Go.

Tears stung my eyes. Henry. There was nothing I could do and he knew it. If I stayed, Calliope would kill me. Like our picnic in the woods when she’d revealed herself to be the traitor, she was too emotional, too irrational for me to depend on her thinking clearly. She’d known then that she would out herself as a murderer to the entire council, and she hadn’t cared. I had no guarantee she wouldn’t call Cronus’s bluff now.

I focused all my energy on Henry and pushed my thoughts toward him. I love you. Don’t ever forget that.

Without giving myself a chance to change my mind, I clutched James’s hand and disappeared.

We landed on an abandoned beach as the sun dipped into the ocean. I sank onto the sand, and James gathered me up, letting me cry into his shoulder without complaint.

I’d left them. I’d sworn I would never abandon Henry, and the first chance I’d had, I’d done it anyway. If I’d talked to him before Cronus’s deadline, we could have come up with a plan together. We didn’t need the council’s permission to act, and I’d leapt without thinking once again. This time it had cost me my family.

“I’m never going to see them again, am I?” I said. The tide washed up inches from our toes, and we didn’t have more than a few minutes before we’d miss our window to return to Olympus. The thought of going back without Henry and Milo ate away at me until there was nothing left but skin and bone. Walter and Dylan were right. The entire council was right. I wasn’t ready to help them, and the more I did, the worse things got.

“What happened to you?” said James.

“What do you mean?”

He pulled back enough to look at me, his eyes searching mine. “You’re not the girl I met in Eden. She didn’t break down into tears every time something didn’t go her way.”

“I’m not—” I started, but then another tear rolled down my face. “My family’s gone. No one’s letting me help, and every time I try, I screw things up even worse.”

He threaded his fingers through mine. “Since when did you ever need anyone’s permission?”

I wiped my cheeks and squinted into the sunset. “So what else am I supposed to do? I’ve already tried everything. My deal with Cronus fell through, and even if it hadn’t, all it would’ve done was secure Milo’s safety. It wouldn’t have changed anything in the bigger picture, and the only way I’m ever going to see them again is if we win this war.”

“So help us win.”

I sniffed. “How?”

“Think,” he said. “You know Cronus’s weaknesses better than any of us. You know his strengths. You know him.”

“Bullshit. The original six fought him for a decade. I’ve never so much as arm wrestled with him.”

“No,” agreed James, “but you’re the only one who’s ever stopped him in his tracks.”

That moment in the Underworld, as Cronus had chased us through a desert. I’d thought I was going to die then, too. Would that have made any of this easier?

No, it wouldn’t have, because the original six would’ve never escaped that cavern in Tartarus. They would still be there, unconscious and slowly dying while Cronus and Calliope figured a way out. Everything would’ve been different.

But even my one act of courage had been a supreme act of stupidity. Cronus was free because I’d walked into his cavern when Persephone had specifically told me not to, and I’d given Calliope the leverage she’d needed to get Henry to open the gate.

“Think,” said James. “Why didn’t Cronus kill you then?”

“Because he didn’t know me. Because I—”

“Because you were kind to him when the rest of us were doing our best to keep him chained.”

“Because I promised I’d open the gate.”

“Yes,” said James. “And he stopped because he trusted you.”

“Look where that’s gotten us,” I said disdainfully.

“Yes. Look where your stubbornness and refusal to give up got us. We have a fighting chance now. It wasn’t the way we imagined, but Calliope would’ve discovered a way to free Cronus eventually. She had damn near close to eternity, just like the rest of us.”

I drew my knees to my chest. “What happens if Cronus wipes out all of humanity and you all lose your purposes?”

James hesitated, and fear sparked between us. He drew me closer. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe you won’t fade,” I said. “I mean, there’s always going to be love and travel and music and gardens and—and everything. Maybe—”

“Kate.” James’s voice rose above the crash of the ocean, and I fell silent. “Don’t worry about the worst-case scenario. Come up with a way to make sure that never happens. Focus on doing what you do best and fight for the people you love.”

He stood, and I rose with him, my knees shaking. “No pressure or anything,” I said, and despite everything, he gave me a boyish grin.

“On the contrary, you’re a diamond. You shine under pressure.”

I half laughed, half choked. “And you’re a smelly block of cheese. Take me back before the sun sets completely.”

James clasped his hand in mine, his grasp firm and unwavering. “Promise me you’ll fight. No matter how bad things get, you won’t break down and let Cronus and Calliope win.”

I shook my head minutely. I couldn’t promise that. I would fight for as long as I could, but Calliope had my family, and after two failed bargains, Cronus would undoubtedly be hell-bent on destroying humanity and everything that had ever been familiar to me. How long before my mother faded? James? The entire council?

I couldn’t fight if I had nothing left to fight for.

Then do not let that happen.

Henry’s voice echoed through my mind, and I looked around wildly, searching for any sign of him. Of course he wasn’t there, though. He was Calliope’s prisoner now—a willing prisoner who didn’t know that when he kissed her, when he caressed her, he didn’t really feel any of it. He didn’t know it was a trick, but I did, and I couldn’t leave him to suffer through an eternity of her sickening games.

I won’t, I thought in return, hoping like crazy it reached him.

“Promise me, Kate,” said James, and I blinked. “Promise me that you won’t give up on your family.”

Steel slowly wrapped around my spine. He was right. Henry needed me. Milo needed me. Whatever it took, there was no way in hell I was going to let Calliope win. “Fine, I promise. Now let’s go convince Walter to stop being an egotistical bastard.”

James snorted. “Your words, not mine.”

We arrived in the center of the throne room. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but the full council—minus Calliope, Henry and Nicholas—wasn’t it.

Everyone was there, even Ella with her silver arm. Her face was pinched as if she smelled something disgusting, and she stared into the center of the throne room, where James and I stood.

“What’s going on?” I said, turning to Walter. He, too, stared into the center of the circle with a stony expression, but James pulled me aside, and Walter’s gaze didn’t waver. He wasn’t staring at us.

Instead, exactly where we’d been standing, was Ava. Or at least a version of Ava. Her form looked substantial, but only seconds before, we’d occupied the same space. She wasn’t really there.

James let go of me and sat down, and I followed his lead, trying to ignore the pain in my chest when I saw Henry’s empty throne. When I settled in mine, my mother took my hand.

“I’m sorry,” said Ava in a choked voice, as clear as if she were really standing there. Golden light flowed from four of the thrones—the remaining original siblings, including my mother. Each ran into the center of the circle, meeting where Ava stood. The council was doing something that made her being there possible. “I want to come home.”

“You cannot come home,” said Walter in a painfully neutral voice. I had good reason to never want to talk to her again—and after what she’d done to Henry, that stabbing hatred at the very sight of her returned to me, and this time I was positive Calliope had nothing to do with it. Walter was her father though, and she was his favorite. Why didn’t he care?