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Caves? Helen wondered. She was a little more relieved than she should have been that he had such a good excuse, but rather than stop and examine why, she decided to stick to the most important things first. Like how Orion had found her.
How’d you get my #? Helen wrote while Claire pushed her down into her usual seat and started unpacking Helen’s lunch for her.
Daphne.
What! When? Helen’s thumbs were pressing down so hard she had to remind herself to ease up before she snapped her phone in half.
Uh . . . 5 minutes ago? Got 2 go.
Did you TALK to her?
Helen waited, staring at the screen with her mouth hanging open, but when she didn’t get an immediate response she knew the conversation was over.
“So. Orion, huh?” Claire said through pursed lips. “You didn’t tell me you’d gotten his name.”
“Well, you never asked about him again.”
“Sorry,” Claire said, knowing she messed that one up. “I was preoccupied—dodging Cassandra and Jason, looking for that scroll. So what happened?”
“We talked.” Helen took a distracted bite out of the sandwich that Claire had put in her hand.
She had a dozen questions to ask Orion, but she knew that she would have to wait until that night to get any answers. The first question she was going to ask him was why Daphne would take his calls and not hers. Orion had said that he’d known Daphne his whole life. Maybe the two of them were really close. Closer than Daphne was to her own daughter? Helen had no idea how she felt about that.
“Are you going to tell me about this Orion guy or am I just supposed to sit here and watch you chew?” Claire asked with raised eyebrows. “And why are you so grouchy?”
“I’m not grouchy!”
“Then why are you scowling?”
“I just don’t know what to think about all this!”
“All what?” Claire nearly shouted with frustration.
Again, Helen was confronted with the fact that there was a lot that she and Claire didn’t share with each other anymore.
Speaking as quickly and as quietly as she could so she could get the whole story in before the end of lunch, Helen told Claire all about how he had tried to pull her out of quicksand the first time. Then she described the gold branch on Orion’s arm, the fact that twice now he’d seemed to be fending off some kind of attack from hellish monsters when she had never seen anything like that down there, and how he had protected her during one of those attacks.
“I don’t want you to tell Jason about this just yet, okay? Because apart from texting just now, I’ve only spoken to Orion once, so I don’t know what to think about him. He said Daphne sent him down there to help me,” Helen said with a confused shake of her head. “And honestly, Gig, I don’t know what she
’s up to. I feel like she’s always scheming.”
“That doesn’t mean Orion is. You don’t have your powers in the Underworld, right?” Claire asked with shrewd eyes. “And he’s a good fighter?”
“He’s an amazing fighter, and from what I’ve seen, he doesn’t need extra powers to take care of himself. He killed the thing that was on top of me with his bare hands, practically.”
“Then maybe Daphne’s only scheme is to try to keep you alive. The first time you two met, he did save you,” Claire said with an indulgent smile.
Helen wanted to argue but, as always, Claire had a really good point. Daphne wanted to get rid of the Furies and, according to Cassandra, Helen was the only one who could do it. On top of that, Helen was Daphne’s daughter and her only heir. But even so, Helen doubted that Daphne was just trying to protect her.
After a few moments of biting her lip, trying to find a hole in Claire’s argument, Helen had to admit to herself that the only reason she disagreed was because Daphne had abandoned her as a baby. She simply didn’t trust her. Maybe she was being too harsh. Maybe this time Daphne was only trying to help.
“Okay, you’re right . . . I have major issues about Beth or Daphne or whatever she’s calling herself this decade. But I wouldn’t be so suspicious if she’d just answer the damn phone when I called once in a while,” Helen said with exasperation. “I don’t expect her to tell me everything she’s doing, but it would nice to know what country she’s in, at least.”
“Have you ever considered that maybe it’s safer for you if you don’t know where she is or what she’s doing?” Claire asked gently. Helen opened her mouth to argue and shut it again, knowing she wouldn’t win that point, either. But she still wished she knew where the hell Daphne was.
Daphne held her breath and stayed very, very still. She’d managed to convince her lungs that they only needed a fraction of the air they were used to, but there wasn’t much she could do about her hammering heart. The man she had taken a blood oath to kill was in the next room. She had to find a way to calm herself, or all her sacrifice would be in vain.
From her hiding place in his bedroom she could hear him in the adjoining study. He was at his desk, writing the legion of letters that he used to direct his cult, the Hundred Cousins. She could almost picture his once-chiseled face, his faded blond hair, and her teeth tingled with the thought of tearing him apart. After so many years, Daphne was just yards away from Tantalus, the Head of the House of Thebes and the murderer of her beloved husband, Ajax.
