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Even from twenty feet across the sala, I can feel the weight of Circe’s gulp. It thuds through my own senses. The pain only worsens as the poor witch raises her head and answers her goddess in a sparse croak.
“Yes, Goddess.”
Hecate sags a little. Leans in to rest her forehead against Circe’s. But the intensity of her vise grip only gets brighter and thicker.
“Good,” she murmurs. “So tell me. Out loud.”
Circe swallows hard again. “Sacrifices,” she finally whispers. “It means sacrifices, my goddess. From everyone.”
“Thank you, lustre,” the willowy goddess whispers back. “A most perfect answer.”
Shit.
That’snota perfect answer. And I’m not in need of caffeine anymore. My frontal lobe burns as if Hecate’s already gotten her ruthless fingers on it as well, searing a new priority into me. A prominence that pounds through me, over and over again, to the cadence of my sprinting feet on the muddy ground, all the way back through the village of cottages.
When I crest the knoll in front of the house that Kara and I share, there’s a din of rain in the river beneath the chaotic sky.
This time, the storm is all me.
But I don’t care about the art of it anymore.
I don’t care about anything except getting inside and calling out her name—terrified I’m already too late.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KARA
“Maximus?”
I call it out while lurching up in bed. One second I was having a great dream about being with him in a convertible, road-tripping along the coast somewhere between San Clemente and the Mexican border. The next, his yelling voice is jolting my heart andall the walls around here.
Here?
For a second, I’m too disoriented to pull up any answer. But I look out across the narrow river, to where the lights of the sala glow, and cherish a matching warmth inside.
Iremia.Of course.Home.For a little while, at least.
Maximus doesn’t look like he agrees. At all.
“What is it?” I prompt. The atmosphere shakes with simultaneous lightning and thunder. “What’s happening?” My throat is tight and dry. “Has Hades—”
“No,” he growls. “But it might have something to do with him.”
I twist fists into the sheet I’ve clutched to the base of my neck. “What?How? Maximus, you’re scaring me.”
He sits on the bed and ardently reaches for me. I’m too freaked by the stress on his face to care about the water he’s getting everywhere. I only hope I can infuse his clammy skin with some degree of warmth.
“Hey. Come on, talk to me.” I grab his other hand and squeeze tighter. The effort makes the sheet descend to my waist, but modesty isn’t going to help a thing at the moment. He’s not noticing anyhow. But why do I sense that he’s also aware of everything? I meanallof it. The spectrum of sounds and smells through the canyon. Every sensation that sweeps across his skin. Things he can and can’t see. And it’s all hurting him. Cutting him. “Oh my God. What’s going on?”
Finally, he takes a deep, hard breath. “Kiama and Liseli had things under control at the barn, so I went to the sala. To make coffee.”
As he exhales, so do I—indulging a rush of relief. His explanation is so simple and normal. Maybe I’m jumping to a lot of unnecessary conclusions. “You brought me some, right? Name your price for the java, mister.”
“Kara.” But my playfulness doesn’t rub off on him. The gravity tenaciously sticks, making me wonder if someone’s been messing with the planet’s magnets. I’m weighted into the mattress. Dragged into his dark energy like nothing I’ve felt from him before. “I didn’t make coffee. I didn’t make it all the way into the kitchen.”
“Okay.” I shore up my posture. He still looks like he’s seen a ghost. “What happened?”
“Hecate and Circe were already in there.”
