The room erupted in horrified exclamations, despite Nana's snark. I barely heard them over the mental slideshow of horror Thalia was somehow beaming directly into my brain. Imagesflashed behind my eyelids—magical restraints that burned through skin and bone, needles that extracted not just blood but chunks of soul, and surgical procedures performed on conscious victims while their screams powered collection crystals. And those were just the warm-up acts.
"The corrupted creatures we've faced, along with the Forgotten One, are all failed experiments," I managed to choke out, tasting bile.
"Exactly," Thalia confirmed. Her voice was flat with the kind of detachment that came from surviving the unsurvivable. "And I helped her perfect the techniques." The shame radiating from her was enough to choke ten giants. "Not willingly, mind you. But every time I screamed, every time I begged, every fucking involuntary reaction I had, she refined her technique. My pain gave her the data she needed to hone her methods into an art form."
"You survived," Mom said firmly. "That's what matters now."
"I escaped," Thalia corrected. "There's a difference. And I have to think she let me go."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Hades' power flared, and suddenly Thalia was encased in bonds of pure darkness. "Explain. Now."
"She wanted me to come here," Thalia said, not struggling against the restraints. "But not for the reasons you think. She believes I'll try to convince you to surrender. She knows I would do anything to spare your children the agony she put me through. What she doesn't realize is that her torture broke something in me."
"What did it break?" I asked.
"My fear," Thalia said simply. "I've endured the worst she can do. Death holds no terror for me anymore, and neither does failure. All I want is to watch her burn."
The hatred radiating from her was so pure it was almost beautiful in its intensity. This wasn't the chaotic rage of revenge. It was the cold, focused fury of someone who had found their purpose in another's destruction.
"She's telling the truth," I told Hades. "I can feel it. Her hatred for Lyra is absolute."
Hades didn't release the bonds, though his expression shifted slightly. "Hatred can be faked. Especially if she's been conditioned to believe her own deception."
"Not this kind," I insisted. "This isn't a surface emotion. It goes bone-deep. She'd rather die than help Lyra succeed."
"Test her," Aidon suggested. "If she truly wants to help us, she'll submit to verification."
Thalia nodded immediately. "Do whatever you need to do. Just understand that time is running out. The eclipse begins tomorrow night. Once Lyra starts the ritual, stopping her becomes exponentially more difficult."
Vera stepped forward with a crystal pendant that pulsed with soft blue light. "This is a truth-stone. It reads intent and emotional authenticity. If you're lying or under compulsion, it will know. It will also cause excruciating pain."
"Use it," Thalia said without hesitation.
Vera placed the pendant against Thalia's forehead. Immediately, the crystal blazed with pure white light. The intensity was almost blinding. When it faded, the stone had changed color entirely. Instead of blue, it now showed deep amber with veins of gold running through it.
"Well," Vera said, staring at the transformed pendant. "I've never seen that before."
"What does it mean?" Jean-Marc asked.
"Blue indicates truth, red shows deception, and clear suggests compulsion or magical influence," Vera explained. "But amber with gold veining? That suggests someone whose truthis so fundamental to their being that it's become part of their magical essence."
"She really does want Lyra dead," Nina observed.
"More than anything in any world," Thalia confirmed. "Now, can we please discuss how to kill the bitch before she murders your children and destroys everything you love?"
Hades released the shadow bonds with obvious reluctance. "Tell us what we need to know."
Over the next hour, Thalia laid out Lyra's plans with the methodical precision of someone who had memorized every detail while planning her escape. The lunar eclipse would provide the magical resonance needed to breach our defenses. The Pleiades artifacts would focus and amplify the stolen power. And the parasitic connections would allow her to force labor regardless of my location or condition.
"The key to beating her will be timing," Thalia explained. "The ritual cannot be done until the moon is fully eclipsed. If we can disrupt it at the right moment, the backlash will tear her apart from the inside. If we can’t manage that, delaying her will derail the entire thing."
"And how do we disrupt it?" Mom asked.
"You turn her weapons against her," Thalia replied with a smile that could have frozen fire. "The parasitic connections work both ways.” That was the theme of the freaking day. “If we flood them with enough power at the moment of maximum vulnerability, we can overload her system and break every bond she's ever created."
"That sounds incredibly dangerous," Clio warned. "The magical strain on Phoebe could be fatal."
"Everything about this situation is potentially fatal," I pointed out. "But this gives us a chance to end it permanently."
