27
Immediately the smoke disperses.
Everyone is still standing where they had been. There are gasps, and cries, and even a few cheers when everyone sees Zee lying at my feet, his hands wrapped around the blade of the sword as he tries in vain to remove it from his chest.
The earth beneath my feet trembles and a rough wind picks up, strong enough to blow up anything not bolted to the stage.
“It’s begun,” Themis says.
“Edie, I knew you could do it.” The voice in my ear sounds like Mavis. A hallucination brought on by my overwhelmed senses. Except she keeps talking. “You have the sword still, press the gods for concessions. Free the monsters from them once and for all.”
Am I truly having a vision of my dead sister bossing me around?
A hand wraps around my uninjured arm. My head turns s
