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I groggily peered across my bedroom and spied him leaning against my door frame. “Is Charon mad at me?”
“No.” Aristide languidly twirled his white cane. “Rather, I believe he has barely been able to contain himself in his joy that you’re back.”
“Ah.” I rubbed my eyes, then reluctantly pushed back the thick duvet spread across my enormous bed. “Okay.”
“Didn’t you get enough sleep?” Ker asked. “I mean, I know it was a late night…”
I staggered over to one of the giant windows and flicked a shade back, filling the room with bright sunlight and instantly blinding myself. “We were up until after two in the morning,” I said. “Plus, I didn’t go to bed immediately after we finished. I called my parents—we’d told them about the tracker, but Mom wanted the details and said I had to call, no matter the hour, once I got a chance.”
I stumbled through my luxuriously furnished room, and fumbled my way into my closet—which I’d noticed the night before was still stuffed with the clothes Charon had bought for me.
“Never cross a mother,” Ker wisely said, following me into my closet. “Do you want us to tell Charon you need to reschedule?”
“Nah, I’ll be fine.” I grabbed the first exercise/training clothes I could find, then tottered toward the bathroom. “I wasn’t really sleeping anyway. Just dozing.”
“Same here!” Ker reported. “It’s so exciting—things are coming together!”
“Yes,” I said.
“You better gird your loins,” Aristide said. “Ker is not the only enthusiastic one. Noctus was up the entire night, so Charon was as well—likely plotting your training demise.”
“Goodie,” I said.
Ker patted my shoulders, then pushed me deeper into my bathroom. “Don’t you worry a bit. Charon is quite proud of how you’ve handled the tracker. Now you get changed, and Aristide and I will escort you down to the training area!” She stepped out, closing the door behind her, sealing my fate.
* * *
Sooner than I thought possible,I stood in the villa’s stadium-sized training facility, and pondered the possibility that my end might not be from Charon’s training, but from the exhaustion likely to occur when I had to climb up the seemingly endless stairs to get out of this pit and back up into the villa.
“I can’t believe he’s not here.” Ker jumped off a large rock formation—one of several sprinkled around the stadium. “He was very emphatic that you needed to be down here post-haste.”
The fake sun—which must have been the work of magic since we were deep in the mountain—shone above us, hanging in the ceiling that was bright blue like the sky.
A breeze—which shouldn’t have been possible since I didn’t see any ventilation shafts anywhere in the room—ruffled my hair, which I’d pulled back into a ponytail, and the green grass that covered half of the arena.
“It’s Charon,” Aristide said. “Noctus might have sneezed and distracted him with the need to contact all elven apothecaries in the city.”
“Hmm.” Ker frowned thoughtfully at the door, until she brightened, standing straight. “I’m sure he’ll be here shortly,” she said with a sudden confusing conviction. “Come on, Aristide. Let’s go.”
“Why?” Aristide said. “Hearing Charon lovingly minister to Chloe with merciless training is going to be our best source of entertainment all day.”
“We need to be up top,” Ker said.
“No, we don’t.”
“Yes, we do,” Ker said. “What if Chloe’s siblings wake up? We need to be prepared to greet them as hosts.”
“This is just because you want to influence them or win them or whatever your Dale Carnegie fellow says, isn’t it?” Aristide asked.
“It’s a part of it, yes,” Ker acknowledged. “We need to make a good impression on them. Now, come on.”
Aristide didn’t look convinced, but he let Ker nudge him along, guiding him out of the stadium. “Fine, but only because then Noctus will owe us,” he said.
“There’s an idea.” Ker yanked the door open for Aristide. “Have fun, Chloe!”
“Thanks,” I weakly said.
Aristide shouted back to me, “If you die, we’ll be sure to tell your family!” The door closed behind him, muffling the sound of his laughter.
