Helen turned to see stunned and horrified looks on every face. They had no idea how to tackle something this enormous. She glanced at Claire's and Ca.s.sandra's unconscious forms. Turning back to everyone else, she saw consensus building.

"Who's with me?" Helen asked.

Hector looked at Andy, his emotions naked in a way they never were with anyone else. "Only if you come, too," he said.

"Okay," she whispered, and reached for his hand. He took it and pulled her against his side, nodding at Helen to let her know they were in.

"What about Claire?" Jason asked anxiously.

"Take her," Helen said. "Orion. Take Ca.s.sandra." Orion narrowed his eyes in question. He glanced down to Helen's heart, reading it, and a troubled look creased his brow. "Trust me," she told him.

"Castor?" Helen asked, turning to him.

"I'm sorry, Helen. I've dreamed of Atlantis my whole life. But I can't go with you," Castor said sadly. "Not without Noel."

"Dad," Lucas began to argue, but Castor held up a hand to stop him.

"I've lived long enough to know I don't want to live much past the time allotted to me, anyway," he said shaking his head firmly. "That doesn't mean I'm out of the fight. I'm still on your side, Helen."

"If you're not coming with us you can't fight," Lucas insisted. "It's too dangerous."

"No it isn't," Helen said as a thought occurred to her. She unclasped the heart necklace she'd worn since she was a baby, and gave it to Castor. "I don't know if you're capable of using this or not."

Castor nodded and drew his dagger. "It may be a relic only daughters of the House of Atreus can use," he said knowingly. He handed his dagger to Helen and bared his forearm for her, meeting her eyes without a hint of fear. With no time to waste, Helen drew the blade swiftly across his skin. It didn't cut him.

"Just don't let the Kraken get a hold of you," Helen said, relieved she hadn't injured him. "The cestus will only protect you from weapons, not forces of nature."

"I'll remember that," Castor said, fastening the clasp behind his neck. Once Castor was wearing it, the heart shape altered, but he quickly tucked it under his armor before anyone could see what form it took.

"Thank you," Castor said, hugging Helen tightly before letting her go. "Now hurry."

"Everyone join hands," Helen said. Orion picked up Ca.s.sandra as Jason lifted Claire.

All the people they weren't bringing with them flashed through Helen's head-her dad, Kate, Ariadne, and yes, even Matt. There were so many people she had to leave behind in order to do this that she could barely bring herself to leave. But she knew she had to, or all of them would die this day.

"Back in a sec," she promised.

Helen heard the Kraken make that terrible sound again, and then it was gone.

The only sound was of the wind in the wildflowers. The sun was high and warm, and the mountains that rimmed the valley to the northwest were capped with snow. To the east, the eclectic skyline of Everycity gleamed, part gla.s.s-and-steel modern, and part ancient stone citadel. To the south, the smell of the ocean beckoned.

"Beautiful," Andy breathed in awe as an iridescent b.u.t.terfly tumbled past, just inches from her face.

"Definitely," Hector mumbled, staring at Andy and not the b.u.t.terfly.

Ca.s.sandra's eyes opened sleepily, and she cuddled like a kitten in Orion's arms, smiling up at him. Orion watched Ca.s.sandra, and that same troubled look crossed his face again. Helen could see his heart vacillating between tenderness and fear.

"Do you remember that conversation we had about more on the beach that night?" Helen said to Orion. He nodded. Helen gestured to Ca.s.sandra with her chin. "Trust me, she does," she told him.

As Orion puzzled over this, Claire inhaled sharply as she gained consciousness, flailed, and accidentally smacked Jason across the face.

"Thanks," Jason said sarcastically as he put her down.

"Sorry!" Claire sheepishly patted the spot on his jaw where she'd clocked him. Her tone dropped, but she kept her hand on his cheek. "Do you forgive me?" she whispered, her meaning broadening past the accidental slap. Jason nodded and pulled her into a hug.

"Where are we?" Ca.s.sandra asked groggily as Orion placed her on her feet.

"Everyland," Lucas replied, smiling at Helen in a way that made her tingle. "Helen's world."

Lucas bent down and picked a single, white wildflower from the field, pulled his wallet from his back pocket, and folded it safely inside. He looked up at Helen and smiled, melting her.

Their injuries were healed, and they were all refreshed. All of their senses were heightened, like a dull film had been washed away, making the world around them brighter. Every sensation, from the cool wind on their cheeks to the warm sun on their arms was like a flood of pleasure. While her family soaked it all in, Helen took the moment of silence to make the toughest choice of her life.

"Helen?" Lucas said in that knowing way of his, like he could sense mischief in her. "What are you up to?"

"It's done." Helen smiled and shook her head, refusing to tell him. "Time doesn't stop here. We have to get back to the fight."

"What's done?" Claire whispered to Jason.

"Ah . . . ," he began, and looked at Helen pleadingly.

"I made you pretty much immortal, Gig," Helen said. "All of you. You can only die when you decide that you don't want to live anymore."

Claire stared at Helen, still not fully believing it.

"So don't worry about getting killed in the battle, just keep your head down and stay out of the way. Everybody join hands," Helen said urgently. As they joined hands, she looked at her circle, the circle she would take with her as far into the future as they could stand, and was grateful for the company even if they found that they couldn't stay with her forever.

She looked into Lucas's eyes last, his bright blue eyes that held a pool of strength deeper than any ocean, and thought about his vow to take Hades' place someday. Helen knew that when that time came, she would go down with him. h.e.l.l was wherever Lucas wasn't. They would never be parted again, no matter how long forever turned out to be.

Unless, of course, Zeus won and sent her to Tartarus. That eternity, Helen knew, she would have to suffer alone.

The air was thick with acrid, black smoke. As soon as Helen and her group appeared, bodies seemed to rush at them from all sides. A Myrmidon with red skin and flat, black eyes charged Helen, his sword swinging over his head. As the blade came down, Helen caught it in her bare hand, and wrenched the sword out of his grip. She spun around, back-fisting him, and watched him drop.

She looked at the sword in her hand, and had no idea what to do with it, so she handed it to Jason. When next she looked up, she saw that Lucas, Orion, Hector, and Jason had formed their own line of defense with Andy, Claire, and Ca.s.sandra behind them. They might be mostly immortal, but Claire, Ca.s.sandra, and Andy were not Scion strong, and they were even worse fighters than Helen was.

Helen heard Ca.s.sandra's bloodcurdling scream and saw Orion step in front of her to cut the head off of one of Poseidon's sea monsters. The creature kept charging at Ca.s.sandra, anyway, as if it didn't need its head, which it probably didn't.

"Prophet!" the creature hissed out of one of its many holes. Orion swung his sword again and cut its carapace in two-cleaving the lobsterlike creature in half and killing it, but too late.

Alerted to her presence, a wave of misshapen creatures began to ooze toward Ca.s.sandra. Like limping nightmares, they were not made for land, and their too-soft or too-hard body parts flopped hideously as they dragged themselves toward the precious Oracle.

"Zeus needs her! Apollo l.u.s.ts for her! Poseidon demands we capture her for Olympus!" they gurgled, reaching their fish-stinking limbs toward Ca.s.sandra. She screamed in terror as the largest of the creatures clamped on to her arm with one of its claws, and in a flash, dragged her under its sh.e.l.l.

"No!" Orion bellowed, jumping on top of the horseshoe crablike creature that had imprisoned Ca.s.sandra, hammering away at its armored sh.e.l.l with his bare hands.

The Kraken sounded again, shaking Helen from the inside out. The intolerable noise made her and everyone around her clutch their ears and drop to their knees. A shadow darkened the sky above her. Helen craned her head to see one of the Kraken's tentacles descending directly over her.

"Enough!" Helen shouted.

The Kraken's tentacle landed on top of her and she caught it, just as she had done with the Myrmidon's blade seconds earlier. Every muscle in her body strained under the impossible weight of the Kraken's blow, but Helen did not break. Instead, she threw the rubbery, sucker-covered limb aside and launched herself into the air.

Helen called storm clouds and lightning to her presence. She made the wind howl around her. She stopped the waves and turned the Atlantic into a watery mirror. She twisted the Earth's magnetic field until the aurora borealis bent and glimmered around her like the footprints of angels.

"I challenge Zeus!" she cried, her voice echoing across her island home and the vast expanse of ocean beyond it. "Face me or forfeit Olympus!"

Nothing happened. Helen belatedly realized that she had no offering to give Hecate in order to make the duel official.

The number three popped up in Helen's head, and for some reason she thought of wishes. She had no idea if immortals worked on a barter system or not, but at that moment, Helen had nothing to give but her word and nothing to lose but the whole world.

"t.i.tan Hecate. I offer you three favors in return for your guardianship over the boundaries." Helen bit her lip and tried not to think anything too incriminating, in case the Fates were listening. "As long as you guard all of the boundaries. Do this for me, I beg you, and I will do your bidding three times in the future."

Orange fire sprang up in a giant ball around Helen, making an airborne arena. A young, bare-chested man pa.s.sed through the flames and floated in front of her. Zeus was gorgeous and ruthless and so much like Helen that she could hardly stand to look at him.

They were alone here. No one was watching but the t.i.tan Hecate. This battle was not for spectacle or for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the Olympians. The whole Earth, Everyland, and Olympus, hung in the balance, but it was so private Helen felt like she'd walked into his bedroom.

"h.e.l.lo, daughter," Zeus purred.

She felt his pull. Even though she knew she needed to defeat him, Helen was not immune to the half-animal, half-divine presence that surrounded him. And it was mesmerizing.

"How powerful you are," he said, moving closer to her. "The clouds twist with color at your command, but they still pale in comparison to your beauty. They'd cry with jealousy if you'd only let it rain."

"I'm not your daughter," she replied quietly. "My father is a shopkeeper. He's a single dad who had to raise me all by himself. He worked twelve hours a day, six days a week his whole life in order to keep a roof over our heads. My father's worth ten of you, and probably ten of me, too. You don't get to say you're my father. You didn't earn it like Jerry did."

"He's awake, you know," Zeus said in an offhand way. "Give me Everyland, and I'll leave Jerry and his woman, Kate, alone. After I send you to Tartarus, of course."

Helen narrowed her eyes at him. "You'll leave them in peace if I give you Everyland?"

"I swear it by the River Styx," he said, and the sky rolled around them like a sheet on a clothesline, undulating in the wind. "I have no interest in punishing mortals who haven't offended me. I never have."

Helen knew this to be true. Zeus never held grudges against mortals. It was his wife, Hera, who did that.

"And what about my nearly immortal family?" Helen asked. "Lucas, Hector, Orion, Ca.s.sandra, Jason, Claire, Andy . . . will you leave them alone, too?"

"Yes, yes. Them too," Zeus said with a bored wave of his hand. "Why not? They won't want to face eternity without you, anyway. A few centuries and they'll opt for a peaceful death."

"Yes," Helen said demurely. She looked up at him through her lashes. "But you won't curse any of them, or Ariadne, in any way, as long as I give you Everyland?"

"By the River Styx," he swore, and reached out to touch her cheek with his hand. "So caring about those you love. But you do understand that you face an eternity in Tartarus, don't you?"

"Been there," Helen said unflinchingly. "I figure spending eternity trapped in any one place, even paradise, is the same as h.e.l.l after long enough. In a thousand years, I bet even a field of wildflowers begins to feel like a festering bog."

"How right you are," Zeus murmured darkly. His eyes shifted strangely, wildly, almost like he lost his grip on the here and now. "And so much time left to go."

"And what about the rest of Olympus? Will they retaliate against my friends and family with curses if I go for this trade?" Helen asked innocently.

"I swear by the River Styx that the Olympians will not curse your little group," Zeus said.

Helen pretended to think about it. She bit her lip and wrung her hands. Finally, she nodded quickly in a.s.sent, as if to get it out of the way.

"Hecate will not allow you to back out of this trade once you agree to it," Zeus reminded her tentatively, gesturing to the sacred s.p.a.ce around them, carved out of midair in orange fire.

"I know," Helen said, truly saddened for a moment that she had to give up her world. She could feel it inside of her. Every lake, every tree, and every pane of gla.s.s in her sweeping city was a part of her-a part of her that she had to abandon forever to her enemy to save her family. Her voice broke with real pain when she spoke. "I'll give you Everyland."

"Swear it before Hecate."

"I swear before Hecate to give you Everyland in exchange for the safety of my friends and family."

Zeus smiled at her, lightning flashing across his face. "Aphrodite told me you'd do anything to protect the people you love. She said it was the quality she adored most in you. It certainly will save a lot of lives. For now."

Helen dropped her gaze, so he wouldn't see eagerness and regret warring with each other in her eyes. "So how does this work? Do we go to Everyland first?"

"Yes. When we get there you simply make a new rule that Everyland answers to me alone," Zeus said, tucking her hair behind her ear, almost like he cared about her. "And then I'll take you to Tartarus."

Lucas saw Helen throw the Kraken's tentacle to the side and launch herself into the air. He was about to follow her out of sheer habit, but he saw Orion on top of a giant horseshoe crab monster, screaming Ca.s.sandra's name. Lucas's little sister was nearly immortal, but that didn't mean she couldn't be captured by the Olympians and used as their Oracle until she willed herself to death.

After seeing how she'd handled the Kraken, Lucas trusted that Helen could take care of herself and ran to help Orion get his little sister back. The monster was huge, and it had spikes sticking out of its sides and a long, swordlike appendage for a tail that it used to slash at anyone that came near. Avoiding the razor-sharp tail, Lucas ran to the front, crouched down and tried to flip it over, only to find about a dozen hairy legs that all ended in pincers under the dome of its top sh.e.l.l, clawing at him. He heard his sister screaming somewhere in there with all those legs.

"Luke, hold it so it can't get to the water!" Orion yelled, and slid down the side of the carapace.

Lucas held the monster in place while Orion began hacking his way through the forest of appendages. They could both hear Ca.s.sandra crying Orion's name frantically, and finally they saw her white face and tiny hand reaching up out of the suffocating bristles and grasping claws. Orion pulled Ca.s.sandra free while Lucas tipped the monster over onto its back.

"How do you kill it?" Lucas asked, climbing on top and hacking away at the underbelly with no idea where to aim.

"I don't know," Orion replied, dumbfounded.

"You're the sea-G.o.d guy!" Lucas yelled.

"It doesn't have a central heart or a brain!" Orion yelled back. "Maybe try boiling it?"

"Son of a . . . ," Lucas swore, and jumped off of the struggling creature. Lucas wanted to end its misery, but he didn't know how. He scrambled away, and turned his attention to his little sister.

"Orion!" Ca.s.sandra sobbed against his chest.

"It's all right, Kitty," Orion said soothingly, running his hands over her to make sure nothing was broken or bleeding.

Ca.s.sandra quieted down, and he checked every limb and every joint on her body. Then she reached up to put her fingers in his thick hair and turned her mouth up to his like a shy flower opening for the first time. In a daze, Orion lowered his lips and kissed her.

Lucas's foot connected with the side of Orion's head before Lucas was even aware that he was angry.

"She's just a child!" Lucas growled, jumping on top of Orion's sprawled body and hitting him as hard and as fast as he could.

"I am not!" Ca.s.sandra screamed.

Lucas was vaguely aware that Ca.s.sandra was scratching his face and trying to claw him off of Orion. She kept repeating that she loved him, but it didn't matter much to Lucas. His little sister really was like a kitten. Her claws stung, but they didn't have the strength to injure.

"I know!" Orion hollered. "I shouldn't have-I'm sorry!"

Orion was holding up his arms to shield himself, and Lucas noticed he wasn't even trying to fight back.