“I think you two are the ones we should be worried about,” Kyrian says as he gestures to my back. “You’re bleeding.”
“I know. I can feel it. How bad is it?”
I gently pull up the back of my shirt just an inch or two and Kyrian takes a look and winces. “It’s really bruised and there are a couple of big cuts over your spine. What’d you hit?”
“Zeus.” I roll my eyes as I stagger to my feet. “Who else?”
“Don’t you think you should sit down a little longer?” Arjun asks sharply. He’s currently holding two fingers in front of Fifi’s face.
“Two,” she says, pushing his hand aside. “I told you I’m fine.”
“You passed out,” he counters. “That probably means you’re concussed, which definitely means you’re not fine.”
“I’ll worry about that later,” she says. “Right now I just think we should get out of here.”
“You guys go ahead,” I tell them, wiggling my toes and fingers to make sure everything still works. It does, despite the sharp pain in my back.
“What do you mean,you guys?” Kyrian demands. “Obviously you’re coming with us.”
“Of course. I just need to check on something. I want to know what Hera was pointing to.”
“Does it really matter what this Hera person was trying to tell you?” Kyrian thrusts a frustrated hand through his hair. “She nearly killed us.”
“I’m not so sure it was her.” I glance toward the area Hera had been pointing, then gasp.
“What’s wrong?” Fifi asks. “What do you see now?”
I don’t answer her. I can’t. I’m too busy picking my way over the shattered floor to the back of the museum. Because the sparkles have returned—the ones I saw everywhere my very first day here and haven’t seen since.
Only now they aren’t surrounding me. They aren’t trying to lead me down some path in the middle of nowhere.Instead they’re forming a giant glowing picture, plain as day, against the closed doors of the hall.
“Maybe I have a concussion after all,” Fifi says from right behind me, her voice filled with awe.
“You can see them too?” I whisper.
“I think we can all see them,” Arjun says.
“I can’t.” Kyrian sounds frustrated as he looks back and forth between the three of us. “Exactly what am I supposed to be looking at here?”
“Sparkles,” I tell him.
“Sparkles?” His brows shoot up so fast they nearly hit his hairline. “Are you telling me all three of you have concussions?”
“I don’t think it’s a concussion thing,” I tell him. “I think it’s an Aphrodite thing.”
“Yeah, well—”
“Shh,” I whisper, because unlike with the mosaics, the sparkles have formed only the outline of the image they want to make. But it’s enough—more than enough—because I can see it all so clearly.
Pandora on her knees, sobbing, the open box on the ground in front of her.
Prometheus chained on the side of a mountain, a vulture devouring his insides.
Zeus raging about his fire and yelling at someone to “make her more beautiful!”
“This isn’t right,” I tell Fifi and Arjun. “None of this is right.”
Fifi’s crouched down next to the sparkles making up Pandora. Tears are in her eyes as she reaches out and tries to touch the sobbing woman.
