Jason left them to stand around and stare at one another.
“There’s one more thing,” Claire said, her voice forcing its way through her tight throat. “I tried to talk to Helen about how she’s changing. She made it pretty clear that she didn’t care. She just wants to win.” Claire rubbed her arms again like she was cold. “The Helen I knew didn’t care about winning. She never even tried to win a track meet before.”
She was afraid. They all were. The worst part was that Matt had the sinking feeling that they should be.
Matt thought again about that morality question Zach asked once. Would Matt really kill someone who hadn’t done anything yet, to keep that person from possibly killing millions? What was right?
“How much longer, captain?” asked one of the Myrmidons.
“Soon,” Telamon answered. “Master is still torn.”
“Impossible,” said another soldier. His glowing red eyes narrowed with emotion. “It can’t be him if he wavers. Achilles would never be swayed from our true mission. He died for it.”
“Patience,” Telamon said commandingly.
“Patience,” the Myrmidons chanted back with hushed reverence, like they were reciting catechism. This was a ritual they had performed many times.
“Old loyalties from his mortal life still pull at him,” Telamon continued, momentarily putting a soothing hand on a comrade’s shoulder, like a sympathetic counselor or a priest. “But loyalties that are older still are starting to surface. Courage.”
“Courage,” the soldiers repeated in unison as soon as Telamon fed them the word. Their soldierly version of “amen” thundered across the dunes, and the force of their combined voices lifted up swells of sand off the undulating dunes and sent it airborne like smoke over the water.
“The end of this cycle is near,” Telamon continued knowingly. “And in the end our master’s heart will lead him back to us. Friends, remember. The blade chose this particular vessel because the blade knows that this vessel, above all others, shares our desire.”
“Matt?” Ariadne asked.
Matt blinked hard again and focused on her. She looked worried.
“What do you think we should do?”
“First we have to find out how far she’s willing to go,” he said gravely. “And then we’ll each have to decide—each of us for ourselves—how far we’re willing to go to stop her.”
NINE
That night, Lucas dressed carefully. He knew the meeting of the Houses was a semiformal affair, but that didn’t mean that he was going to wear anything that would restrict his movement. He didn’t trust any of the guests they were about to receive, and there was no way in hell he was going to put on anything that would hinder him in a fight.
Of course, fighting was strictly forbidden at these meetings. But Lucas knew that this was going to be the first time in twenty years that most of these people had seen each other. On top of that, many of them had killed someone who someone else in the room had loved dearly. It was a grudge match waiting to happen.
Lucas went downstairs and found half his family crowded around the TV in the living room, listening to the evening news. The pictures on TV showed an intense lightning storm over what looked like a blacked-out city.
“Is that Manhattan?” Lucas asked, moving closer to the screen.
“Yes,” his mother responded, her voice quiet with shock. “The whole city is dark.”
Lucas could only imagine the chaos that would cause in New York. Subway lines would be stalled on the tracks with people inside, elevators would be shut down, stranding people at the tops of buildings—not to mention the lawlessness that was bound to break out in the dark.
“Why would Zeus do something like that?” Andy asked.
“To remind us he can,” Hector answered, his jaw set.
There was a knock at the front door, and Lucas heard everyone inhale a tense breath.
“I’ll get it,” Kate offered, but Noel put her hand on Kate’s shoulder to stop her.
“It has to be me,” Noel said kindly. “It’s my hearth.”
Lucas followed her to the front of the house. When Noel opened the door, Lucas felt like someone had kicked him in the gut. The man standing in the doorway had black hair, bright blue eyes, and a tall, athletic build. He looked like Lucas, aged twenty years.
“Daedalus,” Noel said through a tight jaw.