“Yes, you can.” He went to the front door and unlocked it.
“For now, not forever,” Cyrus added as he came up beside me. “Just until we figure out who's after you.”
“We won't be able to do that if I don't leave this house.”
“We've still got Ace, remember?” Lex motioned us into the foyer. “We're gonna watch him until he leads us to Silas. He's our lead.”
“We need to tell Hades about this.” Cyrus brought up the rear, herding me into the house with Lex.
Jake grunted and headed upstairs.
The other two followed.
I watched them go. “I'll just hang out down here then.”
They kept going.
Rolling my eyes, I headed for the backyard. I wanted to check the flowerbeds for hyacinth.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Hades has gone to confront Apollo,” Cyrus announced as he, Lex, and Jake joined me outside.
I had eaten a pint of ice cream and two bags of chips. Turns out, even immortals could get belly aches. I was on the verge of puking my guts out, and Cyrus hadn't helped things much.
“What's he going to say to Apollo—you sent crows after someone, so you must be behind this?” I asked.
“Hades says that along with the flowers, your memories, and his own suspicions, it's enough to allow him to accuse Apollo in private,” Lex said. “He's not taking it to the rest of the Olympians until he's spoken to Apollo.”
I shook my head. “There's something we're not seeing.”
Jake grunted.
“I've been trying to remember more of my past lives.”
The men, who had taken seats around my chair, went still.
“The first life I can remember is the one with Ace. That death is the most hazy for me. I do remember that it was fast. There was a man. I couldn't see his face. Then I was dead. Butevery life that followed that one ended slower and with a lot of pain.” I took a steadying breath. “I think I did something terrible, bad enough to piss off a god, and he killed me. But he did it too quickly. My death didn't satisfy his vengeance. So, he's been hunting me through every life I've had.”
“And he's killed you in all of them?” Cyrus asked. “That's extreme. A vendetta like that only comes from a truly heinous act. And something like that would leave a mark on your soul. Can you think of anything you've done that might have upset a god?”
“I've considered that, and no, I can't think of anything that would have angered a god. I just lived my lives and tried to survive. Honestly, I never gave the gods much thought.”
“It would have been in that first life,” Lex said. “You said you were with a pasha. What about before him?”
I shrugged. “I think I had a normal childhood for the time and place. Again, nothing of note.”
“And you're sure that was your first life?”
“No, of course, I'm not sure. There are so many memories to sift through, all swimming about my head. But I don't think so.”
“Then it had to be something that happened in that life.” Cyrus took my hand. “Let's go through your memories together.”
The warmth of his hand made me realize how cold I was. Must have been the ice cream. Still, I felt even colder when I dove into the waters of the past. I closed my eyes. Jake took my other hand. I exhaled. Lex touched my knee. With the third hound completing our circle, strength flowed throughme. Confidence. I could do this. These were my memories. I controlled them, not the other way around. There was nothing to fear. They were only records of things that had happened. As such, they couldn't hurt me. Only help.
With those thoughts and the touch of the hounds steadying me, I dug through the layers of my life as Saliha. My childhood was the hardest to see, maybe because it was happy. It's the extreme emotions that leave their mark, and the bad ones tend to be easier to recall. Like when I got older and learned that women were not treated the same as men. Ouch. Moving on. Ah, there I was, growing wiser. Learning how to manipulate. I wanted more than being some man's property. I challenged my society in my own way. But I never did anything to draw attention to myself as a rebel, and I certainly never did anything that could be described as heinous.
Resurfacing, I shook my head. “I didn't do anything bad enough to gain the fury of a god. The most notable thing I did was run away from the Pasha, and Ace helped me with that.”
