“My name is Cassandra Reed,” she offered. “I’m sorry that you have to experience this… discomfort. But we’re trying our best to help you.”
The laugh that burst from my throat bordered on hysteria. “Discomfort?” I twisted against the hands holding me, achieving nothing except making my shoulders ache. “Now you have House Hestia doing your dirty work, Mother? This is low, even for you.”
Helena just looked at Cassandra with pleading desperation. “Cassandra, go on. Help her.”
The distinctive House Hestia healing fire manifested around the healer’s hands. Cassandra raised her palms toward my face, keeping her movements slow and steady.
“Don’t touch me.” I tried to jerk away, but the priestesses held me in place. “Don’t you dare—”
Cassandra’s hands pressed against my temples. Heat flooded through my skull, not burning but soothing. The healing fire flowed through my body in waves of impossible comfort.
My muscles started to unclench despite every screaming instinct to fight. The unbearable rage began to ebb, quieting to something manageable. My mind became a little clearer.
I tried to fight it. Tried to hold on to the fury that had sustained me through Alexander’s stalking, through my fathers’ worried looks, through every sleepless night. But the healing fire didn’t care about my determination or my justified anger.
“Stop,” I whispered, too weakly for my liking. “Please stop.”
“I’m sorry.” Cassandra’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “But the curse has damaged more than your mind. Your body is suffering too.”
The healing fire intensified, spreading through my chest, down my arms, into my legs. The priestesses’ hands on my body felt less restraining now, more like anchors keeping me from floating away entirely. My eyelids grew heavy despite every attempt to keep them open.
“You’re going to be all right,” my mother insisted. “I promise, dearest. You’re going to be all right.”
I wanted to tell her that her promises meant nothing. That I’d never forgive her for this. That drugging me into compliance was just another form of the control I’d spent years escaping.
But the healing fire kept flowing, and my body kept surrendering despite my mind’s protests. The fight drained out of me in waves, leaving exhaustion in its wake. My vision blurred at the edges, my will finally abandoning me.
I stopped struggling and let the heat carry me under. My last conscious thought was wondering if this was how it felt to lose myself completely. Not with violence or drama, but with the terrible kindness of people who claimed they were saving you.
The trick to faking sleep was to breathe from the belly in a slow and steady rhythm. It was one of the first things I’d learned as a teenager, at a time when pretense had been my only weapon against my overbearing mother.
Ten years later, I was forced to resort to the same trick.
I’d been lying still for hours, letting them think Cassandra’s healing fire had left me docile and compliant. The priestesses had checked on me twice since depositing me back in bed.Both times I’d maintained the steady breathing and the relaxed posture of deep sleep.
Amateurs. They’d gotten comfortable in their Mediterranean fortress, arrogant in the belief that no one would dare defy House Hera on their ancestral ground. Centuries of unchallenged authority had made them sloppy.
Moonlight filtered through the gauzy curtains, painting silver stripes across the white walls. The breeze had died down, leaving the night heavy with humidity. Somewhere in the distance, I caught the murmur of voices—two priestesses on patrol, their conversation carrying across the courtyard in soft Greek.
Be patient.I pressed my palms flat against the linen sheets, forcing my muscles to stay loose.Wait for them to pass.
I slid from the bed with careful precision, testing each movement before committing my full weight. My slip whispered against my thighs as I crossed to the door, each step measured and deliberate.
The door handle turned without a sound. They hadn’t bothered locking it, another mark of their arrogance. I eased it open just wide enough to slip through, and then closed it with the same agonizing care.
The hallway beyond stretched in both directions, whitewashed walls gleaming in the moonlight. To my left, the voices of the priestesses echoed from what sounded like the main courtyard. To my right, darkness and silence.
I turned right, keeping close to the wall where shadows gathered deepest. Every few steps I paused, listening for any sign I’d been discovered. The fortress breathed around me, ancient stone settling with soft creaks and sighs.
I had no idea where I was going, no plan beyond getting out of this room and away from Helena’s control. But I’d figure it out as I went. I always did.
The mansion’s rear entrance led to terraced gardens that cascaded down the hillside in moonlit steps. I navigated them barefoot, the ancient stone worn smooth by centuries of pilgrim feet. Oleander bushes released their sweet poison scent as I brushed past, my slip catching on thorns I couldn’t see in the darkness.
The beach materialized at the bottom of the last terrace, a narrow strip of sand that felt wrong beneath my feet. It was coarser than the sand on American beaches, mixed with fragments of shell and stone that bit into my soles. The Aegean Sea stretched before me, black and endless under a moonless sky.
A dock. I needed to find a dock, some kind of boat. Rich Olympians always kept boats at their island properties, didn’t they? Transportation for when shadow travel or other divine shortcuts weren’t practical. I turned left along the shoreline, scanning the darkness for any sign of a pier or mooring.
The night air pressed against my skin, thick with salt and seaweed. The sand gave way to rocks underfoot, forcing me to slow my pace despite the urgency thrumming through my veins.