The Tyrant's Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4)(77)

Then he exhaled deeply. We watched, stunned, as he began to crumble, his face cracking, his crown collapsing like a sand-castle turret. His last breath, a silver glimmer of fading life force, swirled into the glass jar to be with the Sibyl. He had just enough time to twist the lid closed before his arms and chest turned to chunks of dust, and then Harpocrates was gone.

Reyna lunged forward, catching the jar before it could hit the floor.

“That was close,” she said, which was how I realized the god’s silence had been broken.

Everything seemed too loud: my own breathing, the sizzle of severed electrical wires, the creaking of the container’s walls in the wind.

Meg still had the skin tone of a legume. She stared at the jar in Reyna’s hand as if worried it might explode. “Are they…?”

“I think—” I choked on my words. I dabbed my face and found my cheeks were wet. “I think they’re gone. Permanently. Harpocrates’s last breath is all that remains in the jar now.”

Reyna peered through the glass. “But the Sibyl…?” She turned to face me and almost dropped the jar. “My gods, Apollo. You look terrible.”

“A horror show. Yes, I remember.”

“No. I mean it’s worse now. The infection. When did that happen?”

Meg squinted at my face. “Oh, yuck. We gotta get you healed, quick.”

I was glad I didn’t have a mirror or a phone camera to see how I looked. I could only assume the lines of purple infection had made their way up my neck and were now drawing fun new patterns on my cheeks. I didn’t feel any more zombie-ish. My stomach wound didn’t throb any worse than before. But that could’ve simply meant my nervous system was shutting down.

“Help me up, please,” I said.

It took both of them to do so. In the process, I put one hand on the floor to brace myself, amid the shattered fasces rods, and got a splinter in my palm. Of course I did.

I wobbled on spongy legs, leaning on Reyna, then on Meg, trying to remember how to stand. I didn’t want to look at the glass jar, but I couldn’t help it. There was no sign of Harpocrates’s silvery life force inside. I had to have faith that his last breath was still there. Either that, or when we tried to do our summoning, I would discover that he had played a terrible final joke on me.

As for the Sibyl, I couldn’t sense her presence. I was sure her final grain of sand had slipped away. She had chosen to exit the universe with Harpocrates—one last shared experience between two unlikely lovers.

On the outside of the jar, the gluey remains of a paper label clung to the glass. I could just make out the faded words SMUCKER’S GRAPE. Tarquin and the emperors had much to answer for.

“How could they…?” Reyna shivered. “Can a god do that? Just…choose to stop existing?”

I wanted to say Gods can do anything, but the truth was, I didn’t know. The bigger question was, why would a god even want to try?

When Harpocrates had given me that last dry smile, had he been hinting that someday I might understand? Someday, would even the Olympians be forgotten relics, yearning for nonexistence?

I used my nails to pull the splinter from my palm. Blood pooled—regular red human blood. It ran down the groove of my lifeline, which was not a great omen. Good thing I didn’t believe in such things….

“We need to get back,” Reyna said. “Can you move—?”

“Shh,” Meg interrupted, putting a finger to her lips.

I feared she was doing the most inappropriate Harpocrates impersonation ever. Then I realized she was quite serious. My newly sensitive ears picked up on what she was hearing—the faint, distant cries of angry birds. The ravens were returning.





O, blood moon rising

Take a rain check on doomsday

I’m stuck in traffic

WE EMERGED FROM THE shipping container just in time to get dive-bombed.

A raven swooped past Reyna and bit a chunk out of her hair.

“OW!” she yelled. “All right, that’s it. Hold this.”

She shoved the glass jar into my hands, then readied her sword.

A second raven came within range and she slashed it out of the sky. Meg’s twin blades whirled, Vitamixing another bird into a black cloud. That left only thirty or forty more bloodthirsty hang gliders of doom swarming the tower.

Anger swelled in me. I decided I was done with the ravens’ bitterness. Plenty of folks had valid reasons to hate me: Harpocrates, the Sibyl, Koronis, Daphne…maybe a few dozen others. Okay, maybe a few hundred others. But the ravens? They were thriving! They’d grown gigantic! They loved their new jobs as flesh-eating killers. Enough with the blame.

I secured the glass jar in my backpack. Then I unslung the bow from my shoulder.

“Scram or die!” I yelled at the birds. “You get one warning!”

The ravens cawed and croaked with derision. One dove at me and got an arrow between the eyes. It spiraled downward, shedding a funnel cloud of feathers.

I picked another target and shot it down. Then a third. And a fourth.

The ravens’ caws became cries of alarm. They widened their circle, probably thinking they could get out of range. I proved them wrong. I kept shooting until ten were dead. Then a dozen.

“I brought extra arrows today!” I shouted. “Who wants the next one?”