Lark cut a glare to him and he fell silent, raising his glass to his lips instead.
“Do you think she’s behind this?” Cass asked, her voice wavering as she did. “That she could be… recruiting gorgons to do her bidding? And why would she want the key to Hellscape anyway?”
“My guess?” Lark asked. “Access to minotaurs she can drop into the mortal realm.”
I dropped my glass. It shattered against the rug, brown liquid seeping into the orange shag. But Cass waved a finger, without even looking my way, and the mess was gone and Rook was handing me another drink, which I took with shaking hands.
“You think she’s behind the rifts,” Cass breathed, so in awe that her voice barely rose above the whisper.
“Who else would have such power, such ambition? Who else might want to see our planes collide? Who else might want to tear down the division between mortal and immortal?”
“But even she doesn’t have the power to tear through the Divide. Even she cannot control beasts or access Hellscape.”
“Sixty years ago, we claimed she couldn’t control minds either, Cass. Truthfully, we don’t have the slightest idea what she is capable of. And we have been underestimating her for far too long.”
The group fell silent at the implications of what Lark was suggesting. That a single woman, my mother, might be capable of ripping holes into the temporal divide that separated the immortal plane from the mortal, that she might be sending monsters of lore and legend back into the mortal world once again, was almost too much to take, particularly given what I had learned about her only recently.
“Is it even possible?” I asked in a whisper when no one else was speaking.
“It… would be the first time,” Lark said. “I can’t think of a way, but if anyone could…”
He left the rest unsaid. That it would be my mother. That she could feel justified in creating that much chaos, that much destruction. I felt sick to my stomach and set my drink on the table beside the settee, taking a deep breath.
“What’s your plan?” Rook asked. “Storm into the Court of Peace and Pride and ask her? I don’t really think she would be all that forthcoming, considering the last time you saw one another.”
“We don’t need to ask her,” Lark said. “When there’s the matter of the gorgon.”
“They captured him. We won’t be able to get to him.”
“All gorgons report their actions to their queen.”
Silence descended upon the group once more. I sensed an overwhelming feeling of doom surrounding them.
“You don’t mean—” Cass started but Lark interrupted.
“It’s been a while since we visited Medusa.”
Wrapping my mortal mind around the fact that Medusa was real, let alone still alive and thriving as a self-proclaimed Queen somewhere in Hellscape, was proving nearly impossible. I had been quizzing Cass on what to expect for the last half hour as the men armed themselves to the teeth and prepared to leave again despite my suggestion that Rook take some time to recover. Even if he was healed physically, nearly dying and experiencing the pain of cauterization was a mental wound that would need time as well. But he waved me off and armed himself alongside his prince.
“Does she really have snakes for hair?” I was asking as Cass strapped a knife to her inner thigh and handed one to me to do the same.
“No,” she answered with a snort. “That’s a mortal myth. She can turn you to stone, though. That’s sort of a gorgon’s whole deal. She’s also a raging bitch.”
“Cass! Ren!” Rook called from the next room and I quickly slipped the knife beneath my waistband before joining Cass and the boys in the living room.
“Not that it would be a problem… again,” Lark said, his gaze flicking to Rook, “but don’t let her kiss you.”
Cass rolled her eyes and then disappeared.
“One time, Lark,” Rook argued with a sigh. “I kiss a gorgon one time and you never let me live it down.”
“You were paralyzed for six hours,” Lark reminded him.
Rook raised a particular finger in Lark’s direction before disappearing as well. Lark chuckled, shaking his head, and extended a hand to me.
“She would talk to me, you know,” I said softly. “My mother. So we don’t have to go into Hellscape, so we don’t have to face Medusa.”
“I would rather face Medusa any day than Ariadne Dawnpaw,” Lark replied with a frown, dark eyes boring into mine with significance. “Besides, unless you choose to go to her for yourself, she will have to drag you there over my cold, dead body.”
