Cassandra?” Henry asked.
She nodded. “And I remember you. When you were Hector. It’s true. I’m not crazy.”
“What—what are they going to use you for?” Andie asked.
“I don’t know. Aidan’s trying to find out.” She didn’t tell them what he’d done to her back in Troy. There was so much to tell.
She took another sip of tea. It had cooled, or maybe her throat had gotten warmer. The purplish liquid swirled in the bottom of the mug; leaves and bits of flower floated and swayed in suspended patterns, like drifting seaweed. Cassandra watched as the pattern became less random, as the leaves strung together into shapes. An open, screaming mouth and long, drenched hair. She blinked and tried to unsee it, but couldn’t. It was like seeing the hidden shape in a Magic Eye puzzle, or catching the shape of Elvis in a grilled cheese sandwich. Once you saw it, it was all you could see.
“Is it cold?” Andie asked. “Do you want me to nuke it? Or make you more?”
Cassandra glanced up. When she looked into the mug again, the face was gone, blown apart.
“No, I—”
Water coated her eyes. Bubbles churned against her cheeks and her own hair found its way into her mouth and choked her. Someone was holding her under. Her lungs felt ready to bleed.
She took a deep breath and her lungs filled with air. She was safe, in the kitchen, her back firmly planted against the wood of the chair.
But this was monstrous, seen through a blurry surface, like a windshield sheeted with rain. The air smelled of moss and wet rocks, of freezing saltwater. The only light seemed to be light reflected off of water; it danced over every surface and made her dizzy. They were in some kind of cave. Or a cove, in the cliffs.
She felt Andie and Henry’s hands on her arm and shoulder. They asked questions, but she didn’t understand them. Their voices were muffled and echoed. They might have been shouting through a cement wall.
In the center of the cave a hole of dark, greenish water rippled. Then the surface exploded and a girl was tossed out with a wave, thrown onto the stones. The sound of her slapping against the rock hurt Cassandra’s bones. The arms that threw her were just visible inside the retreating water: slimy and scaled and cut through with stiff seaweed. Wet rot blackened the tips of the fingers.
The girl hacking and vomiting water on the stones wore jeans and a sweater, clothes that didn’t belong to her. They were cheap and the sweater was too large. She pulled in deep breaths and kept her eyes on the rock. She seemed afraid, but not panicked. Water ran out of her thick mass of red hair as she tossed it back over her shoulder.
A foot clad in a slingback heel stepped before her and the vision opened up. Two women stood in the back of the cave, both dry and hideously beautiful. The one nearest had dark blond hair, cropped short. The second lingered behind and swayed on bare feet. Long yellow hair hung down her back. Dirt streaked across her fragile blue dress. She was young, and unbelievably beautiful, except for the bruises that marked her arms and legs.
Her big blue eyes blinked, vacant and wild. Insane.
She saw a stone fist, heaviness in her limbs. A peacock feather.
Hate streaked through Cassandra’s blood, hate that she hadn’t known she had. The vision jerked; it sped up and skipped ahead in a montage of torture. Something dark erupted from the greenish water and dragged the red-haired girl back down. Red clouds bloomed in the water and churned up flashes of pale bits, pieces of loose skin. Screams mingled sound with bubbles and spit.
When he slammed the girl back onto the rocks, he rose out of the water to his waist. Sea plants shot through his skin, cracking it. Long, red cuts crossed his torso from kelp leaves working their way inside. His once handsome beard was infested with shells and creeping claws, and in the place of his right eye was a piece of bone-white coral, jutting from the socket. Where his blood oozed, it was oily and reddish black. The sea was polluted, and so was he.
Cassandra remembered the god he’d been, golden like the sand and strong. The waves on the rocks used to ring with his laughter. At least two Trojan girls a year came back from swimming giggling, with Poseidon’s babies growing in their bellies.
Across the slippery sound of water, Hera’s voice rolled like thunder off every wall.
“We can bring the others. Is that what you want?”
The girl shivered and twitched on the stone.
“Talk, you stupid witch!” Aphrodite shrieked and threw a stone. It bounced off the girl’s shoulder and drew blood.
“Don’t, daughter. We don’t have to be cruel.” She held out her arm and Aphrodite ran to her and held her tight.
“She says nothing. She lets us die. Lets us burn and bleed and crack!”
Hera shushed her and stroked her hair. Aphrodite keened softly for a few moments, then quieted. “She’ll talk. She’ll talk because she knows we are their gods. The witches of Circe do not belong to Athena alone.”
The girl shivered. “You killed us.”
“I had to, little one. You took things from me and my family. Things we have looked a long time for.” She kissed Aphrodite’s brow and sent her away, back to hug herself in a corner. Hera stepped forward and knelt before the girl. She reached up and tucked wet strands behind the girl’s ear, almost tenderly. “Look. You see Aphrodite. Goddess of love and beauty. She’s dying, and dying cruelly. Losing her cheeks to clotted blood and her mind to madness. Because love is madness.” She wove her fingers into the girl’s hair and twisted, yanking it tight. “Love is madness. We kill for it like you do. I’ll kill you and every remaining witch to save Aphrodite and my blighted brother. Or I can spare you and kill somebody else.”
The girl breathed hard. She looked at Aphrodite and glanced back toward the green water. But she said nothing. Hera sighed and nodded to Poseidon.
Cassandra wanted to look away as he threw himself onto the rocks. He wrenched his jaw open and sank his teeth into the girl’s leg, his expression horrible and vacant, close to mindless as he tore her skin away and chewed. He would have bitten again had Hera not held up her hand.
The girl fell back, clutching the wet red hole above her knee. She trembled, her breath shallow and ragged. She’d go into shock soon, and then it would all be over.
“Go back for the others.”
“No.”
The girl spoke, her voice deep and sweet, softly accented with French. “No. Leave them alone!”
“I will and gladly. If you strike the bargain.”
The girl wept. She took several deep breaths before she spoke again. When she did, it was only a few words.
“Kincade. New York.”
Hera smiled. And snapped her neck.
The vision threw Cassandra back hard. The legs of her chair skidded across the hardwood of the kitchen.
“Cassie?” Henry jumped forward and held her steady. But that was no comfort. Hera, Aphrodite, and Poseidon had killed that girl. Even after she told them what they wanted.
She swallowed and looked at Henry.
“We’ve got to get out of here.”
