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But it was different with Calliope. She was mine.
And, subsequently, Daisy’s, since we’d been raised more like sisters than cousins. She’d wanted a baby sister, too, even if her eyes made it harder to do the kinds of besotted older-sister things that I sometimes did, like letting Calliope chase me around in the backyard for hours during the brightest part of the day.
“I love you,” Daisy says into my ear. “But you have to get it together. It’s not like she’s moving to California.”
I dab at my eyes, careful not to screw up my frankly flawless makeup. “I would never let her move to California. I would hunt her down and bring her back.”
“Some friend you are.”
“I tried to bring you back, like, a million times. It’s just that you don’t love me as much as Calliope.”
“Slander!”
I laugh out loud at Daisy’s thunderously offended expression. Daisy moved away to California out of nowhere after we graduated, and I hated it. Of course, I respected her decision, because she is an independent woman capable of making her own life decisions, but it was the worst. We went from spending time together pretty much daily to a few scattered visits every year, and I always felt like we were racing against time.
We were racing against time. I didn’t know how little we had until Hercules brought her home last summer and the situation was so dire that I thought we’d be planning multiple funerals before the month was out. There was no way Daisy’s dad would survive her death, and my dad was in pieces and trying to hide it, and I cannot imagine a family reunion with more tension than when Daisy’s nightmares almost killed her.
Luckily for all of us, Hercules rolls his eyes in the face of death, and despite years of simmering animosity between the second of my three adoptive brothers and my best-friend-slash-cousin-slash-sister Daisy, he fell in love with her and leaped into the deadly reaches of her mind to save her.
Or so I’ve heard.
I didn’t personally witness the leaping-into-the-deadly-reaches. I was across the lawn in my dad’s house with Apollo and Ares, trying to be calm and steadfast for Calliope and Orion and Castor and Pollux. The effort had to be what counted in that situation, because I did not want to be calm and steadfast. I wanted a killer nightmare to be embodied so I could shoot an arrow through its heart and send it back to hell, or wherever it had come from. Apollo and I spent at least half that time staring at the light in Daisy’s window and trying pointlessly to tell each other that it wasn’t really killer nightmares, it was just an outgrowth of her brain sensitivities. In reality, it was probably both.
Never let it be said that I grew up in an uninteresting family.
Right now, we are not in any sort of emergency. Calliope and her stylist have moved on to her hair. Daisy leans closer to me, and we check ourselves out in a nearby full-length mirror specially bolted to the wall for the occasion.
“We look good,” Daisy pronounces.
“We do.”
Personally, I think Daisy is the more striking of the two of us. I’ve inherited my parents’ sunny blonde aura, but Daisy has a mysterious white-blond princess thing going on that’s offset by her eyes.
Black, with only the faintest suggestion of blue on the outer rings of her irises. That’s what happens when your pupils are permanently dilated, a condition she inherited from her dad. The killer nightmares, however, are unique to Daisy. I don’t like how long she was alone in that ordeal. At the same time, I don’t know what we’d have done if there were multiple people with lethal dreams.
That feels like too much.
No sign of any murderous nightmares in this dressing room-slash-spa, which Daisy’s dad, my Uncle Hades, had put in just for the day. He had a separate dressing area put in on the floor below us so—he claimed—Uncle Posiedon didn’t interfere with the styling process. I think this was code for I want to remain in a dark room for as long as possible while also staying close to my wife, with whom I am obsessed. My uncles and my dad usually take turns being the most over-the-top. Uncle Hades would’ve won with the temporary luxury spa if it weren’t for the party. It’s Orion and Calliope’s turn to take part in the cute family tradition of endorsing causes and having birthday fundraisers, so my dad and Uncle Poseidon have seized the opportunity to battle to the metaphorical death for the Crown of the Party King. You’d think that would be easy to sort out, since my dad has always been the Party King and my Uncle Poseidon spent a decent portion of his adult life being a pirate—sorry, working in shipping—but no.
This isn’t the family birthday we had when Calliope Calliope turned sixteen in December and Orion shortly before. This is a gala. Daisy and I shared a similarly fancy event when we turned sixteen, but we weren’t the first. Ares and Apollo were first, as they’re older. Hercules had his first charity birthday when he turned eighteen. He was the first person I’d met who could scowl through an entire event in celebration of his birth. Social media went wild. Daisy did plenty of secret browsing to see the photos. She was adamant that she didn’t care one way or the other, since Hercules hated her.
My point is, sometimes cousins know things in advance.
Daisy and I do a few more poses in front of the mirror. Across the wide room, our moms and our Aunt Ashley are having their nails done and laughing at each other’s jokes. It’s such a safe, lovely scene, and of course I love it. Of course it’s my favorite thing in the world.
Aside from the things I do when nobody in this room can see.
“I know you’ll say I’m full of shit,” I start.
“You are full of shit.” Daisy stands at an angle to the mirror and looks over her shoulder. “I don’t look better than you. We look different.”
The dress code for the gala is black tie with a strong suggestion to follow a celestial/sky theme. Daisy and Hercules are going as night and day. Calliope and Orion are going as sunrise and sunset. And Apollo and I?—
“The night suits you. It was practically made for you.”
Daisy rolls her eyes. Her gown is a custom Prada that looks like it was pulled out of the starry expanse and painted onto her body.
“The moon was made for you,” she says, giving me a pointed look.
