"That's enough," Dax says, approaching.

Simon looks at him. "Be still," he says, and then trains his gaze back on me. "Both of you." Dax stops moving, and I make my body as still as a tree, and all thoughts of struggling out of his grasp leave my head. I can't move, even though I want to.

"Say it," Simon says. "Beg for it."

At first, I think he means that he wants me to say I understand him, but then I realize that he wants me to invoke elios.

I have never begged for mercy before. Not from Rowan or the Court. Not from my father. And I have no intention of giving Simon the pleasure.

"Never," I gasp. I try to move again, but my body stays still and uncooperative.

"Good luck with that, boy," Simon says. "Do you know what I'm capable of? I've made men into kings and celebrities, and helped topple governments with only a few sentences. I think I can get a little kopros like you to invoke elios if I want. Say it." I feel the word forming in my mouth. I bite my tongue to stop it.

I taste blood.

"Say. It," Simon says, glaring deep into my eyes. His words burrow inside my head and I cannot stop myself any longer from complying with his demand. It is as if he controls my mouth.

"Elios," I croak, before clamping my teeth shut.

Simon lets go, a satisfied smile on his face.

I stay rigid against the wall. Dax remains still, also. I see Garrick watching between the rungs in the staircase's banister. I cannot make out the look on his face.

"Now that that's settled," Simon says, straightening his tie, "I have a charity auction to get to. Anyone fancy accompanying me to the ballet next month? I think I'm going to bid on season tickets. No? Well, then, I'm off." He picks up his gla.s.s and takes another sip of the thick red liquid. He smacks his lips.

"Mmmm. Feel free to help yourselves to the beet juice in the fridge. It's great for the metabolism." We all watch in frozen disbelief as Simon rinses out his gla.s.s in the sink and then grabs his keys.

"Good night," he hollers when he leaves through the door to the garage. "Oh, and you can relax now." With his words, the rigidness leaves my body and I slump down against the wall. I cough, and blood stains my hand. Dax rushes over to help me. I wave him away. I'm not ready to accept his help. Not after he had even entertained the idea that I could have hurt that girl.

But what stings even more than my bleeding tongue and my bruised ego is the look of disappointment in Dax's eyes, knowing that I lied to him.

chapter twenty.

daphne

I sit in my private TV room in the east wing of the house, flipping through the channels, looking for some sort of report on what happened to Pear, but apparently the local news comes on much later in California than it does in Utah. I find myself fighting to keep my eyes open. I don't want to fall asleep.

Because every time I start to drift off, all I can see are those fiery green eyes staring back at me. . . .

I sit bolt upright when I hear a hissing noise, only to realize that I left the TV on the animal channel. A cobra dances on the screen, hissing at a mongoose. I don't wait to see who wins the fight, and hit the power b.u.t.ton.

The clock on the wall says it's just after ten o' clock. Which means it's just after eleven in Ellis. It's been longer than twenty-four hours since I've spoken to anyone back home. I don't have my cell, so I don't know if any of them have tried to text or call me, and at the moment, I feel desperate to hear a familiar voice. I know it's too late in the evening to try my mom, but CeCe and Jonathan are usually up until at least eleven thirty on a Sat.u.r.day night.

I pick up the handset for the landline and dial CeCe's number. It goes to voice mail after a few rings.

I'm not all that surprised, since she never answers numbers that she doesn't recognize. I listen to her voice on the message service, her comforting tone coming through, even on a recording.

"Hey, it's me," I tell the voice mail. "This is my new home number. It might be the best way to reach me for a while. Talk at you later . . . I miss you."

I hang up and try Jonathan. Luckily, he answers.

"Hey, honey," he says, and I can hear him turning off the Late Show . "About time you called. Tell me about your day."

And for the first time, the trauma of the day comes crashing in on me, and I burst into tears.

Jonathan coaxes me into telling him what happened, and I relay the story of my nearly disastrous-but thankfully not-audition and how that led me to finding Pear in the grove with Tobin. I tell him about the gashes on her arm, and how the security guards didn't believe me when I said that I thought she'd been attacked. I leave out how I know who the perpetrator probably is-because I know if my mom gets wind of that part of the story, she'll demand that I get on a plane and fly home immediately. She might even come out here and drag me home herself.

Even with everything that happened today, I am not ready to give up and leave.

It's just past midnight when I fall asleep to Jonathan's dulcet, rea.s.suring tones as he tells me that everything is going to be okay.

twenty-one.

haden I wake in the middle of the night, knowing there's an intruder in my room. A sudden thunk, like something hitting the ground, awakens me, and before I have a chance to sit up, an unexpected weight lands on my chest. Two bright eyes stare into mine. In my confusion, electricity surges into my hands and I am about to strike-until the thing on my chest licks my face.

I blink. "Brimstone?"

The cat meows plaintively in response. She stands with her front paws on my collarbone.

"How did you get here?" I lift her up and get out of bed. I see the bag I'd brought with me from the Underrealm toppled over on the table in the corner. "Have you been hiding in there this whole time?" She puts her paw on my face.

"Naughty girl," I say.

She hisses.

"Sorry." I stroke her head, trying to sooth her before she gets really angry. "But do you know how much trouble I can get into for bringing a h.e.l.lcat into the mortal world? Intentional or not?" She purrs.

"I missed you, too, Brim."

She climbs up my chest, sinking her little claws into my skin as she goes, and then settles on my shoulder.

"You must be hungry."

My thought is to get Brim some food and then figure out how to hide her in my room from the others, but when I enter the kitchen, I find it already occupied.

Dax sits at the kitchen table. A paper sack giving off an unfamiliar smell sits in front of him, and he's holding a tablet of sort that resembles a larger version of my iPhone. The light coming off the screen illuminates his face in the dark room. A look of worry is etched into his features. I am about to turn around and leave when he looks up from the tablet. He sees me and turns the device off.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asks, his voice sounding strained.

I stand there awkwardly for a few seconds. I am not sure I have forgiven him yet, and I am even less sure if he's forgiven me.

Brim meows.

Dax's eyebrows arch when he realizes Brim is on my shoulder.

"A little stowaway," I say.

"Naughty-"

"Don't make her mad. She's feeling a little touchy on the subject."

"If Simon sees her . . ."

"I know. But I need to get her some breakfast before she decides to eat one of us." Brim hops off my shoulder onto the counter. She waits expectantly as I inspect the fridge for something to feed her. Either Simon or Dax has stocked the fridge, mostly with foods that I don't recognize. I move aside Simon's bottle of beet juice and find a package of something called cold cuts.

I smell it and then hold it out to Brim for her inspection. She sniffs it and then bites the corner of the package. I take that as approval and tear it open. She anxiously s.n.a.t.c.hes bits of the meatlike substance from my hand, nipping my fingers in her overexcitement.

Dax pulls something from the paper bag that sits on the table. It looks like meat and cheese wrapped in a really thin, round piece of flatbread. He takes a bite and sighs. "You know I volunteered to be your guide because we're friends, but honestly, I would have done it just for the late-night taco runs.

Man, I missed Mexican food." He lifts the bag that I see now is labeled Taco Heaven. "You want one? I'm telling you, they're not lying about them being heaven." I shake my head and cringe at the smell. I'd barely been able to keep anything down since pa.s.sing through the gate.

Dax finishes his so-called taco and then turns his tablet back on. He swipes at the screen a couple of times, and then grunts with displeasure.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to catch up on things since I was here last." He points at the tablet. "I've been researching local news, that sort of thing. They've already got a write-up on what happened to that girl they found near the grove. It says that doctors concluded that she had a ma.s.sive heart attack, pa.s.sed out, tumbled down the slope, and fell into the lake. If she hadn't been found by some fellow students, she probably would have died of hypothermia or drowned. They say she's in a coma."

"Ma.s.sive heart attack? That means her heart seized up, yes?" "Yes."

"How old is she?"

"Seventeen."

"Is that normal?"

"No."

"Were there any wounds? Was there blood?"

"It doesn't say."

Brim licks my fingers, greedily searching for more meat. I pull another slice from the box and give it to her whole, distracted by a suspicion that edges into my thoughts.

"What are you thinking?" Dax asks. "You've got that look." I pick up Brim, who is trying to chew her way into the box of cold cuts. "I noticed a weird smell at the lake. Like death lingering in the air."

"But the girl didn't die."

"Exactly." I look at Dax. My suspicion is going to sound crazy- even to him. "What if Brim wasn't the only stowaway who pa.s.sed with us through the gate?"

Dax laughs. "You're kidding, right? That's impossible." He looks at me and his laughter dies. "How would it even get out?"

"I don't know." I suddenly feel stupid for suggesting it. But if my suspicions are right . . .

"I'll look into it," he says. "Meanwhile, you rest up. You're going to need your strength." I give him an inquisitive look.

"You're starting school on Monday."

"School?"

"Simon's call. I was hoping you'd get to avoid it, but he thinks it's best if you and Garrick enroll in school. He thinks, with everything that happened today with Daphne and this other girl, it's important that we all act as much like normal humans as possible. He also says the added benefit is that you'll have the chance to interact with your Boon on more common grounds." I nod. "That doesn't sound like such a bad idea."

Dax makes a scoffing noise. "You might be from Hades and all, but you haven't experienced torment quite like high school before." He swipes at his tablet. "But at least it means no more lurking in the shadows, trying to grab hapless females, and almost getting yourself fried." There's an edge to his voice that tells me I haven't been forgiven completely for my mistake, after all.

Then again, I never actually apologized. It's against my Underlord nature.

"I didn't get very far with her, if that makes you feel better."

"Did she scream or something?"

"No. She hit me."

"She hit you?" Dax suppresses a smile-not very well. "Where?"

"In the face. Hard."

He laughs. "Well, I'll be harpied. I haven't met her and I already like this Boon."

"That's the thing, Dax. This Daphne girl isn't like any Boon I've ever met. . . ."

"Forget those other Boons. There's a difference between the girls who go easily into the Underrealm and the majority of mortal women. You see, most Champions get the chance to select their Boons- they're usually not preselected for them like with you and me-which means most Champions go after easy prey. Girls who seem like they're already standing halfway in the dark to start with. Maybe that's why they don't last very long. Their spirits were weak from the beginning. But it sounds to me this Daphne girl has got fire."

"True. And a really mean right hook."

Dax chuckles. "She reminds me of someone else I met here . . . ," he says, more to himself than to me.

"Your Boon?"

He doesn't answer my question.

"What happened to her? Why did you come back alone?"