“The final battle—it’s begun.”

Chapter 16

The Last Hour

Walter had to shout four times and crack a bolt of lightning before the council came to order. Everyone was on their feet, including my mother, and the energy in the room jolted between nervous and aggressive.

“We have been preparing for this moment for a year,” said Walter once the din faded. “We may no longer have the allies we relied upon, but we have each other, and together we are strong.”

No one said a word. Even Dylan couldn’t muster up a battle cry. This would either be the day they finally sent Cronus back to Tartarus, or it would be the day the council fell. By this time tomorrow, I would either have a family or I’d be alone, subject to Cronus’s whims and darkest pleasures.

I would’ve rather slit my throat with that damn dagger myself.

“We are prepared. We are together. And we will fight until we win or are no more,” continued Walter. “Take an hour to do whatever you must, and we will meet back here then.”

One by one, the council filtered out, some in pairs, others by themselves. At a loss, I stayed put. What was I supposed to do? It’d been hard enough watching them all go off to war the last winter solstice, but this time...

This time, it’d be the greatest battle the world had seen since the first Titan war, and my entire family would be front and center.

“I want to fight,” I said once the room had emptied of everyone except my mother and James. “You said I could.”

“Oh, honey.” She pulled me from my seat and into a hug. “You have fought, in ways the rest of us couldn’t. Fighting doesn’t always mean going to battle with a sword and a shield. You’ve done more than enough, and now is the time for you to stay safe. For Milo’s sake.”

“Milo’s exactly the reason I need to fight. I know I’m not strong enough to give you any real support, but maybe I could distract Cronus or Calliope or—or something. Anything.”

Her arms tightened around me, and she buried her face in the crook of my neck, her cheek warm against my skin. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to memorize this moment. She had to come back. And if she didn’t—

No, I couldn’t think like that. They’d survived the battles so far, and they’d survive this one, too. My mother would not die today. No one would.

“Come,” she murmured. “We haven’t got much time, and there’s something I’d like to do before then. James?”

James stepped up and touched our shoulders. “This won’t be fun,” he said, and before I could ask where we were going, the room exploded with light as we fell to earth.

My eyes watered. Going from Olympus to the surface wasn’t anything new. Why James had felt the need to warn me, I didn’t know. Until—

Until the blue sky disappeared, replaced by rock.

I would’ve thrown up if I could have. Even with my mother at my side, the oppressive layers of the earth pressed down on me, making my heart flutter with panic as we sped downward. I tried to force my eyes to close, but they were glued open with terror, and the best I could do was hug my mother tightly and hope like hell it would be over soon.

At last we landed in the rock cavern outside Henry’s obsidian palace. My knees knocked together, and all the blood rushed from my head, making the walls spin.

“You bastard.” I punched James in the arm as hard as I could. Not like it’d hurt him. “Why do you keep doing that to me?”

He grinned. “Because the look on your face is priceless. Honestly, Kate, what do you think I’m going to do? Leave you in the rock?”

I shuddered. “You wouldn’t.”

“I couldn’t,” he corrected. “Once you learn how to use the portals, you won’t be able to either.”

I opened my mouth to retort, but the murmur of low voices caught my attention, and I turned toward the palace. In the shadows, a crowd had formed, swarming the garden and the river on the other side of the cavern. “What’s that? Who are they?”

“The dead,” said James. “The lost souls, the ones who need guidance. No one’s here to help, so they’re stuck until you and Henry return.”

I stared. There had to be thousands of them. I’d expected some, knowing that Henry wasn’t down here to help, but not this.

Of course there were so many, though. With the numbers Cronus had slaughtered, I should’ve been surprised there weren’t more. “We need to help them.”

“Not right now, sweetheart,” said my mother, rubbing my back. “They have eternity. We have somewhere to be.”

“And where’s that?” I said.

“We’re going to visit your sister,” she said, and all of my indignation melted away. She’d gone ages without seeing Persephone before facing her the year before. Another visit so soon could only mean one thing: she was saying her goodbyes.

“Mom,” I choked out, my voice cracking. “You can’t leave me. You promised.”

“Whoever said anything about leaving you, sweetheart?” she said, brushing my hair from my eyes. We both knew the truth, though. No matter how many pep talks Walter gave, no matter how often she reassured me that she wasn’t going anywhere, she knew it was a possibility. And this time there would be no miraculous return.

I clutched her hand. “We could stay down here while the others fight. They won’t miss you. And we can come up with another way to help them.”

She gave me a sad smile. “Honey, you know the council needs everyone they can get right now. I have a responsibility to them, and I can’t walk away.”

“What about your responsibility to me?” My cheeks grew warm as my eyes burned with tears. “You promised you’d never leave me again.”

“I’m not. I’m fighting for what I believe in,” she said. “I’ve no intentions of dying today, Kate.”

“But you could.”

“Yes, I could,” she allowed. “As Walter said, Cronus is a formidable enemy, and there’s little we can do to combat him directly. However, you must remember we have thousands upon thousands of years of experience behind us, and we will put every last second of that to good use. I will do everything in my considerable power to make sure I come back to you. To make sure we all do.”

She could promise me the moon, but she was choosing to forget one very important fact: Cronus wasn’t beatable. Considerable power or not, there was nothing in the council’s arsenal that could take him on and win. Together they had a chance, but without Henry, without Calliope, they might as well have surrendered. They’d have a longer life expectancy that way.

There had to be something. The dagger—the weapons scattered around Nicholas’s torture chamber—those were advantages that could be ours, but how?

“Now come,” murmured my mother. “Take us to see your sister.”

I would have delayed if I thought it might work, but if my mother did die today, I couldn’t live with the guilt of denying her last request to see her other daughter. And Persephone deserved the chance to say goodbye, too.

I held my free hand out for James, and he took it without a word. For all the wisecracks that came from that big mouth of his, he knew when to keep it shut, too. If he didn’t make it either...

No. No one would die today. Not my mother, not James, not Henry, no one.

After one last look at the dead surrounding the palace, I closed my eyes. A warm breeze tickled my neck, and when I opened them, we were standing in the middle of a field full of flowers. Not ten feet away stood a cottage covered in vines, and even though we were in the Underworld, the sun—or at least Persephone’s version of the sun—shone brightly down on us.

“Hey!” cried Persephone, and I turned in time to see her blond curls bouncing in the wind. “Get out of there!”

“What—” I started, and then I looked down. We were standing right in the middle of my sister’s tulips. Oops.