Page 285 of The Mortal Trials

“Yep,” Aymes affirms. “And the man talking to you is her younger brother, Cillian Ryan.”

“My name’s Aster,” he volunteers through chattering teeth.

“Can I try to hold your hand, Aster?” I can hear Cillian’s grin.

“Sure!” I hear shifting.

“I can’t reach him,” Cillian reveals. “Tell you what. Can you stay beside me, Aster? You walk when I do. We’ll make a game of it.”

“I can do that,” the boy agrees.

Suddenly, I stagger as Cillian’s voice sounds all around me. From every direction, he speaks. I cover my ears from the din. “Cillian!”

“What is it?” I think my brother replies. But I can’t tell if it’s him. A thousand of his voices speak to me all at once, in various tones and volumes. In shouts and whispers. In thoughts.

“What’s happening to them?” a young voice resounds.

Above the tumult, loud as a crack of thunder, Cillian screams, “Callalie – tell me what’s going on!”

I wince. “All I hear is your voice, but it’s coming from all around me. I can’t tell which one is truly you or if any of them are!”

A headache starts to pound at my temples.

Another booming answer stands out from the rest of the echoes. “What can I do?” he yells. “Tell me what to do, Callalie.”

“I don’t know!”

Another confusing moment screams by.

Then, amid the innocuous and insidious mimicry of my brother, Cillian’s horrific singing rises. He sings off-key and his voice is atrocious, but I can tell him from the false voices.

It makes me smile like a fool. A fool who is grateful he’s here, even if I shouldn’t be. A sister who’s glad her brother is alive and well, leading her the way she led him when they were kids, and moments ago at the river. “Keep singing, Cillian. Sing us out of here.”

Orpheus and Eurydice’s was a story about doubt overwhelming trust, but I trust my brother completely. And that trust overwhelms Hades’s lies as I follow him through the ash. Even as the voices grow louder in their attempt to drown his gods awful song.

The divine will never understand what it’s like to love someone with your whole heart and know they love you back as fiercely and faithfully.

When we finally reach the portal, Cillian shouts so August and I can hear, telling Aster to go through first. He instructs August to walk through next.

Cillian yells to me, “They’re safe. I’m going ahead. Just keep walking this way and I’ll meet you in the arena.”

He starts singing again, and his words dissolve as the portal whisks him away. I hurry forward, feel a wash of golden light, and step into sand that spreads under my bare foot. Bright sunlight stings my eyes. The excited crowd writhes, but I can’t hear them over the ringing in my ears.

Cillian grabs my hands and tugs me away from the portal. I look around to see who’s already here, and who isn’t.

August is crouched nearby hugging Aster, patting his back and telling him how proud he is of him. The boy clings to his neck as August rubs his back and tells him it’s over. That we’re all safe and that he’ll be home soon. He asks Aster to hug his mother the way he’s hugging him right now.

Aster emphatically agrees. “I will. I promise.”

Torsten and his relieved mother smile at one another. She nods to him, a parent proud of her child. I think they won the trial.

Koda’s granddaughter passes through the portal, and a breath later, he appears next to her. He takes hold of her arm when she offers it this time. The tea’s effects are wearing off. Maybe the gods have been too busy with their mortals to worry about Anansi’s.

Across the arena, Niall and Fiona take in the crowd. “They’re so loud!” she yells to Niall over the din.

When she sees me, she gives a brief nod. I return the greeting.

When I was with Niall, she and I became close friends. The last time I saw her, she’d come to visit me right after I ended things with him.