“Cassandra, are you all right?”
“All right?” she breathed. “I’m in damn Narnia.” She gestured outward, to the green splendor, silver mountains capped in mist. “What could be so abysmally, unnaturally wrong?”
“Good. Then let’s go.”
“Look,” Cassandra said, “I’m as impatient for a kill as you are. More, probably. But let me get my head straight.”
“All right,” Athena said. “But don’t take too long.”
Up the hillside a simple wooden door led back to the interior of the mountain. Cassandra wondered where Andie and Henry were. But they had Hermes, and Achilles, and Calypso. And she had Athena. She looked at the goddess, waiting impatiently.
The sooner I kill the lot of you, the sooner they’ll be safe.
Cassandra started to walk up the hill, and the voices came. Crashing through both ears.
(CAREFUL OF THE EDGE, CASSANDRA. THOUGH THERE ARE SO MANY WONDERS TO SEE ON THE WAY DOWN. MILES AND MILES AND MINUTES AND MINUTES BEFORE YOU BREAK ON WATER AND ROCKS. SO MANY WONDERS YOU WOULD NEVER SEE UNLESS YOU JUMPED. UNLESS YOU DOVE AND HELD YOUR EYES WIDE AGAINST THE WIND)
The voices were so strong she stepped back toward the edge and half expected her heel to land on nothing but air. Her stomach tumbled up into her throat, and the mountain tilted like a horse bucking.
“Athena!”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” Laughter rang through her head. She could barely hear Athena through the racket.
(AWAY FROM THE EDGE, CASSANDRA, AND WALK QUICKLY. ONE FOOT THEN ANOTHER FOOT THROUGH THE DOOR AND TO OUR CHAMBER. WE WISH TO SEE YOU, OUR CHILD: THE CURVE OF YOUR CHEEKS, THE FALL OF YOUR HAIR. WE WOULD HAVE A WORD WE WOULD HAVE MANY SO HAPPY YOU ARE HERE)
Cassandra pressed her hands against her ears.
“Who are you? Stop talking!”
Athena tried to take her arm. But through her nausea, Cassandra lumbered past her, lurching like a drunk, trying to get to the wooden door and through to the other side. Hoping that then the voices would stop.
* * *
Something was in Cassandra’s head. Something Athena couldn’t see or hear. She followed close on the girl’s heels as she stumbled into walls and dragged herself forward. It was the Furies. It had to be. One more little trick Hera had managed to keep up her sleeve.
“What are they saying to you?” she asked. “Don’t listen, Cassandra. They’ll try to drive you mad.” Cassandra didn’t answer. There was nothing Athena could do besides make sure the Furies died first, when they got to where they were going.
Cassandra moaned painfully.
“It’ll be a hell of a thing if we have to do this alone,” Athena whispered. “Just us, and you half-mad. You’d better hope the others aren’t far behind.”
Lights lit up in Athena’s chest. They were close. The halls grew warmer and smelled sharply of herbs and smoke. Her pulse quickened, and her muscles coiled. Any door might be the last door.
“Cassandra, you should get behind me now,” she said, too late. Cassandra turned a knob and pushed through.
Athena burst in behind her and put her arm out across Cassandra’s chest. Athena’s eyes swiveled to take in everything, and came up short. Hera was there. The braziers burned and skittered orange against her stone cheek, all but healed. She smiled, and she could almost use her whole mouth to do it. But Hera wasn’t the most important thing in the room.
“What are you?” Cassandra asked.
“Who are you talking to?” Athena blinked. Something blurred her eyes and made her head swim. The room was lit only by firelight and the setting sun, but it was too bright. The air was too thick to breathe even though the far wall was open air, cut rock and columns, looking out over the sea. Her eyes watered. She barely made out the dark shape of Ares, standing on the opposite side of the room.
(WE SEE YOU, GODDESS OF BATTLE. NOW SEE US)
Athena’s grogginess disappeared, wiped clean like a hand swept across a fogged mirror.
There they stood. Or sat. With the tricolor silk laid over them she couldn’t tell. Three disfigured women, raised up on a platform of marble. Three crumbling, withered monoliths of women, twisted together. Athena’s eyes traveled from their red, black, and silver hair, to their arms, grown into each other’s stomachs.
“The Moirae,” she whispered.
Atropos, the black-haired one in the center, and the only one still beautiful, took her eyes off Cassandra. Her gaze made Athena want to crawl into a hole.