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I never sounded like that when I made demands. People easily ignored me as they walked past my locked-from-the-outside cell in the psychiatric hospital.
“Is he here?” Alexander continued, reaching for his sword again. “He’s going to have a shitload of questions to answer before the council.”
I dropped my gaze. “He’s not here. My dad died when I was two.”
“Oh.” Goose bumps rippled up my arm as he took my hand and squeezed. “I’m sorry. That’s terrible. I lost my mom when I was young too.” Alexander brought my knuckles to his lips. My cheeks exploded with heat when he kissed them. “Okay, the story is becoming clearer to me and seems to be a sad one. How about I stop accusing and listen?” He jerked his chin at the bench basking in the tree’s shade. “Shall we sit?”
“Th-at would be nice,” I croaked, voice cracking.
I wasn’t used to handsome men kissing my hand or flipping a switch and suddenly behaving like a gentleman. In my experience, they kept that switch taped down onasshole.
We sat down—just another pair enjoying a summer’s day in the park. I suddenly felt awkward.
“What did you mean the story is clear to you now?” I asked my shoes. “Do you understand all of this, because I don’t?”
He hummed. “Can I ask how your parents met?”
I didn’t know why he was asking, but I answered anyway. “They met here in the park. Mom was on her way to a concert, and they ran into each other.”
I peeked at him. He was nodding like the answer was what he suspected.
“Your dad must’ve been chosen like me,” he explained. “To cross into the mundane world and renew the barrier. Then, he meets your mom, falls in love, and continues coming back to see her. Comes back so often that”—he smiled at me—“one day there’s you.
“It’s not strictly against the law for an Olympian to be with a mundane, but it definitely is for one to live outside of Olympia. That he didn’t bring you across the border the day you were born put him in violation of our most sacred laws.”
I fixed on him—rapt.
“But I can see why that would’ve been impossible,” he admitted, almost grudgingly. “It’s also against the law for a mundane to live in Olympia. He couldn’t bring your mom, he couldn’t rip a babe out of her mother’s arms, and he couldn’t stay. There was no choice but for it all—your family—to remain a secret.
“Then one day he passes and it’s all left to your mom, whose choices are even worse. Even if she found a way to get you across the border, that would’ve been the last time she ever saw you. To lose you both forever, of course that would’ve been unthinkable.So she raised you in the home you knew and didn’t tell you the truth. Why tell someone of a world they would never know?”
My jaw worked. “How?” I rasped. “How do you know all of this?”
Alexander met my eyes. “Because that’s the only possible explanation for why you don’t know who you are.”
“Wha—? I— Who do you think I am?”
“I don’t think,” he said clearly. “I know. Aella, you’re a demigod.”
A roaring sounded in my ears.
“I’m a demigod. Your father was a demigod. And this is not your home—no matter that you were born here. You’re an Olympian—chosen by a god or goddess to house their essence in your soul. As such, you’re filled with amazing, terrible power.
“These people you see are human. Mundane. Ordinary. You,” he said, taking my hand again, “are a goddess.”
Tugging my hand free, I stood up and walked away.
“No. No, no, no, no, no.”
“What are you doing?” Selene hissed. “Return to that boy’s side at once. You need him. Without him, you’ll never cross the barrier.”
Her words couldn’t penetrate any more than his. This was insane. And not the insanity everyone had been accusing me of for two years, but actual insanity. My mom had tried to tell me something about my dad that night, but never in a million years were the words “demigod” and “amazing, terrible power” about to come out of her mouth.
That’s not something you keep from your kid. It also wasn’t real!
A noise made me look to my right. Alexander fell in step with me, smile jovial even while his eyes were alert and flicking side to side. He was ready at any time for attack. Wondered whohe thought was more threatening, the group of nannies walking past us or their infant and toddler charges.
“Stop following me.”
