Endymion stopped me. “I don’t know if this is something you should relay for a school project, Xena. This could be very dangerous knowledge to just put out in the world.”
I looked up from my notebook curiously. “You think anyone here would conspire against us?”
“Well, we’d like to think not, but it is a possibility,” Mom said unsurely.
I closed my notepad and folded my arms against my knees. “Then, humor me. I won’t put any of this information into the project, but now you’ve piqued my curiosity.”
“I don’t know, Xena…” he groaned while scratching the back of his neck.
I nudged him with my foot, which made him turn to me sadly. “Hey, I’m your half-daughter and a future God, right? Don’t you think you can trust me even a little bit? Just a tad?”
“She’s right, you know,” Seraphine said with a shrug.
Endymion glowed at what I said. “You still consider me a father, after all that has happened between Erasmus and I?”
“I mean, yeah, in a stepdad kind of sense.”
He laughed lightly and pinched my cheek. “Well, how could I deny that sweet smile?”
“I surely can’t,” Mom cooed with another kiss to my temple.
Endymion glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone was around before lowering his voice drastically. “The bracelet is a precious piece of jewelry. It has the ability to completely restore an Elemental being to the full power they were born with.”
“What…?” I gasped out.
Mom took over talking. “I was tasked with hiding the piece from prying eyes when I became a God. I have it hidden in Caelum, through a special door that only I can access.”
“Only you?” I pressed.
“Unless someone knew the door number, then yes, only me,” she confirmed.
I watched her braid another strand of my hair for a moment before asking my burning question. “If something this important exists, don’t you think the others should know about it? I mean, what if Pandora gets her hands on this thing? We’re in deep shit, and no one would know why until it was too late.”
“We keep it a secret for a reason. If only we know about it, then the information would be near impossible to travel.”
“You’ve never told anyone about this? Not Atlas, Ashlynn, Nick… not Dad? You didn’t write down anything about it or anything?” I asked.
Mom went to speak but abruptly paused. Her mouth contorted from a smile to a flat line, and she shot Endymion a cold, despondent look. “My journals…”
“Your what?” he popped.
Mom abruptly took my shoulders and spun me around. “Xena, my sweet, can you go find your father and tell him to come see me? I want to run something by him.”
I was hesitant to leave now that she had revealed so much, but I knew I would get caught if I didn’t play along. “Um, yeah, ok…” I stood and pulled my cardigan on better. “Sorry if I caused problems. I was only curious about some of the cool stuff you guys can make and do.”
Mom flashed me a worried smile, but a smile, nonetheless. “Don’t ever apologize for being curious. Let me know if you need any more information about your report, ok?”
“Sure thing. Love you, Mom.”
“I love you more, beautiful.”
I left the two whispering wildly to one another, knowing I was missing a big chunk to this story, but also knowing I had enough to go by for right now.
I spent the remainder of my day in the library. I missed dinner with the Gods and, more importantly, my parents, who texted me a thousand times about my whereabouts. I kept telling them I was wrapped up in my studies, and eventually, after sending a billion pictures of myself neck deep in tomes, they gave up and left me alone.
Mom’s comment about her journals got the wheels in my head moving, so I asked Benjamin to get me every one she had ever written that we had left from her days at Chandler. He was able to scrounge up around seventy different copies, which meant I had a long night ahead of me, but it was worth it for the information.
By ten, my eyes were crossing from the ancient cursive and Latin I had been translating, a language I was still new to and had only roughly mastered. My head hit the table with a loud thump, and an exhausted groan escaped me. “Gods… you couldn’t have made this easy for me at all, could you, Mom…” I whined.
