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ALEX, SEBASTIAN, JASON, and the others didn’t make it to history. They were still passed out on the floor, and Hondros wouldn’t allow anyone to help them.
Halfway through the lesson, there was finally a lull in the discussion for me to sneak in a question.
“Madame Remis?” I spoke up. “Since we’re speaking of one-sided history, can we talk about Michail Midas? I read a book inthe library yesterday that suggested there was more to him than there seemed.”
“Ahh, Michail Midas.” She stopped pacing to lean against her desk. “I’m glad you brought him up, Miss Vanda. He is a great topic for our lesson today. King Midas’s reign was a fascinating time in Olympian history.”
“TheusurperMidas,” Sirena stressed, “was a traitor and assassin. That psychotic Hades spawn is a black stain on our history. Nothing more.”
Remis smiled patiently at Sirena. The daughter of Hera was making a habit of arguing with her.
“No one is arguing the man’s morality left a lot to be desired,” Remis said, “but when he unseated the council and named himself king, he repealed a fair number of laws. Including the one that didn’t allow regular Olympians to come and go from our dominion as they pleased.”
I sat up straighter. He did what?
“Really?” Delia, a Titan, asked. “He brought down the barrier?”
“He didn’t bring it down. Such an ancient and powerful spell, he couldn’t. But he did command the children of Hecate working in the palace. They guarded the potion that let council members pass through and return. Midas made it so anyone with a reason or request could take a jaunt into the human dominion.”
“Wow,” Daciana said. “So that’s why even mortals know the legend of King Midas—the man who turned everything he touched to gold.”
“That is why exactly. With the lid popped off our hidden world, mundanes learned of Midas, and that’s not where it stopped. Of course, mundanes already had a concept of gods, demons, and magic from before the scatter and the treaty of the five dominions. Gods they still believed in, but the rest faded into legend and scary stories.
“When we powered demigods suddenly reappeared in their lives, it set off a wave of hysteria among those who couldn’t believe we were real, let alone meant no harm. To be fair, it’s possible quite a few demigods did do harm.” Once again, we were a rapt audience. “True magic performed before their eyes. Fatal illnesses healed overnight. Men taking the form of animals. Women controlling people with the snap of their fingers.
“Mundanes quickly determined that we were demons sent by Hades or poor mundanes possessed by such a demon. Naturally, the only solution was to hang, stone, or burn every suspected communer with Hades.”
“Rhea and Cronus,” a guy behind me said. “Savages.”
“Looking back, their actions were certainly cruel and barbaric, but they were scared. Everything they thought they knew of the world was turned on its head. All of a sudden, they were seeing impossible things wherever they looked. Many thought they were going mad. Many deemed others mad when they told tales of men who wielded fire with their bare hands. Too many people to name were locked away in asylums for sharing the truth of what demigods could do.
“Yes, they were wrong to kill out of fear. Although I ask you, my young novices, were we not wrong too? We could’ve been passive observers in their world. Instead, we blew in, had our fun throwing our powers around, and then blew out, leaving them to deal with the consequences,” she said.
“Around the time mundanes started hunting for ‘witches,’ they stumbled on vampires by accident. This gave birth to vampire hunters that drove their covens deeper into hiding. Of course, we were blamed for reawakening them to humans with extraordinary abilities. It nearly kicked off another interdominion war.
“King Midas appeased the vampires by giving them gold. As much as they desired,” she said, motioning to an invisible piletaller than her. “From then on, vampires went from living in crypts and abandoned buildings to occupying castles and buying out entire out-of-the-way towns. One ill-conceived act led to another, and as a result, we made an enemy stronger than they ever were.”
I flicked to Daciana. Did she know this particular part of history, or was she learning about it for the first time too? Knowing her hatred of vampires, she can’t be thrilled to learn demigods had a hand in making them stronger.
“Why are you telling us this?” Sirena didn’t ask a question politely when rude and demanding worked just as well. “Midas was stupid to break council law, but you can’t expect much more from a psychopath. Everything else that happened with the mundanes and the vampires is just too bad. Their weakness and ignorance weren’t our fault.”
Remis picked up her feet and walked the room. The lady was never behind her podium. “I don’t aim to assign fault. My goal is to teach you history and hope you learn more than facts and dates. I won’t tell you what the lesson is to be learned in this instance.” She turned her enigmatic smile on us. “You tell me.”
I could tell her. The lesson was a child of the Fates gave Midas the power to get rid of his enemies, steal power, name himself a king, and wreak havoc that spilled into nearly every dominion—the worst damage being on the mortals.
The more you change your past, the further your future unravels.
Yes, I got the lesson. Bad things happen to people who mess with fate.
I approached Madame Remis after class ended and everyone left.
“Excuse me?” Remis looked up from her papers. “Do you have a minute? I wanted to ask you something.”
“Go on.”
“The other day, I overheard some Titan girls talking about this cool, quiet spot in the castle where you can hang out and study without anyone bothering you,” I began. “They said something about it being just them, Clotho, Apate, and Pistis—demigoddesses and goddesses only.
“Do you know the spot they’re talking about?” I asked. “A quiet place to read and study sounds nice to me.”
