But Henry wasn’t the bad guy. He’d stayed loyal to Persephone despite everything she’d done to him, and my momentary compassion for Calliope faded. In the end, she was to blame for what she’d done, no one else.

“No wonder she snapped,” I mumbled. “If I had to watch Henry do that to me, I think I would, too.”

“It doesn’t excuse murder,” said James. “And it doesn’t excuse releasing Cronus. No matter how much of an ass Walter is, she’s the one who ultimately made those choices.” And we were the ones who had to face the consequences, just like Henry had nearly faded because of Persephone.

It didn’t make sense though. “So why did Persephone give up her immortality when she could do whatever she wanted? She had the same deal with Henry as I do, right?

Six months out of the year, I’m his wife and help him rule, and for the other six, I can do whatever I want?” Ava tossed me a yellow apple from seemingly out of nowhere. I caught it, but I didn’t take a bite. “It wasn’t like that at f irst,” she said, glancing at James, who was staring off into the forest with a faraway look. “Henry offered that to her when he realized how miserable she was down here.

None of us can take this all the time except for him.”

“Most of the council doesn’t visit,” said James. “Our abilities are muted down here, and—”

Crack.

Wood sizzled above me, and right as I looked up to see what had happened, Ava shoved me off the log and onto the ground, dangerously close to the f ire. I yanked my hand away from the f lames, and a deafening crash turned the world into dust.

Coughing, I scrambled to my feet and stumbled, my foot connecting with splintered wood in the spot where I’d been sitting seconds before.

“Ava?” I said, choking on the clouds of dirt. “James?” I squinted. Before the dust cleared enough for me to see more than a few inches in front of my face, a pair of hands grabbed my shoulders and yanked me backward.

“Come on,” said James roughly, tugging me away from the log. “We need to get out of here.”

“But Ava—”

“I’m here,” said Ava a few feet to my left. “Go.” James pulled me away, and I stumbled over rocks and roots I couldn’t see. Another crack echoed through the forest, and I darted forward, futilely covering my head. The second falling tree missed James and me by inches.

“What’s going on?” My leg ached more than it had since we’d left the palace, and I struggled to keep up. The air cleared the farther we went, and I saw James holding his hand above his head, as if he were trying to ward something off.

“Cronus,” he said, and another tree sizzled. “He found us.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

OA SIS

Out of all the things I’d imagined could go wrong with this journey through the Underworld, Cronus trying to stop us had never crossed my mind.

I’d tried to work my way around Persephone refusing to come. I’d thought out what to do if we couldn’t f ind the cave. And even though somewhere deep inside of me, I knew there were no other options, I’d been trying like hell to come up with something better than sacrif icing myself.

Never, not once, had I thought Calliope would f igure out we were coming and send Cronus to stop us.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Not that there was much we could’ve planned for other than running for the hills, which was exactly what we did.

James clung to my hand as we darted through the trees, and Ava trailed behind us. Between the two of them, they seemed to have enough power to keep Cronus a safe distance away.

That didn’t stop the trees from falling though, and more than once James pushed me aside a fraction of a second before I was brained by an oak or a maple infused with the same fog that had sliced open my leg.

I didn’t know how long we ran, but it was long enough for my lungs to feel like they were on f ire. The trees gave us some shelter, but every time I looked over my shoulder, Cronus seemed to be inching closer.

We couldn’t run forever, and I was sure James and Ava wouldn’t be able to hold him off long enough for us to reach Persephone, either. And when we did reach Persephone—

what help would she be against a Titan?

The forest around us dissolved into a desert, and whatever options we’d had before disappeared. We couldn’t run forever, James and Ava couldn’t f ight forever, and it was clear Cronus only wanted one thing.

Me.

Every tree hadn’t almost hit James or Ava; they’d almost hit me. The f irst one had landed right where I’d been sitting moments before. And before Henry and his brothers had gone after Cronus, the fog had slipped through their defenses and chosen me as its target.

The hot sand was diff icult to run across, and the sky shimmered in the sun. I was already exhausted. If my leg gave out and I stumbled, Cronus would kill me. The only advantage I had was doing something he didn’t expect.

I dug my heels into the sand and yanked my hand from James’s grip. He fell onto his knees, thrown off balance by no longer hauling me behind him, and I scrambled away from him as fast as I could.

“Cronus!” I yelled as I straightened on the side of a dune twenty feet away from where James had fallen. Ava was at his side, helping him to his feet, and both of them stared at me like I was a lunatic.

Maybe I was. Maybe I was about to die. But if I didn’t do something, we would all be dead, and it was worth a shot.