"Clio, she needs medical attention," I said, fighting through the borrowed emotions. "Something's wrong. She's ashamed of something, and it's eating her alive."
“She’s probably ashamed of being turned into a Trojan Horse,” Hades spat.
Thalia's head snapped up. She ignored the God of the Underworld, and her storm-gray eyes locked onto mine. "You can feel what I feel." The statement was directed at me.
"Apparently," I replied carefully. "Care to explain why?"
"I have no idea. I was Hattie's closest friend," she said simply. Her voice cracked as she spoke. "My parents sent me here to train with her. We learned the old ways side by side. She was like the sister I never had."
The room went silent except for the crackling of the fireplace. I felt like someone had just been told that up was actually sideways. "Hattie never mentioned having a friend named Thalia."
"Because she thought I was dead," Thalia said, accepting the chair Aidon grudgingly offered while keeping his shadows ready to strike. "Lyra took me in 1987 because she thought I would inherit the power instead of my sister. She was disappointed when that didn’t happen, but she's been using me as a test subject ever since. She’s been perfecting the techniques she plans to use on your children."
The shame I'd been feeling through our connection suddenly made sense. Survivor's guilt, mixed with the horror of what she'dendured. The emotional feedback was almost unbearable. I had to consciously block it out to think clearly.
"What did she do to you?" Mom asked in a gentle but firm voice.
Thalia's laugh was bitter. "Everything. She's been experimenting on captured magical beings for decades." She looked directly at me with haunted eyes.
Mom’s hand grabbed mine. “I’m familiar with Lyra's fondness for magical experimentation."
I nodded, my jaw clenching so hard I thought my teeth might crack. "She tortured my mom before turning her from a witch into a tri-bred. Shifter, vampire, and witch all mashed together. She was trying to make some fucked-up supernatural smoothie. Trust me, we know exactly what that psychotic bitch is capable of."
"Then you understand the stakes," Thalia said, leaning closer. Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "She knows your children will be walking nuclear weapons in tiny human packages. And she's had decades to perfect her power-sucking techniques on prisoners like me."
Jean-Marc's expression darkened. "Power extraction methods," he repeated with a snarl. His revulsion was written all over his face. "You're talking about systematic torture, aren't you? Of babies. We’re talking physical pain, psychological manipulation, and emotional devastation of tiny beings that haven’t even taken their first breaths yet."
"Give the man a gold star," Thalia said bitterly, her emotional signature flaring with waves of remembered agony that made my skin crawl. "She’s disgusting. But here's the thing. Spending all that time as her lab rat taught me her methods. I learned her weaknesses. I know how to stop the bitch."
Hades moved forward, and holy shit—the air itself seemed to compress around us like we'd been shoved into a trashcompactor. My ears popped from the sudden pressure. Every instinct I had screamed that continuing to breathe was a privilege he could revoke at any second.
"And why the fuck should we trust you?" His voice carried the kind of cold authority that made hardened demons wet themselves. "For all we know, you're another one of her pet projects. How do we know you aren’t some brainwashed sleeper agent programmed to cozy up to us before ripping our throats out?"
"Because of this," Thalia said, lifting her hand like she was about to conduct an orchestra.
Power poured from her fingertips in streams of silver-white light that spoke to the power in me. The magic felt ancient. It was refined through the millennia. It reminded me of a fine wine that had been aging since before humans figured out fire. This was pure Pleiades magic. And it made everything I'd learned feel like finger painting in comparison.
The spell hit our existing wards. Instantly, we got a software upgrade. Where her magic touched our protective barriers, they got stronger and smarter. They became more complex. I watched in fascination as layers of defense wove themselves together. It created something that would make even the cockiest supernatural asshole think twice about fucking with us.
"Hattie never cast anything around me before she passed," I murmured, watching the magical light show with something approaching awe. "This is what Pleiades magic actually looks like when it's used right."
"Those are ancient warding techniques," Vera breathed. "I've only seen these in theoretical texts from before the Great Burning. Hattie never showed anyone in the coven."
"Hattie and I learned them from her grandmother," Thalia explained as she cut off her magic. "She taught us the old ways, from when the Pleiades line was at full strength. These wardswill keep Lyra out. Before she took from me, I could have cast ones that would actively fight back against anyone who tried to breach them."
The magic Thalia wove intertwined with the babies’. "You're reinforcing the triplets' work as well," I observed. "How are you enhancing the protective barrier they added to earlier?"
"Divine children instinctively know the old ways," Thalia said, her expression softening as she looked at my belly. "They were trying to recreate the protections their bloodline remembers. My power comes from the same place."
"This is incredible," Nina said as she looked out the window. "Our defenses just became ten times stronger."
"And we're going to need them," Thalia said grimly. "Lyra's planning to move during tomorrow night's lunar eclipse. The ritual she's prepared will allow her to forcibly extract your children during birth. She will channel their power through the Pleiades artifacts and use that combined energy to resurrect the original seven sisters. Then she will have them under her control."
"Resurrect them as what?" Aidon asked as he positioned himself behind Mom and me.
"I didn’t get that detail. I just know she plans to use them," Thalia replied. "She'll have them inhabit her body.”
"Which means the crazy bitch gets to hoard all seven bloodlines' worth of magical firepower while losing every last one of her marbles," Nana said with the kind of saccharine sweetness that made it clear she'd like to shove those marbles somewhere the sun don't shine. "Well, isn't that just peachy. Here I thought my biggest worry today was whether my hip would hold up during a fight."
