Page 15 of Can you take it?

All the chambers and bolts clicked into place as I remembered things Calypso had told me. “Cal’s mother,” I said. “She was a favorite.”

The room went silent as I waited for confirmation from Kaohs. Before I even looked at him, I tensed, feeling the waves of absolute rage that poured off him. What had I done? How had I offended him this time? I glanced at the faces of the others, gauging their reactions. I had no powers, so fighting Kaohs, a god of all things, was pretty much a joke. I’d already felt Eletha’s powers and I most definitely felt Anna’s powers, hers being the stronger of the two. When both girls began to fidget nervously, eyeing each other, I feared I had truly fucked things up this time. The wildest part was if he killed me now—or destroyed my soul or whatever it was—I wouldn’t even know if I’d completed my task for Cal or not. I tracked Anna’s gaze, her big blue eyes locking with mine, and I knew without a doubt she was Cal’s sister. How had I missed that?

“You have the same eyes,” I rasped. “Yours are a little less rounded at the corners. But the blue…it’s the same shade of deep blue as hers.”

Her eyes flickered with emotion before she quickly looked away, as though she were attempting to ignore my statement entirely.

After a few minutes, Kaohs broke his irritated silence. “Yes.

Calypso’s mother was a favorite—she was the favorite.”

I struggled to remember what Zef had told us about Cal’s mom. Something about how he had met her in Tartarus at a meeting or something, and they fell in love and he helped her escape, taking her to the human realm to hide her from Kaohs. He had sounded like a real hero for saving her. What had she said about the deal her mother had made with Kaohs? The one that made sure she would go to the Elysian Fields with Adrianna?

My mother ended up making her own deal with the god of the dead. In exchange for her freedom, which included her being granted access to the Elysian Fields, far, far away from him when she died, she would leave her soul with him. Zef took her to the human realm, where Kaohs cannot walk, and hid her and himself, believing he’d outsmarted everyone and would get to live a happy, quiet life with us until he was called to ascend.

I startled, leaping up from my chair. My hand clutched at my chest. Everyone looked at me in surprise. Had I remembered her saying that or had that been her…actually saying that? Now wasn’t the time to freak out about it. Not when I had an angry god right in front of me. But…I… Those words had been from Calypso. I remembered her telling me those exact words except—except—I felt her telling me now. Through the tie.

“Cal? Cal? Can you hear me? Can you feel me?” I screamed.

Was that even possible with me tied to Anna’s magic and Cal magicless other than my SunTamer powers?

Walter startled. “What’s going on? You all right? What is it?” “I-I heard her. I heard Cal…or I guess, I felt her. I know I did. Just now.” I struggled to catch my breath.

He grabbed my shoulder in an attempt to straighten me up as he eyed Kaohs warily. “I thought the Fates severed the tie?” he whispered.

“We—no. We never spoke through the tie really.” Disappointment weighed down my stomach before it bottomed out and I was filled with grievous hope again. “But I never saw the Fates sever the tie between us, at least not before I died.” I could hear how filled with hope my own voice sounded.

Walter and everyone else had the courtesy to look away when my eyes began to water. I felt her—like she was talking just to me right now. “You’re exhausted. You haven’t slept since you got here. Just hang in there a little bit longer and I’ll find you a room, okay?” Walter said.

I nodded at him, feeling a bit like a child being told greebles didn’t exist. “Forgive my outburst. I’m sorry,” I said to Kaohs as I returned to my seat.

Kaohs eyed me apprehensively, waiting to see if I would interrupt him again.

Cal? I said inside my head. I listened so intently, I heard my own heart beating but nothing else.

“As I was saying, Cede was my favorite. My life.” He clenched his angular jaw tightly sending little pulses across it. He stood abruptly and walked to the other side of the small room, continuing to run his hands through his hair.

Walter and I locked eyes again in a silent question. I didn’t know Kaohs at all, but it was playing with my head to see the feared god of Tartarus so torn up that he couldn’t even finish his story. It was possible that he was either not as bad as I had heard and was capable of feeling far more emotion than I could have ever guessed, or he was a deranged, malicious god whose every vengeful action was fueled by impulsive emotions—right now, feeling the crackle of magic in the room, I guessed the latter.

Anna took over for her father. “Zef, the king of the gods, the Titan Artemi, is my and Caly’s father only as far as sperm goes.” She cleared her throat as if the words she spoken were jagged shards of glass.

At her words, Eletha snorted, causing Walter to smile before he fought it away.

Suns, Anna reminded me of Cal…but in a softer, feminine shell. Her attitude toward her father caught me off guard. I’m not sure why though. Cal had had the same hatred of Zef until she got to know him in Moirai. Immediately I perked up. “You haven’t met Zef yet to know, but he’s not a bad guy. He explained—why he left you guys, everything. You’ll see for yourself.” I was out of my chair and sitting next to her on the bed in a second. It hadn’t happened the way I’d expected, but I’d found her. I struggled for a second to undo the clasp of the necklace, but it gave way this time, and I ran my thumb across the Feuhn Kai Greeyth engraving for the last time. “Here. This belongs to you. Your father can’t wait for you to join him in Moirai.” I smiled.

“He is not her father!” Kaohs boomed, making the walls rattle. “I am, and I’ll be the Fates’ spit valve before I let him take another soul from me!”

My palm tightened around the pendant before yanking it back and rising from the bed.

Anna made her body limp and dramatically flung herself back on the bed, hitting the mattress with both fists. “Aagh! Timing, Dad! Timing! I almost had it!”

“I don’t care,” he snarled as he raised his hands in the air, palms angled at the cabinet filled with candles. “Perhaps you should go to Moirai just to kill the bastard, Anna!” he roared.

Boy, would he like Cal when he met her.

The taker of souls let out another low growl, this time sending wide arcs of white-blue flames onto the cabinet. In four seconds, the entire cabinet and the corner of the wall had been incinerated, leaving a black and smoky cabinet-sized hole into the room next to us. A haggard-looking man stood with a large round of cheese and an even larger green bottle held up to his lips. He paused, wide-eyed, when he realized the entire corner of his room was missing and we were all staring at him. Eletha gasped. “Gods damn you, you moldy piece of shit! Get away from my cheese, Bexley, you lifeless drunk, or I’ll send you to the tiers again!”

The crusty-looking man dropped the wheel of cheese and staggered drunkenly out the door of that room, slurring curses at Eletha between stumbles.