Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(64)

DID U GET MIA’S #???

I groaned and texted back. It took me three tries to get the one word typed correctly.

SOON!

I closed the window and saw the tiny square drawing of a camera. Everything inside me froze, then suddenly overheated. A camera. Of course. If I could set up a camera inside this room, it could act as a mini earthen window.

Technology really could be my friend.

For a moment, I considered leaving my phone with the camera turned on somewhere in the room, but it was too bulky. Hephaestus would surely spot it. I needed a tiny camera. Something I could position on the light fixture above the bed and train at the desk and the mirror above it.

And I knew just how to get one. My conjuring power. This constituted an emergency, didn’t it? I might have an enemy, a mole, living under my own roof. Someone who could derail my entire mission or, worse yet, lead Artemis and Apollo right to me. I had to know for sure whether I could trust Hephaestus.

Besides, would Zeus really notice one tiny spy camera? One tiny zip of my power? Even as I entertained these thoughts, I knew I was crossing a very serious line, but I couldn’t help it. I needed answers.

I closed my eyes, clenched my fists, and imagined a tiny spy camera inside my hand. It appeared instantly. Just like that, I had my very own earthen window on Earth. I took a breath and waited to see if anything else would happen. If Zeus would whirl me back to the Mount for punishment or send one of his guards to flay me.

But there was nothing. No sound save for the sweet chirping of the birds outside the window. I was safe.

Now I had to figure out how it worked. There were two pieces. One, clearly, was the camera because it had an adjustable tube with a tiny lens at the end of it. The other must be something to catch whatever was transmitted through the camera. It looked as if it could plug into a computer, but I had no computer of my own.

That, however, was a conundrum for another time. Right now, I had to get this camera in place before Hephaestus got back from wherever he was.

I climbed up onto his bed and reached for the chandelier. It was a big bowl-like frosted glass thing, and I was able to attach the camera to one of its spindles, hiding most of the mechanism inside the glass. Then I twisted the tubing so that the lens faced roughly in the direction of the mirror. Gods, I hoped I was right about that thing. Otherwise this was going to be one big waste.

At that moment, the front door slammed. I was so startled I jostled the camera, and it fell into the bottom of the chandelier bowl. Cursing under my breath, I grabbed for it, but my hands had started to sweat and it slipped right from my fingers. Clenching my teeth, I latched onto the camera, refastened and repositioned it, my hands shaking the entire time. I was about to drop to the floor again, but it was too late. The door to Hephaestus’s room swung open and there he was, staring up at me.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

Yet another emergency.

Lightbulb, I thought desperately.

A small round bulb appeared inside my hand, which was hidden within the frosted glass bowl. I held it up.

“I noticed one of your lights was out the last time I was in here, so I changed it for you,” I lied breathlessly, jumping down from the bed.

The mirror rattled when my feet hit the floor and I blinked, hoping I hadn’t jostled it into a precarious position when I was manhandling it. If the thing came crashing to the floor, the jig would definitely be up.

“Okay . . . thanks,” Hephaestus said slowly, glancing around the room.

“Everything okay?” I asked him, my heart pounding in my ears.

“Yeah. I just went out for some exercise,” he said. “Everything okay with you?”

I was edging past him out the door, feeling as though I couldn’t get away fast enough. “Yeah! Fine! Just got back from work, so I’m gonna go shower.”

“Right. Cool,” Hephaestus said.

“See ya.”

Pocketing the supposedly dead lightbulb, I ran upstairs and into my room, closing the door behind me. Only then did I let out a breath. That was close. But when I turned around, I stopped breathing again. The sand timer was more than halfway through its cycle. I didn’t have much time left to match my next couple, and Claudia and Peter were more estranged than they’d ever been.

With a sigh, I sat down on my bed and pulled out the second half of my spy device, wishing I wasn’t so dense with computers. Luckily, however, I had an expert at my disposal. But if I was going to ask Wallace for another favor, I was going to have to return it. I took out my phone and texted Lauren.

CAN YOU SEND ME MIA ROSS’S #?

In two seconds, I had the digits. I was really starting to like these cell phones.

“True!” Hephaestus thundered at the top of his lungs.

My heart vaulted into my mouth. He’d found the camera. He must have. But how? He couldn’t stand, and there was no way he could have seen it from his angle.

“What?” I shouted.

“Get down here!”

At that moment the front door slammed, and I heard my mother’s voice. “What is it? What’s happened?”

I ran out of my room and barreled down the stairs. The two of them were situated near the landing, my mother staring at Hephaestus, him looking up at me.

“It’s Artemis and Apollo. They’ve gotten to Hera,” he said, his chest heaving.

My hand grasped the railing. “What? What does that mean? How do you know?”