I shake my head, stunned. I thought she had abandoned us. All this time, she’s been preparing for this moment.
And it paid off by saving Greer’s life.
I feel frozen, like I can’t draw breath into my lungs.
But beneath my palm, my sister is not having that problem. Her chest rises and falls with the steady rhythm of resting breath.
If I were the kind of girl to cry at happy news, I’d be sobbing right along with Grace. Even so, I find it almost impossible to keep my act together. I wrap an arm around Sillus’s shaking body and hug him tight. It’s only the knowledge that my other palm needs to stay steady on the wound and my mind needs to stay focused on revenge that keeps me from collapsing onto Greer’s life-filled body.
CHAPTER 20
GRACE
Greer is alive. I can’t stop staring at her, can’t stop watching the rise and fall of her chest, can’t stop my heart from pounding in my chest with unparalleled joy.
A minute ago, she was dead. I didn’t have to feel her pulse fade away to know. The look on Gretchen’s face was enough to tell me everything. She was gone.
And now she’s back.
My brain can’t quite accept the reality of it. In the space of a couple of minutes, I’ve experienced just about the biggest possible roller coaster of emotions. My sister—my triplet—came back from the dead. And my other sister brought her back.
Greer is still unconscious—maybe in another astral lock—but she’s breathing easily, and the wound has stopped gushing blood. There is so much blood. Her clothes are covered with dark red—she’s going to be upset when she wakes up. The ground, too, is soaked in blood, as is Gretchen’s hand—the hand that saved Greer’s life.
Gretchen looks stunned, and I suppose I do, too. The idea that my sister is back from the dead—however briefly she was gone—is beyond comprehension.
“You saved her,” I whisper.
Gretchen glances at our mother. “Cassandra did,” she says. “I mean, our mother.”
Cassandra shakes her head with a weary smile. “I only knew the lore, and hoped it was true.”
“It’s still amazing,” I say.
“It’s impossible,” Milo says, reminding me that he’s still here—that he witnessed all of this.
If he wasn’t freaked out before, he is now.
“We need to get her back to the safe house,” Gretchen insists.
“Yes,” Sillus says. “Go.”
Rough footsteps echo down the alley an instant before Thane comes running around the corner, covered in sweat and with a bleak look in his stormy gray eyes. “Bastard got away.”
He took off after the murderer—well, attempted murderer—almost the instant the knife hit Greer’s chest, and it had looked like he and Greer had run all the way here from the safe house in the first place.
He should be exhausted, but he doesn’t show it.
Ignoring everyone else, he crosses to Greer’s side and drops to the ground. He reaches out, reverently tracing his fingertips over her brow.
There is such sadness in his eyes—Thane has always had a bit of sorrow in him, just beneath the surface—but this is so much worse. He looks . . . bleak. As I open my mouth to tell him the good news, Greer coughs. He lurches back.
“She’s—” He swivels to stare at me. “She’s not dead?”
I shake my head. “Gretchen saved her.”
Thane looks at Gretchen, uncharacteristic emotion on his face. He doesn’t usually let this kind of feeling show, but the gratitude is unmistakable. He looks like his soul aches with relief.
“How?” he asks.
“Our blood,” Gretchen says, holding up her right hand. “It . . . has that power.”
He nods, as if that’s all the explanation he needs. I shouldn’t be surprised that he just accepts it. If his blood had been able to save Greer, to bring her back from the dead, I think he would have drained every last ounce to try.
“Cassandra showed her how,” I tell him.
As he turns back to face me, he sees Milo standing off to the side. He scowls and then turns to me. “Grace?”
“Um, yeah, I . . .” I flick a desperate glance at Milo, but he gives me a helpless look. That’s okay; now isn’t the time anyway. “Can we talk about this later?”
Thane considers it for a second and then nods. “Get Greer back to the safe house.”
“We were just about to do that.” Gretchen looks at Cassandra. “Can we move her?”
Our mother’s brow furrows. “Let me examine her.”
While Gretchen, Thane, and Cassandra figure out how to get Greer off the ground, I walk over to Milo.
“So . . . ,” he says.
As much as I don’t want to do this—I want to talk to him about this and find out if he’s really freaking out—things are far too serious. I won’t put him at risk.
“Milo, I—” I lower my gaze, because I don’t want my hypno powers involved. “I think you should go home now.”
After a hesitation, he says, “Okay. If that’s what you want.”
He doesn’t sound freaked out.
“I don’t,” I say, “but things are very dangerous right now.”
“I can help.”
I look up, giving him a grateful smile. “I know. But for now, my sisters and I have to handle it.”
He nods. “Okay. For now.”
He casts a quick glance at Thane and then presses a quick kiss to my lips. “Just don’t forget you promised me answers.”
“I won’t,” I say, smiling as he waves good-bye to my brother and heads out of the alley.
Maybe things will work out between us despite all the crazy in my life. Maybe.
As I’m walking back to my sisters, the glint of gold and steel catches my eye. I walk over to the dagger that our mother discarded after slicing open Gretchen’s palm and pick it up. Such a small, pretty thing to cause so much pain.
It might have caused even more, if Cassandra and Gretchen hadn’t acted so quickly.
“Shiny,” Sillus says.
“Can I see that?” Gretchen asks.
I hand her the blade.
“Can you tell who it belongs to?” I ask. “Or maybe who sent him?”
She turns the dagger over in her hand. The blade is short, double-edged—like the black ones Gretchen carries in her boots—and pretty unremarkable. The handle, though, is quite unusual. There are intricate carvings, swirling patterns of what look like antlers in gleaming gold, now covered in bright red blood.
Gretchen wipes the handle off on her pants.
Woven into the golden antlers are gems and mother-of-pearl inlays in the shapes of crescent moons. There must be two dozen in total.
“No,” Gretchen says, staring at the dagger as if it might have an invisible “property of” label hiding somewhere. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It looks like it comes from Hephaestus’s forge,” our mother says, stepping closer to examine the blade. “But as to the owner’s identity, I cannot hazard a guess.” When Gretchen and I stare at her, wide-eyed, she shrugs. “I have studied a lot of books on Greek mythology.”
“I know whose it is.” Thane’s voice is low and hard.
“You do?” I ask.
He doesn’t look at me, keeps his eyes steady on Greer. “It belongs to an assassin sent by Artemis, the goddess of the hunt.”
“Artemis?” I echo.
Thane nods. “Apollo’s twin. She’s on Zeus’s side in this war. She’s been working actively against you for years.”
“How do you know that?” I ask.
Gretchen demands, her voice low and full of warning, “How do you know the dagger is hers?”