Page 70 of Curse the Flame

Okay, then.

“Last time you came into my realm,” I say, “you believed you could take my wife.”

The shadows climb Theseus’s legs. Behind him, darkness gathers into the shape of a chair. High-backed. Wide-armed. Not stone or wood, but created out of the shadows of the Underworld.

Hades remembers the chair. The Other remembers the myth.

Theseus glances over his shoulder, and in a voice so familiar, it sends shivers down my spine, he says, “Really?”

“I was merciful once. I allowed Theseus to leave the Underworld alive. And, yet, you chose to return in another lifetime. As though I would ever let you lay your hands on my blossom.”

At my side, I fist my fingers, tightening my hand. The second I do, the chair strikes the backs of his knees. Whether he does it on purpose or not, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. He drops right onto it.

The shadows tighten immediately, lashing around his ankles and thighs. More coil across his waist and chest. They drag his wrists onto the armrests and bind them there.

His shoulders jerk once, and still he smiles as though he’s enjoying himself.

Tapping into Hades’s power, I strengthen the trap as much as I can. I can’t risk letting him escape, not yet, and because the magic currently thinks he’s Theseus, I manage to trap him if only until chaos sheds his disguise because it’s aiding both me and Hades.

I wait until every binding is in place, courtesy of the magic, and he’s stuck to the chair exactly like Theseus was in that story. Only then do I step closer, moving so that I’m directly in front of him.

“Enough,” I snap, glowering at the smirking would-be hero. “I have you trapped now. Do us all a favor and reveal your true self.”

Behind me, Willow gasps. I know, Blossom. I wasn’t able to share with her that, while he might present as Theseus, that ain’t Theseus. Nah. That’s⁠—

His fractured eyes sparkle. “Already? Aren’t you enjoying playing this little game with me?”

“No,” is my flat response. “There’s no use in pretending any longer. Cassandra reminded me of the glasses,” I say. “The aviators you never took off because you didn’t want anyone to see what was underneath.”

This time, Willow breathes in sharply behind me.

The sound is a pang in my heart. Taking my eyes off of Kronos is stupid, even for half a second, but I have to look at her. I have to make sure she’s okay.

She is. One glimpse and I notice that Willow is staring past me with that little line between her eyebrows. Though she should be, she’s not afraid. No… she’s thinking.

Just in case, I take a few steps in her direction, reaching behind me. Willow moves up to my back. I hook an arm around her waist, pulling her flush against me.

I face Kronos again, not surprised at all that he’s still wearing Theseus’s face. Why wouldn’t he? All I’ve done by making pronouncements is feed the confusion and echoes of chaos in the palace. That’s what he wants.

Which means I must strip him of that power.

“No more stories. Show me who you really are, Kronos.”

It was the eyes. From the moment I saw them, I knew he couldn’t be the real Theseus. Of course, that doesn’t mean he isn’t just Kronos, either, and while I knew that, I don’t think I really understand just how Cassandra’s warning would affect me when proven true until the man in front of me offers one last not-quite-heroic grin.

“Why?” he asks. “When you know this form so much better?”

The body changes. It’s as simple as that. One moment, Theseus is trapped in the chair.

The next, Teddy Thanos sits there.

The curls are gone, replaced by silvering black hair slicked away from his face. The hero’s clothing becomes a charcoal suit. A gold watch circles one wrist beneath the shadows holding him down.

Then the aviators appear. For a couple of heartbeats, black lenses hide his ruined eyes like they once did eighty years ago, but then they vanish as though he wants me to see them.

It’s the same face. Same goddamned expression that used to make me straighten my shoulders and wait for orders.

“Hello, Aiden.”