about sexy things, but she couldn’t come up with anything. After a moment she realized that it didn’t matter what she thought was sexy, but what other people thought that would be important. She needed a guinea pig. She looked at Hector, focusing on him alone, and she felt her necklace change shape in her hand.
“Helen!” Hector exclaimed.
Helen looked down and saw that she was holding a tiny scrap of lace that more closely resembled diamond-encrusted dental floss than underpants. Everyone burst out laughing, pointing at Hector and making fun of his trashy taste. She looked at Lucas, concentrated, and it turned back into her necklace. He grinned.
“I told you. I love that necklace,” he said openly.
His gaze was so warm Helen felt she had to do something to divert all the stares they were getting. She looked around the room, pointedly seeking out a new victim. Everyone wisely decided to scatter.
“Don’t even think about it!” Ariadne shrieked, running out of the room so Helen couldn’t focus on her.
“Come on! That’s not fair!” Jason said. He backed away from her, alternately covering his eyes so he couldn’t see her and covering his face so she couldn’t see him.
“All right, nobody panic!” Helen put her necklace back on and laughed, but no one was left in the library to witness her mercy but Lucas and Cassandra. “I like it best like this, myself.”
“Good,” Lucas said, averting his eyes and trying to pretend he wasn’t embarrassed.
“Why aren’t you running?” Helen asked Cassandra playfully, but when she saw the dark look on her face she knew she had said something terribly wrong.
“That will never work on me,” Cassandra said in a flat, distant voice. She brushed past Helen.
“I’m sorry,” Helen said to Lucas, as Cassandra stalked out of the room. She put her hand on Lucas’s arm and made him look at her. “I don’t understand, Lucas. What did I say?”
“Aphrodite’s power only works on adults—on sexually mature individuals,” he answered with a raspy voice, like his throat had gone dry.
“Oh. I didn’t know, but that’s nothing for her to be ashamed of. She’s only fourteen. So she’s a late bloomer—”
Lucas cut her off. “My sister will never bloom. She was taken by the Fates.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that even if she wants to, even if she feels what other woman feel, she’ll never fall in love or have children. She won’t even be able to have the kind of careless physical relationships that Hector has pretty much once a week,” Lucas said. “She is sacrosanct to the Three Fates, and they will not share their daughter.”
“But if she feels like a woman, why can’t she act like one? Who cares what three dusty old spinsters say?” Helen asked persuasively, but that made Lucas even more upset.
“You’re not understanding this, Helen. We’re talking about the Fates, not a couple of overprotective parents with virginity issues. The Moirai can’t be avoided or tricked. Cassandra won’t be able to sneak out of her bedroom window and have sex with some hot guy she met at a party,” he said, pacing around. “Even if he was a man she truly respected, a man she could grow to love, the Fates would separate them. Fate herself would make sure Cassandra never laid eyes on that man again.”
“How cruel,” Helen said, horrified.
“And someday the Fates will separate her from us, her own family. You can barely tell now, but she and I used to be so close. She used to take my hand anytime we walked next to each other, but not anymore,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion. “She was the sweetest little sister ever, I swear. Such a big, warm heart and such a big, clever mind—all packed into the tiniest girl you’ve ever seen. Now she’s becoming more like them. Cold, meticulous, unrelenting.”
Helen put her hands on his waist and waited silently until he was ready to pull her into his arms and relax against her, which he finally did in a wave. She had held him for only a few minutes when Ariadne came into the library and told Helen she needed to come out to the kitchen.
“What is it?” Lucas asked.
“Your mom found out about the whole cestus of Aphrodite thing and she’s sort of throwing a fit, Luke,” Ariadne admitted with a heavy heart, her gentle eyes darting between the two of them with sympathy. “Aunt Noel has asked for a meeting with Helen.”
All the air seemed to leave the