“I don’t believe it, no matter what you say, Lucas,” Pallas said, shaking his head in denial. “Tantalus loved Ajax.”
“Yes, he did. He loved his brother, and then he killed him,” Daphne said, frustrated to the point of cruelty. “Now, as a kin-killer, he’s an Outcast, and he can’t have contact with anyone from the House of Thebes without the Furies revealing his sin to you.”
“Pallas,” Castor said gently. “Didn’t it ever bother you that our brother stayed hidden even when there were no other Houses left to fight?”
“But there were other Houses, and there still are!” Pallas shouted, pointing to Helen and her mother. “He must have known she was still alive, and that she can seduce anyone, even us, to help her get to him.”
“I haven’t used the cestus on you, Pallas. Not even to get you to believe me,” Daphne said tiredly. “I want you to know in your own heart who killed Ajax. I need you to believe that I wasn’t the one who killedmy husband.”
“Everything she’s saying is true,” Lucas said, locking eyes with Helen. “She hasn’t used the cestus. And she and Ajax were married.”
Helen looked away, although she could feel him studying her face.
“The Fates have done this many times,” Cassandra intoned, a hint of the Oracle’s glow in her eyes and voice as she momentarily peeked through the Veil. “The Star-Crossed Lovers are in the warp and weft of the pattern, and my mothers are compelled to repeat it again and again. Symmetry must be maintained or the fabric of the universe will be ruined. All Four Houses have been preserved this way.”
“All four?” Lucas repeated as his eyes sought out Helen’s. A glimmer of hope flared up in him, but instead of seeing his own elation echoed in Helen, her face was pale and empty. She looked away.
“Four Houses in Three Heirs,” the many voices continued to chant. “The Star-Crossed Lovers have preserved the bloodlines. And the Three shall raise Atlantis.”
A strange hush overtook the room, like the pause between a blinding flash of lightning and the deafening roar of thunder that inevitably follows.
“Sibyl!” Daphne said suddenly, addressing Cassandra by the most ancient title of her office. “I beg you to answer me! How can the Scions rid themselves of the Furies?”
“She can’t control them yet!” Castor gasped at Daphne, whose face had grown greedy and desperate. Helen’s mind flashed back to Daphne’s sudden decision to come back to the House of Thebes with Lucas, and she knew that this was what her mother had wanted all along.
Castor grabbed Daphne’s arm, pulling her away from his daughter, but it was too late. The Three Fates had been officially summoned into the body of the Oracle to answer a direct question, and they would not be stopped. Cassandra’s mouth glowed, her hair writhed, and her head snapped back. Her eyes grew rheumy with cataracts and her skin wrinkled. An old woman forcibly pushed her way through a young girl’s shell like she was tearing through a piece of paper. Convulsing, the old woman turned into another woman, and then a third, as the many voices chimed out of her.
“The Descender must go down to those who cannot forgive and cannot forget. The Descender and her Shield will free the Three from their suffering as she will free the Houses from the cycle of blood for blood,” they said, and then went silent.
Cassandra’s head righted itself. The wrinkles smoothed and her eyes cleared, but the eerie extra presences were still in her. Daphne pulled herself away from Castor and approached the Oracle with her arms crossed and her palms pressed flat against her chest in reverence.
“The House of Atreus owes you a debt, Sibyl,” Daphne said with a deep bow, completing her part of the ritual.
“And the House of Atreus will pay it when asked,” the Oracle said before the glow died completely and Cassandra returned fully to herself with a series of blinks and an exhalation. Everyone stared at Daphne with shock and anger.
“I’m sorry, but I had to,” she said barely above a whisper.
“You could have killed her,” Lucas said, clenching his fists. “She’s still too young.”
“If the vengeance cycle isn’t broken, she has no future, anyway. None of us do,” Daphne mumbled, unable to look at him. Several people raised their voices to argue.
“She’s right,” Cassandra said, cutting everyone off. “Things will change, Prophecy has been made, and like it or not, I am the Oracle. I can’t hide anymore.”
“Maybe not,” Castor said somberly. “But next time, we decide together what questions to ask and when to ask them.” He turned and pointed a finger at Daphne. “Another trick like that and I’ll make sure you don’t live long enough to hear Sibyl’s answer.”
Daphne nodded once with a passive face that placated Castor, but not Lucas. He’d seen Helen make that face before, and he knew it was bogus. Lucas glanced at Helen, who had noticed the same thing he did, and they shared an anxious look.
Cassandra said that she was tired, and Pandora took her upstairs to lie down for a while. Ariadne went into the kitchen to check on Matt, who was still icing a few bumps and bruises while Noel gave him a crash course in demigods.
Lucas gestured with his head for Helen to meet him in the next room. She tried to shake her head no, but he had already turned away and started moving toward the door. She had to follow.
He led her to an unfamiliar part of the house, the wing directly opposite his father’s office, one that Helen had never entered. As they moved through the empty hallways and past the unused rooms, she could see Lucas tilt his head ever so slightly over his shoulder, aware of her presence.
As she followed him, never more than a few paces behind, she could see his shoulders tense and his breathing quicken. She watched the warm skin of his back moving under his shirt with every breath, and she had to rub her tight fists against each other to keep herself from reaching out to touch him. Finally, he entered the empty solarium on the easternmost end of the compound and turned around. She had one second to open her mouth in protest before he was kissing it. The second after that she felt him gently pushing her down to the floor. The second after that Helen very nearly gave in to him.
A wave of nausea swept up from her stomach and she clamped her mouth shut as she turned her head away from him. Lucas pulled back carefully, thinking he had hurt her in some way. She braced her elbows against the marble floor and shoved against his chest.
“Stop,” she begged.
