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  my life.”

  It was as if the fall had knocked all the rage right out of her. She

  didn’t hate Lucas at all. She felt the pressure of his arms lying

  across her back increase slightly, quickly, and then relax again.

  “The sun’s coming up,” Lucas said after a while. “Hopefully, my

  family will be able to see us now.”

  “All I can see is your chest out of my right eye and mounds of

  sand out of my left. Where are we?”

  “At the bottom of our impact crater on the last bit of beach before

  Great Point Light at the absolute tip of the narrowest strip of sand

  on the northernmost end of Nantucket Island.”

  “So . . . easy to find,” Helen quipped.

  “Practically in my backyard,” Lucas joked, and then flinched

  painfully when he laughed. He went quiet for a moment before

  speaking again. “Who are you?” he finally asked.

  “I’m Helen Hamilton,” she replied hesitantly, not sure what he

  was getting at. She wished she could see his face.

  “Your father’s name is Hamilton, but that’s not your House,” he

  said. Helen could feel the capital H in the word House just from

  the inflection he used. “You would normally have taken your mother’s

  Scion name rather than your father’s mortal one. Who was

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  she?” he asked as though he had been meaning to ask her that

  question all night.

  “Beth Smith.”

  “Beth Smith. Right,” he said sarcastically.

  “What?”

  “Well, ‘Smith’ is obviously an alias.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about her. How

  can you say that isn’t my mother’s name?” Helen asked, getting

  defensive.

  She had never even known her mother, and here was this

  stranger assuming he knew more than she did. It cut Helen a little

  to have to admit to herself that perhaps he did. For the first time in

  hours, she was also hyperaware of the fact that she was lying on

  top of him, and she didn’t want to be anymore. She tried to put

  pressure on her forearm but a searing pain informed her that there

  would be none of that. After a few feeble attempts to roll off of him

  she gave up. She could feel him smiling, and his arms tensing to

  hold on to her just in case she managed to get away.

  “I know your mother wasn’t named ‘Smith’ because you can fly,

  Helen, now hold still. You’re hurting me,” he said frankly.

  “Sorry,” she said, suddenly realizing that he’d taken the brunt of

  her weight when they hit the ground. His injuries were probably

  far worse than hers—and hers were awful.

  As she watched the sand turn gray, then pink, then coral with the

  rising sun, Helen thought that this was the second dawn she had

  seen in as many days. Of the two, she much preferred this one. She

  was in far more pain, but she was also alive and completely free

  from anger. Helen hadn’t realized how heavy the burden of hate

  had been until she was allowed to put it down.

  She heard a voice calling for Lucas, and although she knew they

  were in danger lying helpless in that pit, she didn’t want to be

  found. What if the Furies came back with the rest of the family?

  “Here!” Lucas called weakly.

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  “Wait,” Helen pleaded. “What if they still see the Furies when

  they look at me? I can’t defend myself in this state.”

  “No one will hurt you,” he promised, his arms tightening slightly

  around her.

  “Hector . . .” she began.

  “. . . would have to get through me first,” he said resolutely.

  “Uh, Lucas?” she said leadingly, not wanting to insult him by

  pointing out the obvious.

  “Yeah,” he replied with a chuckle, catching her drift. “I know I’m

  not exactly Secret Service material right now, but trust me. I won’t

  let any of them harm you—not even big, bad Hector. He isn’t as

  terrible as you think, you know.” He managed to tilt his head to the

  side enough to meet Helen’s eyes.

  “You’re his cousin. You have to think the best of him.”

  “I’ll leave it up to you, then. I can’t hide us, but I won’t call out to

  them if you don’t want me to,” he said, and let his head roll back

  out of her sight.

  They lay there listening to his family call his name over and over,

  but Lucas kept his word. He didn’t make a sound, although he did

  flinch when he heard Cassandra’s exhausted voice. She sounded

  desperate and frightened. They all did. And Helen was to blame.

  After a few more moments she couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “Here!” Helen yelled as hard as she could. “We’re over here!”

  “Are you sure?” Lucas asked carefully.

  “No.” She chuckled nervously before calling out again, this time

  with Lucas’s help.

  There was a lot of yelling from down the beach, and the sound of

  feet pounding across the sand. Then Helen felt Lucas try to reposition

  his head to look at someone standing above them.

  “Hi, Dad,” he said apologetically.

  Castor muttered some kind of oath that Helen didn’t recognize,

  but the meaning was clear enough. Then he starting giving orders,

  and Helen felt someone thud down next to her.

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  “My gods,” Ariadne whispered to herself. “Helen? I’m going to try

  to roll you off, okay? But first I’m going to have to try to speed up

  the healing of your bones a bit. It will feel a little hot, but don’t be

  afraid, healing is one of my and Jason’s talents. Jase, come and do

  her legs,” she called up.

  Helen felt another thud, and then she felt the twins slide their

  hands gently down along her arms and legs. There was a burning

  sensation inside Helen’s bones that was nearly unbearable, and it

  made her wonder if she would be better off without any “healing.”

  Right before she begged them to stop, the burning mercifully

  ended. The twins counted to three and gingerly flipped her onto

  her back like she was a runny pancake. Helen tried to be brave, but

  she couldn’t stop a scream from slipping out. Every muscle, every

  inch of skin, every bone in her body was lit up with pain as though

  someone had filled her bloodstream with flaming-hot shards of

  glass.

  She gritted her teeth and took deep, calming breaths before she

  felt like she had enough control to open her eyes. When she did,

  she saw Ariadne’s luminous hazel eyes, fringed with the same incredibly

  long lashes as Jason’s, looking down at her with compassion.

  She studied Helen’s face carefully, and then gave her a tired

  smile. Helen thought Ariadne looked drained, as if what she had

  done for Helen had cost her. Her bow-shaped lips were ashy instead

  of their usual cherry red and her long, chestnut hair stuck to

  her perspiring cheeks.

  “Don’t worry. Your face is already going back to its right shape.

  You’ll be your usual, exquisite self by nightfall,” she said, smoothing

  Helen’s hair comfortingly. “Keep still. I’ll be right back.”

  Helen glanced around. For the first time she could see where she

  and Lucas had spent the night. It took a moment to regist
er that

  they were in a hole in the ground that was at least five feet deep

  and three times that wide, and it took even longer to register that

  the hole had been made by their bodies when they fell. She felt

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  water seep into her clothes as it leached up from the damp sand,

  and realized that Lucas must have been lying in a cold puddle all

  night. She rolled her head to the side so she could look at him.

  There was a faint Helen-shaped dent running down the length of

  his body, and his chest was nearly caved in from the weight of her

  head and shoulders. His face was pinched up in a grimace. He

  hummed to himself a little as if to try to give his vocal cords

  something to do other than howl. His father hovered over him,

  looking Lucas directly in the eye and talking softly. She saw Lucas

  give a tiny nod, bite his lower lip, then take a deep breath and

  strain. His chest expanded into a more normal shape, and then Lucas

  suddenly let his breath out and panted as if he had just lifted a

  great weight. A tear trickled out of the corner of his eye and ran into

  his hair.

  His father said something reassuring and then pulled himself

  smoothly out of the hole and started talking strategy with Hector.

  After a few moments of getting his breathing right, Lucas rolled his

  head to the side so he could look back at Helen.

  “I think the worst is over,” he said, squeezing her hand. She

  hadn’t realized that they had joined hands, but it felt right to her.

  She squeezed back gently and smiled. He looked horrible. Much

  worse than Helen could have guessed.

  “Piece of cake,” she said blithely, trying to distract him. “So what

  are you doing next Friday night?”

  “What have you got in mind?”

  “We could try hitting each other with cars,” she suggested

  cheerfully.

  “Did that last weekend with Jase,” he said with mock regret.

  “Go to the zoo and throw ourselves to the lions?” she fired back

  quickly, desperate to keep him focused on her rather than his

  caved-in chest.

  “The Romans sort of wore that one out. Got anything original?”

  “I’ll think of something,” she warned him.

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  “Can’t wait,” he breathed, and then turned his face away as he

  rode another shivering wave of pain.

  “Hey! Little help?” Helen yelled, her voice sliding up to a shriek

  as she watched Lucas shake. “Lucas isn’t doing so hot!”

  “No, he isn’t doing so hot,” Cassandra said in a hoarse, bitter

  voice from somewhere around Helen’s feet. Helen hadn’t realized

  that anyone was in the hole with them while she and Lucas held

  hands and cracked jokes, but she had the feeling that Cassandra

  didn’t like what she had seen.

  “Lower the boards down, it’s time to move them,” Cassandra

  called up to her father, as if she was the one in charge.

  Helen’s eyes widened in shock that any thirteen-year-old would

  speak like that to her elders, let alone be obeyed, but the boards

  were quickly lowered down without a word of comment. Jason and

  Ariadne eased Helen and Lucas onto the long planks and told them

  to hold still. The twins ran their glowing hands an inch above Lucas’s

  body, and Helen saw him grit his teeth as they sped up his

  healing. Just when she thought Lucas was about to start screaming,

  the twins stopped, looked at each other in silent communication,

  and then nodded exhaustedly. They had both lost so much

  color their cheeks looked gray to Helen, but they also seemed

  strangely happy, like nothing gave either of them more pleasure

  than helping someone else. Helen tried to thank them, but Ariadne

  told her to save her strength.

  Helen and Lucas were kept level as they were raised out of the

  crater and loaded side by side in the back of the same giant SUV

  that Helen had had so many uncharitable thoughts about. Now

  that it was her ambulance, she made a silent promise to never rag

  on big trucks again.

  Castor was behind the wheel and anxious to get moving. The

  longer they stayed on the beach the higher the sun got, and the

  more opportunity there was for them to be discovered. Cassandra

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  came with them, but Jason, Ariadne, and Hector stayed behind to

  fill in the crater and leave the beach looking as normal as possible.

  “Can’t we just put a lump of rock in the middle and pretend it

  was an asteroid?” Helen heard Hector ask, exhausted.

  “Do you think that would work?” Jason put in, perking up at the

  prospect of seeing his bed an hour or so sooner.

  “No,” Cassandra said decisively. “This part of the island is a

  nature preserve. There are scientists all over the place. They would

  know the rock didn’t come from space.”

  Jason and Hector gave identical groans and immediately went

  back to work. Again, Cassandra’s opinion went unquestioned.

  Helen had always tacitly assumed that Lucas was the leader of the

  kids and that his father, Castor, was the leader of the whole family,

  but now she thought maybe there was another, less traditional dynamic

  at work in the Delos family. When Cassandra spoke, everyone

  listened—including Castor. And apparently, Cassandra didn’t

  need the influence of the Furies to dislike Helen. Which reminded

  her . . .

  “I don’t see the Furies!” Helen suddenly exclaimed out loud.

  “None of us do,” replied Castor in a pensive voice. Helen heard a

  leathery squeak as he twisted around in his seat to look back at

  them. “We’ll figure it out later. You two need your rest for now.”

  She couldn’t argue with that; in fact, she could barely keep her

  eyes open. As soon as she heard the soporific purr of the engine

  she nodded off exactly like a fussy baby on a car trip.

  She woke up in a big, white bed as the sun was going down. The

  room’s window framed the sky, which was doing things with color

  that all the island painters had to be going bananas over.

  She wiggled her toes. When that worked out okay she propped

  herself up on her arms and got into a sitting position. Swinging her

  legs out of bed, she realized that she was in someone else’s nightgown

  and she wasn’t wearing anything underneath it. She knew

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  she was recovering from a near-death experience, but she was still

  bashful enough to blush. The nightgown was actually more what

  Helen would call a nightie, as gowns were generally much longer

  and more opaque. Testing her feet on the floor was enough to wipe

  her modesty away, however, and her startled cry was quickly

  answered with a welcome helping hand.

  “Easy. Here, hold on to me,” said Ariadne. “Wow, I can’t believe

  how fast you’re healing. But still, you should lie down for a bit

  longer.”

  She tried to get her to lie back, but Helen stayed perched on the

  edge of the bed and took a few breaths.

  “I kinda can’t,” she replied, looking up at Ariadne sheepishly.

  “Bathroom, huh? Okay,” she tittered nervously. “I’ll carry you.

  Just don’t pee on me.”
/>   Helen laughed gratefully. Ariadne was making an embarrassing

  situation as humorous as possible so Helen would feel more comfortable.

  It was something Claire would have done. Helen was still

  embarrassed, but with a few jokes and little bit of tact, they both

  made it through.

  “Is it all right if I check and see how you’re healing?” Ariadne

  asked politely when Helen was settled back in the bed. “It would

  mean that I would have to lay my hands on you, and I want to

  make sure you’re okay with that.”

  “You just watched me pee,” Helen responded with an embarrassed

  laugh. “So, yeah, I’m okay with a checkup. But wait—is it going

  to hurt?”

  “Not at all. I’m just going to take a peek, not grow cells. That’s

  what really hurts you. If it’s any consolation, it’s no picnic for me,

  either. So exhausting,” Ariadne said with a smile as she pushed

  Helen, making her lie down.

  “Okay,” Helen said uncertainly. She rested against the pillows

  and waited for the pain that she suspected was soon to follow, despite

  Ariadne’s optimistic denial.

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  Ariadne put her hands on Helen’s ribs and concentrated. Helen

  felt a faint vibrating sensation, like she was standing in front of an

  enormous subwoofer, but, as promised, it didn’t hurt at all. After a

  few moments, Ariadne lifted her hands and looked at Helen.

  “I couldn’t ask for a better patient,” she said with a beaming

  smile. “After seeing how much damage you and Luke sustained, I

  had my doubts. But you’re going to be just fine.”

  “Thank you,” Helen said earnestly. “For the healing and helping

  me . . .”

  “And thank you for not peeing on me.” Ariadne laughed as a

  beautiful pixie of a woman in her late twenties popped her head

  around the half-open door.

  “You two are having way too much fun to be in a sickroom,” she

  said with a mischievous look in her yellowish cat eyes. Helen had a

  feeling that those eyes were usually filled with some kind of

  worldly mischief, and she instantly liked her for it. It reminded her

  of Kate. She entered the room, tinkling like a shaken bag of loose

  change. She had short, spiky hair. Helen noticed that her wrists

  were buried under layer upon layer of glittering bangle bracelets,

  and although Helen couldn’t see them, she could hear that the woman’s

  ankles probably had a few bits of jewelry wrapped around