Five cloaks float above the porch in an eerie, sweeping dance. Wavering patterns of brightness and shadow play over the wizard’s young-old face, reflecting fire off his eddying eyes.
“Harbinger. Approach.”
I can’t move. I can hardly drag my jaw off the ground.
Kato shoves lightly on my back. “That’s you, Cat.”
I stumble forward, somehow making it up the crumbling steps without falling on my face. There’s only one person—well, God—that can be responsible for this, and he’s already helped me more than once. He sent Cerberus to my side and kept the terrifying three-headed hound there for years, making sure my watchdog was with me when I needed him most.
The Chaos Wizard’s booming voice sounds like it should come from a sturdy, young man, not a gray-haired, willow-framed stick of a person of indeterminate age. “Forged in the eternal furnaces of the Underworld. Made from the same fire used to keep the fruits and flowers of Elysium forever in bloom.”
Emotion and gratitude thicken my throat as the shortest and narrowest of the cloaks settles over my shoulders, my braid tucked safely against the dark, waxy inside of the ample hood. The heat is nearly overwhelming for the split second it takes Hades’s gift to sense my needs and adjust. The glow dims until only a soft splash of light brightens the space around me and a hint of warmth erases the chill of the night.
Zeus. Athena. Hades. The support of three key Gods is more than I ever hoped for, and yet I can’t help wondering where Poseidon is. Poseidon and his Oracles have never failed me, and his absence now leaves a restless feeling deep inside me that I can’t quite dispel.
Cloaked in living fire—which I can’t believe I even remotely like—I slide the warm metal buckle at my collarbone closed and then march back down the stairs. The remaining cloaks float after me like a glowing regiment. With or without Poseidon, our path is officially set. There’s no turning back after such a clear sign from the Gods that we’re meant to continue on to the Ice Plains. First Ariadne’s Thread. Now the cloaks. This is survival gear.
The gently blazing cloaks settle over the men’s shoulders, wrapping them in the flame-free insides. Every single one of them lets out a deep, masculine sound of contentment. The heat coming off their garments intensifies. Apparently, they were cold.
“This is amazing.” Flynn pulls his cloak closed over his wide chest, his big hands tucked safely inside.
Griffin sighs in pleasure, hesitates for a moment, but then slips his cloak off with a look of utter longing that almost makes me jealous. Flames race up and down the outside, jumping from thread to thread. “And a beacon in the dark,” he says. “These will attract attention from miles around.”
I frown. There’s no way Hades didn’t think of that. He’s a God, after all, a deity of the first Olympian generation, even if he doesn’t live on the mountaintop. He may stick to the Underworld, with its amazing and its awful, but he knows what’s around here, too, and the last thing anyone traveling the Ice Plains wants is to attract attention.
I unhook the buckle and shrug out of my cloak. After being cocooned in its subtle warmth, I’m more aware of the icy wind and actually shiver as I inspect both sides of the cloth. Unlike the exquisite, delicate, flame-licked fibers of the glowing outside, the thicker threads on the inside seem to absorb the dark.
Wary of any kind of fire at this point, but figuring I’ll heal fast enough if anything magical burns me, I flip my cloak around and then throw it back over my shoulders, the glow on the inside now.
A curse exploding from him, Griffin lunges for me like he’s going to rip off my cloak. He draws up short when I grin and latch the buckle again.
“It’s reversible!” All I feel is the same comfortable warmth.
“You should have let me try that first,” he growls.
I adjust the folds of my cloak, hiding the flames. “We can’t test magic on you. You’re immune to anything harmful.”
“Someone else then,” Griffin bites out.
I frown at him. “How is that a good idea?”
“It’s abetteridea,” he snaps, “because it isn’tyou.”
My eyebrows shoot up. I get it now. And if he thinks for one second he’s wrapping me in glass and pushing me up onto the pedestal along with his sisters, he needs his head examined. “I don’t toss my friends to the Cyclopes,” I say hotly.
Griffin’s nostrils flare on a clipped inhale. His eyes spark with anger. “I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to think before you act. Use caution.”
“I did think. I thought ‘Hades isn’t an idiot. This is probably reversible.’ And guess what? It was.”
Round one to Cat! Ha!
“You could have just touched it. You didn’t need to jump to extremes and cover yourself from head to toe!”
Huh. Round two to Griffin.
Ducking out of an argument I might not win, I pull up the hood and draw it low over my forehead. “Well?” As far as I can tell, I’m completely shrouded in black.
Kato breaks the tense silence. “Decent camouflage. Still some brightness around the neck.”
