A shadow flits through Persephone’s eyes. Ares’s expression tightens just before his seafoam gaze drops to the ground.
My voice lowers, trembling. “If anyone should have been chosen, protected, it was mysister.”
Persephone reaches out and gently grips my face with both hands. Magic thumps from her palms. It should sting my cheeks, but it just feels cool and gallingly numbing. “Stop, Cat. You need to move on. Eleni served her purpose.”
I gasp. If she’d struck me with a hundred whips, her words couldn’t have cut me deeper, or scathed me more. I jerk my face out of her hands and lurch back into Griffin. “So youkilledher?”
“We did nothing of the sort.” Persephone’s hands fall slowly back to her sides. “Your mother and brother did that.”
That may be true, but… I turn accusing eyes on Ares. “You were there. You let it happen.”
Real sorrow clouds his rugged features, the kind that’s unmistakable and true. “Would you be where you are right now if Eleni had lived? Her death influenced the road you took on the Fates’ map. It brought you to Sinta. To Persephone. To him.” He nods toward Griffin. “It got you to Poseidon’s Oracle. It got you away from your mother. It brought you to where you needed to be.”
Unbelievable!“You can’t rationalize her death like that! My life’s not worth hers. And I could have gone to Sinta with her. We could have gone together!”
Persephone shakes her head. “Eleni had a destiny, just like you. She knew it, and she fulfilled it. She chose the road she needed to, and she took it without regret. Her life was worth a great deal, and she knew that, too. She knew how much it was worth toyou.”
I gulp back more angry words. Persephone—my Selena—has always mixed empathy with hard truths in a way that makes them impossible to escape or ignore. She’s right. Eleni must have known what her death would do to me. Did she also know it would get me out of Fisa? To Selena? To Griffin?
Eleni had her secrets, just like we all do. I have oracular dreams. They’re infrequent, and usually apply only to the near future, but what if Eleni had visions, too? What if she saw much farther than I ever have?
I reel in shock, remembering. She once told me the entire world was mine.
My Gods.Sheknew.
“I felt her loss, too.” Ares’s simple words neither heal nor cut, but like Persephone’s, they make me listen again when I don’t want to hear. “I was with her for fifteen years, just like you.”
His truth hits me deep in my magic with the usual burn, and a sudden image of us all together invades my mind, both wonderful and heartbreaking. And utterly simple—as the best things are. We were outside in the springtime, away from the castle, and Eleni was practicing with her flaming birds since her Fire Magic had finally started to mature. They were still wobbly, half formed, and slow to react, but Thanos let her chase him around the field with them, running, dodging, and acting like he was scared. We knew he wasn’t, and it made us laugh. We never laughed much otherwise.
Persephone moves forward and takes my hand. Magic sparks, and I hate it because I know she’s using her healing power to calm me down. I want to stay angry. Devastated. Eleni deserves it. She deserves my loyalty.
“I don’t need your tricks.” I pull out of her reach again, refusing to lessen the fury in my heart. It’s been my companion for so long that I’m not sure how to function without it.
Persephone steps back, glancing briefly at Griffin. “No, I suppose you don’t.”
Is that hurt in her voice?
Feeling guilt now along with everything else, I reach up, take Ianthe’s circlet from my head, and then wrap it around the front of my belt, right over where I think Little Bean is. Mother won’t reach her again with compulsion. No one will.
“We thought she’d inherit her father’s immunity to harmful magic, but apparently she hasn’t,” Persephone says. “Or maybe it simply hasn’t matured yet.”
“I’ll let you know,” I say bitterly. “If she lives long enough. Maybe I can even keep her alive past seventeen.”
The Goddess’s mouth turns down before she speaks again. “You’re too adept at focusing on the negative. Think about what Eleni gave you. She taught you goodness, compassion, laughter, and love. You were sorely in need of her influence, because I doubt yourThanoswas teaching you any of that.”
“You’re wrong,” I shoot back. “He did.” He also taught me to fight to win, to see even when there’s blood in my eyes, to overcome the worst kinds of pain, and to never give up. Lessons that served me well—until today. Today was an epic example of all things not to do.
“Nevertheless, she was your light in the dark,” Persephone insists. “And she kept that spark of hope inside you alive, no matter what you went through.”
“Were put through…” Ares mutters.
I look back and forth between them, trying to understand, maybe even trying to accept what they’re saying instead of just railing against it. “So why take her from me? Why take my light? Wasn’t there some other path?” I’m desperate for a reason, anything to justify my loss. Maybe I’m even desperate for something to take the blame off my shoulders for something I always believed was my fault.
“Elpis, my dear, damaged Cat.” Suddenly, Persephone is Selena again, having reduced her physical body and Olympian radiance back to human proportions. She takes both my hands in hers and squeezes hard. There’s no nip of magic, and I don’t protest. I’m still angry, confused, and hurt, but I’m also stupid and needy enough to crave her maternal touch.
“Elpis?” I ask.
Persephone nods. “Could you have ever truly understood the primal, raw hope you carry inside you, that you give to others now, without having experienced suffering first? Without nearly unbearable loss and pain to overcome? How can you gauge joy without knowing despair? It’s the journey, Cat. The outcome. Certainly, you were special from the start, but you weren’t born with the inner strength of a thousand men or the wisdom to rule a kingdom. You’re building them, minute by minute, as you live each wonderful or terrible day of your life.”
