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Chapter Seventeen
“Vanda? Hey, Vanda?”
I slowly peeled my eyes open, vision clearing on an unfamiliar face, but it wasn’t him that woke me.
“Get up! Get up, girl! They’re going to burn, flood, poison, and flood my chamber! You must stop them,” Selene shrieked. “Get up!”
“About time you stopped lying around,” he said. “If my source is correct, and he always is, you don’t have much time.”
I bolted upright, slapping my chest.Nothing.Not a scratch. Not a mark. Not a gaping wound where my heart should be. “Who are you?” I whipped around, taking in the practice room, and the nine other people inside of it—converging on me. “Who are all of you? What do you want from me? How did I get here?”
“See?” one of the girls said. “I told you something was wrong. Everyone’s saying Aella’s a traitor and she was working with the demons, but she wouldn’t hurt us in a million years. Someone did something to her.”
“I think I know what.” A tall, stony-faced guy knelt in front of me. “Calix. He said he would do something like this, and he was the last person with her before all of this went down.”
“Calix Lambros forced her to lead an attack against Deucalion?” cried another freckle-faced girl.
My head swung back and forth trying to follow their odd conversation.
“Why the hell would he do that? That’s awful.”
“No, he didn’t make her attack anyone, but I’m a hundred percent sure he dumped Lethe water down her throat.”
“Lethe water?”Scoff.“Is that all? That’s easily dealt with.”
The guy leaning over me moved back and a dark-skinned, silver-eyed man claimed his space. The stranger waved his hand over me, and I choked.
Clasping my throat, I coughed and gagged as somethingforced its way up my esophagus. “S-stop,” I gasped. “H-help—!”
A floating, watery orb escaped my throat and hung before my huge, blown-wide eyes. Another wave and it evaporated—dissolving into mist.
I blinked at him. “Dimitri? Sebastian?” Twisting, I landed on Castor, Jason, Theron, Daciana, Ionna, Tycho, and Nitsa. But no—
“Alex?” I cried. “Where is he? I have to talk to him—” Visions of me clawing his mother’s last gift out of his wrist flashed through my mind. I nearly threw up. “Oh, gods. How could I do something like that? He’ll never forgive me.”
“You don’t have time to worry about Golden Boy,” Sebastian said. “I pulled you out as quickly as I could, but you still got a shock. Vanda, you’ve been out for two hours, and Maximos hasn’t wasted any time.”
Ionna shoved in front of him. “Aella, he’s told the whole school that you’re a tenebrae demon. They’re wickedly clever shape-shifters. Their deception is so good, you can’t tell you’re looking at an imposter unless you get close enough to smell sulphur. But if you’re that close, you’re already dead.” She trapped my gaze. “He said you planned the attack that brought down the wards and unleashed the monsters on us, and when you’re found, you’re to be killed on sight.”
I choked. “What! What the fuck kind of world is this? How can he just do that?”
“He can’t if you’re a demigod with rights,” Sebastian said, “but if you’re a monster...”
Understanding chilled me like a bucket of ice water to the face. “Then anyone, anywhere, can slaughter me with impunity.That way no one finds out he fucking murdered Headmaster Drakos, or that he’s planning to split the classes again, and leave the Sisypheans here undefended. He even said he hopes the monsters attack again, and kills all the useless.”
Theron paled. “He said what?”
“He said more than that.” Sebastian helped me to my feet. “He told the whole school about the chamber hidden within the academy, but with his own twist on the truth. Maximos claimed a monster more dangerous than we’ve ever known was imprisoned down there during the ancient times, and those statues were erected to keep it from ever getting out.
“He also said that the monsters all know about this ancient beast, which is why you infiltrated the school. The plan was to free it once and for all, destroy the demigod race, and finally the monsters would rule on high.”
Nitsa bobbed her head hard. “The rest of the council isn’t here, but he’s sent for them. As soon as they arrive, they’re going to combine their power to wipe out whatever’s in that chamber, and end the threat to Deucalion, and Olympia, once and for all. The whole school cheered.”
“They cheered for that bastard to kill my mom,” I cried, eyes filling. “She’s down there. He knows she’s down there. He doesn’t care because she’s just amundane.” I spat the word. “I came all this way to save her. It can’t end like this. It can’t!”
“We can’t stop him,” Nitsa confessed. Her eyes shone as bright as mine. “He’s the Zeus councilman, and we’re a bunch of Sisypheans. We tried to speak up for you when he called you a demon, but Ionna stopped us.”
“I had to.” Ionna squeezed her hand. “Every future I saw where we spoke against him, ended with us branded traitors, kicked out of the academy, imprisoned, or all three. I know my visions are sometimes wrong but...” She shook her head, throat bobbing with a hard swallow. “I’ve never seen a happy visionwith that man in it. I don’t need to test fate to know standing against him won’t end well for us.
