Unlike the council, Cronus and Calliope weren’t partners. They were barely allies. In Calliope’s desperation to escape from Walter, she’d managed to stumble across the only being in the universe who treated her even worse than he had. And judging by the look on her face, she was finally beginning to realize it.
Cronus was quiet for a long moment, and darkness filled the hallway until I couldn’t see an inch in front of me. “I have shown her and told her nothing.”
“There is no other explanation,” said Calliope. “The battles we have fought—they are always two steps ahead of us, circumventing my traps and plans, and they could not possibly know these things if you were not telling Kate our every move.”
He wasn’t though, which meant there was a traitor in Calliope’s household. I glanced into the darkness where Ava was standing.
Not possible.
“Silence,” said Cronus, and he dropped me. I stumbled, and his hand caught my wrist. “I will hear no more of this. If there has been any leak, it is not from me. Therefore I can only assume it is you who is the traitor, my daughter. And I do not suffer treason.”
He yanked my hand until my fingertips touched another—James’s. No one else was standing in that direction.
“I am finished with this pointless debate. You have what you want, and my bargain with Kate is fulfilled. However, because I cannot ensure her safety, I cannot allow her to stay.”
At last Cronus let go of my wrist, and I understood. The inky clouds, his argument with Calliope—he wanted me to leave. I couldn’t though, not when Henry and Milo were in danger. I couldn’t abandon them again.
The air crackled with a different kind of power, but the darkness around us muted it, and Calliope let out a frustrated cry. “You can’t do this to me! She is nothing—”
“Then tell me,” said Cronus, “if she is nothing, why do you care?”
Calliope blustered, and James gripped my hand so tightly that I thought my fingers would fall off. If I had any chance of getting him out of here alive, we had to go now. I couldn’t be responsible for anything happening to him, but I couldn’t leave either.
And then, in the emptiness, a midnight voice surrounded me.
Go.
Tears stung my eyes. Henry. There was nothing I could do and he knew it. If I stayed, Calliope would kill me. Like our picnic in the woods when she’d revealed herself to be the traitor, she was too emotional, too irrational for me to depend on her thinking clearly. She’d known then that she would out herself as a murderer to the entire council, and she hadn’t cared. I had no guarantee she wouldn’t call Cronus’s bluff now.
I focused all my energy on Henry and pushed my thoughts toward him. I love you. Don’t ever forget that.
Without giving myself a chance to change my mind, I clutched James’s hand and disappeared.
We landed on an abandoned beach as the sun dipped into the ocean. I sank onto the sand, and James gathered me up, letting me cry into his shoulder without complaint.
I’d left them. I’d sworn I would never abandon Henry, and the first chance I’d had, I’d done it anyway. If I’d talked to him before Cronus’s deadline, we could have come up with a plan together. We didn’t need the council’s permission to act, and I’d leapt without thinking once again. This time it had cost me my family.
“I’m never going to see them again, am I?” I said. The tide washed up inches from our toes, and we didn’t have more than a few minutes before we’d miss our window to return to Olympus. The thought of going back without Henry and Milo ate away at me until there was nothing left but skin and bone. Walter and Dylan were right. The entire council was right. I wasn’t ready to help them, and the more I did, the worse things got.
“What happened to you?” said James.
“What do you mean?”
He pulled back enough to look at me, his eyes searching mine. “You’re not the girl I met in Eden. She didn’t break down into tears every time something didn’t go her way.”
“I’m not—” I started, but then another tear rolled down my face. “My family’s gone. No one’s letting me help, and every time I try, I screw things up even worse.”
He threaded his fingers through mine. “Since when did you ever need anyone’s permission?”
I wiped my cheeks and squinted into the sunset. “So what else am I supposed to do? I’ve already tried everything. My deal with Cronus fell through, and even if it hadn’t, all it would’ve done was secure Milo’s safety. It wouldn’t have changed anything in the bigger picture, and the only way I’m ever going to see them again is if we win this war.”
“So help us win.”
I sniffed. “How?”
“Think,” he said. “You know Cronus’s weaknesses better than any of us. You know his strengths. You know him.”
“Bullshit. The original six fought him for a decade. I’ve never so much as arm wrestled with him.”
“No,” agreed James, “but you’re the only one who’s ever stopped him in his tracks.”
That moment in the Underworld, as Cronus had chased us through a desert. I’d thought I was going to die then, too. Would that have made any of this easier?
No, it wouldn’t have, because the original six would’ve never escaped that cavern in Tartarus. They would still be there, unconscious and slowly dying while Cronus and Calliope figured a way out. Everything would’ve been different.