Does she mean…“I have more than you?” I ask, stunned.
Mother doesn’t answer, and the truth hits me like one of her backhands across the face. Magic. The mind. I’ve always known they were connected, but not to the extent Mother is implying. If she’s right, that means that if I can conceive of it, I candoit.
The problem is, I’ve never been able to conceive of beating Mother. In my mind, she always wins.
But this time, there’s Griffin. This time, I have Little Bean to protect.
Gathering my strength and doing my best to breathe through the pain, I swing my legs up and try to kick the enormous crows off me. They flap and caw, and I bob wildly, my arms and scalp pulsing in agony.
“Cat!” Griffin shouts my name over the bellowing fire. He moves the table, chasing us across the room. He’s almost underneath me again.
I thrash and yank, frenzied to break free, even if it means ripping my hair out. I can’t stand Mother touching me; she’s so polluted. I need to get her away from my baby, and I’ll fall all the way to the floor and break both legs if I have to.
Mother curls her talons inward, tightening her hold on me. The sound that erupts from my mouth is raw and inhuman.
“I’m here!” Griffin leaps for me just as the crows yank, Mother leading the way with my head. His hand closes on thin air, and I yelp as we race toward the towering, east-facing window.
Instinct takes over. I haul my knees up to protect my middle and duck my head, screaming as Mother lets go of my hair, and I blast through the hermit’s window with only the crows to hold me up.
Fear and pain storm through me so hard that for a split second everything goes blank. Then I feel each stinging cut from every jagged piece of shattered glass as momentum and the huge birds send me flying out over the pit.
“No!” Griffin roars.
“Griffin!” I scream in terror.
Mother caws a harsh call of triumph from inside the house.
I twist and look over my shoulder, blood in my eyes and my heart in my throat.
Griffin stands like a colossus on the table in the middle of the burning house, his legs braced apart, his hands reaching for me, and his eyes wrecked. Our petrified gazes lock for the space of a broken heartbeat before the injured and dying birds retract their claws, and I drop.
CHAPTER 13
Hot air punches into me from below, but panic ices me over inside. My heart hammers fast against my ribs. I can’t see the bottom of the pit. It’s so deep it narrows and then fades into darkness except for a distant red-orange glow.
“Help!” I scream my terror toward Olympus as I plummet to the center of the world, aiming it at Ares and Persephone, at Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus. But no one came earlier, while Mother was kicking our asses and burning the house down around us. Where are they? Are they all so busy that no one can show up forthis?
Fear rushes through me like the sulfurous wind. Heat slams into me hard, increasing along with the fiery glow. I turn my head to the side, squinting. The air flaps so brutally against my face that my eyes dry out, and I struggle for breath.
This can’t be the end. Of Griffin and me. Of Little Bean—who hasn’t even lived.
My heart feels like it cracks wide open in my chest, and I yell savagely, refusing to believe it’s over. I’m alive, and until I hit lava, sink into it, burn, and drown, I willfight. And I will get those bloody Olympian Gods to fight along with me.
“Thanos!” I scream.
The popping sound and blinding light hardly even startle me. I knew he’d come. Deep down, I knew.
“I recommend up, not down,” Ares says, grabbing my upper arms. We slow to a halt, hovering high above the churning magma that’s hot enough even here to burn my toes.
“Up,” I echo dumbly. Seeing him, having his huge, reassuring hands on me, feeling him hold me up… It’s like taking a battering ram to an already weakened dam, and I nearly burst into messy tears. But I don’t have time for that. No one has time for that.
My stomach lurches violently. “We have to get back to Griffin. He’s fighting her alone!”
“So spread your wings, little monster.” Ares lets go of me and disappears.
My shriek gets snatched away by the pounding wind.The bastard dropped me!“Thanos!”
He explodes into existence again, huge and glowering. His power-filled, seafoam eyes roil with irritation. He makes no move to catch me this time, and I grab for him. He twists and keeps just out of reach as we fall together. I try to plunge through the air, frantically reaching for him, but these are currents I can’t swim. I only dip and flail.
