There was a note of sadness in his voice that I understood all too well. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I am. I just—I still don’t understand why I’m here.”
“I have been ruling on my own for nearly a thousand years, but a century ago, I agreed to only a hundred more before my brothers and sisters take my realm from me. I cannot handle it on my own, not anymore. There are simply too many for me to do it alone. I have been searching for a partner ever since, and you are the last one, Kate. This spring, the final decision will be made. If you are accepted, you will rule with me as my queen for six months of the year. If you do not, you will return to your old life with no memory of this time.”
“Is that what happened to the others?” I said, forcing the question past my dry lips.
“The others…” He focused on something in the distance. “I do not mean to scare you, Kate, but I will never lie to you. I need you to trust me, and I need you to understand that you are special. I had given up before you came along.”
I clasped my hands together to keep them from shaking. “What happened to them?”
“Some of them went mad. Others were sabotaged. None of them reached the end, let alone passed the tests.”
“Tests?” I stared at him. “Sabotaged?”
“If I knew more, I would tell you, but it is why we have taken such extreme precautions to protect you.” He hesitated. “As for the tests, there will be seven of them, and they will be the basis on which it will be decided if you are worthy of ruling.”
“I didn’t agree to any tests.” I paused. “What happens if I pass?”
He stared at his hands. “You will become one of us.”
“Us? Dead, you mean?”
“No, that is not what I mean. Think—you know the myth, do you not? Who was Persephone? What was she?”
Fear stabbed at me, cutting me from the inside. If what he claimed was true, then he’d kidnapped Persephone and forced her to marry him, and no matter what he said, I couldn’t help but wonder if he would try to do the same to me. But the rational part of me couldn’t look past the obvious. “You really think you’re a god? You know that sounds crazy, right?”
“I am aware of how it must sound to you,” said Henry. “I have done this before, after all. But yes, I am a god—an immortal, if you will. A physical representation of an aspect of this world, and as long as it exists, so will I. If you pass, that is what you will become as well.”
Feeling dizzy, I stood as quickly as I could while still in those damned heels. “Listen, Henry, this all sounds great and everything, but what you’re telling me is from a myth that people made up thousands of years ago. Persephone never existed, and even if she did, she wasn’t a god, because there’s no such thing—”
“How do you wish for me to prove it?” He stood with me.
“I don’t know,” I said, faltering. “Do something godlike?”
“I thought I already had.” The fire in his eyes didn’t fade. “There may be things I will not—cannot—tell you, but I am not a liar, and I will never mislead you.”
I shrank back from the intensity of his voice. He really did believe what he was saying. “It’s impossible,” I said softly. “Isn’t it?”
“But it is happening, so maybe it is time for you to reevaluate what is possible and what is not.”
I thought about kicking off my heels, heading down the path to the front gate, and leaving, but the thought of my dream with my mother stopped me. As the part of me that wanted to stay for her overruled my skepticism, the temperature dipped twenty degrees, and I shivered. “Kate?”
I froze, my feet glued to the ground. I knew that voice, and after yesterday, I’d never expected to hear it again.
“Anything is possible if you give it a chance,” said Henry, focusing on something over my shoulder. I whirled around.
Not ten feet away from us stood Ava.
CHAPTER 8
AVA’S RETURN
I don’t know how long I stood there, hugging Ava so tightly that she couldn’t have possibly been able to breathe. Time moved slowly, and all I could think about was the way her arms felt around my shoulders as I struggled not to cry.
“Ava,” I said in a strangled voice. “I thought—James said—everyone thought you were dead.”
“I am,” she said, her voice soft, but still hers. “Or at least that’s what they tell me.”
I didn’t ask how. Henry had done it once, and even though he’d said he couldn’t do it again, maybe he’d tried. Maybe he’d discovered it wasn’t so impossible after all.
But if she were dead—really, truly dead—did that mean he’d been telling the truth after all? Was this how he was trying to prove it? The ground felt uneven underneath me. Even though every rational part of my mind screamed that this couldn’t be happening, Ava felt warm and real in my arms, and there was no way anyone would go to such lengths to pull off a prank. The whole school thought she was dead. James thought she was dead, and I trusted him not to lie to me like that.
“Kate,” she said, prying me off of her. “Calm down. I’m not going anywhere.”
I pulled away, tears stinging my eyes and blurring my vision. “You better not be. You get to stay?”
“For as long as you want.”
Over her shoulder I saw Henry standing to the side, his eyes averted.