Sweet Legacy

She turns her head to look at me.

“Don’t look,” I say, moving my lips as little as possible, “but the door is right in front of us.”

She immediately looks. “Where?”

“Gretchen,” I growl.

She quickly turns back to me. “Right. Where?”

“There—”

“I found several likely candidates,” Greer says, stepping in between me and Gretchen and the three trees. “We will have to test them to be certain. Though I’m not really sure how to do that.”

I glance up and give her a try-to-be-subtle look, but she’s not paying attention.

“We should narrow it down before we attempt anything. The rotunda would be a prime candidate,” she explains, “but there weren’t any noticeable threes. They could be hidden, of course, so we might as well start there.”

When Thane nudges her, she looks at him. Then, following his gaze, she finally looks at me.

Gretchen cuts to the chase. “Sit down, shut up, and act like nothing’s happening.”

Sillus lifts his head. “Huntress quiet.”

Greer purses her lips like she’s irritated, but then Gretchen gives her a fierce glare and her eyes widen as she sits down on my other side. I lean back and stare off to the south. Nick stands casually in front of Gretchen, while Thane—more relaxed than usual, but still way more tense than Nick—stands practically at attention between me and Greer.

“Directly in front of us,” I whisper, “is a triangle of trees. Three trees.”

From the corner of my eye, I see Gretchen subtly scan her gaze over the trees, checking it out. She returns her attention to me.

“You think that’s it?”

I shrug and shake my head. “I can’t be one hundred percent sure until we try.”

“Of course. It makes perfect sense,” Greer whispers. “It’s outdoors, under the sky.”

“And it would be easy enough to be three within three,” I explain.

Gretchen scowls, like she’s thinking it through. “And trees could be here forever and no one would notice.”

“Three tree,” Sillus whispers reverently.

“They look like they could have been here since the time of the gorgons,” I say.

Greer nods. “This must be it.”

“Agreed,” Gretchen says.

“So . . .” I look from one sister to the other. “Now what?”

CHAPTER 29 GREER

All my years of service in student government, mock United Nations, and various leadership roles in clubs and activities have trained me to step up and take charge. So that’s what I do.

“First,” I say, standing and stepping away from the bench, “we need to go somewhere else.”

The last thing we need to do is have a brainstorming session right here in front of the door, where anyone and everyone can see. We need to plan and strategize without worrying that one of the factions is going to burst in on the scene.

Gretchen and Grace stand with me while Nick and Thane flank us on either side, like bodyguards.

“The marina is two blocks that way,” I say, pointing to the northeast. I smile tightly. “It’s a lovely day to watch the boats sail by.”

And figure out how to save the world without getting ourselves killed in the process. Dying again would be so anticlimactic.

We walk in silence, lost in our thoughts. I don’t know about my sisters, but my heart is racing. I feel like all of a sudden this is all too real. Certainly I’ve seen monsters before. I have been in the abyss and the dungeons of Mount Olympus and fought creatures most humans have never even imagined. But this? It’s the gold ring. It’s what we’ve been talking about, what we’ve been trying to do. What we’ve been risking everything to make happen. What we were born to do, literally.

It’s fairly overwhelming.

If it weren’t so important or so immediate, I might stop to wonder if we can really do it. There is fear and doubt, no matter how much I tell myself I don’t believe in either. The truth is, it doesn’t matter if I think we can. We don’t have a choice. A lot of lives are depending on us, on our success. We have to do it.

We reach the corner of the marina, the spot where sailboats sleep and waves from the Bay gently slap against their hulls. It’s quiet, peaceful. And we’ve come here to talk about war.

I’m not certain whether that’s ironic or simply sad.

“Before we do anything else,” Gretchen says as soon as we’re settled, “we have a decision to make. Are we opening the door?”

“What?” Grace gasps.

I meet Gretchen’s gaze. “I didn’t think that was up for debate.”

Gretchen doesn’t blink as she speaks. “Maybe it’s not,” she says, “but we are in this together. The responsibility will be ours together. We need to decide this together.”

“There’s nothing to discuss.” Nick looks like he wants to be sick.

“I’m sorry, Nick,” Gretchen replies, “but you don’t get a vote. We’re the Key Generation. There are other alternatives and I don’t want there to be any regrets.”

Alternatives? Gretchen is right. Even if we believe we are decided, we need to at least consider the other options. This decision will affect the rest of our lives. We need to think this through. What if we don’t open the door? What if we seal it forever or just let it seal itself through our inaction?

A picture of my life before—before I met my sisters, before I started seeing monsters again, before I knew that I had an ancient legacy to fulfill—flashes through my mind. At first, I’d thought that life was worth holding on to at all costs. Do I still want that? The success and the pressure and the twenty-year career plan?

The very thought makes me want to yawn.

“Well, I vote yes,” Grace says after the slightest hesitation. “It’s our destiny. We can’t just let all those creatures die.”

Those creatures—some of them—are our friends.

I think back to our time in the abyss. Sealing the door forever—and we do mean forever—would mean the death of every living thing inside. The Nemean lions and skorpios hybrids I’m not terribly compassionate about—I wouldn’t mind fewer run-ins with them—but the golden maiden? The oceanid? The onyx guards? Sillus?

How could I live with myself if I sacrificed countless innocent creatures for the selfish purpose of preserving my social life? I couldn’t.

Grace is right; we can’t condemn them to death for the evils of others. They are pawns in this game of the gods.

Besides, the image of the picture-perfect life I once thought I wanted doesn’t seem all that appealing anymore. New-student socials and midterm study groups have lost their allure. They’re downright boring. I’ve gotten kind of used to danger and adventure. I’m not about to give that up now.

“I agree,” I finally say. “We open the door.”

Gretchen nods, smiling like I passed a test. “Then it’s unanimous.”

Nick visibly relaxes. Did he really think Gretchen—any of us—would say no? Maybe he did. Maybe the old Gretchen would have. The Gretchen I first met, only a few weeks ago, would not have thought twice about the innocent creatures. Monsters were monsters were monsters; her only job was to send them home, by any means necessary. She’s changed a lot in a short time. We all have.