a spider after her ill-fated tapestry weaving competition with Athena… An image of Athena choking on poison breaks through my wonder.
“A gift,” Nefeli says as she alights on a heap of rubble, looking down at me from the lengths of her beak. “Compliments from Hailey.”
“Hailey? Where is she? Is she safe?” I hold my breath.
“Sealed in her shop, surrounded by guards,” Nefeli replies, primly grooming her wing. “She sends…tidings.” The raven’s demeanor changes. Her wings are pinned close to her tiny body and she’s tense. “The gods. Zeus. Hades. Poseidon…”
“Yes?” I push when she doesn’t continue.
“They’re dead.”
I wait, expecting her to continue with an explanation that’ll prove they really aren’t, that she’s just trying to be dramatic somehow. But when she doesn’t continue, the words sink in.
“Dead? As in…dead kind of dead?” Dead? Zeus? “Are you sure?” I’m dumbfounded. Holy Lemons. I’m out three days, and the world has gone mad. “I knew they were poisoned…but dead?” Why hadn’t Apollo mentioned that little fact?
“Dead,” she replies.
“Not Athena?” I don’t really want to hear the answer.
“Dead.”
My heart sinks like lead in my chest. What of my men, my harem? Apollo said they were alive, but he’d been underground for who knew how long? Obviously, a lot happens in a day around here.
I’m not sure I can bear to hear the answer, but I force myself to ask. “Ladron? Mirk? Torak?”
“They are imprisoned,” Nefeli answers. “In the palace. Clay hoped they would join his cause once again. His rule would be more easily accepted if he had the sons of Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon behind him. But they continue to refuse.”
Relief floods me. I glance back at the palace wall with the row of heads on pikes. The soldiers have added another head to the pike they just erected. Yeah, I’m not going to mind riding Cerb right into that nest of vipers to clean house.
“It won’t be easy to free them,” Nefeli’s prim tone warns in the background. “Hailey bade me tell you to be careful. Clay’s having her hammer weapons for him day and night. And she was forced to fashion—”
Weapons? The word snags my full attention. “Wait,” I interrupt. How? The ore follows Clay’s intent now, not mine? How did it know he was King? “Are you sure? Weapons?”
“She says his men are now armed with superior weaponry.” The bird pauses, then speaks softly. “She also wishes you to know… she would have rather died than made the weapons, but Clay threatened to kill an innocent every hour she refused.”
“I understand,” I say, gritting my teeth. But this is my queendom. Yet… how does the ore know whose intention it should follow? I never gave it much thought before. I suppose I assumed it was based on Zeus’s rulings, but it’s not like dirt could listen, or read a proclamation. There must be more to this. Something I’m missing. Something—
“She was also forced to fashion chains for Mirk, Torak, and Ladron,” the white raven continues. “Chains from the ore that are impossible to break. They even prevent Torak from shifting into a wolf and Mirk from turning invisible. She fears there is no way you can set them free.”
I’ve faced a lot of people in my life telling me I couldn’t do lots of things, including those swearing there was no future in Greek Mythology—ha. They’d die if they knew where I was now.
“There’s always a way to make lemonade,” I say. “It’s all in your mind.”
Nefeli tilts her head primly to the side. She obviously disagrees.
Then, it strikes me. I hold my breath, a grin splitting my face. “I’ve got it. I’ve really got it.”
“What?”
“The answer out of this mess. But there’s not much time. We need to get every man, woman, and child out on the streets as quickly as we can. Tell them Lily, their Queen, is back and she’s setting them free.”
“How?” Nefeli asks.
But I’m already moving. “There’s not a second to waste,” I say, heading for the site where the bridge had stood.
“You can’t defeat Clay’s army by yourself,” the bird warns, flying before me.
“Watch me,” I say, unraveling the ball of silk. A single strand of Arachne’s silk is stronger than a beam of the finest steel back on Earth. And it’s my ticket out of the temple—Cerb’s too.
“While Cerberus is pretty scary, the two of you can’t take on Clay’s army alone,” Nefeli stresses.
I look up at her. “We won’t. Now, help me get out of here, will you?”
She takes the end