In the Shadows

M

innie! Minnie!” Cora screamed her name over and

over, shaking her sister by the shoulders as though she

could wake her up.

Thom couldn’t look at either of them. He felt this was his

fault, that he had somehow traded Charles’s fate for Minnie’s. And

while he couldn’t be sorry about saving his brother, he couldn’t

help but wonder: How many months of life did Charles have left?

It wasn’t a fair trade, not in any world. Minnie and Cora should

never have been part of this. The rest of them had their chains they

couldn’t escape — two fathers, both damning their sons to colli-

sions with the Ladon Vitae in different ways.

But Minnie? Dancing, laughing, storytelling Minnie?

The air had been sucked out of the cave along with Minnie’s

soul, and Thom wondered if he’d ever be able to breathe properly

again.

“Please,” Charles whispered. “Please, you have to fix this.”

Thom looked at him, but found Charles with his head bowed. The

same brother who had never once bemoaned his own fate, never

once pled on his own behalf for divine intervention, was praying

for the girl he loved.

Cora looked up, her expression ragged and hollow. “How

did you fix Daniel? He stopped chasing you, right? Maybe it

wears off!”

Arthur sank to the ground, holding his head in his hands,

pulling at his hair. “I shot him.”

“You what?”

“He wouldn’t stop. I shot him in the leg, and he still wouldn’t

stop. He was crawling after us when we lost him.”

The blood drained from Cora’s face, and she trembled as she