Complete Nothing (24 page)

Still, I held my breath when she didn’t immediately respond. The quicker the comeback, the more fine she was. A slow burn from Lauren was never pretty. She looked me in the eye, and I tried as hard as I could to get across a silent plea.

“Gee, thanks so much for your input, Keegan,” she said finally, with false sweetness. “But I can assure you, I know what I want.”

With a flip of her curls, she strode over to the counter, where she grabbed True and practically dragged her into the corner for a chat. True. I needed to talk to her too. To thank her for hooking me up with Keegan in the first place. And to tell her that Peter and I were not going to happen. After everything she’d done for me—heaven knew why—I figured she deserved to know what was going on.

Over in the corner, Lauren was gesturing wildly along with her rant. Maybe I’d talk to True later.

“I don’t think she likes me,” Keegan said matter-of-factly, sipping his water.

“Lauren? You have to give her some time to get to know you,” I suggested, cuddling closer to him. “She’s probably still adjusting to me being with someone other than Peter. She was a big fan.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I caught my breath. What was I doing mentioning my ex in front of him?

“Oh yeah?” he said, leaning back to look me in the eye. “And what was so great about Peter?”

I shifted, picking up my empty cupcake wrapper just to have something to focus on. I started to tear it into little strips, raining crumbs over the plate. “We don’t have to talk about him.”

“No, really. I want to know. Is he as perfect as everyone says he is?”

I blinked, but kept tearing. I couldn’t have looked Keegan in the eye right then if I’d tried. “People say he’s perfect?”

“You hear things,” he said, sniffing and looking across the room. “Like how polite he is, how he goes to church every week, volunteers, had a sixty-seven percent completion rating last year. . . .”

I glanced at Keegan’s profile as he rattled off Peter’s attributes, and suddenly it dawned on me. He was jealous of Peter. It was so ironic I almost wanted to laugh. The only reason I’d gotten together with Keegan in the first place was to make Peter jealous, and now Keegan was the one with the envy problem.

My heart swelled, flattered that he could ever be jealous over me. But did he really think I was going to dump him and go running back to Peter because he had a better QB rating?

He was so sweet it killed me.

I dropped the shredded cupcake wrapper and reached up to touch his face, turning him to look at me.

“Peter Marrott is no Keegan Traylor,” I said.

Something caught in my throat as I said it, but I chose to ignore whatever it was as Keegan’s wide grin spread across his face.

“Damn straight,” he said.

And this time, I kissed him.

I’d gotten everything wrong. Everything. As I walked home from work on Sunday afternoon, I couldn’t even see straight, because my brain was having a hard time keeping up with the list of mistakes I’d made. Peter hadn’t broken up with Claudia because he needed space and wanted to date other girls; he’d done it because he couldn’t take the dread of losing her anymore, so he’d gotten it over with. Hooking her up with another guy would have been a perfect strategy if he’d simply gotten distracted by the idea of a hotter girl, but he’d been afraid of her moving on, and I’d talked her into doing just that. My jealousy plan had made the situation worse instead of better. And the kicker? Claudia was now falling for Keegan, who from every account would do nothing but break her heart, stomp on the pieces, and skip merrily away.

I skirted around a family walking happily along with their ice-cream cones and wanted to pound my head into the brick walkway. This was supposed to be my calling. My special talent. Why did I keep screwing it up?

A familiar laugh made my shoulder muscles curl, and I turned to find Darla Shayne traipsing out the door of the boutique where
she worked, with Orion right behind her. Yep. I’d gotten that completely wrong too. I turned my back on them as quickly as possible and speed-walked the rest of the way home.

Hephaestus’s van was in the driveway. I jogged up the walk, opening the door quietly. If he was talking to someone from the Mount, I wanted to catch as much of the conversation as I could. But when I stepped inside, the house was still. I crept over to Hephaestus’s room and found the door ajar. Slowly, carefully, I pushed it wide. His bed was made, his laptop computer shut on his desk, and he was nowhere in sight.

Adrenaline pumping, I closed the door behind me. Part of me realized that what I was doing was, on some level, wrong, but I wasn’t about to let this opportunity go to waste. If Hephaestus was using something in this room to communicate with Mount Olympus—whether it was with Harmonia or someone else—I was going to find it.

I started with the dresser, searching carefully through each drawer, making sure not to disturb anything in an obvious way. Everything was perfectly folded, from the socks to the boxer briefs and T-shirts. I moved to the closet, shoved my hand inside pockets, rattled hangers, and overturned shoes and boots. Nothing. Finally I turned to the desk and picked up the computer. It looked like a normal laptop. Nothing out of the ordinary. But Hephaestus was a master mechanic. Could he have figured out a way to make it communicate with our world?

I turned the computer on and a blue screen greeted me, then quickly morphed into a picture of a desert at sunset. I stared, waiting for something to happen, and realized I hadn’t a clue how to use the thing. I’d worked on some of the desktop computers at school, but those had mouse contraptions for controlling things. This had nothing but a keyboard and a black pad.

I sighed, frustrated, but something told me the answer wasn’t here anyway. The machine wasn’t giving off any sort of magical, mystical, or otherworldly vibe. I slapped it closed and walked into Hephaestus’s bathroom, giving it a cursory look. It was about the same as I’d last seen it, except the toilet was cleaner.

“Come on, H,” I muttered to myself. “What’re you hiding?”

And that was when my eyes fell on the mirror. It was a spectacular piece of work, hung over the desk since the day Hephaestus had arrived. It was clearly of his own making. The intricacies of the woven metal frame were impossibly detailed, and the whole thing seemed to glow in the waning sunlight.

I stepped closer to the mirror, narrowing my eyes at my reflection. The glass was flawless, not a nick or a stain or a smudge. It was the only artifact of Hephaestus’s own making that he carried with him. The only evidence of the god he used to be.

My skin tingled. This had to be it. Hephaestus’s connection to our world. If I could get this thing to work, would I be talking to Harmonia? Or would someone less sympathetic answer the call?

Suddenly I didn’t care. I wanted news from home. News I heard with my own ears, not through Hephaestus’s possibly disloyal filter. I reached for the mirror tentatively, laying one hand on its frame. Nothing. I clutched the cold metal with both hands. Again, nothing. I waved my hand in front of my reflection. No response. I laid my palm against the glass. Nothing.

But it did leave a nice, obvious handprint.

“Dammit.”

I ripped off my T-shirt, straightened the tank top beneath it, and quickly wiped the glass clean. Then I stood back and tapped my fingertip against my chin. Perhaps it had some kind of password.

“Open,” I said.

The mirror stared back at me, obstinately ordinary.

“Converse,” I tried.

I leaned in closer, now able to see every pore on my nose. I stared as hard as I could, imagining I could see through to Mount Olympus. Willing it to be so.

“Harmonia?” I whispered. “Sister, please. Hear me.”

Nothing.

Frustration burbled hot inside my chest. If ever there was a time I needed to use my power, it was now. I clenched my fists, closed my eyes, and concentrated my energy, thoughts, and emotions on the mirror.
Work,
I thought, sending the wish out into the ether.
Work!

My eyes opened. Nothing.

I groaned loudly and turned away from my reflection, so annoyed with my inadequacy I couldn’t look myself in the eye any longer. If I had my earthen window, I could see any place at any time just by willing it. I could have looked into Hephaestus’s room whenever I wanted and see what he was doing. I realized, suddenly, how much I had taken for granted my whole existence. If I ever made it back to Mount Olympus, I’d be sure to appreciate everything I had, from my family to my powers to my calling. But especially Harmonia. It wasn’t until she’d been torn away from me that I realized how much her counsel meant.

I took a deep breath and slipped my T-shirt back over my head.

There was every possibility that the mirror would work only for Hephaestus, no matter what I did. I had to catch him in the act of using it, but how? He could hear me coming on these creaky floors from a mile away. There was always the chance of spying him through one of the windows, but he usually kept the blinds drawn.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out. It was a text from Wallace.

DID U GET MIA’S #???

I groaned and texted back. It took me three tries to get the one word typed correctly.

SOON!

I closed the window and saw the tiny square drawing of a camera. Everything inside me froze, then suddenly overheated. A camera. Of course. If I could set up a camera inside this room, it could act as a mini earthen window.

Technology really could be my friend.

For a moment, I considered leaving my phone with the camera turned on somewhere in the room, but it was too bulky. Hephaestus would surely spot it. I needed a tiny camera. Something I could position on the light fixture above the bed and train at the desk and the mirror above it.

And I knew just how to get one. My conjuring power. This constituted an emergency, didn’t it? I might have an enemy, a mole, living under my own roof. Someone who could derail my entire mission or, worse yet, lead Artemis and Apollo right to me. I had to know for sure whether I could trust Hephaestus.

Besides, would Zeus really notice one tiny spy camera? One tiny zip of my power? Even as I entertained these thoughts, I knew I was crossing a very serious line, but I couldn’t help it. I needed answers.

I closed my eyes, clenched my fists, and imagined a tiny spy camera inside my hand. It appeared instantly. Just like that, I had my very own earthen window on Earth. I took a breath and waited to see if anything else would happen. If Zeus would whirl me back
to the Mount for punishment or send one of his guards to flay me.

But there was nothing. No sound save for the sweet chirping of the birds outside the window. I was safe.

Now I had to figure out how it worked. There were two pieces. One, clearly, was the camera because it had an adjustable tube with a tiny lens at the end of it. The other must be something to catch whatever was transmitted through the camera. It looked as if it could plug into a computer, but I had no computer of my own.

That, however, was a conundrum for another time. Right now, I had to get this camera in place before Hephaestus got back from wherever he was.

I climbed up onto his bed and reached for the chandelier. It was a big bowl-like frosted glass thing, and I was able to attach the camera to one of its spindles, hiding most of the mechanism inside the glass. Then I twisted the tubing so that the lens faced roughly in the direction of the mirror. Gods, I hoped I was right about that thing. Otherwise this was going to be one big waste.

At that moment, the front door slammed. I was so startled I jostled the camera, and it fell into the bottom of the chandelier bowl. Cursing under my breath, I grabbed for it, but my hands had started to sweat and it slipped right from my fingers. Clenching my teeth, I latched onto the camera, refastened and repositioned it, my hands shaking the entire time. I was about to drop to the floor again, but it was too late. The door to Hephaestus’s room swung open and there he was, staring up at me.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

Yet another emergency.

Lightbulb,
I thought desperately.

A small round bulb appeared inside my hand, which was hidden within the frosted glass bowl. I held it up.

“I noticed one of your lights was out the last time I was in here, so I changed it for you,” I lied breathlessly, jumping down from the bed.

The mirror rattled when my feet hit the floor and I blinked, hoping I hadn’t jostled it into a precarious position when I was manhandling it. If the thing came crashing to the floor, the jig would definitely be up.

“Okay . . . thanks,” Hephaestus said slowly, glancing around the room.

“Everything okay?” I asked him, my heart pounding in my ears.

“Yeah. I just went out for some exercise,” he said. “Everything okay with you?”

I was edging past him out the door, feeling as though I couldn’t get away fast enough. “Yeah! Fine! Just got back from work, so I’m gonna go shower.”

“Right. Cool,” Hephaestus said.

“See ya.”

Pocketing the supposedly dead lightbulb, I ran upstairs and into my room, closing the door behind me. Only then did I let out a breath. That was close. But when I turned around, I stopped breathing again. The sand timer was more than halfway through its cycle. I didn’t have much time left to match my next couple, and Claudia and Peter were more estranged than they’d ever been.

With a sigh, I sat down on my bed and pulled out the second half of my spy device, wishing I wasn’t so dense with computers. Luckily, however, I had an expert at my disposal. But if I was going
to ask Wallace for another favor, I was going to have to return it. I took out my phone and texted Lauren.

CAN YOU SEND ME MIA ROSS’S #?

In two seconds, I had the digits. I was really starting to like these cell phones.

“True!” Hephaestus thundered at the top of his lungs.

My heart vaulted into my mouth. He’d found the camera. He must have. But how? He couldn’t stand, and there was no way he could have seen it from his angle.