And f inally, f inally I saw Henry’s eyes crack open. Unlike Calliope, he seemed to focus directly on me, but whether or not he could really see me, I couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t seen me the f irst time. Then again, he’d been in the middle of a f ight then, too.
“It’s okay,” I whispered as I tried to take his hand, but my f ingers slipped through his. “Everything will be all right.
I’ll make sure nothing happens to you, I promise.” He sighed inaudibly and closed his eyes, and something inside of me f lickered. Had he heard me after all? I reached out to stroke his cheek, stopping a fraction of an inch above his skin. At least this way I could pretend I was touching him.
“Father,” called Calliope from behind me, and I tore myself away from Henry to watch her. “Are you prepared to subdue the others?”
A low rumble echoed through the cavern, no language I could understand, and the smaller rocks on the ground skidded a few inches away from the gate.
“Pardon me,” said Calliope, sarcasm dripping from her sugary voice. “I thought I’d woken the most powerful being in the universe. My mistake.”
In the time it took to blink, a tendril of fog slipped between the bars and lashed toward her. Calliope fell backward, and it narrowly missed, though I suspected that had nothing to do with her ability to defend herself.
“Stop!” she cried, panicked, and satisfaction surged through me. “You need me and you know it.” The rumbling continued, and Calliope scrambled to her feet, every trace of dignity gone. “You do,” she said, and the uncertainty in her voice was glorious. “No one else is trying to free you, and without me, you’ll be trapped for the rest of eternity by that stupid gate. So you can either do things my way, or you can stay right where you are. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Of course it mattered to her, and Cronus must have known it as well, because his rumblings sounded suspiciously like laughter. Another tendril of fog crept toward Calliope until it was only inches away from her smooth skin. Trembling, she stood her ground as Cronus caressed her cheek.
As quickly as he’d appeared, the fog vanished. Calliope paled, and for a moment I almost felt bad for her. Then I remembered Henry and his brothers tied up in a cave a few feet away, and any drop of sympathy I’d ever had for her evaporated.
Pogo’s warm tongue against my ear brought me crashing back into reality. The rocks melted away, replaced by the red walls of the bedroom, and my stomach turned inside out as the full impact of my vision hit me.
“Mom!” I shrieked, kicking off my blankets and rolling off the bed. I landed with a thud on my hands and knees, and every inch of my body screamed in protest, but I forced myself to stand. Pogo trotted after me, his ears alert, and every step felt like knives as I ran out the door, nearly tripping on the hem of my silver dress.
I was halfway to the throne room when I rounded a corner and smacked into her, and for the second time in as many minutes, I sprawled on the ground.
“Kate?” My mother knelt beside me, her hands hovering as if she wasn’t sure it was safe to touch me.
“I’m f ine,” I gasped. “Mom, Henry and the others—
Calliope, she has them, and Cronus—”
“What about him?” My mother paled. “Did you see something?”
I nodded. Everything she’d told me about the Titans ran through my mind, making me dizzy. “Calliope has them, and I think—” My voice caught in my throat, and no matter how hard I blinked, I couldn’t stop my eyes from watering.
This was really it. They couldn’t defeat Calliope and Cronus on their own, and it was only a matter of time before Calliope killed Henry. It was a miracle he was still alive in the f irst place.
In a low, frantic voice, I relayed the details of my vision, my words stumbling and knotting together, making it that much more diff icult to speak. “Mom,” I f inally said in a small voice, desperate for her to do something to f ix this. When I’d been a child, I’d been sure she could do the impossible. Now I was positive she could, but somewhere deep inside of me in a part I didn’t want to admit existed, I knew there was nothing she could do to make this mess go away. “She’s going to let Cronus kill them.” Her face grew hard, and for one awful moment I saw the power behind my mother’s kind eyes and rosy cheeks.
“Sof ia,” she called in a voice that rattled me from the inside out.
Sof ia was by her side in a second, and like my mother, every trace of gentleness was gone as waves of power radiated from them both. On her own, my mother was a force of nature. With Sof ia standing beside her, I was sure they could rip the world to shreds.
“Come, sister,” said my mother. She looked at me, and for a moment a drop of humanity returned to her face. “Take care of yourself, sweetheart,” she said, touching my cheek.
I shivered. “And put on a sweater. I’ll return to you as soon as I can.”
With that, she and Sof ia joined hands, and like Henry and his brothers had sped off into the vast Underworld, so did my mother and her sister, the only two left who knew how to defeat Cronus.
Feeling hollow and more alone than I ever had before, I pressed my lips together and dragged myself back to my room to change, wondering how much of my family I would lose before this was all said and done.
The throne room seemed empty without Henry and the rest of his siblings. What was left of the council sat in a circle beside the platform, the chairs collected from all around the palace. I sat on a hard stool that reminded me of the one I’d endured six months ago, when the council had made its decision about whether I would become one of them. At least that one had been padded.