“Most of the council doesn’t visit,” said James. “Our abilities are muted down here, and—”

Crack.

Wood sizzled above me, and right as I looked up to see what had happened, Ava shoved me off the log and onto the ground, dangerously close to the fire. I yanked my hand away from the flames, and a deafening crash turned the world into dust.

Coughing, I scrambled to my feet and stumbled, my foot connecting with splintered wood in the spot where I’d been sitting seconds before.

“Ava?” I said, choking on the clouds of dirt. “James?”

I squinted. Before the dust cleared enough for me to see more than a few inches in front of my face, a pair of hands grabbed my shoulders and yanked me backward.

“Come on,” said James roughly, tugging me away from the log. “We need to get out of here.”

“But Ava—”

“I’m here,” said Ava a few feet to my left. “Go.”

James pulled me away, and I stumbled over rocks and roots I couldn’t see. Another crack echoed through the forest, and I darted forward, futilely covering my head. The second falling tree missed James and me by inches.

“What’s going on?” My leg ached more than it had since we’d left the palace, and I struggled to keep up. The air cleared the farther we went, and I saw James holding his hand above his head, as if he were trying to ward something off.

“Cronus,” he said, and another tree sizzled. “He found us.”

Chapter Seven

Oasis

Out of all the things I’d imagined could go wrong with this journey through the Underworld, Cronus trying to stop us had never crossed my mind.

I’d tried to work my way around Persephone refusing to come. I’d thought out what to do if we couldn’t find the cave. And even though somewhere deep inside of me, I knew there were no other options, I’d been trying like hell to come up with something better than sacrificing myself.

Never, not once, had I thought Calliope would figure out we were coming and send Cronus to stop us.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Not that there was much we could’ve planned for other than running for the hills, which was exactly what we did. James clung to my hand as we darted through the trees, and Ava trailed behind us. Between the two of them, they seemed to have enough power to keep Cronus a safe distance away.

That didn’t stop the trees from falling though, and more than once James pushed me aside a fraction of a second before I was brained by an oak or a maple infused with the same fog that had sliced open my leg.

I didn’t know how long we ran, but it was long enough for my lungs to feel like they were on fire. The trees gave us some shelter, but every time I looked over my shoulder, Cronus seemed to be inching closer.

We couldn’t run forever, and I was sure James and Ava wouldn’t be able to hold him off long enough for us to reach Persephone, either. And when we did reach Persephone—what help would she be against a Titan?

The forest around us dissolved into a desert, and whatever options we’d had before disappeared. We couldn’t run forever, James and Ava couldn’t fight forever, and it was clear Cronus only wanted one thing.

Me.

Every tree hadn’t almost hit James or Ava; they’d almost hit me. The first one had landed right where I’d been sitting moments before. And before Henry and his brothers had gone after Cronus, the fog had slipped through their defenses and chosen me as its target.

The hot sand was difficult to run across, and the sky shimmered in the sun. I was already exhausted. If my leg gave out and I stumbled, Cronus would kill me. The only advantage I had was doing something he didn’t expect.

I dug my heels into the sand and yanked my hand from James’s grip. He fell onto his knees, thrown off balance by no longer hauling me behind him, and I scrambled away from him as fast as I could.

“Cronus!” I yelled as I straightened on the side of a dune twenty feet away from where James had fallen. Ava was at his side, helping him to his feet, and both of them stared at me like I was a lunatic.

Maybe I was. Maybe I was about to die. But if I didn’t do something, we would all be dead, and it was worth a shot. We couldn’t outrun a Titan.

The fog thickened as it slowed and seemed to join together. Squinting in the sunlight, I thought I could see the outline of a face, but the heat radiating off the sand distorted my vision too much for me to be sure.

“You know who I am,” I said, trying to sound sure of myself instead of scared out of my mind. “And I know who you are, so let’s cut to the chase. You can’t kill me—or any of us.”

That was a bold-faced lie, but at least he seemed to pause to consider it. The same strange rumbling I’d heard in my vision echoed through the desert, and I became keenly aware of the fact that we were in a vast cavern, not underneath an endless sky. If I could have flown, my hand would have eventually touched stone.

“You need us.” My words were so like Calliope’s that I nearly took them back, but that was the only way Cronus wasn’t going to kill us all for fun. Calliope wanted me dead, and he needed Calliope to open the gate. But—

She didn’t know how.

A surge of confidence rushed through me. “Calliope doesn’t know how to open the gate. I do.”

Could Cronus tell the truth from a lie like Henry? The fog inched closer to me until it was only a hairbreadth away. Instead of striking, it surrounded me until the heat of the sun was gone and I could no longer see the blue sky.

I felt light-headed, but I willed my feet to remain planted in the sand. Touching him would undoubtedly mean searing pain, and I couldn’t take any more of it, not when there was a long way to go before we found Persephone. I had to do this. It was my only chance. The council’s only chance.

“If you let me and my friends go, we’ll come to you,” I said, digging deep inside myself to find all the courage I had left. “When we get there, let the others go. They can’t defeat you without Calliope anyway. Once that’s done, I’ll open the gate, and you’ll be free.”

Silence. No rumbling, no laughter, nothing. Fog whispered in my hair, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I only had enough room to breathe.

“If you kill me now, the only other person who can do it is Henry,” I said, my voice cracking. “He’d rather destroy himself than ever free you. I know Calliope wants me dead, but she’s using you. I have what she wants, and since she can’t kill me herself, she’s making you do it for her in exchange for a promise she can’t keep. She has no idea how to open it. She can’t—she doesn’t rule the Underworld. Once I’m dead, she’ll leave you locked in that cage, and the other gods will subdue you again. Let me and my family live, and I swear I’ll release you when we get to the cavern.” I paused and swallowed hard. “I’m your best shot and you know it.”

As the thick fog encased me completely, all I could picture was Henry lying in a broken and bloody heap in that cave as Calliope laughed in her girly squeal. And my mother was undoubtedly a prisoner now, too. I was going to lose everything if this didn’t work.

“I know what it’s like to be alone,” I whispered. “Not for—for as long as you have, but I know what it’s like to lose everything you love. And the way the gods turned on you isn’t fair. You were nothing but nice to them. You gave them everything they could possibly dream of, and in return, they imprisoned you for eternity. It isn’t fair. You have a right to be free.”

It scared me how easily the words slipped out, as if I really believed them. Maybe secretly part of me did. Not that Cronus deserved freedom; but that I understood what he’d gone through, in a way. I’d been so afraid of being alone that I’d given up half of the rest of my life on the chance that I wouldn’t have to be.