“Hi,” I whispered. “You’re such a handsome little man.”
He stared up into the space I occupied, and I could hardly breathe. He was perfection.
“Milo.” The name left my mouth before I could think about it, but once it was out, it seemed to wrap around the baby, becoming as much a part of him as his dark hair or how much I loved him.
Yes. Milo.
An enraged cry broke the spell between us, and Milo’s sobs returned, even louder than before. I tried to touch him again, to offer whatever small measure of comfort I could if he really could sense I was there, but my hand passed through him. His screams only grew shriller.
“Calliope!”
I froze. Henry.
Torn between leaving Milo or finding Henry, I lingered near the cradle. As much as it killed me to leave the baby, I had to know where Henry was. If he was outside the nursery—if he knew about Milo and was going to save him—
Please, please, please let him know.
I dashed through the open door and into a part of the palace I’d never seen before. The walls were a rich gold, not stone like the ones inside my prison, and the indigo rug matched the silk curtains that hung every ten feet on the outside wall. The hallway stretched nearly the entire length of the palace, and Calliope stood in the middle, only a few feet away from Henry.
He’d saved me from the clutches of death on the banks of the river in Eden. He’d fought for all our lives as Calliope choked me with chains in Tartarus. He was Lord of the Underworld, King of the Dead, and one of the most powerful gods in history.
But never had I seen him look so terrible in his power. It rolled off of him in black waves, shaking the very foundation of the palace, and even though I wasn’t really there, for the first time in my life I was genuinely afraid of him.
Satisfaction mingled with that fear though, and disdain ripped through me as I approached Calliope. Henry would end her. Whatever this weapon was she claimed to have, it couldn’t possibly match up to the pure rage that surrounded him, fueling his power. Only a Titan could kill a god, and Calliope was exactly like me: immortal. Nothing more.
A blast shook the walls, and panic shot through me. Milo. Henry had no idea he was here, that Calliope stood between him and his son. He might not even know he existed. And if he brought down the entire castle—
All it would take was a single thought, and our son would die.
I dashed into the nursery, but before I could spot Milo’s face over the edge of the cradle, the sunset walls disappeared.
It took me several seconds to regain my bearings. Cronus held my arm, his hands still fire against my skin, and Ava lingered on my other side. We stood in a gold-and-indigo corridor, but it was empty.
Was it over? Had we missed it?
No, impossible. My visions were always in the present. I couldn’t go into the past or see the future. Henry and Calliope were somewhere nearby. They had to be. Above us, below—
“Kate, my dear.” Cronus’s voice cut through me like a dagger made of ice. “Are you mine?”
Never. Not in a million years, not if we were the last two beings in the universe. Not if the only other choice I had was to live out eternity buried under boulders.
But only moments stood between now and the entire castle ripping apart at the seams, and I had to save Milo. If that meant making a promise I couldn’t keep, then I would deal with the consequences later. “Give me my son, and I’m yours.”
My feet left the ground as Cronus floated us upward, leaving Ava behind. Together we passed through the ceiling as if it weren’t even there, rising into the hallway above us, and I held my breath.
We stood only a few feet behind Calliope, and beyond her, surrounded by dark power—
Henry.
He and I stared at each other across the hallway, and my knees nearly buckled with relief. At last, someone who loved me.
He took an involuntary step toward me, but even though it was the first time I’d seen him since the winter solstice, my body pulled me in the direction of Milo’s room. Only a few feet away, two doors behind Calliope, and I’d be able to hold my son. I’d have a chance at saving us all.
Cronus gripped my arm, his fingers a cuff of flesh and bone, and no amount of subtle tugging and twisting loosened them. I was as trapped as I’d been in my prison, but this time both pieces of my heart dangled in front of me, taunting me. Begging me to do something.
I was powerless.
In my mind, hours passed, but in reality it took Calliope only seconds to realize what was going on. She turned and grinned, her eyes sparkling with malice, and something slid from the loose sleeve of her gown into her hand. A dagger.
The blade glowed with the same essence that had infused the chains she’d wrapped around my neck, the same opaque power that had threaded through the rock she’d used to knock me unconscious the day she’d kidnapped me. She hadn’t been lying, after all. Somehow, even though Cronus stood beside me whole and solid, she’d managed to separate a piece of him from the rest. And now she had the power to kill every last one of us until she was free to rule the universe at Cronus’s side.
“Perfect timing,” she said, her voice as girly as ever, but regality saturated each syllable.
“Kate?” Henry’s voice broke, and the waves of dark power around him faltered. No, no, no, he couldn’t stop now. She’d attack the first chance he gave her.
I took a step back. Forget subtlety. Like hell I was letting Cronus keep me from my family. “Don’t let them follow me,” I said to Henry, and without warning, I wrenched my arm from Cronus as hard as I could, pulling against his thumb. The weakest part of his grip—if he had any weak spots at all.