"That's enough!" Alexa screamed from behind me. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"The Oracle's never wrong," Chara spat back at her.

Alexa slid her arm around my shoulder protectively. "Psyche, please don't listen to her. You've lived here. You know what's true. What's real. She doesn't."

Did I? I knew what I'd been told, but what did I really know? I knew that the Oracle had said I'd fall for a monster. Someone that even the G.o.ds feared. But I had plenty of evidence that he wasn't really like that. All those talks we'd shared. And kisses.

Had they made me forget the prophecy?

"You're wrong," I told Chara, even as confusion worked to crack my voice. "He's not a monster."

"Wise up, Psyche," she scolded as she dropped my hand. "Since he hasn't killed you already, he's probably just waiting for you to fatten up so you'll be a decent meal."

I covered my face with my hands as warm tears began to flow down my cheeks. "You don't know him," I cried.

"No, she doesn't," Alexa a.s.sured me. Her soft hands invisibly brushed the tears away. "And I think it's time she left. She's not welcome here if she upsets you this much."

"You're going to trust her over me?" Chara asked. "Has she ever even shown herself to you? She could be as much as monster as that thing you're living with."

My head was swirling. Alexa held me tightly, but I didn't know who to trust. I didn't want her arm around me any more and I shrugged her off.

"Stop, Psyche," Alexa implored. "Don't you see now? This is why he didn't want her to come. He knew she'd upset you with her ignorance. Don't let her do it, Psyche. Trust your instincts."

"Her instincts?" Chara laughed. "You mean the ones that told her to keep quiet about being friends with Aphrodite? Or the ones that refused a marriage proposal from Eros? Or how about that night at dinner." She looked at me with raised eyebrows. "The rumors about your little speech that night flew to me faster than if Hermes had carried them."

"Please, stop yelling," I begged. "Just let me think for a minute."

Alexa's voice was consoling. "Don't over-think this, Psyche. The only truth in the world is that Aris loves you."

"He did warn me," I confessed to her softly. "And I promised ... I promised I wouldn't listen to anything she said about him."

"You are such a fool!" Chara yelled at me. "Why would he make you promise something like that unless he knew I was going to tell you the truth?"

I could feel my pulse jumping underneath my skin. As the jitters crept over me, my legs started to wobble. For my own sanity, this conversation had to end.

"I'm sorry you think that." I flicked my eyes to Chara before quickly looking away. "We really need to stop talking about this now though, okay?"

Chara's eyes would've sliced through me like a spear. "Maybe you're happy to sit around here waiting to be lunch, but I'm not. I'm leaving."

"Wait." I jumped in front of her before she could storm out. "You still haven't told me about Father. I'm far more worried about his health than mine. Can we please go inside and talk about it over lunch?"

As I turned to lead the way, a blinding pain flashed in my head and my vision darkened. The courtyard tiles felt like they were swaying beneath my feet as I struggled to maintain my balance. One hand shot to my head and the other reached out to find something to steady myself against. I couldn't fall over. But with the throbbing in my brain, I couldn't keep standing either.

Alexa had her arm around me in a heartbeat and Chara rushed to my side, but she only looked on.

"Mathias," Alexa called. "Come help!"

"My head," I moaned. Before I could even try to regain my balance, Mathias was in the courtyard and scooping me up into his arms.

"I think she's got a migraine," Alexa explained. "Take her to her room so she can rest."

As Mathias carried me inside, I asked him to wait. "I have to say goodbye to my sister."

I turned as best I could from Mathias's arms to look at her, but slammed my eyes again when the sunlight only increased the searing pain in my head. "Don't leave yet. At least stay for lunch. Maybe it will go away."

"Unbelievable," Chara muttered. "Fine. I'll eat lunch and then I'm leaving. If you're not up by then, I'll come find you to say goodbye."

As Alexa hissed something at my sister, plates and goblets floated into the dining room and Mathias carted me away.

He laid me carefully across my bed and propped my head and feet up with the silken pillows. Then he draped a scarf across my eyes to block out the light. "There you are. Get some rest and forget about all that nonsense."

"Um-hmm," I mumbled in agreement.

But when I was alone, a sudden darkness of panic flooded me. My chest compressed as my head reeled with a suffocating dizziness. What was I going to do? Who was I supposed to believe? I'd sided with Alexa in the courtyard, but was back to questioning my decision. As my mind swam with questions, and the aching in my head intensified, I drifted into a restless sleep.

The next thing I knew, Chara was crouched beside my bed, urging me to wake up in a hushed whisper.

"Psyche, I don't have long. Alexa will come looking for me soon. Just listen to me."

I pushed up onto my elbows and blinked the sleep from my eyes. Chara's intensity was frightening.

"If you want to save yourself, then listen to me. Hide a knife and lantern under the bed. Tonight, after he's asleep, you kill him. And be quick about it. A beast like him won't give you a second chance to do what you need to do."

"I couldn't possibly ... I told you. He's not like that."

"Just think about it. As mad as I am at you, I don't want to see you dead. You understand me?"

Just then the door flew open and pounded with a crash against the marble wall.

"What are you doing in here?" Alexa demanded in a thundering tone I'd never heard from her before.

Chara rose to her full height in a way I'm sure she meant to look proud and intimidating. "I was just telling my sister goodbye. And apologizing for upsetting her. Isn't that right, Psyche?"

I was shaking too badly to disagree. I nodded weakly since I didn't want another clash breaking out around me.

"Well, you should get some rest then. You'll need your strength." Chara's eyes bore into mine as she looked down at me. She was too tall, too imposing, looking at me that way. I wanted to pull the covers over my head and hide.

I wanted her to leave so the pounding in my brain would leave too.

"Travel safely," I said, waving a half-hearted goodbye.

Alexa closed my door again after Chara left and I flopped back into my pillows. I was so tired. And confused.

And achy.

I stared up at my ceiling and wondered if I was coming down with the flu. I remembered the terrible shudders and retching I'd had a few years ago and it was miserable. If Father was feeling this sick - Father! I still didn't know what was wrong with him. That was the whole reason I really needed my sister to come in the first place.

Clambering out of bed, I hurried down the hall to catch Chara before she left. I was just rounding the corner into the entrance hall when I stopped dead in my tracks.

Standing at the gilded entrance doors, saying goodbye to my sister, was a perky-looking girl. Her dress was the sparkling blue-green color of the river where it meets the sea, and her amber hair flowed like rippling waves down her back. I would've known her voice anywhere. Alexa.

I backed into the hall to stay out of sight and listened. "So you see," Alexa was saying, "it's really better for Psyche that she not be able to see us. We're not sure she could handle it all."

My sister nodded and smiled knowingly.

What had Alexa just told her about me? How could she let my sistersee her but hide herself from me? If Alexa had lied to me about it being bad luck to see a nymph, what else was she lying about?

Just then I had a sickening thought. What if everything I thought was true, wasn't? The architecture could be an elaborate ruse to confuse me. My new friend a spy to mislead me. Maybe the only truth was what my sister had been trying to tell me after all.

How stupid had I been?

The clang of the front door pushing closed jolted me back. I couldn't let Alexa see me here. If I had any chance of surviving, she couldn't know what I'd just overheard.

Chapter 34 - Eros.

Eros not only missed his chance to watch Psyche and her sister, but he wasted three otherwise perfectly good hours of his life listening to Iris chatter away in meaningless babble. His stomach nearly lurched when she pursed her thin lips together and batted her eyelashes in obvious hopes of receiving a kiss after Council. But Eros dropped Iris at her door, giving her only a quick, "See you at the next meeting," before launching himself back toward his Olympian palace.

Eros tore through the door and darted to his couch, perching on the edge. With his fingers tented together, he started scanning.

A swirl of purple mixed with cloud caught his attention first. Favonius was carrying Chara back up the mountain. Eros didn't know whether to be relieved that she was gone or angry that he'd missed the entire visit.

Before he could decide, his thoughts returned to Psyche. How had she held up?

Eros scanned through the palace courtyard and gardens. No Psyche. He searched the dining room and library with no luck either. He squeezed his fingertips more tightly together. Finally, he checked her bedroom, and there she was. He hadn't thought to find her there since it was the middle of the day. But now, his near-panic at not immediately finding her seemed foolish. She'd shown him just a few days ago that he didn't need to worry about her going missing.

Convinced that Psyche was asleep, Eros ignored the sunshine and flew down to his palace to find Alexa.

"Well," he whispered when he found her, "tell me what happened."

"Ack!" Alexa started, poking herself with her sewing needle hard enough to draw blood. "Look what you made me do!" Alexa stuck the wounded finger in her mouth. "Donth sneakth up on people," she said.

Eros let out a long sigh. "Sorry. So what happened?"

Alexa's eyebrows pinched together. "Weren't you watching?"

"I had Council today," Eros explained as he flopped into a leather-covered chair in the corner of Alexa's room.

"Well, you missed a show. Psyche's sister tried to turn her against you, like you thought she would. Chara made her so upset she got a migrane even. But Psyche was strong. She changed the subject and she'll be fine."

Eros exhaled the breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. "Is she okay?"

"It was just the stress. I'm sure she'll be better now that Chara's gone."

"Guess that explains why she's napping," Eros mumbled.

"Want to hear the really good part?" Alexa's eyes were wide with excitement. "Psyche was already resting when Chara left, so as I was showing her out, I showed her me." Her teeth sparkled from under her impish grin.

"I appreciate the gesture, but I'm not sure she deserves what's coming now."

"You don't understand," Alexa whined. "She kept calling you a monster. And she tried to get Psyche to leave with her. She definitely deserves whatever bad luck she gets."

Eros crunched his teeth as he thought. Chara tried to take his Psyche away. He'd rather be shot than lose her. Finally, he nodded. "You did the right thing."

Perhaps sensing his tension, Alexa turned solemn. "Favonius didn't drop her on the way back up the cliff, did he? I wasn't trying to kill her or anything."

"I know," Eros a.s.sured her. "And no, I saw Chara make it back. But you know something is coming. No human ever escapes the bad luck that follows seeing a nymph."

Chapter 35 - Psyche.

After seeing Alexa and Chara together, I slipped back to my room and flung myself face down onto my bed. I had to bite my pillow to m.u.f.fle the sobs that threatened to tear from my throat in screams. Like frozen gla.s.s breaking apart, my heart felt like it had splintered into a million jagged shards.

It wasn't even that I now knew Aris was a monster. That seemed inconsequential in comparison to knowing that whatever feelings I was starting to have for him, he'd manipulated. Those tender moment we'd shared, the sweet promises he'd planted like kisses on my soul, were all lies. He'd promised to love me always and I had believed him willingly. How had I not seen he was just lulling me into a false sense of security?

I was suddenly so angry that I wished I could sink my fingernails into the baby-soft flesh on his perfect-feeling face and rip. To separate fistfuls of ringlets from his scalp. To dig below the black mask of perfection he wore and uncover the monster within.

I felt like I'd been living in the world's best dream for the past few days, only to wake up right where I fell asleep: trembling on this bed, waiting for a grotesque monster to come claim me.

Only this time, I would be ready.

Sitting up to wipe at my tears, I resolved that I'd had enough of simply sitting by and accepting the destiny life handed me. I would not offer up myself as a sacrifice, no matter what some stupid prophecy said.

Of all things, why did my sister have to be right about this? I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the trial ahead.

Chara had told me what to do. A lantern and a knife was all I needed. I could get a knife from the kitchen and I was pretty sure I'd seen a lantern in the library when Alexa gave me my official tour.

Locating them would be the easy part. Retrieving them unnoticed in a house full of invisible servants would be more difficult.

I pulled my legs up by my chest and hugged my arms around them. Resting my head on my knees, I tried to figure out how to get what I needed. The key would be distracting Alexa - the traitorous witch. As soon as she knew I was awake, she'd want to gossip about how awful my sister was and she wouldn't leave. I'd scream if I had to listen to her badmouth Chara as if she was the evil one.

Maybe I could tell her I'd thought of a new dress design and I wanted her to get started on it right away. That I wanted to surprise Aris with it as soon as possible. She might buy that, but it wouldn't keep her far enough away. And if she needed any fabric, or thread, or whatever else goes into making a stupid dress, she might come out of her room and catch me sneaking around.

I needed her out of the palace.

And then it came to me.

"Alexa," I called, with acrid-laced sweetness. It was the best I could do.