Evening of Thursday March 11, 1490
The incandescent heat that blasted through the doorway nearly knocked us off our feet, and Ynez gave a little yelp as it seared her cheeks. Then the impact faded and I opened my eyes to an inferno. What little I could see of the cavern walls through the raging flames glowed white hot and dripped with molten stone like candle wax. In the middle of the conflagration stood a tall, proud woman bearing a longsword made of bone. Her bone, in fact — eons ago, driven mad by her fetters, she had wrenched off (and then regrown) her own arm and forged the bone into a weapon to hold sanity at bay. Mad fires blazed fiercely in her eyes as she stared contemptuously at us, and for all that she had tapped into the core of her power for centuries to survive, she still projected the same majesty that Hades did.
Not the fire elemental of my nightmare but she embodied all that was great and terrible about Ars Essentiae.
Two twangs, so close together they might have been one, rent the air, and two arrows, one right after another, thudded into Hestia's chest. Almost dismissively, she brushed at them with her free hand, and they crumbled into glowing ashes that blew away at once.
Her flaming aura did shade almost imperceptibly from white hot towards a cooler yellow, though, and the flames wavered for a moment, splitting just long enough for me to spy the Hearthstone itself behind her. After burning out the caves during Despina Delios' time, it had settled down here, in this deepest cavern, as a molten lump that pulsed eerily like a heart and radiated waves of Quintessence to fan and fuel the inferno.
Drawing my pocketknife, I whittled a bucket and attacked the Hearthstone itself, straining against Hestia to contain her inner fire. I might as well have poured a bucket of water down Vesuvius. While it was erupting. My feeble Effect evaporated almost before it brushed the stone.
In response, Hestia threw back her head and roared with laughter, spewing fire from her throat. "Fools!" the inferno howled along with her. "I draw my strength from fire itself, and for as long as it burns in the hearths and hearts of men, I shall prevail!"
With one swift lunge, she impaled Gus on her sword.
Snarling furiously, more like wolf than dog, he danced back, scattering drops of bright red blood through the air but taking the sword with him. Hacking at a piece of wood, I struggled to shatter the blade.
"Dad!" screamed Tel. Dropping an arrow back into his quiver, he ran towards his father and threw himself onto his knees. "Mel! Heal him!" he appealed, raising his hands in supplication.
A bandage of bright violet light staunched the flow of blood but left the sword in the dog's side.
"Ghallim!" I cried, twisting my head around and searching for him. However, he had stepped back from the doorway and was focused so intently on a ritual that he didn't even hear me. I didn't dare interrupt him.
Hades blew a dirge on his horn and called upon his own divinity, and the flames about Hestia flickered just a hair lower. The aura around her began to shade towards orange.
"Such arrogance, brother!" she spat scornfully. "Fire is the blood of humanity, and you cannot extinguish it — or me — unless you end this pathetic little world." Even as she spoke, tendrils of fire unfurled from her fingertips to lick at our defenses, seeking the weakest link. "You should never have freed me, for I have always been stronger."
Faster than a firestorm, she punched a fist directly at Tel's head.
Without any deliberate action, Ynez suddenly manifested her love as the beautiful, snow-white swan I had only seen once before, when Zoe died, and it dove in front of Tel, partially deflecting the blow with its wing. Acrid smoke from burning feathers filled the air, and Ynez, the swan, and Tel all screamed with pain.
Drawing another deep breath, Hades blew his horn again, and his music sailed out like so many threads of magical power that fell around Hestia like a net, binding her and dampening her aura still further.
Her only response was to smile disdainfully and inhale deeply, sucking up a surge of power through the leylines — but not into herself. Even before I heard Ghallim's grunt, I could tell that her aim was to charge the storage ring beyond its capacity. While it hadn't exploded yet, it couldn't hold much longer.
"Stop with the villain talk!" Tel shouted suddenly, leaping to his feet with his bow drawn. "I'm sick and tired of it! If you have something to say, say it like a normal person!" His arrow punched into her arm, and the shaft vibrated for just a little longer than it had the last time, before she vaporized it again.
Beside him, Ynez threw power into her swan and reknit its wing, and it hovered protectively over Tel's head.
Ghallim was still lost in his ritual — building and charging a reflective Effect — so I tried again with Ars Essentiae to pull Hestia's sword out of Gus' side. But it stuck fast. "Ynez!" I cried. "Help me!"
Wrapping her hands around the hilt over mine, she braced her feet. "On a count of three," she directed. "One two three!"
With a jerk, the sword finally slid free, and Gus collapsed, blood pouring out of the gash and soaking his golden fur. "Ghallim!" Tel bellowed, falling to his knees and pressing both palms to the wound. "Some help here?"
At last Ghallim broke out of his trance and dashed over, yanking a small jar of ointment from his pocket as he ran. Together, he and Tel partially re-formed muscles and sealed skin, and Gus staggered to his feet and shook himself out, but he seemed older than before and his fur shaded towards pale gold — Cerberus in his old age.
Meanwhile, Hades blew his horn again, and cypress-like vines shot out of it to overgrow the path to the loom chamber. More sprang out of the ground around Hestia's feet to wrap themselves around her ankles. In trying to dodge them, she tripped and stumbled, and the vines enveloped her all the way up to her neck, binding her fast.
Still, her grandeur was undiminished as she lifted her head and sneered, "You may have the upper hand now, but we both know that this small victory will only be temporary! For so long as the Hearth of the world burns, so too shall I. Mark my words, brother — I will break free in time, and it will be you who is cast into my fire!"
Without deigning to answer, Hades raised his hand and pointed peremptorily towards the loom chamber, and the vines began to drag Hestia away from the Hearthstone and along the corridor. The rest of us followed, Ynez lingering to ask Tel anxiously, "Are you all right?"
His concern was all for his father. "Yes. I'm just worried about Gus."
Overhearing them, Hestia tipped her head back, caught sight of Ynez dragging along the bone sword in both hands, and laughed uproariously. "A fourteen-year-old girl can't contain me!"
"The entire point of this," Ynez replied primly, "is so I don't have to."
"You've doomed the city by removing its only power source — " she started to jeer. But all at once she went still, and an unnervingly broad smile split her face. "Oh, won't you have a wonderful surprise! I am so looking forward to it!" Chuckling, she commanded, "Brother, take me to my eternal prison!"
A split second later, the air around Hades' cypress shimmered, and an aura of autumn harvest settled around it. Down the corridor strode a smiling Tessa, enveloped and armored by all of Demeter's symbols. An emerald green serpent coiled about her waist flicked its tongue out, tasting the magical currents in the air; a cornucopia under her left arm overflowed with wheat and corn and spilled the harvest across the ground as she walked; and a brightly burning torch held high in her right hand threw long shadows across the cave walls.
Surprise and displeasure in his voice, Hades greeted her. "Sister," he said stiffly. "I was not expecting to see you here."
Serenely, Demeter answered, "Hello again, brother. I see our family so rarely that it seemed like time for a reunion." She turned her smile on Hestia, who cackled gleefully in reply. "I have come to see our sister off." Scanning all of us quickly, she sighed, "Oh Tel. Really? Again?" And, just like Verrus, she quickly healed his injuries until he stood tall and proud, like Hercules or Achilles — and utterly ignored Ynez and me. Once life settled down, I was really going to learn how to use cosmetics. Then maybe Ars Animae mages would actually heal me for a change. (Or maybe I could avoid people who were trying to kill me? A novel thought.)
Grabbing my hand, Ynez pulled me a little away from the others and hissed in my ear, "Is this part of the plan?"
"Sort of? Maybe?" was the best answer I had.
Naturally, Ynez looked displeased — but not as displeased as Hades. Curtly, he inclined his head to Demeter and led the way to the loom chamber. Either out of respect or according to her own plans, she fell back as we approached it, bringing up the rear. Craning my head around, I widened my eyes at her inquiringly, but she only smiled back enigmatically. "Soon," her expression said.
Swiveling her head back and forth between Hades and Demeter, Ynez suddenly asked me, "Are those the mice? Why are they following?"
Hastily I improvised, "They probably want to be around in case anything goes wrong."
At the doors to the loom chamber, Hades paused and looked expectantly at the Prima again. She swung them open, and hopped aside for him to drag his sister through. Abandoning her arrogance, Hestia fought him every step of the way.
As she followed them inside, Ynez stopped dead in the doorway, blocking all of the rest of us. Completely disoriented, she blinked at the sight: Overnight, the mice had disassembled the loom and pushed all the components to the sides of the chamber.
Moving up behind her and trying to squeeze around her, Ghallim said softly in her ear, "Zere seems to be subterfuge involved 'ere. I sense a reason to zis arrangement."
Perhaps trusting that Astera was behind it, Ynez nodded and started walking again.
"Where is the shallowing?" I asked quickly, trying to steer them away from this topic before they alerted Hades.
"It's there." Ynez swept her arm across the center of the room, where the loom had been, and I detected a weakening of reality there, as if the Umbra and its spirit denizens were much closer to the real world than was usual (or safe).
Surveying us, Hades came to the exact opposite conclusion as Hestia and ordered, "Tel. You're the strongest. Hold her while I open the portal."
"Me?" Tel asked incredulously, looking around at all of us as if we might be hiding another Tel. "I don't know...I don't want to get burned again — or stabbed." He cast an anxious glance at his parents, who panted up at him encouragingly, their friendliness contrasting very oddly with the pointiness of their teeth.
"Take her." Hades' tone brooked no dissent.
"Umm, okay." Tel's entire demeanor suggested that he thought this was a terrible idea, that he was obeying only under duress, and that he refused to be held responsible when — not if — everything went wrong.
Passing a pair of vines to Tel, Hades stepped right into the shallowing and transformed into something even larger and darker and more intimidating. Staring straight into my eyes, he said, "Let me remind all of you that the gate works one way, and one way only." As impassively as I could, I met his gaze, hoping that he couldn't read my thoughts. "Prima," he commanded. "Lower the barriers."
Darting forward to the edge of the shallowing, Ynez fumbled through her pockets for a few candles, set them out along the border, lit them with a shaking hand, and knelt to pray that the concealing veil be parted.
As her words mingled with the scent of the candles, something about the air lessened, and shadowy figures flickered into existence, slowly solidifying as the Umbra joined to reality. Pointing his staff at the center of the shallowing, Hades chanted in the language of the gods, intoning harsh syllables that rolled off his tongue with the inevitability of an avalanche and nearly flattened my mind. A swathe of air across the middle of the shallowing turned as black as a grave, and Hades hovered in front of it, as if trying to shield the gates to Tartarus from our sight.
As I craned my neck to see past his cloak, Ghallim grabbed my arm. "Ze mice are coming!" he hissed. "Zey are thinking zat eet eez all coming together, zat eet eez out of zeir 'ands now but eez likely to 'appen. Eez zis part of your plan?"
Hastily I bobbed my head and shushed him.
Luckily, Hades was too distracted by both opening the portal and restraining Hestia to notice our exchange. At his command, the blackness slowly split down the middle, drawing back with a rumble, and Tartarus yawned before us like a glittering obsidian map. Bright jewels marked out the shades of the dead — Tantalus wading in a pool of water, reaching longingly for the fruit just above him; Sisyphus heaving his boulder to the top of the hill, grunting with exertion. On the very edge hovered a black pearl that resolved into a spirit as it drifted towards us — Persephone, trailing a silvery thread that led back to Thoren's staff. Although she strained against her tethers to the underworld, she lacked the energy to break free.
In my satchel, the pomegranate pulsed madly, thudding against my skin. As I had known this morning that Astera's plan would all come together today, so now I knew what she needed me to do. Without taking my eyes off Hades, I slid my hand into the satchel and wrapped my fingers around the fruit. To my touch it was hot, almost too hot to touch. Not yet, its heat said to me. Just a little longer.
The portal kept solidifying into the real world, the blackness materializing as gates made from iron and adamantine, and cold mist oozed out to swirl around our feet. Tartarus itself was rushing at us, and Hades frowned as he fought to fend it off.
Suddenly Ynez's family appeared just beyond the gates, sitting around a fire in their home and telling stories. Smiling directly at her, her mother motioned her to take a chair. Ynez wavered, leaning forward — and the shield that Avaris had set around her mind crushed her with the agony that her uncle had felt as he died. Suffering counters suffering, Avaris' voice whispered, and with suffering he shattered the underworld's temptation.
A jolly old man, the sort of uncle who would go off on wild adventures and pop up unpredictably to tell you inappropriate stories and bring you exotic gifts, leaned casually against the inside of the gate and propped one ankle against the other. "Let us out when you have time," he called cheerfully to Ghallim. "There's no rush, but we will be helpful." Ghallim stared at him for a moment, swallowed hard, and turned away.
Hestia's wild laughter tore through the room. "Can fire itself be restrained by a pathetic mortal?" she demanded. Tearing one arm free of the vines, she drew back her fist and punched Tel in the chest with all her might.
He gasped, all the breath knocked out of him, and fell backwards, still clinging onto the vines.
Ynez's bear exploded out of the air in front of her, landed on the floor on all fours, and snarled fiercely. Entirely unafraid, Hestia only smiled broadly, as if echoing the mice's thought that everything was coming together.
The bear glared ferociously at her — and then barreled into Hades, taking him completely off guard, and savaged him with its flaming sword.
A heartbeat later, the pomegranate flared beneath my fingers. Now! Yanking it out of my satchel and sprinting forward, I cocked my arm and hurled it into Tartarus with all my might, using Ars Essentiae to propel it towards Persephone.
At the same time, Ghallim raised his left palm and channeled all of Hestia's power and all the excess energy she had stored in the ring into a bar of dragonfire that he sprayed at Hades.
A massive shaking filled the air, nearly knocking us off our feet.
Batting away the bear and the flames, Hades ignored Ghallim entirely and lunged forward, straining to catch the pomegranate half. His desperate leap nearly brought him high enough — I stopped breathing — but then it sailed over his head and sped like a comet towards his captive queen. "You lovesick fool!" he roared at me. "You have no idea what you are unleashing!" Calling upon all his reserve strength, he dropped his own defenses and extended his powers to the breaking point to reverse the trajectory of the pomegranate half.
In that moment of weakness, Demeter struck. Pointing an imperious finger at the cypress tree, she warped its branches and sent vines flying at the horn to entangle and wrench it from him.
As he spun around at this fresh attack, fear filled his eyes for the very first time. His aura wavered and then dimmed, just as Hestia's had when he bound her.
From inside the portal, a powerful force was approaching the human world, blowing out more and more icy mist and darkness.
Hades suddenly stiffened with absolute terror and whirled towards the door to the corridor, just as all the mice burst into the chamber. As soon as they crossed the threshold, the pieces of the loom lurched to life. Light poured from the pieces as they floated up into the air. Hades happened to be standing in the dead center of one of the rings, and it lifted him up inexorably as the loom components ground together. Looking like a heroic prince of old, Gordon shouted a single word in an ancient, guttural tongue, and an Ars Temporis Effect sped up all the mice. "Final check!" he yelled at the others, almost too fast for human comprehension. Now a boy, now a golden fox, Jamie dashed to the loom, testing shuttles and adjusting knobs. Helen grew taller until she towered over even Demeter, her face flickering between all the guises of womanhood — child, mother, lover, confidante, queen. God-Sy solidified into a scruffy urchin as he approached the shallowing, and he grinned his impish grin directly at me, and tossed a pocketknife from one hand to the other.
Then Lil stepped forward, glowing with an ancient aura and commanding all of our attention. "I am Despina Delios!" she proclaimed in an authoritative voice that was not hers. "I have learned countless secrets from countless gods, but it is you, Hades, caretaker of the realm of the dead, who holds the final mystery that I have hunted for four hundred years. At long last, I have you in the heart of my power, and it is here that I will lay bare the secrets of your soul!"
Hades thrashed against the ring, struggling desperately to tear his arms free. "Fools! You have no idea what you're doing! You will destroy this world!"
Glancing up at Demeter, I saw a smile play on her lips; she seemed entirely unsurprised by the development. Hestia, on the other hand, looked taken aback for one split second before she rubbed her hands and chuckled in anticipation.
"What happens now?" I asked Demeter anxiously, edging away from the treachery I had set in motion.
"We wait," she announced regally, "for my daughter." Then she bent down and kissed me on the forehead, instantly healing all of the injuries I had accumulated. I breathed in deeply, feeling whole and healthy for the first time in a week and half. "My disciple of the Eleusinian mysteries," she sighed with a satisfied smile.
Behind us, Ynez shrieked suddenly, "No no no! Everything about this is wrong!" Summoning her pride, she manifested it as a gorgeous peacock that screeched raucously and launched itself at Lil.
"Ynez!" I shouted. "No! It's Astera's plan!" Screaming some Enochian runes that I could barely hear over the peacock's screeching, I managed to partially countermagic her.
"But it's wrong!" she cried out again, incoherently. "It's all wrong!"
Lights of all colors blazed from the loom, and the threads of Hades' soul shot out from his skin. On the ceiling formed the nine Spheres we had seen in Ashton's soul — but at the very apex, where no star had shone before, blazed a brilliant new Sphere. Its multi-hued light illuminated all the corners and drove all the shadows from the chamber, and everyone paused to stare up at it in wonder.
"The tenth Sphere," Ynez breathed. "It only appears when a mage is about to Ascend to a higher realm."
Calming down at last, Hades sighed and said, "You have prepared well, Criamoni, but you cannot win this fight, for the path beyond always rests but a single thought away. I only remained here so long as I was needed to ensure that your kind was safe from my family, but I can see now that my time to step beyond has come."
Spreading his arms, he began to drift free of the ring, Ascending towards the blindingly bright sphere — but then time skipped.
Bound fast in the ring once more, Hades sighed and said, "You have prepared well, Criamoni, but you cannot win this fight, for the path beyond always rests but a single thought away. I only remained here so long as I was needed to ensure that your kind was safe from my family, but I can see now that my time to step beyond has come."
It was a time loop that had been prepared long, long ago, a snare centuries in the making. Hades' eyes widened as he realized that he was well and fully trapped, and that this really was the end for him.
"Umm," said Tel. "Does anyone else feel the Paradox in here? I don't think I want to be around when it explodes."
Ghallim's ritual to prevent Hades from redistributing Paradox was working only too well, and it was building up to dangerous levels and entirely focused on him — just as planned.
"Oh God!" Ynez realized all of a sudden. "If Thanos loses his powers, he'll be a Sleeper! Paradox doesn't hit Sleepers! It'll go for the nearest mage!"
All of us took an involuntary step away from him.
Suddenly, in a circle around the loom appeared seven spirits, all staring upward longingly at the tenth Sphere — the seven embodiments that Despina Delios had taken while she pursued her goal.
"Mother?" I whispered, taking a half step towards Astera.
"Mater!" Ynez appealed. "You have to stop it or you'll die!"
All smiling with the same enraptured expression, the seven incarnations of Despina tethered themselves to the tenth Sphere. As one, they intoned, "We are going beyond, child, to where there is no death."
The air rumbled ominously. "I need to check ze ring," Ghallim shouted, and sprinted from the room.
Tel stared around wildly, brow furrowed in consternation. "I have no idea whose side to take anymore," he said to Hestia. "Here." And he shoved the vines in his hands at her. Laughing maniacally, she burned them all away and roared out of the room.
Through all the drama, the portal to Tartarus had remained open under the loom. Now a beautiful young girl danced out of it, singing in a high, pure voice and strewing brightly colored flowers from a basket looped over one arm. With a cry of joy, Demeter ran forward and caught her daughter in a fierce embrace, both of them shedding tears of happiness. When they broke apart at last, Persephone beamed up at her mother and said, "Oh Mother, I have so much to show you. Let us go." Hand in hand, they, too, began to walk out of the chamber, sparing not a single backward glance for any of us.
As she passed me, Persephone dropped a hard glittering object on the floor at my feet. It rolled a little and fetched up against my shoe, and I picked it up, turning it over and over in my hands. It was a shard from the jewel on Thoren's staff.
Stuffing it into my satchel, I ran a few steps towards the departing goddesses. "Wait!" I protested. "Tessa, what do we do now?"
Without turning around, she put an arm around her daughter's shoulders and murmured, as much to Persephone as to me, "Keep those you love close."
And then they were gone.
"Take Tel and get out!" Ynez shouted at me as Paradox from Despina's ritual compounded that already in the room, pressing and compressing us almost unbearably.
"No! I'm not leaving!" I yelled back, fighting to push the Paradox aside. Here was my mother, here was my sister, here was the portal to Tartarus and Hades in his ring and everything else that I had helped the mice bring about. I couldn't leave now.
"Paradox will eat us all!" she screamed.
As if in agreement, Paradox flared, squeezing me so tightly that I couldn't breathe for a terrifying moment. "Tel!" I shrieked when I could draw a breath again. I shoved him towards the doorway. "Get out!"
Still in a daze, staring with confused eyes up at the spirits, he waved at his parents and brother, and they vanished out into the corridor.
The seven incarnations of Despina Delios reached the light, but just before they stepped into its brilliance, Astera looked back at us. A small flick of her hand stopped time and bent space, and suddenly she was everywhere at once — a hair's breadth away from the tenth Sphere, yet also just a step away from me and Ynez, and Ghallim outside by his storage ring, and Tel somewhere in the tunnels of the Hearth.
With a voice full of love and regret, Astera said, "I have caused such trouble, my children. It is only now, as I am leaving this realm forever, that I see the full scope of my mistakes. I fear that it is Athens that will pay for them. Much of the disaster you shall soon face ought to be mine to confront. I can only hope that you have what it takes to withstand it."
"Mother — " I croaked. "Mother — " And I wanted to hurl myself into her arms and beg her not to go, but was I not eighteen and a woman grown and the Secunda of her House?
"I never intended for Athens to become the bastion of resistance to the Plague," she continued with perfect sincerity, looking straight into all of our eyes at once. "I had hoped that people would leave the city... Not even a mistress of Ars Temporis can control or even foresee every eventuality — " as poor Hades had just learned — "but I do believe that there are still paths by which the city may be saved. Thanos will not be able to continue his task of protecting humankind from his family, and so that task must fall to you, my children. I will share what knowledge I can, in the hopes that I can lighten this burden."
And then, each of us drew in power with our next breath. I felt the core of my magic grow stronger, and where Ars Vis burned within me, its radiance blazed and in its afterimages I saw the shape of new Effects I could wield — the transfer of Quintessence from any Pattern to any other, the enchantment of life Patterns, and even, in the last extremity, the sacrifice of living beings to fuel my magic. All this Astera gave me in her last timeless moments on earth.
But she was not yet finished.
To Tel she presented the laughing mask of Thalia, Muse of Comedy; the cithara of Erato, Muse of Love Poetry; and the lyre of Terpsichore, Muse of Dance, and along with them the means to invoke Thalia, Erato, Terpsichore, or Mel at will. "To you I give the gift of choice," she said, and brushed his hair back from his face. "Use it well, child."
To Ghallim she delivered a dagger stroke that nearly pierced him through the heart. When he fended off her attack with his spear, she sprouted a broadsword as a third arm and swept it at his neck, forcing him to block and block again, over and over. With each new attack she taught him a new way to fight, the best aid she could impart to a warrior priest. At last she snuck up behind him and threw a bag over his head. After he struggled free, he discovered in it the seeds that we needed to feed the city.
To Ynez she taught the proper way to control her emotions and along with them the bear, serpent, and swan. Then she proffered Hades' spear, with the compassionate words, "There are many who will need to be sent beyond so they can no longer wreak havoc upon this earth. Ghallim will fight them, but it is you who are the wisest of my children, and it is you who will open and shut the portal to Hades. I will warn you that Marina intends to go there to rescue Thoren. She will certainly die without your aid, but the choice of whether you help her is yours." She paused for a heartbeat, then admitted, "Perhaps you were right to try to stop me from Ascending, but the time for that has come and gone."
To me she gave a beautifully illuminated codex, a nod to the love of books that she had instilled in me, and in a daze I opened it to find detailed descriptions of each of the arts of the nine Muses. "I suppose I cannot dissuade you from this task you have set yourself?" she inquired in a tone that suggested she already knew my answer. At my determined shake of the head, she sighed and presented me with a sacred map of the underworld, marked clearly with the path to Thoren. "Always so sure of yourself, my dear. Wait a few months at least, until things have settled down," she advised. "Seek wisdom — and allies." Throwing my arms around her neck at last, I sobbed into her chest as I had not since childhood, and she held me and rocked me and hummed the refrain of a lullaby she had sung so many years ago.
But even timelessness could not last forever. Finally, Astera stepped back from each of us and spoke to all of us together. "There is not much time left," she said. "But ask what questions you have, and I will tell you what I know."
"The children," said Ynez immediately. "Where did they come from?"
"Ah. That is only one of my many regrets. It is only now that I see that the circumstances of their orphaning have been my fault, as my overwhelming need for suitable bondmates to the gods warped reality."
"What about Tel and me? Did you — warp reality — around our parents too?" I asked.
"The two of you were a pleasant surprise, as a matter of fact. My powers did not bring you here. But once you showed up, with the Muses, well — having more Criamoni around could only prove useful." She hesitated, then confessed, "Your request to forget about the loom was part of your deal with the Muses, so they could pretend to themselves that they were human...but I admit that I was glad for it. Your knowing too much about the loom might have complicated things." She gave a rueful shrug. "Perhaps I have not been well suited for motherhood."
Even now, I couldn't agree with her assessment of her parenting. "My biological parents? Who were they?" I persisted, trying desperately to learn everything I could in these last moments. Cly pressed up against the front of my mind, listening as hard as she could.
"Your father was no one of note," Astera said dismissively. "Your mother, of course, was Mnemosyne, the mother of the Muses." Cly and I looked at each other in surprise — we were actually half-sisters?
"What about Tel?" Cly reminded me. "Ask her before she leaves! Otherwise we'll never know!"
"But why didn't Tel have an avatar?" I pressed.
To my surprise, Astera gave a little chuckle. "Isn't it obvious? Who else could his father be but Dionysus?"
"Wait," I protested. "What about Gus?"
Ynez began to turn pink even before Astera smirked and replied, "What about Gus?"
Oh dear. Poor Gus. I could only hope that he never found out. "But how did I meet Tel in the first place? I came to the orphanage when I was two. What was I doing out on the farm with him when we were eight?"
Astera only shrugged. "I never claimed to know all the mysteries. You did want so desperately to be a mouse. Perhaps you found and befriended Tel one of the countless times you snuck out after Sy?" Had I? I couldn't remember, and now perhaps I would never know. Not that it truly mattered.
"Why Lil?" Ynez asked urgently. "Mater, why not me, if I were your heir?"
Astera cupped her cheek lightly. "Of all of you, only Lil answered my ethical question correctly. You weren't pragmatic enough, child. You would never have made the choices necessary for a host of Despina Delios."
Ynez nodded her comprehension. "I see," she said softly.
"Ghallim." Astera turned to him. "I should warn you that Hades will be angry, and with good reason."
Ghallim nodded curtly and gripped his spear more tightly.
Staring at each of our faces intently, as if committing our features to memory, Astera said in a rush, "I dare not stay longer. Every moment that I remain here worsens the backlash of the things I have done, and although it is not fair to you, I will not be the one to suffer the consequences of my actions." She gave each of us a tight hug. "Always remember how much I love you. You have made House Criamon proud."
"Mother!" I cried, all feelings of anger and betrayal falling away. Mother, I love you. Don't leave me. But the words caught in my throat. She was so close to her dream, the dream towards which she had toiled for seven lives and four hundred years. How could I hold her back? How could I taint her elation with selfish tears? Oh, Mother….
The spirit of Despina Delios had already passed into the light and vanished, and the four Primae who succeeded her followed, each pausing on the threshold to cast one last beatific smile upon us. Astera lifted a hand to us like a benediction, her face bright with love and sorrow and triumph and regret, and stepped through as well.
Lil lingered, hovering just below the light, and beckoned solemnly to the mice. "Come, my friends," she said. "It is time."
The godlings held a furious whispered discussion, Gordon, Helen, and the spirit of Sy seemingly desperate to convince Jamie of something, but he bit his lip and shook his head determinedly.
"I will stay," he declared with resolve.
Were the mice going too? Was I losing not only my mother but most of my brothers and sisters all at the same time?
But for the same reason I could not speak to stop Astera, so I could not hinder them from going. And it would save Sy.
"Wait!" I cried as they began to rise into the air, and I held out my arms to them, one last time.
Helen dropped lightly to the floor again, a child once more, and she pattered up to me and squeezed me tightly around the waist. Gordon floated before me and enveloped me in a tight hug, whispering in my ear, "I was a warrior prince, deified long ago by a forgotten people." Sy wrapped his arms around me, slipped his hand into my satchel deliberately so I noticed, and then held up an empty hand with a wink. When I flipped up the flap, I found the missing volumes of De Historia Artium Magicarum. Sy flashed a half-regretful, half-respectful smile at Jamie, his best friend for so many centuries, as the three of them lifted into the air and vanished, one by one, into the light.
Holding Jamie in my arms, I watched them go.
Lil went last, turning around with a wistful expression to survey the human life and mortal realm that she had sacrificed to Despina's dream. For a moment I thought she might speak, but she only smiled sadly, entered the light, and was gone.
The tenth Sphere vanished in a silent implosion that rocked the room, sucking with it all the threads of magic that had emanated from Hades' soul. The loom began to collapse, pieces of it crashing down around us, and from one of the rings, Lil's body tumbled to the floor. But she was not yet dead. As Ynez, Jamie, and I crouched around her, her eyelids fluttered weakly and her heart beat thrice more.
Then it stopped.
In the silence that followed, a scream of exultation rent the air and rang throughout the Hearth and the city.
As surely as I knew that I would never see Astera or Lil or Gordon or Sy or Helen ever again, I knew now that Hestia had sworn to keep the orphans warm only for as long as Despina's heart continued to beat, and that it was this heart that had been transferred from Prima to Prima for four centuries. Now the chain had broken at last. Hestia was truly free to wreak vengeance.
In front of us, the portal to Tartarus still gaped open, threatening to taint the real world with its darkness. With a shuddering sigh and a furtive sniffle, Ynez hefted Hades' spear, discovered it was far too heavy for her to wield one handed, and planted its butt firmly on the ground. Slowly, carefully, she began to close the gates to the underworld.
Watching her in something of a daze, I hugged Jamie tighter and murmured into his hair, "Why did you stay?"
In a small, forlorn voice, he whispered back, "I have a perfect memory and knowledge that you lack. You'll need my help." Twisting a little in my arms, he raised his head to the dark ceiling, searching its depths.
As Astera had warned, Paradox built up to unbearable levels in the loom chamber. Unable to redistribute itself among more targets and mitigate the damage, it all struck Thanos like a lightning bolt from the heavens.
But he was a Sleeper now — no, even less, for he did not even have an avatar left to Awaken — and so the Paradox attacked the nearest mage. Who was Athena, whom he wore on Ynez's necklace about his neck.
A great tremor convulsed Athens, the very earth beneath our feet buckling and heaving, and threw us to the ground, and even in the depths of the caves we could hear the crash of collapsing buildings and the screams of the dying as the city fell around us.
Thanos had opened his eyes at last, but he lay pressed to the cold stone of the floor, tears streaming down his face, entirely mortal, an ugly man in his mid-thirties, who made no motion to rise. "All I ever wanted to do was help," he said in a lost voice. "I could have Ascended millennia ago, but I turned back to help humankind. My family is dangerous. They could have ruled you in a heartbeat, but they never did because they knew that I was there to stop them. But they were clever, and they lied to you to obscure the paths so I could not see their intent until too late. And now she walks the earth again."
"Your wife, you mean?" Ynez asked.
"My wife!" He laughed in agony. "My wife? I suppose it is true that we loved each other, a very long time ago."
"But — didn't you kidnap her and imprison her?" I asked in bewilderment. Had I been entirely wrong about everything? Had Astera's plan really had nothing to do with curing the Plague? Had it been all about her and her dream of Ascension, in the end? Had she abandoned us here — alone and facing terrible gods, without our one protector — to fall along with the city?
"The myth is a horrible misinterpretation of the truth." Thanos' laugh turned maniacal, and he tore the necklace from around his neck to shove at Ynez. "Here! Take your city's patron goddess back! Persephone is more dangerous than you can ever imagine, and now I cannot even lift a hand to stop her. We are all doomed."
At his tirade, a fire ignited within Ynez. "No!" she declared fiercely. "Everyone always underestimates House Criamon!" Defiantly, she draped Athena back around her neck, then crouched to pick up Hestia's sword with her left hand. In her right hand, she held the spear of Hades upright, its butt braced against the earth, its tip stabbing heavenward. Struggling against the weight of the sword, she let its tip droop back down, but she straightened her back and faced us all, a small gallant figure resplendent in her pride and courage.
My sister, my friend, my Prima.
"Come on, Marina," she said. "We have to make it right."