.”

Lux shushed Cupid with a finger to her lips.

Cupid threw his hands out, completely unmollified. “And anyway, what’s the point of a manhole if you’re going to put a dumpster over it?”

The pixie huffed. “A situation just like this, maybe?”

The treant held the lid aside with perfect ease. “Down the ladder with you all. And be quick. Head a kilometer straight through the tunnels.”

A knock sounded at the bookstore’s front door, knuckles rapping in rapidfire—once, twice, three times. An official knock if I’d ever heard one.

“Isa, you should go first.” Dazzle darted here and there, clearly anxious. “You cannot be lost to us.”

“Pass me the book.” Cupid extended a hand for the book Barkley had given me and proceeded to tuck it into his loincloth. The scholar inside me cringed at the defilement, even as I stepped up to the ladder.

Two of the pixies came to land on my shoulders. “Go on,” Lux said. “We’ll light the way.”

I didn’t know what they meant, but as I started down, a glow emanated from each of my shoulders. The pixies themselves provided it, a natural light in the blackness. It helped to allay the coldness of the metal in my grip, the scents from below, the feeling of descent into a world of blackness.

Just before my head dipped below the surface, I met Barkley’s eyes (or, at least, the place where his gnarls separated to form holes beneath his glasses). “Thank you.”

“Such a human idiosyncrasy,” the treant whispered, “offering thanks when I only do what should be done for a brightness like yours.”

Then Cupid’s behind was in my view, and I had no choice but to continue down as fast as I could.

Glint and Phosphorescence floated down ahead of me, fireflies in the tunnel into the earth. “Keep coming!” one called up. Meanwhile, Lux and Dazzle clutched my neck at either side.

And above, I caught one last glimpse of Barkley as the enormous treant replaced the manhole cover with a solid, final scrape.

I thought, as I often did when I met fascinating people by accident, that I would very much like to see the treant again one day. I suspected we could be friends after all this was over. And I had a feeling deep in my gut that things would be over, one way or the other, soon. Very soon.

Barkley had just begun to move the dumpster back into place—and I’d only gotten halfway down—when footsteps sounded in the alley. A voice rang out, sharp and piercing and also strangely musical. “What are you doing back here?”

I froze on the ladder. That was the effect of a military command, one delivered by a soldier. A soldier I knew well.

Daiski.

His black hair and dark eyes floated before me in the darkness. He’d wanted glory and fame by capturing me. But in the end, he’d let me go. He’d let me go because he’d once met the oracle, and she had told him he would need to protect the encantado.

He would need to protect me.

The last time I’d seen Daiski had been in the desert, on another continent. In what felt like another life. And for some reason I’d had the wild thought afterward that he would quit the World Army, the only job he’d ever known. Maybe he would run a convenience store or become a hermit.

No—he would do none of those things. He would do what was realistic. He would do what he did best: fight. Fight and win.

So here he was, and here I was, the two of us not ten feet from one another.

Did he know I was here?

Did he suspect?

The treant gave a great aggrieved huff, creaking as he turned toward Daiski. “I’m setting this dumpster in its proper spot, if that’s all right by you.”

More footsteps—Daiski coming closer. “Proper spot?”

“If you hadn’t noticed, there was a commotion two blocks down an hour ago that shook the whole of Paradise Lot out of place. I expect that’s what you’re here about, after all—you and the others in your military vehicle out front of my store.”

“Your store,” Daiski said.

“That’s right.”

Daiski took another step, until I could see the edge of him through one of the air holes. My lungs caught and held. Above me, Cupid’s wings had gone peculiarly still. “But you’ve closed in the middle of the day. Why?”

“We ents take lunch, too.” Barkley reached once more for the dumpster. “Now if you don’t mind—”

“Wait.” Daiski took another step, and his head blocked the sun. He was staring down here. Down at me.

Could he see us?

Please, Daiski. Please don’t.

A second passed. Five, ten—I didn’t know how long—before the back door of the bookstore opened and Chao’s voice rang out. “We’re who you’re looking for, I believe.”

“What’s our punishment?” Ordo asked from beside him. “A slap on the wrist for burning some time, I expect. Seems fair.”

Daiski didn’t move. Didn’t answer.

He’s seen us. He’s absolutely seen us.

When he moved, the sun replaced the spot where his head had been. He stepped on top of the manhole with a single clank as he approached the principles. “A slap on the wrist doesn’t seem orderly, does it?”

I breathed again. Above us, subtle barbs were being exchanged, a conversation held. But I could only think:

Daiski saw me. He definitely saw me, and he did nothing.

↔

After a minute of distraction on the principles’ part, everyone’s voices were getting strident. I wanted to know what would happen next, but Barkley pulled the dumpster back over the manhole. The sunlight disappeared, and we were enclosed fully in the sewers, all sounds above erased.

“Well,” Lux whispered into my ear, “that was bracing.”

Bracing was one word for it. Terrifying was another.

“I could have sworn that man saw us!” Phos whispered from my other side.

“Don’t be silly,” Lux clapped back. “Any World Army soldier who’d seen us would’ve done something.”

Except for Daiski. Except for him.

He had protected me in the desert. And he had protected me again, here in Paradise Lot.

I waited in the darkness, my hands sweaty on the rung I had frozen to when Daiski’s voice sounded. Though I didn’t know what I waited for—a rescue? For Barkley to pull the dumpster away and allow us back up?

No, we had to continue down. We had to find our way through this place to Miral.

Though I had no idea about the layout of the sewers.

Beneath me, water flowed at a soft, echoing clip. Not the kind of water you want to hear flowing, though. This was the world beneath Paradise Lot, and the Other sector, at that. At least the sewers beneath the human section of the city largely received the excrement from one species. Here, you knew what the insides of a banshee’s guts smelled like, swirled in with every other species of Other to create a hellacious brew.

Not good. Unequivocally not good.

The almost imperceptible, wispy sound of beating wings preceded a soft glow which rose in front of my face. Glint stared back at me. “It’s about two meters down.” She flitted right, then left. “Don’t slip on the rungs!”

Cupid had the advantage of flying off the ladder and floating right on down. “This seems familiar,” he murmured as he slipped past me and, a second later, landed barefooted in the water below. “Familiarity shitty, that is.”

When I’d climbed down, Lux flew over to sit on the crown of his blond head as the rest of the pixies floated around us like a mobile ambient light. They illuminated enough of the enclosing walls to know we were in a smaller sewer system than the one we’d waded through in New York City.

A small thing to be grateful for.

On the other hand, this one was likely much, much older. And more likely to be occupied by who knew what.

“Now what?” Cupid asked.

I didn’t precisely know. I hated imprecision. “Barkley said we needed to walk a kilometer straight through the tunnels.”

“Oh, that’s helpful.” Cupid waded around in a circle. “I can’t even remember how long a kilometer is.”

Beneath Cupid’s wading, I thought I’d heard something from deeper in the tunnel—a noise that hadn’t been flowing water. It had sounded like squelching.

“It’s a mile and a third,” I said in distraction. “Pixies, does anything live in the Paradise Lot sewer system?”

“Live?” Glint and Phos said together.

“Not that we know of,” Lux said as she rode in a circle atop Cupid. “Though it’s not like we come down for afternoon tea.”

I remained still, listening. But I heard nothing else.

“Well”—I took a step, then another—“the longer we wait, the longer our friends wait. Let’s not wait.”

We started through the tunnel, Glint and Dazzle lighting the way. Phos rode my shoulder, and Lux remained seated on Cupid like a queen on her dais, periodically shooting off a command to continue straight.

Of course, we only had one direction to go.

Above us, manholes appeared at intervals, sounds from above filtering down. Light appeared in shafts, illuminating the water at our feet. Brown, opaque, frothy. I hadn’t dared breathe through my nose since the moment Barkley had lifted that manhole cover away.

After ten minutes, we came to an intersection in the tunnels. We had three directions to choose from, and we stood at the join with the water lapping.

“I say we go left,” Lux declared. “I have a feeling.”

I pointed ahead. “Barkley said straight.”

“Whatever we do,” Dazzle said, “let’s not go right. It smells off.”

“Off?” Cupid threw up his hands. “You’re in a sewer, surrounded by excrement. It all smells off.”

Dazzle leaned right, took a brief sniff and shook her head. “That direction smells more off.”

As soon as she’d finished speaking, a noise sounded from our right.

Squelching.

I spun. “Did you hear that?”

Cupid floated out of the water and to my side. In the darkness, I felt him pass me Selvagem. “You dropped this earlier.”

So he’d heard it, too. As confirmation, I heard the creak of his bow as he prepared an arrow.

I held Selvagem at the ready. We all remained in silence. For some reason I hadn’t really expected the squelching to recur, but it did, and louder. Closer.

I took a step back. Far down the rightmost tunnel, something passed through the shafts of light off a manhole with that squelching sound. It happened so quickly—into the light and out again—I hadn’t had a chance to focus on what it had been.

But it didn’t look human.

I took another step back. “Did you see that?”

Glint edged forward like a curious child, despite Lux’s ministrations that she should fly away. The squelching sounded louder, faster, like a desperate soul whose boots were full of mud.

Glint stopped all at once. I saw her little light quiver before she yelped and darted back to me. She disappeared into the depths of my hair. “It’s … It’s …a thing!”

Before I could decide if I should stay or run, the squelching had stopped some six feet in front of us.

“Ho-ly shit,” Cupid said as he lowered his bow. “It’s a living pile of shit.”

Chapter 5

From out of the darkness oozed the thing Cupid had called a living pile of shit. It looked just like I’d have expected: brown, amorphous, smelling like the empty ninth circle of Hell.

In the faint light off the pixies, the thing rose up and … smiled at us? Or at least, the approximation of a mouth had appeared. A smiling mouth.

“It’s grinning at us,” Cupid whispered, more horrified than I’d ever heard him. And given what we’d been through, that was saying a lot.

All the same, something loosened my grip on the dagger. I sensed almost immediately that the creature before us wasn’t a threat. If it had been, it would have just kept coming at us. It wouldn’t have stopped and smiled—a universal gesture for peace.

Glint peeped out from under my hair, her little light growing.

“I’ve heard of this thing,” Phosphorescence said suddenly. “I’ve read of it!”

“This thing?” Lux said from her perch.

“In a children’s book,” Phos said. I had forgotten she and the others—aside from Lux—were primary school teachers. “It lived beneath Paradise Lot. It was called … the stink machine.”

The creature gave off a loud, resounding series of squelches, rising and falling and quivering like pudding.

Glint peeped from under my hair. “What’s it doing?”

“I think it’s laughing.” Or, more accurately, giggling.

I lowered my dagger, sliding it into my boot. And not just because the creature quivered non-threateningly like jello—also because I really doubted a blade would be effective against a monster lacking muscle or sinew or bones.

“We need to get back to Miral,” Cupid whispered to me, his bow still nocked. “I think we should leave this thing alone.”

It might have heard Cupid. Because the quivering—the giggling—stopped as soon as the demigod spoke, and after he’d finished, from out of the stink machine slipped a slender tendril, rising into the air and beckoning us. It turned, slid around, and beckoned again for us to follow.

And, with impulsiveness unlike me, I started down the rightmost tunnel after it.

“What are you doing?” Lux rasped after me. “We’re supposed to go straight.”

“It wants us to come,” I said. “I don’t think it means to hurt us.”

Cupid flew reluctantly by my side. “Just the smell of it is killing me.”

I set a hand on his arm as we walked. “Hey, watch it. I think he understands us.”

“He?” Even in the almost-darkness, I thought I saw the whites of Cupids eyes as he rolled them. “Great. Now it has a gender.”

We followed the squelching creature for a minute, then two. I was beginning to second-guess my instinct when it paused at an opening in the sewer and disappeared right around a corner.

Glint remained under the cover of my hair, and Cupid kept his bow at the ready as we came around the corner after it.

But arrows wouldn’t be necessary.

Before us sat a small room with turn-wheels at either side, presumably to close and open storm doors. At the center of it sat the creature, that smile returned to its face as it gazed back at us.

And around it, covering every wall, were paintings.

I stepped forward, my mouth open. “What is this?”

Dazzle, clearly one of the more daring pixie sisters, had already floated over to the nearest painting, naturally illuminating it with her nearness. And what she revealed was a piece of parchment—how had the creature acquired paper?—covered in brown brushstrokes.

But that was doing the painting no justice. None at all.

As I approached and the details of it became clear, I didn’t see brushstrokes at all. I saw people seated in grass, picnicking on a checkered blanket. Behind them arched trees, their branches sprouting healthy, full leaves. They foregrounded a cityscape, buildings fitted with rows of windows that rose high into the sky. And in turn, those buildings foregrounded the sun, blocked partially by clouds.

In the top left corner, barely visible for their size, four letters appeared in elegant cursive.

CaCa.

Beside that painting sat another, a close-up view of an enormous statue of a man holding a book. And beside that, another painting of equal caliber. I turned a full circle, found myself surrounded by art.

“You’re CaCa,” I whispered to the creature, who hadn’t moved from the center of the room.

Instead of a smile or bubbling laughter, the creature—CaCa—only deepened into himself with what sounded like a pleased sigh. I had called him by his name.

The pixies and Cupid floated from painting to painting, inspecting them all and discussing each in low tones. Even Glint had left the safety of my hair.

Phos floated over to me. “These are all of Paradise Lot. Every one of them.”

CaCa squelched over to one corner, and from the ground lifted what appeared to be a tiny paintbrush. When he turned around and approached me, I didn’t back away. Not even when the creature lifted the paintbrush toward my belly, and with the tiniest, feather-light touch, stroked the bristles across it.

From out of the gloop appeared two eyeholes, gazing up at me in question. He hadn’t wanted to touch my belly with his own hand; he knew what he was. And he knew respect.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m pregnant.”

Another smile emerged from CaCa’s mouth.

In my periphery, I glimpsed a painting I had missed entirely. There, her wings extended to their full span, hung a perfect portrait of the angel Miral.

I’d had an instinct about CaCa, and it had been correct. And now I had another.

I pointed at the portrait. “CaCa, do you know this angel?”

CaCa lifted his paintbrush toward the painting, touched the bristles to Miral’s face. Then he slid the brush toward the bottom left corner of the painting, where a tiny symbol had been painted with a careful hand.

The fish with wings and legs.

The symbol of the resistance.

My throat swelled as I gazed at the fish, then back at CaCa. All along, I was realizing, the spirit of the resistance had existed around me. So many Others, no matter how low or humble, possessed a noble spirit. The desire to live with dignity.

The desire to live, period.

“CaCa,” I whispered, “can you lead us to Miral?”

↔

One hour and endless complaints from Cupid later, CaCa led us to a manhole under whose light he paused, and—if such a thing were possible for a creature made of excrement—stared up into.

“Up there?” I said.

All four pixies were already floating up the length of the ladder. “This is the way,” Dazzle said.

“She’s up here, here, here,” Phos sang.

“I can’t stand this darkness any longer,” Glint whined.

“Now don’t get your wings in a bundle,” Lux said from the back. “We’ll be out of here in a jiff.”

“Uh, pixies?” I hadn’t even gotten confirmation that this was the right exit. “If you fly out through those holes and get flattened by a car, I’ll never forgive myself.”

Above, Dazzle giggled. “It’s perfectly safe. CaCa told us so.”

Cupid flew up next to me. “Apparently the pixies and CaCa understand one another.”

“Apparently.” I gazed down at CaCa, who had fallen into a kind of rhythmic gyration I took to be … amusement? Not laughter, precisely, but good humor. It was hard to get a read on him, for obvious reasons. “So this is the way to Miral, then.”

CaCa’s mouth opened with glee, two excited eyeholes forming in his face.

“That’s a yes,” Cupid said. “Or some kind of plea for fiber.”

Lux snorted. “It’s a yes, silly.”

I crouched before the creature. “CaCa, thank you. You’re helping the resistance more than you know.”

CaCa roiled, let out the tiniest baby burp. I never thought I’d call a creature like this cute, but there was no better word.

CaCa was cute.

We left him in the sewers, and as I climbed the rungs, fresh air beckoned me. And light—brilliant light. All four pixies had already disappeared through the manhole’s grating, which left only Cupid and I.

Phos peeked back in. “Oh, it’s quite nice out here.”

Cupid was getting impatient. “What’s up there, huh?”

Phos giggled, slipped away.

When we reached the cover, Cupid and I pushed it up together. We poked our heads up and took a look around.

“Great.” Cupid let go of the cover, which was too heavy for me to hold up alone. We both ducked as it dropped back into place. “Your new friend took us straight into the burbs. And not even the nice burbs. We should go back.”

“He must have had a reason.” I clutched to the top rung, gazing back down into the darkness. I wondered if CaCa was still down there, and what he’d have to say for himself. Why had he led us here?

“What kind of logic could an Other made of shit have, anyway?” Cupid huffed. “I mean, he’s a conglomeration of the insides of various Others’ intestines.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Maybe even yours.”

Cupid’s eyes widened on me before he shrugged. “OK, I can see where that would imbue him with a decent amount of intelligence.”

Phos appeared just on the other side of the manhole cover, peering in at me. “You’ve gotta see this door,” the pixie whispered. “For GoneGods’ sake, its enormous.”

Chapter 6

“Are we even in the Other sector anymore?” I asked as we climbed out of the sewers. CaCa had taken us to a quiet street lined with humble, narrow houses all pressed together like shotgun homes, except … imagine a shotgun house rising vertically. Couple that with shingles falling off, no front yards and the clearly unmaintained quality of the road adjoining all the houses.

Then you’ve got an idea of the neighborhood.

“Of course we are!” Phos and Dazzle said together. Phos pointed straight through me. “Behind you is the barrow. Behind that is Bread Street.”

Cupid set a finger in his mouth, stuck it up into the air. “And I can confirm the answer is yes.”

I had been turning a slow circle—nothing but more homes for as far as I could see—when Cupid delivered his pronouncement. “Isn’t that how people tell the temperature?”

Cupid shrugged. “Yes. And the temperature in the Other sector is always warmer.”

Lux sniffed. “Why would that be?”

Cupid swept his arms around her, pulled the shrieking pixie to his chest. “Because all us Others are packed in here tight, baby.”

“Never grab me like that again!” came the pixie’s muffled voice as she struggled to slip out of his embrace. “Not without my consent.”

“Oh, now she invokes consent.” Cupid shot me a look. “But mine was assumed when she was doing all those … things to me in the darkness of the barrow.”

Cupid needed to learn the meaning of TMI as soon as possible.

For now I cleared my throat, pointed a finger at the row of houses directly in front of us. “Do you think CaCa was taking us to Miral’s home?”

“Maybe.” Cupid flew up, swung around. “But which?”

Phos, who’d taken to riding on the opposite shoulder as Glint, made a little noise as she darted out and over to a random blue door. “It’s this one!” She waved her arms in a wide arc. “Look how much larger it is than all the others.”

“Dear, remember what we said about going onto other people’s property,” Dazzle called.

I stepped forward. Phos was right; every other home was constructed differently than this one—the dimensions smaller, more uniform. The house with the blue door did have a larger door, suited for an angel, along with taller windows.

Glint flew to the window, peered in with both hands cupped to her face. “Nobody’s downstairs, but I see a really, really long doctor’s jacket over one chair.”

Well, if that wasn’t the angel’s jacket, then color me shocked.

We all approached the house with the blue door. When I knocked with Cupid and the pixies behind me, no one answered. Not after the second or third rounds of knocking, either. I suspected if Miral was home, she wouldn’t hesitate to open the door once she’d spotted us through the spyhole.

I turned away. “I guess we’re out of—”

But Glint had already lifted the mail slot and slipped through with a clank. Before I could protest about the illegality of what was happening, the lock turned and the door opened. “Got you, fam.”

The other pixies groaned. “Glint,” Lux said, “someday you’re going to get into a situation that we can’t get you out of.”

Cupid and I just exchanged a look. I shrugged, and he did, too. We’d both done worse—way worse. So we both went in. Because when you’re in the resistance and your boyfriend and favorite demigod have been taken and tortured by the World Army and you’re on the run, you go in the GoneGodDamn house.

“Miral?” I called as I closed the door behind me. My voice echoed through the room, particularly as it had so few adornments—no carpet, no curtains—and such tall ceilings.

Only a round table and two chairs sat at the center of the room, flanked by a modest kitchen. This was the entrance to Miral’s house: we had stepped right into the dining room that doubled as the cooking space.

A doctor’s jacket had been hung over the back of one of the chairs, exactly as long as Glint had described. When I fingered the lapel, I found Miral’s name monogrammed on it. So this was the angel’s home.

Except the angel wasn’t home.

Cupid and the pixies spread out. Two of the pixies flew up a narrow staircase to the second story, and I didn’t have the energy to stop them. We were already home invaders—I supposed it didn’t make much difference if we went upstairs.

For my part, I was still struck by this room. Really, by the absolute bareness of it. For some reason I’d believed the angel’s faith would be on display. Maybe a cross on the wall, or a Star of David or the crescent of Islam, or anything from the Abrahamic faiths. All three religions believed in angels, which made these the religions that believed in Miral.

But I saw not one piece of religious iconography anywhere.

What did catch my eye was a mat placed in the far corner of the room. As I stepped around the table, two spots came into view where the mat had been worn threadbare by someone’s knees. Someone had worshipped here, long ago. But now the space was barren. It was as though that someone now prayed to an empty wall.

Or they no longer prayed at all.

Has Miral lost her faith?

If I had a home, it would be filled with tributes to the Amazon. As angry as I was at Yemoja for leaving, I would still have something that paid tribute to her.

“Isa!” Dazzle called from upstairs.

“Coming.” I dragged my attention from the mat in the corner. What a strange, irreverent thought to have about the former Commander of the Lord’s Army. I must have been mistaken; if anyone still had faith, it would be her.

When I came upstairs, I was greeted by Dazzle’s excited face. Beyond the pixie lay the tallest mattress I’ve ever seen, which took up most of the room. Again, the space lacked prettiness, lacked adornment. It was neat, the bed made, but … lifeless.

On the nightstand beside the bed, no Bible. No Tanakh. No Torah. Just a single, old-fashioned candle holder with a partially melted candle still standing up in it.

Dazzle grabbed my hand, led me through the bedroom. “There are cut stems in the bathroom.”

I blinked, focusing on the pixie. “Cut stems?” We came into the bathroom, and I couldn’t even see my reflection in the small, round mirror over the sink—it was set too high for my face.

The pixie dove into the little trash can set beside the toilet, came up with an armful of shorn flower stems which she held out to me. “Smell.”

I leaned forward. The scent was distinct—these were freshly shorn—though I couldn’t place the exact flower. “What am I smelling for?”

Phos flew over, grabbed one of the stems and held it out to me. “Don’t you know your flowers? I thought you were a biologist!”

“Well, technically I’m a geneticist.”

Lux appeared beside them with a huff. “These are lily stems—I could smell them from all the way downstairs.”

I remained still, staring back at the pixies. “OK …?”

All of them glanced at one another, evidently baffled that I didn’t understand.

Finally, Dazzle sighed and shook her head. “Lilies are funeral flowers. She’s likely gone to the graveyard.”

↔

After a half-mile walk, we emerged onto the street adjacent to Paradise Lot’s graveyard for Others. Of course, I knew it best as the pixies’ home.

On this sunny Saturday in December, the graveyard was predictably empty. Except for one statuesque woman seated on a stone bench some thirty feet away. I couldn’t see the front of her, but those folded wings, feather tips brushing the ground, were unmistakable.

Miral.

Her head was bowed as though in prayer. She didn’t react at all when our footsteps sounded on the flagstones.

She should be strategizing. Figuring out how to handle everything that’s happened with Justin and Hercules and the blowout this morning.

But she clearly wasn’t.

Why?

Lux zipped in a quick circle around me as we entered the graveyard. “Be careful. She’s acting strange.”

Cupid walked behind me, and the pixies followed in a trail as I approached Miral. When I had gotten to within a few feet, I stopped. “Miral?”

The angel’s head didn’t lift. “Hello, Isabella. I see CaCa led you to me.”

I blinked. “How would you know that?”

“The smell.”

I came closer. The angel still hadn’t lifted her head. When I got to parallel with her, I saw her hands were wrapped around the hilt of her longsword, the tip of which she had planted into the ground. Her forehead rested on the pommel.

“Isa,” Cupid whispered, his hand touching mine. “I’m a little nervous—”

I gently removed my hand from his, taking another step forward. I didn’t know where to begin. “How do you know CaCa?”

The angel sighed. “I met him long ago. The resistance has been utilizing the sewer system for years, and CaCa quickly became my guide. And then, shortly after, my friend. He knows I like to go to the graveyard on Saturdays. Sometimes he sits with me.”

I took a step closer. “May I sit with you?”

Finally the angel lifted her face. Those perfect eyebrows rose, and though she maintained that incandescent beauty, a darkness swam in her eyes. “You may.”

It took me more than a little courage to sit down just a foot from the six-foot blade. In it, my reflection gazed back at me with distorted wariness. Cupid and the pixies milled a few yards off. “Miral, something happened to Justin.”

The angel turned her eyes straight ahead. “I know.”

“I think he’s gone to the World Army.”

She didn’t respond to this.

“And … they’ve broken Hercules, too.”

“Yes.”

I set my palms on the icy stone beneath me, gingerly angled myself toward Miral. “What is the resistance’s plan?”

“I have not spoken with the other resistance leaders about our next steps.” Miral adjusted the sword, its tip scraping on the overgrown stone in a way that made me shiver.

“Why not?”

Miral sighed, tipped the hilt of her sword forward. “Do you see what’s written on that gravestone, Isabella?”

My eyes darted noncommittally to a small gravestone set before the bench. Weeds had begun to grow up around it, partially obscuring the engraving. I only glimpsed the first name—Darragh—before I turned back to Miral.

“We need to rescue Hercules. Long ago, the Oracle of Delphi told me that I must never let Hercules leave my side, and I promised her I would not.” I paused. “And I know where to find him. Well …” I glanced back at Cupid, who still carried the book Barkley the treant had given me. “Sort of.”

Wherever that centaur fountain was. I still hadn’t figured that part out.

Miral’s gaze shifted to me, still billowing with darkness. “Did you read the engraving on the gravestone, Isabella?”

My leg wanted to judder with pent-up anxiety—we should be going after Justin and Hercules!—but I forced myself to read the headstone. “Darragh Bruis, a leprechaun of the first inebriated order and a real …”

I stopped, cleared my throat before I finished. It felt wrong to curse in front of the angel. In the distance, I could have sworn I heard Cupid snicker. That was followed by a hushed admonishment from Lux.

“Why this headstone, Miral?”

“This leprechaun was the first of Paradise Lot’s Others to die after the gods left.” She took a deep breath. “I visit his headstone most days.”

I lowered my voice. “How did he die?”

“Drunkenness, ultimately.” She paused, flexed her hand and regripped the sword. “But drunkenness at the wrong time, in the wrong place. He went into a human pub not long after the GrandExodus, and they strung him up like a farm animal.”

Such a thing seemed almost inconceivable. And yet humans had done as much to their own species a million times over, in a million different ways. Which meant, in truth, that I just didn’t want to conceive of it. “Why do you visit his headstone?”

“Darragh provides a reminder of the responsibility in my hands—what is at stake if we allow humanity to determine our fate. His was my bolster, my reminder. Until now, I believed the resistance could overcome.”

An unexpected turn in the conversation. When Miral voiced that last sentence, my spine straightened. “ ‘Until now?’ ”

Again, I wondered, was the former Commander of the Lord’s Army having a crisis of faith?

“I know Hercules has been broken, Isabella. I received intelligence about what happened to you this morning, and Justin’s defection. What you perhaps don’t know is that the principle of chaos overrode the principle of order after they sent you away.”

“Overrode,” I repeated. That sounded ominous.

“You were taken to a bookstore. When the World Army arrived, they arrested the treant who owns it. Chao would not have it, and so …” One of her hands went out, the fingers closing together and opening as though she were releasing a bird into the sky.

Barkley, I thought with a pang. “What happened to them all? Barkley? Chao? Ordo?”

Miral faced me in full. The pain in her eyes was almost too much to take in. “They were captured by the World Army’s combined forces. But not before Chao put a small crater in the Other sector.”

Chapter 7

How could the principle of chaos possibly have been captured?

It seemed the angel had read my thoughts, because she added, “The army didn’t fight the principles within their radius of power. They remained at a distance, distracting them until they found the right moment to drop a nullification netting.”

Magical nullification—El Lobizon’s power. Probably harvested from the creature himself after he’d been frozen under a river in Montreal. That had been my doing, leaving him there to be found and used for their nefarious purposes. Back then—only a year ago—I had been so thoughtless, so unaware.

“Did anyone die?” I whispered. It sounded like a child’s question—silly, naive in its hope that no one had.

“Many.” Miral turned away, back toward the headstone. “The number is still uncertain.”

My insides twisted, imagining the destruction, the suffering. So that was Chao’s power unleashed: it made no distinctions between human or Other. It only caused … chaos.

The angel sitting before me was a doctor and the leader of the resistance. Why wasn’t she there, helping Others? That was what Miral I knew would do.

I rose from the bench. “We have to help them. You should be helping them.”

That wasn’t supposed to come out as accusatory as it sounded. But maybe an unconscious part of me had wanted it that way.

Miral gazed up at me. “Before you arrived, I spent the past half hour debating that very point. Though perhaps we define ‘help’ differently in this case.”

“Differently?”

“They have Hercules. They have Justin. The principles of chaos and order. The World Army is amassing forces along the fenceline to the Other sector. And Colel Cab has disappeared.” Miral offered a long, slow blink. “I am the last of the leaders still free. And I fear Chao was right: if I do not act now, we will fall completely.”

“Amassing troops?” I said. “For what?”

Miral regarded me with sadness. “Their final act: running us off the edge of Paradise Lot, more or less. Swine over the cliffside.”

A Biblical reference. Except, unlike the swine, we weren’t possessed by evil. Perhaps we were to humanity, but I knew otherwise.

Some of the Others I had met in my long life were the very best of what the world had to offer. They were noble, brave, uncompromising in their ethics. They deserved a fair shake at mortality—not a run off a cliff.

The blade beneath the angel’s hands gleamed in the sunlight. “What will you do, Miral?” I asked.

“I could end this all.” She contemplated the sword, turning it a few degrees. As she did, the light seemed to dim around her, as though a cloud had passed in front of the sun. “I could destroy their forces and level every one of the World Government’s buildings before nightfall. I could subvert it all.”

She’s considering mass murder. She’s considering her own death. A chill sparked in the air, the light drawing close and closer to Miral, disappearing from the space around her. This wasn’t the doctor seated before me. In that moment, I sensed the angel’s true power like I never had before.

She could be terrible.

She could raze half of Paradise Lot.

She could be an ender.

I was nothing beside her, a simple encantado. I possessed none of her experiences, her power. She could split me in two in a single motion. And yet it had fallen to me, here in this graveyard, to bring her back to herself.

I was all that stood between her and the bringer of death she could be.

"How do you know what the World Army is doing isn't part of a plan?” I asked. “Isn't that what you guys always say?"

Miral scoffed. "Do not mock me."

Isa: "I'm not mocking you. You as well as I know: live by the sword and die by the sword. Your kind have always said that your god lives and operates in mysterious ways. So either you accept that, or you don't."

Miral sighed, her eyes flicking to mine. "Why did your god leave?"

That was a great question. One I had pondered often. "I don't know exactly, but I believe it was because it was the only way that her children would ever truly be free."

She didn’t respond.

Be brave, Isa. Be brave like you’ve never been.

What would Hinata say? Ananda? Pythia? All the women I’d admired and wanted to be. Here, now, I allowed the memory of each of them to flow through me.

Hinata, the soft one, would sit on the bench. And so I did, closing the distance between me and Miral until I could feel the warmth off her body. And, perhaps, she could feel mine.

Ananda, the truth-teller, would speak without fear. She would say what needed to be said. “Miral, you know that isn’t the way. You’d either die a vigilante or you’d win a battle. Even if you won, you would never forgive yourself. You would be a murderer, and you’d likely kill Justin and Hercules in the process.”

Miral remained silent beside me. But I could tell she was listening, because her head was canted slightly toward me.

Pythia, the oracle, would think of the past, the present, the future. She was the strategist. “Don’t throw your life away. We can win this without slaughter—without your death. I believe I can bring Justin and Hercules back. I can find them and I can save them.”

The darkness seemed to vibrate as Miral met my eyes. “How?”

“I need you to be who you are—a healer. A protector. And I need you to help me figure out where I can find a rearing centaur fountain.”

Confusion drew her eyebrows together, and the hint of amusement. “A rearing centaur fountain?”

“I saw, just briefly, through Hercules’s eyes. I saw a rearing centaur fountain. You don’t have to destroy it all, Miral. I just need you to take me there.”

“How do you know Hercules is still there?”

I swallowed, thinking back to what I had seen in the moments I had occupied Hercules’s mind. When his hands had gone up to tear into the brownie’s cage, his wrists had been encircled by glowing cables—the same ones used to capture him.

He was still a captive. They might have broken him, but they didn’t trust him enough to allow him any freedom. And that was because he was a brute, unthinking and consumed by rage.

Hercules wouldn’t lead their forces … He was too dangerous, too wild. He was an ace in the hole to be brought out if the Others resisted. He was a beast to be drawn out on a lead. He was the Soulrender.

He would break our spirit. Make us submit. Exactly as Chao had predicted.

I set my jaw. “Because I know Serena Russo’s tactics.”

↔

Cupid, who had done a fine job managing to stay quiet all this time, cleared his throat behind me. “Uh, ladies? May I join the conversation? The pixies and I had a vote, and we’re all in favor of Operation Rescue Hercules.”

Miral was still staring at me, considering my words. The air felt tight around us, the light still drawn close to her. And for my part, I didn’t look at Cupid, didn’t acknowledge he’d spoken except to flick my hand behind me.

This moment was the crucial decider.

“Alllllrighty then.” Cupid kicked dirt. “I’ll come back in a bit.”

“You think you can bring the son of Zeus back,” Miral said to me. It was half a question, half a statement.

“And Justin.”

“How?”

I thought about lifting my left hand—the one imbued with oracle power. Invoking my new strength, my ability to see through time. But I didn’t need oracle power to bring Hercules and Justin back.

I only needed me. Isabella.

Such an acknowledgement felt almost arrogant. Just you, Isa? And who are you?

That was the Isa of Fear talking.

The response came at once: I’m enough. I’m enough for them. They accept me as I am.

The Isa of Hope. She spoke louder these days.

“I just need to talk to them.” It sounded ridiculous, but it was as close to the truth as I could put it. “I can stop the rage.”

“Isabella, you are the most important Other in the world. You cannot go.”

I tilted my head. “Of all the people who could go, why not me? I’m able to look like anyone. I can disguise myself this fast.” I snapped my fingers. “And, after all, I’m the only one who loves Hercules.”

And there it was. I loved Hercules.

I loved his keenness on life. His loyalty. His passions, for better and worse. His high- and low-brow wit. The pure physicality of him. I had made him a promise, and I would not break it: together, we would avenge a great wrong.

I wouldn’t let him become Serena Russo’s pet. That wasn’t how the glorious demigod’s second life would end. Not while I lived.

Not while I remained free.

Miral’s eyes flitted to my belly. It wasn’t just my child she was contemplating … it was my future. The future of Others. And I’d had a hunch about Miral’s desires since the first time she’d looked at my belly.

I saw it again.

That twinge of jealousy.

If she were in my position, she would never consider rushing in after Hercules. She would protect her life at all costs.

I had considered such a thing in Las Vegas the moment I’d discovered I was pregnant. I had been working in an underground laboratory to figure out a counteragent to OtherX. If I didn’t, hundreds of thousands of Others would die to it.

And yet, in the moment I knew life grew inside me, none of that had mattered. I had been consumed by maternal instinct, the desire to protect my child above all else.

What had stopped me was my conscience.

What kind of future would I have given my child if I’d allowed the World Government to run rampant with OtherX?

What kind of example would I set as a mother? As a person?

That was why I had returned to the laboratory. That was why I had discovered the counteragent and saved the Others in Las Vegas.

It was the best thing to do for my child and her future.

It was also the right thing to do.

My hand rose, touched my navel. “If you sacrifice yourself to destroy the World Government, you’ll never experience this. And you can, Miral.”

Miral exhaled softly through her nose. “Are you suggesting I could carry a child?”

My hand reached out, hovered just over her arm as I leaned close. “Yes,” I whispered, barely audible. “You can be a mother. Others can have their immortality, including you.”

She remained still a moment, contemplating the closeness of my hand. Her eyes flitted as though she were holding back emotion, her chest catching. And then, with a suddenness I hadn’t expected, she leaned into my fingers. When we touched, she released the light back into the graveyard in one magnificent burst.

Under my hand was the arm of Miral the healer. Miral the helper. Miral the protector. She removed one hand from its grip on her longsword and set it to my cheek. “I believe you, Isabella the scientist.”

My chest loosened; I could breathe fully again.

Miral rose from the bench. “Where is this centaur fountain?”

I stood with her. “I can figure that out. I just need a little time.”

“Galaxy has informed me that the World Army will make their move in the morning. We only have tonight to rescue your Hercules.” She sheathed her sword inside her robes. “I’ll give you your time, but you must be quick.”

“How much time do I have?”

Miral lifted her eyes to the sky. “I will coordinate with our most capable members of the resistance to form a rescue party to leave in the heart of night.”

Well, it seemed like an angel to say “the heart of night” instead of a specific hour. I guessed that meant after midnight. “I’ll figure it out.”

Cupid appeared by my side, the pixies seated on his shoulders and head. “And we’ll be ready.”

One of Miral’s dark eyebrows rose. “Oh?”

“If it isn’t clear by now”—Cupid jerked a thumb at me—“I go where she goes. And if she’s going to rescue Hercules, I’m there.”

“And we volunteer, too,” Lux said with a flicker of wings.

The other pixies nodded.

Miral surveyed the lot of us. “Brave souls.” How strange—the treant had said that, too. “All right. Come with me.”

The angel strode past us, parting me and Cupid like water.

Cupid turned after her. “Come with you where?”

“To the only place I know we’ll be safe,” the angel said without turning her head.

Chapter 8

Of all the places I’d expected Miral to take us, this wasn’t it.

Cupid stood with his hands on his hips in the street. He stared up at the signage. “The World’s End Bar? Isn’t that a bit on the nose?”

Lux, on his shoulder, peered up with a finger set to her chin. “How so?”

“Can we discuss this inside, please?” I said from the shadow beneath the sign; even though I had already shifted illusions more than once today, I still felt vulnerable in the open. Especially since I was with Miral, though the angel had already opened the door and slipped into the bar’s interior.

Cupid shrugged. “I doubt anyone’s going to come looking for us here, anyway. Miral picked well.”

Lux was still considering his initial question as we came into the darkened interior, in which all four pixies were glowing a little. “Are you referring to the GrandExodus?”

Cupid chuckled. “Oh no, my dear Lux. I’m referring to the fact that we’re all facing our potential deaths this very night.” He paused, surveying the empty tables and counter before us. “But, you know, this place also does look like the world ended.”

As my eyes adjusted, I knew Cupid had a point. It wasn’t just that this was the middle of the day—a strange, sad time for anyone to be drinking—but, also, this wasn’t your typical bar.

It really felt … depressed. And that impression wasn’t helped at all by the large cyclops standing stock still behind the counter, his one eye staring at me with unblinking intensity. He was dressed well—in a collared shirt, the angles of it well-fitted to his cyclopian frame. But that somehow made the solitude even stranger. All of that was topped off by the fact that he didn’t even look down at the glass he rubbed with a rag.

Miral approached the cyclops, her tenting her fingers on the counter. “Hello, Milton.”

The cyclops didn’t respond except to blink once.

Evidently this was familiar to Miral, who continued, “We’d like to reserve your downstairs for the day.” She slipped a hand into her pocket, slid out some amount of cash. “And the evening.”

The cyclops stopped rubbing the glass, set it down. His free hand went out in a staying motion, urging Miral’s offering back into her pocket. He blinked once again toward a staircase in the corner, returned his eye to Miral.

She leaned closer, and I could barely hear what she said next. “Can you put out the call?”

The call? What did that mean?

Milton blinked again, which I took to be an affirmation.

Miral took one of his hands in both her own, clasped it. “Thank you, Milton.”

So the cyclops was another resistance sympathizer. They really were everywhere.

Miral gestured to us, and we followed her down the creaking staircase into the basement of the World’s End Bar, where we found two large, square tables with chairs set around them. In the corner sat an empty pool table and an overstuffed armchair.

“This is the safest place for us to strategize?” I crossed to the pool table and set my fingers on the fuzzy surface.

“Absolutely.” Miral began setting the chairs aside so she could push the two tables together. Cupid and the pixies quickly fell into helping. “You wouldn’t guess it, but this basement is soundproofed. It’s also equipped with a secret entrance into the sewers.”

“The sewers again, huh?” Cupid didn’t sound pleased about that.

“CaCa has done the resistance a great service over the years.” The table groaned as Miral and Cupid shoved it into place. “He’s shown us the ins and outs of the entire sewer system, from the Other sector and into the rest of Paradise Lot.”

I folded my arms. “And the World Army doesn’t know?”

“Not as yet.” Miral circled a finger at me. “Is this a quiet enough space for you to do your reading?”

Taking Miral’s cue, Cupid pulled the tourists’ book from his loincloth and tossed it to me. When I caught it, it fell open to the center. An image of an old ferris wheel stared back at me.

I made a face. For as much as I loved studying living things, I couldn’t stand studying inanimate things. Especially if they were manmade. “Yeah, this should be good.”

I crossed to the armchair in the corner of the room, and as I set about paging through the book from my corner—searching page by page for the centaur fountain—I understood what Miral had meant by “the call.”

After a half hour, someone came down the staircase. We all looked up to find Galaxy the nymph smiling back at us, her green hair lifted by that permanent breeze I couldn’t feel or see.

Miral stood, went to embrace the nymph. “Galaxy,” she said like she was settling into a new calm. “Thank you for coming.”

The two quickly sat themselves in adjacent chairs, tracing their fingers across the table in various shapes as Cupid and the pixies leaned in. They were strategizing, I realized. Planning for tonight.

It was hard to focus on my task, because soon, other Others arrived.

One minotaur carried a duffel bag over each shoulder, both of which he set down on the table with loud clanks. When they were unzipped, the low lights illuminated a whole lot of weapons.

It was a bit jarring—and discomforting, to be honest—to see the pixies flying around with tiny blow darts they’d picked up, testing their aim on the green dartboard on one of the walls. They kept missing the dartboard entirely, hitting the walls. Pixies weren’t known for their fighting abilities, after all.

A few minutes later, pattering steps filtered down the stairs. Around the corner appeared a whole pack of ramidreju, the little green-furred creatures I’d managed to befriend. Or, at least, I’d known one of their kind—Bandit, whom I hadn’t seen since the World Army’s aural attack.

Not until tonight. When the lead ramidreju had gotten close enough to see me, he raised onto his hind legs and squeaked.

I stood out of the armchair, my book falling to the floor. “Bandit?”

A series of joyful chirps followed as the ramidreju raced up to me, climbed the length of my body with his little claws, and wrapped himself around my neck.

“You’re alive.” I reached up to pet the small creature, which purred against me. “But what are you doing here?”

“Milton put out a call along the resistance network,” Miral said. “After the World Army’s aural attack of the other morning, it seems the ramidreju have chosen to answer it.”

So my black market Twinkie supplier had survived to become a resistance sympathizer. After a whole lot of pain, I would cling to this tiny, bright star of a moment for as long as I could.

After all, I thought as my eyes fell on the minotaur sharpening one of the swords, there’s darkness to come.

↔

After two hours, the two tables had run out of chairs. Several of the Others who’d come had to stand around the edges. That was how many had answered the resistance’s call.

First, Galaxy the nymph. Then the minotaur with the duffel bags. He was followed by the cluster of ramidreju. Then came a knot of dwarves, stumping down the stairs, their hands miraculously free of the alcohol on offer behind the bar.

Shortly after, three will-o-the-wisps migrated down into the basement and proceeded to float around the room, which prompted the distractible ramidreju to attempt to capture them between their paws.

After the wisps came three enormous ogres, who could barely fit down the staircase. Each one grunted with the effort, and the room’s temperature rose several degrees once the sweating ogres occupied it.

Then came a shadow on the wall. I glanced up from my book when I saw it in my periphery; it didn’t move like your normal shadow—largely because it wasn’t attached to any mortal being.

It was a monster-under-your-bed.

“Yeknalb,” I called.

As soon as I had, the shadow froze on the far wall like it’d been spotted by the police. It started to edge away, but I called out his name again.

“I’m not angry,” I added this time. Even though I was still a little miffed that Yeknalb had had a panic attack while wrapped around me and nearly ruined everything. But he hadn’t, and things were only partially ruined right now.

This gave Yeknalb the courage to sidle up to me—following the wall the whole way around—and eventually reach out and take my hand. Having your hand held by a monster-under-your-bed is like sticking your fingers out of a car when it’s moving fast down a highway.

As he shook my hand, the red lettering he used to communicate scrolled across his shadowy face. I’m sorry I failed you.

All my annoyance faded as soon as Yeknalb spoke. He had done his best, just as we all were. And what he had done in protecting me was asking a lot of such a notoriously skittish creature. “All is forgiven.”

Just when Miral had stood to address everyone, a final set of feet came down the stairs.

A human.

When his face appeared around the corner, half the Others in the room prepared to hack—or blow-dart, or claw—him down, but Miral held up a hand. I stood, too.

I recognized that human.

“Cilian,” I said.

The custodian’s wide eyes, tinged with terror, found me. I smiled at him just as Miral began her explanation. “Cilian may be a human, but he is married to an Other. He has been a resistance sympathizer in Paradise Lot’s hospital since before we had a name. He belongs here just as much as anyone, and we’re honored to have you.”

The custodian shrugged, lowered his head with obvious shyness. “It’s all right.”

When he’d taken his place, Miral began speaking. And by speaking, I mean that she inhaled, and the room fell into an anticipatory hush. That was the power of Miral about to deliver a speech.

A different angel from the one I encountered in the graveyard.

We all had our low points. Many of us were fortunate enough to have few witnesses to them.

“The reason you’ve all been called here tonight is because of her.” She lifted a hand toward me. “This encantado. She brought the demigod Hercules back from death, and he accompanied her to Paradise Lot to aid the resistance. Now he’s been captured by the World Army. He’s been tortured. He’s been broken. She knows where he is, and he needs our aid.”

Every Other with eyes shifted them toward me. Cupid and the pixies. Galaxy and the dwarves. Cilian and the ogres. The ramidreju. And I … wished I could fade into the wall like a monster-under-your-bed. I don’t know where he is. That was the only thought I could muster. I don’t know where he is.

But I couldn’t say that, so I said, “Miral is right. What she doesn’t know—can’t know, without knowing him—is that the demigod Hercules is one of the kindest, most generous souls I’ve met in five hundred years, Other or otherwise. His sole purpose for living is to avenge a great wrong, which is why he represents the best among us. If we don’t bring him back, we forego the better part of our souls, wherever they may reside in this GoneGod World.”

I swallowed, and everyone kept staring. “I know where he is, and I’ll guide you all to him. I just need your help to bring him back. Will you help me?”

Across the room, Cupid’s wings started up, carrying him a few feet into the air. When his mouth opened, he said only, “Aye.”

The pixies followed, their voices breathier, higher as they delivered their “Aye.”

After that, every Other with vocal cords chorused with their “Ayes”—even Yeknalb, whose Aye ran in red lettering across his face.

I met eyes with Miral, who nodded low to me. The baton was passed off, and the angel raised her hands. “Let’s begin.”

Those assembled listened closely to Miral, who was delivering all the intelligence she had about the World Government’s facilities, the World Army’s capabilities. Cupid was chiming in every once in a while to explain what he had seen during our encounters with the World Army, with the super soldiers they utilized for their fighting.

It was marvelous. It was humbling.

It was terrifying.

Because, though I’d spent two hours studying my book, I still hadn’t figured out where the centaur fountain was. Actually, I had paged through the entire book and I hadn’t even found a picture of it. Had Barkley been mistaken? The bookstore owner had seemed so sure that this was the book I needed.

And everyone was here because of me. If I didn’t tell them where to find Hercules, the operation wouldn’t go off. And I didn’t know what that would mean for the resistance’s next steps, whether they would be forced to move on to a new operation—perhaps one that involved Miral’s original plan to raze every building the World Government controlled, or Chao’s plan to attack en mass—or whether it would involve an exodus before the World Army could make their move on the Other sector.

Either way, a lot depended on me right now. Not least of all the demigod who had been tortured by the World Army, and my boyfriend who had suffered because of it.

I’d already flipped back to the front of the book, started through it again, this time looking more closely. Time was running out, and this was my one clue as to the fountain’s location.

If only Barkley were here. But they had taken him, too. Another Other who relied on the success of this operation.

He’d told me I had a brave soul.

I didn’t know if that was true. Right now, I felt like I had an obtuse soul. An idiotic soul. A blind soul.

Miral would need me to provide guidance. She would call on me at any moment. And if I had no answer, we would lose credence. We would lose morale. The whole thing might fail.

I needed time to figure this out—a thing which had always irritated my sister Ananda. She’d been an encantado of action, of impulse. Time, she’d felt, only allowed me to deliberate myself two feet into the earth with all my turning in circles.

But what if I didn’t take any time at all?

Amidst the voices in the room, this thought struck my head like a bell. Time.

So I did what any girl with oracle power does.

I closed my eyes.

Chapter 9

I’m not one for recipes. Or cooking, for that matter. But when you spend two years attending university in a city like Montreal, you’re surrounded by enough foodies and gourmands to begin thinking in those terms.

So, without further ado, the three ingredients you need to access oracle power:

1. Anxiety. Well, maybe you could call it thrill. Or excitement. Variations on the same feeling depending on your perspective, right? It’s that tug in your chest. And when you’re sitting in a room full of Others ready to fight an oppressive government, that’s covered.

2. A moment of stillness. Pull your legs up into the chair you’re seated in. Occupy the space you’re in. Close your eyes and breathe.

3. Oracle power in your DNA. That’s the hard part, I’m afraid. Without this one, you just end up meditating.

Blend all three together, add a pinch of absolute desperation, and in theory you should be able to access the past, present and future. In my case, that meant entering a place I called the Garden of Hera.

In theory.

Despite my recipe, I didn’t wholly expect to end up in the garden. I still felt like someone who’d been left with a dropped briefcase, held uncertainly in my grip. “Hello?” I wanted to call out. “Don’t you want your briefcase?”

It was the same feeling I’d experienced in the graveyard with Miral, like I was pretending to be the women I most admired. Hinata, Ananda, Pythia.

At what point did pretending become real?

I suppose when you opened your eyes and found yourself, in fact, standing in the place you want to be. Around me, the grass rustled in the breeze. The tree swept high and wide over the garden.

Except that wasn’t a good name for it any longer. Not now that I knew Hercules properly, and what Hera had done to him. Not now that I understood how fully this place was my mind’s creation—my way of processing the paths through time.

This was Pythia’s garden.

As I thought it, a grave materialized under the enormous tree to my right. At its head stood Pythia’s staff, branches entwined to form a tough, beautiful center. It was the same staff she’d carried until the moment she’d burned away all her magic to save me.

In this place, time didn’t exist. I had an eternity to ponder what I held in my hands: the book Barkley had given me. Possessing a nearly eidetic memory certainly helped when you decided to enter the garden of your mind.

I approached the tree, sat against its wide trunk and pulled my knees up. A soft breeze carried through Pythia’s garden as I opened the first page. The second. The third.

The centaur fountain. Find the centaur fountain.

I had felt certain Barkley wanted me to study the book’s pictures; they took up a good three-fourths of each page, after all. But by the time I arrived at the book’s end—again—I suspected I was wrong in that certainty.

What if the fountain wasn’t in the pictures?

I had already read all the captions, but not with the kind of attention I’d paid to the images. This time—because I had all the time in the world—I read each caption with acute attention.

That was why, when I arrived on page 56, I let out an enormous groan. It was one I’d made many times before as a biologist, working away in the lab. It was the why-didn’t-you-think-of-this-before groan.

Beneath a picture of an empty plot of dirt, the caption read:

The future site of Paradise Lot’s Department of Health and Human Services. Plans are in place for a large fountain to be installed in the courtyard, for which artist Stephen Divali will sculpt the to-be-determined centerpiece. Divali will take his inspiration from “the brave souls in pursuit of new frontiers in health and science.”

Brave souls.

“A brave soul,” the treant had said.

All along I’d had the answer. It had just been shrouded behind my ego, which clung to Barkley’s idea of me as a “brave soul” in the eager, grasping way all egos like to do.

It wasn’t about me. At least, not just me.

Barkley had been referring to scientists.

When I rose from under the tree, my eye was caught by the three shimmering portals at the far side of the garden. The past, the present, the future.

What would happen if I stepped into the future again, tried to find my way to the right path? I feared the future ever since I had entered it with Ordo. It had been too much—almost mind-melting. How did Pythia ever parse through the millions of branches to pick and choose which she wanted to walk? Which she wanted to see?

And the last time I’d entered the present, I had been enveloped by infinitude. I still didn’t understand what I had seen or felt, the blanket of darkness which had held me close and comfortingly tight.

And the past. I had been there only once, brought by Pythia. She had shown me into Serena’s home, given me a view of the one person who filled her heart. Collin Russo, her son. Her sick, dying son. The one to whom I was oathbound—whom I had promised to save, and still planned to.

But I didn’t know how to control entering any of those portals. I only knew I could step through them, and I would end up … somewhere. Maybe everywhere.

I really was a novice in the oracle’s world.

But at least I could enter the garden at will. I sensed, if Pythia were around, that she might view that as the most difficult step of all. Simply moving from the real world into the world of my mind felt almost religious in its sanctity.

What a gift, to be able to close my eyes and come here. To have all the time in the world to plan my clapbacks, my offhanded remarks, my quips. To figure out my next step. To logic my way out of a difficult situation.

And I had done so. As I clasped the book to my chest, I opened my eyes to the World’s End basement.

I knew where to find Hercules.

↔

I stood up and opened my mouth at the same time. “The Department of Health and Human Services,” I blurted into the air.

Around me, half the Others turned with raised eyebrows. Miral had paused, her hand still in midair to reach for a dagger being passed to her by the minotaur. At my feet, Bandit the ramidreju chittered once and rose up on his hind legs.

Cupid cleared his throat. “She does that sometimes.”

“What was that, Isabella?” Miral asked.

I held the book tight to my chest as I picked my way through the basement toward the tables. When I arrived beside Miral, I laid the book open to page fifty-six, stabbed the image with my finger. “That empty plot of land is where the centaur fountain was built. That’s the fountain I saw through Hercules’s eyes. He’s on the second floor, and the centaur is visible through the window.”

“That square, dark building that looks like the seat of pure evil?” one of the dwarves said. He shrugged. “Might be a fountain somewhere around there. Don’t suppose we’d know, seeing as how we can’t even leave the Other sector without extra-special permissions.”

Cilian raised his hand. “I know about the fountain.” We all turned toward the uncertain human. “I used to work there, cleaning the floors. I saw that centaur every day.”

A surge of satisfaction filled me. Some part of me had been uncertain, when I opened the book, that I would even see the picture and the caption I’d remembered from the garden. But they had been there.

And, just as I’d surmised, Cilian had confirmed the existence of the statue Stephen Divali had built in the intervening years.

Brave souls.

And though they had no proof of wrongdoing, Barkley had been taken by the World Army. A simple bookstore owner. If it was in my power, I would make sure he got back to his bookstore and his twenty-sided die and his Treebeard costume.

It was the least I could do, after what he’d done for me.

Miral retrieved a map of the sewer system, unfolded it on the table. She traced the paths along their courses, found one branch headed directly into the heart of Paradise Lot. Her finger stopped at a point halfway along. “This is the building. If Isabella is right about the fountain, Hercules is inside here. And the system lets out onto the street directly adjacent.”

Cupid clapped his hands together. “Hot damn. What are we waiting for? Let’s go after the big guy. I’m not a fan of the sewers, but I’ll deal.”

Miral shook her head. “Fortunately, you won’t have to enter the sewers. All creatures able to fly—you, the pixies, the wisps—will form the aerial infiltration team.”

Beside me, Cupid’s chest puffed up. The pixies gripped their blow darts with pride.

And not for the first time, I thought: It must be nice to have wings.

Miral pointed elsewhere around the room. “The dwarves and the ramidreju, who are familiar with underground movement, will guide themselves through the sewer system to the manhole which emerges south of the building.” She turned, pointed at Galaxy. “And the rest of you—Galaxy, the minotaur, ogres, Cilian—will follow CaCa’s lead through the sewer system, emerging at two separate points.”

One of the ogres scratched his head. “Isn’t splitting up bad?”

Miral touched a spot where the sewer branched, diverging around the building. “Not in our case. If one team is compromised, the others will remain. The goal isn’t to win a battle—it’s to get Isabella to Hercules and extract him.”

“And who will Isa be with?” Cupid asked.

“She and Yeknalb will be with me,” Miral said. “We’ll arrive last, after the other teams have entered the facility.”

“Ahh,” the minotaur said, touching the hilt of the double-bladed axe at his waist. “So we’re there to divert their attention.”

Miral straightened. “Correct.”

“Ah, so it’s Operation Make a Scene.” Cupid grinned. “You’ve come to the right demigod.”

Lux glared. “It would be like you to make light of a very serious situation.”

Cupid winked at her. “You know you love it.”

Lux folded her arms, jerked her head away.

Miral’s lips twitched, formed the smallest smile. Even that tiny gesture seemed to brighten the dim basement, sending a wave of good humor through me. And again, I knew that wasn’t the angel using magic … it was just her presence. “Operation Make a Scene,” she said. “Well named, Cupid of Eros.”

She turned to everyone assembled. “We’ll be leaving after midnight. You all have the next six hours to gather into your teams and figure out your strategy. I’ll be coming around to discuss the plans with each of you, and we’ll reconvene briefly to make sure we’re all agreed.”

As everyone broke into huddles—the aerial team, the two sewer teams—Miral approached me.

“So you’ll be carrying me again,” I said.

“It’s probably not an encantado’s favorite thing, is it?”

I laughed. “Most encantado haven’t left the rainforest, much less been carried by an angel. It wasn’t so bad.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, it was bad. When you grabbed me out of the ocean, I was terrified. I’ve always been afraid of heights. But then …”

Miral regarded me with easy, patient eyes. “But then?”

I exhaled fast, lifting unwavering eyes to meet hers. “At some point, I realized I wanted to do that again.”

A hush fell between us, the acknowledgement of a moment we both respected enough to commemorate with silence.

I had changed.

Or maybe I had discovered something about myself I’d never had the opportunity to know before. Not until all of this—everything the past year had wrought.

Maybe I did have a brave soul.

“Well,” Miral murmured, “you will get to do it at least once more.”

I refocused on her. “That sounds too final for my liking.”

She lifted a hand. “This is the World’s End Bar, after all.”

And this was the end of an era in Paradise Lot. Whether Others would still inhabit it after tomorrow depended on our actions tonight.

Chapter 10

Just before midnight, Cupid found me alone in the armchair. Well, except for Bandit, who slept on my lap.

Cupid fluttered to a cross-legged seat on the floor before me. “Doing your introvert thing, eh?”

I smirked at him. “I’m gathering my powers.”

“You’re making jokes in the face of death. That’s unlike you.”

“Making jokes in the face of death? Well, I—”

“No,” he clarified. “Making jokes at all.”

I pursed my lips at the demigod. “Be glad Bandit’s asleep on top of me.”

He set his face in his hands, tilted his head. It was the classic Cupid’s pose. “You have changed, you know. When I found you, you were as skittish as that ramidreju.”

I pointed at him. “And you were carrying a big, fluffy sheep toy. What was that about, anyway?”

He chuckled. “That was my favorite pillow. Had to leave it behind when you got yourself chased by an odontotyrannos.”

A pang of unexpected sorrow hit me. “You lost your favorite pillow? You never said a word.”

He shrugged. “I guess that’s a testament to the power of your love story, Isa. I couldn’t let you leave me behind.”

My throat tightened. Once more, I saw Cupid’s cloud racing down the highway behind the Mustang. I saw him shooting arrows in the Garden of Hera. I saw him clutching with all his strength to Justin’s leg as my boyfriend writhed through a torture session. “I’ve put you through a lot, and you’ve been with me the whole way.”

And “a lot” was putting it mildly.

He waggled one hand at me. “Oh, don’t start with apologizing. Well, except for that time I nearly drowned in the Grand Canyon. You can apologize for that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.” He glanced over at Lux, who was in the process of dousing all the weaponry in a jar of some sort of liquid. “But really, my mortal life has been better for this journey. I wouldn’t have done anything differently.”

It was rare to hear this kind of sincerity from Cupid. He only got this way on occasion, and even then, not for very long. I relished it.

“I’m glad you found me, Cupid,” I whispered. “I wouldn’t have made it without you.”

He turned back, his blue eyes twinkling. “Oh, I think you would have surprised yourself, Isabella Ramirez. You’ve never known your own power.”

His belief in me made my eyes sting. It also terrified me. “I’m afraid, Cupid. I’m afraid I won’t be able to bring Hercules and Justin back.”

He stood, took my hand between his two small ones. “I’m not.”

I stared down at his hands, my chest clenching. “How?”

“Because your love story glows brighter around you now than it ever did. Because that doubt filling you is what has always led you to the right choices. It’s your uncertainty, and your deliberation, and your empathy, and, ultimately, the choices you make because of those qualities that makes you one of the wisest, most courageous souls I’ve been fortunate enough to know.” When I looked up, Cupid’s eyes were glassy. “I admire you, Isa, just as you are.”

Somehow Cupid had known exactly what I feared.

It wasn’t the operation’s success. It wasn’t whether Hercules and Justin could be saved.

It was whether I could save them.

It was whether I was enough.

My throat felt almost too thick to speak. “Thank you, Cupid,” I managed.

He huffed as Lux flew over to land right on the crown of his head. “Don’t thank me.” He pointed up at the pixie. “Thank the chemist. She’s come up with a brilliant plan to give all those assholes the flu.”

I swiped at my eyes as Lux gazed down at me with both hands on her hips. A certain aura of triumph emanated off her. “The flu?”

“I’ve spent the past few months working on a variant of your OtherX.” She couldn’t help her grin. “These super soldiers are spliced with Others, right? Let’s show them what it’s like to be unvaccinated.”

“How?”

She pointed back to the table, on which lay arrayed every weapon from the minotaur’s two duffel bags. “All the weapons are coated in it. Don’t worry—this one’s not airborne. It’s only transmitted by cuts.”

“Well done,” I said. “I’m glad you came with us from Vegas, Lux.” And I meant it; the ornery, nosy pixie had grown on me in a real way.

She shrugged, rolled her eyes away. “I’m still undecided on that front.”

The other three pixies had noticed Lux talking to us, because they all now flew over and landed like falling leaves on my shoulders and head. Glint slipped once more under the veil of my hair, warming a spot where my shoulder and neck joined.

“You’re comfy,” Phos said from atop me. “I can see why the ramidreju picked you.”

“I like this little dip in her shoulder,” Dazzle said. “It’s the perfect size for me.”

“Always wear a long-haired illusion,” Glint said from her nest. “OK?”

“OK,” I said. “I can do that.”

It was the first time I’d felt like an Other mother. Was this the kind of warmth I’d feel with my child in my arms? Watching her crawl, learn to walk, learn to talk?

“Hey”—Lux clapped her hands in a half-hearted way—“no sleeping on the job! We’ve got darts to coat in flu virus.”

The other pixies groaned, but all heeded her. I was sad when they flew up and off me. Lux eyed them as they returned to the tables, only flitting that way when the other pixies had resumed their work.

As she flew away, Cupid grinned at me. “Love that gal.”

A moment of silence elapsed between us. What else was there to say? I stroked Bandit, whose paws were twitching in his sleep. “This is potentially our last night, isn’t it?”

Cupid nodded. “Maybe so.”

I pointed up. “Can I buy you a whisky?”

He kept nodding. “A whisky sounds perfect.”

↔

The teams were coordinated. The weapons were coated. We had all been fitted with earpieces that, by some magic I didn’t understand, allowed Galaxy to communicate with each of us.

And, most importantly, a shot of whisky had been drunk by everyone (well, except for me).

We were ready.

Miral went around the room clasping each Other’s hand in turn, whispering something to each of them. When she got to me, she said, “Good fortune, Isabella.”

In the basement, one of the ogres pressed aside a bookcase to reveal a hole dug straight into the wall. The sewer entrance. Down the two teams went, each of them clasping Miral’s hand for a second before they disappeared into the darkness.

Cupid, the pixies and the wisps took the stairs. Before they left, Cupid gave me one long, hard hug. And then they broke away and flew up the stairs.

Which left Galaxy standing over the scrying pool in the corner. And in the center of the room stood me, Miral and Yeknalb.

This was familiar.

Once again, I’d be camouflaged by the creature’s shadowy body draping over me like a blanket. At least, until we arrived in the facility.

I pointed at the monster-under-your-bed. “No taking off with me.”

The red letters scrolled at once. Don’t worry—I’ve already taken my anxiety meds tonight.

I exchanged a look with Miral—was that a joke?—before the angel burst into laughter.

Yes, Isa, monsters-under-your-bed can make jokes, too.

It did take the edge off.

Miral turned to Galaxy. “Are we prepared?”

Galaxy stared into the pool, swirled a finger through it. “The other two teams have begun their progress through the sewers. CaCa has joined with them and is leading both teams up until the branch.”

“Excellent.” Miral turned back to me. “We’ll leave when they’re in place.”

All we had to do was wait for the teams to close in on the World Government building. That must have been the longest hour of my life. I spent most of it pacing the basement, considering how I would bring Hercules back to himself. That was the key: not to physically take Hercules, but to bring his rationality back. And to escape together.

After some time, Galaxy stirred the scrying pool. “All three teams are in place.”

Miral nodded, stepped toward me. “Shall we?”

“Let’s do this,” I said at once. Before I lose my nerve.

Within a few seconds, Yeknalb had slipped over my head, darkening my view of the world. His body diverted light so well that I was rendered practically invisible except by hard, direct spotlights.

We passed upstairs and through the World’s End Bar—a very different place than it had been in the middle of the day. Raucous yells, chittering and chirrups filled the space, the spectrum of Others filling it from end to end. I glimpsed species I didn’t even recognize, caught sight of a banshee slumped over onto the bar.

None of them had any idea of what was transpiring tonight. Or what the World Government had in store tomorrow. Of course they don’t. You keep the masses calm, even as you throw them headlong over the cliff.

When we had gotten outside, the silence of night enveloped us. Across from the bar, an enormous clock glowed down on us—a warning, an admonition. No wonder the Others had piled into the bar.

Out here, the World Government watched. They always watched.

Miral set a finger to her ear as Galaxy’s voice echoed through my own earpiece. “The aerial team has engaged. Go—now.”

Based on our talks, I had known that Miral would move fast. We had discussed her need for haste. And I knew, after the time she’d rescued me, how fast the angel could move when she wanted to.

Well, I thought I knew.

When Miral took hold of me and her wings spread wide, they cracked with sonic force, resonating through the streets. She leaned close to me. “This will go quickly. Hold on.”

Quickly, I thought, contemplating the relativity of that word for an angel.

Above us, the clock’s ticking began to increase. My eyes found its face, widening on the second hand as it commenced a calm and unbroken spin.

Miral’s burning time.

And then the clock disappeared. We took off like a shot into the sky, her wings a whip’s snap over and over, propelling us up and up and up into the atmosphere.

I didn’t know how high we went before she paused—her wings spread for a single, weightless moment under the moon and stars—before angling us down toward Paradise Lot. We rushed toward land with such suddenness I worried Yeknalb’s body might split from the oncoming wind, or he would fly away like a sheet.

But he only wrapped tight around me, shielding me from the intensity of our descent. And I was able to see the city, glittering like its own starscape, for a few surreal seconds—I will remember this moment always, I thought—until it grew large and real again, growing to encompass us.

Down there, something sparked like a firework, sharding and sprinkling over everything. Then a second firework exploded. Was that gunfire being exchanged? It was hard to tell.

But I did know one thing.

Operation Make a Scene was in full force.

We came down hard and fast. Just before we landed, the angel’s wings extended, tenting to catch the air until we floated down, down.

When Miral’s feet touched the building’s roof, her soles barely tapped the cement. We arrived in silence.

Her arms released me just as a rumble sounded from the street adjacent to the facility. “All three teams have engaged,” Galaxy’s voice echoed through my head. “You have your window.”

Yeknalb slid off my head, and Miral’s porcelain face stared back at me under the moonlight.

“Your turn,” I said as the monster-under-your-bed began sliding up her left leg.

Chapter 11

Up on the roof of the Department of Health and Human Services building, Miral disappeared beneath Yeknalb’s slender, shadowy body. For the first time, our situations were reversed.

She was the one whose face needed to be hidden.

I, on the other hand, could wear any face. And I would.

As Operation Make a Scene unfolded in the courtyard below, we crossed the roof toward the door leading to the interior stairwell. It was predictably locked. But given everything going on around us, we could afford to be a little loud.

We stepped back, and Miral’s booted foot emerged from under Yeknalb’s body as, in one graceful stroke, she kicked the door open. Its locks broke in an instant, and the door swung so hard it hit the cement wall behind it with a clang.

“After you,” Miral said.

We came into the stairwell, whose overhead lights activated as they sensed our motion. No alarm, which was a bit strange. Or maybe not strange at all, I thought with spine-tingling suddenness. This was Serena we were dealing with, after all.

But we were here, and the operation was already in full swing. We couldn’t go back. As we started our descent, I glimpsed a security camera recording away from the ceiling.

That wasn’t catastrophic, because I didn’t look like me. Well, that is to say, I wasn’t wearing a face the World Army had previously identified as one of mine. The moment we’d come into the stairwell, I’d shifted into an illusion of a woman with a shaved head, her limbs thick with muscle, her features appealing in a hard-bitten way.

Because that was the thing about us encantado, and me in particular: it had always been about attraction, about appeal. Only in the past year had I begun to think of my illusions as services, as practical, as the things that would save me.

We moved down the long flights of stairs, quickly passing an entrance to the eighth floor. Six floors to go, and we had to make it quick. Evidently Miral had had the same thought, because without warning, she grabbed me up and leapt us over the railing, straight down the wide center of the stairwell.

I tried not to scream, but I did gasp when we went airborne. We fell several stories, the stairs blurring by. In the next second her wings popped open, their edges scraping along the sides of the stairwell as we descended. In my periphery, her wings looked like they emerged half-formed from nowhere. Evidently Yeknalb had hung on to Miral.

When we came to a stop, Miral helped me climb onto the landing before pulling herself over.

“You could have warned me,” I murmured. I leaned over the railing to find vertical grooves etched into the cement for at least a dozen feet. Miral’s wings had done that. Those weren’t just any old wings. They were an angel’s—a warrior’s. I felt a simultaneous shiver and a burst of gratitude that she was on our side.

“But then it wouldn’t have been half as memorable,” Miral’s voice returned. Was the angel teasing me? “I think this was the floor, wasn’t it?”

I turned to find the entrance to the second floor in front of us. “This is the one.”

Once again, Miral used her angel strength to kick the locked door open. When this one clanged against the wall, no lights activated. We were cast in darkness, the only illumination the flare of weapons fire and the Others making a ruckus through the long row of windows overlooking the street.

Before us lay doors on the left, a wall of windows on the right. As we came into the hallway, I paused, remembering again what I had seen through Hercules’s eyes. His view had been of the fountain. And the way the doors were oriented, the rooms behind them faced the courtyard where the fountain lay.

But the building itself was a square, which meant there might be four separate, long hallways on this floor, all of them with rooms overlooking the courtyard. I could do better than that.

I closed my eyes. The centaur’s face had been toward me when I’d seen through Hercules’s eyes.

“Miral,” I said, “which way does the centaur face?”

“The fountain?” She paused. “I don’t know. Galaxy?”

“Give me a minute,” the nymph said in my ear.

I opened my eyes. There was a quicker way to find out. When I stepped up to the first door, it bore no indication of what lay behind. Only a three-digit number sat at the center of its face.

I tried the knob. Locked.

I glanced back at Miral. “Can I beg your services again?”

The sound of the angel’s footsteps neared, and I stepped away. A second later, her foot hit the third door of the night. This one wasn’t nearly as sturdy as the other two; it didn’t swing open so much as fly off its hinges and land in the center of what looked to be an office.

Great construction.

I stepped into the office, past the door and to the window. I just needed one glimpse. With my fingers on the sill, I peered out into the courtyard. There, in the center of everything, the fight raged in flares of light. The quick, combustive bursts of weapons fire from security, I assumed. And the darting glow of the wisps, the faint, heartening natural glow of the pixies flitting through the night.

But there was something else, too.

“World Army forces have arrived,” Galaxy said into my ear. “It looks like they’re creating a perimeter around the building. Only one contingent has been sent into the courtyard.”

Super soldiers.

“A perimeter?” Miral said. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Galaxy’s voice returned.

Because they don’t want to kill us yet, I thought but didn’t want to say.

Miral seemed to sense the same thing, because I heard her step up to the window next to me. “Tell the teams to fight defensively. Don’t put themselves at risk.”

“Right,” said Galaxy.

For our part, we needed to hurry. The longer we took, the higher the odds of death for everyone fighting, even if they were doing so defensively.

I squinted into the darkness. I couldn’t see the centaur statue properly. Not until, in a glorious flare of light, one of the wisps half-blinded a few of the World Army soldiers.

And that flare of light was enough.

I turned away from the window. “We need to get to the other side.”

↔

We ran. As we did, I shifted to one of my tallest illusions—a woman just over six feet tall. Even then it was challenging to keep up with Miral. Though I couldn’t see her, I kept hearing her footsteps pulling ahead of mine.

Keep going, Isa. Pick it up.

Even though my heart felt overripe and ready to burst. Even though I wanted to throw up. Running while five months pregnant is a whole new world of challenges, from the nausea to the strange fear of toppling forward and crushing your belly.

The one consolation: this floor was empty. We ran unobstructed in the darkness until we hit the end of the hallway. That brought us into view of the next section of hallway, and we took a 90-degree turn into it.

“The exterior team is being routed as the perimeter closes in,” Galaxy said in my ear. That would be the ogres, the minotaur, Cilian. They had come up through the sewers and created a distraction outside the building.

“Tell them to scatter. Make the World Army chase them down,” Miral said. “We’re nearly there.”

Nearly there, but what will it take to get Hercules out?

I didn’t know. I couldn’t know.

“Got it,” Galaxy said.

It only took us thirty seconds to get down the second hallway. We made another sharp left turn into the last hallway—the one Hercules was on. Again I had to rely on the mental image I had from his view to pick the right room. He’d been almost parallel with the fountain.

We needed to head to the middle.

I took the lead down the hallway, racing down to about the midpoint. I tried the knob on a door, found it predictably locked. Before I could call on Miral, she had kicked it in. This time with the right amount of force, so it only swung open instead of falling on its face.

Inside, another office.

We proceeded to the next door. And the next.

More offices.

The fourth door didn’t kick in when Miral tried. That was the first time that had happened.

After a pause, she tried again, grunting with the effort.

Again, no dice.

“Let me help,” I said. I was prepared to transform into my giantess illusion—which I had promised myself I wouldn’t do after Ananda’s death—but Miral was already putting her all into a third kick. She yelled as she did so.

This time the locks broke. And the door scraped open instead of swinging.

Through the crack, only darkness. And I could have sworn I heard soft movement from inside.

Miral set an invisible hand to my chest, a metallic sound emanating from her. “I’ll enter first.” As she pushed the door open and stepped through the doorway, Yeknalb slid down off her, and the angel came fully revealed.

She was holding her longsword in both hands.

As I followed, the room’s lights flicked on, bright and blinding. I threw my hand over my seared eyes, tried desperately to force them to adjust.

A deep breathing emanated through the room. I knew that breathing.

“Son of Zeus,” Miral said.

When I stepped out from behind Miral, I found Hercules standing at the other side of it, his wrists bound with the thick cabling the World Army had used to capture him that night. He had been stripped to his loincloth, his body covered in wounds and bruises. He breathed hard, his fingers already folded to fists at his sides.

And as his face rose, I threw my hand over my mouth. His eyes were bloodshot. And I don’t mean in a I-didn’t-get-eight-hours-of-sleep way. I mean the burst-a-blood-vessel way.

Except every blood vessel in his eyes must have burst. All that remained were the greens of his irises, the blacks of his pupils. And those beautiful centerpoints were surrounded by bold red.

His eyes fixed on Miral, rage swimming in the flare of his nostrils, the curl of his upper lip. He looked feral. “You,” he growled.

Despite every instinct in my body, I took a step forward. “Hercules, it’s me. It’s Isabella.”

Those bloody eyes swiveled to me. They bore no recognition—none at all. And just as quickly, they returned to Miral. His lip twitched. “The Lord Commander of God’s Army. That should be the gods army, should it not?”

Miral took another step forward, her sword held out. “I did serve the gods, once upon a time. Now I simply serve Others like yourself.”

“You served Hera,” Hercules growled. “More than once.”

“I did as I was bade by the gods,” Miral said. “But I do not know what you speak of.”

I stared between the two of them. Something was happening here that I wasn’t privy to. I sensed Hercules ready to swing at Miral at any moment.

“Like when she bade you to sing into my ear,” Hercules said, taking his own step forward. “And in doing so, you urged me to kill them all. My wife, my children. Was that your voice, Miral?”

Miral took a long, deep breath. “You have been tricked, Hercules. They have turned you against me for their purposes.”

Hercules’s breath came faster, louder, pouring out of him until he unleashed a roar, his arms pulling against his restraints in an effort to get at the angel. But the cables held. They held even as the veins in Hercules’s neck appeared with his strain. Even as his wrists turned bloody.

Miral looked pained. “We are not enemies, you and I. There was no such song from me, son of Zeus.”

Hercules powered against his restraints, her words lost under the tsunami of his rage.

And though I stepped forward and tried to reach out to him, he spun on me with froth at his lips. I jerked my hand away as Hercules’s grief and fury rang in my ears. It went on and on until, with a snap of the fingers from the hallway, it ceased.

In the silence that followed, another voice echoed through the room.

“Be still, Hercules.”

Chapter 12

Serena lowered her hand. She had rendered Hercules completely silent.

There in the doorway, the scientist stood with perfect and unconcerned poise. She wore the same black suit and heels I’d always seen her in, her hair once again a waterfall over her shoulder. Something was tucked into the curve of both her ears. Her lips were painted a brilliant and complementary red to Hercules’s eyes. “I knew you would come for him. And I knew, when the show began outside, that you had arrived.”

My body went as tense as a drum. “You’ve been waiting for me?”

Miral had turned toward Serena, her sword still upraised. “You have turned him against us.”

Serena’s eyes seemed reluctant to leave me. “Turns out, when you explore a demigod’s memories, a lot comes out. Like the time a voice sang to him to kill his wife and children.” Serena gestured to the demigod. “You see, it was Hera who sang to Hercules. But Hercules, in one of our sessions, used the word ‘angel’ when recounting the event. Isn’t that strange, I thought. There’s a reason why we have that old saying, ‘A voice like an angel.’ ”

Miral set her jaw. “You tricked him. I never did such a thing.”

“You did … with the help of technology.” The tiniest twitch of triumph touched Serena’s lips. “We have many recordings of your speaking voice. A symphonic remix into a melody wasn’t challenging, given our resources. You would be amazed at the reaction you get from the demigod when you play that melody into his ear.”

Was that what they tortured Hercules with? Was that what broke him?

The sound of Miral’s singing?

“Serena,” I said. “Let him go.”

When her blue eyes shifted back to me, I felt practically leveled. Something had changed in her gaze. It wasn’t until this moment that I understood the woman standing before me wasn’t the same scientist I’d met a year ago.

The light seemed to shrink around her, darkness closing in. I had the strong sensation that at any moment she could reach out and snap the bones of my neck.

She had changed. Or maybe she had changed herself.

For some reason, I felt compelled to keep talking.

“What the World Government has planned,” I began, “the genocide of Others in Paradise Lot … It’s not the way. It won’t get you what I know you want. Not with the OtherX in Vegas, and not this time, either.”

“Time.” A tinge of wistfulness had entered Serena’s tone. “Collin doesn’t have time.”

I swallowed, caught. I had not helped her son. While we talked, he was gradually—with aching slowness—drowning in his own phlegm.

“I’m still going to save him,” I managed to say. “I’m still going to save Collin.”

Her eyebrows lifted at the center, the first show of real feeling I’d seen from her.

“But,” I went on, “I need you to release Hercules. You let me go once, months ago. Why not now?”

Pain lanced across her face, like a thought had entered she couldn’t voice. When her lips parted, her white teeth glimmered under the lights. “This is the only way.”

The only way?

Before I could respond, Serena pointed at Miral. “Hercules, remove the angel. Then deal with Isabella.”

Miral spun on Hercules just as he rose up, and the cables binding his arms unwound themselves and retracted into the wall. He was free.

“No!” I yelled as the demigod launched himself straight at Miral. I knelt, pulling both daggers from my boots. I needed to neutralize him with the claw. If I could just nick him, I could stop him.

The angel barely managed to deflect Hercules, sidestepping and using his momentum to launch him into the wall. He rammed into it with so much force the floor rumbled.

And beside him, papers fluttering around her, Serena didn’t move. She just watched.

As one, Miral and I rushed the demigod from behind, both our weapons upraised. When he turned, his right arm swung around at the exact height to clobber me right in the face.

I went to duck, but Miral’s hand came out, thrust me backward so hard I staggered and dropped to one knee.

Instead, she took the force of his arm. And when I say force, I mean his backswing launched her straight into the wall separating this room from the next one. The angel not only hit it … she put an angel-sized hole in it as she disappeared through the drywall.

Behind the demigod, Serena kept watching.

If I captured her, maybe I could stop Hercules. And she was a lot easier to deal with than the demigod.

Come on, Isa. Get over there.

With a snarl, I pushed myself up and launched my body at the scientist. I didn’t even see any fear in her blue eyes as I came toward her with both daggers raised.

Because Hercules’s enormous body came between me and her before I could get to the doorway. His hands gripped both my wrists, stopping all my inertia like I’d thrust my hands straight into stone.

I lifted my face, and for the first time since I’d arrived, we truly met eyes. There, I found the same rage I’d experienced the moment I’d entered his mind. I knew its depth, its form, its extent. Because I had experienced it, too.

The first time I killed a man had been because of rage, and I’d suffered so greatly in my grief that I’d begged the goddess Yemoja to take my memories away. And she had.

Rage borne of grief was a unique, distilled form of power.

And in Hercules, it was terrifying.

Those bloodshot eyes regarded me with no real feeling at all. None for me, at least. And I sensed there was nothing I could say, except—

“Please,” I whispered. “Just don’t hurt your child.”

Child. That word made him flinch.

“Bring her with me,” Serena instructed Hercules, stepping out into the hallway.

His top lip came up, all his white teeth revealed. I saw conflict enter his face, even if it wasn’t borne by his eyes. It was in his eyebrows, lifting at the center.

And the growl that followed as he started us across the room, backing me faster and faster toward the window overlooking the courtyard, wasn’t pure rage.

It bore something else, too.

When we broke through the window, I knew exactly what it was.

Sorrow.

↔

The window gave with such ease I barely felt the hardness of the glass before we were through it.

No, that wasn’t right.

I didn’t feel the glass at all.

Hercules had shifted our angle just before we hit the window so that his shoulder took the brunt of the impact. And the glass had folded like paper on contact with his body. That was the way of things with Hercules; very little could stand up against his power, animate or inanimate.

In midair, we corkscrewed until Hercules was beneath me. I caught a glimpse of the stars—or maybe that was the will-o-wisps—and the ground shifting to its rightful place before the grass found us with bone-jarring force.

We must have dropped twenty feet.

All the air went out of Hercules’s lungs, and I, atop him, fell against his chest with the same force. You’d think Hercules’s chest would be easier to land on than grass, but you’d be wrong.

I might as well have fallen onto cement. And when you fall on cement, you usually hear a crack. Something had been hurt. Somethings.

The daggers thumped in the grass beside me; I had lost my grip on them when we’d fallen. And then I only heard the thudding of Hercules’s heart for one searing moment—how fast it beat, like a locomotive engine—before the pain set in.

Something had definitely been hurt.

Through the pain, I managed to roll onto the grass. Hercules didn’t move. Even for a demigod, falling twenty feet would lay you flat. But I had heard his heart; I knew he was alive.

And I was alive.

He hadn’t taken me to Serena.

I had seen the moment of clarity on his face. He had thrown us through the window on purpose.

Hercules could be saved. He could be brought back.

When I lifted my head, the whip-crack of wings sounded, and two boots landed in the grass in front of me.

Miral. Evidently she’d recovered from being thrown through a wall.

“Isabella and Hercules are in the courtyard,” she said to the Others around us. “Protect her at all costs.”

Her hand extended to grasp mine. I began to reach for it, but before the angel could help me up, three soldiers closed in with bladed weapons gleaming. She raised her longsword in a single motion, dashing the edge across one man’s chest before the blade arced through the air and crashed down on a second man’s head.

The first man staggered back, his hands at his chest like he could press the wound closed. He quickly dropped. And the other had already crumpled, his head two halves of a melon.

Both men had died in a single swing.

The third soldier had more sense. He and the angel met blades, the two of them dueling in front of me as I pushed my hands into the grass.

Or, I should say, hand.

The right hand was fine, but the left wrist objected so forcefully I gritted my teeth against a full-throated scream.

It was sprained. I had sprained it against Hercules’s chest.

I couldn’t let the pain envelop me. Not now—not yet. I pulled the arm to my chest, pushed myself halfway up with my right hand.

Around me, a lightshow of chaos enveloped the courtyard. In the moon’s light, I could hardly pick out who was who, and what was where. I only knew everything and everyone moved fast, swirling around the centaur fountain in a fracas.

Miral’s longsword clanged against the soldier’s, the two of them in a standoff. That soldier must be spliced. No regular man could stand against an angel, much less that angel.

Which meant we weren’t just fighting typical soldiers. We were fighting super soldiers, as we’d expected. They were spliced with Other DNA, which meant they could stand against us.

Or, in the case of a select few, they could best us.

From out of the darkness sang a dart. As soon as I’d heard it, it lodged in the soldier’s calf.

The pixies. Those were darts laced with Lux’s OtherX.

They were giving these soldiers the flu.

I grabbed Selvagem, slid it into my boot. Then I picked up El Lobizon’s claw. I would mostly be limited to using one dagger from here on, and if I had to use one, it would be the dagger that could nullify magic.

Just as I pushed myself to my feet, two of the ogres appeared at either side of me like gigantic bouncers. One of the wisps flew over my head. And Glint the pixie came to land on my shoulder, her blow dart in hand.

“Found ya,” the pixie murmured by my ear.

I also recognized a familiar, tiny cumulus cloud racing through the courtyard toward me. As it swept down, Cupid shot off an arrow and clocked a soldier in the back.

He slowed as he neared me and came level. “Fancy a ride?”

In the next moment, he was knocked straight off his cloud by a soldier moving so fast he might as well have been a blur. Who the hell was that? The tiny demigod landed on the grass and rolled about ten feet right onto the cement.

Nossa Senhora. I knew from our time together that Cupid was a glass cannon; a masterful shot, but also as delicate as a real toddler.

I started toward Cupid, but before I’d taken two steps, the ogre on my left let out a single grunt and nearly toppled right onto me. I managed to dash back before he did, and the ogre hit the grass face-first.

In my periphery, I glimpsed that soldier again. He was already moving toward the ogre on my right. In that second, his face had turned toward me, and I’d recognized his features.

Black hair, green eyes. Full lips.

I would recognize that face anywhere.

Even if it was contorted with rage. Even if it was possessed by the spirit of a demigod in the throes of grief.

“It’s him,” Glint yelled from my shoulder. “It’s Justin!”

And then the second ogre fell.

Chapter 13

The two ogres lay dead around me, boxing me in.

Beyond them stood Justin, in his first moment of stillness.

In the wisp’s soft light, I recognized all the wounds and the bruises he’d borne from the torture sessions. But he carried something new—something his body wouldn’t be able to come back from.

Age.

And not just the ten years he’d aged since he’d fought with Chao yesterday. This was twice that much.

Justin had burned enough time to age twenty years. He was at least fifty now, his hair as much gray as black. His power had returned since I’d punctured his hand with the tip of El Lobizon’s claw. Of course it had; I had barely wounded him at all.

And he’d used so very much time in just one day.

“Justin,” I whispered.

He didn’t respond. He only stepped toward me the way he had in Chao’s living room, fully prepared to do what he needed to do to turn the situation in his favor.

Even if that meant killing himself in the process.

A fleeting, macabre thought entered my mind: Both Justin and Hercules were possessed. Both men had thrown me through windows. Were this a memory and I reflecting on it, I would laugh in a sad, soft way.

As it was, I couldn’t suppress the single sob that pressed out of my throat. “Please stop. You’re killing yourself.”

No response. None at all.

Glint shot off a dart from my shoulder. Justin tilted his head left with robotic precision, the dart whizzing uselessly into the darkness. Somewhere beyond, I still heard Miral’s sword singing. The sounds of heavy fighting—men and Others grunting and chittering and screaming and dying—echoed off the building’s walls and from there diffused into the sky.

“Run, Isa,” Glint whispered from my shoulder. “You have to run!”

But I was surrounded by ogres, nearly backed into a corner of the courtyard. And I wouldn’t be able to outrun Justin, even if he had burned twenty years. He still had decades left to burn—and he would, if necessary.

I would have to fight.

I raised El Lobizon’s claw. My hand was shaking. “All right,” I said. “I love you, Justin, but I won’t go easy.”

He didn’t acknowledge that, either, except in one way.

He started forward. In one motion he jumped over an ogre’s body and came at me almost faster than my eyes could process.

With a ululating battle cry, Glint flew out from under my hair and raced toward Justin. A final dart sounded—it, too, missed—before Justin swatted the pixie away like a gnat. She spiraled off in the direction Cupid had gone, her little glow disappearing with a wink.

“No!” I yelled. But I didn’t have time to stare after the pixie; he was nearly on me.

I gripped the dagger hard, waiting a beat. When he’d gotten close, I slashed at his arm. The claw only ripped his shirt, Justin turning away from it as his fingers found my hand, slid up the length of my arm to my shoulder.

For a moment, we were back to back, his warmth against mine.

Kick him, Isa.

As soon as the impulse had flitted from my brain to my leg, he pivoted around. He sent my shoulder down until I was forced to bend at the waist or have my arm broken.

GoneGods, I was no match for him.

With his free arm, he drove his elbow into my hand. My fingers popped open, and the claw hit the grass.

The will-o-wisp that had been protecting me flew straight into Justin’s eyes, flaring with blinding light. He paused for a second, snatching the little creature straight from the air and crushing it in his hand.

The sound of a will-o-wisp being crushed is absolutely horrific. It produces the same sound a paper heart would make if all its chambers and valves were squeezed by a human hand.

And then, to top it off, the wisp let a tiny, breathy cry.

That was the tragedy I would never forget: I hadn’t known a wisp could make noise until I’d heard one die.

And for the first time that night, anger doused my veins.

Real, potent anger.

I raised my right foot, drove it down the length of his calf until my heel found the toe of his boot. I jammed it down, hard. I wasn’t as powerful as some, but I knew that move could break toes. And it had; I’d heard the muffled cracks.

But that made no difference, because Justin’s only acknowledgement was a grunt. He didn’t let up the pressure at all. He forced me down to my knees, folding my right arm at the elbow until my hand pressed against my back. I could only see the ground.

“Hey,” came a man’s voice from somewhere above me. Someone knocked a carved piece of wood on the cement—a challenge. “Why don’t you pick on someone properly spliced?”

I forced my head up just as a staff swung in out of the darkness, wind brushing over my head as it connected with Justin’s cheek.

That was another noise I’d never wanted to hear: the sound of my boyfriend’s face breaking against Daiski’s staff.

↔

Daiski the Texan. Daiski the super soldier.

Daiski, the man who had once let me go.

Back in the United States, he had met the Oracle of Delphi in New York City. She had told him he would need to protect me. And though he’d been sent to capture me—and, for all intents and purposes, did—he let me go.

He saw the oracle’s power through me, and he understood that Pythia had been right. So he’d allowed me, Justin, Hercules and the Cupids to take off through the desert. He’d watched us go.

I knew it. I knew he had seen me through that manhole cover behind the bookstore.

He had let me go then, too.

I unwound my right arm from behind my back, rising as Daiski stalked toward a prone Justin, whose face had just taken the brunt of the other man’s staff. He’d used that staff to do great and terrible things when we’d first met him on a train.

He was still the best fighter I’d ever met.

I grabbed up El Lobizon’s claw as Daiski raised his staff, snapped it down into the grass where Justin’s back would be. Except Justin wasn’t there; he’d rolled away just in time.

Now he scrambled to his feet, blood gleaming out of one ear. Justin remained in a crouch like he would tackle the other man.

“Isabella,” Daiski said to me, his eyes never leaving Justin, “do what you need to do. He won’t get past me.”

“Don’t kill him,” I breathed, tears rising to my eyes. “He’s possessed by rage.”

“I won’t kill him if he doesn’t force my hand.” Daiski lowered the staff behind his back. “But the look in his eye tells me he’s not going to be very reasonable.”

Thank you, Daiski, I thought as I backed three steps, then turned. Thank you once again.

I headed toward where Cupid had fallen. The little demigod still lay unmoving against a wall, his face down. I crouched next to him. “Cupid?” I whispered.

He groaned, his wings fluttering. “That was unpleasant.”

Relief spiked through my chest. “But you’re OK?”

He pushed himself up, his bow still in one hand and his quiver clattering against the wood. The whole front of him was coated in dirt. “I’m pretty good at emergency dismounts off the cloud. That one was a doozy, though.”

“We need to get Hercules and Justin and get out of here, ASAP.”

Even in the half-light, I could see Cupid’s eyebrows go straight up. “Uh, in case you hadn’t noticed, they’re not exactly rational right now. One of your boyfriends just launched me off my own puff like a squirrel.”

I wanted to tell Cupid that I just needed more time. I hadn’t gotten the proper chance to use my power on Hercules—not with Serena showing up when she did. Not with the left turn of Hercules hating Miral.

But, as I scanned the courtyard, I understood I wouldn’t get that time now. Because Hercules wasn’t where he had fallen.

He was gone.

Farther on, Miral was surrounded by at least six super soldiers. Her sword gleamed in the light as she swung, spun, fought all of them at once. And behind me, Daiski’s staff smacked against Justin’s shin, the two of them in a close fight.

I needed another plan. Plan B. Something I could execute quickly, in a few seconds.

“Sorry to say,” Cupid went on, “but I don’t see a way of getting through to them with the party going on here.”

My gaze jerked to Cupid. “You don’t see a way of getting through to them.”

“Uh, yeah.” Cupid brushed himself off, still groaning as he shook out one of his arms. “That’s what I said.”

But I did.

Where’s Hercules?

I needed to find Hercules.

Some ten feet away, a screeching sounded. It had come from several stories up—near where Hercules and I had fallen. In fact, it had come from the very window we had fallen out of.

Up there, someone stood in the window, a pair of dark wings outstretched. Miral? No—she was still fighting on the ground. But I couldn’t make out the face in the window. Not until those wings flapped once, lifted the figure into the air. They rose several stories higher until they obscured the moon, those wings flapping to keep that slender frame aloft.

With every flap, the moonlight illuminated the feathered wings. But they didn’t shine white under the light. They gleamed bronze.

Like the stymphalian birds.

Back in Montreal, Justin and I had defeated creatures from antiquity—deadly birds unleashed on our city by the World Army. Their wings were made of metal, and they were capable of launching them at their prey.

But they had been killed. We had killed them.

Not their DNA, the scientist in me replied.

If my experiences with Serena Russo had taught me one thing, it was that she always, always took DNA samples.

Cupid stared with me. “Who in the Empty Hell is that? And what are they waiting up there for?”

I squinted up at the figure shrouded in darkness. Just turn a little bit, I thought. Let me see your face.

As if they had heard my thoughts, the face lifted. Porcelain, angular, shrouded by a waterfall of black hair.

It’s her.

It’s Serena.

But it wasn’t her face that scared me most. It wasn’t even the fact that she had spliced herself with the stymphalian birds and now had functional wings made of metal.

It was the thing she held in her hands. A small black box.

I had seen that box before, on the night of my ultrasound.

I lowered my eyes to the fighting around me. That was when I realized about half of the World Army’s forces weren’t fighting. They had filtered into the courtyard and remained waiting. In a few hands, I could see those black boxes.

And there’s the perimeter around the building.

This had been planned. It had all been planned.

We had brought ramidreju—so many ramidreju. How many of the Others who had volunteered for this had exceptional hearing? That was who those little black boxes affected: Others with super-human hearing—or those who had been spliced with them.

I opened my mouth to shout a warning, but before I could, Galaxy’s voice burst into my ear. “Massive aural attack incoming!”

Chapter 14

Cupid and I stared around the courtyard. Neither of us were affected, but everything had changed.

Around us, half the Others in the courtyard had stopped fighting. The ramidreju, the will-o-the-wisps. They let out screams, dropping to the ground and writhing under the intensity of sound. And, given the combined force of the attack, it must have been intense like nothing before.

On my right, Justin dropped to the grass. Daiski came to a stop in front of him, his staff upraised. He’d halted it just in time.

The other half—those Others unaffected—went on fighting. And none of the soldiers themselves were affected. Not Daiski, either. They must have taken measures, like Serena had. That was what I’d seen tucked into her ear—a sound-blocker.

But with our forces halved, Operation Make a Scene was about to turn into Operation Make a Pile of Bodies.

In the sky, Serena snapped her fingers.

Two seconds later, a roar followed. Hercules stepped into the center of the courtyard—toward me. Well, you found him. Or he found you.

Either way, this was what I wanted. He was who I had to get to.

I just needed a second with him.

Three dwarves rushed to get between him and me—”No!” I yelled—but Hercules sent them flying with one swing of his arm. They hit the wall of the building with thuds, slid down to piles in the bushes.

In the next moment, Serena swooped down from the sky. Her wings spread large, feathers shooting off around the courtyard. The minotaur yelled as he was tagged in the chest, and two more of the dwarves were hit. Some feathers just hit the building, shattering more windows.

Cupid ducked one, and it lodged in the cement above him. When he reached up to touch it, he hissed. “That’s the sharpest GoneGodDamn feather I’ve ever touched.”

“It’s a stymphalian feather.” I got into a crouch, ready to move at any moment. “They’re made of metal.”

“Oh,” Cupid said, “that’s just great. Now we’ve got assaults on our ears and feathers of metal. What next?”

As if in answer, Hercules roared as one of the ogres rammed into him, the two of them crashing into the fountain. They dropped to the ground and began wrestling.

Meanwhile, Serena had landed in amongst the throngs. Her wings were still extended, and she shot off feathers at Others like she was throwing darts.

It was a massacre.

A dwarf threw himself at Serena, trying to cleave her in two with his axe. She allowed him to get close enough that I thought he might succeed before she dodged out of the way, sending a line of feathers into his back.

Why was she on the ground at all?

And what was that expression on her face?

She was fighting recklessly, but she didn’t need to. She could have picked us off like fish in a barrel from the air. She could have let the soldiers mop up.

But she was in amongst the throngs, spinning and dodging and rolling like I’d never thought the scientist was capable of. Well, not without a lot of splicing. And she’d had a year to work on it, after all. That year had made her a capable fighter.

But I still couldn’t process her expression.

We encantado are fluent in body language. In fact, you could put us among the top five species of Others in terms of our native fluency. It’s a natural consequence of who we are: shapeshifters, imitators, illusionists, seductresses. Proper use of our power involves reading the body at a far more granular level than your typical interrogator.

And, even with all that fluency, I couldn’t read Serena.

Back in Brazil, I had once been a witness to a battle between a tribe of indigenous people and European settlers. This was during the 1600s, when the colonizers had just begun to encroach on indigenous territories. The battle had taken place in the rainforest, near my home. And so we encantado, who weren’t fighters, watched from high up in the trees as the battle took place.

It was muskets versus spears. You can imagine the slaughter.

So much gunfire, I would never again forget the sound of it. And the screams, the frequency of death. It was horrible, and it quickly became clear that the indigenous people were losing, but their leader forced them to fight on. He pushed them to keep fighting the settlers, to defend their home until death.

The remaining tribesmen were left with only two choices: turn tail (which some did), or keep battling the settlers. And many chose the latter.

It was in observing those who kept fighting the settlers that I gained new fluency in the body language of war. Some tribesmen came at the line of settlers with their spear tipped forward, a primal scream pressing up out of their chests. These were the ones who had lost all rationality, whose fight or flight instincts had kicked in. They had decided to fight, but without any real tactics.

And the other tribesmen who defended their home? They came quietly, skipping amongst the trees. They held their spears close to their bodies. They maintained their rationality, but I could see a certain hope painted on their faces. They were serving their cause. They were saving their family—or trying to. They were the altruists.

But the manic fighters and the altruists were at different ends of the spectrum. A fighter could not be an altruist, and vice versa. Witnessing this battle had given me this pet theory, which I’d held onto over many, many years.

Until Serena defied it.

In some moments, she was a fighter. Those were the moments she screamed, when she threw herself with abandon at her opponent. When she seemed prepared to die.

In other moments, hope painted her face. I could see the altruist in her, though I didn’t know why. I knew she bore no real love for the World Government or its armies. I knew she didn’t care what happened to anyone in this courtyard, human or Other.

She only cared about her son. She only cared about saving him.

So why was she fighting so recklessly in one moment, and with so much hope in the next? It made no sense.

For now, I only had to worry about Hercules. He was the one I needed to get to. He was still in the center of the courtyard, swinging his tree-trunk arms through all the Others trying to get between me and him.

I rose to my feet. “Cupid.”

Cupid flew up into the air beside me. “You want me to distract all the soldiers from Hercules?”

He knew me so well. “Can you do it?”

“That shouldn’t even be a question.” Cupid brushed dirt off his shoulders and flew into the fracas.

On my other side, a voice sounded off. I spun, my heart racing, to find that it was Daiski. “Cupid won’t be enough. Luckily, you have me.”

Beyond Daiski, Justin lay on the ground, clutching his head where he’d taken several blows from Daiski’s staff. He looked about fifteen years older than he had the last time I’d looked.

Justin. Just hold on.

I gritted my teeth. “I asked you not to hurt him.”

Daiski glanced over his shoulder. “Actually, you said not to kill him. And I didn’t. But right now he’s really, really regretting he ever met me.” With a wink, the soldier whipped his staff down and behind him and raced off toward the chaos.

Which left me alone to get to Hercules.

↔

When it came to Hercules, I had the thought probably a million women had had throughout history: Let him take me. I just need to let him take me.

Too bad it wasn’t in the fun, sexy way they’d meant it.

“Don’t get in Hercules’s way,” I called out to the Others trying to slow the demigod. “Let him through.”

Selvagem still lay in the grass some five feet away. I grabbed it up in my sprained hand with a grimace, both daggers ready as I approached Hercules. The others seemed to have heard, because nobody else was getting between me and him.

Just one second. I just need one second with him.

In that second, I could enter his mind and bring him into Pythia’s garden. There, I would have an eternity to reason with him. To talk him down from his rage. To bring him back.

And though my left wrist was sprained, I didn’t need it anymore. The oracle’s power resonated inside me, through every part of me. The left hand had been my first point of entry, like a child with training wheels learns to ride a bike.

I didn’t need that help any longer.

I jogged toward Hercules, allowing that anxiety to fill my chest. I had to do this without that moment of stillness I’d relied on before. I had to do it amidst the chaos and the physical pain.

But I could do it. I had to do it.

We had closed to within ten feet of each other when, with an awful, screeching flap of wings, a figure landed in a crouch between us. The darkness seemed to swirl around her, light pressed away.

She lifted her face, and I saw it again.

Pure recklessness—and altruism.

The recklessness had inhabited her when she’d dropped from the sky between me and the demigod. Now, meeting my eyes, that flicker of hope appeared.

I still didn’t understand her body language.

Serena stood, and those red lips parted. “You think you can use your oracle power on him—I can see it in your eyes. You’re wrong, Isabella. His rage will consume you.”

I tightened my grip on the daggers, painful as the left one was to grip. That anxiety was shifting to anger. So many dead because of one woman. “Look at you. Look at what you’ve done. If I’m wrong in one thing, you’re wrong in everything.”

Her eyes flicked to my weapons. “You want to fight me.”

I nodded once.

She raised one hand, snapped her fingers. Behind her, all the fire went out of Hercules once more. It was a terrible thing to witness. “Well, come on, then. If you can bring me down, you can get to him.”

Her wings came close to her body, encasing her, all the feather tips pointed at me. She wanted to scare me.

And I’ll admit: Serena looked pretty friggin’ scary.

But for so long I had been afraid. I had been a runner, always disappearing from my problems. I’d begged Yemoja to take my memories away, and she had. I’d tried to run when El Lobizon showed up in Montreal, before my conscience corrected me. The same had been true in Vegas, when I’d found out I was pregnant.

On and on the examples went. Every time it had been the same: Isabella Ramirez turned away from what she feared.

The past year had taught me two things:

One, that Serena Russo would never stop chasing me.

Two, that running would never really make my problems disappear.

With Serena, it was like the universe had sent me my very own impossible-to-escape nightmare. She had shown me, through so many trials, that running was futile. And if evolution taught us biological creatures anything, it was that we had to be nimble. We had to be ready to change when our solutions didn’t work out.

I had to stop running.

And if there was ever a time to do it, it was now. Here she was, and here I was, and if the whole GoneGodDamn world wasn’t ending, it sure felt like it. This courtyard gave me the same sensation as that day the gods left.

Everything felt in flux. Nothing felt sure or safe. And I felt completely out of control.

The difference was, if I didn’t succeed here, it wouldn’t be the gods throwing their denizens to Earth. It would be the humans throwing Others to the sea.

I hadn’t been able to stop the gods from leaving. But this time, here in this courtyard, I could change the world.

My breath came hot and hard as I started toward her. I had one advantage that Serena wasn’t aware of: my sister Ananda had taught me how to fight. And the woman standing before me, spliced as heavily as she was, hadn’t yet seen me fight with all my old memories unlocked.

And this one would be the fight of my life. I would hold nothing back.

I came at her like a hellion, screaming until my throat went raw. Her wings tracked me, and I knew they were preparing to shoot off a volley of feathers. I had seen them work before, and I knew the wings pulled back to gain momentum before the attack.

When her wings pulled back a few degrees, I dropped into a forward roll. In the midst of it, one of the feathers snagged my pants as it shot by. The hem ripped, and I might have been cut along the calf, but it was impossible to tell. With feathers that thin and sharp, it was like being sliced by a razor blade. The pain would come later.

I came out of the roll and to my feet, both daggers still gripped tight. I was five feet closer now—almost close enough to get in amongst those wings and disable her magic completely.

And the wings weren’t as reactive as they needed to be, either. Serena may have been spliced, but she didn’t have the absolute, natural control over her powers that the stymphalian birds had over their own bodies. She was lethal, yes, but in a mechanical way.

So her wings were only just reorienting themselves to my new position when I fell into a hard sprint, barreling toward her head-first. They tried to enclose her just before I got to Serena, but I struck out with Selvagem, deflecting the encroaching feathers with a clang and slamming right into her.

Chapter 15

We hit the ground together, me atop her. And between my weight and the metal of her own wings, she landed hard. I felt the breath go out of her lungs in one burst. GoneGods, I even managed to get her with El Lobizon’s claw, right across her unblemished cheek.

She gasped for air, her lungs refusing to open. Blood and magic seeped from the cut on her face, white smoke diffusing into the air as the cut released a stream of red down to her ear. I’d gotten her. I’d gotten her good.

But El Lobizon’s magic didn’t slow her down. At least, not right away. She screwed up her mouth and with what felt like tectonic force, headbutted me backward.

That one sent my vision spinning, and I dropped back to my elbows as she struggled to breathe. The full weight of her skull crashing into mine transformed at once into a crashing throb against my cranium. All I wanted to do was drop right down into the grass.

But a voice rang out in me.

This is everything you’ve fought for. Don’t stop now.

The Isa of Hope.

I took a deep, gritted breath, pushing the pain from the foreground. I threw myself atop her again, and we scrabbled. I tried to straddle her and pin her arms, but she writhed like a hellcat beneath me, her wings flapping hard to set me off balance. And then, with a force like an anvil, something thumped me hard in the back.

Ah, I thought as I flew over her head. That’s right—Serena’s almost six feet tall. She had long enough legs to knee me right in the back, and she had done just that. Of course, those weren’t any old human legs—those were definitely super-human, filled with incredible strength and power.

My back could testify to that.

Even with the cut I’d given her, her magic wasn’t nullified yet. It was only in the process of leaving her. She still had time.

I landed on my back in the grass, my fingers opening wide as the pain rippled through me. And my next thought wasn’t of my own body, but of the body growing inside me.

My baby.

I couldn’t fight like this. Serena was reckless because she could be, but I couldn’t afford that style of fighting. My child had survived a lot, but she couldn’t last through a fight like this.

I had to be more evasive. I had to keep my distance from her.

The daggers. I’d lost my grip on the daggers.

I lifted my head, patting the grass. From this vantage point and in this light, they were hidden in the grass at either side of me.

Serena’s voice sounded from somewhere behind me, hoarse and ragged. “We’re nearly at the end.”

I lifted my eyes. Above me, the moon hung like a lightbulb in the sky, brilliant and mesmeric. That is, until Serena stepped in front of it, smoke still rising from her cheek. She grabbed El Lobizon’s claw, stepped around me. Her boot landed on my sprained left wrist as I reached for Selvagem, pressing down until I couldn’t grit my teeth through the cry.

“Men,” she called around the courtyard. Her voice cracked in the middle of the word. “All of you to me. I’ve captured the encantado.”

For a moment, we met eyes. And what I saw there wasn’t triumph. It wasn’t happiness.

It was fear.

Why?

Around us, the fighting had largely ceased. I no longer heard the battle cries of Others, the chittering and the grunts and the ululations. Because, I realized with dawning horror, they were dead.

Almost all of the Others who’d come with us were dead.

The only voice I recognized was Miral’s, who let out a savage roar from the opposite corner of the courtyard. I had never heard her sound like that—captured and defeated.

What about Justin? I couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear him.

Bootsteps approached, soldiers’ moving in my periphery. The World Army was closing in on me. If they took me, I would become their property. Serena’s property.

She had already claimed my left arm; her boot remained on my wrist, digging in as she leaned down to retrieve Selvagem from the grass. Ananda’s blade. How dare she.

As her hand closed around the dagger, an arrow struck her in the back. On its shaft gleamed two red hearts.

Cupid.

Cupid had survived.

He whooped from atop the building. “Got you again, bitch.”

Serena partially lost her balance, tipping forward and staggering to catch herself. When she did, she revealed Justin laying in the grass some ten feet away, immobile. He was so covered in blood I could barely make out his face, but I could see his hair. It was struck through with white.

I had to save Justin. I had to save Justin and Hercules.

But I didn’t have time.

I needed time to figure out how to escape this situation. Which meant I had to enter the garden, the chaos around me be damned.

I closed my eyes, using the pain to fuel the adrenaline in my body. And despite everything, I tried to find a moment of stillness.

Where could I find stillness in such a place?

What would Pythia do? I wondered. How would she instruct me?

Go far inside yourself, came the immediate reply. In there is the only place you will ever find peace.

Inside myself. I had to go deep inside. Without bidding, my mind returned to the infinitude I had seen when I’d entered the portal to the present. There, a blanket of stars had enveloped me. There, I had felt a rare and lasting peace unlike any I’d experienced before.

And I realized, finally, so many months later, what that blanket of stars had represented.

It had been my child, and the possibilities of her life, as infinite as the stars.

In the present, my fetus’s life would go on forever.

So I found that stillness in her, the girl who would be. She lived at the center of me, growing every day. And in me, she experienced an eternal and comforting peace. She floated in the ether, warm in my body’s embrace.

That was enough. That was the stillness I needed.

The world had just begun to melt away when a scream ripped through the courtyard—Serena’s scream. A word came from her throat, but I couldn’t process it amidst the pain that followed.

My eyes shot open as the world dissolved. She had stabbed one of the daggers into my left arm—the one spliced with oracle DNA—and twisted. Her eyes had gone wide with manic intensity, studying my own.

And from there, the world hurtled into insanity.

↔

The upside of being stabbed by Serena Russo while trying to enter the place where you can see through space and time: I did manage to get there. The downside: I didn’t stop in the garden. In fact, I shot right past all of it—the grass and Pythia’s gravesite and tree.

I careened straight into the portal to the future.

I knew in the moment before I entered it that Serena stabbing me was what had caused this. But moreover, I got the feeling she had intended for this to happen. Had she wanted me to see into the future? Was that why I’d skipped the garden entirely?

Because, even though I was disembodied, I felt like I didn’t have control. Like I’d been thrust or kicked straight into the future. Like this was Serena’s intent.

Maybe she knew, somehow, what had happened when I’d gone into the future with Ordo. Maybe she’d tortured Ordo to the point where the principle had revealed that my brain couldn’t process the endless futures available to see.

Maybe Serena wanted to melt my mind by sending me in there.

Whatever it was, she’d succeeded.

I plummeted into the future.

Or, I should say, the futures.

Every single one of them.

Just like when I’d entered with Ordo, every future flashed before me like an opened book, pages upon pages splaying through the air. Except this book didn’t have a beginning or an end—it just had sheafs upon sheafs of pages.

And those pages wouldn’t slow down. They wouldn’t give me a chance to see them. I glimpsed sounds, words, smells, emotions, even tastes. Together, they created a cacophony, sent me into stimulatory overload. And as before, I couldn’t control their pace.

I possessed Pythia’s power, but I could not wield it.

And worse: if I didn’t figure it out, my mind would not survive this. I didn’t have Ordo to help me back into the garden, to parse through everything. I sensed if I allowed this to continue, it would wear away at my understanding of reality. I would not be able to distinguish sounds or smells or words or tastes. One sound would become every sound. One smell would become every smell.

I didn’t know what to do. I needed time to figure it out, and I had been denied it. Panic rose in me like a cresting wave.

And, against all logic, a small, vulnerable thought entered my mind:

Mother, help me.

It was ridiculous, really. We encantado didn’t have mothers—we had Yemoja. And she was our goddess, our creator. She had molded us from her mind, not borne us from her womb.

And there was a difference. I knew that now, as a mother-to-be. Even though Yemoja had adored me, she had taken away my memories to spare me the pain of what I did to that bandit in the forest. If she had truly loved me, she would have let me sit with the memories and the pain. She would have let me grow from them.

But she didn’t, and I remained emotionally stunted for hundreds of years.

That wasn’t something I would do to my child.

Mother, I thought again as the edges of my consciousness began to dissolve under the enormity of the futures unveiling before me. Please.

And then I reached for Pythia. For Ananda, Hinata and Miral.

An absurd part of me thought, if I hoped hard enough, one of them would show themselves to me and save me from my fate. Or, at least, a voice would enter my head, tell me what to do. Guide me. Teach me.

Isa.

Well, there was a voice. That was the Isa of Hope. But it was only me.

Isa, that voice said, there’s only you. There’s always been only you.

“I need help,” I breathed into the noise around me. “I need someone else’s help.”

You, Isabella, are enough. Find your stillness.

Why did Isa of Hope have to sound like a yoga instructor? I wanted to laugh in her face and knock her out of crow pose. I wanted to topple her lavender crystals. I wanted to destroy her serenity.

That was the Isa of Fear laughing.

She hated serenity. She hated all things simple and easy and good, because they seemed too easy and too good. She didn’t trust them—not before the gods left, and definitely not after.

Here’s a quick way to insanity: imagine yourself as two personalities duking it out while you’re being untethered from everything by the rapid progress of millions of fates before your eyes.

Even here, I was imagining myself into having company, because I so feared being alone. I would take a hateful voice in my head over being alone.

But I wasn’t alone, was I?

I had my child. I had the stillness in my belly. That was what I had reached for to enter the garden. It had worked for me.

But when I sought out my child’s consciousness, I couldn’t find her. She wasn’t inside my head, after all—she was inside my biological body. And my body wasn’t here, but in the real world.

It was only me in here. I really was alone in my mind, watching the futures unfold like the longest story ever told. I was being worn down like a river stone, and the Isa of Hope and the Isa of Fear were growing quieter inside me. Soon, I wouldn’t hear them at all.

I would only hear the cacophony of futures.

It’s always been you, the Isa of Hope said, barely audible now. You, and you alone.

Why did I keep repeating that to myself? What was the point I needed to get across in my own head?

Alone. I was alone.

“Fine,” I called out. “I’m alone. Absolutely, 100% alone. Are you happy?”

Happy. Was I happy?

Maybe it wasn’t a matter of whether I was happy or not. At least, not in this present moment. Maybe it was a matter of acceptance. I had to acknowledge a truth—one the Isa of Hope and the Isa of Fear both believed.

What if the Isa of Hope and of Fear were right?

They agreed on one thing: I was alone. I would always be alone. What if I accepted that I had always been, and would always be, alone with myself?

No Yemoja. No Hinata or Pythia or Ananda or Miral. Not even my child.

Just me. And I was enough.

I was my own stillness.

As soon as the thought had entered my mind, a flare of light exploded before me, obscuring all the futures. Sound dissipated; tastes and smells dispersed. Only that flare remained, silent and warm and impossibly bright.

I couldn’t squint or shield my eyes, because I had no arms, no body. The light had exploded in the center of my mind, and from it emerged two stars.

Two enormous stars burned in the night sky.

My subconscious understood at once what these were. I could almost peer into them, watch each unfold if I looked close enough.

Before me shone two futures.

Two fates.

Chapter 16

I hung in stasis, squinting up at the two stars. They burned with fierce determination in the darkness, each angling to outshine the other.

“Ah,” said a familiar voice from beside me. “So you’ve figured it out.”

When I turned, Pythia hovered beside me, staring up at the fates.

There she was—the Oracle of Delphi. She had promised I would see her once more, and Pythia had kept that promise.

I reached out for her, but my hand only slid through her body. She disassembled and reassembled like sand around my fingers. “Are you real?”

Her eyes met mine. “As real as you.”

“So you’re a creation of my mind.”

A smile emerged. “How would you feel if that were true?”

“Sad … and strange.”

One of her eyebrows went up. “I understand sadness. But why strange?”

I sighed. “If you were a figment of my imagination, then I’ve just been talking to myself all this time. And I’ve always had the answers. They were inside me from the time you died in New York City.”

“Ah,” Pythia said, “but did you really have them?”

“What do you mean?”

“Could you have slowed down the future if you were still the encantado I met in New York City?”

“Well, if I had your DNA, maybe.”

She shook her head. “Are you so certain?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“What I’m getting at, Isabella”—Pythia’s hand went out to my shoulder, and though I couldn’t feel it, I still felt comforted by the act—“that answers are only useful if you can find them. And you are much more capable now.”

I still didn’t know if Pythia was real or not. Maybe it didn’t matter, because her words had the effect they were meant to.

I turned my eyes back to the two stars. Now that I was observing them, the one on the left shone with a strange, silvery hue. And the one on the right was smaller, but more intense, like the molten center of the earth. It beckoned to me.

“Why have these two futures presented themselves to me?” I whispered.

“They didn’t—you picked them, Isabella.” Pythia swept her hand out. “Of the millions of possibilities, these are the only two paths your mind selected for getting what you truly want.”

What I truly want.

To save Hercules.

To save Justin.

To save my daughter.

“Can I see into them?” I whispered.

“Of course. You only need to pluck them between your fingers.”

The stars seemed impossibly far off. But when I reached out to the rightmost star, I found it was only a foot or two from my eyes. My fingers closed around it, and it pricked me like a burr.

“Gently, now,” Pythia chuckled. “Futures are protective of themselves.”

I took the molten future between two ginger fingers, brought it to my eyes. This close, I could see into the snow globe of its interior, could make out certain colors and shapes. But what came to me with overwhelming power was the sensation of happiness. Pure, unfiltered happiness.

I had never experienced anything close to it in my immortal or mortal life. I never wanted to stop looking into this star.

Inside it lay motherhood.

Justin and I would leave Serena and the World Army behind. I would bear my child in safety, help her grow from an infant into a toddler. I would teach her to walk, to talk, to read. She and I would remain together in a beautiful place—a house full of books—and every day would be full of the happiness and lightness enveloping me now. Every day until …

“Pythia,” I whispered, “why can’t I see past the eleventh year?”

“That I don’t know,” Pythia said from beside me.

I dragged my eyes away from the star and to the oracle. “I thought I could see every future all the way to its end.”

“You’ve seen every future to its end, Isabella. That was how you selected these two.” A certain sadness had entered Pythia’s eyes. “Think. Think about how far each path went.”

I stared at her. I didn’t understand. I didn’t—

Then, like I had opened a book, I remembered sifting through all the futures. What I had thought was my brain melting under the vastness of so many futures wasn’t the case at all.

I had absorbed them all. Each one had processed and registered.

And every one of them ended after eleven years.

Eleven years.

Panic spiked in me. “What happens then? Do I die?”

“I cannot say.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” I gripped the star harder, pricking my fingers. “I thought you were the oracle. I thought you could see to the end of time.”

“I could ... until the gods left.”

Until the gods left?

“What happened when the gods left, Pythia?”

She pointed to the star in my hand. “Every future became like that one. Finite.”

I lifted the star before me. This was all I had to do to protect my child. To give myself a happy life—at least for eleven years.

It seemed so simple. So easy.

“I pick this one.”

“You don’t even want to look into the other future?”

I closed my fingers over the molten star. “None could be better than this. This is the one I want.”

Pythia shrugged. “All right, then. Have it your way.”

And so we remained hovering in the darkness, the two of us gazing at one another until I cleared my throat. “How do I, uh, leave?”

Pythia folded her arms. “When you want to.”

“But I do want to.”

Another shrug. “Evidently not.”

I groaned. “It’s my conscience keeping me here, isn’t it?”

“I see you know yourself a bit better than you did back in New York City.”

With aching slowness, I replaced the molten star in the sky. My fingers didn’t want to let it go, for fear it might float off. But it remained where I’d put it, burning away.

Which left the strange, silvery star … the other fate my mind had chosen.

↔

When I took the silver star into my hand, it didn’t prick me. Not exactly. What I held felt like static electricity, intense with energy.

And I couldn’t see into it. In my palm, the star looked only like white noise.

“Why can’t I see into this one?”

Pythia chuckled. “Because you don’t want to.”

“I do want to.”

But even as I said it, I knew that wasn’t precisely true.

I only wanted the tiny molten star of a future. I wanted to grab it out of the sky and flee this place. I wanted to follow the steps I had seen myself take in that future. I wanted it so badly it made my chest ache.

Pythia stepped up beside me. “Then allow the part of you that wants to see into this future overcome the part that doesn’t want to.”

I sighed, lifted my hand until the silver star was only a few inches from my face. And then … I saw.

Oh, did I see.

I watched it all play out right up to the eleventh year. Every excruciating moment of it. Then, like the first path, it simply ended. And when I had finished staring into that future, my eyes were blurred with tears.

“No,” I said. “I can’t do it.”

“Are you certain?” Pythia whispered.

I jerked my head up, staring her down with wild eyes. “You’re not even real. You don’t get the right to question me.”

Pythia rolled her eyes. “Like I said, encantado: I’m as real as you are.”

I closed my hand over the star and started pacing. Well, as much as one could pace in a limitless void. Mostly I wanted to avoid Pythia’s eyes.

And I wanted to crush this future in my grip.

The more I paced, the more I squeezed. It hurt, striking back at my hand with shocks of electricity. But I gritted my teeth and kept squeezing until … until …

“Ah,” Pythia said. “Look at that. No grip strength at all.”

When I’d opened my hand, the star was pristine. It still shone as brightly as ever.

And I understood why. It wasn’t about my grip strength.

I stared down at the little future. “My conscience won’t let me destroy it.”

Pythia ticked a finger at me. “You have quite the conscience, encantado. But then, that’s why I picked you, after all.”

When she and I finally met eyes, I slumped to my knees. “Please don’t make me do it. I can’t. It’s …”

“What?” Pythia fluttered her fingers through the air. “Not fair? Be careful with that one—remember how your sister died. And Hinata. And me.”

In the void, only the molten star sat behind Pythia’s head. “There must be another way,” I breathed. “A middle ground.”

“Ah, but that one you hold is the middle ground.” Pythia reached behind her, extended one closed hand toward me. “Here, I’ll trade you.”

I passed the silver star to her. In exchange, she opened her hand over my open palm and dropped a pure black orb into it. It felt like a freezing piece of dry ice. And it was so dark that, when I raised it between my fingers, I couldn’t see it unless I held it up against the light of the molten star.

Worst of all, just looking at it made me breathe faster. I didn’t want to look at it. I wanted to send it as far away as possible.

But I knew Pythia would not allow me to avoid this, so I brought the orb close to my face. I brought it just as close as the other two, but inside, I still saw …

“Nothing,” I said. “There’s nothing.”

“That,” Pythia said, “is nearly every future.”

My hand shook beneath the ice of the orb. “What does it signify?”

“You cannot see into those futures, Isabella. They bring only despair, only death. Your mind will not allow you to see those horrors.”

My hand was trembling so much that when I stood up, I dropped the orb. I tried to grab for it as it fell, but it disappeared into the void.

“Oh GoneGods!” Pythia yelled.

“Merda.” I fell back to my knees, dropped to my hands to search for it. What would happen now? “I’m so sorry.”

Pythia shrieked, “Get it. Get it back!” over and over, watching me search for the black orb … until she devolved into laughter.

She bent over, clutching her belly, as I stopped what I was doing and stared.

When she finished laughing, she wiped her eyes. “Oh, Isa. There’s millions of those orbs. You couldn’t pay people to take them.”

I shot her one angry blink. “Seriously? You nearly gave me a disembodied heart attack.”

She waved me off. “You’ve survived this long, you’ve become the oracle and you’ve got two stars awaiting your choice.”

Become the oracle.

She said I had become the oracle.

I stood up. “Pythia.”

A smile grew on her face. “Yes, Isabella?”

“Am I you?”

Pythia came forward, touched her finger to my chin. I almost felt her tick my head up. “You’ve been me since the moment I died. You just didn’t know it yet.”

My face crumpled, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I allowed myself to cry. Here, in the endlessness of time and space, the molten star burning above me, I let it all go.

For Justin, for Hercules, for Cupid, for Lux and Glint and Phos and Dazzle and Bandit and those gone—Hinata, Joao, Ananda, Pythia herself.

For my child. Most of all, for her.

From here, nothing would be the same.

When I lifted my face, I was able to withstand the pain. I was the oracle now—not Isabella Ramirez. Not the encantado. I had to walk the slender branch, the fate the Oracle of Delphi had foreseen and gave her life for.

I reached out my hand, palm up. “Pythia, hand me the star.”

Chapter 17

I left the garden with the silver star in my hand. I left knowing that what I was about to encounter on the other side would hurt like hell—in more ways than one.

The first way: when I came back into the courtyard in Paradise Lot, I had El Lobizon’s claw stuck into my arm. And Serena still gripped it in her slender-fingered, spliced hand.

That was why I was hurtled into the future. She’d gotten me with my own claw, which had messed with my magic. And then she’d twisted it in.

And as much as I wished I could have fast-forwarded through the whole thing, everything was still exactly where I’d left it: Others and soldiers dead and dying. Serena staring at me like a wild animal. The claw stuck into my arm.

Hell of a way to re-enter the world.

Sound and noise and pain—so much pain—coursed through me all at once. Not just physical, but psychological.

Justin. Hercules. My child.

At least one among them would die.

That was why nothing physical could compare to the mind-bending experience of seeing every future available to me.

So I did the least worst thing I’d typically do in such a situation.

I screamed like I’d been stabbed with a GoneGodDamn dagger.

Before all this, I probably would have done a whole lot more than scream. I’d also panic and attempt to do what I do best: get away. Oh, and I would cry, too. Vociferous crying definitely would have been on the menu.

But I had seen every moment of this path.

I knew exactly what I needed to do. And that had a certain, shall we say, profound effect on my reaction. I knew if I made the wrong choices, I would leave the slender branch of a future Pythia had described.

I knew now how terrifyingly easy it was to get onto the wrong path, to start toward a dark future. To end up with nothing but a cold piece of rock in my hand. A black orb.

Even the memory of that thing in my hand made me shiver.

The black orbs numbered millions. The thought of them had remained with me as I crossed over from the garden, and I suspected they would stay with me from here until the end of my mortal life. They were a warning, a cautionary.

That was why a certain grit had entered me, allowed me to withstand the worst psychological effects of being stabbed. But even when you’re the oracle, pain is pain is pain.

GoneGods, being the oracle was a whole bundle of fun.

Serena still gazed at me with the same manic intensity, that combination of recklessness and altruism. And I finally understood why.

I had seen everything that would happen next. I understood her in a way I never had before.

When her lips parted, I knew what she would say.

“You’ve seen it all,” she whispered. “I can tell.”

I wasn’t going to respond—I had already prepared myself for what she would do next.

With one yank, she ripped the claw out of my arm. Along with it came a hiss of smoke—my magic pouring out. I had told myself I wouldn’t scream again, but I did. Little things like that didn’t change the future.

They didn’t affect the silver star.

With almost childlike care, Serena handed me the claw with my pink blood on it. The first time I had been stabbed by this claw, I’d ended up transforming into my original form (a dolphin) in the stall of a bathroom. But now that I had oracle DNA—which was actually human DNA—that wouldn’t happen. Because I wasn’t precisely an encantado anymore.

She fell back into the grass so that she faced up toward the sky, her chest heaving. This was one of the awful parts I had seen in the future.

This was my last conversation with Serena Russo.

“You’ve become her, haven’t you?” she said to me. “The oracle.”

Around us, the soldiers stood in bafflement. At the fore, Sergeant Johnson called out, “Dr. Russo has given orders—take the encantado.”

“No!” Serena shot back. She pressed herself up to a seat, her own magic still hissing from the cut I had given her on her cheek, her metal wings clanking together in such an awkward way it was strange to think she had once used them so skillfully. One hand went out to stay the World Army soldiers. “I need to talk to her a minute.”

We were nearly at the end. She only had a minute more left.

Serena returned her eyes to me. “You saw everything.”

I clutched my arm to my chest. “Yes.”

She swallowed, her perfect throat bobbing. “Inside that portal, I witnessed the future I most desired. I saw you saving my son … and I saw everything up to that point. The OtherX, the aural attacks. Arresting the principles of order and chaos. All of it … including this conversation.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Everything I did, I had to do,” she went on in a frenzy of words. “You wouldn’t have become who you are now if I hadn’t done what I did. I had to push you to work harder, faster. Placing stress on a biological creature is how we evoke change, right? You wouldn’t have saved my son otherwise.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“It was never about you.” Her lips worked together to say something. “I’m …”

I waited, but I knew she wouldn’t be able to say it.

She couldn’t apologize for everything she had put me through. Even now, she had too much pride. Too much belief in her choices.

Finally, she gave up trying to finish her sentence. Instead, she took a deep, long breath of air, her eyes lifting to the sky above.

“This is where the vision ended,” Serena murmured. “For the first time in five months, I don’t know what my next step should be. I don’t know what will happen. Will I die?”

I stared down at the dagger in my hand.

She followed my gaze to it. Before either of us could say anything, the buzzing began.

My eyes lifted to the rooftops. They were exactly on time.

↔

The reckoning had come, courtesy of one bug god.

During the resistance council meeting two days ago, Colel Cab had voted against rescuing Hercules. I hadn’t understood why, and I’d believed the bug god was a traitor. That is, until the principle of order had sent four men to murder Justin, and Colel had defended my boyfriend with everything he had.

After all that, I’d forgotten to ask him why.

Why had he voted against rescuing Hercules?

Now, finally, I knew.

He’d had greater plans all along.

You see, Colel Cab was the god of bugs for a reason. He ruled over the entire bug kingdom, and as any biology student knows—heck, even most middle schoolers—there are a lot, lot, lot more bugs in the world than humans. By orders of magnitude.

And those buggers can be noisy when riled.

Around me, every soldier holding a gun pointed it toward the sky. “What the hell is that?” one asked another. And almost all of them looked afraid. Even Sergeant Johnson, the man who’d taught Justin to fight Others back when he’d trained as a super soldier, swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed high in his throat.

Beside me, Serena got to her feet. She stepped toward me, one hand going out toward me. But she didn’t touch me—she didn’t dare. Her fingers hovered a few inches away from my shoulder. “Collin,” she said to me. Tears streaked down her cheeks. “Promise me.”

I stood up, allowed her to place her hand on my shoulder. When we touched, all the anger I’d felt toward Serena for the past year was pushed aside by a sudden burst of empathy.

In this moment, the woman standing before me was just one thing: a mother. Just like I was. And she had done everything she had to do to save her child’s life.

And now she would die for it.

As much as I wanted to, it was impossible to hate her.

The buzzing had grown so loud I’d barely made out her words. The noise was crescendoing. We had little time left.

I crossed my good hand, still holding the claw, over my chest. “I promise you.”

Aching gratitude crossed her face. And then a flash of fear. “This is the end, isn’t it?”

I nodded once.

To her credit, Serena took this in far greater stride than I expect most would. But then, she had done what she intended to do. In the end, she hadn’t been on the side of humans or Others. She’d been on the side of her child.

And in that sense, she had been victorious.

Because I would save her son. I would do that and much, much more.

It was all inside the silver star. Contained in its brilliance was the path to the future Pythia had wanted for Others. It was the future Miral most desired. It was what had seemed impossible.

Immortality.

Others would gain immortality.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to map the entirety of our DNA; I just needed to identify the parts that would successfully combine with human DNA. And with human and Other DNA spliced together in just the right way—and adding in a dash of magic—we could procreate.

We would live on through our children.

That was Serena’s victory. And it was mine, too.

Serena and I lifted our eyes to the sky, where the swarm had just crested all four sides of the building. By some miracle, I felt a kinship to the woman who had done all the things she’d done to me. Because in the end, what she’d done had brought me my child. It had brought us both immortality.

The swarm looked like locusts, and some of them probably were. But a vast assortment of bugs made up the swarm that Colel Cab had called upon the courtyard. So many that I couldn’t make out one from another.

It just looked like a flowing mass of blackness.

The soldiers didn’t have time to fire their guns. They didn’t have time to scream. In the moment the moon disappeared from view, they were consumed. As deaths went, it was a mercifully quick one.

Just before they fully swarmed the courtyard, my attention was drawn by one particular soldier. He stood with his staff planted in the grass across the courtyard, and he was staring at me.

Daiski.

We met eyes for a beat, and he saluted.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I thought before the swarm enveloped him, and he disappeared completely from sight.

No one had known him—not really. Only me. And while Daiski had lived for glory, he had died without anyone knowing what his death had been for.

He was a good man. A man who had saved me.

Maybe, in the end, the glory wasn’t so important to him. Because he had done the right thing, and if glory existed, it was between him and I.

The rest of the swarm rushed in like a typhoon, pouring into the courtyard so fast that I barely caught a glimpse of Serena’s last moment—her arms had gone out as though she were ascending to a heaven that wasn’t there—before she was gone. Just like that, the woman I’d spent a year of my mortal life running away from was no more.

Goodbye, Serena.

I stood perfectly still as the bugs raced around me. I closed my eyes, and though my hair blew up in my face, not a single one of them so much as brushed me. They did their work quickly, efficiently, and without the kind of thoughtless cruelty so many predatory species exact on their prey.

They simply ended the battle, and within a minute, they were gone.

When I opened my eyes, the moon again shone over the courtyard. And every single soldier was completely and absolutely gone. All that remained were the Others who had fought. And Hercules, who still stood immobile near the fountain.

Well, there was one human left.

Justin.

Justin, who lay unmoving on the ground.

Chapter 18

When I got to Justin, I couldn’t tell if he was even conscious. I couldn’t tell if he was alive, for that matter.

His eyes were closed. And he was covered in blood, bruises and wounds.

But Hercules was alive, beaten and bruised as he was by Justin’s fight with Daiski. The two were still fatebound to one another, after all. Every wound one took, the other took. Though the demigod had always been able to handle a battering better than my boyfriend.

My boyfriend. For a year I’d been able to call him that. I could still remember staring at him from across campus, watching him with Katrina Darling. Envying her. Wanting to know what it felt like to have his arm around my waist.

I knelt beside him. His hair had gone completely white, his skin wrinkled. “Justin?”

At once, his eyes opened. His jaw had been broken, so he couldn’t properly move it to speak. But I saw the same rage in his eyes. He was still possessed, even though he had burned away most of his life.

If it were possible for a heart to split open, mine would have, right then and there. Even though I had seen this moment in the silver star. Because I had seen it.

I had known it was coming. But I hadn’t wanted to accept it.

This was one of the sacrifices of my path.

Footsteps sounded behind me. Then, “He will not make it.”

I didn’t look up. By now I could recognize Miral’s voice anywhere.

She crouched beside me, setting one hand on my back. “I’m sorry, Isabella.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t even acknowledge her. My mind was running hard and fast—something was percolating to the surface.

Justin breathed unevenly; probably a few of his ribs were broken, maybe a lung punctured. And I knew Miral was right: he wouldn’t last. But I couldn’t let him go in this state. Not like this. I had to save him. I had to save Hercules.

I had a theory. This wasn’t what I had seen in the future—I had only seen myself kneeling at his side as he died. But I wanted to try it.

I still had enough magic left in me.

I reached for his hand with my good one. He was too feeble to fight me, so I took his withered fingers in mine. “I’m going to take you somewhere, Justin.”

When I closed my eyes, I’d thought with the wound I had taken from El Lobizon’s claw I would have great difficulty doing what I wanted to do.

But no—entering the garden was as simple and effortless a thing as transforming to a new illusion had been for me as an encantado.

So this was what it was like to travel through time as the oracle in her stride. I closed my eyes in one moment, opened them the next, and found myself exactly where I wanted to be: surrounded by green grass, an enormous tree and Justin, who stood by my side.

Here in Pythia’s garden, we had time.

Justin, his jaw working now, promptly turned on me. “What in the GoneGods did you do, Isa?”

I smiled. He looked his real age again. And for the first time since we’d sat in Chao’s living room, his eyes regarded me with something besides rage.

Wonder. Fear. Gratitude.

I threw my arms around his neck, pressed my face into it. I loved his scent, his dark hair. “You’re back.”

His hands wrapped around me. They felt as good and warm and comforting as I’d imagined back when I was a pining co-ed. Better, even. “I feel like I’ve been trapped at the bottom of a well.”

“I know,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t even know what’s happened out there.” He leaned back. “What happened?”

My throat closed over the words. I couldn’t bear to tell him. I couldn’t bear to take him back. Not yet. “We won,” I said finally. “Serena’s gone.”

“Gone,” he murmured. “How?”

I slid one hand up to his cheek. “You got her. At the last moment she was about to capture me, and you broke her neck in two.”

Crude, sure. But Justin loved that kind of thing. I could see it on his face.

“It’s over, then.” His expression retained a soft light … until a cloud passed through. “So why have you brought me here?”

“I wanted to be alone with you before we’re surrounded by people again.”

He shook his head. “I can tell you’re lying, Isa.”

“How? I’m an encantado! We’re the best—”

“The best actresses?” He shook his head. “Only to people who don’t know you well. You always hesitate before you lie.”

I stared at him. I couldn’t lie. I had to tell him the truth. But how? My face crumpled. “Justin …”

He lifted my chin. “I won’t make it, will I? That’s why you brought me here.”

I didn’t say anything. A traitorous tear streaked down my cheek and pooled at his fingertips.

He took a deep, contemplative breath. He understood. He stepped away, ran both hands through his black hair. “How long do we have here?”

“As long as we want,” I said. “I’ll stay as long as you want to.”

Beyond Justin, the portals to the past, present and future shimmered and beckoned. And a thought occurred to me. A GoneGodDamn good one.

I stepped toward him, took his hand in mine. “Would you like to see into the future?”

His eyes found the rightmost portal. “I thought there were many futures.”

“There are,” I said. “Millions. There’s one in particular I’d like to show you. Trust me—you’ll be glad for it.”

He seemed hesitant, but allowed me to lead him to the portal. “Will I see myself die?” he asked before we stepped through.

“No,” I said as I brought him inside. We eased into the void, where around us, thousands upon thousands of stars glittered in the sky. I could see them all now, every future available to me. I could pluck whichever one I liked.

But I only wanted one. And I knew exactly which one I’d pluck from the sky.

The molten star, burning small and intense in the midst of a universe of fates.

↔

So this was what Pythia had seen when she’d entered the futures … She’d seen the entire universe, every star a potential path. It was glorious. It was beautiful.

Beside me, Justin was silent with awe. I allowed him a minute to take everything in, to turn in a slow circle. When he stopped, he finally found his voice. “This can’t be real. I must be dead.”

I laughed, a short, strangled thing. “It’s real. Wait until you see this.”

When I pulled the molten star from the sky, Justin stared at me. “Holy shit, Isa.”

My eyebrows went up. “What is it?”

“It’s … everything. All of this. This isn’t like anything you’ve described before.”

“It isn’t. It’s completely new to me.” I touched one finger to my head. “I finally learned how to use the noggin properly.”

He exhaled sharply through his nose. “You’ve always known how to do that.” He paused, studying my face as though he could discern some greater truth from it. “You’re her now, aren’t you?”

“Her?”

“The oracle.”

I nodded slowly. “I guess so. The important thing is, I’ve figured out how to give Others back their immortality, Justin. I know the path.” Up in the sky, the silver star shone down on us. I pointed at it. “That’s it. That’s the way.”

He gazed up at it. “What happens in that future?”

So many things. So much that’s good, and so much that’s bad.

Justin wouldn’t be in that future. He was one of the sacrifices—one of the many, many sacrifices.

But I suspected he already knew that.

“Four years into that future, I learn where along the genetic strand to splice human and Other DNA,” I said. “And I pioneer a technique that allows Others to become pregnant.”

“That sounds like an incredible future.” I could hear the strain in his voice. He knew, it seemed. He knew he wouldn’t be in it. “And what about your child?”

My child. I swallowed; I didn’t want to talk about her. So I extended the molten star toward Justin. “She’s inside here.”

He lowered his eyes from the sky to where the small star glimmered in my hand. He seemed reluctant to take it. “Will it burn me?”

“Only a little,” I whispered.

He made a face at me—goading him always did work like a charm—before he lifted his palm, and I set the star in it. He gazed down at it. “I can see something inside there.”

My heart was already cantering along with anticipation. “If you raise it closer to your eyes, you’ll be able to see much more.”

He did so. And as he did, I stepped close to him. “Tell me,” I said before I took his other hand in mine, “what would you do if you had eleven more years to live?”

His eyes didn’t waver from the star, the pupils illuminated by its glow. “I would leave Paradise Lot and go somewhere warmer.”

I laughed and squeezed his hand. “What else?”

“I would learn how to fix watches, like my father.”

That one got me right in the chest. I had never known. I had never truly known Justin, because I hadn’t known myself. I hadn’t properly known who I was, or what I wanted, and I’d raced from person to person and thing to thing to fix that.

I had done the same with Justin. And I had done him a terrible disservice.

“All right,” I whispered next to his ear. “Think of that and close your eyes.”

He did. And I did, too.

And then, together, we entered the future contained inside the molten star.

The beauty of being the oracle was that I could choose at what point we entered any given future. And so I skipped everything that followed the battle in the courtyard. I skipped all the pain and suffering.

Suffice it to say, I managed to keep Justin’s heart beating in this future. And though he had burned most of his life away—he was in his mid-sixties by the time the battle was done—this was one of the handful of futures in which some very, very unlikely circumstances aligned to keep him alive.

And I figured, mid-sixties was better than no-sixties, right?

So Justin survived, and Miral and I managed to bring Justin and Hercules back from their torture. They became themselves again. They recovered from their wounds.

Two months later, we’d left Paradise Lot for Mykonos, Greece. Cupid and Hercules accompanied us to their homeland, and they were present at the birth of my daughter.

Which was precisely where Justin and I—passing from the void into the star itself—stepped into that future.

Well, not during the labor. That would have been horrendous.

I brought us there just afterward, in the moment the doctor set my little girl in my arms. And around me, Justin and Hercules and Cupid all began to cry. And I did, too.

“She’s so beautiful,” Cupid whispered.

“She’s as gorgeous as me,” Hercules said weepily.

“This is it,” Justin said, staring around the room. Tears ran down his cheeks, because he had just arrived here with me. “This is the future you wanted to show me.”

“This is it,” I said. “And this is her.”

In my arms rested a tiny, perfect being. A little girl who I handed to Justin, who pressed the tuft of hair across her head and kissed it. Then he handed her to Hercules, whose enormous finger she tried to grip. And then to Cupid, whose dimples emerged as he held the tiny child in his arms.

Together, Justin and Hercules and Cupid and I spent the next eleven years living together in Greece, raising our child. Hercules taught her to walk, and Cupid taught her about love. Justin showed her how to open up a watch and toy around with its gears.

And I? I taught her about every type of plant and animal in the entire world.

Every future has a preordained path. And though Justin and I were living this one, time wasn’t actually moving forward in the real world. We were experiencing this life through the garden, through my oracle power.

The upside of such a thing was that we didn’t have to worry about the consequences of our choices.

In this future, I didn’t discover the secret to immortality. I was too happy with my family and my little girl. They became my entire life, and I was fine with that. I was blissfully happy.

Most importantly, I learned who Justin Truly was.

Deeply, fully.

We never actually got married in those eleven years. But we grew to know each other as well as any couple. I learned that, in addition to watchmaking, he loved to read Ian Fleming novels. I learned that he snored in his sixties. And I learned that, with all his worries fallen away, he was a quiet, gentle man.

And it was in those eleven years that I truly, deeply fell in love with him. Not like before, when I felt a manic frenzy to belong to someone. That wasn’t love, but the absence of it. I hadn’t even loved myself then.

I knew I loved him two years in, when I came into the house in Mykonos one afternoon and he had our child on his lap and they were asleep together in an armchair with his hand on her back. And it was in the softness and care with which he held her even in sleep that I knew I loved him just as he was.

Which was, in the end, what Justin had always deserved.

He had been reading to her—a book about mythological creatures from South America. The page was open to one particular creature: the mysterious, alluring encantado. I knew then that he loved me, too.

Which made it that much harder when the eleventh year arrived.

Chapter 19

Our last night together came quickly—too quickly. This was where the future ended: with us climbing in bed as we had done thousands of times.

I hadn’t told Justin that this was where the path ended. I had mentioned eleven years so long ago that he had completely forgotten, and he had no way of knowing at which moment during that eleventh year the whole thing would end.

All through the last year I debated telling him. I went back and forth, one part of me wanting to leave him in the dark—literally and figuratively—as he fell asleep. He would be happier that way, I reasoned. He would think his life would go on. And going in your sleep was one of the best ways to go, so I’d heard.

I hadn’t spent much of my life contemplating mortality. But as the time approached, it was all I could think about. I knew that when this future ended, I would return to the courtyard.

I couldn’t decide. Right up until the end, I couldn’t decide.

On the last night, when we got into bed and turned out the lights, I had resolved not to tell him. But as soon as the darkness came, I immediately turned my bedside lamp back on. I sat up stock straight, staring at the wall.

Justin set one hand to my back. “What is it?”

“This is it,” I whispered. Because it was the right thing to do. He had the right to know. “This is the end of this future.”

He remained silent a moment, and I wondered if he even understood what I meant. In over a decade, he hadn’t mentioned the garden, the portal into the future. It was almost like we’d entered a fugue state, and this was our life. Our real life.

I turned back to him. “Do you understand?”

His hand remained on my back. “Yes, I understand.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell ...”

He shook his head. “No, let’s not do that. I’d rather say goodbye to our child, and to you, feeling the way I do now.”

“And how do you feel now?” I whispered.

“Serene.” A tiny smile touched his lips. “I’ve been so glad to live this life with you. Thank you for this gift, Isa.”

I held back a sob. He had already started to rise from the bed. “I’m going to go talk to our daughter for a little bit. I’ll be back soon.”

I nodded. “You have a few hours.”

I let him go alone, to have those precious moments with her. When he returned a half hour later, I could tell he’d been crying. His cheeks were ruddy, his neck flushed.

I reached my hands out for him, and he came to me and kissed me once on the mouth. “Come into the bed with me,” I said.

He did, and I rested my head on his chest as I’d done so many nights. As we lay there, I said, “This was the life I wanted. This was the one I most desperately wanted.”

“You got it, Isa,” he whispered back. “You lived it.”

I let out a broken little laugh. “I guess I did, in a way.”

“You did,” he insisted, stroking my hair. “And I did, too. Do you know, the greatest honor of my life was meeting you? You gave me everything.”

Ah, I thought once more. This is why.

This was why I had picked Justin Truly. Back when I’d met Justin, somewhere deep down in the repressed depths of my mind, the Isa of Hope had sensed something about him that I hadn’t consciously understood.

Given the chance, we could help each other become healthier people. Better people. People who understood the truth of love.

And we had. We finally had.

“Thank you,” I whispered back, closing my eyes. “I love you.”

“And I you,” he said. “Isa, do something for me when you go back.”

“What’s that?”

“I want this to be my last memory. Don’t bring me out of this future.”

“All right,” I whispered.

“And before you leave the garden, promise you’ll cut the cord between me and Hercules.”

My chest closed up a moment, heavy with anticipatory guilt and sadness. I didn’t even know if such a thing was possible. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” He kissed the top of my head. “Find happiness, Isa. Find it with him.”

I didn’t want to think about that. Not yet.

But I did promise.

Afterward, I held Justin close, and we didn’t say anything more. As the true darkness came, we held each other right up until the end.

And the end did come. Even the molten star couldn’t outshine the cliff’s edge of time.

↔

When I next opened my eyes, I was back in the garden. And Justin was gone. I had left him inside the molten star.

My partner—the man I’d spent part of a lifetime with—wasn’t by my side. To say I felt grief was an understatement.

I felt like one of my limbs had been cleft away.

But I couldn’t grieve right now. I had a promise to keep, because Justin’s connection to Hercules still remained.

After I gathered myself, I started toward the portal into the present. I had to cut the throughline.

Inside the portal to the present, the storm clouds raged on. At least this time I didn’t fall straight through them. Instead, I stood atop an enormous cumulus cloud as lightning struck through the vapor beneath me.

Well, this was an improvement. But I still didn’t know if I could accomplish what I needed to.

You’re the oracle, I thought. The oracle can see through time. She’s all-powerful … and stuff.

But could she separate two bound fates?

I couldn’t see the throughline. But I remembered that it had not appeared for me until I’d envisioned it as a rope.

And so I did, and all at once it shimmered into existence in a straight, taut line between the portal to the garden and a far point in the distance—the entry to Hercules’s mind.

This was what bound them. This was what I had to sever.

What’s the most efficient way of snapping a rope? Scissors? No, too small. A knife? No, that would take too much sawing. Garden shears?

Yeah, that might work.

You snap a rope with garden shears, I thought. And I’m holding them in my hand.

And, just like that, I was holding a pair of shears in my left hand. They were large, too, with blades half as long as my arms and never-before-used sharp edges that gleamed under the ambient light.

I took hold of the shears in both hands, separated the blades until they yawned wide. I set the bottom blade up against the rope. All I had to do now was close them hard and fast.

Just one fast, hard bite against the rope. That was it.

Then Justin would really be gone.

He’s already gone. He’s not in his body anymore.

And yet, somehow, this felt more final than leaving him in bed, asleep in his arms. This felt like actually cutting the cord. Ah, what an awful saying to use at a time like this.

I’d had him for eleven years. I’d given him a decade more of life than he would have otherwise had. But it still hurt. GoneGods did it hurt.

Goodbye, Justin Truly.

A growl started deep in my throat, and it built to a yell. By the time I snapped the shears over the rope, I was screaming my throat raw. That was the willpower it took to sever their connection. That was what it took to let him go.

As soon as I’d snapped the shears together, the two ends of the rope separated. Just that easily—one clip and done. Their fates were unbound, just like that.

I really was the oracle.

I dropped to my knees, staring down through the clouds. Below me, the storm slowly dissipated, the clouds shifting from a plum, smoky gray to a soft white. And above me, the sun warmed my back.

Despite my grief, I took comfort in that. The storm in Justin’s mind had ended. His pain was finished.

And, thanks to his sacrifice, Hercules would not have to die.

After a time, I rose and wiped my eyes. I had a great deal to do, and a very strict schedule to keep.

Here I thought being the oracle was all fun and seeing into the future. Turns out, it’s like having a time nazi for a boss … except your boss is time itself.

I passed out of the portal and back into Pythia’s garden. I needed to return to Paradise Lot; much awaited me there.

And I wasn’t looking forward to it.

When I closed my eyes, a cool breeze swept over me. And then, just like that, I was back in the courtyard. I was back in my own mortal life.

Before me, Justin lay battered and partially broken, but no longer full of that irrepressible rage. I was still holding his hand, and it had residual warmth.

His lips were parted, and his chest didn’t move anymore. He was gone.

It had been eleven years since I’d been in this place. And I almost jumped when Miral crouched next to me, observing me and Justin with a certain thoughtfulness.

I had almost forgotten the battle in the courtyard completely. I had forgotten about Serena Russo and the World Army and Colel Cab’s swarm of bugs. All of it felt like another life—an ancient life.

“I do not know what you’ve done, Isabella.” Miral set her hand over Justin’s eyes, which were open just a degree. “But I sense you were the one to put him out of his pain.”

I didn’t let go of Justin’s hand, or even look up at Miral. “He and I did a great deal together. A great, great deal. And now he’s at peace, I hope.”

I knew the angel didn’t understand all of that—she couldn’t—but she didn’t press me, either. Instead, she said, “In this GoneGod World, peace is whatever we believe it to be.”

I leaned down, kissed Justin on the lips once more. When I stood up, I found decimation around me. Other bodies lay everywhere—all those who had accompanied me into this place. In one corner, Cupid comforted Lux and two of the other pixies, who wept over something I could not see.

And there in the middle of the courtyard stood Hercules. He stared into nothing beside the crumbling fountain, still mind-controlled by the snap of a dead woman’s fingers.

I started toward him. It was time to awaken the demigod.

Chapter 20

When I approached Hercules, I had to be quick about it; my magic was still siphoning out through the wound Serena had given me with El Lobizon’s claw.

It didn’t help that melding with Hercules’s mind wasn’t any easier the second time, even if I knew the path I needed to follow. Because, after all, following the right path isn’t easy. You can fail at any moment, lose your courage. Misstep, succumb to fear.

And there was much to fear inside Hercules.

There was one upside to all this practice at being the oracle: now I didn’t just walk through time … I flew.

When I took the demigod’s hand, I rushed headlong through the garden and the portal to the present. When I entered, I was cast straight into Hercules’s inner world.

I landed in the inner courtyard of a large and beautiful home with a low pool at its center and the sunlight streaming in. Plants adorned each corner of the courtyard, and intricate and colorful tiling beckoned from every direction. This was a lavish place—and an ancient one.

I could tell right away, because in an adjacent room, six children and one exquisite woman sat at a long table, all seven of them in togas. Four boys, two girls, all as beautiful as the mother whose chestnut, braided hair rested as thick as a horse’s tail down her back.

The woman said something in a language I didn’t know, and the girls laughed while two of the boys made faces. All of them were eating a soup that smelled divine.

I knew what I was seeing. I knew what was about to come.

I spun. Across from the dining room lay a darkened bedroom, the gauzy curtains hung across the entry and veiling my view. I struck toward the bedroom, passing through the curtains as if they didn’t exist at all.

There, seated on the bed’s edge with his head clutched in his hands, was Hercules. I would recognize that flowing brown hair anywhere—even in semi-darkness.

And above him stood a shrew-eyed woman, robes drawn tight to her porcelain body and flowing right down to the floor, where they pooled. Her blond hair had been braided, wrapped in a high bun at her head.

She might have been beautiful if she weren’t making that face.

Ire made even the most appealing face only a show of grooves and narrow eyes and wrinkles. And judging by the unconscious ease with which she carried her ire, I knew this woman carried a great deal of it.

She didn’t possess the same solidity that the children and their mother had, nor Hercules himself. The world seemed to vibrate around her, to lose its constancy.

This was Hera, wife of Zeus.

Here was the goddess who had driven Hercules mad.

She was whispering something to him—something I could not make out. When I came closer, I realized I could not understand because she was speaking the same language as the mother to her children.

But she whispered the same words over and over and over as Hercules clawed at his own head and moaned.

With a suddenness that even seemed to surprise the goddess, he burst from his seat and swung his fists at Hera, yelling and thrashing. But it was for naught, because his arms only passed through her.

And she laughed. Oh, did she laugh.

This, of course, served to make Hercules even angrier.

When I glanced back across the courtyard, the children and their mother were all staring. Megara, I thought. His first wife.

The wife he murdered.

It would happen soon. I didn’t know how many times this had happened, but I knew Hercules was stuck here—he was trapped in this memory. Serena had done this to him.

And I would have to undo it before he became trapped here forever.

“Hercules,” I whispered.

He had just grabbed up a vase and was preparing to throw it at Hera when he spun toward me. His eyes met mine, and I knew he could see me as well as he could hear me.

“Be calm.” I stepped toward him. “I’ve come to bring you back.”

As soon as I came toward him, he threw the vase straight at me. It passed through me and shattered on the far wall. Across the courtyard, one of the children began crying.

He exclaimed something—something fearful. His eyes were wild with that fear, his gaze traveling between me and Hera, who could not see me. She seemed pleased by his insanity; her ploys were working.

And I was helping her. Because to him, I was another source of his madness. An apparition.

She cornered him, began speaking in low, angry tones. She pointed through the curtains toward Megara and the children, jabbing her finger over and over until Hercules lifted his face to the ceiling and roared with anger and pain.

I needed to move quickly.

I stepped up beside Hera. “Hercules,” I said, “it’s me, Isa.”

His chest heaved, his veins visible in his neck. That incendiary rage had started—the madness. In a moment, he would stalk right through that pool, splashing water all the way into the dining room, and murder his wife. Then he would kill all six of the children.

“Remember your promise,” I said to him. His wild eyes found mine, fixating for a breathless moment. “You promised to remain by my side. Do you remember why?”

He shook his head, his lips working. Faint words emerged; I couldn’t tell if they were gibberish or Greek. But they grew in volume until he was yelling. He yelled the same words over and over.

And Hera? Hera was cackling.

Hercules started across the bedroom. This was the moment.

I reached out, grabbed his hand. When mine closed over his, he stopped hard and turned back to me.

“Son of Zeus,” I said. “Do you remember what I promised you?”

The tiniest hint of rationality glimmered in his eyes. When he spoke the words, I didn’t need to understand his language to know what he had said. Because he turned around.

“Together,” I whispered, “you and I will avenge a great wrong.”

His lips parted. He knew who I was.

He stepped closer. “A great wrong.” His eyes traveled over my face, practically searing me with their intensity. “...Isabella?”

↔

There in ancient Greece, Hercules remembered who he was. He remembered his second life—the one he’d lived at my side.

And as he did, the nightmare faded away. Hera, the house, the wife and children … all of it evaporated.

Soon we were left standing in Pythia’s garden, and Hercules turned clear eyes on me. The rage had subsided.

So much so that, when I left Hercules’s mind and reopened my eyes in the courtyard in Paradise Lot, he raised my hand to his mouth and kissed the knuckles.

That familiar flutter started in my stomach, and I knew if I allowed it, things would happen very quickly between Hercules and me.

If I allowed it.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “Thank you for saving me.”

“No,” I said at once. “You don’t have to thank me. It’s for me to thank you, Hercules. For everything.”

He opened his mouth, and he started to apologize. I knew he felt terrible guilt over what he had done—his possession. But I set my hand to his lips. “There’s nothing to forgive. Let’s leave it at that, if you don’t mind.”

He nodded. And as we left the garden and came back into Paradise Lot, I opened my eyes to find my hand still at his soft lips. If I weren’t in so much grief, I would have been flustered inside. As it was, I just felt a deep, enduring sadness.

The hardest part was yet to come.

“She’s gone,” Phos wailed. “She’s gone.”

This wasn’t the part I had been thinking of as the hardest, but it was going to be GoneGodDamn hard. I knew exactly who lay on the ground at Cupid’s feet.

I slipped away from Hercules and crossed to the cluster of pixies. Cupid stepped aside to reveal Lux seated on the ground, Glint’s head in her lap. The other two knelt over their sister and wept.

Cupid had tears in his eyes as he looked up at me. “She’s gone.”

I lowered to my knees beside the pixies. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, to all of you.”

Lux’s eyes shot up to me, anger pouring off her. “Don’t be sorry. She sacrificed her life for you. Honor her instead of obsessing over your guilt.”

Ouch. Her anger hurt, but it was also spot on.

This wasn’t about me. This wasn’t about me at all.

It was about those who had given their lives in this courtyard. It was about every Other in Paradise Lot. And it was about every single individual—Other or human—who had served the resistance.

“She was a miracle of a pixie,” I whispered. “She fought for me right to the end. She saved me.”

They had all saved me. And for a moment, we all sat in silent commemoration of Glint, the shy pixie who had found bravery.

Beside me in the grass, an earpiece blinked.

I still had to save those who remained.

I reached out, lifted the earpiece. As I did, I shifted illusions to one I had worn before. When the earpiece reached my ear, I could already hear a voice reverberating through the speaker.

“—please report,” the man said. “What is your status?”

“We were attacked,” I said in a low voice. “I managed to survive, but most of our forces were wiped out by Colel Cab’s swarm.”

A pause. Then, “Dr. Russo?”

“It’s me.” I swallowed. It was still strange to hear her voice come from my mouth, even though I had done this before. Perhaps because there was no more Dr. Russo. “I need to speak to the prime minister. Now.”

“The PM? But—”

“It’s urgent. Time isn’t on our side.”

That seemed to work. The man on the other end asked me to wait, and I did—for only about ten minutes. And then I was speaking to the prime minister of the World Government.

GoneGod Damn, Serena Russo had a lot of authority.

As I waited, someone touched my shoulder. When I turned, I found Colel Cab standing beside me. He clacked once, softly, and blinked at me.

I cupped my hand over my mouth. “About to talk to the PM,” I whispered to him.

“Tell him that my swarm awaits orders,” the bug god said with equal softness. He gestured to the sky. “Now that they have been awakened to the World Army’s injustices, they will exact vengeance as necessary.”

I nodded.

“Dr. Russo,” came a smooth voice over the earpiece. “This is Prime Minister Hendricks, of the World Government.”

“Prime Minister,” I said, pretending to be breathless and afraid. “We need to call off the operation in Paradise Lot. The resistance has called on the bug god, and his swarm will devastate every human on this island if we don’t stand down.”

“His swarm?” Hendricks said with some surprise. “Why, they’re just bugs, aren’t they? Our technology—”

“Do not underestimate them,” I said, a thrill running through me. I, a college sophomore, had just interrupted the World Government’s top man. “They can disassemble a man’s bones until it’s like he never existed.”

“His bones?” Hendricks seemed appalled. “Well, I …”

“Call it off,” I repeated. “Call the operation off. And as part of the deal, we must allow the release of all Others imprisoned by the army.”

If you’re gonna ask for a dime, might as well as for a dollar.

Hendricks seemed dumbstruck; he just breathed across the line. “I’ll talk with my advisors. Give me an hour.”

“An hour?” I laughed. “We’ll all be dead in an hour. They’ve offered us fifteen minutes.”

And so it was that, within fifteen minutes, Prime Minister Hendricks agreed to call off the World Army’s operation in Paradise Lot. And he also agreed to release every Other imprisoned by the army.

Which included Chao, Ordo and Barkley the treant.

Miral, Cupid and Colel had been listening to my entire conversation. When I pulled out the earpiece, they all stared at me.

“It’s over,” I said. “For now, at least. They’re standing down, and we’re free to leave.”

Colel clacked once.

Cupid shook his head. “Man, it’s really hard not to punch you in the nose when you’re wearing that face.”

Miral reached out, clasped my arm. “Well done. I will continue to attend to those in the courtyard—some may have survived.”

I grasped her arm, stopping her as she turned away. “Miral,” I said, now truly breathless, “I’ve seen it.”

She turned back to me. “Seen what?”

“Immortality.” I couldn’t help the small smile that crested. “I know the path to it. In four years, everything will change.”

The angel’s eyelids fluttered, her breathing came faster, and her eyes went glassy. Before a tear could drop, she wiped her eye. “So miracles still exist in this GoneGod World.”

I squeezed the angel’s arm. “Science is the miracle, Miral.”

Chapter 21

Three days later, the Paradise Lot Other graveyard was packed to the brim with the living.

We were burying forty-two members of the resistance.

They lay before us, each body shrouded in the symbols and iconography of their species.

The ogres lay beneath crossed wooden clubs, the dwarves beneath a symbol of a crossed axe and hammer.

The ramidreju lay beneath interwoven branches.

Glint the pixie, her body tiny next to all the others, rested beneath a coating of glitter.

And Justin?

Justin lay beneath a silver-embossed flying fish with legs. I knew if he had wanted to be buried with any symbol laid over him, it would be that one. In his heart, he had been a true member of the resistance.

All together, they had been laid in a straight line that ran some fifty feet through the center of the graveyard. And the rest of us—all except for one brown-haired angel—watched from the far side of that line.

Before us, Miral stood with clasped hands, her face lowered.

“Hey, this is my spot,” Cupid said as he came up beside me, jostling a yara-mara-ya-who aside. “GoneGods, could this place be any more crowded?”

“Could you please be a little less irreverent?” Lux whispered from atop the demigod’s head.

Despite her familiar curmudgeonliness, she wore an expression of pure grief on her tiny, elfin face. Today we were burying her sister.

Hercules appeared at my other side. “Sorry we’re late.”

I reached out for his hand, and his fingers clasped mine. The warmth surging up from them would help make this easier. Not much, but a little.

“Did you get them?” I whispered down to Cupid.

“Three seats, tonight to Montreal,” Cupid whispered back as Phos landed beside Lux on his head. “I still don’t know why—”

“Thank you,” I interrupted. “It’s important. I promise.”

Dazzle came to land on my shoulder. “It’s starting.”

Before us, Miral’s hands unclasped, reaching out with the palms up. She lifted her face, her eyes scanning over the enormous crowd of Others in the graveyard.

“Welcome,” she began, “to the burial of the forty-two Others who gave their lives in the Battle for Immortality.”

The Battle for Immortality?

I hadn’t heard anyone call it that. But when she strung those words together, it brought tears to my eyes. GoneGodDamn it, Isa, don’t break down already.

Her low voice carried across the graveyard, and though my first thought was that she could project well, I realized in the beat of silence that followed that she wasn’t just projecting … the whole graveyard was completely quiet.

When I ventured a glance left and right, every Other stood with faces bowed. I recognized Colel Cab, Galaxy the nymph, Ordo and Chao. Barkley had come with his partner, Furte Eliza, and their three twiglets. I spotted Cilian the custodian and his wife, as well as a whole host of ramidreju. I thought I could even see an odd shadow that might be Yeknalb.

Even CaCa had climbed from the sewers, though he sat respectfully at a distance from the rest of the crowd.

“The Others who lay before you”—Miral began naming them off one by one, and by the time she said Justin Truly, my face and neck were wet with tears—“are the best of what this world has to offer. They volunteered themselves for an operation many knew would involve their deaths, and yet they did so with unblinking courage.”

As Miral spoke, I thought of those I’d lost on this journey. Pythia, Ananda and Daiski weren’t here today, but for me, this was their burial.

They had given their lives to this cause, and so few would ever know it.

I wondered how many others had died for the resistance. How many others were out there, right now, fighting for it. And I might never know, because the world held countless lives, endless paths.

Too many to see into.

But I had known a few of them—a few bright, wonderful souls. And it heartened me to think that if a few existed, many more did, here and elsewhere.

Somewhere, I knew, someone I hadn’t even met served goodness. Served light.

Miral’s voice siphoned back into the fore of my mind, and I lifted my eyes to her. “And because of their bravery, the course of our future has been changed forever. Our mortality has been changed.”

This was news to most assembled; around me, whispers broke out.

Even though I knew what would happen, my heart still sped into a trot, and then into a canter as Miral’s finger rose to point at me. “In four years, this scientist will unlock the secret to our immortality. She has foreseen it, for Pythia of Delphi has passed down the oracle’s powers of foresight to her.”

The whispers continued—but they didn’t reflect happiness or joy. They doubt it. They doubt it’s possible.

Miral gazed at me. She was waiting for me to confirm as much.

“It’s true,” I said, turning to those assembled. “These Others did not die for nothing. It is only because of their sacrifice that I was able to fully harness the oracle’s powers. Because of them, Others will live through their children. And we will bear children—I swear it in the name of Pythia, the Oracle of Delphi.”

The whispering continued a moment longer, as though people had no idea how to respond to such a thing ...

And suddenly, Cupid let out a whoop. It resounded through the graveyard, over all the heads of those assembled.

Somewhere at the far back of the crowd, a banshee returned with a shriek of joy.

And from there, the dam broke. The whispers rose to a roar of cheering and chittering and hooting and clacking and all the noises the Other species of the world make to express joy.

They were joyous, as they should be.

Amidst it all, I turned back to Justin’s shrouded body. I wish you had been here to see this future, I thought. It’s not the same without you.

Hercules seemed to sense my sorrow, because he squeezed my hand. His warmth did help a little after all, and so I leaned fully into his arm as the rest of the ceremony proceeded, and the bodies were, at the end, interned in the ground.

As the crowd began to disperse, so many Others approached me to shake my hand and hug me and kiss my cheeks. It was as though I had become some sort of deity to them, a god in a world without gods.

It felt strange. I was just Isabella. I didn’t want to be worshipped; no one deserved that kind of blind adoration.

But in this GoneGod World, humans and Others found wonder where they could.

And in the case of immortality, that wonder lay with me.

Miral came up to me last, taking my hand into both of hers. She smiled that incandescent smile at me. The look exchanged between us needed no words; all was understood. The angel and I had a quiet friendship, as it turned out, and that was fine by me.

When we hugged, I knew it wouldn’t be the last time. She and I would see one another again.

Cupid, Hercules, the pixies and I left the graveyard near sunset. As we walked, Lux turned to me from her seat on Cupid’s head. “Isa, can you really give us the ability to have children?”

“I think so.”

“If you can,” Lux said, “I’ll name her Glint.”

I smiled. “What if it’s a boy?”

Cupid shrugged. “Have you ever heard of ‘A Boy Named Sue’ by Johnny Cash? It’s all good.”

Hercules furrowed his brow. “I don’t get it.”

Cupid groaned. “Damn millennials.”

I laughed. Hercules was a millennial, considering he was over two thousand years old. But mostly I laughed because it felt nice. It felt good to remember that I still had joy in me.

We said goodbye to the pixies at their barrow, and from there, Cupid, Hercules and I headed straight to the airport. At first I had told them I would go to Canada alone, but the other two wouldn’t leave my side. And so we departed Paradise Lot together, as a trio.

I had an oath to keep.

↔

On the plane, Cupid and Hercules let me take the window seat. When Cupid excused himself to go to the lavatory, Hercules leaned across the middle seat toward me. “Isa?”

I turned from where I’d been staring out the window. “Hey, Herc.”

His green eyes surveyed me, that sensitive mouth hinting at the faintest smile. “How are you?”

“I’m …” I blinked, considering the question. When was the last time I had been asked that? I mean, really and truly, with someone who cared looking on and waiting for my real and true answer.

I couldn’t say.

So I reached out my hand toward Hercules, and he grasped it at once. Just like the first time, his touch was practically a brand. Find happiness with Hercules, Justin had told me.

“I’m happy to be here with you,” I whispered.

His thumb stroked my hand. “So am I, Isabella. For now and always—or at least until we avenge a great wrong.”

I hadn’t seen us avenging a great wrong in the eleven years I had seen into the future. But, I thought as I stared into his eyes, maybe that’s all right.

Because that meant Hercules and I would spend a very long time together.

I squeezed back. “Until we avenge a great wrong.”

“Hey,” he said, “now that you can see into the future, does that mean you know everything I’m about to say?”

I tilted my head. “Well, sort of.”

He grinned. “Ah. But did you know I would tell you how lovely you look in the light from the window?”

I smiled a little. “I did, yes.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to find ways to surprise you.” He winked at me. “And anyone who knows me knows I enjoy a good challenge.”

I laughed. “You’re welcome to try.”

Cupid appeared in the aisle. “Excuse me, big guy. You’re blocking my seat.”

Hercules shrugged, letting go of my hand and straightening. “What are your wings for if not situations like this?”

Cupid rolled his eyes, but he actually did fly up and over Hercules and drop into the middle seat. “Oh, Isa! I brought something for you.”

My eyebrows went up. “For me?”

He reached down under the seat in front of him and grabbed his pack. From it he yanked a Twinkie and … a baggie.

I hadn’t seen this moment in my future. I guess not every moment along the path is mapped out for you.

I gasped. “Cupid, is that a joint?”

He shushed me as he handed me the goods. “Not so loud! Sheesh.”

I received them, holding them before me in both hands. Just a year ago, this had been my life—Twinkies and weed with my roommate, Aimee.

How much had changed since then.

I turned to him, about to point out my obvious pregnancy. “But I—”

“For after,” Cupid interrupted. “When she’s born.”

It was almost as though he knew what would come. He didn’t, of course—only I knew that. But as I squeezed the Twinkie, it felt like an early consolation gift. I smiled at Cupid. “This means more to me than you know.”

↔

When I knocked on the front door of the house in Montreal, a long pause followed. I turned toward the street, where Cupid and Hercules sat waiting in our rented car.

This part I insisted on doing alone.

Around me, the neighborhood lay in the grip of winter. Snow blanketed lawns, rooftops, shrubbery and trees. And it was a scenic lane, full of beautiful two-story brick homes. This particular one featured a portico with a lantern dangling from a chain above me.

This was the house I had been inside the very first time I’d taken Pythia’s hand and traveled through time.

The door opened, and a man’s voice greeted me.

I turned back, found a tall, good-looking blond man in his forties standing with the door open just eight inches. Serena’s husband, whom she had married just a few months before the Battle for Immortality.

Perhaps, I thought, because she had suspected she would not leave that courtyard, and she wanted someone to take care of her son. I would never know for certain unless I traveled into the past, and that wasn’t a past I felt I had a right to see.

“Yes?” His eyes were red, dark circles underneath. He had been crying often, and with great feeling. Maybe he had truly loved Serena. No one who was capable of loving a child the way she did was wholly unlovable themselves.

“I’m sorry to intrude. I’m Isabella, Dr. Russo’s lab assistant.” I stepped forward, clasping my arms across my body in the cold. “May I come in?”

He hesitated, his eyes traveling over me as though to suss out a lie. I looked like the redhead I’d been for so long in Montreal—the one with wide eyes who had worked under Serena Russo for a good six months. “Isabella?”

I nodded. “My mother liked Spanish names.”

When he allowed me in, we stood together in the foyer. He looked at me with expectant, tired eyes; he wanted me to do what I needed to do, say what I would say.

So I did.

“Sir,” I began, “I won’t take much time here. Is Collin home? His mother asked me to give him something before she passed.”

“His mother?” he sputtered. Then, “A message? She asked you to give him a message?”

“Yes. You see, Serena and I worked together on some remarkable things. Things related to her son’s illness.” I pointed upstairs to where I knew her son’s bedroom was. “And just before her death, we made a breakthrough. She wanted me to tell him about it.”

After that, it didn’t take long to convince him to allow me to speak with his stepson. I had come at a good time, I knew—one of the handful of hours of the day he was still completely lucid.

When I knocked on Collin’s door, I waited. But I didn’t have to wait long; his voice rang out, low and clear. “Come in.”

I opened the door. When Collin saw me from his bed, his face turned skeptical. Despite the illness and the sallowness to his complexion and the oxygen tube running beneath his nose, he was just as striking as Serena. “Who are you?”

I stepped into the bedroom, closed the door behind me. “I worked for your mother here in Montreal, at the university.”

Did he roll his eyes? It had seemed that way just before he turned his head toward the window. “My mother. You can go, then.” As he pronounced the last word, his voice became phlegmy, and his throat spasmed as he resisted coughing.

I took a step forward. “That’s an odd thing to say.”

He didn’t look at me. “I don’t want anything to do with her or the people who worked with her.”

On his lap sat a tablet, where I suspected he had been reading the news of what had happened in Paradise Lot. Of Serena Russo’s death, which was everywhere.

She had been the fall woman in the press—the hellcat who had pushed the World Army to murder forty-two Others and falsely imprison others.

It was easy to incriminate the dead. Particularly so when they actually had done so much that was bad. She had become a villainous sensation over the past two days.

“I haven’t worked with your mother in some time,” I whispered. “Not since she became my enemy.”

Collin’s blue eyes found mine, wide as medallions.

“I’m not here to hurt you.” I stepped forward, touching the back of the chair set by his bed. “May I sit?”

He nodded, his eyes widening farther as I took my coat off and my belly came into view. I had really begun to show in the past few weeks.

When I sat, he seemed confused by me. “You’re too young to be pregnant. And how could you possibly be my mother’s enemy? You seem so …”

“I seem young,” I finished for him. “I know. The thing is, Collin, I’m not young by your standards. I’m over five hundred years old.”

He blinked. “You’re an Other. I’ve never met an Other.”

How wild, to think that there was a nearly grown human out there who had never once been exposed to a single Other. Of course, he had been sick for a long, long time.

“Now you’ve met me.” I reached out to shake his hand, and he accepted it with a soft grip. “I’m Isabella Ramirez, and I’m an encantado.”

The ghost of a smile crossed his face. He was smart—devastatingly smart; it lay in his eyes. He was also curious and observant.

I could see why Serena had nearly upended the whole world to save his life.

“I’m Collin Russo.”

I smiled. “It’s good to meet you, Collin.”

His eyes narrowed a degree. “Why were you and my mother enemies?”

“That’s a very long story, and one I’m happy to tell you the whole of.” I pressed my hands across my thighs. “But first, you should know why I came to visit you.”

As he awaited what I would say next, I found my voice catching in my throat. Today, his whole world would change.

This boy would have a future, where before he had none.

I felt inadequate to be the one delivering this news. It should have been his mother. She was the one, after all, who had done this for him.

Here, sitting before me, was the reason she fought, why she strove, why she would not be put down until the end.

Here was the reason any of us did anything that mattered.

For love. It was all for love.

Epilogue

I had one sacrifice left to make. It would be the hardest of them all.

As the boat powered through the water toward the island, my daughter slept in my arms. She was a good baby, the kind parents dream of having. Almost since the first night she had slept from dusk until dawn, and when she fed at my breast, she turned her green eyes up to me for long stretches.

Before me, the boatman stared straight on. He didn’t speak my language, and I didn’t speak his. But I did know someone who spoke Japanese, and she had arranged with the boatman to bring me over.

She awaited me on the island. She was my ambassador to the Noro, the one who had entreated them to allow me onto the island. It was a sacred place, so I’d been told, where young girls were raised by the older priestesses in their traditions.

Only women lived here. It put me in mind of my first home—the rainforest in Brazil, where we encantado lived as sisters. It brought me comfort.

When the boat docked, she was waiting for us. I recognized her auburn hair, that look in her eyes. A fierceness—a determination I’d always wanted to emulate.

She helped me step off. “It’s good to see you again.”

I kissed her on her scarred cheek. “And you, Kat.”

I don’t recall much of what followed as we walked down the dock. We said things to one another—pleasantries, little bits of comfort exchanged between us. But really my attention was on my daughter, and the clockwise swirl of her brown hair at the crown of her head. The pink touching her cheeks. Her lips, as small and divine as a rosebud.

Right now, I could not remember all the reasons why we had come to this island. I knew it was necessary—a protection, because the world’s first Other child was too valuable to so many who would do wrong by her—but it was equally necessary for me to hold her in my arms as I was doing now.

I never wanted to let her go.

Of course, I had already gotten eleven years with her in the molten star of a future. I knew who she would become: determined, willful, unputdownable. A little goddess in her own right, born of an encantado and a demigod. She was all those things, and she was also good. She was better than me.

When we reached the entrance to the village, we turned to one another. This was where my path diverged with my daughter’s. This was what the silver star had promised would come. And it had.

I watched from outside myself as I passed my child over to Katrina Darling.

She accepted her with both arms. And when Kat smiled down at her, I knew, finally, I had done the right thing. Long ago, Pythia had told me I would understand my purpose in the world once I had completed my labor.

This child had been my labor and my purpose. This child, and every Other child to come.

They were our immortality.

“Her name’s Ananda,” I whispered. “She’s called Ananda.”

The Arc

by Chris Miller and Ramy Vance

Chapter 1

If this asshole couldn’t kill Beowulf, then he ain’t got shit on me.

Then again, I’m no Beowulf.

I motioned silently for Hendersen and Mills to continue their sweep left through the forested hillside. The winter sun had barely broken the horizon, cloaking us all in deep, odd-shaped shadows. The other half of our squad held position while they moved toward the nearby ravine.

The only noise was the drones sweeping through the trees ahead of us, scanning for motion and heat. Pulling up my control gauntlet—one of the new, cutting-edge technological wonders courtesy of Memnock Securities—their composite popped up on its tiny display, revealing nothing ahead of us besides the empty forest.

Lieutenant Heidi Holgreb’s icon blinked in my helmet’s HUD, and I looked back toward her.

Not wanting to break our radio silence, Heidi signed for an update.

I shook my head and shrugged.

We had been searching the hillside for three hours, and still no sign of our tango. No one said catching Others was easy.

The tree next to me shattered, sending a spray of splinters into my body armor. Grendel let out a monstrous roar as he ripped another tree out of the hillside. I spun to see Grendel had somehow gotten behind us—or worse, we had walked right past him.

If my recruiter had told me I would end up fighting mythological badasses, I might not have signed up.

Grendel was terrifying to read about in Beowulf, but like most myths, they had much of the story wrong, exaggerating and often downright falsifying what had actually happened.

In the myth, Grendel was supposed to be dead. Killed by Beowulf.

Given we were hunting him, they got that part wrong.

What they didn’t get wrong was that he was a fifteen-foot-tall, black-haired monstrosity. Each of his hands ended in terrible, five-inch claws and his mouth was full of jagged teeth. What I didn’t expect were his eyes—flat, dead pools of blackness.

Heidi sprinted away from the group. “Scatter and spray!” she ordered over the coms, and I rushed southward away from Grendel and down the hillside as automatic gunfire lit up the early morning. The squad split into pairs to the east and west, laying down a hail of bullets that smashed into Grendel.

Grendel ignored the bullets and smiled as he charged Henderson and Mills. He lifted the tree above his head and hurled it at the pair, and I watched it sail over their heads. I breathed out a sigh of relief that they hadn’t been crushed by the massive trunk … until it landed behind them.

“Henderson! Mills! Get the GoneGodDamn out of there!” I flicked the control panel on my forearm and quickly calculated the distance between Grendel and them. “Danger close!”

The Mark III-UR drone weaved through the trees between the two and launched a pair of small missiles. They slammed into Grendel, their death blossoms leaving a crater where Grendel had stood a moment before.

Cheers went up over the coms as Grendel disappeared down the hole.

“Good work, Sgt. Falls! Looks like we got him,” Heidi said to me.

‘He was safe, by his spells, from sword of battle, from edge of iron.’ It appeared this passage from the poem was an exaggeration as well. Besides, it wasn’t like Beowulf had missiles. He didn’t even have steel.

Welcome to the GoneGod World, you bastard.

The LT was happy, and when the LT is happy, that meant a lot less marching in our future. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw Hendersen and Mills huddled next to the fallen tree, covered in grass and dirt from the explosion, but otherwise unharmed.

“Just doing my job, LT,” I said. “Bag one more baddie.”

I couldn’t suppress the grin on my face—not that anyone could see it through my helmet. I was proud of my wyvern hunter drone design and the UR missiles it carried. I couldn’t wait to get back and rub how well my field test went in the faces of those eggheads at command.

My grin faded as I noticed the time on my HUD. Minutes—not seconds—were passing at the same rate as my heart was beating.

One beat, one minute. Two beats, two minutes.

Grendel was burning time.

He leaped from the hole and landed in front of Hendersen and Mills. They brought their rifles up—far too slowly. Grendel swiped both aside with a single backhand, and they went flying into the forest with a sickening crunch.

Reynolds and Jackson each dropped to a knee. With a synchronized thumpf, their grenade launchers went off. Less than a heartbeat later, twin explosions covered Grendel in a viscous purple fluid. It hardened a second later, partially encasing Grendel in a crystalline shell.

I could see Heidi, our LT, line up her shoulder-mounted missile launcher. When she’d requisitioned a dragon-killer missile, we had all scoffed at her. I knew right now I appreciated her belief: “Overkill means never having to say you’re sorry.”

We aren’t the ones who have to write the letters to family.

The crystalline shell was designed for capturing giants and should have made this a simple bag-‘em-and-tag-‘em mission. For the second time today, we watched as the purple shell flexed and then shattered a few moments later. We had underestimated Grendel’s strength before, but this time Heidi was prepared.

The DK-187 streaked out from her launcher as Grendel broke through the barrier. I felt the heat singe my hair and eyebrows as it detonated. The shockwave knocked me off my feet, and I swore I heard several trees snap before there was nothing but a loud ringing in my ears.

Rolling to my feet, I looked to where Grendel had been—what was now the blasted remnants of the forested hillside. There was no sign of Grendel anywhere.

“Did we get him?” Reynolds’s voice was weak and shaky, something I wasn’t used to hearing from my special forces brethren.

We’re the best of the best of the best. If we can’t stop Grendel, the World Army may have to resort to nuclear options.

“Falls, what can you see?” Heidi said. It was reassuring to hear her iron voice, and helped settle the panic rising in my gut.

I looked at the display on my forearm and called up the sensor grid my drones cast over our area. I counted four pings as the drones detected our position, but there was no sign of Grendel.

“Nothing. I think we … wait.” A strange ghost blip appeared on the display, and for a moment I didn’t recognize what it meant. “Jackson, move! Now!”

Grendel erupted from the ground underneath Jackson as she tumbled away. She hit the ground hard as Grendel’s claws shredded flesh from her legs. She cried out in pain as Grendel extracted himself from the earth.

Jackson’s cries were suddenly cut off as another woman’s voice came over the coms. “Sergeant Falls, stop whatever worthless thing you’re doing and come see me. We need to talk—now.”

My heart sank as I recognized the silky purr coming through the coms. There was only one woman who sounded like that. She had the voice of a late-night, sexy DJ and she scared the hell out of me. Hell, she scared the hell out of everyone.

Even God.

“Lilith? What the hell?” I barked into the coms, uncertain how she was on our secure communications channel. I didn’t have time to worry about that, with Grendel rampaging through the woods after us. Why now, of all times? Right now, in the middle of a fight that we weren’t exactly winning.

I watched in horror as Reynolds charged Grendel, leaping on his back and emptying his clip into the beast. Black fur flew from Grendel, and he roared in anger as he tried to remove Reynolds from his back. Heidi ran in and pulled Jackson out of Grendel’s reach while Reynolds held on, firing round after round into the creature.

“Sergeant Falls,” Lilith purred at me, “despite your inadequacies, I like you. But it only goes so far.”

“I’m a little busy here,” I shot back. “Can’t you hear the gunfire? Wait, how in the Empty Hell did you call me on a secure channel?”

I activated my Mark III-WH drone, and it swooped in at Grendel. A red lance of concentrated multi-spectrum light struck Grendel in the chest. His chest started to smoke for a moment before he stopped struggling to remove Reynolds from his back and leapt onto the drone.

Lilith chuckled. “You really thought this ‘child-lock’ feature would keep me out? I have to give Steve Jobs credit—he knew he had to really dumb things down for the Children of Eve.”

My poor drone was crushed as Grendel landed on it and rode the fifteen-pound disk to the forest floor. Reynolds not only held on as Grendel precision-leaped a dozen yards, but was even able to reload his grenade launcher.

“I gave you a GoneGodsDamn iPad, not encryption keys to special ops communications!”

Reynolds brought the launcher down, and I could see him tense to jump away as Grendel flopped to the ground. Another crystalline shell encased Grendel’s back as he landed on top of Reynolds. His signal went red, then disappeared from my HUD.

“I expected better from you, Landon,” Lilith’s silky voice admonished. “There is nothing in this GoneGod World to challenge me, and you thought the World Army’s computer security would stop me.”

“Lilith, people are dying around me right now,” I growled. “If I don’t figure out a way to bring down Grendel, whatever you need won’t matter.”

All dozen of my drones started diving and weaving around Grendel as he stood, sending bursts of gunfire into him. He swatted at them but failed to connect as they flew erratically around him. At best, it bought us a minute or two before he just ignored them and turned on the LT and me.

“Ideas, LT?” I called out over the coms. My drones were keeping him busy, but Heidi was a tactical genius, and she wasn’t knocking the dust off the battle plans we had to memorize like I was.

Lilith sighed; it sounded like silk being dragged along gravel. “Oh, she can’t hear you. But I have an idea—use your stupid brain. I thought you were the … what’s the saying? Cream of the crop? Utter nonsense. Grendel has been beaten before, and it was by an even more incompetent Child of Eve than yourself.”

On my HUD display, Heidi circled around Grendel. She was placing Grendel between us.

What was she planning? We’d already hit him with everything we had. Literally.

“What do you mean, use my brain? We hit him with the best technology the World Army has available, plus things I thought up they didn’t realize were possible. Grendel has shrugged it all off.”

“I’m going to have to dumb it down even further for you, aren’t I?” Lilith said mockingly. “Well, top-of-your-class-in-Other-lore, how was Grendel defeated before?”

Two of the drones disappeared from my HUD, and I looked up to see Grendel smashing them to bits. Despite being hit with missiles, a high-intensity laser and autocannons, Grendel looked nearly untouched. There was a missing patch of fur on his chest where the DK-187 had struck him, but he wasn’t even bleeding.

We’re running out of time.

“Beowulf ripped his arms off,” I said. “He had to have magic, though. And as you know, we’re in short supply of magic these days.” I dove behind a tree as Grendel smashed a drone and its shattered remains flew at me.

“Beowulf was a man, and men tend to … exaggerate. As a member of the lesser gender, I’ll be kind to your fragile ego and lead you gently. Do you really think he ripped Grendel’s arms off with magic power he didn’t claim?” Lilith purred.

I sent the drones into a new attack pattern as Grendel smashed another one into oblivion. “Of course. Myths aren’t literally true. So what did he do, then?”

“You tell me, Sergeant Falls. You’re the expert.”

“Beowulf ripped his arm off. Then he nailed it to the rafters while Grendel bled to death.”

“That doesn’t seem very likely, now does it?”

Two more drones met their doom as Grendel snatched one out of the air and hurled it at another.

I glanced down at my controls. “Whatever you’re planning, LT, you need to do it quick, or we need to pull out. The drones are low on ammunition and out of explosives,” I said into the coms, hoping that whatever hold Lilith had on our channel was temporary.

I could see in my HUD that we were all still linked, and Heidi was trying to reach me over voice, but I heard nothing.

Lilith’s voice was the only one coming over the line. “I’m sure she’s doing just fine, Sergeant Falls. Focus!”

I lost sight of the lieutenant as she moved from tree to tree.

Of all the times for an Other to hijack our coms. Hopefully she had a good plan, otherwise my reactivation tour looked like it was going to be prematurely ended.

I peeked out from behind my tree, unsure if it would provide any protection against his claws. “Alright Lilith, this better be going somewhere. I’ll play. So if Beowulf didn’t rip his arm off and that was an exaggeration like you think, maybe he broke Grendel’s arm or dislocated his shoulder.”

I heard slow-clapping. “There you go! It seems your World Army ranking as the number one expert in Others is justified. You just need a lesson or two in basic logic.”

“Are you seriously giving me the slow-clap right now? How do you even know about that? Wait, don’t answer that. What was that about my World Army ranking?”

Another drone weaved too close to Grendel and perished in his claws. Grendel stuck it in his mouth, took a bite and immediately spit out chunks of the broken machine.

“I read all the records on the World Army’s so-called ‘experts.’ Turns out you had the highest score in the IOH course. You do remember the Immersive Other Hunting course, right? Don’t let it go to your head, though. I looked through the material, and there are some woefully incorrect pieces of knowledge. Oh well, I probably shouldn’t have told you what your score was, anyhow,” Lilith said in a bored tone.

“How did you get access to my personnel records? I don’t even know that information!”

Mental note: never, ever give nearly immortal ancient Others access to any technology greater than a rock.

Lilith perked up a bit. “I knew telling you that would go to your head. How disappointing. Men are still all like their forefather, it seems.”

I held back some choice words about her relationship with the first man. An explosion sounded; another drone must have met its demise. “You’re trying to tell me that Beowulf ran off Grendel by breaking his arms? That’s it?”

“Let me guess, you brought the biggest weapons you could think of. How’s that working for you?” Lilith sneered.

Heidi came back into view as she shouldered her rifle and pulled two grenades from her belt. She moved through the underbrush, timing her movements with each large swipe of Grendel’s claws as she moved toward the northwest, away from our fallen comrades. “Hey, sheep boy! Over here!” She jumped up and waved her arms at Grendel.

Oh no, Heidi. Don’t.

Grendel took her bait. He charged through the trees toward her, and Heidi lobbed both grenades in his direction as she dove for cover. Twin booms shattered the air, and Grendel gripped his head while roaring in pain. There were cracks as the trees around Grendel broke apart from the sonic grenades.

The trunk of one tree tore a gash in Grendel’s back as it tumbled past him. It landed with a bloody smear across its surface.

“Judging by the booms and your helmet’s sonic dampeners, I’ll take that as a yes to my previous inquiry. Inquiry means a question, BTW.” I could only imagine the pedantic look on Lilith’s face right now as she spoke to me like I was an idiot.

No, not an idiot. A child.

Admittedly, comparing our lifespans, I was in a way a child. Well, if she’s going to treat me like a child, then I guess its times to look for opportunities to do childish things.

It was going to feel great when I brought in Grendel and put his cage right next to hers.

The grenades Heidi threw were thunderers—at least, that’s what we called them in the field. The sonic boom and crushing wave of air bursting out was an effective weapon against fliers and a number of Others that relied on echolocation.

On my HUD, I noticed I’d lost two more drones as pieces of the trees ripped through them.

Grendel touched his bloody side and let out another rage-filled snarl at the blood on his massive, clawed hand. He wobbled as he looked around for anything other than a drone to attack. The gunfire wasn’t even thick enough to annoy him any longer.

“Yes, I figured he was similar to a giant, and we loaded up accordingly,” I said. “Lilith, thanks for nothing, but I really need to talk to the LT. I’ll talk to you when we bring him in.” I pulled up Jackson’s last location and sprinted toward where she had been thrown.

Heidi’s frantic voice suddenly filled my headset, interrupting Lilith. “Falls, are you there? I’m still reading your signal. Come in, please.”

“Copy LT, I hear you now. I’ll tell you about it later, but you gave me an idea. Do you have any more of those thunderers?” I said, trying to keep my words loud and clear as I ran.

“Four. It only seemed to make him mad, though,” Heidi said with a hint of disappointment.

“I need to you to lure him back to me,” I said in between breaths. “If he gets too close to you, use one to stun him. I need some time to set up.”

Heidi paused for a moment. “Roger. Nothing else is working.” On my HUD, she started circling around Grendel, her direction and speed flashing red as she weaved through the trees at top speed. Another roar sounded from Grendel, and I could only assume he was hot on her trail.

I found Jackson. To my amazement, she was only unconscious. Her helmet was cracked and she was bleeding, but it wasn’t immediately life-threatening. I grabbed her bandolier of grenades and threw it over my shoulder.

Another boom came from a thunderer, and Grendel’s cry of pain echoed it. Five years ago I would have said a prayer, but in this GoneGod World, the miracle we needed wasn’t going to come from a higher power.

Nearby, a pair of legs jutted awkwardly from a bush at the base of a tree. When I found him, I paused for a few moments over Reynolds’ body. I knew I didn’t have the time, but he deserved a moment of respect. I snatched his grenades and made off for the hole I’d blown Grendel into minutes before.

This time, I felt the wave of force from the thunderer before I heard it. I glanced at Heidi’s position as I brought the remaining drones to me. She was less than thirty yards away, which meant I was out of time.

I loaded the first drone’s launcher as Heidi’s marker showed her moving away from me. I was blessed with a capable commanding officer, which was unfortunately still rare in the World Army. I loaded the second drone and released it as the third thunderer went off.

I loaded the third drone and released it. My remaining drone hovered next to me, waiting silently for its new payload. Heidi’s marker continued to circle around me, then stopped before running toward me. Heidi’s panicked voice blurted over the coms, “Falls, he’s coming to you!”

The underbrush gave way as Grendel crashed through, ripping a three-foot piece out of a tree as he charged toward me. I dove to the side as Grendel’s claws raked the ground where I had been standing a moment before. The last drone I was loading disappeared in a shower of metal and plastic shards.

I rolled to my feet and kept running. I furiously typed in commands to my drones as I ran, trying not to slip and fall or run into anything in the process. I punched up the three remaining drones on my display, and they gave me Grendel’s position on the map in my HUD.

I was able to use the trees to slow Grendel, as he had to basically run through them to follow me as I weaved down the mountainside. He was gaining on me still, only slowing to take a swipe at me as I bobbed and weaved through the trees.

Unfortunately, the trees up ahead were thinning, and I couldn’t maintain this pace if I tried to go back up.

“Falls he’s right on your six, and I’m out of solutions that won’t hurt you,” Heidi warned.

“Load an explosive and watch for my mark. I need you without that last drone.” I dodged and pivoted to my left as Grendel’s claw swiped through the air. I felt the air rush by and heard his claws smack against a tree trunk.

“Way to make a woman feel wanted.” Heidi laughed, and I could see her trailing Grendel as he pursued me deeper into the woods and down the mountainside. I leapt out of the way of another swipe and slid when I hit the ground on some loose gravel.

Unable to stop, Grendel soared over my head. He turned in midair, landing on all fours as his claws scraped across the loose stones, and slid to a stop against a tree.

Best shot I’m going to get.

I punched the execute command, and the three drones swooped in, firing shot after shot from their launch tubes. The charges detonated as they hit Grendel, their purple, crystalline shells encasing his right foot, his left hand and then his right hand. He was stuck to the ground with his arms outstretched and his elbows locked.

I had hoped for more time and larger trees, but beggars can’t be choosers. “Heidi—there!” I picked the thickest and heaviest tree that might do the job and marked it for Heidi’s targeting.

The thumpf of her grenade launcher was followed by an explosion and a snap as the tree’s trunk cracked. Grendel struggled against the bonds, but this time they held as the tree fell across his arms. They gave way to the tree’s mass as both arms were dislocated from his shoulders.

I rose to my feet, watching and waiting for a few moments, but all the fight seemed to have left Grendel.

“Well done, Heidi—I mean LT. Well done. We got him this time,” I said as my adrenaline swiftly receded, a sudden weariness falling over me.

Heidi slowly approached, her grenade launcher at the ready. “So, why did you have me kill a tree?”

“Magic,” I said. I wanted to sit down, but there was still a lot to do before I could actually rest.

“It was a magic tree? Are you concussed? I swear, if this was just luck …” Heidi put a hand on her hip, still keeping her grenade launcher leveled at Grendel. I could feel her eyes boring holes through me on the other side of her visor.

I took a few deep breaths. “Grendel had magic. He was protected from flame and steel—that’s why nothing was hurting him. And yes, I know our shells aren’t actually steel. So when that tree exploded next to him and the wood debris cut and pierced his hide, I knew we could hurt him.”

Heidi turned her full attention back to Grendel. “Huh. Glad to have you on my team. That was a clutch move. But …” She paused, lowering her voice. “Why not impale him?”

Why didn’t I kill him was her real question. She wanted retribution for what he did to the rest of our squad.

“I wasn’t sure we could kill him, honestly. Or if we even should,” I replied softly. “Even the gods just locked him away. I figured that Beowulf probably did break his arms or something along those lines, and this was the first plan that came to mind.”

I moved closer to Grendel and saw his face was smashed up against the tree, tears falling freely from his eyes. He kept repeating one word over and over—the first thing we had ever heard him say. I knew that word, too, from my studies.

It was, “Mother.”

Chapter 2

Heidi took command of the extraction team, busying herself with the immediate tasks at hand to move Grendel back to the Museum of the Gods. I tried to help out, but the lieutenant ordered me to sit back and take a breather. It was hard to tell if it was out of compassion for our shared losses, or if she was disappointed by my performance.

The extraction team brought not one but two gifts in the form of a massive steel cage for Grendel, and orders for us to report directly to the general when we got back. This op was an abject failure that could have been avoided if I had fully thought through Grendel’s myth. The dressing down we’re going to get from the general will be hell.

It took a few hours to secure Grendel for transport as Heidi and I waited for the extraction team.

The Skullcandies had once again gotten the job done, but we were reduced to only two functioning members. Reynolds was dead, and Jackson was probably permanently paralyzed. Mills and Hendersen were destined for the infirmary and then rehab with multiple broken bones, so they would both be out for months, if not a year.

That wasn’t going to be enough for another mission any time soon. And command was going to pay a heavy price to contain the Others that had escaped from the Kami Subete Hakubutsukan if we continued like this.

There’s a reason the gods jailed these Others.

Hooah …

* * *

When we walked into General Shouf’s office, I was ready for the worst. Being called into the top commanding officer’s office for an after-action report is rarely (if ever) a good thing, and our mission to capture Grendel wasn’t what anyone would rate a glowing success. As Lieutenant Holgreb and I entered, the aigamuchab clicked a few times before turning around.

General Shouf looked human at first … until one noticed that her inhumanly wide mouth was her only facial feature. No eyes, no nose or ears. Supposedly her eyes were on her feet somewhere, but she used some sort of echolocation to “see.” Needless to say, there were tons of rumors floating through the enlisted ranks, but no one knew for sure.

The flat surface that served as her faceless front always gave me the creeps, and I was glad that my meetings with the general were few and far between. It didn’t feel right to me how readily Shouf was willing to lead the World Army against Others. Maybe it was in her nature as a preternaturally great hunter, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.

Holgreb and I snapped salutes, and as if on cue, my dog wandered through the nearest wall to the general’s side. His semi-transparent green, ghostly form slowly sauntered up to the general’s side. I wasn’t the only one that disliked Shouf, but it was more like utter hatred on Tiberius’s part.

The day the gods left was one of the saddest days of my life. It wasn’t because the gods left—I really wasn’t a religious or faithful person before that—but because I was in the middle of putting my beloved companion of the past eleven years down. Poor Tiberius was riddled with cancer, his legs were failing him and it was time to say goodbye to my faithful companion. I’m not sure if Tiberius was lucky or just ornery enough not to leave my side, but he passed at the moment the gods departed, and ever since that day his ghost has haunted me.

Not that I mind, but I am the only one that has ever been able to see or touch him since that day. I’ve tried talking to experts and doing my own research on ghosts and spirits, but the consensus is I am grief-stricken and delusional.

The desk blocked most of Tiberius’s body, but I could hear exactly what he was doing. The sound of his incontinent old dog bladder as he relieved himself on the general’s leg was painfully loud. It took years of military discipline to keep myself from laughing.

Tiberius stuck his head through the desk and gave me a mischievous look before wandering over to me and plopping down on my feet.

General Shouf’s clicking intensified for a moment, and she leaned forward. “Is there something funny, Sergeant? Something you would like to share with the rest of us? Every single time you are in my presence, you stop yourself from laughing. Is there something funny about me I should be aware of?” Her voice echoed in the room like a thousand glasses thrown against the walls. She didn’t speak—she shattered.

Getting dressed-down by a general is never fun. It’s even worse when that general is an Other with super-sharp senses who can read your body language and micro-expressions better than an FBI agent.

Today was a crappy day, and I wasn’t having any of it.

I straightened reflexively. “No, ma’am!”

The general made a show of looking at Lieutenant Holgreb and me, twisting her body to face us as she slowly clicked. She reached into her desk and pulled out a sheaf of papers and a small black box. She pushed both toward me. “Congratulations, Landon. Sign these and put this on.”

Heidi and I exchanged confused sideways looks as I grabbed the papers. I looked up at the general in amazement. “But without me, that leaves only the lieutenant active.”

“Suck it up. You aren’t going anywhere—you just won’t be reporting to Lieutenant Holgreb any longer. Battlefield promotions happen all the time, Lieutenant. That is, unless you are refusing the command assignment and would like to remain with the Skullcandies?” Shouf drew out my new rank as she shattered.

I couldn’t believe it. I was staring at my commission, the one thing I had been denied and caused me to muster out when my special forces tour was up.

But why now, and after such a disastrous operation?

I hurriedly signed the papers, and when I opened the black box, inside were the shiny silver double bars of a lieutenant.

Finally, my commission. I’d originally left the service because I had been constantly passed over, and now it was finally mine. As it turned out, the World Army did miss me.

“Congratulations, Lieutenant Falls.” Heidi broke her silence with a crisp salute and a broad grin. It wasn’t hard to see the hint of sadness in her eyes, knowing that our days of working directly together had ended so soon.

Tiberius roused himself from the floor and awkwardly put both paws on the desk. Strands of drool hung from his mouth as he nudged my hand, trying to divert my attention from the general to him.

The general’s incessant clicking seemed to increase a hundredfold as my hand was pulled away from the paperwork. “Interesting indeed, Landon.”

I finished signing the papers despite Tiberius’s desperate attempts to get my attention. I eventually had to relent by petting my ghostly K-9 companion while signing the papers. It was comforting to have him here, even if he was a ghost now, and since Others had made their appearance, I didn’t look insane petting an invisible dog.

After all, a hand moving over seemingly empty air is positively normal behavior compared to a minotaur stomping his hooves every time he laughs or a pixie belching fairy dust after every meal.

“Permission to speak freely, General?” Heidi said when I was finished.

General Shouf paused for a moment before nodding. “Granted.”

“Landon—Lieutenant Falls—deserves this promotion, but I have to question the timing,” Heidi said. “More now than ever, I need someone with his expertise in hunting down these Others. We don’t have enough oracles as is, and without him, Grendel would have killed us all.”

I resisted saying anything about the title oracle being thrown around. The last thing I wanted to do was get between the general and my former commanding officer.

General Shouf waved a dismissive hand. “It is for operational efficiency. There is an issue within the Museum of the Gods that Lieutenant Falls is uniquely qualified to handle. We have a new batch of Other specialists arriving shortly to bolster our ranks.”

“My squad needs him in the field. It took weeks to work him into the unit effectively, and he was the only newbie. Now I have to rebuild the Skullcandies from scratch?” Heidi’s face was flush with emotion, and I could see her struggling to keep her words diplomatic as she shifted from foot to foot. “Now you’re going to burden him with command duties as well? Doesn’t that seem a bit much to—”

Heidi fell silent as General Shouf stood, both hands on her desk.

We humans are trained to read the micro-expressions on faces and pick up on other cues through body language. Evidently, lacking a face, it’s necessary to scream it with the rest of your body.

Silence reigned for a moment.

The general walked back over to Lieutenant Holgreb and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I need you to trust the chain of command and our decisions. There are reasons, and many of those are beyond your pay grade. I will not make a habit out of being questioned just because you are emotionally attached to the situation. Understand?”

Heidi stared forward and nodded. “Ma’am, yes ma’am.”

Shouf clicked twice before returning to her chair behind the desk. She grabbed a second set of folders off her desk and handed it to Heidi. “Lieutenant Holgreb, I expect you to find suitable replacements to reform your squad from these candidates. You are dismissed for now.”

Heidi took the folders and placed them under her arm without even looking. She snapped a crisp salute to the general, spun on her heels and walked out of the office.

As she started to close the door, she gave me a brief smile and mouthed, Congrats. As the door closed behind her, it dawned on me that one chapter of my life had come to an abrupt end.

The general turned to me and shattered, “I have an opportunity for you, Lieutenant.”

At her words, my feeling of loss justifiably turned to dread.

Shouf leaned in toward me, which I guess was her version of staring directly at me, as she clicked rapidly. “It’s been six weeks since the Museum was emptied, and while command was braced for a number of incidents much like this one, it has been quiet. Entirely too quiet.”

“We’ve got solid leads on some of the escapees, General. It’s just a matter of time before it all comes together and we bring in the rest of them, like Grendel.” A small trickle of sweat ran down my neck.

“That is the problem, Lieutenant—it is only a matter of time. We need to find these Others on our schedule. Actively. Because if we are reactive, we won’t be there in time to stop the next Dead God from returning, or a cataclysm from occurring.”

I nodded in agreement, but none of this helped to settle the butterflies that had taken up residence in my gut.

If the general noticed my growing unease about the direction of our conversation, she didn’t acknowledge it. “I didn’t need to promote you for this assignment, but it is going to make things easier on both of us in the long run. You are our foremost expert when it comes to Other knowledge, and I need you in the field to figure out where these Others ran off to. Locate, capture, and if that is not immediately possible, neutralize any Other that has escaped the Museum.”

Well, that got dark quick.

I managed to hold my tongue. I knew these Others were the worst of the worst, but that’s what we thought of the Boogeyman, and it turns out he wasn’t as villainous as we’d first thought.

“When you say ‘neutralize’ …”

“I mean use as much force as is necessary to eliminate their threat to the world at large.” Shouf’s voice was a low churn of broken glass grinding together. It was a tone I had never heard her use before, and I was sure it was something I didn’t want to hear again. “I am giving you wide discretion here, along with vast resources—with one minor exception.”

“What is this minor exception?” Whenever command sees an opportunity, there’s always a catch, and based on Shouf’s aggressive focus on me, it was going to be a doozy.

“You are going to live and work out of the Museum as a lone operator. I want you to embed yourself in Other society, make connections and allies, learn everything you can about the Others that escaped. I need you to surround yourself with Others that are unassociated with the World Army.”

“What? Why?” I blurted out. My voice rang throughout the office for a change, and my break in discipline caught the general off guard.

“Are you questioning me, Lieutenant?” Shouf rang out.

“No, ma’am.”

She dug out a thin black folder with a red Top Secret stripe on the front and pushed it toward me. “Here are your operational constraints and codes. Memorize them before you leave—the folder stays here.”

I reached out to take the folder as the general leaned back in her chair and crossed her fingers together.

“Oh, and one more thing. Lilith is yours to deal with from now. You are her permanent liaison, and she needs to speak to you immediately.”

I gave Shouf a questioning look, which I hoped she could interpret correctly with her little sonic sight. “Ma’am?”

“Was there something unclear in my directive?” she ground out.

I checked my surprise. “Since when do we answer to a prisoner?”

“Lilith has acquired some intel we simply cannot ignore.”

“How did she do that locked away by herself in a GoneGods’-created prison cell?”

“Do you have any further questions about your mission?”

I shook my head once, not wanting to further irritate her. Shock over today’s events was slowly starting to take hold. I needed to sleep, and I needed some time to process things.

The general got up from her chair and strode out of her office. She stopped in the doorway for a moment.

General Shouf pointed at me. “To answer your question, someone gave her an iPad.”

Chapter 3

When I left General Shouf’s office, I was surprised to see Heidi outside waiting for me.

She grinned, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Got some time to walk and talk, Lieutenant?”

I gave her a more sincere smile. “Of course. And we can dispense with rank crap.”

She laughed. “I thought I’d try it out before you got sick of hearing it. Being an officer isn’t everything it’s advertised to be.”

We started walking through the bustling nerve center of the World Army outpost, and I looked around. “What in the military is?”

We shared another laugh, and I could see some of the tension ebb from Heidi. “Hard to believe, after seven weeks you’re already free of me,” I said.

Heidi glanced around at the fresh paint and shining new equipment. “Yeah, this is a little bit different than the base on Okinawa. I still remember your face when they flew you in from school and dropped you off at the barracks.”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘abducted,’ ma’am.” I gave Heidi a wry smile as we emerged into the night air.

“I think the official term is ‘emergency reactivation.’ Besides, you can’t argue that the World Army needed you and your expertise. A freaking archangel decided to commit suicide via army, and then with the rumors of the three dead gods trying to come back and the army of Others massing …” Heidi’s voice trailed off.

I nudged her to follow me down a less busy road. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose people under my command, but I do know what it’s like to lose people. We did really well for being surprise-attacked on New Year’s Eve.”

Images of the Other assault on our base in Okinawa flooded back. Five dragons owning the skies, burning planes, tanks and people to a crisp as waves of Others supporting the 3DG attacked us on foot, hoof and whatever else they had.

Heidi shook her head, and I thought for a second I could see some moisture around her eyes. “I know not every Other is to blame for the mess that followed. But I can’t help but wonder if we shouldn’t have turned this island and that stupid Museum of the Gods into ash when we got here, rather than waiting for dawn. That dome of protection that surrounded the island…would it have been there if we had just struck with overwhelming force first?”

I shrugged. “Command had their reasons for delaying, and I can’t say they did the wrong thing. We evacuated humans off the island, too, remember. Besides, not every problem is a nail. We can’t just use our biggest hammer every time.”

“True, but then you wouldn’t have to babysit Lilith.” Heidi made a cradling motion and mothering noises for a moment before breaking out into laughter.

“Yeah, well, you know she liked you a whole lot more than anyone else when we met,” I said as I mimed giving her back a baby.

We recounted the story as we weaved through the base.

* * *

Six weeks earlier …

Our helicopter circled the ruins of a hotel. In the briefing, they mentioned it was some sort of special Other hotel that had moved across the universe up until the gods left. The real target was down the sinkhole that had opened up underneath the building.

Underneath the hotel was the Kami Subete Hakubutsukan, roughly translated as the Museum of the Gods. It wasn’t exactly a museum, however. It was more of a prison for the worst of the worst the gods couldn’t—or didn’t want to—deal with.

The helicopter’s spotlight was swallowed by the depths of the hole as I peered into it. Command had attempted to deal with the threat in the usual manner: Crush it with overwhelming force and then cover it up. But a massive protective dome absorbed the bombardment, and now we were being sent down the hole.

“What do you think, Oracle?” Specialist Green said over the comlink as he waved to get my attention.

I gave him a death glare. I hated that term.

Ever since the World Army revealed their top secret Other Recognition Activity Characteristic Lore Exposure program graduates, we were immediately branded ORACLES. Our initial successes in quickly identifying high-risk Others and minimizing the damage they caused turned us into mythical luminaries within the World Army regulars.

Command at first loved our results and popularity, but soon they resented our influence and ‘psuedo-science knowledge’-based approach to missions. Graduates were banned from command positions and ranks, which suited most of us.

Not me.

“Stop calling us oracles. Everyone should go through Other training, and there’s nothing mystical or special about what we learn.”

“Sure, Sarge. Still, what do you think?” Piper said. She was a new recruit to the World Army, fresh from boot camp.

She had a lot to learn.

I rolled my eyes and looked over to Lieutenant Holgreb. She gave a small smile at my plight and killed the channel with a command override.

“It’s a hole, people. We find a path or climb down. We’re here to secure the Museum of the Gods, and anyone—Other or human—we encounter is to be detained. Got it?”

All of this made me long for my college dorm and my classes, which had been a welcome change after ten years of service. I’d been reactivated two weeks ago, after an archangel committed suicide by WMDs and had unwittingly ended my five-month reprieve.

One upside of all this: my new LT was easily the best officer I’d had the pleasure of serving with.

I gave her a small nod.

“Hang on folks, we’re going in,” came the pilot’s voice over coms.

For a moment, a rush of panic hit me; I thought he was going to take the helicopter down the hole. Instead, we moved to a small clearing north of the rupture with the rest of the platoon.

“Skullcandies, you have point,” Captain Nichols boomed. Our unit moved into position at the edge of the hole, and foot by foot we cleared a path down.

We reached the bottom and found one more obstacle in our way in the form of a large, deep canyon between us and what looked like a doorway on the other side.

At one time a wooden bridge had spanned the chasm, but someone had cut the lines securing it to our side. The bridge dangled uselessly into the darkness below on the wrong side.

“Hey guys, watch this,” I said over our unit coms.

I typed a series of commands into my data gauntlet and three drones flew in over the chasm. Tiny harpoons launched from them and sank into the bridge’s wooden boards. Slowly, they reeled the bridge back to our side.

As the rest of our unit secured the wooden bridge back to its original mooring, I found Specialist Green. I tapped him on the shoulder and pointed back to the bridge. “See, technology. Not magic.”

I could see his face turn a shade of red underneath his helmet as he gave me a wan smile. He moved past me and joined the rest of his squad. I’d never understood why people failed to respect my knowledge and position—until I had to do something they couldn’t figure out, that is.

Can’t win ‘em all.

When we entered the main hall, we were greeted by a tall, beautiful, bronze-skinned woman with the deepest black eyes I had ever seen. They weren’t the pits of darkness like that of a fallen angel or demon. Instead, they were like staring into the void of space … only to realize that the void was staring back.

Intelligence glittered there, and enough forbidden knowledge hidden within to last a thousand lifetimes.

She spoke in crystal-clear English. “Welcome to the Museum of the Gods, where the gods discarded their dead as well as the enemies they could not truly defeat. I am Lilith.”

A smile crossed her face as we all went rigid, despite years of training and mental conditioning. Slowly she held up her hands. “Who is in command? I would like to surrender.”

“I am Captain Nichols,” Nichols gulped, “and on behalf of the World Army, we will take you into custody peaceably if you give us your oath.”

Lilith crossed her arms over her chest. “I will do no such thing. Let me tell you what is going to happen here—”

“We do not bargain or negotiate terms,” Nichols burst in. “We are the World Army, and we have taken control of this area. All Others will be detained until we have appropriately determined their role in this uprising and their fitness to return to society. You will comply with my directives—or else.”

Captain Nichols lifted his rifle, and the rest of us followed in unison.

Lilith full on belly laughed.

And as she clutched her stomach and doubled over in laughter, we stood in the most awkward thirty seconds of silence ever.

When she finally stopped laughing, she took a few deep breaths while she stared at us. “Oh, wait. You’re actually serious.”

“Deadly serious.” Captain Nichols’ voice was steel. “Now, I would hate for this to turn nasty, but that can all be stopped with your oath.”

“My dear captain, do you know where you are?”

“The Museum, where all the discarded Others and artifacts the gods didn’t care for still remain.”

“Oh, that stings me, but you are only partially right. Here lie the artifacts and Others the gods felt were too powerful, and which they could not fully destroy.”

“Sounds like something the losing side would say.” The captain made some hand signals, ordering us to surround her.

She said one simple word: “No.”

Lilith blurred across the room and shattered his helmet. She wove in and out of our unit, ripping our rifles from our hands, twisting them into useless hunks of metal as she hurled them into a pile in the corner.

It was over in a matter of seconds.

She stood a half-dozen yards, a hand on one hip while she examined the nails on the other. “Now, where were we? Ah yes, let’s try this again. Who is in command?”

Specialist Green ran over to the captain and found him unconscious.

Lieutenant Holgreb stepped forward and lifted her helmet’s visor. “I am. Despite your—”

Lilith cut her off with a stare. “Let’s get this straight. The gods are gone, and in this universe they are the only powers that hoped to challenge me. My offer of ‘surrender’ is merely because the Children of Eve and their concerns are beneath me to deal with.”

We all exchanged confused glances for a moment before Holgreb spoke up. “So what is it that you’re looking for?”

“See, boys, you should always listen to the women. They’re a lot smarter than you. But then, that’s not really your fault, either. Well, Miss Holgreb, I simply wish to be left alone in the Museum and provided with a few comforts while I wait.”

“Wait for what?” I muttered.

Lilith folded her arms again. Clearly she had no intention of answering me.

Lt. Holgreb piped in before I could say anything else. “I think we can come to an arrangement. We can furnish your previous living quarters while we secure the rest of the facility and its surroundings.”

Lilith giggled. “That is very kind of you, Lieutenant.”

* * *

The thrum of helicopter blades and jet engines started to drown out our conversation as we approached the airfield.

Heidi stopped and turned to me with a wan smile on her face. “Well soldier, this is where we part ways, it seems.” She snapped me a crisp salute.

I returned her salute and nodded. “You never know, Heidi. I might just need some help babysitting one of these days.”

We laughed for a moment before she turned and walked away. I watched her go for a few seconds and then headed over to the waiting helicopter.

The Museum was a two-hour hike through forested mountains to a ruined dimensional hotel, but it was only a ten-minute helicopter ride. Being an officer had some perks, and I was going to enjoy them. After twelve hours of Grendel-hunting, the helicopter ride was a nice reprieve.

The Museum was mostly uninhabited—just like the rest of the pristine, isolated island it resided on in the middle of the Pacific. Good news was, we had doubled its population to two: Lilith and her new neighbor, Grendel.

I crossed the wooden bridge spanning the chasm to the Museum, unchallenged by the guards. There were benefits to recognition sometimes, but I couldn’t help but think about at least a dozen Others who could exploit my visage to gain entry.

But who willingly enters a prison?

Over the past few weeks, I’d made frequent trips to the Museum. It was part of my duties to catalog who and what all was supposed to be inside. Initially, the Museum appeared to be completely devoid of everything except for Lilith, but as we explored its depths, we ran across a number of significant artifacts.

Now the Museum was going to be my home for the foreseeable future.

I knew it was useless to defend giving Lilith an iPad, but to be fair, I did put the child lock on it. I tried, and that should count for something. Lilith had been an invaluable source of information, and when she asked for books so she could “learn the depths of our ignorance,” I’d given her an iPad with a very limited library pre-installed.

Turns out that even oracles can be suckers.

I stared at the empty spaces, structures and passages as I wove through the halls of the Museum toward Lilith. It was hard to even comprehend the treasures that had once resided in these halls. It did make me smile to see Grendel sulking in a corner in the hastily built prison cell next to hers.

Lilith beamed as I approached. “Ahh! There’s the prodigal son.” She looked up from her iPad and tapped it dramatically.

I wonder how long it’ll take before Grendel starts annoying her …

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. Lilith smiled at me and motioned for me to check my phone. I pulled it out and read a text message I’d evidently sent myself: The Ark of the Covenant is missing.

I stared dumbstruck at Lilith. "What do you mean, the Ark of the Covenant is missing?"

Internally, I was annoyed that she had hacked into my account and was able to message me as me, but I’d learned to pick my battles.

Or at least, I was learning to do that now.

Lilith batted her eyes at me, a coy smile crossing her face. "What I mean is that the Ark was in the Museum, and since it can't walk itself out of the Museum, someone must have taken it. Now, it may not be a big deal since humanity has nuclear weapons, so I can understand your lack of concern.”

Others and their silly games.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t important, but I wasn’t aware the Ark of the Convent had been found. At least, not in modern history.”

“Oh, that explains things. I watched this quaint film where the Nazis got it, but they were kind of destroyed in the process and it went into a warehouse.” She grimaced as she spoke, emphasizing the Nazis’ horrific destruction.

For a supremely powerful being, she adored cinema and tended to confuse blockbuster movies with documentaries. It made conversations difficult, to say the least.

“We’ve been over this, Lilith. That is what we call fiction. It never happened.” I kept my voice level, doing my best not reveal my annoyance.

She gripped her chin thoughtfully. “Huh, it is a strangely accurate representation of what really happened to the Philistines when they stole the Ark.” Lilith gave me a bored look and made several taps on her iPad. She unpaused a movie and started to laugh as screams of terror came through the speakers.

As the dialogue went on, I realized what film she was watching. "Are you watching—"

"Yes, and it's quite good. This Jones fellow is downright comical—he destroys more artifacts than he saves. Besides, like I said, this the closest to an accurate representation of the Ark's power I could find."

"The Ark is still that powerful?" There was a lot of debate around exactly what powers the Ark had possessed in the past. And in this GoneGod World, it should be weaker, if not downright inert.

“It’s hard to say with the gods absent, but I’m going to say yes. Especially since someone stole it from the Museum of the Gods.”

My mind raced as I tried to process what she was saying.

"While the big man himself may have taken off, I assure you, the Ark's powers are intact." She giggled at the sound of dying Nazis in the movie.

I’m sure that if my dark skin was capable of going white, I would have as I felt the blood drain from my face. “Accurate? You mean the Ark of the Covenant is some sort of weapon of mass destruction? I knew it blew down the Walls of Jericho and brought about the plagues, but it’s more powerful than that?”

Lilith didn’t look up from her iPad, but nodded. “I thought you and your little World Army friends were trying to keep a lid on the various weapons of mass destruction that were in here. Was I wrong?"

I slowly nodded my head. “You aren’t wrong ...”

Lilith tapped her iPad and looked up at me with a cruel smile on her face. “Yes.”

I arched an eyebrow at her in confusion. “What do you mean, ‘yes?’ ”

“Yes, I am going to help you. As long as you agree to my terms …” Her words trailed off as she watched me.

I gulped, wondering how outlandish her demands were. There was no harm in hearing her out. “OK, what are your terms?”

She turned and slowly sat down on the bench in her cell. She cocked her head to the side and smiled. “I will do you this favor, but someday—and that day may never come—I will call upon you to do a favor for me.”

Was she really quoting The Godfather at me? I had to choke back a laugh at Lilith’s terrible Italian accent; the last thing I wanted to do was annoy someone older than sin.

Still, she was offering me something. And given what she knew—and what I didn’t—it would be wise to take her up on the offer.

And I couldn’t deny that if the first woman—a being of immense knowledge, if not power—was worried about the whereabouts of the Ark, I should be, too.

I grinned at her. “So how do we seal our deal? Do we spit and shake hands? Cut our palms and share blood?”

Lilith’s face twisted in disgust. “That is downright barbaric. I have no ideas what blood-borne diseases you might carry.”

“That’s harsh, lady. Downright brutal.” I held my hand over my heart in mock-pain.

Lilith rose from her bench and walked up to the cell’s bars. “Swear it. That is all I need—your word.”

“I swear that when the time comes, I will aid you, Lilith.” I knelt and waved my hand in her direction for effect.

She laughed and turned away, tapping furiously on her iPad. “You are too melodramatic.”

I rose to my feet. For all of Lilith’s strangeness, I found her funny, despite her quirks. “So, what’s our silver bullet?”

Lilith spun around, her mouth curled in confusion. “Werewolves are no longer. We don’t need a silver bullet, or anything else silver. We need a tracker, and I have just the woman for the job.” She waved her iPad at me.

“You know someone that can track the Ark of the Covenant down? How the heck did you find her?”

If this just took a simple web search, I was going to be more than annoyed. I’d just given Lilith—a woman God feared enough to banish for all eternity not to hell, but to an extradimensional prison—an open-ended favor. I pushed down anger over the thought that I had been played so easily.

“Nulgrath and I go way back, like the Roman empire before it putrefied in its own excess vomit way back in antiquity.” She stopped for a moment and looked at the ceiling, tapping her lower jaw as she thought. “No, that’s not right. It was more like Babylon. Totally forgot about that … Well, that doesn’t matter.”

“When was the last time you talked to this Nulgrath?”

“St Agapetus was pope at the time, if that helps.”

“That was fourteen centuries ago!”

I started pacing as frustration overwhelmed me. A lot could happen in a millennium and a half, so who knew where this Nulgrath was now? Assuming she was even alive.

As if she’d read my mind, Lilith purred, “Yes, but I know where she is now.” She batted her eyes at me again with childlike innocence.

“How in the Empty Hell can you know that?”

She showed me the screen on her iPad. On it was the Facebook profile of an orc.

Chapter 4

I left the Museum and Lilith with two goals in mind: a shower and bed. In the morning, I’d find this Nulgrath and see if I could convince her to help. It was probably going to be the last time I would be at the barracks, and I had a sneaking suspicion that I was going to find little peace or personal space being roomies with Lilith.

I just might be the first mortal to name-drop Lilith in a thousand years.

It was nearly midnight when the helicopter landed, and the base was still a flurry of activity. I quickly debarked and started weaving through the armored vehicles and people rushing around. It was hard to believe the press of equipment, personnel and Others moving around.

Six weeks ago, two massive groups of Others had fought on this remote island near Okinawa, a battle that ended with the World Army dropping bombs on the island. No one was sure which Other it was, but a massive dome of energy had popped up and rendered the strikes harmless.

Afterward, the army landed on the island and proceeded to round up every Other we could find. We placed them in protective custody until we could determine what their role was in the near-resurrection of three dead gods.

We called it 3DG Day, because we’re the army … and the army loves its acronyms.

In that time, several large structures were hastily constructed to house the Others, and they dominated the base. It took a lot of manpower to keep the peace; not every Other got along before this philosophical divide about the gods came up.

Every day, more and more World Army troops continued to arrive.

I paused as I turned down the pathway to my barracks. I groaned inwardly, remembering General Shouf telling me that I was going to live in the Museum. I really hoped she hadn’t ordered my belongings moved there already.

Someone swept my leg out from under me and pushed at the same time. I caught myself, rolled back up to my feet and spun around, ready for a fight. Was there another Other skirmish breaking out? They were unfortunately commonplace these days.

My heart leaped into my throat instead.

“You were really just going to walk by me and not even say anything? Ugh, you’re a lieutenant now? How much Kool-Aid have they gotten you to drink?”

Meili Chen stood in front of me, hands on her hips, all five foot three of her filled with contempt for me. I could see it pouring through every part of her being. She was dressed in a smart, pin-striped pantsuit with an attaché case strapped across one shoulder.

This time I groaned out loud.

This was the last place I’d expected to run into my ex-fiancée.

A faint “Hooah” escaped my lips. “Hi, Meili. I simply didn’t see you there. But didn’t you make it clear I shouldn’t talk to you?”

“I thought maybe once you mustered out, you’d come to your senses. Instead, you came back to be a part of this?” She pointed at the camps where all the Others involved with 3DG Day were being held. She tsked in that way that used to drive me crazy. Both with rage and—under the right circumstances—lust. And love.

I resisted the well of conflicting emotions raging through my weary mind; I wanted to hug her and yell at the same time. It was aggravating to have such an old argument pop back up a year after we’d called things off. “I was in school and they called me back up. Legally required—which, if I remember correctly, was something you pointed out while you were still pre-law.” Then I held up a hand. “Hang on a second, what are you doing here?”

Meili stalked forward till she was inside my personal space, and I thought for a moment she was going to hit me again. “I’m here on behalf of iORC, the International Other Rights Council. They requested my services, and I couldn’t really say no to the publicity or the pay.”

I almost facepalmed. What we were doing here after 3DG Day would be a human rights violation if we were detaining humans, but since they were Others … well, just how far our legal systems and their protections extended was up for serious debate. And where there’s controversy, prestige and money, you’re sure to find Meili.

She was a brilliant lawyer, a kind and gentle soul—at least, for the most part. Other Rights had driven a wedge between us, and we weren’t able to get around it. She fought hard against the injustices handed out to Others and defended them vigorously.

As long as they could pay her fee.

Even though my job was to hunt down Others, I did so to protect humanity and the Other community at large. Who they were—and their means—mattered less to me than their individual stories and challenges. I’d tried to convince her to take pro-bono cases where it was clear the Other was the victim, but instead she chose to protect ex-vampires from their victims’ families and descendants. Her argument was about choosing the right battles to win the war.

Obviously we didn’t see eye to eye on what constituted the ‘right’ battles.

She grinned as the lightbulb went off for me.

Tiberius wandered out of the crowd of people flowing around us to rub against Meili’s leg. Too bad she couldn’t feel him there.

She’d really loved that dog.

“Traitor,” I muttered under my breath as Tiberius rubbed up against her legs and whined for her attention. Even though he had been dead for five years, he didn’t take their split well when it happened.

Meili’s grin vanished.

Crap, she thought I meant her.

“Well, Lieutenant Falls, I’m about to meet a very dangerous Other I’m representing this week. And I’m formally requesting that you escort me to the meeting.”

“Meili, I have orders, and they don’t involve babysitting you while you gather statements from pixies.”

She reached into her attaché and shoved a piece of paper into my face. “Oh, you have orders all right. I know you read slow, so I’ll wait for it to process.”

My shoulders sank as I read the page. “Really, Meili? You want me? Right now?” I handed her back the piece of paper.

On it, signed by General Shouf and several other senior officers, was an order of protection. iORC lawyers and their staff had the right to protection should they feel they were meeting with an Other “capable of extreme violence and destruction”—one with whom they had not formed a formal relationship.

All legalese for: she could demand any soldier, anywhere, to accompany her to her first meeting with an Other. I was sure leadership had signed off on this, because then we’d have someone present who could report back.

But the timing was GoneGodsDamned awful.

A mischievous grin slowly spread across her face. “Oh yes, most definitely. I think you need to see the handiwork of your precious World Army.” She turned and started walking toward the largest enclosure.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but that was a tealight candle flame compared to a world-class lawyer who had called off our wedding because she thought I was a full-blown Otherist, and a hypocrite, at that.

Tiberius and I followed her silently through the camp and into the building, weaving through the holding rooms. It was the first time I’d entered any of the camps since I had arrived on the island, and there were at least four or five times more Others crammed in here than I’d expected. As we walked through the twisting corridors, I saw a number of injured Others, and we needed to make way as a group of soldiers carried the body of an ogre out of one room.

Inside the room, two soldiers were hosing the ogre’s green blood off an elf strapped to the wall. She had two ogre-fist-sized bruises on her back.

I shook my head at the obvious mistake of putting an ogre and an elf in the same room.

Meili was blessedly silent, although I could tell she wanted to say something. We passed through a high-security checkpoint, and unlike the rest of the facility, this section held cells.

We walked past a chimera, its lion head bowing to us as the dragon head breathed fire at us. I grabbed Meili and leaped down the hall with her as the flames washed up against a translucent wall. I let go of her sheepishly as two guards snickered at me.

“Hey, you requested protection,” I said. “Um, where is your ‘client,’ anyway?”

“Close.” Meili looked down at her watch and back at the numbers on the nearby cells. “He should be over here.”

We rounded the corner and approached another cell guarded by eight soldiers with heavy machine guns and surface-to-air missile launchers. This one was unlike the others we had passed; it was a steel dome over a twenty-foot pit, with several small windows I doubted were made out of glass dotting its surface.

I peered inside, and there was a dragon.

This one was much smaller than the dragons I’d seen before, about as big as a medium-sized horse. Its gleaming blue scales were marred by dozens of black scars where its hide had been shredded in battle. Each of his four legs had iron bands around them that matched a detonation collar around his neck. Its wings were banded to his side, tight enough that I could tell it was affecting how deeply it could breathe in.

Our base in Okinawa had been attacked by dragons, but I thought they had all been killed in the fighting. It’s pretty hard to subdue a 60-ton lizard with Brazilian Jujitsu, so the big guns had literally been turned on them in the battle. This dragon wasn’t even an eighth of their size, but command was still terrified of it getting out.

And with good reason. A one-eighth-sized dragon is still one-eighth dragon, with all the abilities of a full-sized, fire-breathing, indestructible-skin and sharp-toothed dragon.

Meili choked back a gasp. “It’s worse than I was told.”

I looked up from the dragon to Meili. “I wasn’t aware we had captured a dragon alive.”

She stared down into the pits for a few moments before responding. “That’s because he never attacked the base. He was ‘placed into protective custody’ after the Museum was opened.”

There was no way that she should have any idea that the Museum was still connected to our world at the bottom of a cavern ten miles away. The official story was that after 3DG Day, the Museum had disappeared.

“I’m going to pretend you’re supposed to know about the Museum for a moment,” I said. “I’m sure this guy here wasn’t in there, so where did he come from?”

Meili turned and gave me the hard stare she used when cross-examining hostile witnesses. “Information wants to be free, Landon. You can’t control it, and you can’t restrict it. You should know that.”

Ugh, not this again. Classified meant something to me, along with need to know, because that information often meant the difference between life and death. Meili, on the other hand, believed the public had the right to know everything the government knew. She used to wheedle information the World Army had collected on Others out of me so she could use it in cases. Of course, I’d never realized it until it was too late. One of the reasons she was a great lawyer—she could make people talk.

I shook my head. “We’re not doing that dance again. You’re too smart for your own good, so I know you’re showing me this as part of your grand plan. Just cut to the chase.”

“Over the last few weeks, rumors about the Hotel and the Museum began to surface. It wasn’t long before its existence was confirmed,” she said flatly.

“Not surprising. This is a rather small island with a large and ever-growing population. The Hotel and the Museum of the Gods are common knowledge, but what isn’t common knowledge is what happened with the Museum. What’s so special about this guy?”

Other than being a dragon who probably has a hoard from which he can pay her handsomely.

Meili turned toward me. “You know there were Others helping the World Army on 3DG Day, right? Others who were fighting those who wanted the gods to return, even if they were terrible gods like the Three?”

“That’s the story, but it’s above my pay grade to dig into it. I’ve had my commission for”—I checked my watch for effect—“all of four hours, so forgive me if I’m behind on the scuttlebutt. I can neither confirm nor deny anything you’ve heard.”

“Stop hiding behind orders, rank and whatever else they’re feeding you. Open your eyes. Ben”—she gestured to the dragon—“not only fought the Others trying to bring back the dead gods, but his wounds are from fighting something that escaped from the Museum.”

Meili turned away from me to hide the moisture in her eyes. There was still a part of me that wanted to reach out and hold her, to tell her that things would be alright.

That time had passed, through.

“Is this another thing you found out through the grapevine of leaking sources?”

Meili wiped her tears away, her confidence returning as she stood defiantly. “Yes, that’s why I’m here. To get Ben’s side of the story and hopefully make his plight known. To stop this barbaric treatment.”

“Meili, he’s a GoneGodsDamned dragon. They’re majestic engines of destruction. And the fact is, we don’t know who’s telling the truth, let alone what side any Other was really on, or if there even really was a ‘resistance’ helping the World Army.”

I paced for a moment, frustrated that somehow, a year and ten thousand miles later, I was having nearly the exact same argument with my now ex-fiancée. She always pulled on the heartstrings when it involved her clients, never mind the scores of Others we’d passed on the way here. What in the Empty Hell did I do to deserve this?

“I really shouldn’t be surprised. I hoped that some time away from the military would have made you realize the bigotry they were feeding you. I guess not.” She turned away from me and unslung her attaché case. “You can go now. I can find my own way back. I’m sure you have some important mission to run off to.” She pulled out a legal pad and a pen before approaching the guards at the cell door.

I turned to leave when I heard her call out to me.

“Landon. Just so you know, Ben never raised a tooth or claw against any humans. He’s complied willingly with all their demands, and this is how he’s treated.”

I spun around just in time to watch her enter the cell and the door close behind her.

Chapter 5

When I looked up Nulgrath Greenblood’s address, I figured what I found was her business address and she worked for the City of Tokyo.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I thought I was arriving at an office building, but it turned out to be a waste treatment facility. After forty-five minutes of heated conversations with the facility manager and promises that I was in no way going to harm Nulgrath or dishonor their agreement, and after surrendering my sidearm, he finally let me into the facility.

I didn’t fail to notice that he didn’t provide me with any safety equipment.

Strapping on my own ventilator, I descended into the bowls of the main waste treatment facility of one of the largest cities in the world. I wove through the maze of tunnels, past pools of untreated gray water (and worse) to the office space where Nulgrath lived.

The passageways themselves were relatively clean, but the ventilator was having a near-impossible time keeping the stench from overpowering my sense of smell and my gut.

The office door was covered in adorable sloth pictures and memes. I paused to read them before knocking on the door, and I was surprised to find a theme among the sloths as they passed on their meme-ing wisdom … Peter Jackson is the monster, not the orcs.

The door swung open as I reached for the doorknob. On the other side stood a green-gray, heavily muscled woman with small tusks jutting from her mouth and coal-black eyes. I suddenly understood her relationship with Peter Jackson.

Standing before me was a near exact copy of a Tolkien orc as Peter Jackson had envisioned them. She could have either been inspiration for the movies or even an actor in the films. Her hairless brows were boney and thick, her ears were pointed and sloped toward the back of her head and her lips couldn’t fully cover her teeth. Her filthy, stringy, black-and-gray hair was tied back in an elaborate war knot, which, along with her small tusks, stood out as more reminiscent of orcs from Dungeons & Dragons or other role-playing games.

“What do you want, human? I’m a busy person, and I don’t have time for your useless games.” Nulgrath’s guttural voice bounced off the tunnel walls.

“I was told you’re one of the best trackers in the world, and I’m in need of a tracker.” Opening my mouth was a mistake. The wretched air coated my tongue, and I nearly gagged into my ventilator.

“You were told wrong.”

I cocked my head. “You are Nulgrath of the Elysium Fields, right? Are there other orcs here?”

Nulgrath gave me a toothy grin. “Oh, I am Nulgrath. But I’m not one of the best trackers.”

“Let me guess, you’re the best tracker.”

“Nope. Now go away.” She stuck out her tongue at me and waggled her fingers for me to shoo. She stepped toward me and started to close the door.

I stepped into the doorway and blocked the door from closing.

Judging by her bulging muscles and stout frame, I had no doubt she could have forced me out, but she stopped. “Hmmm, maybe you have a little bit elf blood in you. Only those GoneGodsDamn lightfoots could be this stubborn.”

“Look, my source was positive that you could help me find what I’m looking for. It’s pretty important, so I’m sure she didn’t send me on a wild goose chase to deal with an orc with an axe to grind with humans.” I edged a little farther into the doorway and peered into the room beyond.

Funny that I would mention an axe. A battle-axe with twin, gleaming blades lay on the table in what was otherwise a sparse and ultra-clean room. Dark wood chairs and a table surrounded a massive 70- or 80-inch TV sitting on polished wood floors.

Definitely not what I’d expected.

“Oh, I don’t have a problem with humans,” Nulgrath said. “I have a problem with a human. One—singular.”

“What could he possibly have done? He’s a filmmaker.”

She stepped back into the room and spun around slowly. “He knew too much!”

All I could do was nod in agreement with her. It was hard to tell if my first impression was influenced by the pictures on her door, but the resemblance went beyond looks to include the way she moved and her mannerisms.

I wondered if there was some sort of defamation suit she could file. I knew a lawyer who’d help her out …

“As coincidental as that is, I think it’s pretty cool,” I said. “Instant fame.”

She cradled her face in both of her hands. “GoneGods, you’re dumb. Sure, we’re famous as stupid brutes who follow an incorporeal eye that’s eventually beaten by two children running right through his army and up the side of a volcano to destroy the artifact his soul is bound to.”

I gave her a half-smile. “Oh. I didn’t think of that.”

She looked up and gave me a withering glare. “This is my shocked face. Run along—the last thing I want to hear are more ‘One-eyed Other in the land of the blind’ jokes.”

“So, I guess you aren’t going to help me then.” I fell silent as Nulgrath held up her hand and looked away.

She took a long breath in through her nose and then looked slowly back at me. “Not. A. Chance.”

I gave her a short bow and left. The door shut behind me with a thud.

Less than ten seconds later, I heard Nulgrath laughing hysterically as her door opened. I turned to see her with a satchel slung across her body and her battle-axe strapped to her back.

She was on an iPhone, Facetiming someone and letting out bellows of laughter as tears streamed down her face. “You should have seen his dumb face. He was so confused!” Nulgrath said to whoever was on the other side of that conversation.

As she approached, she held out the phone so I could see who was on the other end. “Say hi to Lilith.”

I groaned and shook my head at my denseness. “Hi, Lilith.” I gave her a small wave.

Lilith smiled broadly, kindly holding back her laughter. “Lieutenant Falls, I see my companion Nulgrath gave you a warm welcome.”

“A very warm, engaging welcome. Thanks.” I paused for a second. A massive smile crossed my face as I found an appropriate vent for my frustration. “That was sarcasm, too. I wasn’t sure if that was around before you got put in your box there.”

Before Lilith could respond, Nulgrath pulled the phone away. “Gotta go, but we’ll catch up soon, OK? We’ve got, what, a millennium or two of stories to share.” With that, she hung up her call.

Nulgrath strode past me, and I had to hurry to catch up. “Well Landon, let’s get to work.”

“What the heck was that all about?” I was more than slightly irritated, but I did my best to hold it in. “You knew Lilith sent me?”

She chuckled for a moment. “She didn’t tell me exactly when you were arriving, but she did tell me to Facetime her later today. I’d know when to call, she said.”

I stopped Nulgrath and turned her around by the shoulder. “How did you know?”

“I would have busted your balls anyway, coming down here to bother me with such a stupid request. Like I want to work for the World Army. But I could smell Lilith on you, and any friend of hers is a friend of mine. I haven’t seen that woman in over a thousand years, but my nose and my axe are always at her service.”

My anger and frustration almost overtook my need to find the Ark. All I really wanted to do was tell this arrogant, pompous Other off and walk out. “So, you are a tracker?”

“Among other things, yes. I’ll find whatever we’re looking for. We can discuss that in a bit, but we should get going.” She spun on her heels and strode off toward the stairs. “C’mon, I hope you run faster than you can think.”

I broke into a run and met her loping gait. “Why are we running?”

“Because something nasty is following your stench, and I don’t want to fight them down here.”

Dust and small pieces of stone fell from the tunnel’s ceiling as an explosion rumbled overhead.

Chapter 6

Nulgrath burst through the doors to the courtyard to a smoke-filled field of chaos. Everyone working at the facility was running for their lives, trying to get away from nearly six-foot-tall, red-orange dogs with flames for eyes. My heart went out to the family of one man as a hound leapt twenty feet and its jaws closed around his midsection.

“Fight now, mourn later!” Nulgrath bellowed as she brandished her axe and charged forward.

Right now I was really wishing I had insisted on keeping my sidearm when I entered the facility. They had been worried I was going to shoot Nulgrath when I found her.

After meeting her, I understood why.

A gout of fire rushed my way as the oversized dog rushed me. I rolled out of the way as the flames washed over the steel door. Parts of the door slid in a white-hot goop to the ground and briefly ignited the grass.

I’d never expected to meet a hellhound, let alone a pack of them, in the field of battle.

As I came to my feet and looked around for a weapon, Nulgrath juked around to the side of the charging hellhound and buried her axe in its neck with a vicious upstroke. She lifted the entire thing up in an arc over her head before slamming it back into the ground.

One down!

One of seven, that is. With six left, I considered those good odds. I watched as a security guard shot the female hellhound stalking him. She continued forward, unfazed by the shells slamming into her hide.

Seems to be the theme recently.

I sprinted toward the man and tackled him to the ground just as a blast of flame shot from the hellhound’s mouth at the spot where he had once stood.

“We’re going to die! We’re going to die!” the man screamed in Japanese as he curled up in a fetal position.

I pulled his taser and the baton next to it from his belt before scrambling to my feet. The hellhound kept slowly approaching, scenting the air before she raised her lips in a mockery of a grin.

I chuckled. “You think I’m afraid of you.”

She stopped in midstride and tilted her head to the side.

Oh crap, it understands English.

Flicking the baton, it extended with a snap as I charged forward. She opened its mouth in anticipation and her eyes widened in surprise as I hurled the baton at her as I slid to the ground at her feet.

I heard the baton slam into the hellhound’s face as I slid between her front legs and jammed the taser between her ribs.

Everything went exactly as I’d planned. That was part of the problem, too.

The hellhound didn’t expect me to get that close, so when I tased her, every muscle in her massive frame convulsed until she collapsed on top of me. At least I had the presence of mind to release the shock as her bulk fell on top of me.

The good news was that the hellhound was unconscious. The bad news was that my legs were pinned underneath her bulk.

As I struggled to pull my legs out from underneath the creature, I saw that Nulgrath had dispatched another hellhound, and a third was hurt bad enough that two of its companions had joined in to keep her off them.

That left one remaining hellhound, which I couldn’t find in the now nearly deserted courtyard. I checked the HUD display on my gauntlet; the closest drones available were over five minutes away. They might as well be on the moon.

I was able to clear my left leg with one good shove and quickly unsheathed my knife, letting the hound’s bulk roll back onto my other leg.

Thumpf, thumpf ... Thumpf … Thumpf.

I could hear the last hellhound running toward my back. My leg, still trapped by the fallen hellhound’s body, kept me from seeing its approach. I let the stillness wash over me as I focused my ears on the sounds it made while running. When it launched itself off the ground, I twisted back as far as I could and stabbed.

The ceramic blade caught underneath the beast’s jaw, cutting flesh and bone. Searing-hot blood boiled away the first few layers of skin on my arm as the hellhound’s momentum turned my thrust into a jagged tear through its bottom jaw and into its throat.

The hellhound skidded to the ground beside me, its blood evaporating into smoke as it made contact with the air. My hand and arm were burned, but I felt very little as I worked my other leg free and got to my feet.

One of the hellhounds facing Nulgrath had been wounded when she’d scored a hit on its flank. The strike cost her, as its partner rushed in and caught her leg in its teeth.

She had to let go of her axe and brought her fists down in a hammer strike on the creature’s skull, right between its eyes. There was a loud crack as the hellhound’s skull cracked from the blow and released its grip.

When Nulgrath’s axe fell from her hands, the other hellhound pivoted and prepared to leap on her, but fell back as I hurled my knife.

The remaining hellhound, seeing her companion fall to the ground, turned and sprinted away past the cowering plant workers through a hole melted into the fencing.

Taser in hand, I spun, looking for the last beast. It had been wounded, but I didn’t see its body.

“Where’s the last one?” I shouted.

Nulgrath pointed to a small building fifty feet away. “It crawled back behind there.” She looked at the wound on her leg, shook it for a moment and then grinned as she picked up her battle-axe.

I started forward to join her as she walked toward the building, then stopped. Turning around, I tased the hellhound again and recovered the shaken officer’s pistol. I cleared and reloaded it before heading over.

“Nulgrath, hold up.”

She stopped just short of rounding the building and gave me a withering glare. It wasn’t hard to translate her look of I was trying to sneak up on it, thanks.

I held up my hand, hoping that she would understand that I wanted her to hold position. I wasn’t sure what kind of silent unit commands orcs had, or if they even had anything other than berserker mode, based on how I’d seen Nulgrath fight.

I circled wide until I could see the hellhound. Just as I thought, it had crawled behind the building and turned around, waiting for someone to come around the corner. Its jaws opened to breathe another blast of hellfire, but it caught four bullets instead.

I’d opened fired, and I didn’t stop until the beast slumped to the ground, the hellfire dying in its belly.

Nulgrath stepped over to its body and gave it a nudge with her foot. Evidently she wasn’t satisfied with my work, because she chopped its head off.

“Double tap?” I asked as I approached.

She looked up at me with the biggest grin on her face. “Double tap.”

We cleared the courtyard and ensured none of the fallen hellhounds were going to present a problem. I was amazed how few people had been hurt in the attack; six people were sent to the hospital, and only one had life-threatening injuries. Two people—both security guards—had perished when the hellhounds burned through the fence in their initial onslaught.

It could have been so much worse, I realized as I looked at the property damage. Nearly every building had a door burned away or a hole in the wall.

Nulgrath slapped me on the back, nearly knocking the wind from me. “Lieutenant Falls, you know how to have a good time.”

“I’m not sure we have the same definition of ‘a good time.’ ” She and I exchanged grins.

I looked out at the carnage before us, then at Nulgrath. “You’re a helluva warrior. I wasn’t expecting that. Thank you for your help.”

“It was the least I could do—truly the bare minimum. What I would like to know is why you had hellhounds tracking you down?” She sat down beside me with a thump as I finally let an EMT look at the burns on my arm.

“My guess is that their master knows I’m looking for them. Hellhounds are pretty common tier three Others, but there was something different about these,” I mused.

Nulgrath nodded silently in agreement.

I pointed to her battle-axe. “What’s the deal with that? I thought metal couldn’t pierce their hides, but your axe blades are clearly steel.”

Nulgrath examined her battle-axe closely and breathed out a sigh of relief. “Whew, I thought for a moment someone stole my axe and replaced it with some crap forged by a human. This is not steel—at least, not as you knuckleheads weave metals together.”

I waited for Nulgrath to continue, but she waved over another EMT, who promptly began to look over her wounds. We sat in silence while the medics worked on us. My burns weren’t severe, and apparently orcs heal quickly. Her black-blood scabs were already starting to fall away, with fresh, light green-gray skin underneath. And the bite hadn’t been as deep as I’d first thought.

When they finally left, I turned to Nulgrath. “So, is murderous hellhounds hunting us going to be a problem?”

“A problem? No, that is more of a—how do you say? A bonus.”

“Good. Well then, I assume you know about the Museum of the Gods?”

She nodded and leaned forward.

“Well, whomever stole the Ark of the Covenant just attacked your home. I’m still going after the Ark, and I’m going to take them down in the process. You game?”

She gave me a hoarse chuckle. “Never ask the hunter if they are game.” She looked off in the distance to the west. “It will take some time, but I can find where it is. How quickly can you get me to the top of Mt. Fuji?”

Chapter 7

Day two as an officer in the World Army on a special, top-secret mission wasn’t that terrible. Never mind the fact I technically didn’t have anyone officially assigned to my command.

Unofficially, I had two Others ‘working’ for me, one of which was confined to a prison cell.

General Shouf was downright angry at my request for an aerial extraction from Tokyo to Mt. Fuji’s summit. At first I didn’t understand why, but when it took her seven hours just to get clearance from Japan’s government for the flight, it made more sense. By the time the helicopter finally picked us up, it was pre-dawn when we arrived at Mt. Fuji.

World Army or not, it turns out most governments aren’t keen on letting us operate freely in their territory.

Nulgrath took a shower while we waited, and then commandeered my ventilator for her use—why, I didn’t understand. She spent four hours cleaning it, complaining about the stink I’d left. Turns out I can still sleep anywhere, because her complaints lulled me to sleep.

We landed at the summit of Mt. Fuji and quickly made for the other side of the caldera, as my orc companion wanted to be away from the few buildings at the top of the dormant volcano and the crowd of people who had made the overnight climb to watch the sun rise.

Nulgrath took off the ventilator, closed her eyes and grimaced as she took in a deep breath. I looked out at the countryside below and the thin cloud cover as Nulgrath took in a series of deep breaths. “So, what exactly are we doing here? Care to explain finally?”

Nulgrath took another deep breath before responding. “I’m finding the Ark.”

I feigned looking off in the distance. “It’s a solid-gold box the size of an SUV. If we could see it from here, I’m sure one of our spy satellites would have found it by now.”

She laughed at me and took in another deep breath, slowly turning in place. “That is true, which is why I am not using my vision. It’s also why Lilith recommended me—I’m using my nose.”

My eyes narrowed as I looked at her dubiously. “You’re going to smell out an ancient artifact that was previously locked away for nearly two thousand years?” Suddenly I was wondering how much time I’d wasted.

“Do you know why I live at the waste treatment facility?”

“No, but I assume it has something to do with your sense of smell.”

“Someone give this man a prize. As the angels say, aren’t you just the cleverest monkey? Yes, I live there because it drowns out the stench of the world.”

She kept up her slow spin and held up a hand for me to be silent.

I stood there with her for nearly an hour as she breathed in the fresh mountain air, and eventually she stopped rotating and transitioned to swaying gently as she faced southwest. Her breathing became heavier and rapidly increased as her swaying slowed. Finally, her eyes flicked open and she took a final, long draw of air.

Nulgrath’s lips pulled back in a toothy grin. “See, that was easy. I know where the Ark is.”

I raised a dubious eyebrow. “You sniffed out an ancient artifact that has been locked away for over a thousand years? You can smell gold?”

“No.”

I stared at her in silence.

Her grin faded a bit. “Not going to give me the satisfaction of asking more ignorant questions?”

I shook my head.

“Fine. Ever wonder why orcs prefer to live in filth? It’s not because we’re dirty like we let everyone else think. No, human—we live in filth because it’s the only way we can keep from being overwhelmed by all the smells surrounding us.”

“That makes no sense.” My stomach dropped; I was suddenly worried that it had been a mistake to trust Lilith and her friend here.

“Only because you can’t experience it like we can. All the muck and dirt serve as a type of filter, like you’d use sunglasses. Without our protective layers of dirt, sweat, blood and other things, it’s like staring directly into the sun.”

I filed that under interesting and potentially useful information. That was definitely not in our training manuals about orcs. Then again, the world had learned a lot about Others in the last five years, much of which had turned out to be false.

“Question everything,” I whispered to myself.

She gave me a curious look, and I motioned for her to ignore my comment. “So you cleaned off to blind yourself? I still don’t get how you found the Ark.”

She shook her head. “Not exactly. Coming up here gives me some space. Every person, Other and object possesses their own unique smell.”

I rolled my eyes. “OK, well that clears up everything.”

Nulgrath started to dig into the earth with her hands, covering herself with the volcanic dirt. “Good. We should get going.”

“Where to?”

She shrugged and pointed to the southwest. “Somewhere over there. Real tracking is a little different from pulling up a map on the internet and getting directions through your GPS.” She gave me a bump on the shoulder as she walked past me to the helicopter.

“Most trackers can’t scent something from hundreds of miles away, either,” I pointed out. “How was I supposed to know you didn’t have the Other equivalent of Google Maps in your head? Usually when someone says they know where the target is, it’s precise—not ‘It’s over there somewhere.’ ”

Nulgrath gave me a sideways glance over her shoulder and shrugged.

As we climbed into the waiting helicopter, the pilot gave me a crisp salute as he initiated the startup sequence. “Where to, sir?”

I gave a short laugh and pointed roughly in the direction Nulgrath had indicated earlier. “We’re going ‘that way.’ ”

“Sir? We need a flight plan. I can’t really just go ‘that way.’ ”

“Today, that’s exactly what we’re going to do. If someone gives you flak, tell them they can take it up with the general.” I leaned back in my seat and strapped in.

I could see the pilot shake his head as the rotors spun up and we lifted off.

Chapter 8

Nulgrath had pinpointed the Ark’s location as the local shrine of a small city in Kofu province. The place reminded me of the American Midwest, with small fields dotting the landscape and homes with large gardens. I wanted to try and sneak up on the local shrine, but I finally had to agree with Nulgrath that we were going to stick out no matter what.

We walked a mile and half through the outskirts of the city to the shrine, collecting plenty of stares. I wasn’t allowed to wear my uniform, but that didn’t stop me from carrying multiple pistols and my visible M4 rifle. Nulgrath had smeared war paint over her body and wore her battle-axe along with a number of hardened leather plates that served as makeshift armor.

The locals quickly cleared the streets as we approached, which was exactly what we wanted.

I wonder how mad they were that the local police had never showed. I was smart enough to call in our arrival and keep the local constables off our backs.

We crossed the street to the large stone courtyard at the entrance to the shrine, and Nulgrath growled something I didn’t understand. She growled something else and stopped, poised to charge across the stones. She sniffed the air rapidly.

When I said nothing, she shot me an annoyed glance. “You really should learn Orcish. I said ‘hellhounds.’ I smell a lot of them—way more than last time.” She pointed at the entrance to the shrine, which was shrouded in darkness as the sun set.

“Is the Ark here?” I scanned the area, disliking how much we were out in the open right now. The posted hours indicated the shrine was open to visitors, but we were the only two souls I could see.

“Definitely. Not far, either.”

The smell of brimstone and sulfur hit me as a dozen sets of eyes glowed from the darkness beyond. A chorus of growls reverberated from the entryway as a pack of hellhounds stalked into the sunlight.

Nulgrath grinned as she readied her axe. “See? This is why I said stealth was pointless.”

More hellhounds stalked out from the sides of the courtyard, adding to the growing thrum of growls. They slowly closed ranks, forming a semi-circle in front of us.

I clicked the safety off the grenade launcher mounted to my M-4. “Danger close.”

Two thumpfs went off in quick succession as I fired my grenade launcher into their ranks. Twin booms rumbled through the courtyard and off the ancient wood columns as waves of sound slammed into my chest from the explosion of the sonic grenades.

Memnock Securities had come through again.

Even though I’d been expecting the explosions and my earpieces dampened the screeching grenades, I barely stayed on my feet.

The hellhounds were flung away and slammed into the ground, stunned by the concussion and waves of high-intensity sound punishing their ears.

Times like this, I was glad the World Army spent so much money on Memnock Securities tech.

Nulgrath charged to my right, cleaving her way through the stunned and fallen hellhounds. I opened fire with my M4 on the other side, taking careful aim as I shot each fallen beast. They convulsed and twitched as each taser round struck them and released their charge.

A few hellhounds received double doses as Nulgrath made her bloody way through them. In less than a minute, we were all that remained in the courtyard.

I lifted my rifle as I joined Nulgrath at the shrine entrance, and smiled broadly. “Well, that wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

As we approached the darkness, I realized that pitch-black inkiness consumed the space beyond the entryway. A quick glance confirmed what my eyes were seeing: someone was burning time to keep this shroud up.

Nulgrath wiped down her battle-axe and nodded toward the unnatural darkness. “Gatecrashing is the easy part. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Hellhounds certainly couldn’t have moved the Ark—not on their own, at least.”

“Want me to move the drones in?” I nodded toward the darkness beyond.

“No, I can smell the Others beyond. There’s—” She paused for a moment, scenting the air. “Four. Might be more hellhounds beyond as well.”

“Ladies first.” I held my hand out, feigning chivalry.

“Oh, no. After you, glorious commander.” She winked and gave me a hungry, toothy grin.

I stepped through the curtain of darkness into the main shrine and was nearly blinded by the bright light coming from deep in the woods on the other side. The evening sky was blotted out by the same curtain of darkness, and I could barely hear the sounds of the city beyond. A number of stone paths weaved their way through the large courtyard, past various small buildings and other structures.

A bulge of darkness expanded next to me and then popped, revealing Nulgrath. She quickly covered her eyes with one hand and blinked, trying to readjust to light. “Well, I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Ha. At least we know where the Ark is at.”

In my periphery, I caught Tiberius meandering effortlessly through the wall of darkness. He was a few feet away from me and let out a low growl.

Shadows passed over us as three massive humanoid shapes emerged from the woods. Purple orbs burned in their heads as they approached.

“Empty Hell, we need to get out of here.” I pulled on Nulgrath’s shoulder to run back through the darkness—and I slammed into it.

The darkness was a solid wall of nothingness, radiating coldness that permeated my soul.

“I’ve taken down giants, ’High Lord’ Landon. Calm down.” Nulgrath twirled her battle-axe as she stepped forward. She paused as the three beings drew closer, their strides quickly eating up the distance between us.

“High Lord?”

Nulgrath flashed me a grin. “Yeah, you kind of act like an elf. And they’re ever so keen about their titles.”

“Nulgrath, these aren’t giants—they’re demons. But there’s something off about them.”

The trio strode forward, the middle one taking the lead. As they drew close, it became clear they were unclothed and unarmed. Their bare skin shone with metallic hues of silver and bronze, and aside from their eight-foot-tall bodies, strange eyes and skin, they looked almost human.

They slowed to a stop a half-dozen yards from us with lithe grace no beings their size should possess.

The lead demon was female, and a wicked look crossed her face as she spoke. “Child of Seth and Warrior of the UnSeelie Court, I am Aseza. Why have you come here?” Her words poured out in rich, honeyed tones.

A moment of indecision gripped me. I thought I recognized their forms as demon lords from the Lesser Key of Solomon, but as they drew near, I could tell they were at best lesser demons. I just didn’t know which order.

Nulgrath remained silent, waiting to see how I reacted. The hackles on Tiberius’s back were completely raised, and his teeth were fully bared as he continued his low, ghostly growl.

I stepped forward. “I am Lieutenant Landon Falls of the World Army, here to recover the Ark of the Covenant and return it to its rightful place.”

I gripped my M4, ready to drop back and unload my under-mounted grenade launcher. But to my surprise, Aseza looked down at me with her purple eyes and laughed.

“Tell me, fallen one, are you righteous?” she purred.

I pursed my lips for a moment before answering. “In a GoneGod World, righteousness is even more subjective. I’m doing what’s right for humanity and Others who wish to live in peace.”

She glared at me, and her lips curled cruelly. “Is that a ‘yes?’ I can’t tell any longer, with your human need for empty words.”

“That would be a yes, then. I am righteous.” Maybe not the same as being asked if you’re a god, but I figure righteousness is key to defeating a demon.

Fake it till you make it, right?

Aseza beamed at my response. “Good. I have need of your services, then.”

I could see Nulgrath dig her feet into the earth. “For what?” she called out.

The thunderous sound of stone shattering filled the shrine as a flash of light burst from the path beyond. The demons turned in unison to look back toward the light as Nulgrath and I dropped into ready positions.

Aseza waved her hand dismissively. “I was mistaken. We no longer need you.”

Aseza started walking back toward the path she had emerged from. “Kill them quickly, my children. We have work to do.”

I was suddenly dragged by my collar to my left as a demon’s foot whizzed past my head. Tiberius released me, growling again before charging forward and biting the demon. His spectral jaws passed harmlessly through the demon’s thigh, and like everyone else, it ignored Tiberius’s greenish, spectral form.

Demons weren’t on the same power level as angels, but they had all the malice of fallen angels. That meant they would be hard to kill and highly motivated to kill us.

My mind raced as I tried to think of what would hurt these demons permanently. That would most likely require magic, and that was one thing little ol’ human me did not have.

The other demon raced past Aseza to face off with Nulgrath, while Aseza strode back toward the light. The demon launched a flurry of impossibly fast punches and kicks at the orc warrior.

I had my own problems. I blocked a fist with my M4, and the weapon shattered under the impact. Stumbling to the ground as the pieces of my rifle went flying away, the demon loomed over me, grinning as it lifted a fist to pound me into the ground.

I drew both of my 1911 pistols and ripped off four rounds into its kneecaps. They exploded in a spray of flesh and ribbons of darkness, and the demon toppled backward to the ground with a cry of fury.

I scrambled to my feet and had to roll out of the way. The demon was back on its feet, lashing out with a low kick. A momentary bout of terror gripped me as its flesh knit and mended before my eyes.

This time the demon continued its onslaught, and a series of punches and kicks flew my way.

Tiberius slammed into my chest, knocking me backward. I rolled with it back to my feet, guns blazing.

I could see Tiberius’s ghostly form ineffectually biting and snapping at the demon as bullets ripped into its body. This time the impact didn’t stop the demon from driving an uppercut into my stomach. A flash of white light blinded me as pain wracked my side, and I felt myself sail into the air.

My vision cleared, and I could see the demon had jumped after me, its right fist cocked back to drive me into the ground.

At that moment I heard my sensei, Master Weaver, speak to me. “If you are in the air, you are wrong!”

I shot it in the right shoulder repeatedly—one, two, four, six times—and the continued impacts spun the massive Other around in midair, ruining his finishing blow.

My back slammed into the ground, and I let go of both 1911s to slap the ground and roll over my back and shoulders to my feet.

The demon collided gracelessly with the earth, narrowly missing me once again.

I looked up to see Nulgrath pulling her axe out of the skull of the demon she had been fighting. Aseza was nearly to the path leading back toward the Ark, and spun around at the demon’s short death wail. She lifted her arms and chanted in a strange, guttural language.

A cage of iron and brass erupted from the earth and ensnared Nulgrath, twisting around her and closing in on her.

I fired off two shots at Aseza, and her concentration was shattered as a bullet struck her leg. The iron-and-brass cage ceased constricting Nulgrath, but she was hopelessly bound within.

I felt a hard tug on my back—Tiberius again—and I was yanked to the ground just as the demon in front of me sprang to its feet and a green bolt of flame burned the spot I had been moments before.

Tiberius leaped over me, snarling and snapping at the demon as he harmlessly passed through.

The demon roared in fury as the flames died down and I fired shot after shot into its head. Chunks of flesh and bone flew off as each bullet slammed into its head until only a bloody stump remained on its neck.

I was up on my feet and running for the light before I consciously realized what I was doing.

My legs devoured the path before me as I cut into the woods after Aseza, and Tiberius somehow kept up with his lumbering, old-dog gait. It was a winding path, but I didn’t dare slow down or look back; time was of the essence. I’d just left Nulgrath alone and imprisoned, but if I was going to free her, Aseza was going to have to die.

The light grew brighter, but my eyes somehow continued adjusting to the brightness as I drew closer to it. Just before the path opened up into a clearing, Tiberius let out a loud growl before spinning around on his front paws and dashing back down the path.

I was used to Tiberius coming and going—he was a ghost, after all—but it struck me as odd that he would turn around. As I bounded off the path and into the clearing, a large stone outcropping rose before me.

“Hooah,” I whispered.

Next to a gaping hole in the stone hillside was the Ark of the Covenant.

The lid to the Ark had been tossed carelessly to the side.

Chapter 9

I pulled my knife from its sheath and listened for a moment. The only noises were footsteps moving away from me, and the muffled cries of a woman from the hole blasted into the hillside ahead. Large chunks of stone and grass-covered earth were scattered around the clearing.

I moved cautiously over to the Ark. As I drew closer, I could see red rivulets of blood slowly spreading over the stony ground on the other side of the Ark. It seemed that Aseza’s offer wasn’t a benign one.

Right now, I really wished I had backup. I wished Lieutenant Holgreb was here.

Panic started to fill my thoughts as I moved closer to the Ark of the Covenant. Countless stories have been told about it, and even blockbuster movies made. Here was the embodiment of God’s blessing, the might he bestowed on his chosen people.

And it was sitting in the discarded in the depths of a small, forgotten shrine nearly half a world away.

What did the Ark of the Covenant mean in a GoneGod World, though? A trillion-dollar question.

It was still important enough to steal from the Museum.

Lying next to the Ark was an older Japanese man. His throat had been torn out, and he was left to bleed out on the ground. Scrawled in blood on the side of the Ark were symbols I did not recognize inside of nine concentric circles.

I took a deep breath and peered inside the Ark.

Despite its golden overlay, the inside was a dark wood that showed no signs of aging. Inside lay two stone tablets and a leather satchel. A sweet and savory smell reached my nose from the satchel, and I was instantly hungry.

And within rests the Ten Commandments, Aaron’s rod and a portion of mana.

So where was Aaron’s rod?

The woman’s crying hadn’t stopped. It was coming from … somewhere beneath me.

I turned and examined the hole in the stone hillside. At first it looked like a natural stone hillside, but as I looked at the debris and the edges of the opening, I knew this must be an entrance of some sort. Unrecognizable kanji dotted the opening and covered the larger pieces.

There was, however, one kanji I did recognize.

Haka.

Tomb.

Light from the Ark shone down the passageway, which quickly turned deeper into the hillside. I took out my flashlight and entered, not bothering to conceal my approach.

Whoever’s tomb this was must have been someone truly special. The walls—of modern construction—had been covered in hanging scrolls. The script used kanji that were no longer officially in use.

I did recognize at least a few words, and of those, sword was written over and over.

I followed the muffled sounds of a woman crying down the passageway and around the bend. The passage continued on a short distance, ending at a chamber. It was unlit except by my flashlight, but I could see Aseza’s form in front of a pedestal of some sort.

She was holding a young Japanese woman by the scruff of her neck, forcing her down toward the pedestal. The woman wept brokenly as Aseza shook her.

Aseza partially turned toward me and grinned. “Now this is interesting. Did you best my brethren?”

She’d taken a bullet earlier, but I could see no sign of the wound. The way the darkness curled around her, I had a feeling it would take more extreme measures to dispatch her.

Her purple eyes deepened in intensity, and she let out a laugh. It was a hollow sound, and fell on me like a blanket of exhaustion and despair.

I reached down for one of the grenades on my belt and stopped. I wasn’t sure it would kill her, or even hurt her significantly. It definitely would kill the woman she was holding, though.

She’s probably dead already.

I pushed that thought away. Thinking like that is planning to lose.

Aseza broke my reverie with a heavy sigh. “Alas, no. I thought maybe you’d be a challenge.” She turned her back to me and bent down to whisper in the woman’s ear.

The woman burst into hysterics at Aseza’s words, and it broke through my paralysis.

I pulled the grenade from my belt and held it up. “Aseza, I have a question for you. How do you feel about being trapped again, this time only to die of old age?”

Aseza rose slowly and turned toward me, a bemused expression on her face. It might be petty, but I pointed my flashlight directly in her eyes for a moment before illuminating the grenade in my hand.

“What is that supposed to be?” she sneered. “The harmless garbage humanity calls ‘technology’ in their vain attempt to replace the gods?”

I gave her my prettiest, widest, pearly-white smile. “Things have changed since you were put in the penalty box, but you know the gods abandoning us did put some things into perspective. Now, it’s true we don’t have magic … at least, not exactly.”

I paused to wink at her. “But don’t get me wrong. When the gods left, it was suddenly game on. Seven billion-plus people suddenly realized there’s such a thing as magic, and we knew if we studied your kind—Others—it would be a lot easier to mimic those effects.”

I flicked the pin off the grenade.

Aseza’s eyes narrowed to purple slits. “You hesitate. Why?”

“I’m glad you asked. I know you won’t fully comprehend, but it’s my duty to protect the public from Others like you. Others who are hell-bent on doing bad things to humanity. So, you and I need to negotiate here.”

She shifted her weight, but remained silent. I let it drag on for an uncomfortably long time, hoping that I would hear Nulgrath coming to my rescue. Or the World Army, which I hadn’t alerted to my situation, I realized.

Aseza was looking at me with incomprehension. I almost smacked my forehead as it dawned on me. “Do you understand what a negotiation is?”

“No. I didn’t bother to learn all of your fallen languages. Under my rule, English and the rest of these shattered languages will be forbidden.” Aseza’s hand clamped down on the woman, and she sobbed some more.

“Ah-ah-ahh.” I ticked my finger back and forth. “I wouldn’t do that, Aseza. You’re risking imprisonment. But this time, time’s flowing naturally, and I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but you aren’t immortal any longer.”

She growled. “That will not last. We are immortal beings by nature, and we certainly don’t require the gods.”

I shrugged. “You obviously know that’s not true. You know how little time you actually do have in your mortal coil, and it’s scared the hell out of you. Otherwise you would have burned time to kill me. I’m willing to guess the time you have left isn’t as long as you’d like me to think.”

In answer to my words, Aseza tightened her fist, causing the woman to cry out again.

I glared at her and lowered my voice. “Make her cry again and I will put you in a cage for the rest of eternity. It really doesn’t matter to me if you die of old age or not.”

“So it’s the woman you value. Is she what is considered beautiful now?” Aseza looked away from me to examine the woman closer. Even in the dim light of my flashlight, the way Aseza looked over the poor woman made me furious and want to puke all at the same time.

“Time for your English lesson, Aseza,” I snarled.

She snapped her attention back to me.

“You see, what I have here is an MDSF. The Multi-Dimensional Space Folder creates a pocket dimension that’s cut off from the rest of the universe—a lot like the Museum, but without the quality company.”

I took a small, dramatic pause before continuing. “We’re going to make a bargain. Neither of us win, so I’m going to call this a draw today. You’re going to leave, and you’ll have one week to immigrate to Paradise Lot, where you will register like the rest of the Other population and live in relative peace.”

A small laugh escaped her as a look of pure malice crossed her face. “A draw. You dare think me bested?”

I wasn’t sure who had taught her English, but their command of the language was lacking.

“You have no winning moves, Aseza. But you can leave here and live in peace by our terms. It’s pretty simple: go away and live out the rest of your days free and happy … ish. Annoy me further, and you and I get to spend the rest of our days trapped in riveting dialogue until we die of old age.”

I waved the grenade slowly for emphasis.

Aseza’s eyes widened, fear painting her face as she listened. She took a step back and bumped into the pedestal behind her. She cried out in pain as a soft blue glow enveloped her for a moment until she broke contact with the pedestal.

“What do you say, Aseza? My hand is getting a bit tired here.”

Aseza shuddered as she regained her composure. She looked like she was about to say something until she turned to the woman in her grasp.

The woman looked at me in terror as Aseza spoke to her in Japanese. I know about as much of the language as, say, an elementary school kid, and my heart sank as I heard Aseza ask, “What is that in his hand? Can he truly trap me?”

There are times in life when everything happens so fast, it actually feels like it’s happening slow motion.

This was one of them. I realized several things rapidly.

One, I had lost control of this situation. The woman was more afraid of the demon holding her than the grenade in my hand.

Two, she knew it was a grenade. It may or may not kill her in the blast. The same would be true of killing Aseza.

Which led to three. There was no reasonable expectation that the World Army had really developed some weird, extra-dimensional prison.

All of which added up to the fact I needed this woman to lie, convincingly, to one of the most terrifying Others ever.

She said a single word. Just one word.

“Kamo.”

Maybe.

GoneGodsDamn it.

Aseza pressed her. “What is that artifact!”

Tears started to stream down the woman’s face as she shivered uncontrollably.

I took a step forward and cleared my throat loudly. Aseza’s head whipped up.

“Aseza, she’s not part of the army. She won’t understand or know about the power in my hand. Really, this is enough talking. It’s time for you to give me your oath and leave.”

Aseza whispered in the woman’s ear and released her. For a moment, my smile was no longer forced; I genuinely thought Aseza was about to beat feet out of here after giving me her oath.

I watched in horror as the woman turned around and grabbed something from the pedestal. In her hands was a katana, its ancient scabbard dry and cracked in places. She knelt and presented the weapon to Aseza.

Aseza took the sword and unsheathed it. The blade was a work of wonder. Even in the dim light, its workmanship was a marvel to behold, with an edge so fine I could see it from thirty feet away. She held the sword up in my light and examined the blade.

“Such a deadly beauty, don’t you agree?” She made a test cut in the air. The three-foot blade looked like a long knife in her hands.

“It’s OK.” I looked at the impossibly sharp edge on the sword and knew a cut from it probably wouldn’t even hurt.

At first, that is.

She ignored me and looked down at the weeping woman kneeling at her feet. “As I promised, you have earned your freedom.”

My muscles tensed as I waited for Aseza to bring the blade down on the woman and kill her. If I timed everything right, I could bring the ceiling down on her with the grenade and hopefully be out of the blast radius if I made it around the bend in the passageway.

“Don’t hurt her, Aseza!,” I called out. “Just let her go. She’s given you what you wanted. Now this is just between you and me.”

Aseza looked at me with a half-grin on her face. “Her fate is in your hands, mortal. She honored her side of our previous deal, so she is free to go. Unless you are going to stop her.”

Seconds passed, and Aseza reached down with her free hand and cradled the woman’s face in it. She gently lifted her face toward her own. “Go. You have served me well.”

The woman rose to her feet and cleared the tears from her face. She shuffled slowly away from Aseza and bowed to me slightly before she passed.

“Suimasen,” she whispered as she broke into a run, leaving me behind.

I gave Aseza a lopsided grin and a one-handed salute. “It was nice doing busi—”

In a blink of an eye, Aseza closed the distance between us and rammed the blade up through my solar plexus. I felt the hilt of the blade connect with my chest as she impaled me, hauling me up to eye level with the force of her strike.

Her purple eyes flared open as she growled. “You, however, attempted to deceive me. And for that, the punishment is death.”

Chapter 10

Of all the ways I thought I might die in the line of duty, being stabbed by a sword was really far down the list.

My chest hurt from the impact of the hilt against my sternum, and my lungs fought for air as my body’s weight rested on the guard.

I blinked in disbelief at Aseza. She stared into my eyes, those blazing purple orbs waiting to watch my life fade away … but we just kind of looked at each other.

I slammed the grenade in my hand down into her left eye. Her eye popped as the cylinder buried itself halfway into her skull.

She released the blade and brought both hands up to her face as she screamed in pain.

I fell to the floor and stumbled as I tried to remain standing. I heard the sound of metal scraping across the stone floor, and I felt an uncomfortable pressure in my chest. The pressure came in waves as I turned and sprinted back down the passageway.

I rounded the passage just as a tremendous BOOM! from the grenade’s detonation rumbled the whole hillside. It was followed by the unmistakable sound of flesh and guts splattering.

The blast sent stone, earth and pieces of Aseza against the far wall and knocked me to the ground.

I skidded across the stone floor, leaving behind layers of skin from my hands, and my flashlight went skittering down the hallway.

The ringing in my ears deafened me, and as I struggled to my feet I realized why there was a weird pressure in my sternum.

The blade was still buried to the hilt in my chest.

My hand shook as I tentatively touched the area around it, but there was no blood. I reached behind me, and the cold metal of the blade sticking through my back greeted my fingertips.

I felt around, mindful of the razor-sharp blade, and encountered no blood or even a trace of raised flesh where the blade had run through me.

The chill of shock started to grip me, and I forced myself to control my breathing. I leaned forward with my hands on my knees. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Somehow I was still alive. A few deep breaths later, I felt more in control and the ringing in my ears started to subside.

Clang!

The sword slid from my chest while I leaned forward on my knees. Its blade bounced off the stones and vibrated softly from the impact.

Panic returned in a flash as I felt around the hole where Aseza had thrust the blade through my chest. I couldn’t feel the hole in my chest or the blood that had to be pouring out of me. I lifted my hands into the light.

There wasn’t a drop of blood on them.

I stared at my hands for a moment before slowly pulling apart the tear in my shirt and tactical armor. A thin line penetrated both of them to my chest, yet my flesh remained whole.

An inky darkness spread out from the passageway, and tendrils latched onto the walls as it fought against the light of the Ark behind me. I snatched up the blade and ran outside.

I ran past the Ark and then skidded to a stop. Whatever that darkness was, there was no way I could let it have the Ark. I watched as the tendrils of darkness gripped the edges of the stone opening.

It pulsed and undulated for a few seconds before Aseza exploded from its depths. She flew through the air toward me, fury etched across her face and both hands upraised to smash me into the dirt.

I dipped to the side in a low back stance and brought the katana up in an upraised block as she brought her fists down on me.

The earth shuddered as she landed and the sword connected with her forearms, slicing them clean through and separating both hands from her body. They slammed into me with a wet slap and knocked me to my feet. Rivers of darkness ran from the stumps of her arms, and both hands twitched uncontrollably.

Aseza screamed in pain, stumbling back a few feet. She stared at her arms. “How?” Gone was her confidence and malice; in their place, raw terror washed over her.

I picked myself up off the ground and flicked the blade downward. Drops of darkness flew from the blade to the earth and quickly dissipated into nothingness.

My training mostly focused on shorter weapons such as knives, daggers, escrima and such, but I did have some training with the Chinese broadsword. I held the katana in an en garde position as I was trained, and realized that they were very different weapons. It felt awkward in my hands, held down so low.

Aseza sank to her knees, and blackness leaked from her eyes in some strange mockery of tears. “I yield.”

I paused for a moment, watching for any sign she wasn’t telling the truth. We stood there in silence as her black tears continued to run from her eyes.

“Who do you serve?” I asked.

“I serve no master, for I am the best the world—nay, the universe—has to offer.”

Aren’t we a wee bit delusional?

She shifted her weight backward for a moment, and her shadow seemed to elongate against the light of the Ark. She looked up at me, her face wrapped in sorrow. Her tears slowed as she demurred. “I was the best, but now I see that you are greater than I. Let me serve you.”

Her shadow rose up before me and engulfed me. Aseza’s hushed words wrapped themselves around me. “I see your greatness now. I didn’t recognize it at first, just like your … general.”

A rush of power flooded through me as I suddenly envisioned myself taking command of the World Army. Telling General Shouf exactly where she could shove her opinions and terrible battle plans. I watched as enlisted and commissioned soldiers flocked to my banner, feeling the righteousness of my cause.

The generals of the World Army would quickly fall into line or simply be swept aside as Aseza and I purged the petty corruption within our ranks. Soon thereafter, the world governments would also fall into line. All those petty bureaucrats trying to protect their territory, when the real threat to humanity wasn’t Others.

It was other humans.

Waves of anger and disgust filled me at the senseless waste of time people put the World Army through. Didn’t they know we were here for their protection? With Aseza at my side, Others would flock to our banner as well.

I could bring peace—lasting peace—for both Others and humanity. I could turn hate into love. The walls of resentment and division would melt before me.

Look at all I’ve already accomplished. I found the Ark of the Covenant! I tamed Lilith!

That was just a modest beginning, I realized. In this GoneGod World, I could bring the Devil himself in.

A small whine broke me out of my reverie. Tiberius lay at my feet, staring up at me with his old-dog eyes and whining. It was the same noise he made when he knew I wasn’t feeling well.

I looked up from Tiberius to see Aseza standing tall, her body fully regenerated and smiling wildly at me. Her purple eyes were pulsing as light bled from them. I was engulfed by her shadow as she stood between the Ark and me.

She licked her lips provocatively. “Yes, Landon. You are a great, intelligent, wise man. The world should bow before you. Let me serve you.” She knelt and reached out her massive hand.

A surge of pride at her praise and recognition washed over me. I breathed deep and basked in how good it felt. Finally things were coming together, with my promotion to lieutenant and now this.

Tiberius whined again. I looked down at him, wondering if he was somehow in pain. I knelt by reflex to pet him, and I nearly dropped the sword in the process.

It felt heavy in my hands now, like it had somehow quintupled in mass.

Aseza look at me in confusion as I reached out and touched Tiberius. “It’s OK. You’re my gouda boy, aren’t you?” I tussled his fur and he wagged his tailed languidly.

I looked into Tiberius’s eyes, at the unconditional love and acceptance there. The surge of pride I felt moments before fled, and I felt the sword grow lighter in my hand.

I continued to pet Tiberius with my free hand. “Tell me, Aseza, do you really wish to serve me?”

“Oh yes, Master,” she purred. “Deep inside I have longed for someone as great as you to tame me.”

It wasn’t that Aseza was lying—demons are actually amazingly forthright and honest. It was the things she wasn't saying or telling me. I would end up changed by the experience, a shell of my former self, controlled by my passions and lust for power.

As I ran my fingertips through Tiberius’s fur, the familiar feeling helped to center my mind. I didn’t need to dominate others to change the world and help people. I knew that if I accepted her offer I would slowly change, and one day I would realize that she was the one who had tamed me.

I tightened my grip on the katana and lunged forward, swinging it up in an upstroke and cleaving Aseza’s torso in two and up through her head.

The blade sliced through her effortlessly, and a look of surprise crossed her face. Slowly her body slid apart, each half collapsing with a thud.

Liquid darkness spilled from her as she bled out.

Tiberius struggled to his feet and moved away from the blackness as it washed over the ground.

The rivers of darkness spilling across the ground disappeared into nothingness. As the darkness bled out of her, another twisted form was left in its wake.

The red-skinned body of an oni replaced Aseza’s form.

Chapter 11

When I reached the main courtyard of the shrine, Nulgrath was still confined in her iron-and-brass cage.

There was a dead hellhound at the base of the twisted metal spire that I didn’t remember being there, but Nulgrath didn’t bother to explain. We waited for the World Army to arrive so we could transport the Ark back to the Museum of the Gods.

General Shouf was generous enough to deploy a few platoons to secure the Ark, and other than cutting Nulgrath free, everything went smoothly. Unfortunately, nothing the army had brought with them was able to cut through the iron-and-brass cage.

The crew began discussing how they might be able to use laser cutters to free Nulgrath, and I sat down, realizing we were going to be here a while. Nulgrath was scenting the air the entire time, and I was starting to wonder if our “stench” was getting to her when she called out, “Landon, bring your sword closer.”

I gave her a confused look as I approached and held out the blade for her to inspect. As she read the kanji inscribed on the blade, she broke into a broad grin. “Hai!” she cheered loudly.

I raised an eyebrow at her. “You know what this blade is?”

“Yes. That is a Masamune blade, but not just any Masamune blade. That is Honjo Masamune.”

My eyes went wide. “As in, one of the three imperial treasures that was ‘lost’ after World War II? As in, the mythical blade supposedly so sharp it can cut through anything without harming the virtuous? Are you sure?”

Nulgrath tried to shrug in the confines of the cage. “I can tell you it is a genuine Masamune blade, and it has spent time in the imperial palace. If it is the Honjo Masamune, I couldn’t tell you. I did not know Honjo, so I can’t tell you if his scent is on the blade. The inscription says ‘Honjo Masamune,’ however.”

I held up a hand. “Whoa, wait. You can smell the people who’ve held this sword?”

“Yes, and deep within I can smell my friend Masamune. So I know he crafted that sword, and that it is not a forgery. And the workmanship is his,” she mused.

“Well, Aseza tried to kill me with this, and the blade passed right through me harmlessly.” I poked a finger through the hole in my shirt where Aseza had stabbed me earlier. “Let’s see what it will do to the cage, then.”

A few moments and some careful strikes later, Nulgrath was free.

I paused to admire the blade, crafted by probably the most famous swordsmith to have ever lived, Goro Masamune. Legends held that his blades only cut what was necessary, keeping these blades free of the evil thirst for blood unlike the blades created by Muramasa, Goro Masamune’s rival. Maybe it was for that reason Honjo Shigenaja was spared by this blade five hundred years ago, and it now bore his name along with a near religious reverence from the samurai that came after him.

So why was I spared?

We loaded the Ark up onto a large cargo helicopter and soon were over the Pacific Ocean, heading back to the Museum of the Gods. Halfway back to the Museum, Nulgrath turned to me with a concerned look on her face. “I’ve seen many strange things in my lifetime, but today marked a new first for me.”

Weariness gripped my bones; I had nearly fallen asleep. Nulgrath finally breaking her silence sent a shot of adrenaline through me. “Ya think? Not every day you get to recover the Ark of the Covenant.”

She gave me a dead look with her flat yellow eyes. “I am not speaking about that. I witnessed something I can’t explain in a world without magic.”

“Last I checked, Aseza had no issue with burning time. There was lots of magic being thrown about there.”

“It wasn’t her magic. In fact, I don’t know whose magic it was. You are at its center, though,” Nulgrath murmured, more to herself than actually speaking to me.

I wasn’t sure how old Nulgrath was, but I was beginning to think if it was something new to her, it had to be something unique.

“How so? I have a distinct lack of magic, being one hundred percent human.”

“When you chased Aseza back to the Ark and she trapped me, another woman with two hellhounds came down one of the paths into the shrine’s inner sanctuary. I only heard her voice as she sent those hellhounds at me. That should have been my end.”

“But you only smelled the hellhounds and Aseza? Do you think she used magic to conceal herself?”

Nulgrath gave me a look that told me she wasn’t finished yet. “There are beings with the power to conceal themselves from me, but most are gone. So no, that is not the strange thing.” She paused. “I heard a fight break out, and I could see the hellhounds biting and breathing fire at nothing. At first I thought they were ghosts or spirits, but I couldn’t smell anything, either.”

The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Wait, you can smell ghosts?”

Nulgrath ignored me. “I watched as the throat was torn out of one hellhound. It was as if some invisible jaw clenched down and ripped the beast’s throat out.”

A thought flashed through my mind—Tiberius must have saved Nulgrath, but how?—but I put it aside.

“The remaining hellhound lashed out with a burst of flame, and I saw it strike something. It was brief, but there was a shape in the fire. The hellhound stared off into the distance like it was watching something run off.”

She watched me for a moment before continuing on. “It turned back toward me, but the woman called it off. She came up behind me and said something I didn’t understand at first. But Landon, I think I do now, and it scares me.”

“What did she say?”

“ ‘Tell her, ‘D X C4.’ ”

I leaned back into my seat in the helicopter. “Well, I’m glad you understand it. Is that some sort of nuclear launch code?”

She tapped me right between the eyes. “Think about it. She said, ‘tell her.’ ” Nulgrath’s emphasis on her kicked my brain into gear.

“You think she means Lilith?”

“Who else?” Nulgrath said as she leaned forward.

“But what I really want to know is, what was fighting the hellhounds?”

I didn’t know how to explain Tiberius to Nulgrath, so I didn’t. She seemed to understand that I knew something, but now was not the time to share. She gave me a bump on the shoulder and started complaining about her lack of food, sleep and how bad everyone else smelled.

My iPhone rang, and before I could answer it—or even better, send it to voicemail—I heard it click on as it connected. It flicked from my earpiece to speaker mode as I saw Lilith smiling as she Facetimed me.

“Well done, Landon. It appears there may be hope for you still.” Lilith’s voice was entirely too cheery.

“How in the Empty Hell do you know all this?” My voice was weary, and all I wanted to do was sleep on the ride back to base.

“Let’s just say Mr. Cook should stay in the kitchen instead of his feeble attempts at computer security. His lateral thinking is, well, horizontally challenged.”

She full on belly laughed, and I stared her down.

“So, is there a reason for this call?”

Nulgrath tapped me on the shoulder. “Tell her,” she said forcefully.

I sighed deeply.

The mirth drained from Lilith’s voice and her smile evaporated. “Tell me what?”

“Well, there are two things. One is definitely not good, and the other is, well, worse.”

Lilith rolled her eyes for effect before staring at me with a fake, slack-jawed look. “I’m listening.”

“Well, we were told to deliver a message to you: ‘D X C4,’ whatever that means.”

Lilith let out a loud exhalation. “So, what’s the ‘worse’ part?”

“Aaron’s rod is missing from the Ark.”

Lilith gave a small sigh. “Don’t tell me you haven’t played chess, Landon.”

“Chess hasn’t been cool for like forty years, Lilith.”

“Chess is the one invention of the Children of Eve that is worth anything. Don’t worry—I will teach you.”

I rolled my eyes at Nulgrath as she stifled a laugh.

“Right now,” she continued, “it means that whomever gave this message to you knows I am helping you, and isn’t afraid.”

“How do you know that?” I looked at Nulgrath to see if she had a clue as to what Lilith was talking about, and she shrugged.

“Because when the white player opens with the Queen’s Gambit, the black player has many options. That particular move is the beginning of ‘Queen’s Gambit Accepted,’ ” she said thoughtfully.

Lilith’s eyes bored holes into me as she spoke, her voice low, silky and deadly. “This Other discarded the Ark of the Covenant, an artifact with the power to level cities and rival your atomic bombs, for Aaron’s rod – a less powerful relic. There are very few beings left in the GoneGod World who would dare to challenge me, and she is moves ahead of us.”

A look came over Lilith’s face. I knew that look well; I’d seen it many times when I’d rescued Others and people, but I’d never imagined it coming from her.

“Landon, I don’t know what this Other is planning, but I am afraid.”

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About the Author - Ramy Vance

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Ramy Vance lives in Edinburgh with his wife, demonic toddler and imaginary dog where he enjoys a beautiful city, whisky and long walks.

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About the Author - S.W. Clarke

S.W. (Shavonne) Clarke writes, caffeinates, and generally overstays her welcome in all the coffee shops around Houston, TX. She's the co-author of the Mortality Bound series in the GoneGod World, a universe of kickass heroes and heroines who have no issue getting into (and out of) trouble.

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