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I collected myself, rising up. “Let’s go.”
Several minutes later, I stood under a grand, domed ceiling. More confused than ever.
“I don’t understand. What am I looking at?”
“You’re looking at the statues. The dryads say they’ve been here as long as the trees. Longer even. Before the academy, before the castle, before Olympia.”
“The statues?” I spun on my heels, twirling under the unseeing eyes of Hera, Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Aphrodite, Artemis, Apollo, Hermes, Demeter, Hephaestus, Ares, and Hestia. The very statues I passed under on my first day. “No wonder the demigods chose this spot to build on.”
“The coincidence was unbearable,” Sebastian said. “Lost demigods searching for a home. The Olympian gods marked the spot.”
“Genius. It was all as you said, girl. The events that brought us all here today were never an accident. It was divine. It was fate.”
Sebastian turned to me. “You said this was an entrance to a prison. You believe your mother is inside of it?”
“I—”
“Enough. You speak to this boy no more. I allowed this interaction because my ally said I had to. While your future is still shrouded in darkness, the Barba boy’s isn’t. He was meant to have an important conversation with someone this night. The future where he didn’t result in my freedom being delayed by months, even years.
“I do thank him for discovering what you couldn’t and ridding you of any silly notions of going back in time and undoing our meeting. But your contact with him is now at an end. Walk away, and never speak to him again.”
“But I—”
“Do it now! Or the next ally I speak to will be told to drive a dagger through his eye.”
“I have to go,” I rushed, making for the door.
“It’ll always be like this with you and Alex.”
I tripped over myself. One foot planted, and the other running for the door. “What?”
“He’ll always hide you.” Sebastian trapped my gaze. “He’ll be sorry about it. He’ll spin sweet, pretty words in your ear and wish that things could be different, but at the end of the day, he’ll always choose his duty to Olympia over his love for you.”
Scoffing, I folded my arms. “I was finally beginning to see another side of you and think that maybe you’re not a massive, rotted asshole of a douche. Don’t ruin that now by sticking your nose in my relationship. You don’t know Alex. You don’t know anything.”
That smirk returned. “I know a few things. I know you’re soon going to realize I am the massive, rotted asshole you know and love, because you’re going to need help getting into this prison, and when you finally come begging, my price will be this: you use your power for me.”
“Excuse me?” I couldn’t have heard that right. “Use it for you?”
“That’s right,” he hissed, eating the distance. “Your power and mine together. We’d be unstoppable. No one could stand against us. And you’ve got to admit, swearing undying fealty to me is a small price to pay to save your own mother’s life. It’s not even a competition.”
“Fuck you!”
“You can’t expect me to do something for nothing. When you need my help to get into a prison fashioned by the very gods of all, and you will need my help, I will settle for nothing less than your eternal servitude.” He winked. “You really shouldn’t have told me your power. What were you thinking?”
I gaped at him. “You’ve lost your mind. It’s nothing but monkeys throwing their feces in that skull of yours.”
Sebastian laughed out loud. “That’s a good one. That’s what I like about you, Vanda. You’re quick. Clever. I’m alwaysslightly off-balance when I’m around you. No one dare get too comfortable in your presence.”
I had no idea what to say to that.
Sidestepping me, he made for the door. “I know one other thing,” he tossed over his shoulder. “If you were mine, I’d never hide you.”
I stood in the place I’d been searching for for years, and instead of figuring out the prophecy, the words rattling around my skull were his.
Chapter Eleven
Igot through my morning classes the next day by a miracle. I was operating on no sleep.
