This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2)(56)

Warmth flooded my palms and I spread my fingers out. From under the door, tendrils of thorned vines slithered toward us like a mass of writhing snakes. The violet plants broke free from their planters and intertwined with one another, creating thick ropes. I envisioned them taking hold of the man, and they coiled around his ankles, pulling themselves up his legs. He blinked repeatedly, then in one quick motion drew the golden blade across Persephone’s forearm. A cut opened in her skin and she winced. The vines gripped the man’s arm and wrenched it back.

Persephone broke from his grasp and clutched her wound. Blood trickled out, but as she clenched her jaw, stifling a groan, the wound sealed itself up.

The man stepped back and holstered his sword as Circe and Marie scrambled to their feet. He didn’t move, but the look on his face was thoughtful.

“What was that?” Marie asked, her eyes still darkened, her hands curled into claws. She was ready to tear this dude’s throat out.

He took two sweeping steps and grabbed the carved staff resting in the corner. Marie moved toward him and he tapped the staff hard on the floor. Marie wobbled on her feet, then collapsed in a heap.

I rushed to her side and turned her over. She was breathing steadily but was completely unconscious.

“What did you do?” I screamed. “If you hurt her I’ll—”

“She’ll have a peaceful rest,” he said quickly. “Leave her be and explain yourselves.”

The vines doubled and tripled their number as my heart galloped in my chest. They began to wrap around the man’s waist.

“Where does this power come from?” he asked, staring at Persephone and then at Marie’s limp body. “Who gave it to you?”

“We are the descendants of Medea,” Circe said.

The man looked to me. “The plants?” He seemed confused, and then his face relaxed. “I see. But immortality? What power is that?”

“The Absyrtus Heart,” Circe said quietly. “They were transformed by it.”

“The Heart?” The man’s face fell. “It still exists?”

Marie stirred and her eyes fluttered open. The man shook the vines free from his arms and legs and retook his seat. The offshoots retreated to my side and curled protectively around me.

“You know about the Heart?” Persephone asked. “How?”

The man didn’t answer immediately. He leaned back in the chair and stretched out his legs in front of him. His cloak came up and revealed that the flash of gold I’d seen earlier had been an ornament on a pair of elaborately constructed sandals. They shone in the dancing light of the woodstove. Each sandal had a pair of intricate gold wings protruding from either side. An image pushed its way to the front of my mind—the wide-brimmed hat, the carved staff in the corner, the winged sandals—I inhaled sharply. It was the figure from the pottery shard.

“Hermes.”

The man ran his fingers through his beard. “In the flesh,” he said, staring off to the side. “You have my name, now I would have yours.”

Persephone stepped back, her face blank. Circe cupped her hands over her mouth and Marie pulled herself up to a sitting position in a daze. No one spoke but I was entranced. The strange sense of unease I’d had when we first saw him was familiar—it was the same feeling I had when Hecate revealed herself to me and when we visited Dr. Kent. It was the same creeping dread, like the tendrils of a poisonous vine, snaking its way around me, telling me that I was in the presence of something way beyond my understanding.

“I’m Briseis,” I offered since no one else seemed able to speak. “That’s Circe, Persephone, and Marie.”

He glanced at them. “Such familiar names, but unfamiliar faces.”

I tried my hardest to gather myself. “The boy who came here, he was my friend—or at least he pretended to be.” I swallowed my rage as the vines clung to my legs. “He is a descendant of Jason, and that means he’s related to you.”

“A thousandth great-grandson?” He laughed. “It would be ridiculous for him to assume that should mean something to me.”

“His mother thought it would.” I moved closer. Marie reached for me but I shrugged away from her. “She said she’d found hints of your existence. She wanted to use the Heart to be one of you.”

Hermes laughed and leaned his head back to look up at the light twirling in the top of the lighthouse. “Immortality makes you godlike. No one will disagree with that. But my father was Zeus himself.” He scoffed as he said the word. “My mother was the daughter of Atlas, of Pleione. Her blood was the blood of the makers of the universe.”

“As is ours,” said Persephone.

Hermes’s brow arched up. “Medea was talented, a student of the original Circe, but she was not a goddess.”

“Her mother was Hecate,” I said.

He leveled his eyes and seemed to take in everything about me in one sweeping glance. “Impossible.” Hermes tented his fingers under his chin, his posture suddenly rigid.

“It’s not,” I said. “She was the mother of Medea and Absyrtus. She’s been watching over our family from the beginning with the help of the Fates.”

Hermes was struck silent. “I thought the power of the Heart was due to the great Circe’s involvement. She was a goddess, daughter of Helios himself. But I never thought …” He trailed off, his eyes glassy, his thoughts somewhere far away.