Caleb shrugged. “No offense taken.”

Each time that I’d seen Caleb, he hadn’t seemed depressed. As if he read my mind that moment, he smiled and I remembered what he’d said when I’d been in limbo. “You told me there was still hope for him.”

Caleb swaggered over to me, seeming so alive it was painful to see. Wrapping his arms around me, he held me tight. “There’s always hope. Maybe not the kind of hope you’re thinking about, but there ishope.”

I didn’t understand at first, so I snuggled closer, knowing our time was quickly coming to an end. As I inhaled the fresh scent of Caleb, I realized I needed to know something that would probably slice me into tiny ribbons.

Pulling away, I turned to Persephone. “Where is her First?”

A whole minute passed before she answered. “He is in Tartarus.”

I pressed my fingers to my mouth before the lump came all the way up. It wasn’t so much the fate of the First, but what it signified. If I succeeded and was able to kill Seth, his fate would be the same. And so would mine.

I was like Velero on Caleb for the next fifteen minutes or so, while Aiden busied himself studying the weapons and Persephone filed her nails or whatever. While we sat on the floor of the war room, our knees pressing together, Caleb told me about some of the stuff he was doing down here to pass time and I told him how much Olivia had wanted to see him. We didn’t talk about what would happen next. I was pretty sure that Caleb was aware of all the crazy stuff going on and neither of us wanted to tarnish these precious minutes.

“Did you tell her what I asked you to?” he asked.

I nodded. “She cried, but I think they were happy tears.”

Caleb’s smile was broad. “I miss her, but can you do me another favor?”

“Anything.” And I meant it.

“Don’t tell Olivia that you saw me.”

I frowned. “Why? She would—”

“I want her to move on.” Caleb grasped my hands and stood, pulling me to my feet. “I need her to move on, and I think hearing about me is stopping her. I want her to live and I don’t want to be shadowing every step she takes.”

Gods, I hated the idea of lying to Olivia, but I understood what Caleb was saying. Olivia would never move on, knowing that, in a way, Caleb was conscious and as alive as he could be in the Underworld. It was like he was there, not reachable, but still there. Knowing that, how could she really move on?

So I agreed. I promised to tell everyone that it had been only Persephone who had found us. Even if Apollo knew the truth, it wouldn’t matter as long as Olivia didn’t. In a way, this was his gift to her.

“Thank you,” Caleb said, and hugged me once more. Part of me wanted to stay in Caleb’s arms, because he’d always had this grounding effect on me. Caleb was my rational side. He was more than that; other than my mother, he was the first person I’d ever truly loved.

Caleb would always be my best friend.

“It’s time,” Persephone said quietly, and when I pulled away and looked at her, there was sympathy in her gaze. A god who could empathize was an abnormality.

Aiden returned to my side, swinging the backpack onto his shoulders before handing me back the weapons that the guards had stripped off me, as well as my yucky cloak. Persephone drifted toward the center of the war room and waved her hand. A black void appeared, completely opaque. “This gate will take you back to the one you came through.”

“Thank you,” I said to Persephone.

She nodded gracefully.

As I said goodbye and looked over my shoulder one last time, my chest squeezed as I met Caleb’s blue, blue eyes. I knew then that death could stop a lot of things, but it could never cut the bond of friendship.

Caleb smiled, and I returned it with a watery one of my own, and then I turned back to the void waiting for us. Threading my fingers through Aiden’s, we stepped back through the gate, armed with the knowledge we needed, but bearing the burden of needing to accomplish the impossible.

CHAPTER 27

The Hummer was where we’d left it, and according to the clock on the dashboard, only three hours had passed—three hours in the mortal realm, forty-eight hours in the Underworld, and a lifetime for Aiden and me.

I offered to drive back, but Aiden insisted that he was fine and I knew he wanted me to sleep. I knew I should—to avoid Seth using the connection—but it didn’t seem fair. Aiden had to be exhausted.

But it was a battle I wasn’t winning anytime soon, so I snuggled into the passenger seat and tried to get some sleep. The only problem was that my brain would not shut down. Ever since I’d stood in the war room, something had nagged at me. What Persephone had said, the sheared ponytails on the wall—all of it seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place how or why. And it was more than that. Solaris’ parting words were unsettling and they poked around in my head.

What I could never figure out was why Apollo had kept me alive once Seth had gone all crazy-pants on the Council. Or why Artemis had stopped Hades from taking me into the Underworld. The gods—or at least all of them except one—feared the transfer of power, because when that happened there’d be no stopping Seth. Taking me out of the picture before I’d Awakened, or putting me out of commission afterward, made sense.

Keeping me alive didn’t.

But I remembered what Artemis had said in that convenience store as she’d faced down Hades. Prophecies could change, and it didn’t take a leap of logic to know that, if I became the God Killer, the prophecy would change.

Unease blossomed in my chest. Had Apollo and the others known that this was possible? Then I felt dumb for even questioning that. The oracles belonged to Apollo, and even though he didn’t know all of their visions, the portion of what the oracle had told Solaris could’ve been shared with Apollo. Which made sense since Apollo had been oh-so supportive of me going down to see Solaris.

Part of me was naïve enough to hope that wasn’t the case, because that meant Apollo had some explaining to do. The other part was more analytical about it, more reasonable. Apollo had said before that they needed to stop the god who was obviously working with Lucian. And how else would they stop him?

They needed the God Killer.

The real kicker of this whole crappy situation was that Lucian controlled Seth, and this god—whoever it was—controlled Lucian, and therefore he/she controlled Seth and all of those who were following Lucian. So if Seth succeeded and transferred my power to him, this god would then control the God Killer. Risky, because Seth could always turn on him, but in the end, once the god had Seth do what he wanted, I was sure he’d be creative enough to somehow keep him under control. Possibly that meant keeping a member of the Order stowed away, safe and sound.

My muscles tightened in reflex as I worked this out. None of it looked good. And Seth was being manipulated from every which direction and he had no idea. Hell, he refused to even think that was the case.

As the miles between Kansas and Illinois disappeared, I couldn’t shake what Solaris has said about the gods using me, and what it would mean. Neither could I let go of the feeling that, by learning how to transfer the power to me, I had sealed my own fate.

The sudden weight of Aiden’s hand on my knee drew my attention to him. His eyes were on the dark highway. “You’re not sleeping.”

I smiled as I placed my hand over his. “How did you know?”

“I just do.” He sent me a brief grin. “What are you thinking about?”

Everything was on the tip of my tongue—my suspicions, my concerns about what Solaris had said, and what I now knew Apollo was hiding—but when Aiden glanced at me again, I found I couldn’t tell him.