I wanted to stay. He needed me to stay, but I couldn’t live like this anymore. He had to understand—he’d wanted to fade when Persephone had left him, and he’d only stayed after the eleventh girl had died because the council had asked him for one more try. But he wasn’t asking me. He’d told me to go, and so I would.

In the middle of the night, I heard another set of footsteps, and this time there was no knock before the door opened and closed. I pushed myself up on my elbows and squinted through the darkness. “Henry?” I said, stunned. He’d come back—half a day after he said he would, but I wasn’t going to be picky.

He removed his shoes and set them in his closet. “I am sorry for disturbing you. Go back to sleep.”

I couldn’t very well go back to sleep when I hadn’t been sleeping in the first place, but I bit my tongue and watched, certain he’d leave for another bedroom once he was done. He changed into silk pajama pants, and as he walked around the bed to his side, my heart hammered. He was going to sleep in here after all.

“Is it too warm?” he said as he settled in. “You are not underneath the sheets.” He seemed to be keeping as much distance between us as possible in the massive bed. Whether it was because he didn’t want to be near me or because he wanted to give me space, I didn’t know.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” I said. “Is everything with the council okay?”

“As good as things can be at this stage. We have all decided what our roles will be, and we have set a timetable from now until the winter solstice.”

It was still nearly two months away, but with all of the preparation they had to do, what if it wasn’t enough time? How long did it take to build a trap that would hold a Titan? “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I thought you were leaving.”

“If there’s something I can do around here, then I don’t have to go right away.”

“There is something.” He turned on his side facing away from me. “Stay out of trouble, let me know if anything suspicious happens and do not visit Calliope. Other than that, if there is anything specific, I will be sure to let you know.”

I sank down on the bed until my head touched the pillow. I didn’t bother getting under the blankets. “All right,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. Was that all I was to him now, a burden to be closely watched so I didn’t get myself into more trouble? “Then it’ll make no difference to you if I leave sooner rather than later.”

He was silent. The minutes ticked by, and I stared into the darkness, searching for something to say to him. Anything that would help him understand I wanted to stay, but not like this. Not when he didn’t want me here.

“James and I were never together,” I said quietly. “Whatever you think happened in Greece—it didn’t. We went as friends, and that’s all we were. I waited for you to show up. I looked for you everywhere we went, because I was so sure you’d surprise me, and when you didn’t, it hurt. It was like you didn’t want to see me at all.”

I reached for his hand, but at the last second, I pulled back. I couldn’t handle his physical rejection on top of everything else right now.

“I’m not leaving you for him. I’m not leaving you for anybody, and I never would have gone looking for something better. You are my something better, and I wish—I wish I was yours, too.”

Resounding silence filled the room. My heart raced as I waited for him to say something, anything in return, but when he didn’t so much as look at me, disappointment crushed any hope I had left. I turned away from him and buried my face in my pillow, struggling to convince myself that he was tired and had fallen asleep before I’d said a word. I’d waited too long to start, and I couldn’t blame him for that. I would have to make an effort to repeat it in the morning, and if that failed, then at least I would leave knowing I had done everything I could.

“Good night,” I whispered and closed my eyes, certain sleep wouldn’t come anytime soon. Even if it did, all of my dreams would be nightmares filled with Calliope and the moment Persephone had kissed Henry, and nothing was worth reliving that. I’d wait until I was so exhausted that I wouldn’t dream at all.

Without the blankets, the room was cold, and I shivered. The mattress shifted underneath me, and Henry wrapped his arm around me and pressed his chest against my back. He was warm, and his hand searched until he found mine.

“Please don’t leave,” he said, and his lips brushed my neck. I trembled again, but this time for an entirely different reason.

For the rest of the night, neither of us said another word.

* * *

I stayed.

As the weeks passed, we didn’t talk about anything I’d said to Henry or anything he’d said to me. Sometimes he didn’t come back at night, but those were the days when he would reappear exhausted the next morning, and I let myself assume that he was working. We acted friendly toward one another during the few minutes a day we saw each other, but that was all we were. At night, I waited for him before I went to bed, and when he crawled in, he embraced me without a word. He never kissed me and he never apologized, but he wanted me to stay, and that was enough for now.

I made myself scarce as the others prepared for war. I explored the palace, finding each room more or less exactly where it had been in Eden, which made things both easy and dull. One day I attempted to figure out how many rooms there were, but after losing count twice, I stopped.

Sometimes James or Ava found me, and we would spend the day together, talking about nothing in particular and pretending they didn’t look terrible. The upcoming battle was already taking its toll on everyone, but whenever I brought it up, they assured me that they’d been through worse.

I avoided Persephone like the plague, and I didn’t bother to hide it. Whenever she entered a room, I walked out, usually with a ready-made excuse. On the few occasions I was forced to be near her without escape, I kept my head down and stayed quiet, and she never said a word to me. If she felt guilty—or if she thought she’d done the right thing—I didn’t want to hear about it.

Despite how useless I felt, I did get some satisfaction in knowing that at least I wasn’t burdening anyone. I read, I explored, and I kept my word to Henry. I also spent countless hours struggling to harness my ability. Twice I managed flashes, but it was never in the right place. When I wanted to go to Cronus’s cavern, I wound up at Persephone’s cottage, where Adonis tended to the flowers as he waited for her to return. And when I wanted to see what was going on in the meeting, I wound up in the room full of windows again, the one where Henry had kissed Persephone. Or Persephone had kissed Henry. It didn’t matter.

Other than that, I had no success. Whatever step I was missing, I couldn’t figure it out, and despite my mother’s insistence that I would get it eventually, I felt like a failure. No wonder the others didn’t want me helping out in the battle. I wouldn’t want me to help, either.

The closer we got to the winter solstice, the more anxious I became. Whether or not anyone was saying it aloud, all of these preparations were my fault. I’d put Henry in a position where he’d been forced to open the gate. If anything happened to them, it would be on me, and I couldn’t bear that guilt.

Ingrid was the only other thing Henry and I fought about. He didn’t want me to go anywhere near Cronus’s prison, and I insisted on keeping my promise to see her. Finally we compromised, and Henry brought Ingrid to the palace for an afternoon the week before the solstice.

While the others were in the midst of preparing, Ingrid and I wandered through the jeweled gardens, which extended to the edge of a black river that ran through the stone walls on either end of the monstrous cavern. The River Styx.