This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2)(81)

I shook my head. “No. We take him to Hermes. That dude needs a pet project, and Karter needs …” I trailed off. I didn’t know what he needed exactly. A mentor? A parental figure? A friend?

I willed the vines to release him and he fell into the sea of black bat flowers, panting.

“C’mon,” I said to him, taking my mom’s hand again. “Let’s go home.”

The trek through the forest was hours long. Little was said. All I wanted to do was curl up with my mom and listen to the beat of her heart. She, too, was somehow different. There was a stillness about her that felt like she was just doing her best to hold it together. She’d spent a month in the underworld and couldn’t have known for sure that we could find a way to get her back. She said we’d have time to talk about it later and so I tried to let it go. All she wanted was to take me home and I was okay with that.

When we reached the shore we piled into the dinghy and began to row out to the ship. Bioluminescent streaks under the water’s surface sent my heart into a frantic gallop, but as the sirens appeared, so did two other figures.

On the sandy shoreline, Persephone, queen of the underworld, stood bathed in moonlight and with her was her namesake, our Persephone.

“They’re together now,” Circe said. “Her and everyone who has come before. She’ll always be with us.”

Our Persephone now carried the lyre and played it so beautifully Circe began to weep. The sirens retreated, and we boarded the ship and sailed away from Aeaea on Circe’s conjured winds. Persephone stayed on the shore waving to us, and we stayed at the rail until the island disappeared behind the veil of invisibility that had guarded it since time immemorial.



I spent the early morning hours curled up beside my mom. She managed to find a way to sleep, but I couldn’t. I was afraid I’d wake up and find that everything we’d done was just a dream. I was scared to death that Mom wouldn’t be there when I woke up, so I just didn’t sleep. As Circe guided us to port at the foot of the Great Eye, Hermes met us on the rocky beach and Circe went to talk to him.

“Who is that guy?” Karter asked.

“Your thousandth great-granddaddy,” Marie said.

Karter looked confused.

“It’s Hermes,” I said, wondering what that might mean to him. I studied his face as he took in the information.

“He didn’t tell us that’s who he was when we first met him,” Karter said.

“He’s kind of a dick,” I said.

Marie stared at Karter. “I guess it runs in the family.”

Karter eyed her and Marie squared her shoulders. She may not have retained her strength after her transformation, but I had no doubt she’d beat Karter’s ass if he so much as looked at her sideways. He didn’t test her.

Mom walked up and put her hand on my shoulder. Karter looked back and forth between us.

“I’m sorry,” Karter said, keeping his eyes on the deck. “I’m never going to be able to tell you how sorry I am. My mom—” He sighed, shaking his head. “Everything you saw her do, everything you learned, it was terrible.”

“Terrible?” I asked. “She killed my mom. She killed my birth mom. You said she killed your own father. ‘Terrible’ is the understatement of the century.”

Mom’s grip tightened on my shoulder.

Karter nodded. “Yeah. I just—now that you know all of that, would you believe me if I told you that those three things alone weren’t even the most evil, awful things she’d ever done?”

I stared into his face. He was on the verge of tears. I imagined what it must have been like to be in his shoes, to know that this person who was hurting everyone around her was the only person in the world he had to depend on.

“What do you want me to say?” I inched closer to him, and honestly, I didn’t know if I wanted to punch him, or hug him, or cuss him out. “You said you were my friend and I trusted you.”

“I know.” Tears streaked down his face. “I know and I hate myself. I didn’t know what to do.”

“You could have told me what your mom was doing sooner. You could have said something. Were you ever really my friend?” Now it was my turn to let the tears fall. “All that time we spent together in the garden, after everything I shared with you …” The knot in my throat made me feel like I couldn’t breathe.

“Mo’s cooking,” Karter said. “Watching you make those plants grow, being right there with you when we were pulling weeds and talking about school. I was your friend, and I didn’t know how much I wanted that until I met you. My mom liked for me to be alone. It was better for her that way.” He set his jaw and winced. He angrily wiped his face. “I was your friend and I still want to be.”

“I can’t just pretend that none of this ever happened.” I looked at my mom. I had her back, but I’d never forget how it felt to watch her die or the million times I thought I’d never see her face again. I’d never be able to get Mo’s grief-stricken face or the sound of her wailing as she held my mom’s lifeless body out of my head. It didn’t matter that he felt bad, that he regretted it. He couldn’t take it back.

“I just want you to know that I’m going to regret what I did forever and I’ll try to make it right,” Karter said. “Even if you don’t ever forgive me.”