I needed popcorn for this. Erebus and Davin at loggerheads with one another, vying for the top spot. Ovid seemed to have already made up his mind which horse in this race he preferred.
“You cannot be trusted, Erebus.” Ovid narrowed his eyes. “You have proven that. Davin’s words only support what I already know.”
“How can you say that?” Erebus retorted. “I could have broken free of this cell, but I decided to obey Kaya’s wishes. I am better now than when we last met. I ask only for the opportunity to show you my change and how serious I am in this pursuit. I love your daughter, King Ovid. That one fact has never altered.”
I’d seen Erebus vulnerable before, after the djinn cut their ties with him and took over his otherworld, but this was a different kind of vulnerable. He had set his heart on the table with so much earnestness it was uncomfortable to watch.
Ovid gave a haughty little harrumph. “Small mercies. I hope you will continue to obey Kaya’s wishes and remain behind bars, because I’d like this prison to be the only part of Atlantis that you see during your visit.” He looked to Davin. “As for you, Necromancer, I will grant your freedom. You intrigue me, and you weave an excellent tale. For that, I will offer you a chamber in the palace, where you may begin your pursuit of my daughter’s hand.”
What?! Seven jaws dropped, including my own.
“You are too kind, Your Majesty,” Davin replied.
“You are not serious.” Erebus’s face hardened.
Ovid gave a strained sigh. “Unfortunately, I must also accept your proposal as a suitor, Erebus, for the sake of tradition. But I won’t be the one to free you. I leave that to my daughter. She must learn to make difficult decisions, and I hope that she will make the right one.” He glanced at his daughter. “Kaya?”
She cleared her throat nervously. “Erebus will stay here, along with his group of surface-dwellers.”
Ah, crap. Why did we get lumped in with him? Couldn’t she have freed us, just to irk Erebus even more? Apparently not.
“Kaya, no.” Erebus looked crestfallen.
“I need time to think,” she replied, turning her gaze from him. “This is a lot to absorb, and I have much to contemplate, considering your timing.”
Erebus frowned. “My timing? What do you mean? I have come at the correct time, when the suitors gather to seek your hand in marriage.”
Kaya gulped. “I cannot discuss this now.” She left without another word. We’d have to make ourselves comfortable in this creepy old cell, because it didn’t look like we were leaving anytime soon. Not unless Kaya’s frost unexpectedly thawed.
But her parting words had given me food for thought. There’d been sadness in her voice, which suggested something else was going on. Something even Erebus didn’t know about. But what?
“Parting is such sweet sorrow.” Davin’s smugness didn’t give me much chance to dwell on my thoughts. He had a free ride out of here, and he wasn’t one to miss the opportunity to rub that in my face.
“Yeah. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” I muttered.
Two guards came into the cell and escorted Davin out. He’d be taken to the palace to get pampered, no doubt. That left Ovid standing a little awkwardly in the room. He turned to leave, only for Melody to call him back.
“Your Majesty, can I ask something?” she said with her usual brand of polite charm.
He frowned. “I suppose so.”
“What did Kaya mean about timing?”
Yes, Winchester! She’d asked the question dancing on the tip of my tongue.
Ovid sighed. “Kaya must choose a suitor, that is true, but we also have preparations to make for her mother’s Death Day.”
“Death Day?” I interjected. It sounded fairly straightforward, but I hoped it wasn’t what I thought it was… I felt a twinge of sympathy for the two royals. When had the queen died? No wonder Kaya was in a foul mood. The last thing she’d have wanted, if her mother had died recently, was an old flame to reappear and make things ten times more difficult. But maybe I’d gotten it twisted, and it meant something else entirely.
Ovid pursed his lips. “An Atlantean tradition that does not concern you. It simply means that Erebus’s presence will only add to my daughter’s strain at this time of great change.”
He left us on that cryptic note and strode from the cell, the door slamming shut behind him. My focus rested on Erebus, who stood staring at the closed door. His shoulders were hunched, his head slightly forward. And Chaos only knew what was going through that sick mind of his right now.
Five
Finch
If I could get Melody to transform me into an armored flea, I wonder if I could hop through these wards… An hour had passed, and I’d begun the slow descent into Nutsville, population me. What could I say, sitting trapped in a cell had that effect on me. A cage was a cage, regardless of its size.
Sorry, Murray and friends. Those jars made for even more cramped conditions, making them the slobbering Pokémon of the Chaos world. And I had no clue where Kaya had put them. Or our belongings, for that matter. The only thing I’d been allowed to keep was my trusty pendant, otherwise known as the Eye of Erebus, which the guards had taken for some inert piece of jewelry. It sucked because I’d had some juicy spells in that bag of mine, courtesy of Mother Dearest’s library. If I could’ve remembered their names, I would’ve asked Melody to search her mind palace for them. Since I couldn’t, it would be like explaining a fragment of a dream to someone or trying to remember an old cartoon that nobody else had seen. But maybe Melody could still help with my transformation idea.
“Melody?” I sang sweetly.
She sat nearby, leaning against Luke’s shoulder, looking about as small as I’d ever seen her. Poor thing had clearly never been in any kind of clink. Not unless you counted homeschooling at the Winchester House.
She looked up at me with big eyes, all frightened. “Yes?”
“Never mind.” My idea was stupid. And she didn’t seem to be in any state to humor me.
“What were you going to ask?” Ryann prompted, hugging her knees. Lux still hadn’t come back to the surface. Maybe she’d thought twice about taking control with our whip-smart Empath nearby. She wouldn’t want Melody pointing her out with Erebus in the room.
I shook my head. “I was being silly, trying to think up ways to get out of here.”
“Having Melody turn you into mist, so you can slither out the keyhole?” she suggested.
“Damn. That’s way better than my idea.” Stupid armored flea.
I turned to Ryann for a moment, wanting to make one hundred percent sure she was really herself. It looked like her. Sounded like her. But I didn’t know for sure. How could I keep her safe when she had a body full of Lux?
Why did you have to take her? And why did you have to do it before I kissed her? I aimed my thoughts at Lux, though she couldn’t hear. Ryann had broken up with Adam. She’d told me she cared about me. Then my doomed ending syndrome kicked in all over again.
“Are you okay?” Ryann put her hand on my shoulder.
“Just… dealing with this,” I replied.