And as for a reason… Hades doesn’t do anything without a specific goal in mind. For the first time since he assured me that he had reasons for picking me that he didn’t want to share, I feel that I need to know what they are. That I deserve to know.
Hades speaks over his shoulder, barely turning his head to the side. “Watch Lyra’s back in the next Labor, Boone.”
Why? So I can win for him? “I can watch my own damned back.”
Mid-step away from us, Hades whirls, glaring at me. “I know you think that, but it’s what makes you dangerous.”
I glare right back. “I am not dangerous—”
“You scare the shit out of me, Lyra.” He’s gone deadly quiet now, but not with anger. This quiet frightens me a thousand times more. This sounds like defeat. “You,” he says. “Not the other champions, not the challenges, not the gods or what they speculate about us, not even this guy. You scare me like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. And that’s saying a lot.”
Then his face contorts with a new anger—a burn I think is directed inward, at himself for admitting that. With a shake of his head, Hades disappears deeper into the house.
And I let him go.
73
Hephaestus’ Labor
We’ve been in Olympus three days. Three days without Hades. I think he must have taken himself down to the Underworld, because when I ask the satyrs, they merely shrug and say that god is not among us.
Doesn’t he know that after the Daemones took him, I was terrified I wouldn’t see him again? Disappearing on me now feels like that all over again. I understand that he’s mad at me, but I can’t handle him taking the time for an almighty sulk.
When Trinica and Amir came to us, asking to join our alliance officially, we accepted. I expected Hades to show up and argue me out of two more people to worry about, but he didn’t.
He still hasn’t.
Which means that today Boone and I got ready for my next Labor, the one we’ll go through together, without Hades here.
Clothes appeared in Boone’s room, matching mine. Only instead of the butterfly in the center of his chest, a chrysalis is embroidered on the mock neck. Boone’s own vest and tools also appeared in his room. We dressed. We ate an early dinner. And then, with the other eleven champions and their loved ones, we gathered in Hephaestus’ home.
I pretend an awe I don’t feel as we walk through, putting on a show as if I’ve never been here before. I stop when I catch sight of Dae’s pale face. He is subdued today, quiet, keeping to himself. Dex pats the champion’s shoulder, murmuring something I don’t catch, and Dae pulls away.
Dae isn’t hiding his heartbreak. I don’t think he should. Maybe seeing that will make the gods rethink the Crucible. Probably not, though. Isabel’s death didn’t.
“Are we all present?” Hephaestus asks.
None of our gods have gathered with us, which is interesting. Not that Hades is around to fucking gather.
With a satisfied nod, Hephaestus raises his hands, and, starting at the ground, a glimmering, watery line rises higher and higher. As it does, his home transforms into a different world. It’s like a mirage, slowly consuming our surroundings to reveal new ones. When the mirage line passes over our heads, it disappears in a shower of sparks like a hammer hitting heated metal, and we find ourselves within a circle of large stones in a forest so dark and empty that even the wind through the trees sounds lonely.
“Well… That was something,” Boone murmurs. I raise my eyebrows at him, and he shrugs. “I know you told me about the other Labors you’ve completed so far, and I was already in one with you, sort of. But it feels different when you’re really in it.”
“No kidding.”
Pine trees surround us. Not as tall as the redwoods in Muir, these are skinnier and shorter but dense enough to obscure the light of the sun.
At the top of the circle, thick wood posts support a horizontal stone slab to form a gateway. The lintel stone is carved with two hammers and between those, words.
be bold. be bold.
I frown. Why do those words sound familiar?
Hephaestus looks like the template for a fairy-tale woodsman, with his scruffy beard and all those muscles. He only needs a red-and-black flannel shirt, thick logger boots, and an axe to complete the picture.
I pat the back of my vest to check for my own axe.
The god crosses his arms and sets his backward feet wide, which makes him tilt away from us. “Welcome to your seventh Labor, champions, and welcome, guests.”
He says this in his quiet way, which has the group leaning toward him, trying to catch all the words.
“First, I would like to congratulate you. Having lost only one champion, you have set a record for having lost the fewest by the halfway mark of the Crucible. Well done.”
My throat tightens. I still see Isabel’s horror- and pain-filled eyes when I go to sleep at night, and I’m not sure Dae appreciates his grandmother being excluded from the list of losses, judging from the way his lips thin and he looks away.
I don’t know what Hephaestus expected. Cheering or clapping, maybe. We all stare back at him silently. That doesn’t seem to faze him, though. “Today, you and your partner will compete solely on time and time alone.”
That’s a new twist, at least.
“It’s a staggered start. The course won’t allow the champions to interfere with each other.”
“An obstacle course?” Boone whispers at me. “Easy.”
“You didn’t see the last one.” After Artemis’, I can’t say I’m all that eager to face another. Although Boone doesn’t know about the burn. He hasn’t seen the silvery scarring on my arm.
He shoots me a cocky grin. “I’ll get you through it.”
