“No. I didn’t tell them anything.”
“Here we go,” the woman says, ushering us into what must be some kind of common room. It is a warm room, even though it has several barred windows along the walls. It is filled with plush chairs, small tables, and a large green table in the center, with a small net stretched across the middle. Two men are using paddles to smack a small white ball back and forth across it. An older woman with stringy white hair sits in the corner, glaring at the wall. It sounds like she’s having an argument with it. Others seem to be wandering almost aimlessly about the room. “Sarah will be so pleased you’re here. She’s been talking about you all week.” She points us in the direction of a young woman who appears to be painting … with her fingers … at an easel at the far end of the room.
I take a step back. “That can’t be her.”
My memory jogs to my encounter with the Oracle of Elysium. Her skin was blue and glittery, and her veils swirled about her as if blown by an invisible wind. She emitted the power and majesty of the divine. But this young woman, this supposed Oracle in front of me, looks all too … human. Her skin is pale and peachy, and her hair is unkempt and matted in places. She licks the paint from one of her fingers and then looks up from her artwork as if she can feel my gaze on her.
“Haden!” She smiles and waves with a familiarity that makes it seem as though we are old friends. But I don’t know how she sees me—her eyes are milky and clouded over with blindness. “You came!”
She wipes her hands on her robe and bounds over to us. She clasps my hands before I can pull them away and then grabs Daphne in an embrace. “And you brought her! I knew you would.”
“Is this some big joke?” Lexie asks. “Are you guys pranking me?”
Sarah takes Daphne and me by the hands and pulls us toward a table near her easel. Lexie, Tobin, and Garrick follow tentatively behind. I notice then how quiet the room has become, and glance around. The gray-haired woman who brought us here and all the other patients have disappeared without my noticing. “You have many questions, I know, but we don’t have much time. Come sit. Please.”
I am hesitant to take the seat she offers.
“You are flummoxed by my appearance, Haden. I know. You also wonder what I am doing in this mortal vessel, allowing myself to be kept in an asylum. This is not my true appearance.” She taps her finger against her nose. “I am in hiding. Witness protection, you might say.”
“What did you witness?” Daphne asks.
“Everything,” Sarah says with a coy smile. “I see all the paths. All the possibilities. Not just the ones the gods want me to see.”
“So there is another way?” Daphne asks, leaning closer to this Oracle. “I have other options? I don’t have to be a Boon or a Cypher or whatever?”
“You were never meant to be a Boon.”
Daphne gives me a satisfied look. “You hear that?”
“But you are the Cypher. Your role in this is much greater than you can imagine, Daphne, Daughter of the Music.” Sarah reaches her bony hand across the table and places it over Daphne’s. “Being the Cypher is your destiny, no matter what path you take.”
“Ha,” Lexie says. “Your destiny is to be a zero. That’s hilarious.”
That satisfied expression slips right off Daphne’s face.
“I do not mean cipher as in the absence of value. Quite the contrary. You are the Cypher. You are the key to all of this.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, confused. “Do you mean that Daphne is the Key of Hades?”
“No. Daphne is the Cypher. She is the key to finding the Key.”
I nod, realizing that Dax’s theory had been correct all along. “But how? And why her?”
The Oracle cocks her head and seems to stare at me with her unseeing eyes. She plays with the mats in her hair. “Oh, I see now. My sister from Elysium told you very little of your and Daphne’s destinies.”
“Excuse me,” Daphne says, pushing up from her chair. “Can you please stop talking about me in the third person? I am right here. And I don’t like being referred to as an object. I am not a key or a Cypher. I am just a normal human girl.”
“No, you’re not. And you never were,” Tobin says from behind her—but his voice echoes out of him and I know it’s Sarah, the Oracle, speaking through him. Her milky eyes have rolled up into the back of her head. Lexie gives a little shriek and backs away from Tobin. “You have many names, Daphne Raines. You are the Cypher. The Anoichtiri. The Daughter of the Music. The Descendant of the Great Musician. The Vessel of His Voice. You are the Keeper of Orpheus’s Heart and Soul.”
“Whoa, what?” Daphne asks.
“She’s a descendant of the Traitor?” I ask. “How can that even be possible?”
“Orpheus brought back more than the Key from the Underrealm. When Eurydice died, a casualty in the Thousand-Year War between the Underrealm and the Skyrealm, not only did Orpheus lose his new bride, but he also lost the child she carried in her womb. Distraught with grief, he prayed to his father, Apollo, for help in getting them back. Apollo had also heard the prayers of many mortals, whose homes and lives had been destroyed in the cross fire of the war, and he was determined to put a stop to it. In exchange for instructions on how to traverse the dangers of the Underrealm and bring back his wife, Orpheus agreed to steal the Key from Hades. It was intended to be a bargaining chip for Apollo to use to negotiate a cease-fire between the gods.
“While Orpheus failed to save Eurydice, he carried with him the child and the Key, the Kronolithe of the original Lord Hades.”
“You guys,” Lexie says, hugging her purse to her chest. “I don’t know how you orchestrated all this, but the joke isn’t funny anymore. Can we go?”
“No,” the Oracle says through Tobin. “Our time is growing very short, and you all must listen and be quiet. Many have anticipated the arrival of the Cypher for thousands of years. Nearly eighteen years ago, it was predicted that she would finally arrive in the form of Demi Raines’s daughter. They tried to get you then, but they failed. The time was not right. The Champion was not right. You have remained protected in the Fields of Ellis, a safe haven for the servants of Apollo. But now that you have left, now that you have come to me, the wheels have been set into motion. The others will know soon whatever I tell you. The Oracles are connected that way. Whatever I say out loud will be known by all.”
“Then why aren’t you showing me?” I take her hand and press it against my forehead. I realize now that this is why the other Oracle showed me the instructions for my quest, rather than spoke it out loud.
“I cannot,” she says, drawing her hand away and speaking for herself once more and not through Tobin’s voice. She sounds exhausted, like that trick had drained her of most of her energy. “I do not retain all of my abilities in this human vessel.”
“Then tell us the rest,” Daphne says. “I need to know where I come from before I can decide where I’m going.”
“Are you sure?” I ask her. “If we set this into motion, there will be no turning back.”
Daphne nods.
“The irony of all of this is not lost on me,” Sarah says. “You came here, Daphne, to try to escape your fate, but coming here was always meant to be one of your first steps on your path to your destiny.
“When Orpheus stole the Kronolithe, it locked the Underlords in the Underrealm, rendering Hades mostly powerless, stripping him of his immortality. Hades sent Keres through Persephone’s Gate to go after Orpheus to retrieve the Key and destroy him for his betrayal. Knowing he could not hold such a prize for long while being pursued, Orpheus hid the Kronolithe where it could not be retrieved. He placed on it a lock that only his heart and soul can unbind. The Keres soon caught up with him and tore him apart, leaving his child for dead. But Apollo found the child, and took him to the Amazons to be raised by one of their own. The child grew, married one of the Amazonian daughters, and had a child of his own. The Amazons were eventually slaughtered by the Sky God for refusing to hand him over, and the family fled to a new safe haven—where their posterity has remained protected, and oblivious to their heritage, until you chose to leave. You must see this, Daphne: you are the last descendant of that child. But not just any descendant. You are the one who has inherited the heart and soul of Orpheus. The one who can retrieve the Kronolithe. But before you can retrieve it, you must find it.”