Livvy's POV

Chapter 6

The Erebian fire was not by any means easy to get. Cass held the box open, while Ally pulled some matches from her back pocket. Wait a second. Ally carries matches around in her back pocket? Well, that explains all those unexplained fires...anyway. Cassie stood there, holding the box, while Ally struck the match. The fire immediately disappeared, going up into smoke. As it did, I called out, "Houti para friki!" Greek for "box of horror." I'm not sure where the idea came from, but it worked. When Cass's trembling hands opened the box once more, there was a little flame in there. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief. Finally, something had gone right. I felt like it was the first time in a century that something had worked out for me.

We hurriedly made our way to the Erineyes' loom. It was a sight to see once and never again. It seemed...confusing. How did they keep all of that straight? There were so many colors, and so many twists and turns. It seemed like every thread was entwined with five others. The threads were introduced at random intervals. They were all sorts of lengths. Some went through the whole loom. Some were just little snips of string. It was a bit humbling to see all that. I thought I could tell what my string was. It started as a deep, calm indigo and turned into a steel-hard one, one that couldn't be cut. Ally opened Pandora's box and held a little fire in her hand. I gaped.

"Children of Hades can hold Erebian fire," she explained. She took a little piece of it and rolled it into a shape like a sword point. Then she took a deep breath. "Livvy," she whispered, "call the water."

I shook my head, confused. "I...can't," I admitted. Ally tossed her hair behind her head.

"Fine," she said. She took a Stygian ice whistle from her pocket, like the one my brother used for Mrs. O'Leary, and blew it. Cass and I looked at her, a bit apprehensively. She stared straight ahead.

Okay, I thought, what the heck is going on?

Suddenly, I saw a form materialize. It was tall, and it was a boy, about nineteen or twenty. He had hair the color of sand, and eyes the color of sapphires. There was a little scar above his forehead. I knew exactly who this was. My second cousin, Luke, son of Hermes. What I didn't expect most, though, was that he ran right up to Ally and embraced her. "Lyssie," he murmured. "I missed you. Did you do what I asked?"

She stepped back and let Luke's arms drop. "Of course," she promised. "I was just about to. I thought you might like to watch." She grinned maliciously in our direction, and snapped her fingers. The flame hovered above the loom, right over a steel string. "I fooled you, didn't I?" she gloated. "You thought I was so for your cause, but I was working with Luke the whole time. Now we will renounce the gods together, and bring Mount Olympus down." The fire floated just above the thread, threatening to burn it. Cassie jumped, trying to knock the fire out of her hand, but screamed in pain. Her skin came back coal-black and smoking.

I looked at her. I wished, not for the first time but maybe for the last, that I had never made a bet with a demon. I could have put out that fire. I could have saved us all. But I didn't. Luke laughed at me cruelly. "Oh yes, Daughter of the Sea God," he taunted. "We know your little bet. You can't beat us, can you? Look at your friend's burning hand. Can't you douse it wish water? Can't you help your friend?"

"I have no friends," I defied. Luke looked at me, with frightening malice in his eyes. He chuckled.

"Well, whose fault is that?" he demanded. "It's yours. You made a deal. You swore on the River Styx if you were made immortal, you would never use your marine powers again. Your father disowned you. Now you can't die...unless, of course, you drown. Tell your friends, Livvy." Luke seemed to be so proud, so amazingly proud to know my deepest, darkest secret. Cassie looked at me with disgust and hatred in her eyes. I wanted to explain, but I couldn't. That was something I could never tell anyone but the people who were part of the bet. I had been so young and foolish. I had wanted power more than anything, wanted to be survive forever more than I wanted to live. I never would have imagined the consequences. Every second of my life, I couldn't die. Every minute, I was still alive. I hated it. I should have died 1,960 years ago, but I hadn't, and I had to live in the agony of bearing a horrible secret.

In my peripheral vision, I spied a little bit of water creeping into the control room. Without thinking, I backed away from it immediately. "Wh-what is that?" I asked.

Luke looked at it. "Oh, that?" he asked casually, as if he didn't know. "We're on good terms with Charon. He sends the River Styx to us, when we need it."

Ally gazed at Luke. Cassie shook her head, full of self-pity and regret and betrayal. "How could you do this, Ally?" she cried. "We've been best friends forever. We stayed up until midnight making prank calls at my house. We passed notes when our teachers weren't looking. We had our hearts break and be sewn back together, together. And now you'll just throw it all away?"

She shook her head and shouted, "You don't understand! I've only known you eight years. I've been alive for two thousand. I've watched Hades be forced to give everything to his brothers. I've watched him slowly become weaker. I've watched him lose, every time. This was a way for Daddy to get back at everyone who hurt him."

While this verbal rivalry was going on, I was trying to stay away from the water. It now covered almost the whole floor. I wondered vaguely if I'd be able to climb on the ceiling. Maybe, if I stood on the loom...Nah. It wouldn't hold my weight. It wouldn't hold anything. It was a tangle of string! I couldn't get away from it. The amount of water coming in by the second was increasing quickly. Pretty soon I was standing in about three inches of water. I watched from my wet position as Cassie pushed Ally down. The Erebian fire fell out of her hand and landed in the water, fizzling out. A small wisp of gray smoke drifted up.

Ally stared at her, gawking. "You - you-" She couldn't seem to finish her sentence. In the same movement, Cassie took Pandora's box and threw it through the ceiling. It broke a hole through, but came back down, landing with a plop! Water splashed across the front of my shirt, and I cried out. Cassie jumped on the box. Ally tugged on Cass's hand. "Please, Cassie!" she begged. "You don't know what you're doing."

She latched her fingers onto the rough edges of her crude escape hatch. "No," she responded firmly. "You don't." She climbed up, reached back in, grabbed Pandora's box, and left. Cass was taller than all of us, so without the box, we were doomed to drown. So I thought. Ally immediately grabbed Luke's hand and disappeared.

"Ta-ta, Livvy!" she cackled. I was left behind. The water level rose continuously. I dipped my head beneath the water. Finally, I had a chance to do something I'd wanted to do for years: die. I stuck my head under and refused to come up. Normally, I think there's some sort of reflex that disables people from drowning themselves. I did it easily. My lungs felt like they would burst. I tried to breath in water. I panicked a little at the very last second, but other than that I didn't resist. I had wanted to do this forever. The last thing I saw was the distorted view of the loom. Then...

Blackness.