Theo’s breath left his body as Selene dragged him over the railing and into midair. They plummeted downward as the sky cracked above them—a deafening blast of sound and a blinding flare of light.
“Fly, Theo!” she screamed above the din. “Fly!”
He squeezed his eyes closed, ignored the searing pain in his wrist, and directed all his will into the winged cap, stopping their descent before they smashed into the island below. For an instant, they hung suspended.
He dared open his eyes as lightning coursed across the torch’s gold-plated flame and ran in jagged tendrils down Liberty’s copper arm.
As their hair rose on end and the air hummed with electricity, they clutched each other tightly. They smelled scorched flesh, but it was not their own. They heard agonized moans, but their own lips were silent.
We’re safe.
Then a line of white fire shot from the torch itself, seeking them out like an accusatory finger. You shall not live while the others die.
It struck Selene in the chest, then leaped to Theo, blasting the coat from his body and burning the flesh beneath. The force of the strike blew them backward; they spun like a top above the swirling black waters of the harbor.
Theo fought through the pain, desperate to keep them from falling. The gold cap flared hot on his scalp, and he could hear the currents of electricity cracking across its surface. The wings beat irregularly, like a heart off rhythm, plunging them downward and jerking them up again with every stroke. Selene’s body nearly slipped from his arms. His wounded right hand hung limp and useless—and she wasn’t holding on.
“Selene!” Her head lolled against his shoulder before rolling backward on her neck. A charred hole in the center of her jacket revealed scorched skin. He lifted her body in his arms so he could press his ear against her neck. Her pulse had stopped beating. He tried to call her name again, as if that alone would bring her back to life, but he could manage nothing more than a strangled gasp.
Another crack of thunder split the night. He looked to the torch, where the fallen bolt continued to send rivers of electricity across the statue’s copper cladding. Hansen’s body was blackened gore. Prometheus’s bloody frame hung from the torch like an animal’s dripping carcass. He didn’t see Saturn.
Electricity destroys—but it also gives life, Theo thought, willing the cap to bring them closer again to the torch. They lurched forward. The lightning sparked, dimmer this time, the thunder a growl rather than a deafening clap. One more, one more, he begged. He turned Selene in his arms, screaming with pain as her body scraped against his charred chest.
“Come on!” he shouted to the lightning, to the Fates, to Zeus himself. “Try it again!”
A final surge rocked the torch. A finger of electricity leaped through the air to Selene’s bare breast and flung them backward once more.
The current raced through her body and into his, and Theo felt his own heart clench and stutter. His mind splintered.
Then, slowly, the shards reformed.
It felt like hours had passed, but when his consciousness returned, they were still aloft, and Selene gasped in his embrace.
She clutched his arms where they passed around her body. He could feel her heart beating beneath his grip.
He rested his cheek against the back of her head. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”
He had no sense of direction; he knew only that they pitched through the air and that the dark harbor yawned beneath them. He wanted to slow down, to right himself. Seek land, or at least make a controlled drop into the icy waters and hope to survive until a ship came to rescue them. Instead, he had no control over the cap. It lifted them ever higher, as if supercharged by the second bolt. He tried to concentrate, to bring it back under his control, but blood poured from his right wrist, draining away the remnants of his strength.
In the distance, Manhattan glimmered like a promised land, its towers offering rest and warmth and home. And still they soared higher. The clouds appeared above them, alight with the moon’s glow.
He clasped Selene with his one good arm, his muscles spasming from the aftereffects of the blast. It took every ounce of his quickly dwindling strength to hold on to her.
The wind whistled past his ears, and snatched away Selene’s voice. He leaned closer and pressed his ear against her skull. He could barely hear her words. And when he did, he couldn’t believe them.
“You have to let me go.”
“Never.” The world dimmed before him. Black sky, Selene’s black hair, more blackness closing in.
“You’re going to pass out. If you do, the cap stops working, and we both die. We’ll never survive a fall from this height. Without me, you can control the cap, land safely.”
They were passing through the clouds now, ice particles searing their skin, the thick black world dissolving into white nothingness. Is this what death will look like? Theo wondered, his mind spinning in slow motion.
Selene twisted in his arms to face him. They passed above the clouds. Ice formed on her lashes. Theo’s body began to shake; his teeth rattled. She stared at him, her silver eyes suddenly aglow. Then she looked around at the sea of clouds spread beneath them, a glowing white world of spun moonlight.
“This is what it was like,” she said, her voice hardly more than a breath. “To ride the moon across the sky.” She looked back at Theo for a moment. Too short. “I love you, you know.”
She pried his arm from her chest and lifted his mangled hand to her lips for a precious instant.
“What are you doing?” he gasped, clutching at her with his other hand, his legs, his heart. “You have to hold on!”
She shook her head and gave him a tiny, heartbroken smile. “It was always fated to come to this. I could never grant you immortality, Theo. But at least I won’t have to live without you.”
Then, with the sudden strength of a goddess, she ripped herself from his grasp.
She fell through the clouds, a needle piercing the fabric of the world, and disappeared.