“Thane,” I whisper, leaning forward.
He meets me halfway.
The moment our lips touch, the dizziness slams into me.
I cry out.
Then I’m standing in an alley. My sisters are there, along with Sillus and a boy and a woman I don’t know. The boy, I would guess from the way Grace is grinning at him, is her crush—Thane’s friend Milo. He has the look of a cheerful soccer player. The woman looks like us, with dark blond hair and pale gray eyes—obviously our mother.
Everyone is standing awkwardly, like it’s an uncomfortable reunion. Our mother steps forward and pulls Gretchen into a hug, and my sister tentatively pats her on the back. Grace looks up at Milo, joy and stars in her eyes.
The little monkey kicks a pebble across the alley.
I want to enjoy the moment, but the stench of fear soaks the air around them. My stomach lurches. In a flash I feel like I’m going to throw up, to vomit violently all over the scene.
Something catches my attention—a movement or a sound or a flash of light. I turn to look.
Everything slows down.
Grace gasps, her face frozen in a wide-eyed look of shock.
A knife floats through the air toward her.
Gretchen dives in front of her, but it’s too late.
The knife slips between Gretchen’s open arms, hurtling toward its target—toward Grace’s chest.
“No!” I scream.
The scene speeds up.
From the omniscient perch of my vision, I watch Grace crumple to the ground, clutching at the knife sticking out of her chest. Milo kneels at her side, his hands hovering around the hilt, unsure what to do. Grace looks at him desperately, her face contorted with pain and confusion.
Gretchen takes off after the assailant while Milo shouts at our mother, asking her what he should do. Our mother is frozen, her face drained of all color, like a ghost.
Grace’s eyes look around wildly, desperate. Then they glaze over.
All the tension leaves her body.
Sillus wails.
Our mother finally screams.
“Grace,” I shout. “No!”
“Greer, let me in!” Thane’s voice yanks me out of the vision. “What happened? What did you see?”
I stare at him, in shock. I shake my head. I can’t make the words come.
There’s no time.
I shake off his grip and race out the door to save my sister’s life.
Fear drives me. I don’t know how I know where they are, but from the moment I come out of the vision, I go on autopilot, like how I knew how to find Gretchen’s loft the first time. I race through the streets, heading toward Chinatown, as if I’m following a GPS beacon to my sisters.
When I reach the alley, the group is at the far end. Grace is still standing, talking to Gretchen—introducing her to our mother.
I nearly cry with relief.
“Grace,” I shout as I sprint toward them.
I have never run so fast in all my life.
They turn to face me—Grace and Gretchen and Milo and our mother, and the little monkey—all five, just like in the vision.
Everyone but Gretchen looks confused. She looks furious, probably because I’ve left the protection of the safe house—because I’ve risked danger to everyone, including myself, by leaving the safe house’s shield.
Apollo is the least of my worries at the moment.
“Get down,” I yell. “Hurry—”
Before I finish the words, something catches my attention, just like in the vision. Only in reality, I can pinpoint the disturbance as the flash of a knife blade in sunlight.
Am I already too late?
“No!”
I dive for Grace, desperate to knock her down before the blade reaches her.
What I don’t take into consideration is that by doing so, I put myself into the dagger’s trajectory. At first it feels like a sharp bee sting in the chest, between my collarbone and my rib cage. Then the pain radiates out, overwhelming, and I collapse to the ground.
No! Apollo’s voice roars in my mind.
My last thought is that I’m glad it wasn’t Grace. I’m glad I could do that much for her.
CHAPTER 19
GRETCHEN
Everyone always says that time drops into slow motion in the heat of a crisis. In reality, it all happens in the blink of an eye. One second, Grace is introducing me to our mother. The next, the world erupts in chaos.
Greer gasps, a soft intake of breath.
The knife speeds past my ear—small and shiny and glinting in the sun.
I twist my head to follow its path.
The sound of metal sinking into flesh.
Another gasp from Greer, this one with a harsh gurgle at the end.
Thane shouts something—in Greek—and then takes off, lightning fast, chasing down whoever did this, down the alley and out onto the street beyond. I almost go after him, terror and fury urging me to join him in the hunt. But Grace cries out, and I turn back to watch our sister collapse to the ground, a wide-eyed look on her face—wide-eyed, and vacant.
“Greer!” I dive to my knees at her side, feeling my cargoes tear across the pavement. “Greer!”
The blade sticking out of her chest shines like a gold coin in the sun. I grab her by the shoulders and pull her up, lifting her so I can cradle her in my arms, careful not to touch the knife, not to push it farther into her body.
My arms are shaking, flooded with fear and adrenaline.
Grace drops down next to me, her face eerily pale.
“Is she—?”
“No,” I insist. “No!”