Daughter of None

19.

Lex

The first time I saw Calypso again, she was standing on my kitchen counter eating cherries out of a martini glass.

"You're alive," she said, as if this was news. "And glowing. How very inconvenient for everyone else."

Cas looked up from the blender with a tired sigh. "She just got back. Maybe don’t start with sarcasm until she finishes a sandwich."

Calypso hopped down, barefoot and luminous in a way that felt deliberate. The kind of beauty you didn’t look directly at unless you wanted your heartbeat to forget its job.

"Where have you been?" I asked, annoyed with how relieved I was to see her.

She gave a theatrical shrug. "Places. Gods. Realms. You know. I had errands."

Cas arched an eyebrow. "She ghosted us."

"I strategically withdrew," Calypso corrected. "I needed to check on some old bindings. When Lex triggered that last power surge, it set off warnings in more places than I’d like."

I blinked. "Sorry I didn’t schedule my existential crisis more conveniently."

Calypso grinned. "Don’t apologize. It’s fun when your powers go haywire. Everyone gets so dramatic."

A glass near the sink cracked just from my narrowed eyes.

Cas quickly handed me a sandwich. "Eat. Before she pushes more buttons."

---

Three hours later, I was three drinks deep into what Cas insisted was a rite of passage.

"You had a death awakening. You’ve unlocked a reality glitch. And your aura gives migraines to low-level demons. That calls for vodka," he said, dragging a highlighter across a napkin that was apparently now a battle plan.

"I don’t think I’m ready to go out," I murmured. I was still rattled. Still haunted by that split second in the woods, the flash of light that shouldn't have existed, and the way the world had bent around me.

Calypso was already halfway through doing her eyeliner in the hall mirror. "Sweetheart. You need to go out. You’re about three heartbeats away from dissolving into a pile of anxious mush, and nothing fights anxiety like bad lighting and dance floors."

"You’re just trying to get me drunk."

She winked. "Guilty."

The dress stared at me like it knew things.

It hung from the closet door—inky black, cut low in the front and even lower in the back, shimmering faintly like spilled oil in candlelight. Slippery and wicked. The kind of dress you didn’t wear unless you were trying to sin, start a war, or crown yourself queen of something you had no business ruling.

“I’m not wearing that,” I said flatly, arms crossed.

Calypso lounged on my bed like royalty on a chaise lounge, painting her nails the color of dried blood. “Oh, darling. You’re wearing it.”

“I look like a high-end assassin.”

Calypso smirked. “Then the dress is working.”

Cas leaned in the doorway, drink in hand, grinning like this was the best show he’d seen in weeks. “It’s subtle,” he said. “For Calypso.”

“I don’t do subtle,” she replied, standing to appraise me like a living sculpture. “And neither should you.”

“This isn’t me.”

“Exactly,” she said, stepping close, voice silk and starlight. “That’s why it works.”

Behind her, Cas gave a lazy toast. “Cheers to poor decisions in expensive fabrics.”

I turned back to the mirror. My hair was down, falling in loose waves that looked accidentally perfect thanks to Calypso’s magic straightener-s***h-deathtrap. My eyes seemed brighter, wilder. My skin held an unnatural flush like I was permanently caught mid-spin.

I didn’t recognize the girl in the mirror. She looked like she got what she wanted and dared anyone to question it.

But deep down, I still felt like the girl who set forests on fire when she panicked.

I tugged the dress down. “I’m going to fall out of this.”

“Then fall pretty,” Calypso said.

“I can’t believe you’re dragging me to a club.”

“Cas is dragging you. I’m simply making sure you don’t embarrass us.”

“I hate you both.”

Cas grinned. “That’s fair.”

---

The apartment door opened without a knock.

I turned—and immediately wished I hadn’t.

Lio stood in the doorway, stormclouds in a black jacket, broad shoulders blocking out half the hall light. His gaze locked on me and didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

He didn’t say anything for a long beat. Then:

“You’re not going out like that.”

Calypso hummed. “Oh, we definitely are.”

Lio’s jaw flexed. “You look like a target.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Good. Let them try.”

He stepped into the apartment, shutting the door behind him with a quiet click that sounded a lot like a warning. His eyes moved over me—slow, controlled, like he was memorizing everything he was trying not to touch.

The heat that unfurled beneath my skin was not magic.

“Lex,” he said, low. “You’re not stable.”

“No one is,” I said, lifting my chin. “What’s your point?”

“You’re flaring,” he said. “You’ve been flaring for days. Something’s coming to the surface, and you think now is the time to get drunk and grind on strangers?”

“I think now is the time to stop feeling like I’m about to detonate just by existing,” I snapped. “I need to breathe. I need to remember what it’s like to not be a walking hazard sign.”

Cas coughed into his drink. “She makes an excellent point.”

Lio’s eyes stayed locked on mine. Something in them burned. Anger, maybe. Or restraint. Or something deeper and older and harder to admit.

“You should stay,” he said finally. “You’re not ready.”

I swallowed. “You don’t get to decide that.”

“No,” he said. “But I’ll still be there.”

Then he turned and walked into the kitchen like the conversation was over. Like his presence didn’t leave my nerves sizzling.

---

Twenty minutes later, I stood in front of the mirror, fully dressed and still half-shaking. The dress hugged me like a dare. Calypso had done something to my eyes—they shimmered like I was holding secrets I didn’t even know I had.

“I feel like I’ve been lit on fire,” I muttered.

“You have,” Calypso said. “You’re just learning how to carry the heat.”

Cas popped his head in. “Portal’s ready. I’m setting the destination for ‘safely reckless’ and ‘slightly illegal.’”

Lio appeared behind him. “I’m going too.”

“You sure?” Cas said, clearly surprised. “Crowds. Lights. Music. Feelings.”

“I’m not leaving her alone like this.”

“She’ll be with us,” Calypso said.

“I know.” His voice was flat. Final. “I’m still going.”

---

The portal shimmered like glass dipped in lightning.

One step through, and we were somewhere else entirely.

The club was carved into the cliffside, with glass walls that overlooked a moonlit ocean and lighting that pulsed like the heartbeat of something alive. Blue bolts danced across the ceiling. The air tasted like ozone and anticipation.

I stepped out of the portal and immediately felt it: the shift.

Heads turned.

Eyes locked.

It was like a spell had gone off the second I entered the room.

Every man in the place—hell, half the women too—turned to stare. Hunger, awe, fascination. It was magnetic. Like I was made of gravity and they were all helpless satellites.

“What the hell,” I whispered.

“You’re glowing again,” Calypso said, not even pretending to hide her amusement. “Gods, you’re intoxicating like this.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not?” she said. “It’s true. It’s her. She’s waking up.”

Cas slid in beside me. “Stick near me. Don’t lock eyes unless you want a scene.”

“I can handle a little flirting.”

Calypso’s voice cut in sharp. “It’s not flirting. It’s compulsion.”

I should’ve left.

But the music thrummed through my bones, and the drinks were too sweet, and for once, I didn’t want to be the girl who ruined everything by being afraid of herself.

So I danced.

I laughed too hard. I drank too much. I let Calypso spin me onto tables and through flashing lights. I felt alive. Not dangerous. Not fragile. Alive.

People stared. And for once, I stared back.

Somewhere in the chaos, Cas was always close—his hand steady on my back, his voice murmuring in my ear when I started to blur.

“I’m fine,” I said for the third time, grinning wildly. “I could dance all night.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s what worries me.”

---

Later, when the press of bodies got too tight, Cas tugged me onto a balcony.

The air was sharp with sea salt. My dress clung damply to my skin. I leaned on the railing, trying to anchor myself to the night sky.

“Why are they all…” I gestured to the glass, to the people inside still watching me like I was a god’s favorite sin. “It’s like I’m—addictive.”

Cas hesitated.

“Because you are,” he said. “It’s not a trick. You’re built that way.”

“Built?”

“Your mother asked me to protect you. That’s why I’m here.”

Everything tilted.

“You knew her?”

He nodded.

“Who was she?”

“That’s the part I can’t tell you. Not yet.”

“You’ve known this whole time?”

“You weren’t ready.”

“You don’t get to decide that.”

“No,” he said. “But she did.”

Inside, a glass exploded in someone’s hand.

Cas didn’t flinch. He just watched me.

“She didn’t abandon you,” he said quietly. “She hid you. And you’re waking up now because something’s coming, Lex. You need to be ready.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I’ll help you figure it out.”

“I don’t trust you.”

He nodded. “I wouldn’t either.”

With that, I turned on my heel and stode back into the lights like a welcoming embrace.