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sparkling blue-green water harbored teeming coral reefs. Beyond the watery expanse, impossibly steep and verdant islands jutted up out of the dazzling aqua water like the elbows of giants.
Helen walked the circumference of the wraparound deck and saw that their little hut was raised up on stilts in the middle of the water of the shallow cove. She found Lucas—out for a dawn swim.
Helen sat down on the deck next to a skeptical sea turtle and watched Lucas goof off with a lemon shark. She knew animals weren’t pets here, because she had made it so.
The sea turtle wasn’t about to risk getting in the water with anything that had as many teeth as a lemon shark. Helen didn’t blame her. Respect for the power of other animals was something that Helen wasn’t about to monkey with, not even in paradise. Why have a shark at all if it wasn’t dangerous? Where was the thrill in that?
Lucas seemed to be aware of the fact that the lemon shark was not a toy, and he met it in the water with all the respect that creature deserved. But they darted under the waves almost like they were having a game of tag.
It reminded Helen of how Lucas moved around the ring when he and Hector were sparring. She decided that was what Lucas was doing. He was honing his reflexes and bettering his fight skills with a creature that he’d never had the opportunity to spar with before. Maybe the lemon shark was as well.
Lucas noticed Helen watching him. He floated under the water, angling himself toward her, his arms spread out like wings. Helen’s tummy hit the floor and she smiled at him, amazed that he could still do that to her after everything they’d been through. Lifetimes that she could remember—some that lasted only a few brief years, and others that lasted decades—and he still made her all tingly like a girl who had never been kissed.
He pulled himself out of the water and sat next to her, dripping wet and soaking in the newly dawning sunshine.
“I’ve always wanted to do that—stay under and not need a breath,” he said, so excited his voice was high and boyish. “Hector and Jason may have envied me when I flew, but I died a little when they jumped in the water together and disappeared for hours. I couldn’t follow them.”
Helen heard a sad note creep into his tone, and she realized that he must have always been slightly isolated from his cousins. He couldn’t take them flying with him, and they couldn’t take him under the water with them.
Helen knew it wasn’t that Lucas envied Hector and Jason for what they could do. He envied that they could share their talents with each other, and he couldn’t share his with anyone—until Helen came along.
Lucas looked out at the gently folding waves, thinking. “Am I like this from now on?” he asked. “Will I be able to breathe underwater back on Earth?”
“Yes,” Helen replied quietly. “In Hades, he makes it so no one has any special powers—except him, of course. That way he doesn’t grant talents to individuals who weren’t born with them. Hades is very smart. He avoids the whole question of giving too much power by suspending all powers when you are with him.”
“You didn’t do that,” Lucas said quietly.
“I couldn’t. I needed to fix you. And now I just want to please you,” Helen admitted. “I want you to enjoy all that I have to give you. But in order to make it possible for you to breathe underwater here, I had to change your body permanently. That’s why I don’t know how many Scions I should bring here. I want everyone to see this, but what if I . . .”
“Inadvertently make an army of Scions who have a multitude of talents that not even the Olympians have?” Lucas finished for her. “It is a big thing to consider.”
“Unlimited power.”
Lucas thought some more. “Why didn’t Zeus do this? Give himself and all the Olympians as many different talents he could think of?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think he’s into sharing power,” Helen guessed. “It could also be because, like Hades, he decided to set certain rules for his world that prohibit him from giving out powers. But I don’t know what the deal is with Olympus. I’ve never been there.”
“I hear there’s a lot of feasting,” Lucas said jokingly. “Ambrosia, nectar of the gods, nymphs. Lots of nymphs.”
“Keep ’em fed and happy so they don’t revolt,” Helen said with a nod and a grin. They chuckled with each other, their eyes locking. Lucas took her hand and looked away.
His eyes scanned the horizon, sweeping over the dazzling view like he was trying to memorize it. He turned back to her and grew serious. “How’s the family?”
“Anxious. We should go back,” she replied reluctantly. “Time runs here just like it does on Earth, and they’re waiting for me to come back with you.”
Although Helen would have loved to spend eternity in this hut over the water with Lucas, she had more than one reason to return to Earth. She had to get back to Orion, her Shield, so the Fates couldn’t see her while she tried to come up with a way to stop a war with the gods. She knew she didn’t have much time. Now that she’d created her own world, Zeus would be gunning for her, and she couldn’t even start to plan without making sure that the Fates couldn’t see her.
She itched to tell Lucas about all this, but she knew she couldn’t. Even in her Everyland the Fates could still see her, and if the Fates thought she was trying to dodge them, they’d find a way to keep her from Orion. They might already know what Helen was planning, whether she said it out loud or not, but she figured saying it would definitely jinx it. She had to wait until she was with Orion again to tell all of them what she was planning.
“I can feel you fidgeting,” Lucas said with an indulgent smile. “But before we go, may I ask a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Don’t bring anyone else here, to this cove, okay? Let this place be ours.”
“Forever and ever,” she promised.
THIRTEEN
