Fire & Flood (Mythverse #1)

Book 3 Chapter 6

6

When I arrive at Themis’s office, Hepa is leaving. This is the second time we’ve run into each other here. Weird.

I haven’t really seen her much lately; she’s been cloistered with the other healers, working on their secret project. Not so secret now—it was obviously the fog that outed all the Moggies.

“Hepa,” I say when she tries to walk by me. I grab her wrist and she spins back to me, looking…ashamed.

“I didn’t want to do it,” she tells me. “I hate all this Nazi bullshit. I just…I have to stay on Metis’s good side.” Metis is the goddess in charge of the healing arts, mother to Athena and, weirdly, Zee’s ex-wife. The family tree of the Greek gods is incredibly complicated, and terribly violent. A healer who wants to do well after the Academy will need Metis on her side.

“I understand,” I tell her. “We’re all trying to get by.”

She looks grateful. “If I can do anything to help you…or Mavis.”

“Thanks,” I tell her. As Hepa turns to go, I add, “Hey, what’s with all the visits to Themis lately?”

Hepa goes still for a moment, but then forces a sickly smile onto her face. “Just getting some guidance on my schedule for next term. I like to think ahead.”

And with that she whirls around and quickly strides away.

Okay, definitely weird. But right now, there’s so much else already going on, I shrug it off and push into Themis’s office. As I do, I make my own promise to myself. I’m not leaving here without answers.

She looks up and I’m about to go full out dragon on her when I see the look in her eyes. Sadness, regret, and a little fear. She rushes to me and enfolds me in a hug.

“Edie, I’m so sorry Mavis is being treated this way.”

Despite myself I relax into her hold. I think of Mavis being paraded around like a pet on a leash, the barely hidden bruises on her skin, the green fog turning red as she inhaled it.

“Why is he doing it?” I ask. “Why t*****e her?”

“To show he can,” she says, releasing me. “The collar keeps her from shifting and the chain is impossible to break.” She goes to sit behind her desk. The scales she usually keeps immaculately balanced are askew. They’re supposed to indicate how the war between the monsters and gods is going, but right now they are precariously tipped in favor of the monsters. With everything going on here, the war has been sidelined.

Themis follows my eye, and sighs heavily.

“The monsters have regained territory that we drove them out of. I shouldn’t even say they’ve regained it; we didn’t even put up a fight. With enrollment perilously low, we can’t afford to send students on missions that might prove fatal. And with the new threat on Mr. Zee’s life, well…”

“He’s more concerned about his own skin than anything,” I finish for her.

“Things at Mount Olympus Academy have not been right for some time,” she tells me. “I try to keep it balanced. This Academy is my life. But Zee is so reckless. He’s always followed his impulses. If we could just get him to step down, the Academy could thrive. But that will never happen.”

I remember during summer term, at the faculty dinner when Themis slipped something into his wine glass. And Hepa had handed him his ambrosia on the stage the day that he outed the Moggies. His memory loss, his ashy appearance, his lack of appetite, his impotence.

“You’re poisoning him.” It’s not a question but Themis answers anyway. “And Hepa is helping.”

“Yes, in a way. I’m decreasing his power. I’ve been doing it for years. It makes him less predatory, more docile. But with this prophecy, he’s gone full blown Zeus. He’s paranoid. He’s distrustful. He’s suspicious of everyone. Only those who absolutely have proven their trust can get near him.”

“You want him dead?” That one is a question.

“No, of course not!” Themis actually covers her mouth for a moment at the thought. “I don’t want anyone dead, least of all the leader of the gods. Think of the chaos that would ensue! Minor gods would run amok. There’d be earthquakes and volcanoes and gods know what else. But I would like him to leave the Academy. Step down, if you will. Maybe go into permanent retirement at the real Mount Olympus, in Greece. Wherever he goes, he’s done more than enough harm here at the Academy.”

“What can I do to help?” I ask. “I’ve heard the prophecy. The one about Zee’s diluted blood coming back to kill him. I can try to find out who it is. If he’s faced with that threat—

combined with his weakening powers—maybe he’d go away.”

And if he goes away, I add silently to myself. Mavis has a better chance of being freed.

Themis leans over her desk, her hands clasped. “Edie, do you really want to help?”

“Yes!” I practically shout. “If it will help Mavis. If it will get Zee gone.”

She sits back. “Zee has always had an eye for mortal girls,” she tells me. “Most of the male gods do.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why you told him I might be a Moggy, so that he wouldn’t be interested in me.” Even a good-looking pair of legs isn’t enough to get Zee past his Moggy-hatred.

“About twenty years ago, Hermes got a young shifter pregnant. I hid that pregnancy and took the baby, caring for Bella’s child as my own.”

“Wait…” Mind reeling, I remember the portraits in the Hall of the Dead. “Bella Demopoulous was Mavis’s mother,” I say aloud, piecing it together. “Are you telling me that Hermes is Mavis’s father?”

But Themis continues. “After Mavis was born, I spoke with Zee. I strongly argued that students were off-limits to the gods. Not only because of the moral reasoning—teachers should never put a student in that position—but also because these demi-god births are always hard on the mothers. They often die.

“We don’t allow students to become pregnant; that’s why we make all our students use magical birth control. But that doesn’t protect against a god’s…seed. Zee was aware that Hermes had fathered a child on the student and that the mother had not survived the birth. But he also thought the baby died.”

It’s all making sense now. The puzzle pieces coming into place.

“I wasn’t naïve. I knew that Zee had his own”—she clears her throat— “dealings with students. But I thought after speaking with him that he could control himself. But it happened again.” She raises her eyes to mine, her stare burning.

“Another student pregnant. Another poor girl dead in childbirth. Another baby for me to hide.”

I shake my head, an uneasy feeling in my stomach. “No…”

“Edie,” Themis tells me, “that student was Adrianna Aspostolos.”

“No,” I say, backing away until my heels hit the wall.

Themis picks up a rock from her desk. It’s the same one she had me hold the first time I was in this room. It showed me my inner dragon. And scared the hell out of me. I wasn’t ready to handle that information yet.

There are some undeniable parallels to this current situation. “What will I see if I touch it?” I ask Themis.

“Only the truth,” she answers.

I take a deep breath, and hold out my hands, receiving the rock from Themis.

The room spins and I feel dizzy as a darkness settles around me, swirling until I see something other than these walls. It’s Adrianna, my birth mother, in her dorm room, holding a pregnancy test. Mr. Zee suddenly appears behind her, and she whips around, hiding the test behind her back. His arms go around her, his robes falling off his well-muscled chest. She drops the stick, kicking it under her desk as she leans into him, her head tilted back, ready to meet his kiss.

That vision rolls and changes, showing me the same scene—Adrianna in her room. But this time she’s sitting at the desk, writing madly, tears falling onto the ink, smearing it. I peer over her shoulder, anxious to catch the words: Metis, I’ve found myself in some trouble, and fear I will need the help of a master healer in about six months’ time…

One arm is curled protectively around her stomach, where a bulge is just visible. That pregnancy will kill her. That pregnancy is me.

I drop the stone back onto Themis’s desk.

“Just for the record, that stone is an asshole.”

“Well, yes, that’s quite possibly true. It was one of Hermes’s little inventions.” She pauses and then adds with a significant look, “And you are apparently one of Zee’s little inventions.”

I bury my head in my hands. “I don’t want this.”

“You are his daughter,” she tells me firmly. “And you have the power to threaten his life.”