The Shadow Prince (32 page)

“Well, it’s your fault, Brim, for hiding in there!”

Brim growls, baring her tiny fangs.

“Oh my gosh, is that your kitten?” Daphne asks. She sounds strangely amused, and the anger melts from her expression.

“In a way. But she’s not a kitten,” I say, because I know Brim
hates
being called that. “She’s nearly seven years old.”

“But she’s so tiny! Like, barely bigger than a guinea pig.”

I try to pet Brim to calm her, but she swats at me with her claws. “What she is, is angry. That’s not a good thing.”

“It’s adorable.” Daphne laughs. “Come here, little girl,” she says in a singsong voice, reaching for Brim.

“Not a good idea,” I say, and try to pull the cat away from her reach. Brim bites my finger. I snap my hand back, and to my horror, Daphne snatches up the cat. To my utter astonishment, Brim lets her, though she’s still growling and hissing.

“I know how to soothe a savage beast,” Daphne says, like she’s singing. “My mom is always bringing home cranky strays. Grab the guitar. Try the song again.”

I scoop up the instrument and sit next to her. I pick out the notes again. After a few seconds, Daphne joins her voice in with my strumming. She sings in a lower, more gravelly tone that carries the same timbre as Brim’s small yet ferocious growl. Listening to her feels like the sensation of someone wrapping a warm blanket around my shoulders. But it’s been so many years since someone has done this for me; I am surprised I remember
what it feels like.…

We’re halfway through the song when I realize that Brim’s growling has been replaced by a steady purr. She’s curled herself into a tiny ball in Daphne’s hands. Daphne smiles down at her.

I suddenly feel jealous of the cat.

I haven’t dared to add my own voice to the music for fear of spoiling it. I don’t even know
how
to sing, but as the song rounds into the final lines, the warmth of the music engulfs me to the point that I feel as if something inside of me is pushing its way out to meet it. I cannot help myself. My voice crackles at first and is barely audible, but when Daphne turns her smiling eyes on me, my voice grows stronger, mingling with hers. Our voices ring together, and for a moment, I feel as though I am free. Even freer than I felt in the Tesla. Freer than owls soaring from their roost.

I hold the final note of the song with Daphne, almost afraid to let that feeling of freedom go. Finally, she lets the note fall and I end the song.

I pull my fingers from the guitar strings and find Daphne staring at me. Her head is cocked to the side as if she is listening to something even though the music has stopped.

“What is it?” I ask her.

“Huh. I didn’t think you had an inner song, Haden Lord,” she says softly. “I guess I was wrong.”

I have had five lessons with Daphne in the last two weeks. Each one starts almost the same as the first. She peppers me with questions about my family and my past until she becomes frustrated with how little pertinent information I give her, and eventually she moves on to the music. I bring Brim with me since she seems
to have a softening effect on Daphne, who lets her sit on her knee as we play.

My mastery of the guitar is coming along quite nicely, thanks to Daphne’s gifted hands. She has even let me play the piano in her father’s studio a couple of times. I prefer the guitar, though; it gives me something to hold on to.

It is late in the evening. I am headed back to Simon’s mansion after my latest lesson with Daphne. Brim clings happily to my shoulder, enjoying the fresh air, and I carry the loaner guitar that Daphne has sent me home with to practice. It’s an ebony black Stratacoustic from her father’s collection. “Believe me, he won’t even notice it’s gone. Besides, he owes me one,” she’d said. I think of how her hands had brushed mine when I took it from her.

I am crossing the bridge that leads to the school, taking a shortcut to Simon’s, when the smell of sulfur permeates my senses. Brim catches the scent also and jumps from my shoulder. She yowls and runs across the bridge, following the scent.

“Stop!” I shout. But she doesn’t listen.
Harpies
. I hitch up the guitar and take off after her, thinking of the consequences of letting a hellcat get loose near a school.

I don’t have to go far before I find her. Thankfully, she’s just standing on the back end of a parked car, meowing plaintively at something behind the vehicle. That is when I see it.

The body.

She lies on the ground behind a crop of bushes just beyond the parking lot, her hair splayed out around her head like a brown halo. Gashes cover her arms, and her chest has been ripped open. Her heart is missing.

This time, the Keres has done more than cause a heart attack.
It’d ripped it right out of her. I wonder how the town officials will try to explain away this death.

I can’t tell what set the Keres off at first, why it had gone after her in the first place, but then I notice a small bandage on the woman’s pinky. Probably no more than a nick on her finger from a piece of paper.

My fears were right. The Keres is growing stronger.

Its thirst for blood is making it bolder.

I look more closely at the woman, realizing that I know her. Mrs. Canova, the teacher who had dragged Garrick and me to the counselor’s office after the fight.

Garrick
.

The realization hits me so hard, I don’t know why I didn’t see it the moment I first glimpsed the Keres the night it attacked Lexie. There is only one person in the mortal world right now who would know more about Keres than I do. Only one person here who had access to them before we came.

Only one person who could have known how to bring it here …

“It’s not fair,” Garrick says as he and Dax enter the mansion via the garage. “When are you going to let me drive?”

I hear them coming and stand up from the couch, where I have been waiting for them to return.

“Sorry, kid. You’ve got to be at least sixteen here to get a driver’s license.” Dax tosses a grease-spotted paper sack onto the coffee table. “Dinner,” he says to me.

“Dax picked,” Garrick says. “So I hope you like deep-fried fat.”

“They’re called chimichangas. And they’re awesome. Almost as good as tacos.”

I wrinkle my nose at the smell. “I’m not hungry.”

Garrick flops into an armchair. His leg dangles over one of the arms. I assess him for a moment and notice how he’s dropped the small, cowering mannerisms of a Lesser. He has become too comfortable here. “Can’t you get me one of those fake ID things you got Haden?” He leans over and digs into the paper bag. He takes out two bundles wrapped in grease-spotted paper. He tosses one to Dax, who catches it without looking up, and then offers the other to me.

“I don’t want it.” I wave off the foul-smelling food. Garrick doesn’t even notice me glaring at him.

“I could get you an ID, but I won’t. You’re too young. I wouldn’t let you near Venus.”

“Venus?” he asks mockingly. “Is that what you call your car?”

“She’s my little goddess. And I’m not letting you near her again. You tried to eat a chimi in the front seat.”

“What’s that?” Garrick asks, with a mouth full of meat and cheese, pointing at the guitar Daphne gave me. It’s tucked under the coffee table.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s something.” He bounces up and grabs it out from under the table. His greasy fingers leave prints on the black gloss paint. “What the Tartarus is this thing?”

“Put it down,” I say, but he doesn’t listen.

His filthy fingers are on the strings now.

“Don’t touch that.” I reach for the guitar just as Garrick slides his fingers over the strings and a discordant jumble of notes fills the air.

“Harpies,” he says, almost dropping it. The clatter of notes as it smacks against his leg makes me cringe.

“You dung eater!”

“That thing makes music,” Garrick says. I can see the panic in his eyes. Finally, an expression that belongs on a Lesser. “What are you doing with it?”

“Give it back.”

“It’s forbidden. If King Ren finds out—”

“He’s not going to find out.”

Garrick squeezes the neck of the guitar hard in his hand. I can feel the pulse of electricity building in his body.

“Don’t you dare.”

“We should destroy it.”

“Give it to me. That’s an order, Lesser.”

“No.”

I can’t tell if he refuses because he’s concerned about my well-being, or just because he wants to be defiant. Because he thinks he
can be
. He raises his free hand, tiny wisps of blue light crackling in his palm. I’ve never seen a Lesser use his lightning power before. The electricity is weak, but still strong enough to cause damage to the guitar.

I lunge at him.

Garrick squeals and scrambles up onto the armchair, but he can’t get away from me. I wrestle the guitar from him and thrust it at Dax, who tries to stop us from fighting. I grab Garrick by the collar. I raise my other hand. The energy that pulses through me would be enough to knock the teeth from his mouth.

“Why did you do it?” I ask.

“Music is forbid—”

“Not that,” I snarl into his face. “Why did you bring
it
here?”

Garrick’s eyes go wide. His mouth quivers. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do!”

“Haden, stop,” Dax says. “What is this about?”

“The Keres,” I say. “Garrick brought it here.”

“What?” he says. “That’s impossible.”

“Think about it. He works in the Pits. He has access to them. He must have brought one with him.” I shake Garrick by his collar. “But I want to know why. Did you think it would be amusing? Did you do it to distract me? Why, you little harpy?”

“Stop this,” Dax says, trying to pull me off Garrick. “Listen to yourself. Garrick didn’t know you were going to choose him to come with us. How could he have planned it? How could he even get a Keres out of the Pits? The barriers of the Pithos prevent it.”

Dax’s reasoning edges at my rage. I’ve acted again without thinking it through.

“It was an accident,” Garrick says softly. He cowers, holding his hands in front of his face defensively. “It must have attached itself to me. They can do that. Like a second shadow. It was a stowaway, like how you suggested to Dax that first night. I had no idea it was here until I heard you tell Dax and Simon that you saw it. Then I realized what I had done.”

“You idiot. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because I knew you would react like this.”

“I don’t understand,” Dax says. “How is any of this even happening? The Keres can’t get out of the Pits. Only Hades himself could summon them through the barrier. I wouldn’t believe any of this if Haden hadn’t seen it himself.”

“The locks on the Pits are starting to fail. The barrier that keeps the Keres out of both the Underrealm and the mortal world is beginning to fall,” Garrick says. “Pandora’s Pithos is opening.”

“But that means more could get out. They could all get out.”

One Keres is a dangerous thing on its own. But one can become more when it becomes strong enough to multiply. The Keres are kept weak in the Pits to keep their numbers low. But even a handful of Keres, which hunt in packs, could rip through the Underrealm in a matter of days. If more get into the mortal world, especially depending on the
type
of Keres—disease, fear, violent death, war, pestilence—they can destroy a state, a country. Unchecked, they can multiply and multiply until they destroy this entire realm—and then move on to the others.

We’ve been lucky with this Keres that is loose on Olympus Hills, I realize. This one is merely a reaper. I’ve only ever heard of one other Keres escaping into the mortal world since their imprisonment. Humans called it the black plague.

“How can the Heirs stop the Pithos from opening?” I ask.

“They can’t,” Garrick says. “Not without the Key of Hades.”

I finally let go of him. Dax and I exchange a look. We are back to the Key once again. No wonder the Court is so desperate to find it. Bringing the Cypher—bringing Daphne—to them has more importance than just restoring the Underlords’ ability to move freely between the realms, even more than restoring their full powers—it is needed to stop the five realms from ceasing to exist.

“That’s just a worst-case scenario,” Dax says, as though he can read the thoughts that have slammed through my brain. The gravity of it all must be written on my face. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“How do you kill them?” I ask Garrick. “How do we stop this one before it gets strong enough to multiply?”

“You can’t,” he says. “That’s why Hades locked them away.”

“You have to know something.”

“I don’t,” Garrick says, and pushes me away from him. “I don’t know anything. I’m just a Lesser, remember?”

“You brought this thing here. Accident or no accident, you are responsible for what it does. The lives it takes are on your head. You have to help me stop this thing.”

“No,” Garrick says. “This is
your
responsibility.
You
brought me here, which means you brought the Keres here. It’s not my fault it was attached to me. That’s the hazard of living in the Pits. And you and I both know the real reason I was banished to the Pits in the first place. Which means what that monster does is on your head. Not mine.”

So he does know his banishment was my fault.…

He raises his fist as though he wants to blast me. Tiny threads of blue light encircle his hand. My shame prevents me from trying to stop him.

Dax grabs Garrick’s fist. He winces as Garrick’s lightning shudders up his arm, but he doesn’t let go. “Do not forget your place, Garrick. Haden is our Champion. Your insubordination is a crime, even in this place.”

Garrick’s face clouds over with the look of a hellcat. Then he drops his head like a scolded kit. “Fine.”

Dax lets go of his fist. “Go upstairs.”

Garrick grabs the grease-spotted bag and huffs up the stairs.

“Garrick,” Dax calls after him. “That’s Haden’s dinner.”

“Let him go. I’m not hungry.”

Dax sits in the armchair that Garrick vacated and looks at me. “What did he mean by all that?”