A loud crash echoed through the cavern. Startled, I looked up toward the sound, and a sick sense of dread f illed the pit of my stomach.
Stars were falling from the sky.
CHAPTER TEN
FISSU R E
“Kate!”
James’s frantic voice rose above the sound of crashing rock and ringing bells, and I darted out of the carnival, covering my head instinctively. The ground shook beneath me, but there were no signs of the fallen stars.
I smacked into James. “What’s going on?” I said, unable to keep the panic out of my voice.
“I don’t know.” He wrapped his arm around me, and together we hurried back to the f ire. “Whatever it is, I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
The f lames in the f ire shook with each crash that echoed through the cavern, but the rocks weren’t landing in the f ield or the forest or anywhere near the carnival. Ava and Persephone stared upward into the sky, wearing identical expressions of alarm. If it wasn’t happening here, then where—
Without warning, the world dropped out from around me, and I was on the surface again. Instead of the dense forest that surrounded Eden, I stood on a cliff overlooking the bluest water I’d ever seen as wave after wave rolled to the white shore.
James and I had only spent a few days on this particular island, but the ancient palace in the distance and the sharp drop into the water were unmistakable. This was Greece.
“Did you feel that?” someone shouted behind me. “I told you this would happen. I told you.” Dylan dashed past me, dressed in cargo shorts and a tank top. The other members of the council, all wearing similar outf its, clustered around something a few feet away. I inched closer to see.
Had I been transported back up here somehow without realizing it? Once I was close enough, I set my hand on Ella’s shoulder. It went right through her.
I was a ghost again, and this was a vision, but it wasn’t the one I’d wanted.
“He’s breaking through,” said Irene. She and several of the others held out their hands toward the ground, and a jolt of fear ran down my spine.
They formed a ring around a crack in the earth. It couldn’t have been more than a few feet long, but tendrils of fog slithered up through it, f licking like the tongue of a snake as if they were tasting the air itself.
Cronus.
The remaining members of the council held out their hands as they’d done back in the palace, and the tendrils twisted like they were annoyed, but they f inally disappeared back into the ground.
“He’s done it,” said Irene, wiping the sweat from her brow. “He’s cracked the surface.”
“Are we sure it goes all the way down?” said Theo.
“How else could he come up like that?” said Dylan.
“Honestly, am I the only one with half a brain here?” Nicholas, Ava’s husband, gave him a warning look. Dylan rolled his eyes and kicked a bit of dirt back into the crack.
“Do you think Calliope found a way to release him?” said Ella in a frightened voice that didn’t sound like her at all.
“If she did, then this is pointless,” said Dylan.
“Then we have to assume she didn’t,” said Irene. Her red hair seemed to shimmer in the sunlight, and for the f irst time since I’d met her, it was a mess. They all looked disheveled and exhausted. “We have to keep going as planned.”
“So Cronus can obliterate us as soon as he f inds out we were working against him?” said Dylan.
“So Cronus never gets the chance.” Irene waved her hand over the crack, and it f illed back up with dirt. Seconds later, however, it started to empty like the top of an hourglass as the dirt fell into the Underworld.
“He’s really done it,” said Theo, and he set a protective hand on Ella’s back. “He has his way out.” Irene grimaced. “Maybe so, but this also means we know for certain where he’s going to come out, and with any luck, we’ll have time to f inish setting our trap up.”
“Setting it up where?” said Dylan. “Around the entire island?”
“If we have to.”
Dylan groaned and stalked off, leaving the others to mill about. Xander, who’d acted as one of my bodyguards in Eden and had been quiet up until now, raked his f ingers through his hair. “We’re all going to die.”
“No, we’re not,” said Irene. “Not if we do this right and work together.”
“And if the others are already dead?” said Ella shakily.
Irene narrowed her eyes, and with an irritated gesture, she f illed the crack with dirt again and turned away. “We have no way of knowing, so we have to keep going and hope they’re not. We don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, we do,” called Dylan as he sat on the edge of the cliff, his legs dangling. “We don’t try to f ight, and we hope to hell Cronus doesn’t kill us, too.”
Before anyone could say anything else, Greece and the sunshine fell away, and I once again found myself in the darkness of the Underworld.
“It was Cronus,” I said as I struggled to sit up. James, Ava and Persephone all stared at me, but this time they weren’t hovering. We were back at the campf ire, and the trembles and crashes had stopped for now. It would only be a matter of time before Cronus tried again though. “He broke through to the surface.”
Ava went white, and Persephone turned away from me.
Exactly like Irene had turned away from the proof that Cronus was speeding toward victory.