Starcrossed
: Chapter 7

Because I didn’t want to wake up Lucas!” a frustrated voice hissed.

Helen had no idea how Ariadne had made it to the tea table at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. Ariadne couldn’t fly.

“Why are you fighting me on this?” Cassandra pleaded quietly. Hmm. Helen couldn’t be on top of the Golden Gate Bridge so she must be in bed, but she couldn’t figure out what Cassandra was doing in bed with her. If she could only open her eyes and see.

“I don’t doubt you. But what can we do?” asked Noel.

“We should leave. Now. Pack up the house and go back to Europe.”

“You’re overreacting,” huffed Ariadne, not even bothering to whisper.

“Two nights in a row, Ari. They ate the same food. Shared a roof and a bed, and now they have witnesses!” Cassandra said just as loud.

“But they haven’t done the most important thing!” Ariadne shouted back.

“Girls!”

Even though she was still so tired she felt glued to the mattress, the yelling made Helen’s eyes open. She saw Ariadne, Cassandra, and Noel standing over her bed. Correction, they were standing over Lucas’s bed and Helen was in it. Her eyes snapped open and her head whipped around to look at Lucas. He was frowning himself awake and starting to make some gravelly noise in the back of his throat.

“Go argue someplace else,” he groaned as he rolled over onto Helen. He tucked himself up against her, awkwardly fighting the drag of the casts on his legs as he tried to bury his face in Helen’s neck. She nudged him and looked up at Noel, Ariadne, and a furious Cassandra.

“I came to see how he was and then I couldn’t get back to my bed,” Helen tried to explain, absolutely mortified.

She gasped involuntarily as one of Lucas’s hands ran up the length of her thigh and latched on to the sloping dip from her hip to her waist. Then she felt him tense, as if he’d just realized that pillows weren’t shaped like hourglasses. His head jerked up and he looked around, alert for a fight.

“Oh, yeah,” he said to Helen as he remembered. His eyes relaxed back into a sleepy daze. He smiled up at his family and stretched until he winced, then rubbed at his sore chest, no longer in a good mood. “Little privacy?” he asked.

His mother, sister, and cousin all either crossed their arms or put their hands on their hips. Humiliated, Helen tried to untangle herself from the sheets and roll out of bed without attracting too much attention. Cassandra spun on her heel and stomped out of the room.

“Ari, help Helen,” Noel said gently as she saw Helen’s difficulty. Then she turned and bellowed angrily down the hall. “Hector! Get in here and help your cousin!”

“I’m okay,” Helen protested as she stood up on tender legs, only using Ariadne’s helping hand to maintain her balance. She realized she was wearing that ridiculous scrap of silk Ariadne had the nerve to call a nightgown, although that detail had escaped her notice the night before when she decided to take her little stroll.

“Whoa! That’s . . . interesting,” said Hector as he arrived and saw Helen.

“What’s interesting?” Jason asked as he passed in the hallway. He poked his head in the door and saw what his brother was looking at. “Aw, damn!”

They both stared at Helen, half naked and totally busted as she got out of Lucas’s bed. Then they looked at each other, threw back their heads in unison, and laughed.

“Okay, okay. Enough,” Lucas said defensively. “She was worried and came to check on me, but by the time she made it here she was practically falling over. I didn’t want to wake Cassandra to carry her back to the guest room, so I had her lay down with me. Obviously, we just slept. Now, can everyone but Hector or Jase get out of my room, please? That includes you, Mom. I need Jason to help me out of these casts so I can take a shower.”

Helen made it back to the guest room without accepting any more help than she had to. She was so embarrassed all she wanted to do was run screaming out of the house, and to do that she was going to have to prove she was healthy.

“No thanks, I got it now,” she said to Ariadne when asked if she needed help bathing.

“Okay. Just shout if you need me,” Ariadne replied with narrowed eyes.

Twice Helen had to sit down on the shower floor to rest, but she eventually managed to clean all the itchy sand out of her hair and towel off without calling for Ariadne. It took her ten minutes to struggle into her own freshly laundered clothes alone, but it was worth it. All she wanted do was say thank you and slip out without drawing too much attention to herself.

When she got downstairs the whole family was in the kitchen, including Lucas. His face lit up like Vegas when he saw her. She automatically went straight to him and sat down, her hopes of a quiet escape ruined by what felt like a knee-jerk reaction. She hadn’t intended to stay for breakfast, but it was almost as if she needed to be near him.

“We were just about to send someone up to make sure you hadn’t washed down the drain,” joked Noel.

“Helen’s modest. She wanted to dress herself,” Ariadne said, drizzling honey over a bowl of oatmeal and putting it down in front of Helen.

“Modest? Sure she is,” Hector said sarcastically as he passed Lucas the bacon.

“That was your sister’s nightgown, wasn’t it?” Lucas asked without skipping a beat as he served Helen and himself. Hector wisely shut his mouth.

“Yeah,” Ariadne replied for him, not getting it. “So comfortable! What? What are you all laughing at?”

“Nothing, Ari. Just drop it,” Jason said in a pained voice, a hand over his eyes. Everyone was cracking up, including Castor and Noel.

Helen was torn. She didn’t want to laugh at the joke because it was partly on her, but she couldn’t entirely stop herself. She stifled a giggle and looked down at her full plate. It was the kind of breakfast that was almost always followed by a nap, and Helen was dying to go somewhere and hide. She thought about skipping it so she could get away sooner.

“I know you’re hungry,” Lucas said so quietly that Helen alone could hear him. “What’s the matter?”

“I feel like I should go home. I’ve imposed long enough. . . .” She trailed off as Lucas started shaking his head.

“That’s not the reason,” he said positively. “What is it?”

“I feel like a jackass! Waking up practically naked in your bed with half your family standing over us? Not okay,” she said through clenched teeth as a hot blush burned her cheeks. He smiled slowly as he watched her cheeks stain red.

“If that hadn’t happened, would you want to stay?” he asked, suddenly serious, his eyes focused on hers. She looked down and nodded, still blushing. “Why?” he persisted.

“For one thing, I have questions,” she said, hazarding a glance up at him. He was staring at her with an unreadable look on his face.

“Is that the only thing?” he whispered.

“Enough chat, you two. You both need to eat,” Noel called across the table, making Helen jump, which in turn made Lucas chuckle. She and Lucas dug in with all the ferocity of two people who were literally rebuilding their bodies cell by cell. When Helen finally looked up after a solid hour of determined chewing, everyone else was done eating but still sitting around drinking coffee and passing around sections of the paper. It was as if they always spent half of Sunday sharing an enormous brunch, then the other half hanging out around the kitchen waiting for dinner to start. Lost in the shuffle, Helen was surprised to replace herself having a good time.

Lucas was still bent over his plate, so Helen took the sports section when Hector put it down, and read up on her beloved Red Sox, who were battling their way through September. She must have been muttering to herself out loud because when she finally put down the stats sheet she had the attention of all the men at the table.

“‘Pitching wins pennants,’ huh?” Castor asked with a delighted smile.

“‘We’ve got too many injuries and no closer,’ do we?” Jason repeated back to Helen, then looked at Lucas. “Okay, you win,” he said cryptically.

“Thank you,” Lucas said through a shaky grin. He leaned back and closed his eyes, and Helen saw a sweat break out on his forehead. She touched his head to see if he had a fever, but Jason was already standing up.

“I got him, Helen,” he said as he came around the table. Jason went to pick Lucas up, but Lucas wouldn’t let him. Instead, he threw his arm over his cousin’s shoulder and allowed Jason to prop him up.

“Just to the stairs, okay?” Lucas asked, and Jason nodded back, the bond between them so strong they didn’t seem to need words to communicate. Helen saw Noel throw up her hands in frustrated helplessness.

“Let him replace his own pace,” Castor said gently to his wife. She nodded, like it was something they had been over a million times. Then she turned her attention back to the brunch leftovers.

“Hector! It’s your turn to clear the table!”

Helen noticed Noel had a tendency to parse out her anger as judiciously as she possibly could. She needed a good yell, but she couldn’t scream at Lucas because he was hurt, and she couldn’t yell at Jason because he was helping Lucas, so she picked the next boy she could replace. It was the same thing Noel had done when Helen was just waking up, speaking softly to Helen and then yelling for Hector. Poor Hector seemed to get the brunt of her frustration, and from the way he slunk into the kitchen shaking his head, Helen had the feeling he’d been Noel’s favorite whipping boy since Lucas got hurt. For a moment she almost felt bad for him, but when she saw the way Noel stared worriedly after Lucas as he winced his way out of the kitchen, she couldn’t blame her.

Lucas paused before he left the room.

“Dad?” he called back without fully turning around. “Helen has questions.”

Still seated at the head of the table, Castor nodded, deep in thought for a moment, and then stood up. “I thought she might,” he said, smiling kindly at Helen. “Would you like to join me in my study?”

Castor took her to a quiet end of the sprawling house and into a half-unpacked study with a spectacular view of the ocean. Leather chairs and boxes of books in a dozen different languages fought for floor space with rolled-up carpets and un-hung paintings. Two large desks stood on opposite sides of the room. The tops of each were already covered in various papers, envelopes, and parcels.

Along the back wall was a row of French doors that opened up to a patio bordering the beach. In front of the doors were two sofas and a big armchair, all three set up facing each other.

Cassandra sat in the oversized armchair reading a book, which she put aside when Helen and Castor entered. Helen expected her to leave, or at least be asked to leave, but after a few moments it was clear that Cassandra had been waiting here for Helen and Castor to come to her and have this conversation. How Cassandra knew there would be a conversation at all was beyond Helen, but Castor didn’t seem surprised.

Castor offered Helen a seat on one sofa and then sat down on the other. He glanced at Cassandra, dwarfed by her giant chair, and then began.

“How much do you know about Greek mythology?” he asked.

“You mean, like the Trojan War?” she asked in return. When Castor nodded, she shrugged. “I know bits of it. A queen named Helen left her husband and ran off with a Trojan prince named Paris. Her husband came after her with a thousand ships full of Greek soldiers, and there was a long war. Something about a wooden horse . . . and that’s about it.” Helen grimaced sheepishly. “I never read the actual book.”

“Well, that’s not exactly how it started. But close enough for now,” Cassandra said, passing Helen the book she was reading. It was an anthology containing both the Iliad and the Odyssey.

“Keep it. We’ve got plenty of extras,” she said with a wry smile.

It was the first attempt at a joke Helen had ever seen Cassandra make, so she forced a smile in response.

“I’m pretty sure my son has already told you that we are descendants of what are known as the Greek gods,” Castor began. When Helen grimaced uncomfortably, he nodded with good humor. “I imagine it’s hard to grasp, but you have to understand that Homer was a historian, and the Iliad and the Odyssey were accounts of a real war that took place thousands of years ago. Most of the ancient myths and great dramas are based on real people. The gods are real, and they had children with mortals. Half human, half god. We are their descendents. Their Scions.”

“Okay,” Helen said, hearing how frustrated her laugh sounded. “Say I believe you, and all this did happen. Gods had babies with humans? Fine. But wouldn’t all that magic, or the god-ness or whatever, been bred out of us by now? That was a really long time ago.”

“The gifts don’t dilute,” Cassandra responded. “Some Scions are stronger than others, and some have a broader range of powers, but the strength of those powers isn’t dependent on how strong their parents were.”

Castor nodded and took over to clarify.

“For example, my wife is entirely mortal, but both of our children are stronger than I am. And I am very strong,” he said without boasting. “We think it has something to do with the fact that the gods are immortal. They never fade, so neither do the talents they’ve given us, no matter how many generations pass. In fact—” he started, but broke off, looking at Cassandra.

“We are getting stronger, and each successive generation of Scions is being gifted with more and more talents than their parents were. But there is still some argument as to why this is so,” Cassandra finished.

“Okay,” Helen said mostly to herself. “I knew I had to be something not entirely human. It’s actually a relief to know what I am and that I’m not something awful. But can I ask another question? What are the Furies? And why aren’t they bothering us anymore?”

This question earned a long pause. Cassandra and Castor made eye contact as if they were trying to read each other’s minds before Cassandra began to speak.

“We aren’t completely sure why they went away. In the past, there have been rumors about pairs of Scions, usually a man and a woman, who have found a way to be together and not see the Furies, but it’s never been proven. As far as we know for sure, you and Lucas are the first to manage it. I think it might have something to do with saving a life. I think somehow you managed to save each other, and this freed you from the cycle of vengeance, but I can’t be certain about that,” she said.

Helen had a fleeting thought about Lucas in the dry lands—blind and lost and unable to get off his knees. She pushed the horrible image aside.

“Vengeance?” Helen questioned. Castor saw her confusion.

“The Trojan War was very long with many casualties. It was the worst the world had ever seen at that point, and a lot of sins were committed. No one knows where the Furies came from; all we know is that they started plaguing our kind after the end of the war. It started in Agamemnon’s family, but as the years passed it spread to all of the Four Great Houses and set them against one another. Over the years it developed into a blood feud that has left us as we are now . . . with each House set against every other House to the death.”

Helen remembered the story of Orestes, and how he was forced to kill his own mother to avenge his father, Agamemnon, who had killed his sister. It still struck her as dreadfully unfair, like the Furies created a no-win situation where everyone ended up dead.

“‘Houses’ are what we call the four different bloodlines of Scions,” Cassandra interjected when she saw Helen frowning. “They were royalty in ancient Greece.”

“So, are you saying we’re Greek?” Helen asked, trying to put poor Orestes out of her head and keep up with the conversation.

Castor smiled. “We don’t consider ourselves either Greek or Trojan anymore, but as members of four different Houses that were started by four different gods. Who was Greek and who was Trojan doesn’t matter to us. The war ended a long time ago,” he said quietly. “And the Furies have been our curse ever since.”

“They compel members of opposing Houses to kill each other to pay a blood debt we owe our ancestors. It’s a vicious cycle. Blood for blood for more blood,” Cassandra whispered, and Helen shivered at the empty gleam in her eyes.

“I know that part. Orestes had to kill his mother because she killed his father because he killed their daughter,” Helen said. “But I read those plays and they had happy endings. Apollo talked the Furies into forgiving Orestes.”

“That part was pure fiction,” Castor said, shaking his head. “The Furies never forgive, and they never forget.”

“So basically, our families have been murdering each other since the Trojan War?” Helen asked. “There can’t be many of us left.”

“There aren’t. The House that our family belongs to is called the House of Thebes. It was thought to be the only House left—until the Furies led us to you, of course,” Castor responded.

“What House am I from?”

“We won’t know that until we know who your mother was,” Cassandra said.

“Her name was Beth Smith,” Helen said, hoping Lucas was wrong and that his father would remember her somehow. But Castor shook his head kindly.

“Whoever she was, she obviously told you and your father a fake name to protect you. You certainly look like someone I used to know, but Scions don’t always hand down physical traits the same way mortals do,” Castor spoke haltingly as he shifted in his chair. “For instance, Lucas looks nothing like me—he doesn’t even look like a typical Son of Apollo, like my brother or me. We Scions are half human, half archetype, and every now and again the way one of us looks has more to do with the historical figure the Fates destined that Scion to model his or her life after than who the parents were.”

“So, do I look like anyone?” Helen asked.

“We don’t want to jump to conclusions. Maybe you have some pictures, or some video of your mother? Then we might be able to confirm who she was,” Castor said eagerly, like they were close to figuring out a huge puzzle that had been troubling them.

“I have nothing. No pictures,” Helen replied in a flat voice. Cassandra exhaled sharply and nodded her head at some internal thought.

“To protect you, probably. If she severed all ties with you and made sure you grew up on a small island with a limited group of friends, it was less likely that a rival House would discover you,” Cassandra observed as if she was a detective gathering together all the clues.

“Apparently, that didn’t work,” Helen scoffed.

“It did for a long while, but the Furies would not allow it forever,” Castor said quietly.

Helen ran the charm of her necklace along its chain, and held it out for Castor and Cassandra to look at. “This is all I got from her. A piece of jewelry. Does it mean anything to you?” she asked intensely.

A part of her had always hoped that her necklace was important—that maybe someday it would answer all her questions. In her wildest daydreams she imagined it being the talisman that would someday guide her to her mother. Cassandra and Castor studied the heart charm carefully, but there was nothing special about it.

“It’s very pretty,” Cassandra said kindly.

“It is, isn’t it? But it’s from Tiffany so there are probably thousands just like it. It’s just that this is all I have,” Helen said, the words spilling out uncensored. “My dad says she must have been planning to leave for a long time because by the time he figured out she had left us, all the pictures were gone. Every single one. Even pictures he thought she had no idea he’d taken.”

Helen stood up suddenly and started pacing around aimlessly. She walked to the far end of the library, looking at all the books that the Delos family had collected together, all of the antique furniture they probably handed down, generation to generation. It was a family legacy Helen had been denied, and she felt a sense of loss not knowing where her mother was, or where she’d come from. But she also sensed a possibility in that ignorance.

“Your family is tight, I can see that. You always know where everyone is. But my mother did something drastic, right? She ran away.” Helen struggled with the right way to phrase her thought, and decided the best thing would be to ask a question. “Why were you so sure that the House of Thebes was the only House left? How could you possibly know that?”

“We keep very close watch over our numbers, Helen,” Cassandra said.

“Yeah, but how can you know for sure?”

“It’s barbaric,” Castor said, shaking his head. When Helen gestured for him to continue he did. “When one demigod kills another from a rival House there is a traditional celebration for the champion called a Triumph. It’s considered a great honor.”

“But that doesn’t mean my mother is dead. Maybe she’s just missing! You don’t even know who she is!” Helen said. The tears tipped over the edge of her eyelids and splashed down on her shirt.

“The fact that you exist proves that anything is possible,” Cassandra said. But she wasn’t able to look Helen in the eye.

“Right around the time you were born, the Houses were going through a period of intense fighting that was thought to be the final confrontation. There were a lot of deaths,” Castor said, looking down at his hands as if he expected to replace blood on them.

Helen turned her back on Castor and Cassandra and tried to breathe her way through the tears, but still it took a few moments before she knew she wasn’t going to start sobbing. She didn’t even know why she was so upset. She’d always thought she hated her mother.

“Helen, we understand that you might need some time before we continue. We still have a lot more to talk about, but we’re not going anywhere and we can finish this conversation when you’re ready. In the meantime, please know that we really do want to help you,” Castor said gently from somewhere on the other side of the room.

Helen heard them get up to leave, but she couldn’t bring herself to say good-bye. After they’d left, she opened up the French doors and went out onto the patio. The sight of the pristine beach and rolling blue water blunted the sharper edges of her emotions and before she knew it she was shuffling down the beach.

“Are you okay?” Lucas asked from behind her.

Helen just nodded, not surprised that he had appeared. They both looked down the beach, watching a big, hairy dog jump in and out of the surf with glee. After a moment Lucas moved and stood beside her.

“I’m relieved,” Helen said. She turned her head to look at him. “My whole life I thought my mother hated me so much that she didn’t even want me to know what she looked like.” A pained expression darkened Lucas’s face, but Helen continued before he could interrupt her. “I’m not saying an ancient blood feud is a good thing, but at least it’s a reason why she left me. I’ve never had one of those before.”

“She could still be alive, you know,” Lucas insisted. “Regardless of what Cass and my dad think.”

“I don’t know what to feel about that yet,” Helen replied honestly. “Kate has been more of a mother to me than Beth, or whatever she was called, ever was. I guess I’ll decide how I feel when I replace out the truth. The whole truth.”

“That works,” Lucas replied, smiling out at the water for a moment before another thought occurred to him and his face fell. “For now, anyway.”

He squeezed her fingers, and Helen glanced down, surprised again that they had joined hands when she wasn’t paying attention. She didn’t know who had initiated this new habit of theirs, but she realized that it would be nearly impossible to stop. She had never held a boy’s hand before and it should have made her shy, but it didn’t. It felt like the most natural thing in the world for her to touch him. That thought made her shake her head in wonder. She looked up and noticed that he was looking down at their hands as well, probably thinking the same thing.

“Do you want to sit down for a moment?” she asked, suddenly conscious of the fact that the last time she had seen him he was unable to walk without Jason’s help.

“Nope. But I wouldn’t mind something else to eat.” He threw a distracted glance over his shoulder at the house.

“Me too. My god, I’m a pig!” Helen said, still surprised at herself.

“You went hours without eating during the heal,” he said, leading her away from the water’s edge. “That’s crazy talk.”

“You know, if it weren’t for the whole ‘agonizing pain’ thing, I think I could get to like heals. People carry you around, and feed you nonstop. It’s like being an infant, only you’re old enough to appreciate it.”

“Not so much fun when you have to go to the bathroom, though.”

“No! Especially not when you’re around strangers,” Helen said, expecting a laugh or a witty response from Luke, and not getting either.

“We’re not strangers,” he said quietly, slowing down so he could look her in the eye.

“Well, not anymore,” she agreed. She felt a hot blush stinging her cheeks and had to look down. His eyes were so honest and so blue that Helen felt if she didn’t force herself to look away right from the start that she’d get stuck and never stop staring at him.

They held hands as they walked back. When they got close to the house, Helen noticed Cassandra looking down at them from one of the second-story balconies. She didn’t look happy.

When they went into the kitchen, they found Noel already hard at work over half a dozen pots and pans. She set them up with a pint of ice cream, cookies, nuts, and caramel sauce and told them they were strong enough to make their own darned sundaes before she went back to snarling at the ox-sized roast she was wrangling into the oven. After a decadent snack that tempted the rest of the house into the kitchen to spoil their appetites, Noel told everyone that they might as well just stay in their seats because dinner would be ready in another twenty minutes.

“I can’t. I have to go home,” Helen admitted in a disappointed tone as she pushed a few soggy pecans around the bottom of her bowl.

“Ridiculous. You’re not going anywhere,” Lucas responded.

“No, really. I have to go home, get the Jeep, and then pick Kate and my dad up at the airport.”

“One of us can get them for you,” Ariadne said, rising from the seat on the bench to Helen’s right.

“Sit, Ari, you’re still drained from healing. And don’t think for a second all that blush you’re wearing is fooling me,” Pandora said with a twinkle in her eye and a snarky finger wag that set her bracelets dancing and tinkling. “I’d love to go and meet your dad, Helen.”

“No, you can’t!” Helen said a little too forcefully before she got hold of herself and continued in a steadier tone. “My dad doesn’t know about any of this. Please. It’s very kind of you to offer, but if you could just give me a ride back to my house, I’d really appreciate it.” She couldn’t look up, but she knew everyone was shooting each other meaningful looks over her head. Ariadne touched Helen’s hand and opened her mouth to say something, but Lucas spoke first.

“I’ll drive you home,” he said as he slid out from his seat on the bench and pulled Helen along with him by the hand. “Let’s go.”

“You’re in no shape to travel,” Noel said, shaking her head, but Lucas was already walking toward her and smiling mischievously.

“I’m driving her home, not flying her there,” he said, suddenly grabbing his mom faster than she could move and kissing the top of her head with an exaggerated smooching sound. It couldn’t have been too comfortable, but it was funny enough to get Noel to laugh and admit that Lucas was strong enough to drive.

Helen tried to give everyone a heartfelt thank-you but Lucas made a snoring sound, grabbed her hand, and dragged her across the room, saying, “Yeah, yeah. You’ll be back tomorrow, anyway.”

“What?” Helen said in a flustered daze as Lucas pulled her through the kitchen door that led to a huge garage packed with fancy cars. He bundled her in a little, classic convertible Mercedes and started the car as he hit the door opener.

“You’ll be back here tomorrow afternoon,” he said, finally answering her question as he pulled out and headed off the compound toward Milestone Road.

“I can’t. I have track,” Helen reminded him.

“I have football. I’ll drive you back here after we’re both done. And I can pick you up for school in the morning if you’d like.”

“I thought you weren’t allowed to do sports anymore.”

“That’s mostly cleared up,” he said with a huge grin. “Look, all I’m going to say is I’ve seen the football team. And believe me, they need my cousins and me.”

“I should probably be offended by that, but I’ve seen the football team, too,” Helen said, mirroring his grin. “But regardless, I can’t come over after tomorrow. I have to work on Monday nights.”

“Tuesday then,” Lucas said.

“I can’t. I have to cook dinner for my dad,” she said in a rushed voice.

“He can come, too. My mom wants to meet him,” Lucas said with growing uncertainty. He glanced over at Helen. “Don’t you want to come?”

“It’s not that,” she said, feeling cornered and frustrated and not knowing why. “My dad won’t allow it, okay?” Helen looked out her window at the golf course and felt Lucas take her hand and shake it a little to get her to look at him.

“No one will tell your father about you if you don’t want them to,” he said, glancing from her to the road and back again.

“It’s not that. He doesn’t let me go out on school nights,” she said, looking back at him, but he was frowning deeply and staring at the road. As the minutes ticked by silently, Helen could feel Lucas’s mood getting worse and worse.

“Nope. This isn’t going to work,” he said suddenly, pulling the car over to the side of the road, yanking on the parking brake, and turning in his seat to face Helen. When he saw Helen’s startled face he took a shaky breath to control himself before he started. “I don’t know if my dad explained this to you, but the different Houses are the descendants of different gods,” he began.

“Yes, he said something like that,” Helen responded quietly. She felt like a kid in the principal’s office and she had no idea why. He tried to smile at her but gave up.

“My family’s House, the House of Thebes, are the descendants of Apollo. He’s primarily known as the god of Light, but he was also the god of Music, Healing, and of Truth. Falsereplaceers—Scions who can feel lies—are very rare, but I’m one of them. I always know a lie when I hear it, and if it comes from someone close to me I can’t stand it. So you can’t lie to me, Helen. Ever. If you don’t want to tell me the truth, please, for my sake, don’t say anything all,” he pleaded.

“Does it hurt?” Helen asked, her curiosity piqued.

“I’ve tried to explain to Jase how it feels, but I’ve never been able to get it right. It’s almost like that feeling you get when you’ve lost something really important and you can’t replace it, but it’s much worse. The longer the lie hangs there, the more frantic I get to replace the truth. I’ll dig and dig for it . . .”

“I just need a little bit of time to adjust,” Helen admitted in a rush. “I’m not ready to tell my dad about me, or about my mom, because I don’t know what it would do to him. To be honest, I don’t know if I’ll ever tell him. But I know I need a minute to get used to all of this. A few days at least.”

Lucas’s face relaxed immediately and he let out a held breath.

“Why didn’t you just say that to begin with?”

“Because it’s, it’s too . . .” she trailed off, not knowing why it was so hard.

“Too raw. Like being naked,” Lucas said for her. Helen nodded her head. “Well, sorry. But with me you have to be either honest or silent.” He released the brake, put the car in gear, and merged back into traffic.

As soon as he could stop shifting, he grabbed her hand and held it on his leg, and when the fading sunlight forced him to turn on the headlights, he let go of the steering wheel rather than let go of her hand.

Lucas pulled into Helen’s driveway behind the Pig, then killed the lights and engine. “Stay here for a sec,” he said before hopping out of the car and disappearing around the back of the house.

Helen craned her head to look for him as she waited, but she didn’t hear anything—not even the sound of his footsteps. Annoyed that he would just run off like that, she got out of the car and walked up to the Pig to get a better view. She noticed her purse lying on the ground behind the front tire. Oops. She picked it up and fished out her phone. There were over a dozen missed calls.

She remembered that her purse was lying on the ground because she had been attacked, and she suddenly realized that her attacker was not Hector or Lucas, as she had assumed the other night.

Now that she could look back on it without the Furies there to warp her judgment, she figured out that there had been someone else here waiting for her when she came home. Someone with wiry arms—a woman, she thought, recalling the smell of cosmetics—had grabbed her from behind, then been scared off by the arrival of the Delos family. Lucas had sent Ariadne and Jason to chase after her, but the woman must have gotten away because there was no mention of her this weekend. In the shock of the past few days, Helen had completely forgotten about the attack.

“Lucas?” she called, heading toward the shadows off to the side of her house. He had been gone too long. She heard a muffled thud behind her.

“I asked you to stay in the car. It’s for your safety, Helen,” Lucas said with frustration. She spun around to face him, gesturing wildly with her cell phone still in her hand.

“That woman! You’re looking for that woman who jumped Kate and me,” Helen said, finally understanding it all. “She’s a Scion, too. She has to be!”

“Yes, of course she is. . . .” he interrupted her. “But listen to me. There are two of them—two different women are after you, and we haven’t caught either of them yet.”

A pair of lights flashed across the house and driveway. A car was pulling up. Lucas stood in front of Helen and looked easily through the lights that were blinding her from seeing the people in the car. “It’s your father,” he told her.

“Helen? There you are! Where the hell have you been?” Jerry shouted as he climbed out of the cab before the driver had even come to a full stop. He was angrier than she’d seen him in years. “I called over and over. You’re never late! I thought something had happened to you!”

“Why are you here?” Helen screeched.

“We got an earlier flight. Didn’t you get any of my messages?”

“I . . .” Helen trailed off, holding up her cell phone stupidly. She knew she had to make something up, but she also knew she was a terrible liar. She started to panic. Lucas grabbed her phone from her and, as he did, Helen heard an almost imperceptible crunch.

“Her phone’s broken,” Lucas said, passing Helen’s phone to her father so he could see it. It came apart in Jerry’s hand. “I came over to see why she wasn’t picking up and she was out here in the driveway on her way to go get you.” Helen stared at Lucas with her mouth open, wondering how someone who demanded honesty from everyone else could be so quick to lie.

“How did you do this, Len?” Jerry asked in a dismayed voice as he studied the pulverized sandwich of plastic and microchips. “This was brand-new.”

“I know!” Helen said a little too emphatically. “Piece of junk, right? I’m so sorry, Dad. I had no idea you were coming early. Really.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” Jerry said a bit sheepishly now that he wasn’t so worried. He and Helen smiled at each other, all forgiven. Then Jerry turned to Lucas. “You look familiar,” he said suspiciously, acknowledging Lucas’s presence for the first time and distrusting it immediately.

For a moment Helen could see Lucas as her father did—a heartbreakingly beautiful young man who was too well built, too well dressed, and driving too nice of a car to ever be liked by anyone’s father.

“Lucas Delos,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Don’t you hate this kid?” Jerry asked Helen candidly as he shook the offered hand. Lucas laughed, and it was such an open, unself-conscious sound that Jerry joined in.

“We worked it out,” Helen said.

“Good,” Jerry said. Then he passed Lucas’s flashy convertible as he went back to the cab to pay and get his bags. “Or maybe not,” he amended. Helen took that moment to roll her eyes at Lucas and point to her phone.

“What about that woman? How are you going to tell me the rest of the story now?” she whispered frantically. “If I use the phone in the kitchen, my dad will hear.”

“Sorry,” Lucas whispered back, his eyes laughing. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

“Tomorrow,” Helen warned. “I want the whole story.”

“I’ll pick you up half an hour early for school. We’ll get coffee,” Lucas promised.

“What’s going on?” Jerry asked suspiciously, joining them again.

“Lucas has to get home for dinner,” Helen said. She saw Lucas wince at the lie, but he took the hint.

“It was nice to meet you, Mr. Hamilton,” Lucas said as he waved good-bye and backpedaled toward his car.

“Damn, I really wish you had acne. Or a gland problem,” Jerry replied.

“Dad!” Helen huffed, embarrassed. “Good night, Lucas,” she said apologetically.

“Good night, Helen,” he replied softly, his eyes bright.

“Okay, that’s enough. Get in the house, Helen,” Jerry said with a nervous smile. He physically turned Helen around and gave her a little push toward the door. “I think I would prefer it if you went back to hating him.”

Helen heard Lucas laughing to himself as he started his car. The warm sound made her smile.

Lucas took his time driving home from Helen’s side of the island. He needed time to think and get control over himself before he faced his family. Not that it would do much good. Cassandra and Jason could always figure out how he was feeling, and they were being hypervigilant about him right now. They’d been worried about him since that day in the hallway when he’d first seen her, and now it would get worse. It was already worse. Jason would probably try to get him to sit down for a nice, long talk, and Lucas didn’t have the patience for that. He didn’t want anyone’s pity; he just wanted to be left alone for once.

Lucas pulled into the garage and sat with the engine off for a few minutes, trying to put his feelings back where they belonged. The past few days he’d felt as if his emotions were spring-loaded, as though if he let the lid off them they’d all come flying out like confetti from a Christmas cracker. He knew for damn sure he couldn’t handle seeing Cassandra, not right then, and he also knew she was probably waiting for him. He got out of the car, walked outside, and flew up to his bedroom window to avoid her.

But of course she knew he would do that, and she was already sitting on the couch in his room. Lucas smiled ruefully to himself before he even got his window open. He should have known better than to try and outmaneuver his little sister.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Cassie,” he said in what he hoped was a patient but firm voice.

“You don’t get to make that choice,” Cassandra responded sadly.

“No. We’re Scions. We don’t get to make many of our own choices, do we?” he said bitterly as he floated through the window and came in for a landing.

His body took on the burden of gravity and his feet touched down as he went from flying to walking in an instant.

“You’ve been gone a while,” Cassandra said in an insinuating tone.

“I stayed in her area for a bit, looking around her neighborhood for any sign of those women,” he said evenly, and he wasn’t lying.

“I told you, you don’t have to worry. She’s safe for a few more days at least,” Cassandra said, shaking her head. “I’m not so sure about you.”

“I didn’t touch her.”

“But you can’t stay away from her, either.”

He couldn’t. Even when he was still possessed by the Furies in her presence, he couldn’t stay away from Helen. He didn’t know how to describe it; it was as though it felt wrong to be separated from her. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t touch her.”

“That’s not the only thing I care about,” she began in a warning tone.

He interrupted her, tired of the doublespeak. “Yeah, sure, but it’s the thing you and everybody else cares about most, Cassie,” he said. He unlatched his watch and laid it carefully on his bedside table. He wouldn’t look at her, and he knew that was cruel, but he couldn’t stop himself.

“That’s not true. You know that, right?” she asked, suddenly no more than his sweet little sister. He looked over at her and felt his heart soften. She carried a heavier burden then he did, he knew that. Sometimes his bitterness got the better of him, but he trusted that Cassandra knew he loved her, and that she also knew he wouldn’t stop loving her even if she told him he had to give up the one thing he wanted most in the world. That didn’t make it any easier for either of them, though it wasn’t like anyone had ever asked them what they wanted.

“What does it matter how any of us feel?” he muttered. “If I take Helen, the war starts all over again. No amount of wishing will make it different.”

“I don’t know that,” Cassandra replied with more than a little self-doubt. “I’m not strong enough yet.”

“But you’re pretty sure it is,” he said, sitting down on the end of his bed, suddenly feeling as if he had taken on two planets’ worth of gravity. “And don’t pretend you’re not, because not even you can lie to me.”