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“Agathos?” Dare asked. I turned my flashlight back on, nodding. “Friendly or unfriendly?”
I shrugged my shoulders, pressing my finger to my lips and pointing past the theater to the library we were supposed to be going to.
“Right, avoid them, got it,” Riot said with a curt nod, and I was grateful that they all seemed to understand me despite the communication barriers. “Did you see any lookouts?”
I shook my head before flicking the flashlight back off, not wanting to risk attracting attention, just in case. We all moved forward with even greater care than before, creeping through the expansive site until we got to the reconstructed façade of the library. Riot, Dare, and I turned our lights on, illuminating the two-storey-high façade, eight columns at the front framing the archways that would have once been the entry points to the building. In between each set of columns was an enclave built into the wall—four pedestals, housing four statues.
We were on the threshold of the courtyard space in front of it, none of us moving. None of us able to go any further. There was an insistent sort of pressure, not quite pushing us back, but not letting us in either. More like it was testing us, deciding whether or not we were worthy to enter.
My heart dropped to my stomach. There was no way four daimons were going to be able to enter an agathos sanctuary, and I wasn’t sure I had it in me to let Grace walk in alone and unprotected. Had we come all this way for nothing?
“Go with your gut,” Bullet encouraged her.
“You know, when I don’t know what to do, I remember you telling me to do what scares me,” Grace whispered, staring in awe at the statues. “And what scares me is to come here not as a Prophêtis with some grand task I’m supposed to be carrying out, but to come here as a regular agathos. To humbly ask for help, knowing that I’ve always resented what I am, and they may not forgive me for it.”
It was a conclusion I’d never have reached, possibly no daimon would have. It wasn’t in our nature to humble ourselves in the face of judgment—I certainly didn’t give a fuck if anyone assessed my character and found me wanting. For all the ways the mortal agathos descendants had drifted from their founders’ ways and ideals, apparently their judgmental nature was timeless.
“Sophia,” Grace whispered. “Please, forgive me. Help me. Guide me. I cannot do what needs to be done without you.”
There was no response, but the bubble of pressure pushing us back seemed to soften, and Grace wasted no time pushing forwards, confidently approaching the statue on the farthest left. The four of us immediately rushed to follow, stumbling over the uneven stone ground.
With an alarming look of serenity on her face, she fished out the small pocket knife she was carrying, slicing the pad of her thumb and holding it out to drip blood over the base of the statue where the name ‘Sophia’ was engraved in Ancient Greek.
Flashes of gold immediately shot up the statue, lighting up the library façade like some kind of pyrotechnic show. There was no way that the agathos in the theater wouldn’t see it, though hopefully, that shield of judgment would keep them out. The cool white marble of Sophia’s statue transformed in front of our eyes. The missing nose regrew, the chipped marble smoothing into an elegant face. The arm that had been lost somewhere to time seemed to shoot out of the shoulder like a rapidly growing vine, the grinding sound of stone against stone filling the air, all while Grace stared up in a state of complete, unnatural calm.
The white stone eyes shone gold—there was no iris, no pupil, just the kind of almost robotic glow that seemed like it would precede laser beams shooting directly at us. And then a soft, feminine voice spoke, though the mouth of the monument didn’t move.
“Welcome, Grace the Agathodaimon.”
Chapter 17
Iblinkedupatthe talking statue above me, feeling as though I was coming out of a trance, finally recognizing the faint throb in my thumb. I’d been aware of what I was doing all along, but felt separate from it somehow, as though I was watching my actions from afar.
It was a deeply unsettling sensation.
“What did you call her, goddess?” Dare asked, hastily tacking on the term of respect.
“Agathodaimon,” Sophia replied, her voice a strange combination of booming and serene, coming from the center of her chest somehow. “Over the centuries, agathodaimon became known as agathos, andkakodaimonbecame known as daimon. Perhaps, had the language not changed, our kinds would not have grown so very far apart. Perhaps we would have remembered that we are sides of the same coin, equally as essential as one another. We are nothing without balance.”
I didn’t necessarily think she was wrong, but it hardly seemed like the most pressing issue right at that second. We were freezing to death. What we needed was sunshine, not philosophical quandaries.
“I can see you wondering what the relevance of this is, but it is all connected. The imbalance has been left too long. Mortals think they are gods. Gods think they are untouchable. Greed begets greed, hearts fill with hatred. This world is a sad, lonely place. Only once the balance is corrected, when the ground is even enough for everyone to find their footing, can we grow beyond this and become who we are meant to be.”
“Right,” Riot drawled, his flat, unimpressed tone making me startle. “But in the meantime, what do we do about the fact that we’re rapidly freezing to death? That soon there will be nothing to eat, even if the temperature doesn’t drop any lower?”
“Unless killing off humanityisthe solution,” Bullet added warily.
“The darkness is a symptom of the imbalance, not the solution. The hatred between Nyx and Gaia was too extreme, creating one kind of imbalance, but they are unified in their spite, and it has created another. Two beings as powerful as they are must keep each other in check. United, they’re a danger to us all.”
“So we want them to hate each other, but not all the way hate each other?” Dare muttered under his breath.
“Balance,” Sophia replied simply.
Right. Balance.
The golden glow of Sophia’s eyes shifted somehow, casting light towards Bullet. It sent a shiver of unease down my spine, and I decided I didn’t want her looking at him. “For the Moros who bring doom, there are the Elpis who bring hope. For the violent death of the Keres is the peaceful death of Thanatos. For the sex and affection of the Philotes, there is the quarrel and strife of the Neikea. For the luck and good fortune of the Eutychia, there is the retribution of Nemesis.”
“What are you saying?” I asked sharply, not liking where this conversation was leading at all.
