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I picked up my screaming body and leaned over the desk. “None of your business.”
Drakos practically beamed. “Commander. Proficient Antole. Please escort Miss Galanis back to the reflection room.”
I was screaming before he finished the sentence.
***
FOUR DAYS LATER, Itold him everything he wanted to hear.
“Why did you stop attending school after the age of ten?”
Madame Remis’s power stole the fog, the delusions, and the headache, but it didn’t touch the pain. That was mine to keep until I answered all of their questions.
“When... When...” I licked cracked lips and tried again. Drakos, Vasili, and Remis made no move to rush me. It was just the four of us once again. “When I was ten, my town was attacked...”
“Attacked by what?” Drakos pressed.
Tears cut tracks down my blood-caked cheeks. So much for my strength and fire. In the end, it only took one week.
“A lamia.”
Drakos and Remis shared a look. Vasili visibly stiffened. I knew the question on their minds before Drakos voiced it. “How did you survive?”
“I didn’t,” I croaked. “When the child devourer came to Port Delphin, snatching children from their beds, she spared one child. Took that child away with her and disappeared.” I met their eyes. “Me.”
“Impossible.”
“Unheard of.”
“More lies,” Vasili barked. “A week in the room has taught her nothing. Enough with these games, turn her over to me. She will learn the consequences of insubordination.”
I shuddered and pain racked my body. Was he claiming the last week was not a consequence? What more could they do to me?
“I’m not lying! I remember that night like it happened moments ago. Mama was telling me the story of Olympia while the battle raged outside. That’s what they ordered mothers to do. Stay inside and protect your children while the rest fought.” My eyes glazed—memories transporting me to that night. “I was just lying there like a little fool, clutching my doll when she burst in and about threw Mama through the wall.
“She took me just like that. Didn’t pause. Didn’t threaten. One moment I was in bed, the next I was screaming through her claws while she tore out of town, escaping to the mount—”
Vasili seized my chair arms, wrangling me around to face him. My eyes widened in his bulging, red-faced reflection. “Lamias do not leave a single child alive! They are descendants of the very first lamia. A queen who caught the eye of Zeus. Hera discovered their affair and killed the children of their union. Not satisfied with that terrible punishment, she turned the queen into a beast and cursed her to never sleep, so she’d spend every tortured waking moment mourning her loss.
“This drove her insane and she became the most loathsome, abhorrent monster to ever spawn!” Spittle dotted my cheek. “Never in the history of Olympia has a lamia spared a child. I will hear no more of your lies, girl. Tell us the truth, and do not dare to make me ask again.”
I was proud of myself. I held his gaze for a full beat before turning away. “You can yell and threaten me all you like, but my answer will not change. You wanted my story, here it is. Will you listen or not?”
A firm hand grasped Vasili’s shoulder. Remis moved him to the side and stood between us for good measure. “Explain. We’re listening.”
I took a deep breath, piecing together the remains of my resolve. I couldn’t hide anymore... because I couldn’t go back in that room. “Olympians don’t know as much about lamias as they think. We see one, we kill it immediately to protect the children. There’s no stopping to chat.
“Lamias aren’t just descendants of that first mad queen. All of them, each and every one, were human. They were mothers.” Drakos’s face changed, but he didn’t interrupt. “Like typhons sire more sons from pieces of their own body. Lamias use their devastation to birth their daughters—born from the loss of their children.”
“Why is this relevant?” Drakos asked.
“Because they remember,” I cried. “They remember their kids and how they came to be. They know they once lived a normal life and were then turned into a beast compelled to make all mothers suffer the way they suffer. Lamiasdon’tkill every child they see. Do not misunderstand me. They kill most of them, but once in a while, they come across a babe that looks so much like the one they lost. They take them believing they’ve been given a second chance.”
Remis shook her head. “If lamias were kidnapping children, we would know. Their parents would stop at nothing to get them back.”
“Of course,” I rasped, voice dull. “That’s why they slaughter everyone in the house. I told you the first thing she did was put my mother through a wall. And since lamias... eat... their victims, no one was looking for my body. No one was coming after us.”
Remis leveled me with a long, assessing look. “Can this be true, Headmaster?”
