By the time she reached the courtyard, Okeanus was there, standing before the fountain as his men raced around to prepare. The bushy-bearded Titan lord had skin tinged so faintly blue she almost wondered if he held some kinship to the mer. Servants helped him strap on his own armor, one lacing greaves, two more fussing with a dolphin-encrusted breastplate while Tethys paced around him, his xiphos clutched in her anxious hands.
Was this the very hour of his famed death? Could Pandora stop it? But then, she knew better. She’d tried to change the past, tried to slay Zeus, and all she’d gotten for it was being thrown off a cliff by Nemesis. If she could change the timeline, it would not be through any easy course, nor a few words to these Titans. Okeanus would never listen to her, and Tethys would only think her a foe if she tried to convince her that her consort might die down by the shore.
Prometheus strode into the courtyard, darting around a caryatid and racing to Pandora’s side.
She grabbed him with one hand, the other clutching Pyrrha close. “This is because of me, isn’t it? All those who will suffer and die this day do so because I came here, and Kronos hunts the Box.”
“We cannot know that with absolute certitude,” Prometheus said, though his eyes told another tale. A fear Pandora had the right of it, and chaos would ensue, with the blame falling upon their shoulders.
“Does he know his own future?” she demanded. “Is that why Kronos seeks the Box, to change the result of the Titanomachy?”
“Again, who can say how much he knows? He might have divined his end. But even had he the Box, still he is bound by the same threads of Fate as the rest of us. Ananke’s grasp is not easily evaded.”
Pandora winced. How very true, but, like herself, Kronos had the motivation to go to any lengths to try. “If the Box is gone, he may leave Thebes in peace.”
“He might …” Prometheus swallowed, looking for all the World like he wanted to say more. To offer a thousand reasons for her not to go through with this. Instead, he withdrew the Box from his satchel and proffered it to her.
Looking at the thing again, now, it became too real. Too heavy. She faltered, staggering under the weight of its import. This was her last moment with Pyrrha, and the last time this Prometheus would see her for thousands of years. Eyes glistening, she looked down at the babe in her arms. Not crying, not having any idea what unfolded around her, Pyrrha gazed up at her, replete with innocence.
Pandora kissed her daughter’s forehead. “I’m so, so sorry I … I have no …” Blinking, she rubbed her eyes with the back of her wrist. Not like this. She would not leave Pyrrha with a memory of her mother weeping over her. That the babe would never remember this mattered naught. What mattered was the moment. And she held Pyrrha so very tight. “I will see you again, I swear it. No matter if I must defy Ananke, I will see you, precious child.”
Though it destroyed her, she slid the babe into her lover’s arms, then took the Box he still held out to her.
“I made what adjustments I had time to,” Prometheus said, voice seeming drawn out over a loom, stretched to breaking. This was killing him, too. “Still, it is infinitely complex and relies, so far as I can tell, upon the intuitive abilities of the user.”
“You built it for me,” she said. “So shouldn’t it take me where I want to go?”
“One would think.”
Shouts had rung up outside the city, and, when she looked about, she realized Okeanus was already gone. He had gone down to the harbor to lead his troops against the assaulting forces of Kronos. He had gone to die.
Her gaze returned to Prometheus, and now even he, imperturbable as he was, stood with unshed tears glinting in his eyes. “I will take care of her, I swear,” he promised. “I will give her the best life a child can enjoy in such times as these.”
“I will see her again.” One more promise to one more loved one she could not live without. And when she had fulfilled her promise to Prometheus, she would find a way to uphold her vow to their daughter. Not even the Moirai would stand in her way.
Lest anyone notice her—unlikely though that was in the course of a battle—Pandora slipped from the water garden. She passed more scrambling servants carrying wooden planks. They intended to bar the doors from the inside and hold back the tide of Kronos’s forces. No such planks would stop true Titans, though they might hold back Men.
Pandora slipped from the main hall, pausing before a fresco depicting some cephalopodic, dragon-headed monstrosity lurking within an undersea chasm. What would possess any artist to depict such a thing, she could not imagine, but its too-numerous incandescent eyes seemed to watch her through the painting.
Her lover had trailed behind her, their child in his arms. His mouth was ajar, though he seemed unable to form any more words. What was left to be said, after all? She must do this, and he must convince Kronos the Box was gone.
With a breath to steady herself, Pandora began to twist the pieces of the puzzle. Intuition, Prometheus had said. Her own instincts ought to guide her, for he had built this for her. So all she needed to do was trust herself.
And pop open the puzzle once more.
Once more, the World thrummed, and her ears popped. She wobbled in place, braced herself against
