Lucas was in the lobby. Helen didn’t see his face, but then she didn’t need to. If she had only caught a glimpse of him as he disappeared around a corner half a mile away she would still have been able to recognize him. She turned her face away, knowing she couldn’t look at him or she would lose concentration and allow her mask to slip away. As she hurried up the stairs behind her mother, she both hoped and feared that he would yell her name, but of course, he didn’t.
Back in their room, Helen grabbed what few things she had and brought them to the entryway by the door, hiding her streaming eyes and her red nose from her mother as best she could. She tried to let the stranger’s dark hair fall across her face, but unfortunately this girl had bangs. As her mother checked over the room one last time before they left for the dock, Helen let out an incongruous laugh, suddenly remembering the last time she had taken the ferry. It was when Claire first told her about the new family that had moved into the big compound out in ’Sconset. Claire had been sure that there would be a dream boy to fall in love with each of them, and Helen had been sure that Claire was being ridiculous. So sure that she’d changed the subject, and wondered aloud whether she should cut her hair.
“Well, Claire was absolutely right,” Helen said to herself, laughing through her tears. “I do hate having bangs.”
Her breath still catching on the half-crazy laugh, Helen yanked open the door of the hotel room to leave, and ran right into Lucas. In a split second he registered Helen’s tears and the shocked face of the strange woman next to her. Lucas grabbed Helen’s arm and pulled her away from the woman, putting himself between them.
“What did you do to her?” he said, threatening Daphne.
“And just who are you?” Daphne said with a southern drawl. Lucas gave the woman a confused look and then looked back at Helen.
“Helen, who is this woman?” he asked.
“Come inside,” Daphne said, dropping the fake accent. “Come on, Helen. We’ve been discovered. He can see your true face.”
“How?” Helen asked, looking down at the hands that weren’t hers, at a body that wasn’t hers, as she followed Lucas back into the room.
“Because he loves you.” Daphne shut the door behind them. “The cestus can’t hide the face of a beloved, it can only reveal it. You’ll never be anyone but yourself to him because he loves you exactly as you are.”
Daphne rubbed her temples in frustration at this new and annoying development. She turned to Lucas and dropped her disguise. He gasped.
“You are all of the women,” Lucas said, remembering what Cassandra had seen. “Helen, this is the woman that’s been attacking you, this isn’t her real face . . .”
“I know. I even know that she was the one who hurt Kate in the alley,” Helen said, swallowing painfully. “I thought it was me—that I had shocked Kate by accident.”
“Helen, you aren’t to blame,” Daphne said, sounding almost annoyed at the idea.
“She was trying to kidnap me to get me away from your family before you found out who I really was,” Helen continued, ignoring Daphne. “She knew I wouldn’t trust her, and that she would literally have to tie me down to get me to listen to her. So that’s what she did. But this is my true mother, and this is her true face, Lucas. It’s our face.”
“It’s not possible,” Lucas said, looking from Helen to Daphne and back again. “No Scion resembles another this closely.”
“The bearers of the cestus always look like the first Scion to ever possess it,” Daphne said.
“Helen of Troy,” Lucas said quietly.
Helen nodded, then clarified while looking at her mother. “Aphrodite and Helen were half sisters, and they loved each other very much. When the siege of Troy began, Aphrodite gave Helen the cestus to protect her. Since then, it’s been passed from mother to daughter, along with the Face.”
“The Face?” Lucas asked.
“That Launched a Thousand Ships,” Daphne said, repeating the title automatically. “It’s our curse.”
“Helen of Troy was in the House of Atreus,” Lucas said as he slumped down into a straight-backed chair that decorated the entryway. “So Pallas was right. You are Daphne Atreus.”
“I suppose Pallas had to be right about something eventually,” Daphne snapped before she stopped herself and