This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2)(59)

I stared into the light and for a moment thought I saw something moving inside it—the hazy image of a figure. I blinked and it was gone. I took a step back. “It can’t show us how to get to Aeaea but you’ve been there, so are you gonna show us the way?”

He set his hands on the railing that surrounded the light. “Yes. But if I’m being honest, I don’t expect any of you to survive the journey.”

A vise closed around my chest and a scratching at the window drew my attention to a gathering of roots, caked in dirt, that had climbed the outer wall and were trying desperately to make their way inside.

“Briseis?” Circe called from below us. “You good?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Be right down.” I turned back to Hermes. “Don’t worry about whether we’ll make it or not. I just need to know you’re going to put us on the right path.”

He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and rubbed his temple. “Why do it if you know you can’t possibly survive? I see it so often in mortals—this drive to run headlong into the most perilous situations imaginable with no regard for the outcome.”

“I care about the outcome,” I said. “I want to get my mom and go home. I want to get back what was taken from me.”

“You think you’ll make it home?”

There was a part of me that knew the odds weren’t good, but it didn’t matter. “I have to try.”

He thought for a moment and then looked to the light. “The Great Eye sees what has been and what is; it cannot see what will be. That is what the young man wanted.”

“Karter?” I asked.

“He wanted to know the location of the island, but more than that he wished to know how this would end for him—and for you. But that is beyond the scope of my power. The future is something the Fates might have some grasp on. Perhaps he should have gone to seek them out instead.”

I didn’t want to think about the Fates spinning our lives out of golden thread in that dank grotto under the museum. I stared into Hermes’s eyes. “Karter wanted to know what would happen to me? If you didn’t tell him who you were, why would he share that with you?”

“He didn’t. I plucked it from his head.” He glanced at his staff, which was leaning against the glass. “I guard the Great Eye, but it is not the only power at my disposal. When I sent your friend to sleep down there, her last thoughts were of you.”

My face flushed hot.

“But when I looked into the boy’s head, he wanted to know a great many things—the location of the island, the ultimate fate of his mother, and what would become of the bond you and he shared if the two of you should survive this.”

I turned away. It didn’t matter. What he’d done was unforgivable.

Hermes fixed his gaze on me. “If you could look into the Great Eye and see something, anything, what would it be?”

I stared at the light. “Hecate has my mom. Can I—see her?”

Hermes extended his hand. Vines scratched at the windows and grew long thorns that screeched as they drug across the glass. I put my hand in his and he guided me close to the rail. He reached out and set his other hand on the orb.

My vision blurred, then went completely black. I stumbled back but felt a hand on my shoulder steadying me. When my head cleared I stood in a garden overflowing with black flowers. The sky above me was a pale purple, and there were no stars, no clouds, no moon or sun. The garden wasn’t walled; the black foliage simply spilled across a rolling landscape in waves. A heavy, smoky scent filled my mouth and nose. My eyes stung and began to water. As I wiped at them with my hand, a low rumbling mixed with what sounded like rushing water drowned out the furious pounding of my own heart. On a rise, in the distance stood a woman in a tattered, flowing dress. She gazed up at the sky, her hands pressed against her own chest.

Mom.

I tried to move my legs but I was stuck to the spot where I stood.

“Mom!” I screamed.

Her head tilted to the side for a moment and then she turned her face back to the sky.

I pumped my legs and clawed at the air as I tried desperately to run to her, but I couldn’t move. The entire landscape shifted. The sky became the ground and then all of it faded away. The last thing I saw before it went dark was Mom turning and walking away.

When I regained my focus I was back at the lighthouse, staring into the light, Hermes’s hand on my shoulder.

“Where was she?” I asked through a torrent of tears. “What was that place?”

“I could not see it.” He sounded troubled by that. “It may be a place meant to be hidden from prying eyes. You said Hecate gave you a full cycle of the moon to retrieve your mother?”

I nodded.

Hermes sighed. “Perhaps that’s all she could offer. Even in her power she cannot hide a mortal soul from the one god who has dominion over the underworld for very long.”

“And that would be who?”

“Hades,” Hermes said with a deep, mournful sigh. “Be thankful you haven’t run afoul of him. Pray you never do. He is the worst of my father’s brothers, and time has managed to make a monster of him.”

I could only picture cartoon images of the god of the underworld. Hermes seemed to be implying that Hades was still around, that he still existed, and worse yet, was vying with Hecate for Mom’s soul.