Sweet Legacy (Sweet Venom) (20 page)

CHAPTER 23
G
REER

E
veryone turns to stare at me. “I can
try
to find the door,” I clarify. “Or at least the oracle.”

My powers are still raw, so there’s no guarantee I’ll find out what we need to know. I can try, though. I would be a coward not to.

“No way,” Gretchen says.

“You heard what the gorgons said.” Grace fidgets with the metal edge of the table. “You shouldn’t be seeking out visions.”

“That was before,” I argue, “when I was still a beacon of Apollo. Now that the connection is severed, that isn’t a problem anymore.”

Grace looks thoughtful. “That’s true.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Gretchen insists.

“It’s my gift.” I turn my palms up on the table in a helpless gesture. “I can’t just abandon it.”

“Remember what happened last time you went after a vision?” Gretchen pushes away from the table and starts pacing. “I’m not eager to see you in an astral lock again.”

“That won’t happen,” Grace says, coming to my aid. “It was a side effect of her connection with Apollo.”

“All the more reason to stay away from amateur attempts at prophecy,” Gretchen argues, “in case she rekindles that connection.”

“She won’t,” Grace insists.

“You don’t know that.” Gretchen gives her a stern look.

I sit there, watching my sisters argue over whether or not I should use my gift. I know they care about me. They are worried about me and don’t want me to have any more problems. Neither do I.

But I refuse to be afraid of my powers. The visions are a part of me, and I’m going to embrace them, whether my sisters like it or not.

“This might be our only chance at finding the oracle or the door.” I give my sisters a determined look. “I don’t need your permission. But I would like your help.”

It’s time I learned how to use my power without losing myself in my visions. I don’t have control over them, and when I’ve tried to control them, there have been painful consequences. Maybe that was just because of the connection to Apollo, but what if it wasn’t? What if it’s just part of the bargain, a pesky side effect of second sight?

The truth is, I’m scared.

I push up from the table and start walking. I don’t want to look like I’m pacing, so I walk to the window and look out through the curtain. When I turn back to face the table, four sets of eager eyes are watching me, expectant. I’m afraid I can’t do it.

But I have to try.

Cassandra gets up from the table and crosses to me.

“I can tell you are frightened,” she says quietly. She stands before me, placing her hands on my shoulders. “I cannot imagine what the process is like. But I admire your willingness to embrace the gift. The world has been waiting countless generations for you to be born.” Her hands cup my jaw. “And you, my darling daughter, bear the greatest responsibility of all.”

“I—”

“You have the honor of carrying forward Medusa’s legacy,” she continues. “You alone hold her power of second sight, and you alone can seek the answers that will return the world to what it should be.”

I can do it. I have to. This is my chance to prove myself worthy of Medusa’s gift.

My mother’s eyes hold my gaze, strong and certain. Her confidence feeds mine, soothes over my fears and the bad memories of the recent past. She calls on my sense of duty, and that is something I can’t ignore. Duty is what convinced me to join this fight in the first place. Duty will get me through my fears.

I straighten my spine, lift my chin, and say, “Thank you.”

Cassandra looks just like Grace when she grins. “This time,” she says, “we shall do it right.”

“What does that mean?” Grace asks.

“Fetch me a bowl of water,” Cassandra instructs, “and a length of cloth or a scarf.”

“There’s a bowl under the bathroom sink,” Gretchen says, “and Ursula has a ton of scarves in the dresser.”

“I’ll get the bowl.” Grace hurries out of the room.

Gretchen heads to the bedroom to find a scarf. Sillus follows her.

Cassandra pushes to her feet. “Hopefully there is some chilled Delphic oil in the refrigerator.”

“What is that?” I ask as she crosses to the kitchen.

Cassandra smiles. “It is a prophetic aid,” she says, pulling open the door and searching the shelves, “from the waters around the famous Oracle of Delphi.”

Glass vials clink against each other as she lifts each for inspection. “Ah, here it is,” she says, holding up a small purple vial with an eye painted on the side.

Gretchen returns with the scarf, a long, narrow, navy blue number with flecks of silver thread sparkling like stars in the silk. Sillus has another scarf—with bright red and orange stripes—wrapped around his neck. Grace sets a bowl full of water on the table.

Cassandra asks Gretchen to turn out all the lights but the one above the kitchen sink.

“Please,” Cassandra says to me once the lights are off, “take a seat at the table.”

I sit in one of the chairs at the dirty dining table, and Cassandra takes the one next to me. My sisters stand a few feet away, as if they’re afraid to be in the way. Sillus hops up onto the counter for a better view.

“This ritual has been passed forward through the generations,” Cassandra says as she twists the cap off the purple vial. She shakes several drops of clear liquid into the bowl of water. “It is said that the immortal gorgons used to help Medusa achieve her visions in this way.”

Medusa—my ancient ancestor, the origin of my powers. To think she once sought visions in the same way I’m doing now. What kinds of things did she see? Was it easy for her, or did she have to practice?

Thinking about her naturally makes me wonder about her death. She was the only mortal gorgon, but also the one with the gift of second sight. Did she see it? Did she have a vision of her own demise?

It was awful enough seeing Grace’s death in my vision. How could I live with the knowledge of my own death? Seeing it happen without necessarily knowing
when
it would happen, not being able to prevent it—that would be torture.

I would rather be immortal.

“According to tradition, the key to a successful summoning,” Cassandra says, staring into the water as she swirls her fingers through the surface, “is controlling the atmosphere, controlling the five physical senses, so the sixth sense can rise to the forefront.”

She dips the scarf in the water and then wrings it out over the bowl.

“Close your eyes,” she instructs, and I do.

I feel a cool sensation on my face as she presses the scarf over my eyes, tying it loosely behind my head. When I inhale, I smell something rich and earthy.

“Juniper berry,” she says. “It is an excellent cleansing scent.”

I smile and inhale again.

“Now,” Cassandra says, her voice dropping to a near whisper, “I want you to clear your mind of all concerns, and focus only on the sound of my voice.”

Cassandra’s soothing words guide me out of the safe house, out of my body, and into another place. Honestly, it reminds me of Hades—dark and misty, like the fogged-in shore at night.

This isn’t like my previous visions. I have no dizziness, and I’m not immediately in the middle of the event. This feels more like a waiting room.

“Now,” Cassandra soothes, “direct your thoughts. Seek that which you most need to know.”

Direct my thoughts? That’s easier said than done.

There are many things on my mind right now. It’s tempting to let my mind drift.

But rather than complain, I focus. I have a mission. I start with the oracle. I’ve never seen her, but Gretchen described her. Plus I’ve seen the oracle’s storefront. That gives me a place to start.

I narrow my thoughts onto that spot, onto the oracle I’ve never met, onto . . .

The door. That’s what we
really
need to know. Everything else just leads to that. The oracle is a means to an end. My sisters and I need to find the door and open it so all this danger goes away—although how you open a door that isn’t a door and isn’t even really a place is beyond me.

Not that I think opening the door is going to magically make everything all better right away. I’m sure there will be plenty of people—and gods and monsters—who will want to keep stirring up trouble. But we’ll be able to handle it with the gorgons, our mother, and our friends at our sides—with Nick and Milo and Thane.

Thane.

Yes, Thane
, the woman’s voice says.

Where is he? Why did he leave? After finally revealing the truth about himself, he must have been worried about what we would think of him.

He should never have left. He should have known we wouldn’t hold his past against him—that I wouldn’t judge him for something that was beyond his control. Rather, I judge him for taking control of the situation, for standing up to his keepers to protect Grace. To protect me. I judge him as one of the bravest, most honorable people I’ve ever known. That he didn’t want us to know his secret only means he cares about our opinions.

I need to find Thane, so I can tell him everything is all right.

Then I see him.

He sits on a bench in front of a pond. There are trees all around, and flowers. In the pond, a family of ducks swims to an island of reeds in the middle.

The mist parts, and suddenly I can see Thane’s face. He looks pained. Not in pain—not physical pain, anyway—but aching, angry at himself and afraid of what he might have lost.

I reach out, but my hand goes right through him.

I look around, trying to see where he is. Through the mist and trees I see planes of brick and glass. This could be anywhere in the city.

“Thane,” I call out. “Where are you?”

He looks around, like he can hear me.

I reach for him again, and this time when I do, I’m transported.

I’m back in the dungeon of Olympus, surrounded by that damp dark stone and the persistent drip-drip-drip of moisture from the ceiling. There is nothing around me, nothing but the black stone and the dim glow of torchlight.

I can practically feel the smoke in my lungs.

I start walking, surprised to find I can move around in this vision. Another first.

“I won’t,” I hear Thane say.

Then the snap of leather on flesh.

“Thane!”

I rush toward the source of the sound, around a corner and into a small space with three solid walls and a drain in the center of the floor. Chained at his wrists and ankles, Thane stands in the center of the room, shirtless, with his arms and legs spread wide toward the side walls.

An exquisitely beautiful woman with flaming red hair—literally flaming, as in on fire—stands before him.

“You have a mission,
stratiotis
,” she says, leaning close to speak next to his ear. “Your goddess will not be pleased if you fail her.”

Thane stands silent.

“You must kill the girls,” she says. “All three of them. You are so commanded.”

“No.”

“You would refuse a direct order?”

The flame-haired woman looks almost gleeful when he says, “I will.”

She holds up her hand, revealing long claws at the ends of her fingers. Then, her dark eyes sparkling, she drags her claws across Thane’s chest. She leaves a ragged trail of three parallel marks on his muscular flesh.

Those marks—I’ve seen them before, in the vision I had in our storage closet of Thane standing before a mirror, applying green liquid to cuts on his chest. This is how he got those wounds.

Has this already happened? Or is it happening now?

“The poison will take time,” the woman tells him. “If you carry out your mission, I might give you the antidote.”

Thane growls in pain.

Then I’m gone, back in the safe house with the scarf over my eyes.

I reach up and yank the scarf off, struggling to keep my panic from rising as my breath huffs out in ragged puffs. Those images, those events . . . I’m terrified for Thane.

But as I stare around the room at my sisters, at my mother, at sweet little Sillus, I can’t tell them. They expected me to seek out a vision of the oracle. They would have been happier with a vision of the door.

I can’t tell them I had a vision of Thane being whipped and poisoned. I don’t know when it happened—or will happen—and I don’t know if we can do anything about it. That helplessness will break Grace’s heart.

“So?” Gretchen prods when my gaze lands on her. “What did you see?”

I shake my head, forcing my breathing back under control. “Nothing.”

Not nothing
, the woman says.

Gretchen frowns.

“Nothing?” Grace repeats, looking skeptical.

“No,” I say, wishing I were the sort of girl who believed that crossed fingers counteracted a lie. “Nothing at all.”