“Well, I had
more to go on than you. I actually saw her,” he explained. “In the hallway with Helen while we were hiding. Eris and Ares look very similar, like they’re twins or something, except Ares is covered in blue dye. That’s what threw me.”
“How can you know what Ares looks like?” Claire asked, her eyes drilling into Lucas. “The Greeks loathed him so much that they barely wrote any myths about him at all—let alone one that describes his appearance in an authoritative way.”
Figures Claire would be the one to spot that, Lucas thought. He sighed and came clean.
“I’ve seen Ares. I found a way down to the Underworld and I was there when Ares confronted Helen and Orion.”
When everyone stared at him with dropped jaws, he went on to explain about the Getty robbery, what the obols could do, and how he had given one to Helen. He didn’t apologize for any of it.
“And you didn’t tell us about this, why?” Ariadne asked through clenched teeth.
“You wouldn’t have understood,” he said, consciously echoing what Matt had said a few moments ago. “All that matters is that Helen can dream again.”
“Look, we’re all committed to protecting Helen, and if you’d come to us with this idea, you know we would have agreed to the robbery to save her life. So why’d you do it alone? Luke, what if you’d been seen?” Jason asked seriously. “The Getty is blanketed with surveillance cameras.”
“Not an issue,” Lucas replied with certainty.
Jason gave him a doubtful look, but Lucas shook his head once in warning. Jason knew him well enough to know that Lucas was trying to tell him something. He took the hint and dropped it for the time being, but Lucas knew his invisibility secret probably wouldn’t last the night now that Jason was suspicious. He was willing to let that one go as long as no one suspected his other, much more frightening secret.
“Kids!” Noel shouted anxiously from the front door. Everyone reacted to the alarming tone in her voice.
“Mom?” Lucas shouted back as he rose from his chair. A moment later, she appeared in the doorway, out of breath and looking around wildly as she counted heads. She didn’t get the number she was hoping for.
“Where’s Helen?” she asked, her tension mounting.
“I left her at work,” Lucas replied quickly.
“Oh, no,” Noel whispered to herself, fumbling with her cell phone as she dialed a number. His father’s number, Lucas realized. Castor was still in Conclave with the Hundred. Leaving the meeting could be seen as a breach. Every decision the Conclave had come to up to that point could potentially be scrapped, and his mother knew it.
“Mom! Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Screw Conclave! Castor and Pallas need to come home now. There’s a huge riot in the center of town, Lucas. Right outside the News Store!”
Heat swarmed Helen’s skin, making it sting and prickle with sweat. The bone-dry air smelled like struck matches and wiggled like the surface of a lake. Light blinded her, although there appeared to be no true sun.
Orion released Helen’s hands so he could turn and face the only tree in the dry lands. Three small girls stood in its shade, their thin shoulders quivering as they cried. Orion gestured for Helen to join him so they could approach the Furies together. The three sisters reached out for each other fearfully. As Orion took a step closer, they wrapped their arms around each other in a miserable huddle.
“Wait.” Helen put a hesitant hand on Orion’s arm. “I don’t want to frighten them.”
“Have you come to kill us, Descender?” the one in the middle asked. Her voice was still childlike, even though it was rough with tears. Now that Helen could see them clearly without feeling their influence, she wondered how she could ever have thought they were grown women. They were just children.
“We know how you Scions hate us and want us dead,” whined the one on the left. “But it won’t work.”
“We don’t want to hurt you. We came to help.” Helen held her hands up in a peaceful gesture. “Isn’t that what you wanted the first time you led me here? For me to come back someday to help you?”
The Furies sniffled and cringed as they clutched at each other, still terrified. Orion slowly took off his backpack and laid it on the ground, glancing up at them soothingly as he did so to make sure none of them were startled. Helen thought it looked as if he were approaching a herd of skittish deer, but his tactics seemed to be working. The Furies watched him carefully with wide eyes and pursed lips, but they did seem to be more at ease.
“We’ve brought you something to drink,” he said gently as he unzipped the backpack and took out the three canteens.
“Poison?” asked the whiny one on the left. “A trick to send us to Tartarus, no doubt. I told you already. It won’t work.”
“Sisters. Maybe this is best,” the smallest one on the right said in a thin, wispy voice that could barely be heard. “I am so tired.”
“I know you are,” Helen said, her heart going out to the three girls. “And I know what it is to be really tired.”
“We only want to help ease your suffering,” Orion said. He sounded so kind that the one on the left wavered and took a half step toward him.