CHAPTER 14
SIGHING IN FRUSTRATION, I SHOVED MY HANDS INTO
the pockets of my hoodie and scanned the night sky. Stars broke up the darkness, some shining more brightly than the others. The last time I’d seen the dark sky had been more than a week ago. I’d been behind the dining hall, holding Caleb’s cold body.
Caleb.
I squelched the rising tide of sorrow and regret before it consumed me again by focusing on something that had been nagging me since his funeral. Why in the world would Romvi have the symbol of the god of Peaceful Death tattooed on his arm? And wasn’t he the same god that old book had claimed was responsible for killing Solaris and the First Apollyon? I wasn’t sure it really mattered, but the image kept coming back to me.
“You okay?”
Every muscle in my body locked up. I reminded myself that it was only going to take eleven hours to get to the Catskills—eleven hours stuck in a car with the guy I loved, the guy I’d practically begged to love me in return. Maybe not in so many words, but that was how I felt. This was going to be easy. Yeah, really easy.
“Alex?”
I turned around. Aiden was tucking my suitcase into the back of the Hummer, watching me over his shoulder. My gaze skittered away, unable to really, really look at him. “Yeah, I was just thinking.”
“Is this all your stuff?”
Nodding, I kicked the toe of my shoe along the asphalt. I needed to act normal or this was going to be the longest car ride of my life. “How… how is Deacon?”
A few seconds passed before he answered. “He’s doing okay.” He shut the rear door. “He wanted me to tell you that he’s really sorry about… what happened.”
I faced him, keeping my eyes trained on his shoulder—which was one really nice shoulder—when I spotted a silver chain around his neck. It disappeared under his sweater. Odd—Aiden never wore jewelry. “Tell him I said thanks.”
Aiden nodded as he headed around to the side of the vehicle, but then he stopped so unexpectedly that I bounced off his back. He turned and caught my arm, setting me right. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second, and then he dropped my arm.
He stepped back. “I don’t know what you were thinking.” He broke off, glancing toward Leon, who waited under the awning of the Covenant.
“We just wanted to get some drinks from the cafeteria.” I swallowed, but the lump in my throat didn’t go away. “We were going to watch movies.”
“Are we ready?” called Leon. “We should be leaving now if we want to reach the Catskills before noon.”
“Yeah.” Aiden turned away, but then faced me again. “Alex?”
Slowly, I lifted my eyes to his. That turned out to be a mistake of epic proportions. A different kind of hurting opened up in my chest.
His gaze drifted across my face. “I’m… so, so sorry about Caleb. I know how much he meant to you.”
I couldn’t look away, couldn’t say a word.
He glanced over his shoulder and when he turned back to me, his eyes shone bright silver in the dim light. “Don’t… don’t ever do anything like that again. Please. Promise me.”
I wanted to ask why he’d care if I threw myself in front of a daimon, but those words didn’t come out. Something else did. “I promise.”
Aiden watched me a moment longer, and then broke away. After that, we climbed into the Hummer. I took a seat in the back while Aiden slid into the one in front of me. Leon drove and the other Guard took the seat next to me.
Leaning my head back against the seat, I closed my eyes and wondered how I’d ended up in the car while Seth got the private jet with Lucian, Marcus, and the Council members. They’d flown out this morning. Half-bloods—even Sentinels—usually didn’t get seats on the planes, but an exception had been made for Seth.
Car rides typically turned me into a bratty five-year-old, especially astronomically long ones, but I was too tired to really think about it. With all the sleeping I’d been doing, I probably should’ve been wide awake for days, but I drifted off quickly.
I woke up about two hours in when we stopped to get gas in Middle-Of-Nowhere, Virginia. Leon and the Guard went into the shack of a gas station, and I climbed out to stretch my legs. It was so dark out here, surrounded by woods and farms. The only sounds were the cows lowing in the distance. I strolled around the rear of the Hummer and found Aiden leaning against the bumper. He looked up when I stopped beside him. His eyes were nearly the same color as the moonlight.
“If you want to get something to eat, Leon or the Guard will get it for you.” Aiden rolled a bottle of water between his hands.
“I’m not hungry.” I moved past him, keeping my back to him.
“We don’t want to stop unless we have to.”
“I’m fine.” I hopped up on the curb and proceeded to place one foot in front of another.
Mid-step, I glanced over at the convenience store—if you’d consider that place a convenience store. It looked like an old pizza shop and the blinking red sign out front read “OPE.” Leon stood at the counter. “So… has Marcus confirmed that the Sentinel was responsible for the first attack?”
“There’s no way to really confirm that, Alex. We believe so. Another round of searches is being conducted—” He paused when I stiffened, “—to make sure she was the one.”
I reached the end of the curb. “I guess now I understand why the searches were so
important. They missed her and… look what happened. The Guards at the bridge, they probably didn’t expect anything when she showed up.”
“No. And the daimons are obviously getting smarter. She was on and off the campus a lot, making her a prime candidate. And her tags weren’t visible.”
I bent over backward, sprung off my hands, and landed perfectly on the narrow curb. I could have been a gymnast in a different life. Turning to face him, I found Aiden staring at me.
He glanced away as a strange, almost sad look crept across his face. Pushing off the bumper of the car, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “You and Seth seem to be getting along a lot better.”
I frowned at the change in subject. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Aiden stopped in front of me. “That’s a vast improvement from wanting to stab him in the eye.”
Even though I stood on the curb, Aiden was still taller than me. I tipped my head back, meeting his pale gaze. “Why do you even care?”
His brows rose slightly. “It’s just a statement, Alex. Has nothing to do with me caring or not.”
I felt my cheeks burn as I nodded stiffly. “Yeah, I think I grasped the whole caring and not caring topic.” I hopped off the curb and inched around the gas pumps.
Aiden followed behind me. “I saw you two at the funeral. He was there for you. I think that’s good. Not just for you, but for him. I think you’re the only person Seth cares about besides himself.”
I stopped, wanting to laugh, but I felt… embarrassed. Like I’d been caught doing something wrong, but I hadn’t. Confused by what Aiden was getting at, I started walking again. “Seth cares about himself. That’s about it.”
“No.” Aiden followed my movements, meeting up with me at the edge of the pumps. “He rarely left your side. Seth wouldn’t allow anyone—not even me—near you.”
I whipped around, surprised. “You stopped by to see me?”
Aiden nodded. “Several times, actually, but Seth was determined that you needed time to come to grips with everything. That doesn’t sound like someone who cares only about himself.”
“Why would you come see me?” I stepped toward him, hope and excitement building inside me. “You told me you didn’t care about me.”
He fell back a step, clenching his jaw. “I never said I didn’t care about you, Alex. I said I couldn’t love you.”
I flinched, cursing myself for the stupid window of hope I’d allowed to open. Smiling tightly, I headed back to the Hummer and slammed the door shut behind me. Unfortunately, Aiden followed me.
He got in the seat in front of me and turned around. “I’m not trying to fight with you, Alex.”
My temper and hurt feelings took over. “Then maybe you should try not talking to me. Especially when you sound like you’re trying to pawn me off on another guy.”
Aiden’s eyes snapped alive, flaring in the darkness. “I’m not trying to pawn you off on someone. You were never mine to do so.”
I leaned forward, my fingers digging into my thighs as I spoke in a whisper thick with pain. “I was never yours? You should’ve thought about that before you stripped me naked in your room!”
He sucked in air sharply, then his eyes shuttered to a dull gray. “It was a temporary loss of sanity.”
“Oh.” I gave a harsh laugh. “Did your temporary loss of sanity last several months? Did it make you say all those things to me at the zoo? Did it—”
“What do you want me to say, Alex? That I’m sorry… for leading you on?” He paused, visibly trying to rein in his anger and frustration. “I am. Okay? I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t want you to say that,” I whispered, stomach tumbling over.
Aiden closed his eyes and shook his head. “Look, you don’t need this right now. Not after everything with Caleb and with us going to the Council. So, just stop.”
“But—”
“I’m not going to do this with you, Alex. Not now. Not ever.”
Before I could respond, Leon and the Guard returned, putting an end to this. I flung myself against the seat and glared at the back of Aiden’s head. I knew he could feel me staring holes into him, because he sat stiffly with his eyes forced front.
Eventually I got bored with that and climbed over the back of my seat to dig out my music player. I tried going back to sleep, but my mind was too busy thinking about Caleb, the argument with Aiden, and whether or not Seth was as self-centered as I’d always thought he was.
After nine more hours of hell, we turned onto a winding road lined with towering pines and spruce trees so thick it reminded me of a Christmas tree farm. We were deep in the Catskills—no man’s land. About a mile in, a nondescript fence poked out, surrounding what I assumed was the perimeter of the New York Covenant.
I snorted. “Nice security.”
Aiden turned halfway around. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
I ignored him and leaned forward, seeing nothing more than a wire fence and trees. Maybe it was one of those fences that electrocuted people, because I’d really expected more than this.
Then I saw the Guards standing in front of the pitiful-looking fence, armed with what looked like semiautomatic weapons. My eyes widened as they leveled the guns at our vehicle. Leon slowed down as the four Guards approached us cautiously.
“Alex, take your hair down,” Aiden said quietly.
I didn’t understand why, but the seriousness in his tone told me not to fool around. I unraveled the messy bun, letting it fall around my face. Leon rolled down all the windows, and at once, the Guards peered inside the vehicle, searching each of us… for visible tags.
I shrank back, but met the dark-skinned Guard’s intense gaze as he looked me over once, then twice. The tags felt like they were burning under the mass of heavy hair. I wasn’t sure what they would’ve done if they’d seen the scars. Shoot me?
Not quickly enough, they gestured at the one Guard who remained back. The tall gate shuddered and creaked opened. I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Am I supposed to keep my hair down the entire time I’m here?”
Aiden glanced back at me, his lips forming a hard, tight line. “No. But I’d rather you not provoke a trigger-happy Guard.”
I could understand that, I guessed.
We rolled through the gate and went another half a mile down the road before the trees started thinning out. I leaned on the back of Aiden’s seat as the New York Covenant finally came into view.
Well, the twenty-plus-foot wall made out of white marble came into view.
After passing another set of gun-toting Guards, we finally entered the grounds. It didn’t look much different than our Carolina branch. There were statues of gods everywhere, except where ours stood among the sand, theirs rose up from the greenest grass I’d ever seen.
The first building I got to see was a mansion—the kind I didn’t expect to see in the middle of the Catskills. I’d once heard the Rockefellers had a house around these parts, but nothing compared to this monstrous thing. I counted six stories, several all-glass rooms, and possibly a ballroom with a skylight dome by the time the car stopped in front of the sandstone manor. I started to follow them, but Aiden stopped me.
“Alex, hold on a second.”
My fingers froze on the handle. “What?”
Aiden had turned around completely and those eyes… gods, those eyes always drew me in, always filled me with such warmth that I could almost taste his lips on mine. Too bad his words kind of ruined the moment.
“Don’t do anything here to draw unwanted attention.”
My fingers tightened on the door handle. “I don’t plan on it.”
“I’m being serious, Alex.” His eyes bored into mine. “No one here will be as forgiving as your uncle or stepfather. I can imagine that they won’t go easy on you when you have your session. Some of the Council… well, they’re not fans of yours.”
An ache throbbed in my chest in response to his clipped, professional tone. I had no idea where the tender Aiden had gone, the one who’d sworn to always be there for me, the one who’d gently brought me back from the brink when I’d freaked out in training. Gods, there were so many more moments, but all of them were gone.
Aiden was gone. Like Caleb, but in a different way. I’d lost both of them. A lot of the anger leaked out of me then. I faced the window, sighing. “I didn’t expect them to. I’ll behave. You don’t have to worry about me.” I started to open the door again.
“Alex?”
Slowly, I turned to him. Aiden wasn’t so guarded in that instant, and a deep, unsettling pain reflected in his gaze. There was more—almost like an uncertainty. But he pulled it together, like slipping on a well-worn mask of indifference, shuttering any and all emotions.
“Just be careful.” His voice was strangely hollow.
I wanted to say something, anything, but a flurry of activity outside of the car made that impossible. Servants—droves of half-blood servants—descended on the Hummer, opening doors and retrieving luggage. My mouth dropped open as one, a fair-haired boy about my age, meekly opened my car door. A black circle with a slash through it had been tattooed onto his forehead. I glanced at Aiden and saw his gaze still fastened on me. He gave me a strained smile before climbing out. I couldn’t help but wonder if the doubt I’d seen in his face had anything to do with me.
I was given a room on the fifth floor, one that connected to Marcus’s room. Or at least, that was what the half-blood doorman inside the mansion said before stepping back into the shadows. I really had no clue, so I just followed the blond boy. I didn’t see where Aiden and Leon were carted off to, but I bet they got rooms on the bottom floors—big, awesome rooms.
We crossed the grandiose lobby and entered a glass-enclosed breezeway. To our left was the entrance to what appeared to be the ballroom, but the twinkling lights didn’t hold my attention. Right in the middle of the breezeway was the very same statue that stood in the Covenant lobby in North Carolina.
Furies.
Sucking in a sharp gasp, I hurried around the statues to catch up with the half servant. Their heavy presence remained after I left the breezeway, nagging at the back of my thoughts. We went up several flights of steps, and I couldn’t deal with the silence any longer.
“So… um, how do you like it here?” I asked as we stepped into a narrow hallway adorned with oil paintings.
The boy kept his eyes fastened on the oriental carpet.
Okay… was there some sort of “no talking” rule? I glanced at the paintings, mentally listing the gods as we passed them: Zeus, Hera, Artemis, Hades, Apollo, Demeter, Thanatos, Ares—wait. Thanatos? I stopped to get a closer look at his painting.
He had wings and a sword. Thanatos looked like a pretty rocking angel, actually. But he shared the same woeful look the cemetery Thanatos had had on his face as he gazed upward. His left hand held a flaming torch turned downward. Why would Thanatos, who wasn’t one of the major Olympian gods, have his picture here among them?
An opening door drew my attention from the painting. I glanced over my shoulder. The half servant held the door open, eyes downcast.
I pursed my lips, scanning the four dull-white walls within. A closet would have been too nice of a description for this… this thing considered a room. I walked in as the servant placed my luggage inside the door.
There was a bed—a twin size bed covered with an itchy-looking brown blanket and one flat pillow. A tiny bedside table offered a rusty lamp that’d seen better days. It took me two seconds to cross the room and peek inside the bathroom.
It was the size of a coffin.
My eyes fell over the scuffed-up tile, dirty mirror, and rust stains surrounding the drain in the shower stall. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
“They expect you to sleep in this room—on that bed?”
Jumping at the unexpected sound of Seth’s voice, my hip slammed into the washbasin. “Ouch!” I rubbed my hip as I turned around.
Seth stood at the foot of the bed, his ever-present smug expression tainted with
disdain. It’d only been a day since I’d seen him, but strangely, it felt longer than that. His hair was down, curving around his chin. And he wore jeans and a plain black sweater—a rarity.
I was kind of glad to see him.
“Yeah, this room sucks.” I left the bathroom.
Seth strolled to a door on the other side of the bed. He reached down, throwing the lock.
“I guess that’s not the closet?”
“Nope, that’s the door to Marcus’s room.”
He arched a brow. “They gave you a servant’s room?”
“Nice.” I looked around, discovering there wasn’t even a closet in the room—or a dresser. I’d be living out of a suitcase for my whole stay. Yippee. “Why’d you lock it?”
Seth threw me a mischievous grin. “I can’t have Marcus just walking in on us. What if I want to snuggle on these cold New York nights?”
My frown increased. “We don’t snuggle.”
He dropped his arm over my shoulder, and the scent of mint and something wild tickled my nose. “How about we cuddle?”
“We don’t do that either.”
“But you’re my cuddle bunny. My little Apollyon cuddle—”
I punched him in the side.
Laughing, Seth steered me toward the door. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
“What?”
He removed his arm and captured my hand. “The Council is starting their first session at one today. I think we should go watch it.”
“That sounds boring.” I let him drag me out of the room, though. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do.
“We could always practice?” Seth pulled me into the stairwell, taking several steps at a time. “I’m feeling froggy—haven’t thrown fireballs at anyone’s head lately.”
“That sounds more interesting than watching a bunch of pures postulate how great they and their laws are.”
“Postulate?” Seth glanced over his shoulder, grinning. “I can’t believe you used the word ‘postulate.’”
“What?” I scowled. “It’s a real word.”
Seth raised a brow at me and then continued down the steps. In the stairwell we passed several servants in drab clothing. Each of them looked down. I watched them lift their heads once they’d passed us.
Seth tugged on my hand. “Come on. We’re going to miss it.”
Outside, the biting wind cut through my sweater and sent shivers through me. For once, I was grateful for Seth’s hand. It felt incredibly warm in mine.
“Anyway, the Council session should be interesting. It’s a hearing.”
“I thought mine was the only hearing?”
“No.” Seth led me around the west wing of the mansion. “There are several hearings. You are one of many.”
I started to respond, but we stepped around back and my lips clamped shut. A labyrinth of waist-high marble walls separated us from the Greek style coliseum. Bright flowers, all in full bloom, sprung from the vines that covered them. Thick cords of a creeping plant climbed the statues and benches, covering everything in front of us in a mass of vibrant red and green. “Wow.”
Seth chuckled. “If you stay on this pathway it leads straight to the Council.”
I glanced down several of the walkways that branched off the main one. “Is it a real labyrinth?”
“Yes. But I haven’t checked it out.”
“Looks kind of fun, don’t you think?” I looked up at him. “I’ve never been in a labyrinth before.”
A real smile replaced the smug one. “Maybe if you’re good—and I mean, really good—we can come play in the labyrinth.”
I rolled my eyes. “Gee, really?”
He nodded. “You have to eat your dinner, too.”
I didn’t even bother responding to that. I got kind of lost in the scenery for a while. How in the world did the pures manage to keep these fragile flowers alive all year round? It had to be magic—old magic. The deeper we moved down the pathway, the thicker the vines grew and when we neared the end, Seth slowed.
“We have to sneak in,” he said. “We aren’t really supposed to be listening to the Councils.”
“And if we get caught?”
“We won’t.”
Trusting Seth felt strange, mainly because I did… trust him. Not in the same way I would have placed my life in Aiden’s hands, but almost there—almost.
Behind several thick columns made of stone, Themis, the Goddess of Divine Justice, stood at the entrance to the coliseum. She was quite formidable with that sword in one bronzed hand and balanced scales held high in the other, but her presence seemed kind of ironic to me—the pures knew nothing of balanced justice.
The building was something straight out of ancient Greece. Hidden as the New York Covenant was, they could get away with designs not normally found in neighborhoods boasting Wal-Marts and fast food joints. The closest thing we had was the amphitheater where the Carolina Covenant held sessions.
I followed Seth and we slipped through the side entrance used by the servants. Most of the halfs we passed cast their eyes to the ground as they carried goblets and plates of tiny appetizers. I had a hard time looking at them, harder than I’d realized I would. Back home, we rarely saw so many. They were kept separate from us, as if the Carolina Covenant didn’t want us to see what the other side was truly like.
What did the servants think when they saw me—or any half who wasn’t in servitude? Were they even capable of thinking? If I were one of them and I had some critical thinking skills left, I’d be outright hostile toward the “free” halfs.
The icky feeling in the pit of my stomach was hard to acknowledge, so I started jabbering as Seth led me past several small doors. “Stairs—more stairs? Would it kill them to put a damn elevator in one of the buildings?”
Seth started up them. “Maybe they think the gods would be unhappy with elevators.”
“That’s stupid.” The long car ride had made my legs feel like jelly.
“We only have to go up eight flights. I promise.”
“Eight?” I eyed two more servants heading down the stairs, hands empty. One was a middle-aged female in a plain gray dress. She wore thin-soled shoes and no socks. The skin around her ankles looked bruised and red, as if it had been rubbed raw. Cringing, I glanced at the male servant behind her.
A sudden cold shiver crawled over my skin.
The older male half had dark brown hair that curled around a strong chin and cheeks weathered by the sun. Fine lines jutted out from the corners of gentle brown eyes… that were looking straight at me.
His eyes weren’t the glassed-over eyes of a servant. They were keen, intelligent—seeing. There was something familiar about him, something I should know.