Still, everything looks normal—or as normal as a room dedicated to Greek myths can. It’s not until I walk deeper into the room and start checking out the Greek gods that I notice it. The floor is made of mosaic tiles, and they are moving and shifting and spinning right before my eyes.
“It’s the tiles!” I call, dropping to my knees to get a better look.
“What about them?” Kyrian asks.
But Fifi’s already shushing him as she runs down the aisle toward me.
“What do you see, Ellie?”
“I don’t know.” I pull out my phone, turn on the camera so I can try to capture a picture if it forms like I think it will.
“Again, what exactly is she supposed to see?” Kyrian sounds baffled.
I’m too busy tracking the tiles to answer him. Because the whole floor is shifting now, all the blacks and blues and purples migrating to the center of the room. Arjun mustfinally explain, though, because the next thing I know, Kyrian’s on the floor next to me.
Fifi’s on my other side and Arjun is standing over all of us.
“Is it happening?” Fifi asks in a hushed voice.
I nod, because slowly, slowly, slowly, a picture is emerging.
“It’s a face,” I tell them, because I can see shoulders and a neck, the beginnings of a chin. “I think it’s a woman.”
“Where?” Kyrian asks, studying the tiles like he’ll suddenly be able to see what I see.
But it doesn’t work that way. It’s just another way I’m special, like Prometheus said. Although I’m not sure I believe him. It’s so much easier to believe there’s something wrong with me than to think those differences are actually good things.
More of the face forms—a nose, cheekbones, bright blue eyes. And that’s when it hits me. I don’t need a phone to capture this image because I already know who it is.
“It’s Hera,” I say, reaching to grab on to Fifi as the truth becomes clear. “That’s who’s in the picture. Hera. And she’s pointing right over there.”
I turn to look, to try and follow what it is she’s hoping to show me. But the moment I take my eyes off the mosaic, the entire floor explodes with a giant bang.
56.Tile Me Something I Don’t Know
FIFI SCREAMS AS WE ALLgo flying.
I slam against the base of Zeus’s statue and the sharp corner of it slices through my back. Immediately I know the skin has been broken, but I don’t have time to try and figure out how bad it is, because the tiles that exploded upward and broke into sharp, craggy pieces are now starting to rain down on us like shrapnel.
“Cover your head!” Arjun screams, and I try, but it’s hard to move when my back feels like it’s been torn open from shoulder to waist.
Still, I try to tuck myself into a ball. And so does Kyrian, though he’s not having much luck, because he’s also trying to shield an unconscious Fifi.
Terror rips through me at the sight and I scream, “Is she okay?” as I start trying to crawl over to them.
“She’s fine!” he yells. “Just stop moving.”
But I can’t. Who cares if tiles are slamming into my back if something’s wrong with Fifi? I’m the one who got her into this. The one who got all of them into this. I can’t just leave them alone to face consequences obviously meant for me.
The tiles finally stop falling right around the time I get to my best friend. “Fifi!” I call, gently slapping her face to try to bring her around. “Fifi, can you hear me?”
Her eyes open, and for a second she looks totally dazed, like the lights are on but not even the pets are home. But then she blinks a few times and I see her come back to herself.
“Is everyone okay?” she demands, pushing herself into a sitting position.
“They’re fine,” I tell her, then look around to make sure I’m not lying.
Thankfully, Arjun and Kyrian really do look okay—Kyrian’s got a cut above his eye and Arjun already has a couple of dark bruises forming on his cheek and neck. But otherwise they seem like they escaped relatively unscathed.
