I was almost afraid that she would drop dead right in front of me and my deal with the Fates would have been for nothing.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she croaked. Her throat worked to swallow, but I could tell how dry her mouth was from her cracked, bloody lips.
“I’m not staying,” I promised her. I was relieved to see that some of the tension faded in her expression. “I just wanted to see that you’re still alive.”
“I’m alive,” she whispered. In those simple words, I felt defeat like I had never experienced before. She was alive, but not by choice. If she had her wish she would have left this world long ago.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” I found myself promising her. I stepped forward, ignoring Veda’s childlike chuckle. “I promise, I’ll get you out of here.”
Suddenly she lunged forward and wrapped her hands around the glowing bars. She flinched as if the effort nearly killed her, but she didn’t let go. She also didn’t try to touch me. “Don’t,” she hissed on a wheezing inhale. “Please don’t. I don’t want to leave. You can’t make a deal with them, Ivy. No matter what they promise, it won’t be in your favor. I swear that to you. They will kill you. Or worse… And I tried so hard to keep you… away… I tried so hard to get you out…”
I shook my head, feeling the inexplicable need to comfort her. I was shocked at how wounded I was to see her like this. Tears streaked her dirty cheeks and I felt my own eyes grow hot and wet. “It’s not like that,” I quickly assured her. “It’s… I’m going to get you out,” I repeated, not knowing what else to say to her. I wanted to ask about the god-killer, but Veda hovered too closely. Intuition told me that regardless of what they said earlier, they were not on my side. They wanted me more than they wanted Nix dead and therefore I couldn’t give them the opportunity to take away my one possible advantage.
My mother looked distraught. I saw it in her despairing eyes that she had never expected to see me again. And she had wanted it that way.
Because if she never saw me again, that meant I had gotten away.
That meant I had found freedom.
“Did Nix bring you here?” she asked in a small voice.
“No, not Nix. Hermes.”
She frowned. I would have given anything to know her thoughts in that moment. She didn’t seem to approve of Hermes any more than she did Nix, which worried me. Ava’s entire reaction to seeing me made me want to run away from this mountain as fast as I could.
“Time’s up.” Veda clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth and moved toward me, using her small body to push Ryder and I back down the hallway.
“Mom!” I gasped, suddenly too attached to leave her. When had that happened? “Stay alive,” I begged her. I swiped at my foolish tears and held back a sob. “Don’t die and don’t get pregnant!”
She leaned against the bars of her cell and smiled faintly. Some of her old self sparked to life and she murmured, “I’m supposed to tell you that.”
I stumbled on the rocky ground and had to turn around to keep from face-planting. Ryder’s hand stayed around mine the whole time and I took comfort in his strength and confidence. I didn’t know where I would be without him right now.
Maybe behind bars with my mom.
“She’s used to being a prisoner,” Veda taunted behind us. “That’s the only reason she’s still alive. She’s never known anything but captivity. She was born broken.”
I swallowed furious curses and willed my fists to stay at my side. I wanted to rip her hair out.
I felt her lean forward. Her unearthly body heat covered my back and raised the hairs on my arms. She seemed to sense my reaction and it caused another tinkling of giggles to fall out of her.
“You’ll never last that long, Siren,” she whispered into my hair. “Do you know what happens when you try to cage a wild bird?” She didn’t wait for my guess. “They die.”
Swallowing my outrage, I asked the one question I had held back so far. “My friends… Exie and Sloane. Do you know what’s happened to them?”
Her black eyes seemed fathomless in the dark hallway. They widened at my question, seeming to become a hellish abyss right there on her small face. “Your mother lives in the lap of luxury compared to what Poseidon has done to them. And it’s all because of you. He punishes them because you’re out of his reach. But not for long, Little Bird. He’s close to what he wants. He has his prize within his reach.”
I didn’t turn around, but with a voice made of steel and vibrato, I asked, “Are we done yet?”
I sensed her fast jerk to upright and the tension that leaked into the air. She had wanted to wound me, but I wouldn’t let her. I wouldn’t let her threats get to me.
I wouldn’t let any of them get to me.
“We are,” she clipped in a business-like tone. “Be gone.”
I stumbled again, but this time not from the broken rocks and crumbled bone. My foot landed on unfamiliar ground, but it was definitely ground I could see.
My head rushed with the unsteady feeling of sharp déjà vu, and when I lifted my head, I could see why. Veda had sent us right back to the center of Olympus. One second we’d been in the Fate’s cave of iniquity and the next we were in the middle of town square with ten armed men and three angry Furies surrounding us.
