“I left her.” Light-headed, I reach for Griffin’s arm. “Eleni would never have left me behind.”
Griffin frowns. Then he whips around. He pushes me behind him and then wields his sword in a deadly arc, hitting the huge Stymphalian Bird with a jarring, metallic clang.
My whole body jerks in shock. My hearing sharpens, and my eyes focus again. I turn and see the lethal creature spinning off to one side. It recovers before it hits the sand and then swoops back up with a piercing cry.
“What happened?” Griffin growls. “Where did you go?”
He just saved my life. Again. His hair is soaked through and curling around his face and neck. Rain drips from the ends, streams from his nose and chin.
Swallowing, I blink water from my eyes. “Ianthe is here.”
Griffin’s eyebrows slam down. “She won’t recognize you.”
My cosmetics are layered on, and the kohl around my eyes is an exotic, sweeping disguise that flares outward toward my temples like a swirling tattoo. It won’t wash off in the rain. It doesn’t matter. The woman in the royal box is still looking at me, her fists clamped against her middle, her face stark-white, and her mouth half open. She looks on the verge of a scream.
“She knows. She could betray me at any time.” To the Tarvan royals. To the world.
Griffin’s eyes turn a steely gray that matches the storm-dark sky. He grips my elbow and starts moving. “One problem at a time,” he says, rushing us toward our team.
Thunder rumbles, dulling the thuds and grunts coming from the opposite side of the arena. I squint through the curtain of rain. Jocasta has her knives out, but I haven’t seen her take a shot. Her back is to the wall. Carver, Kato, and Flynn are in front of her, but they’re outnumbered and struggling without Griffin and me. They’re facing Fisans and Fire Magic, and if it weren’t for the soaking wet conditions, they’d probably be dead.
We’re halfway to our teammates when dully glinting wings, a strident call, and the blade-sharp ring of feathers sliding loose force us off course again.
I swat rain from my eyes, frustration and fear driving a foul curse from my mouth. “I don’t know how to kill it!” I’ve lost all but one knife in the bloody swamp that is now the arena, and Griffin has hit the creature a dozen times all over its armored body. We haven’t found a single chink.
“Then get control of the bird!” Griffin shouts over the downpour.
“I’m trying!” So far, my efforts at compulsion have slid right off, doing the sum total of giving me a pounding headache. I can’t latch on to the bird, and I haven’t had any success in wresting it away from the Magoi driving it, either. She’s too strong. And I can’t concentrate when we’re constantly under attack.
Like Griffin’s shadow, I stick close to him as he keeps the creature at bay. Feathers slam down, and we dart left, then right. He knocks a serrated blade away with his sword, sending it flashing end over end. A few steps later, Griffin yanks me into him. My braid follows a split second later, and another feather slices off the end, taking the leather tie and about five inches of hair. I gasp, a shot of pure adrenaline jolting my pulse into overdrive.
My hand gripped fast in his, Griffin takes off again as my braid starts to unravel. “Too close, Cat!” he snaps over his shoulder, fear for me sharpening his tone.
I race after him, breathing hard. “Not everyone has wings on their feet! Just Hermes—and apparentlyyou!”
He scowls, still holding on to me. We stop and track the bird as it spirals back around, preparing for another pass.
“Catch the bird like you did the spiders,” he barks over the rain.
“Spiders are stupid!” I bark back. “And their driver was unconscious when I latched on to them. This is a magical creature and a team member in its own right. It’s not the same!”
Griffin makes a series of quick, preemptive strikes, driving the bird back up into the storm before it can unleash more feathers. “Then we take out the Magoi controlling it.” His eyes flash briefly to mine, hard as rocks. “By any means.”
I nod, more easily resigned to the thought of killing than I should be. Maybe because I’ve had so much practice.
We sprint across the arena again. Rain pelts the top of my head. My sopping hair bounces against my back and tangles with my arms. The reddish-brown muck drags at my boots, slowing me down. My foot catches on something left over from a previous fight, and I pitch forward, landing on my hands and knees. I sink up to my wrists in a revolting puddle, my loose hair swinging down into the gruesome sand. My stomach turns over hard. I wrench my hands free and scramble to my feet.
Ahead of me, Griffin stops and turns around. “Faster!” His voice whips past me on the driving wind. A cloud bursts overhead, and rain shatters down.
“Where’s the bird?” I yell over the sudden, violent downpour. I can’t see our team anymore. Our enemies. Anything!
A metallic nightmare materializes just above me from out of the storm. I throw my arms over my head an instant before the Stymphalian Bird’s bronze beak jabs down with bone-jarring force.
Mother of Zeus!Fire races across my right hand. I snatch it down, cradling it against my stomach as the monstrous bird swoops back up, disappearing into the rain again.
Griffin races back to me, lifts my hand, and inspects the wound. He curses violently. There’s a two-inch gash. It’s deep. In some places, I see bone. Rain washes the blood away as quickly as it appears, adding to the stains around us.
I press my lips together and breathe roughly through my nose, the short bursts not giving me enough air. I try to make a fist. Only my thumb moves, and throbbing heat explodes toward my elbow, making me gasp.
