The sirens have already shown how fast they are, but I can’t hold on to all three, and I don’t have enough pearls for an extra trip. I need a way to make my friends hold hands without making a scene.
Wait. Poison.
Didn’t Zai get a stone that’s an antidote to poison as his prize for Hera’s Labor? Please, please, please let siren song be included in that. Pickpocketing skills have never come in handier in my entire fucking life. I find the tiny, lime green, pea-shaped stone in one of his pockets.
“Zai,” I whisper again.
“Hey—” The second his mouth is open, I slip the antidote on his tongue, and he coughs a little. The effect is immediate. He goes dead silent, blinks, and then his eyes fly open wide.
“Don’t move,” I whisper urgently at him.
To his credit, Zai manages to stay still and say nothing. That siren is watching him carefully, though.
“Look dazed and happy if you can and don’t say a word,” I tell him. “They can’t see me, but they can see you.”
Okay. Now for the tricky part.
“When I say so, take Diego and Rima’s hands and hold on tight.” I wrap my arms around his waist.
The siren on the throne suddenly gets to her feet, prowling in our direction.
“Now!”
Like that one word sets her off, the siren coming our way suddenly screams and spreads her wings wide. The theater explodes in chaos as more sirens jump to their feet and take to the air. But at least he fucking takes Rima and Diego’s hands.
And I swallow one more pearl.
When we show up in the desert, someone—maybe Diego—knocks into me, and I end up flat on my back on the hard-packed ground, dust poofing up around me. Coughing, I scramble to my feet.
“Hurry!” I tug Zai up with me. “Get across the line before they come.”
The sirens are fast. They’ll figure out where we went and be here in no time.
Rima and Diego are up, all three of them confused but no longer dazed. “What happened?” Rima asks in a voice that slurs.
“Answers are for later.” I grab Zai’s hand and whirl away, intending to drag him with me if I have to, only to pull up short at the sight of the others—Samuel, Jackie, Trinica, Amir, and Dae—all lined up.
On this side of the gates.
My heart is like a trapped thing in a snare, beating to get out. “Have you lost your senses? Get over there!” I have my axes out in front of me in one hand, my back to the group in the next moment. Clearly, they’re still working off the effects of siren song. Maybe I can hold off the sirens until they are all safe. Eos’ tears are still helping me see, and none are here. But any fucking second… “They’re coming.”
“We want you to go first,” Trinica says.
“What?” I cast a frown over my shoulder to find them all still there. Her words make no sense. Still holding my axes out, I start dragging Zai with me. “I don’t have enough pearls to go and get you again.”
Zai pulls out of my grip. “Then you’d better hurry and win.”
Along with Rima and Diego, he joins the others. Waiting for me.
And my caged heart wants to burst at the show of solidarity.
For me.
They want me to win? Even after what Rima saw in her vision. Even after deciding it was dangerous. They weren’t wrong to fear that future. My lips twist around the emotion clogging my throat, around the urge to wrap my arms around them all. But there’s no time.
“Let’s all go together.” I hurry to them on the line, still facing away from the gate with my shield in front of us.
“You first.” Samuel gives my shoulder a gentle shove. But with the added strength Zeus granted him, the force has me tumbling backward through the doors of the gate.
I stumble to a halt and stare at the champions.
In the next breath, everything about the Labors disappears—the gates, the darkness, the monsters, even the dust filling the air. All that’s left is us—the surviving champions—in Death Valley, with the sun peeking up over the eastern ridges, turning the darkness slightly pink.
We did it.
We made it.
They’re all smiling at me, and my arms go limp at my sides, my mouth closing around whatever protest I was about to make. And, after a beat where my heart feels like it could fly, I smile back.
But then nothing else happens.
Where is Zeus? The Labor is over. Time to announce me as the winner and be done. Right?
I catch sight of two of my bone soldiers at attention in the distance. Shouldn’t they fall apart now? Their service to protect us from the monsters is over.
That’s when my friends, still standing before me in a line, all go deathly still, eyes wide, expressions turning to masks of unadulterated fear.
And a trio of growls sounds directly at my back. Close enough to feel their hot breath on my neck.
