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“I guess it doesn’t.” I twirled the band around my wrist. “She found a way to free your voice so that you can manipulate and destroy lives to finally get your freedom. Why couldn’t she find a way to free you?”
“She is a daughter of Apollo. Nothing like the useless child you just met. She sees the future that will come to be. Any futurewhere she tried to come for me herself ended in failure. As it did when she saw into the future of my other allies.
“Failures and weaklings. All of them,” she spat. “The only future where I broke my chains and rose to once again sit atop the throne of the universe... included you.”
“I succeed,” I rasped. “I free you.”
“I do not know.”
“What? But you just said—”
“You do not listen. I’m sure that trait frustrated your mother to no end. You’re a child of fate, Aella Vanda. One cannot see the future of a girl who changes her past. You are nothing but a mystery, a black spot, a missing chapter in my ally’s mind’s eye.
“All she knows is that the locks on my cage begin to break, and my future begins to change when a girl named Aella Vanda enters Deucalion Academy.”
I was quiet for a long time.
“This means you don’t know what I do, or how, or when. All you know is that I have something to do with your freedom. For that, you ruined my life and abducted my mother.” My calm voice belied my fury. “For all you fucking know, I sneeze on the person who really frees you, and that’s the only way I’m connected. You took my mother for nothing.”
“Oh no, child. There has been no mistake. You are the one I seek. You are the key.”
“How do you know that? I’m a mystery. A missing chapter. You don’t know anything.”
“Why would I need to know your future when I know mine? My ally gave me a prophecy, dear girl. It told me what I needed.”
“What prop—?”
“The weaver, the deceiver, and the believer stand guard. Within the eyes holds the gods’ lies.
“The son of Zeus will break the chains. A wolf will cross domains. On she fights as her mother’s love sustains. But don’t be fooled, the danger still remains.
“For within the dark she sleeps, within the dark she hates, within the dark she waits... for the child of the Fates.”
Laughter rang in my ears as I shrank, holding myself tightly.
“A ‘she’ who is both a child of the Fates and a loving mother. One who captures the devotion of a son of Zeus and a wolf’s friendship within minutes of meeting them?” Her snickers chilled my soul. “Do you still believe your only part to play in this is a sneeze?”
My lips trembled. I wanted nothing more to deny. To rant and rage and curse her for forcing me into the middle of a fight that wasn’t mine... but that was me. How could that prophecy be about anyone but me?
“Within the dark she hates,” I croaked. “Who are you, Selene? What exactly are you the goddess of?”
Her snickering grew faint. “What does it matter, girl? You will come. You will free me. I will rise. The future is written.
“Find me.”
I tossed and turned all that night, my dreams haunted by Alex’s words. The only thing someone could want more than freedom is revenge. What did Selene want? Was I her key to freedom? Or to so much more—? No. Was I the key to so much worse?
Chapter Six
“Aella? Aella?”
I snapped back to reality by a hand waving in my face.
“Aella, you okay?” Daciana asked. “You’ve been spaced out all morning.”
“Oh, uh, sorry,” I said to my staring friends. “I’m just nervous. First day and all.”
“Nothing to be nervous about,” Tycho said. “We’ve got your back. The six of us will stick together. No matter what. That’s how Sisypheans survive in this place.”
