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Maddox let out an oooo. “Makes sense now.” He glanced at my hand. He must have noticed the bruises yesterday.
“He deserved it,” I said simply. “He was an ass.”
“When was this?”
“Yesterday. After you told me what he did.”
Maddox nodded. “He really did deserve it. Good on you, Elle.”
I stared at the bookshelf, my gaze trailing over a spine labeled Gods and Monsters. Things had been so insane, I’d barely had a moment to myself to think. Whenever I closed my eyes in silence, I saw Bryan’s body in the woods or Thalia’s head on the ground. “Wait. Maddox, when Thalia was killed, shouldn’t someone have replaced her?”
His groomed brows furrowed. “Good point.” He mulled a moment. “Lucius killed her, but he’s already a god, so he can’t take her place. He could have allocated someone to take her place, but he was killed—well, sent back to the underworld anyway.”
A horrible feeling snuck over me, making my skin crawl. “Then who?”
“Whoever claimed her,” he guessed aloud. “Or Lucius did. I don’t know. Whoever it is, they need to be careful.”
“Why?”
Maddox’s eyes bulged. “Isn’t it obvious?”
I gave him a look. “Humor me.”
“Raiden is going to take over the underworld, where his sisters are. Do you think he’s going to allow anyone to have their place? He will have the power to send them back.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m assuming so. They like being in our world. Why would they want to remain stuck in the underworld when their brother can let them out?”
“Raiden said he can’t come back for a while,” I said.
“Doesn’t mean they can’t.”
Naomi looked from him to me. “Raiden can’t just come and go when he pleases, because he needs to rule the underworld. They don’t.”
Edmund’s shaky shout reached us from the kitchen. “Elle. Maddox. Naomi. Run!”
I jumped to my feet. “Edmund!” I shouted back.
Naomi grabbed my hand. “It might be?—”
I pulled my hand from hers. “I don’t care.”
I ran to the kitchen, my breaths shaking from my lungs with each lunge. When I reached the kitchen, Freya’s eyes locked onto mine, along with a second pair of bright, glittering blues I thought I’d never see again.
My heart felt like it stopped. Numbness waved through me as I stared at them, slack-jawed.
Her bright blue eyes hadn’t changed. Her frizzy red hair had grown out to reach her elbows, but her other features looked nothing like those of the sister I remembered. She was a woman now. Her auburn eyebrows pinched downward. “Is that you?”
I didn’t know how to answer. I’d forgotten every word that had ever existed. “Yes.” It was all I could manage. My gaze drifted to Freya’s. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing?—”
Rage fueled Freya’s expression. Every feature on her face seemed sharper since I’d last seen her. “Alexander was right. You do have a sister.”
I held my hands up, approaching her slowly.
She wrapped one hand around Mona’s throat and pressed the other against the side of her neck. “Take one more step and I break her neck, then yours.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Where’s Raiden? I’m not here to play games.”
Edmund answered. “He’s gone. You’re too late.”
