“Because he loves you.” Daphne shut the door behind them. “The cestus can’t hide the face of a beloved, it can only reveal it. You’ll never be anyone but yourself to him because he loves you exactly as you are.”
Daphne rubbed her temples in frustration at this new and annoying development. She turned to Lucas and dropped her disguise. He gasped.
“Youareall of the women,” Lucas said, remembering what Cassandra had seen. “Helen, this is the woman that’s been attacking you, this isn’t her real face...”
“I know. I even know that she was the one who hurt Kate in the alley,” Helen said, swallowing painfully. “I thought it was me—that I had shocked Kate by accident.”
“Helen, you aren’t to blame,” Daphne said, sounding almost annoyed at the idea.
“She was trying to kidnap me to get me away from your family before you found out who I really was,” Helen continued, ignoring Daphne. “She knew I wouldn’t trust her, and that she would literally have to tie me down to get me to listen to her. So that’s what she did. But this is my true mother, and this is her true face, Lucas. It’s our face.”
“It’s not possible,” Lucas said, looking from Helen to Daphne and back again. “No Scion resembles anotherthisclosely.”
“The bearers of the cestus always look like the first Scion to ever possess it,” Daphne said.
“Helen of Troy,” Lucas said quietly.
Helen nodded, then clarified while looking at her mother. “Aphrodite and Helen were half sisters, and they loved each other very much. When the siege of Troy began, Aphrodite gave Helen the cestus to protect her. Since then, it’s been passed from mother to daughter, along with the Face.”
“The Face?” Lucas asked.
“That Launched a Thousand Ships,” Daphne said, repeating the title automatically. “It’s our curse.”
“Helen of Troy was in the House of Atreus,” Lucas said as he slumped down into a straight-backed chair that decorated the entryway. “So Pallas was right. You are Daphne Atreus.”
“I suppose Pallas had to be right about something eventually,” Daphne snapped before she stopped herself and softened her tone. “I know he’s your uncle, but we have a complicated history. Your father was different. He was very kind to me, or at least he tried to be. The Furies make kindness a very relative term.”
“The Furies,” Lucas said as an idea struck him. “Why don’t I see the Furies when I’m around you?”
“For the same reason your family doesn’t see them around Helen anymore. You two risked your lives to save each other, and that released you from your blood debt. A long time ago I went through something similar with another member of the House of Thebes. But I don’t have time to explain the whole story to you,” Daphne said not unkindly. “Helen and I have to get off this island, and we have to do it now.”
“No,” Lucas said, looking at Helen. “Come back with me, both of you. My family...”
“Your family wants me dead,” Daphne replied coldly. “And Creon is here to hunt Helen down. I have to get her off this island, and if you love her the way I know you do, you’ll help me do it.”
“I can protect Helen from Creon,” Lucas said defiantly, still waiting for Helen to look at him, but she wouldn’t.
“How? Are you ready to become a kin-killer? An Outcast?” Daphne asked harshly.
Lucas snapped his head around to look at Daphne, responding to a phrase that he had been raised to abhor. For a moment he hated her, but only because she was right.
“You can’t defend Helen against your own family—not to the death. I’m the only one who can protect her now,” Daphne continued, her tone suggesting that she was genuinely sorry for him. “And the best way for me to do that is to get her away from Creon.”
“I won’t let him near her. I don’t care what I have to become,” Lucas said, preoccupied with Helen and troubled by the way she seemed to be avoiding him. He took her hands.
“Lucas. Let me go,” Helen said quietly, pulling her hands out of his. He went silent, sensing something very wrong was about to happen. Again. “If you love me, you’ll let me go. Do you love me?” Her voice was so thin and papery it crackled.
“You know I do,” he replied, confused. “If you’re frightened, run away withme, like we planned. You know we’remeantto be together, I know you can feel that, just like I do.”
“I want you to let me go,” she said simply as she finally met his eyes and held them.
Instead of thinking about the way Lucas’s face fell under the weight of his surprise and sadness, Helen imagined her heart as a giant tub full of water. Everything she had ever felt in her life, all the good and all bad, were just ribbons of food coloring in that water, and the whole beautiful mess was swirling down the drain. The only thing she needed to do was wait a few more seconds and the basin would be empty.
“You can hear the truth in what I say, can’t you?” she continued mercilessly. “I want you to let me go.”
Lucas caught his breath and held it for a long moment as he registered that Helen wasn’t lying to him. Then he nodded and breathed again, his face impassive.
“I believe that you want to get away from me right now, but I also know what isgoing to happen, regardless of what anyone wants,” he said.
