Chapter 3

 

Ciara had done her best to persuade the trees to recede back into the floor. Even so, they hadn’t gone quietly. The floor was still lumpy where they had emerged, with patches of living bark breaking up the smooth varnish. Here and there, I could still see small green shoots stretching up toward the flickering floor lamp.

With a hard exhale, Ginevra crammed the last of the corpse’s arms into a plastic bin that should have been too small for it. Ordinarily, a few quick words from Lissa could have disintegrated the body. But she hadn’t offered, only stared at the corpse with exhausted eyes. If she could have taken care of it, I knew she would have—which made me wonder how much of her assurances that she was almost back to normal had been nothing more than bravado meant to ease Kimmy’s guilt. And although I would never say it in her hearing, I wondered what it meant for the temple if we were about to go to war with Persephone’s temple with one Guardian at half-strength—if that—and the other barely aware of what was happening in front of his face.

Ginevra stuffed the lid onto the bin and hefted it in her arms. “I’ll take care of this as quickly as I can,” she said on her way to the door. “Don’t let anyone in while I’m gone.” That last was directed mostly at Alex.

Some small part of me held out hope that he would protest her reference to the time when he had invited the murderous rogue Guardian inside. But of course he didn’t. He just sat with his back to the altar and blinked.

He was getting worse. His non-reaction to the attack had proved that. I didn’t care what Lissa said about how he needed time to recover from the possession; it was time to stop waiting for him to get better on his own. If Lissa didn’t know how to fix him, I would find a Guardian who did.

Just as soon as we figured out what to do about Persephone’s temple.

Ciara’s eyes followed Ginevra as she left the apartment. She sucked her bottom lip, her eyes dark. I wondered how well she had known that Marked, and whether they had ever worked together. I wondered if she had ever suspected they would end up on opposite sides.

I looked from Ravi—who had commandeered Alex’s phone this time—to Lissa, who had pressed herself up against the arm of the couch, legs tucked under her, and was sipping slowly at a glass of water. I tried to imagine seeing them on the other end of my gun, or watching someone pack their bodies into a plastic bin for disposal. My mind slid away from the images. I opened my mouth to say something suitably sympathetic to Ciara—although I had no idea what—but she had already gotten up to made herself busy in the kitchen.

“I promise, they’re gone now,” I heard Kimmy say from the training room. “It’s safe. We wouldn’t all be sitting out here otherwise.”

Lissa turned toward Kimmy’s voice, like a flower tilting toward the sun. A little of the anxiety on her face faded. But not enough. The water in her glass sloshed over the side as her hands shook.

I didn’t know what was getting to her more: the attack itself, or the memories it had brought back of the old temple collapsing around her. I had gotten there just as the explosives had gone off, but Lissa had watched the whole thing happen from the inside.

I shifted closer and put a hand over hers. “Hey,” I said softly. “It’s over. They’re gone.”

Without speaking, Lissa looked over at the hole in the ceiling, and the chunks that were missing from the wall, and the scorch marks that stretched across the floor like the grasping arms of an octopus. We were lucky the vine hadn’t punched all the way through the ceiling and into the neighbor’s apartment—or maybe, for all I knew, Ciara had possessed the presence of mind to plan it that way. But it still looked like a giant had taken a bite out of the plaster, and although we had disposed of the big chunks of debris, we hadn’t been able to sweep away the last film of dust that still coated the floor. It was impossible to look around this apartment and think everything was fine.

Ravi looked up from Alex’s phone. “Is there anything else I can do to help? Any more wall pieces you need me to haul out to the dumpster?”

“Not really,” I answered. “Not until we come up with an actual plan.” His face fell, and I softened my voice. “Thanks for offering, though.”

Ciara pressed the middle-finger mug into my hands. I gave the liquid inside a skeptical glance. It was too light-colored to be coffee. I could even see the bottom of the mug.

“Given how well you know me,” I said, “I’m assuming that, despite appearances, this has caffeine in it.”

“You don’t need any caffeine right now,” said Ciara. “It’s a calming blend. Mostly chamomile. Try it.”

That explained the smell of grass clippings rising up from the mug. I made a face. “No thanks. Anyway, Lissa needs it more than I do.”

Ciara gave the mug a pointed look. The tea was sloshing against the sides as if the floor were still shaking. I looked down to make sure it wasn’t, and saw that it was my own hands that were trembling. How had I not noticed that?

Ciara lowered herself to the couch next to me. “We stopped them,” she said softly. “The temple is still here.”

I knew that. Which was why I shouldn’t have been shaking like this. With the enemy gone, and the evidence of their attack cleaned up, the place had gone almost as still and quiet as if everyone in the apartment were already asleep.

But it wasn’t a relaxing kind of quiet. It was more like when I had walked through the ruins of the old temple, shouting that I was there to help, and heard only silence in response. The lamp I had shot was still flickering; every time I caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye, I saw, for just a second, the flickering flames in the ruins.

I shoved the tea back into Ciara’s hands. Then I pushed myself up from the couch and circled through the apartment, flicking on every light switch as I went. When the whole place was bathed in a flat white glow, I returned to Ciara, grabbed the cup from her hands, and downed the contents in one gulp.

I made a face as the taste of chamomile hit my tongue. I felt like a horse who had just chomped down on a big mouthful of hay. “How long will this take to work?”

A muffled yell from Kimmy reached us from the training room. “I’m not setting one foot outside this room until you can give me a reasonable explanation for everything I saw out there!” Not Kimmy, I realized. Imogen.

“Mal and Ginevra will talk to you as soon as Ginevra gets back from disposing of the— from her errands,” said Kimmy—the real Kimmy, this time. “For now, just trust me, okay? I’m telling you, everything is under control.”

“People were shooting guns!” Imogen shrieked. “How can it possibly be under control?”

“I should see if I can help.” With an apologetic look toward me, Ciara stood and jiggled the training room doorknob. The door didn’t open.

“She won’t let me unlock it,” Kimmy called.

Even though she didn’t get into as many physical fights as I did—Persephone had other uses for her—Ciara had the same strength as the rest of us Marked. She could easily have broken the door down. Instead, she leaned against it, and slid to the floor, her knees pulled up to her chest. “I saw a cross around your neck when you peeked out earlier,” she said conversationally. “Are you religious?”

“This isn’t the time to get into theology,” I muttered. If Ciara was right, I had not only met the god she followed, but fought him—one part of him, anyway. Somehow I doubted that story would serve as a relaxing icebreaker.

Ciara ignored me. “Do you believe there are people in this world, servants of a higher power, who fight for the good and protect ordinary people like us?” she asked.

I gave a snort at the idea of Ciara being ordinary. Imogen had never seen her sprout violets from her fingertips.

Imogen didn’t answer. But she wasn’t yelling anymore, either.

“You’ll get a better explanation before too long,” Ciara promised. “For now, all you need to know is that the people in this apartment are some of those people.”

“So… like guardian angels?” a skeptical Imogen asked through the door.

“Something like that,” Ciara said seriously.

I snorted again at the idea of being some kind of noble protector. Besides, I had met an angel once. They were impressive, true, but whether they fought for the greater good was debatable. Ciara shot me a glare.

“And you want me to believe my sister is involved with them?” asked Imogen. “How would that even have happened?”

“Look,” said Kimmy, “I know you think I’m dumb and useless compared to you, but—”

“You can have that conversation later,” Ciara cut in hurriedly. “Right now, Imogen, please trust me when I say that you are protected, and you are safe. You and your sister both.” The gentle rhythms of her voice washed through the apartment. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she ended up lulling Imogen straight to sleep. Even I could feel a yawn coming on. “You can worry about the details later. You had a shock, and the best thing you can do right now is rest. Come out to the kitchen with me, and I’ll get you a cup of tea, and teach you a breathing exercise you can try before bed.”

“You expect me to rest after that?”

“You saw some things earlier that didn’t make sense to you, right?” Ciara asked. “Things that shouldn’t have been possible?”

“There’s an explanation,” Imogen answered. “And if you people would just give it to me, I could be on the next plane home by now.”

“Take what you saw as proof that powers greater than yourself are watching over you,” said Ciara, as I suppressed another snort. “You’re safe here, and the best thing you can do—for yourself and your sister both—is to get some rest.”

Imogen didn’t say anything. Neither did Ciara. She just waited. And waited. And kept on waiting.

“She’s not going to come out,” I muttered.

Ciara shot me a shut-up look. A gentle and understanding one, because this is Ciara we’re talking about, but the message was clear nonetheless.

Above Ciara’s head, the doorknob rattled. Ciara got to her feet just in time as the door opened. Imogen stepped out, eyes darting from side to side, arms tucked in close to her chest.

Ciara glanced over at the rest of us, and apparently decided our presence wasn’t conducive to relaxation, because she placed a hand on the small of Imogen’s back and said, “Why don’t we go straight to the bedroom? I’ll teach you that breathing exercise, and bring your tea in to you when you’re ready.” They walked down the short hallway together and disappeared into the through the bedroom door.

Kimmy followed them with her eyes. “She’s not going to take my bed, is she?” Then she shook her head. “You know what? Never mind. That’s the least of our problems tonight.” But as she grabbed the cookies and started packing them one by one into a container, I heard her mutter, “Although if she hadn’t shown up in the first place…”

A burst of moving color in the corner caught my eye. I looked over and saw that the TV was still on, the volume muted. The ball had long since dropped, and the New Year’s Eve celebration had been replaced by what looked like a low-budget action flick with an actor who hadn’t been popular since before I died ten years ago. I turned it off. “Happy New Year to us.”

Ravi stood and stretched. “Now that she’s out of the training room, I’m going to grab a weapon. In case they come back.” He tossed the phone into Alex’s lap.

Alex didn’t even try to catch it. But this time, it wasn’t because he was staring vacantly into space. He, like Kimmy, was watching the path Ciara and Imogen had taken—and as he stared at the bedroom door, I saw more life in his face than I had seen in weeks.

“Hey, Alex,” I said, reluctant to break the spell, but also desperate to take advantage of the moment before it disappeared. “You okay?”

Alex turned to me slowly. He blinked his unnerving eyes. For the first time in… days? weeks?… his gaze focused on me. He saw me—I could tell. Not whatever otherworldly visions he had been spending all his time staring at, but me.

“Death is coming for her,” he intoned.

“For my sister?” Kimmy demanded. She dropped the half-filled container of cookies and rushed in to loom over Alex. “What’s going to happen to my sister?”

“No,” said Alex. “For the Marked of Persephone.” The words spilled from his lips in slow motion, like thick maple syrup. “I can see the gates of the underworld opening for her.”

I looked at the closed bedroom door. “What do you mean, you can see it?” I turned to Lissa. “What does he mean? You’ve never talked about that.”

Because it wasn’t a real thing. Right? Lissa would have told me if Hades’s Guardians could tell when someone was about to die.

“Guardians of Hades can’t see someone’s death ahead of time,” Lissa confirmed. She paused, twisting her hands in her lap. “Under normal circumstances.”

I stared at the bedroom door, only releasing the fist I hadn’t realized I had clenched once I heard the soft murmur of Ciara’s voice. “So then what counts as not-normal circumstances?”

Lissa was looking at Alex as if someone had predicted his death and not Ciara’s. “When I held the underworld gates open through him for so long, so I could stay in his body long enough to defeat the spirit that was possessing Kimmy, it might have had more of a long-term effect than I expected.”

“Gee, you think?” I muttered. “It’s not like I’ve been trying to tell you that for weeks or anything.”

“It may have left him more sensitive to the weak points between our world and the underworld,” Lissa continued. “When someone dies, the barrier between the worlds drops to allow them through. Some people say that when someone is about to die, the barrier begins to weaken in preparation. A few Guardians have studied the phenomenon, but no one has been able to conclusively prove—”

I made a wrap-it-up motion. “Back to Alex. Would that be why he’s been acting so weird? Because all of a sudden he can sense these weak spots?”

Lissa’s hands started twisting again. “Probably not.”

“But if it was, that would be bad. Is that what you’re saying? Because you sure don’t look relieved to have a possible explanation.”

Lissa chewed on her lip before answering. “We don’t need to worry about it. Probably.”

“You can’t just leave it at that,” I said, as Ravi came back with the same sword he had been using earlier. Without a word, he sat on the living room floor, rested the weapon on his lap, and started watching the door. His hand gripped the hilt so tightly I was surprised he had any circulation left in his fingers.

After what I had seen of Ravi’s current skills with the practice sword, I thought about telling him to put it back. Having our trainee chop off one of his own body parts wouldn’t improve our situation. But I took another look at his pale hands and held my tongue. He had done all right in the brief fight against Persephone’s Marked. He still had all his limbs, at least. And I knew that caged-animal look in his eyes. I had felt like that myself more times than I could count, when I saw a threat coming and needed to feel like I had a chance against it in order to stay sane. At this point, handling a real weapon, however sharp it was, posed a less of a danger to him than sitting around doing nothing.

“I don’t want to say anything until I’m sure,” said Lissa. “Let me observe him more closely for a while. Then we can talk.”

It wasn’t the least reassuring answer she could have given me, but it was right up there. And the way she kept twisting her hands in her lap didn’t help.

“And what about Ciara?” I asked. “If you’re right about what Alex is seeing, does that mean she really is about to die?”

“Nothing is ever certain,” said Lissa in a distracted voice. She was still studying Alex with a level of concern that made me want to pack him up with me and make a run for the nearest nuclear bunker. “But we are in a dangerous situation, even if the immediate threat is gone for now. Ciara most of all, if she’s opposing the will of her goddess.”

The bedroom door opened as Lissa said the last few words. Ciara closed it behind her and walked out to meet us. Imogen didn’t follow, which meant Ciara must have gotten her to settle down. Ciara leaned in to say something to Kimmy, who nodded and walked into the bedroom.

“So are you?” I asked Ciara as she sat down next to me.

“Am I what?”

“Going against the will of your goddess. What exactly is going on in Persephone’s temple?”

“I guess we’ve put this conversation off as long as we can.” Ciara let out a long sigh. “Persephone’s senior Marked and her High Priestess still want the alliance to continue, as far as I know. I can’t speak for anyone else in the temple. But with the two of them on our side, we still have a chance to salvage this.”

Her words were optimistic. Her body wasn’t. She slumped heavily, letting her hands fall dead at her sides. Her eyelids drooped, like she had used up a week’s worth of energy in one day. She looked like she had fought an entire war by herself—which was probably how she felt.

“If they’re both on our side, then who sent those Marked after us?” I asked.

Ciara closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the couch. “I don’t know. When I found out where they had gone, and why, I didn’t wait around to ask questions. Maybe the senior Marked or High Priestess secretly changed their position on Hades. Maybe these four went rogue and came after you on their own. I know at least one of them used to work for Melinoë.”

“That would explain why they attacked. It wouldn’t explain why they attacked like that.” I frowned as I replayed the events in my head. “The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. If they wanted to attack the temple head-on, they should have sent a bigger army. If they just wanted to pick us off, or set the place on fire, they could have found a stealthier way to do it. It would have been more effective, and put fewer of their people in danger.”

Next to me, Ciara tensed. When she opened her eyes, they looked darker than they had a moment ago. “There is another option. We can’t discount the possibility that Persephone ordered the attack directly.”

“Without going through the senior Marked?” I shook my head. “That’s not how the gods operate.”

“Not usually. But it’s hardly unheard of for a god to speak to one of the Marked through a messenger. That may be what happened with these four.”

“I still say a goddess would have come up with a better strategy.” But maybe I just didn’t want to believe that Persephone could have turned on us. Yes, we had been seeing signs for months. I wasn’t solely to blame for the growing tension between our two temples, even if I hadn’t exactly improved the situation by shooting Persephone’s former senior Marked. But tension was one thing. Breaking up the alliance entirely? Showing up at our door with knives and guns and a plan to burn us to the ground? That was on a whole other level. And even after what I had seen today, I couldn’t bring myself to believe Persephone was truly behind this. The other gods made and broke alliances as easily as breathing, but Hades and Persephone had weathered everything since the original splitting of the pantheons without wavering.

And then there were the practical implications. If we lost the support of Persephone’s temple, we would lose most of our power in the city. Ever since the destruction of the old temple, Persephone had been propping us up, lending us the support we needed to keep control of New York. Without that support, Hades wouldn’t hold on to his territory for long.

“We’re going to fix this.” But Ciara didn’t sound any more sure of that than I was. She rubbed her eyes, like all she wanted to do was go back to bed and wake up to find that this had all been a dream. And could I blame her? If I thought I was freaked out, I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling. She was the one whose goddess couldn’t be trusted.

“You said you were here to help us make a plan,” I said. “So let’s do this. What’s the plan?”

I wished Ginevra were here. High-level strategy was the kind of thing a senior Marked was supposed to handle. People like me just did the grunt work. But even though I wished I could leave it all to her, I knew it was better to get this discussion underway before she got back. Like I said, she might have been a good Marked, but that doesn’t make her a good leader. And when she wasn’t sure about what she was doing, her response was usually to double down. If we put her behind the wheel, she would be likely to let her fear and uncertainty drive us straight into a wall.

“I have a few ideas,” said Ciara, “but the truth is, I don’t have enough information. And until we know more about what’s going on, it will be hard to figure out our next move.”

I swung my legs up onto the couch as I turned to face her. “So start by telling us what you know. It may not be much, but it has to be more than we’ve got. You’re the one inside Persephone’s temple. What have you been seeing lately? How many people do you think want out of the alliance, and how many are firmly on our side? Have you heard anything about potential future attacks we should be aware of?”

“I don’t know, okay? I don’t know.” Ciara wiped her eyes. Her hand came away wet.

In the four years we had known each other, I had only seen her lose control a couple of times. To see her cry was even rarer. But now, tears rolled faster down her cheeks, dripping down her chin and into her lap, and she wasn’t even trying to hide them.

I looked away. Sure, we were close, but I had a feeling that if she were in her right mind, she wouldn’t want me seeing this. “Sorry. I just don’t like being in the dark. You’re right—the less we know, the harder it will be to get out ahead of this. And if Persephone really is turning on us…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. But I didn’t need to. Everyone in this room knew what losing Persephone as an ally would mean.

“I know.” Ciara rested her elbows on her knees. Her chin sagged into her hands.

“You want some of that calming tea? Here, I’ll make you some.” I got up and grabbed the box of teabags she had left out on the counter. I opened the box and stared at the little packages. “How do you work these things? Can I brew this in the coffeemaker?”

Ciara gave a shaky laugh. She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes again. When she lowered them to her lap, her face was dry.

“Even if things go wrong,” she said, her voice a little stronger, “I have a last-resort plan. Mind you, it’s not pretty. And you won’t like it. But if we can pull it off, it will save your lives. And maybe even Hades’s territory.”

“Maybe? I don’t like the sound of that.” Was that really where we were at? Grasping for solutions that might not leave our god without a place in the world to call his own?

“It probably won’t come to that,” Ciara assured me. She almost sounded like she believed it.

I dropped the box of tea back onto the counter and stood in front of her, arms crossed. “Out with it. What exactly am I not going to like? Are we talking a deal with the devil? Because I’ll warn you, I pissed him off badly enough last time that I don’t think he’ll take us up on it.”

Ciara laughed again, but I could tell her heart wasn’t in it. “Let’s not worry about that for now. First things first, I think you should try the simplest route. Go directly to Persephone’s senior Marked and High Priestess. Explain what happened. Lay everything on the table, and see if they’re willing to cooperate on a solution. If they’re not ready to end the alliance, they’ll do everything they can to help you.”

Ciara really didn’t want to explain this last-resort plan of hers. That didn’t imply anything good about what that plan entailed. But I wasn’t going to push it. Not yet. “And if one or both of them are in on this?” I asked instead.

Ciara took a long, slow breath. “Then I guess we’ll figure out where to go from there.”

Ravi raised a hand. “Four of Persephone’s Marked came here to kill us, and they almost managed it. Has anyone else thought about what might happen if we walk into a whole temple full of them?”

To my surprise, Lissa was the first one to answer. “I have a few ideas.”