The Shadow Prince

“Then why did you bring me to Olympus Hills?”

Joe’s face crumples. “They couldn’t get to you in Ellis. Simon said I had to bring you to them instead.… I had to have you in place by the time they sent someone for you.… I am so sorry, Daphne.”

“But why?” I ask. I am too stunned to cry. Too stunned to be angry. “Why did you still go through with it?”

He shakes his head. “I can’t explain it.”

“The water,” Haden says. “He made an unbreakable vow.”

“I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t resist. And Simon compelled me not to tell you. But that’s why I was writing the play for you. I wanted you to know how Orpheus survived the underworld, how he escaped, so maybe it could help you.…”

“We’re done now,” Simon says, his weird, resonant tone permeating the room again. “We’ve still got a game to finish. I believe we’re at number six.”

Lexie whimpers.

The silence that buffered me before is completely gone now. I hum to myself, trying to drown out Joe’s song of remorse mixed with the frightened notes coming off of everyone. I can’t concentrate, otherwise.

“You’re not getting tired of holding that heavy gun now, are you, Lexie?” Simon says. “Raise those hands a little higher.”

I shift the tone of my hum so it matches the resonate vibration coming off Simon’s persuasive voice. I don’t know if sending his tone back at him will have any effect on him as it had on the Keres. I’ve never used it on a person before, but I have to at least try it.

Lexie complies with Simon’s order, but she raises her hands only about an inch. The gun is aimed just below Joe’s heart. Tobin’s grip on my arm loosens ever so slightly. I look at Simon. Sweat beads on his forehead. I can see the veins bulging at his neck. It must be taking all his strength to keep this many people under his control. Is he starting to lose his grip? I hum louder, directing the tone at him.

“Five.” He wipes at his nose. “Stop that,” he says about my humming. “It’s annoying.”

I increase the volume.

“Four,” he says to spite me.

“Daphne,” Tobin whispers, squeezing my arm twice.

“Please, Daph, don’t trade yourself for me,” Joe sobs. “You can still run. You can still—”

“Three! Two!” Simon screeches through gritted teeth. Blood drips from one of his nostrils. “What’s it going to be, Daphne?”

“Don’t,” Haden says, with an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Simon’s mouth starts to form the word one, and I can see Lexie cringing, her finger on the trigger.

“Stop,” I say. “Take it. Take the Compass. Take me.” I hold the Compass out to him in my left hand, as far as I can, with Garrick gripping my shoulder. “Just take it, okay?”

Simon steps away from Dax and reaches for the Compass. I swing my right arm as Tobin’s grip on me falls away, and I slam my fist right into Simon’s already bleeding nose. He stumbles backward, clasping his face. “Why, you little bi—”

At that moment, a burst of lightning combusts from Haden’s petrified arm. He twists his hand just enough to send the bolt into the fluorescent light above Simon’s head. Glass and shattered plastic rain down on us.

Chapter fifty-five

HADEN

Lightning swirls and builds in my chest—threatening to explode through my rib cage if it doesn’t find a place to go. When Daphne hits Simon, his hold on me weakens enough for me to channel the energy into my frozen arm. Brim, still clinging to my shoulder, yowls in protest, but I twist my hand enough to aim the bolt above Simon’s head.

The force of the bolt’s recoil throws me backward as the light fixture above us explodes. Tobin grabs Daphne, pulling her out of harm’s way as shards rain from the ceiling. Simon covers his head and shrieks, “One!” just as Lexie drops the gun.

It clatters to the floor.

His hold on us is broken.

A large hunk of plaster from the ceiling hits Joe, and he sinks to the ground. Garrick runs for the door.

Simon scrambles for the gun, crawling over plastic shards to get to it. Dax goes after him, but Simon sends his elbow back, slamming it into Dax’s neck. Dax rolls over onto his side. “Stop breathing,” Simon says, glaring into Dax’s eyes.

Brimstone yowls from her perch on my shoulder, her claws sunk deep into my skin, but it’s enough to get me moving again. I push myself up from the floor in response to her protests, in time to watch Dax clutch desperately at his own breathless throat and Simon reach for the gun. I go after him. But I’m too late. His hand closes over the handle as I lunge at him. He thrusts the gun against my chest.

“No!” Daphne screams.

Simon shrieks with pain and yanks his hand back, dropping the gun—a small gray cat is attached to his wrist by her teeth. Brim, who had leapt from my shoulder when I went for Simon, has sunk her tiny fangs into his arm.

He shakes his arm violently and sends Brim flying. She hits the top of the table—hard—and rolls a couple of times across the surface, then lands on her four little feet next to Sarah’s finger paints. She hisses and spits, turning in a circle and baring her minuscule teeth in anger.

“Are you an idiot?!” I rasp. “You’ve made her angry.”

“I’m not afraid of your kitten,” Simon says, sucking the blood from the small puncture marks in his wrist.

Brim shakes and growls. The noise grows deep and fierce.

“She’s a full-grown hellcat, you harpy mouth. Do you have any idea what happens when you get a hellcat really mad?”

Simon’s eyes widen. He goes for the gun, but I kick it under one of the couches. A crack echoes through the room as the table Brim stands on collapses under her weight. Lexie shrieks and cowers in the far corner of the room—with good reason. A giant paw, bigger than my own head, swipes at Simon’s back, sending him crashing into Sarah’s easel. A great, hulking, three-headed panther—almost as large as my car—glares down at me. She huffs huge breaths simultaneously from her three mouths, making my hair float up for a second before settling back down around my ears. A swift movement catches the corner of my eye.

“Watch out,” I shout to the beast as Simon takes a swing at her with a piece of wood from the broken easel. The wood cracks and splinters against the panther’s back.