“What?” I ask.
“You aren’t going to meet them,” the middle one says.
“Not yet, anyway,” the young one adds.
“We were sent to give you a message,” the old one explains, “to take back.”
“To take back?” I repeat. “I thought there was no going back from Hades.”
The first woman shrugs. “There are always exceptions.”
“What’s the message?” I ask.
The old one steps closer, holding the eyeball close to my face. I try not to shudder in disgust. “Fight not alone.”
“Fight not a—what?” That makes no sense. “What does that mean?”
They shrug again and shake their heads.
“We weren’t told.”
“We’re just the messengers.”
“We give the message.”
“Well, who sent you?” I ask, hoping maybe that will be a clue.
“That is not part of her message.”
As if that’s an answer. “Her?”
“Hush, youngling,” the old one snaps at the first one. “You share more than we are meant to. We cannot interfere in these matters.”
The middle one explains, “We are only supposed to deliver the message.”
“Before,” the first one adds, nodding.
“Before what?” I ask.
The light around me suddenly brightens.
“Before this.”
“Befo—?”
As one, the three women snap their fingers. The air around me crackles with energy.
I glance down and see my skin glowing, brighter and brighter. My entire body has turned into a fluorescent bulb. I look radioactive.
“Wha—?”
Suddenly I feel like I’m being pulled in every direction at once. My body struggles to stay together in one piece. My legs go in one direction, my arms another. Everything starts swirling, like a funhouse mirror in the middle of a tornado.
Then the smelly world around me fades away and I’m hurtling through space.
When I wake for real, I’m relieved to inhale a breath of air that only smells like dust and greasy Chinese food. I never thought I’d appreciate the disgusting smells of the city, but in comparison they’re like designer perfume.
Hades is not a marketable scent.
“She’s waking up,” a woman’s voice says.
“Greer!”
Grace’s cheer brings me back into the world—into the real world. I hold my hand up before my face and am relieved to see the glow is gone. My skin is back to normal.
The group standing over me here looks a lot better than the trio in Hades.
“How do you feel?” Grace asks, dropping down next to me on the bed.
I scan the room and find I’m back in the safe house. I suppress a shudder at the knowledge that I’m lying on that ratty, stained coverlet in the bedroom. After dying and going to Hades, the thought of dirt and bedbugs should be the least of my worries.
“I feel . . .” I try to sit up, bracing myself for the pain—I took a knife to the chest, after all—but I’m surprised to find none. “Great, actually.”
The bed bounces as Sillus jumps up by my feet.
“Welcome,” he says with a toothy grin. “Huntress come back.”
How I got to Hades isn’t much of a mystery. I took that blade that was meant for Grace, and I went to the underworld. That shouldn’t be any more surprising than the idea that I’m a descendant of Medusa who fights monsters and is trying to defeat the Olympians who want her dead. Mythology is now something entirely normal in my life.
How I got back to the realm of the living is less clear.
“What happened?” I ask. “How am I still alive?”
“Gretchen saved you,” Grace says. “She brought you back from the dead.”
“With Cassandra’s help,” Gretchen adds.
I shift my attention to the third woman at my bedside.
She gives me a little wave.
Cassandra is our mother—our biological mother, anyway. Grace found her, apparently. There is no question that we are genetically related. We have the same natural hair color, the same silver-gray eyes, and the same high cheekbones. It’s funny how I never before realized how little I resemble my adopted parents. I should have discovered my adoption much sooner.
“Where did you go?” Grace asks, her voice whisper soft. “Were you . . . aware of anything?”
I look into her eyes, so full of hope and wonder. So curious. I would be, too.
As much as I want to hold this inside, to keep this very private thing to myself, something makes me want to tell them. I think the trip to Hades was not as accidental as it seemed at the time. I was supposed to die; I was supposed to get that advice from the Fates. And now I’m supposed to share that with my sisters.
“I went to Hades,” I say bluntly.
“Really?” Grace gasps.
Gretchen asks, “What was it like?”
“It was . . .” I close my eyes, remembering, but the memory is too raw, too real, and I have to open them again. “Awful. It smelled like a garbage dump.”
“Oh.” Grace sounds disappointed. Like I was going to say it was full of puppies and smelled like cotton candy. Not quite.
“I was in more of an antechamber,” I explain, hoping to make her feel better. “I didn’t see Hades proper or anything.”
She visibly relaxes.
“Were you alone?” Cassandra asks.
I flick my gray gaze to hers. “No, I wasn’t.”
I take a deep breath. Despite all the crazy, unbelievable things we’ve all seen, this is one step beyond. My visit to the underworld and advice from the human-looking personifications of destiny is another level of mythology.
“I saw the Fates.”
“The Fates?” Gretchen echoes.
Grace’s eyes get as wide as saucers.
“They were sent to give me advice.”
“Sent?” Gretchen scowls. “By who?”
I shake my head. “They didn’t say.”
“What was the advice?” Grace asks.
“They said, ‘Fight not alone.’ ”
Grace’s mouth falls open, her brows furrowed like she’s completely confused. Gretchen, just as puzzled, twists her head to the side.
“Fight not alone?” Cassandra repeats.
“That’s it.” I shrug. I don’t have a better explanation for it than anyone else. “Kind of disappointing, right? I expect more from a trip to the underworld.”
We sit in silence for a minute. As simple and anticlimactic as it seems, I have a feeling that their advice will
