She starts massaging her temples, as if I’m giving her a headache.
I can’t imagine why.
“Look,” she starts, anxiously gripping her hands together. “I’m truly sorry about this, but Vivian, go down the stairs. Now.”
The mental leash tugs. Betrayal flashes across my features.
Friends don’t control each other’s will.
Then again, Nymara was abundantly clear that she isn’t my friend.
I just really hope she isn’t my enemy.
Against my free will and my better judgment, I start down the stairs.
We descend for at least half a dozen floors before finally reaching the large, brightly lit space. The light has that same fluorescent tone that hurts your eyes when you’re in a hospital waiting room. The usual opulence of the castle is gone. These walls are solid gray brick, and the floor is smooth concrete.
The room is silent, save for the occasional beep from the scientific equipment crammed into the space. Laboratory benches line two of the walls, and they’re also scattered almost haphazardly throughout the center of the room. Each bench holds shelves filled withbeakers. The room feels sterile, like a stereotypical laboratory you see in movies.
I’m so taken aback by the Mortal Realm equipment that I almost miss the row of barred doors on the far-right side.
More prison cells.
My pulse picks up. They’re all empty, save for the one in the back corner, where a very large man is sleeping on a hospital bed. He’s hooked up to a bunch of machines, but the only one I recognize is the heartrate monitor.
I back away from Nymara. “What is this place, and who is that?”
I’m not down to be a guinea pig for a mad scientist.
Her shoulders slump, and her expression turns desperate. “It’s all the proof I have.”
“Proof of what?” I ask, more than finished with all the cloak and dagger.
She takes a breath, like she’s steeling herself. “Of what my mother is, and why you are going to dowhateverit takes to escape, no matter the cost.”
My teeth grind together, annoyed to be back at this. “I’ve already told you, I can’t. Need is going to–” I start, but Nymara turns on her heel and walks away, not even pretending to listen.
She strides over to a lab bench set against the wall, picking up a folder and throwing it at my feet. Papers and photos spill out over the floor. Most of the documents contain charts, all filled with weird black-and-white blotches.
The photos are the disturbing part. They’re all children.
My unease grows as I take in their haunted eyes. They remind me of the children Cassandra used to rescue. They’re eyes that have seen too much, far too soon.
“Nymara, I’m going to need you to start explaining. Now.” I put force behind my words.
She nods, looking no less anxious. “You’re a history major, which makes this a bit easier. The gods are real. The ones you’ve read about, they are all real–”
“Yeah, I’ve already had a chat with a god, so please, cut to the next part,” I snap, cutting her off.
Her brow raises, and hope flashes across her eyes. “That saves me a lot of trouble. If you’ve met a god, then you won’t be surprised to hear titans are real, too.”
She’s wrong. I am, in fact, surprised.
My mind spins back to my Greek history class. The titans were deities that predated the gods. They were imprisoned by Zeus, deep in the Underworld, in a place called Tartarus.
“What does that have to do– ” I start.
“My mother is a titan,” she exclaims, the words spilling out like she’s been holding them in for far too long. “Even though they’ve been imprisoned in Tartarus for millennia, they didn’t die. They carved out a dark and violent existence in that place. My mother was born there. She’s only a minor titan, but she’s clever. She found a crack in the wards, one so small that she was able to slip through, without being discovered.”
