I nod.
“Okay, so why do you need a planning session?” He gestures to the codex laying open on the coffee table, translations now scribbled in the margins. “The instructions are right there.”
Poppy fixes me with a glare. “Because the resurrection is the easy part. We’ll have to get the soul out of Tartarus first.”
I know she’s saying this as a jab—look at this impossible situation Elle thinks she’s dragging us into—but she’s talking about it in the future tense, so actually I see this as a win.
“Tartarus?” Ezra asks, eyes wide. “Like Greek hell?”
“Exactly,” CJ says.
“Notexactly,” I say.
“Oh, sorry, you’re right,” they deadpan. “It’s much worse.”
I grab a trash bag and start shoving it full of greasy napkins and discarded candy wrappers. “Technically, we don’t know that. All we know about Tartarus are secondhand accounts.”
“That doesn’t help your case, Elle,” Poppy mutters.
“Well, okay, I hear your point. But why don’t we just listen to what intel Rook has first.” I wave a browning apple core in his direction.
CJ opens their mouth, ready to argue, but I cut them off with a jab of the apple.
“Ah! Rook has the floor right now.”
He blinks in surprise. “I suppose…I know what cell she’s in.”
“See?” I drop the apple into the bag. “Now we know she’s in a cell.”
“Tartarus is a pit full of bone cells and hellhounds,” CJ argues.
Tolliver frowns, tapping against the table. “It’d be like breaking into a prison, but the prison is on fire and also hell.”
I try to sweep a pizza box full of cans into the trash, but they rattle off in every direction. “Plenty of people have gotten into Tartarus.”
CJ scowls. “Not on purpose. And no one’s ever escaped.”
“That we know of.” I tie off the bag with a flourish and toss it toward the kitchen, where it misses the can entirely.
“And screw escaping,” CJ presses. “How would we even get in?”
I shrug. “We know exactly how to get in. Either by being a syndicate member…or a prisoner.”
“No,” CJ and Tolliver say at the same time.
I start to pace, the idea taking shape. “The syndicates are already mad at me. I know too much. I won’t do what they want. And what do they do to people who don’t do their bidding? They put them in Tartarus.”
“After they kill them,” Tolliver adds flatly.
I wave that off. “Minor detail.”
CJ starts ticking things off on their fingers. “No schematics, no inside man, no timetables, no disguises—”
“Once I’m inside, I can get all the intel we need.”
“And how will you get it to us?” they snap.
I throw up both hands. “We can figure all that out later, but you have to admit the idea has merit.”
