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“And I told him that, several times, but he wouldn’t listen to me,” Hades replied, looking away. “No matter how much I feel for you both, I cannot release him. He made a vow, one that binds me, too.”
“It wasn’t his vow to make. He’s not fit to be your successor.” Helen separated herself from Lucas and raised her voice. “I call the Eumenides to bear witness to my claim. Lucas is not fit to rule the dead.”
“Clever girl,” Hades said under his breath in a musing tone, like Helen’s tactic hadn’t occurred to him.
As the three girls who used to be the Furies came gliding out of the darkness behind the throne, Hades smiled at Helen almost like he was proud of her. The three ex-Furies, now known as the Eumenides or the Kindly Ones, were like supernatural defense lawyers for the Underworld, and they owed Helen big.
The Eumenides arranged themselves to the right of Lucas’s throne while Hades stood to the left. The littlest one smiled briefly at Helen, and Helen smiled back, resisting the urge to wave at her like a pal.
The littlest one stilled her face completely and turned her eyes away. The Eumenides might owe Helen their freedom from the suffering they endured as the Furies, but Helen could see now that they would do what was right, no matter what Helen needed.
“Let the dead enter and judge,” the Eumenides said as one.
There were ghostly sighs on the air as invisible presences pressed up against Helen and Lucas, tipping them this way and that as they passed. In moments, the hall filled with hundreds, then thousands, then billions of dead souls stacked up to the impenetrable dark of the ceiling and tucked into the farthest corner.
“Let the qualities of the candidate be known,” the leader of the Eumenides said, striding out and waving a pale arm in Lucas’s direction. “First and foremost, he is intelligent. Proof of this—he is the only supplicant to ever offer the lord of the dead the one prize he seeks by offering himself as Hades’ replacement. In terms of intelligence, the candidate is the best we’ve ever seen.”
Helen bit her lip and frowned. Of course, Lucas was the smartest person Helen had ever met. Smart enough to handle being the lord of a confusing place like the Underworld.
“He commands the shadows and can make himself invisible at will. He can walk among the living unseen, like Hades does,” said the one Helen always thought of as the whiny one. Again, Helen had no rebuttal.
The air crackled quietly, like the sound of burning leaves, as the dead conferred.
“He is a Falsefinder and can judge hearts, as the lord of the dead must,” said the littlest of the Eumenides, almost like she was sorry to add her voice to the case against Lucas. “And he is immortal.”
“No he isn’t,” Helen objected immediately.
“Fact. He cannot fall ill, age, be killed by any of the natural elements, or by any weapon,” the leader reminded the jury of the dead, like a moderator at a debate. “He carries the light of an immortal in him. The dead can see it.”
Helen heard Lucas gasp and felt him turn to her, about to ask a million questions. She held out a hand to stop Luc
as from saying anything and continued.
“I understand. And you’re right. He cannot be killed by an outside source,” Helen replied with a nod. “But Lucas can still die. Proof of that was given when Hecate let him into the ring of fire to fight Matt. He couldn’t have fought Matt if he was an immortal.”
“Helen speaks the truth,” Hades said, impressing Helen with his fairness even though she knew that justice was one of his largest concerns. “Hecate would never allow an immortal to fight a mortal to the death. There must be something that can kill Lucas.”
The Eumenides spoke quietly among themselves. Finally, the whiny one raised her voice. “If this is a trick, and he can only be killed by something that is impossible, like a blade made out of a make-believe metal that doesn’t exist, then we will consider him immortal.”
“We demand to know what it is that can kill him,” said the leader.
“His own will,” Helen said. “If he doesn’t want to live anymore, he’ll die. It’s his choice. I’d never take that away from him.” Helen turned to Lucas to make sure he was okay with this, but the look on his face was unreadable. She turned back to the throngs of the dead and continued. “If he wants to die, he will, and if you make him lord of the dead what’s to say that someday he won’t get sick of it all and just let himself die, leaving you with no one to lead?”
The dead moved around them in agitation, making the air boil. Helen saw the littlest Eumenides tilt her head, like she was listening to a voice in her ear.
“The dead judge him to be too honorable to break his word, now or ever,” she said. “Hades can see that his heart has the commitment they require, and they trust that the candidate will not let himself die and leave them to Chaos.”
“But how can you be sure? He doesn’t want this,” Helen pleaded.
“Neither did Hades. But the candidate chose this, which is more than Hades did,” said the leader of the Eumenides. She looked at Helen apologetically for a moment, and then continued stoically. “The candidate was not coerced or bribed in any way. Hades tried his best to dissuade him to go back to the light, but he wouldn’t. He willingly and knowingly chose to be the Hand of Darkness. Does the candidate deny this?”
“No,” Lucas said, dropping his head. “I don’t deny it.”
Helen knew Lucas would not say he was misled, even though he had been, because he was too honorable to shirk his responsibility. Helen was reminded of the time Lucas had caught her drifting up to the edge of space and pulled her back to Earth. They’d resolved their horrible fight on her widow’s walk, and she’d asked him if Castor had been the one to make him push her away, but Lucas wouldn’t put the blame on his father. He’d only say that it had been his choice.
She loved him all the more for his sense of responsibility. Which only strengthened her resolve to say the worst about him—whether she believed it or not. She just hoped her hunch about what Persephone had said on Halloween was correct.
“He is intelligent, and loyal, and he has a strong sense of justice. He has all of Hades’ talents. But he’s missing the most important quality,” Helen said in a loud voice so every last soul could hear her. “Orion and I were the ones who passed the test of the Furies. We freed them with compassion, and the dead found us worthy to rule. Lucas has never passed that kind of test.”
