Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(63)

I skirted around a family walking happily along with their ice-cream cones and wanted to pound my head into the brick walkway. This was supposed to be my calling. My special talent. Why did I keep screwing it up?

A familiar laugh made my shoulder muscles curl, and I turned to find Darla Shayne traipsing out the door of the boutique where she worked, with Orion right behind her. Yep. I’d gotten that completely wrong too. I turned my back on them as quickly as possible and speed-walked the rest of the way home.

Hephaestus’s van was in the driveway. I jogged up the walk, opening the door quietly. If he was talking to someone from the Mount, I wanted to catch as much of the conversation as I could. But when I stepped inside, the house was still. I crept over to Hephaestus’s room and found the door ajar. Slowly, carefully, I pushed it wide. His bed was made, his laptop computer shut on his desk, and he was nowhere in sight.

Adrenaline pumping, I closed the door behind me. Part of me realized that what I was doing was, on some level, wrong, but I wasn’t about to let this opportunity go to waste. If Hephaestus was using something in this room to communicate with Mount Olympus—whether it was with Harmonia or someone else—I was going to find it.

I started with the dresser, searching carefully through each drawer, making sure not to disturb anything in an obvious way. Everything was perfectly folded, from the socks to the boxer briefs and T-shirts. I moved to the closet, shoved my hand inside pockets, rattled hangers, and overturned shoes and boots. Nothing. Finally I turned to the desk and picked up the computer. It looked like a normal laptop. Nothing out of the ordinary. But Hephaestus was a master mechanic. Could he have figured out a way to make it communicate with our world?

I turned the computer on and a blue screen greeted me, then quickly morphed into a picture of a desert at sunset. I stared, waiting for something to happen, and realized I hadn’t a clue how to use the thing. I’d worked on some of the desktop computers at school, but those had mouse contraptions for controlling things. This had nothing but a keyboard and a black pad.

I sighed, frustrated, but something told me the answer wasn’t here anyway. The machine wasn’t giving off any sort of magical, mystical, or otherworldly vibe. I slapped it closed and walked into Hephaestus’s bathroom, giving it a cursory look. It was about the same as I’d last seen it, except the toilet was cleaner.

“Come on, H,” I muttered to myself. “What’re you hiding?”

And that was when my eyes fell on the mirror. It was a spectacular piece of work, hung over the desk since the day Hephaestus had arrived. It was clearly of his own making. The intricacies of the woven metal frame were impossibly detailed, and the whole thing seemed to glow in the waning sunlight.

I stepped closer to the mirror, narrowing my eyes at my reflection. The glass was flawless, not a nick or a stain or a smudge. It was the only artifact of Hephaestus’s own making that he carried with him. The only evidence of the god he used to be.

My skin tingled. This had to be it. Hephaestus’s connection to our world. If I could get this thing to work, would I be talking to Harmonia? Or would someone less sympathetic answer the call?

Suddenly I didn’t care. I wanted news from home. News I heard with my own ears, not through Hephaestus’s possibly disloyal filter. I reached for the mirror tentatively, laying one hand on its frame. Nothing. I clutched the cold metal with both hands. Again, nothing. I waved my hand in front of my reflection. No response. I laid my palm against the glass. Nothing.

But it did leave a nice, obvious handprint.

“Dammit.”

I ripped off my T-shirt, straightened the tank top beneath it, and quickly wiped the glass clean. Then I stood back and tapped my fingertip against my chin. Perhaps it had some kind of password.

“Open,” I said.

The mirror stared back at me, obstinately ordinary.

“Converse,” I tried.

I leaned in closer, now able to see every pore on my nose. I stared as hard as I could, imagining I could see through to Mount Olympus. Willing it to be so.

“Harmonia?” I whispered. “Sister, please. Hear me.”

Nothing.

Frustration burbled hot inside my chest. If ever there was a time I needed to use my power, it was now. I clenched my fists, closed my eyes, and concentrated my energy, thoughts, and emotions on the mirror. Work, I thought, sending the wish out into the ether. Work!

My eyes opened. Nothing.

I groaned loudly and turned away from my reflection, so annoyed with my inadequacy I couldn’t look myself in the eye any longer. If I had my earthen window, I could see any place at any time just by willing it. I could have looked into Hephaestus’s room whenever I wanted and see what he was doing. I realized, suddenly, how much I had taken for granted my whole existence. If I ever made it back to Mount Olympus, I’d be sure to appreciate everything I had, from my family to my powers to my calling. But especially Harmonia. It wasn’t until she’d been torn away from me that I realized how much her counsel meant.

I took a deep breath and slipped my T-shirt back over my head.

There was every possibility that the mirror would work only for Hephaestus, no matter what I did. I had to catch him in the act of using it, but how? He could hear me coming on these creaky floors from a mile away. There was always the chance of spying him through one of the windows, but he usually kept the blinds drawn.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out. It was a text from Wallace.