Reluctantly, I pulled away from Thoren just far enough to lean my forehead against his chest. The golden embroidery of his insignia, the emblem of a Primus of House Bonisagus, very nearly scratched me, and I realized with a pang that he still wore the formal robes from his funeral, the ones cut just so to emphasize the wearer's power, which he had never needed to wear in life — and to which he would no longer be entitled after he left Hades.
Guilt filled my eyes with tears, and I was glad he couldn't see my face. "There's so much to tell you that I don't even know where to start," I said, the fabric muffling the catch in my voice.
Perhaps he heard it, or guessed, anyway, because he made no move to lift my chin. "It is generally accepted practice to start at the beginning," he said, drily but not entirely unsympathetically.
Bustling skirts heralded the arrival of Ynez's drab boots and Zoe's screaming pink slippers.
Very stiffly, in that overly polite voice she reserved for dealing with people she absolutely did not like and wished would just go away, Ynez greeted him. "Magister Thoren."
There was a heartbeat of silence during which each waited for the other to speak. When Ynez continued to stare at him, Thoren said with a degree of emotion I'd rarely heard from him, "Prima Ynez. I appreciate the rescue mission. Especially in light of the history between our Houses."
In a rebellious tone I'd rarely heard from her, Ynez informed him tartly, "In light of my sister's categorical refusal to leave you down here, I couldn't not accompany her." When Thoren accepted her reproof in silence, she added reluctantly, sounding more like herself, "Also, Magister Thoren, um, our House owes you a debt. I — I came down here to repay it."
"A debt?" Thoren looked honestly puzzled.
At the same time, Zoe objected, "I hardly think House Criamon owes House Bonisagus any debts at this point, Ynez." I could practically feel her glare at Thoren. Having sacrificed her career and devoted her life to Ynez, she'd also very thoroughly adopted my sister's opinions on practically everything. (Except for Ynez's acceptance of Avaris' Buddhist teachings, of course. That, of all the things my sister had done, dismayed her. But Zoe hadn't given up returning Ynez to the true faith — and honestly, spent little time trying to. Maybe it formed part of her justification to the hierarchy of House Quaesitor for gallivanting all over Greece with us.)
"Yes, a debt," Ynez persisted. I turned my head just enough to see her jut out her chin stubbornly. "It is a debt of honor, in fact." With the expression of one mounting the scaffold — which she'd probably prefer to any kind of apology to the creator of the Obscura — she admitted, "House Criamon was in part responsible for your death, Magister, and for that I, on behalf of our House, needed to make amends."
Thoren's arms tightened around my back, but his voice was even as he replied, "Prima, I knew and accepted the risks of invading another Hermetic House. I absolve House Criamon of any guilt."
Under her breath, Zoe pointed out, "Especially since it was the one that got invaded in the first place."
Sotto voce, Ynez reminded her, "But Astera — Astera sort of made it happen...." Her voice trailed off.
"What do you mean, Astera made it happen?" Thoren demanded. He pulled back from me to look me in the face. "Marina, what exactly is going on?"
I couldn't bear to meet his eyes and studied the collar of his shirt instead. "It's complicated...," I hedged.
"Yes, I gathered as much," he said intensely. "So please enlighten me."
How angry would he be when he learned the truth? Would he repudiate me? Was this my just dessert for the destruction of Athens? "It turns out that Astera had a plan to, to Ascend — " I began hesitantly.
He interrupted immediately, "Was it connected to that thing tied around her heart? What was it anyway?"
I paused a second to see if Ynez would come to my rescue but no, she'd apparently decided to let the lovers sort out the truth themselves. "Um, so, um, Astera wasn't really Astera."
"What?"
"Um, she was really Despina Delios. She'd been transferring her heart from Prima to Prima — " I really wasn't doing a very good job explaining, was I? The longer I spoke, the more confused and exasperated Thoren looked. (Now I knew how Astera had felt during some of her Enochian lessons.) "Like I said, it's very complicated." He just raised his eyebrows, urging me to get to the point. "Er, right." Drawing a deep breath, I plunged into my confession. "Astera, I mean Despina, foresaw that to Ascend, she needed Thanos' knowledge of the paths to Hades, and to get that she needed to put him on the loom — "
"Loom? What loom?"
" — and that the most likely way for that to happen was if — if I helped the mice — "
"The what?"
"The godlings. I mean, the children. The orphans. They call — called — themselves the mice — "
"Wait a minute," he broke in again. "What do you mean 'the godlings?' What godlings?"
Annoyed, Zoe interjected, "How many times do we need to tell you, Marina? They're not gods. They're just spirits whom certain beknighted cultures long ago worshipped as gods because our Savior had not yet — "
Thoren didn't even bother to look at her. "Marina. Explain yourself."
Picking at a frayed spot on my skirt (the exact habit I always scolded Ynez for — and that, come to think of it, she'd probably learned from me), I muttered, "The orphans were all bonded to ancient gods who'd lost their followers. Despina started doing it four hundred years ago so she could access their knowledge." While scouring the Hearth after the tidal wave, Ynez had discovered countless crates of books on obscure deities, each meticulously annotated with notes on where to find them and how to entrap them. Apparently, some of "ze missing time" Ghallim had noticed included Astera's journeys to retrieve lost gods and her subsequent loom rituals.
"All the orphans? Even you?" I could practically see Thoren clicking various memories into place. "Is that why you asked me if you were entirely human?"
"Marina!" Ynez exclaimed, sounding betrayed. "You swore you never told him anything about the children!"
"I didn't!" I protested. "Although if I could change anything, it's that! I talked to Thoren before we found out about Cly and Mel. I just wanted to know if I were completely human! Which, as it turns out, I'm not!"
To my dismay, Thoren released me entirely and took a wary step away. "You're not completely human?" he asked in a neutral tone.
What happened to his assurances that he saw nothing wrong with me, but we could "deal with it together" if there were? Had he already forgotten, or — worse — regret them?
"No," I confessed in a low voice that even I could barely hear. "Tel and I — we're actually demigods."
"You're a demigod," he said flatly, no emotion whatsoever in that statement.
Ynez and Zoe exclaimed in unison and in the exact same exasperated voice, "She's not a demigod!"
Ynez added, "There is no such thing! There is only God — and His Son who is another aspect of Him — and the Holy Spirit!"
I love you, sister mine, but you're not helping here.
Looking up at Thoren pleadingly — as pleadingly as Ynez had stared at Tiberius in the Areopagus when Leona tried to press extra charges — I appealed, "Does it really matter what I am? I'm still me." But my voice trailed off as I remembered just how upset and hurt and confused I'd felt when I first learned that I wasn't fully human, and how slowly acceptance had come. Thoren was learning everything at once, along with the entire sordid story of Despina's ambition — and my role in it. Could I blame him if he, like Leona, renounced all connection with me? Especially when he had power and respect here in Hades, and would sacrifice both if he returned to earth?
Was it even right to ask him for that sacrifice?
At last, Thoren said tonelessly, "Please continue, Marina. You said something about helping the — mice."
This was the part I really didn't want to tell him. Except that I couldn't be a coward, not in front of Ynez and Zoe, and at the very least I owed him the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I could not, absolutely could not allow him to leave Hades under false assumptions.
Swallowing hard, I forced out the words. "Astera foresaw that she would need my help to trap Thanos, and to get that, she needed to — you needed to — to die." I couldn't even bear to look at his collar now. Instead, I stared at his shoes. "I — I'm so sorry, Thoren."
My Prima at last stepped in here. Soberly, she finished the tale: "And that is why House Criamon owes you a debt, Magister Thoren, and why we have come to repay it."
Zoe's silence echoed with her dissent.
Thoren's silence was impenetrable.
Finally I darted a glance at his face. It was perfectly impassive, his eyes distant as he processed the entire conversation. "I see," he said at last, and more heavily than I liked. "There is much about that last week that makes more sense now." Looking straight into my eyes, he asked seriously, "Marina, my dear, how much of your feelings were your own, and how much was Astera's doing?"
It took my breath away. Did he really doubt me? Here? Now? After everything I'd endured to reach him, he doubted me?
But it was a valid question — and one I probably should have anticipated.
I just didn't know how to answer him, how to convince him.
"No!" Ynez stamped her boot hard, the sound ringing throughout the throne room. "You will not speak like that to Marina! The only reason Astera proceeded the way she did was that Marina — and why, I have no idea — loved you already!"
"If Astera were as devious as you both suggest she was, how can you be certain that she didn't manipulate Marina's emotions in the first place?" Thoren asked reasonably. "You can't deny that our entire relationship advanced very quickly."
"Because," Ynez shouted at him, "Astera did her Ars Temporis ritual after the two of you had already started — " she flailed her arms around, unwilling to say the words — "and that was when she realized that she could use it! The timing doesn't make sense any other way! I have no idea why Marina loves you, but she does. Magister Thoren, when she first got involved with you, I told her that if you hurt her, I'd kill you. Maybe I can't kill you a second time, but if you hurt her now, I will chain you in Tartarus forever!"
"Ynez!" I protested. "Don't threaten him! You don't understand — "
"Don't understand what?" she ranted, turning on me next and releasing all her pent-up rage. "True love? Just because I'm younger than you? I'm sick and tired of everyone treating me like a child! I'm the Prima of House Criamon and the warden of the spirits — "
"I know!" I exploded. "You've told us so! Over and over! I get the point! And I'm sick and tired of hearing it!"
"Marina!" Zoe scolded, leaping into the fray. "Don't talk to your Prima that way!"
"She may be my Prima but she's also my little sister and right now she's being insufferable!"
Thoren startled all of us by bursting into laughter. "House Criamon is as lively and eccentric as ever," he observed, effectively ending our fight — because all three of us turned murderous glares on him next. "I can see that I won't have a dull moment."
Won't have a dull moment.
"Does that mean you're coming with us?" I asked eagerly, looking as hopeful as Timo at his best.
"Yes, Marina," he said patiently. "I already told you that I would, didn't I? That is, I will as long as you're absolutely certain that this is what you want, and not what Astera manipulated you into wanting."
I was shaking my head vigorously even before he finished his sentence. "Never! This is not Astera. This is all me — Marina Cimon bani Criamon."
In deference to Ynez's and Zoe's delicate sensibilities, he restricted himself to patting me a few times on the shoulder. "Then it's settled," he announced, sitting back down on the throne and sketching a quick pattern on one of the armrests. Immediately, the doors flew open and a horde of spirits, including all the Furies, flooded in with an interminable stream of updates and concerns. It was like being in his workroom in the Parthenon all over again, except that this time he didn't offer me a seat. In fact, he kept all three of us standing. In between accepting reports and answering questions, he said in a businesslike way, "At some point, I would like a full, detailed account of Athenian events, but for now, Prima, Secunda, Adepta, is there anything else of which I should be aware?"
Completely forgetting that she bore a superior rank both here and on earth, Ynez shuffled her feet and then straightened her shoulders as if she were facing Astera in our mother's office. "Well, yes," she admitted, and, as Astera had trained each of us to do — and which we even sometimes did when we weren't too busy bickering — she delivered a concise summary of the status of Athens and the situation with Hestia and the other gods. At my prodding, she also explained the part about the Muses and how we planned to use them as replacement avatars.
Like Thanos', Thoren's eyes lit up at the prospect of having some modicum of power in the real world, even though Ynez had warned him that he'd have to build up his practical abilities all over again. "Excellent!" he said briskly. "Then I believe that we're done here, apart from the formal transfer of authority." Leafing through the papers scattered all over his desk — that he could find anything in that mess was a miracle on par with the Resurrection — he started stacking some of them. "Prima, warden of the spirits — " somehow he managed to say that without the slightest hint of mockery, how I had no idea because I certainly couldn't — "I have updated the Hadean Code, especially the sections related to the judgment of souls and the determination and enforcement of appropriate punishments." He nodded at Ynez's arsenal of divine weapons. "Given your possession of Hades' spear, I assume that you're now the ruler of the underworld and that I should turn over all relevant documentation to you?"
Clutching the spear, she actually recoiled a step. "No!" she exclaimed. "I'm not going to be Queen of Hell!"
"Ynez — " I started to say.
"No!" she snapped. "We have too much to do on earth! I can't afford to lock myself away down here. Nor do I wish to."
"Order will break down throughout Hades without its rightful ruler," Thoren lectured, sounding remarkably similar to Thanos. "If you have accepted that spear, Prima, then you have also assumed the responsibility for proper governance of the underworld."
"I refuse to be the Queen of the Damned!" Ynez repeated mulishly.
Before Thoren could prolong this fruitless argument, I leaned over and whispered into his ear, "Give her time. We'll talk her around." More loudly, I pointed out, "You did well enough maintaining order here even without the spear. Isn't there someone who can replace you? Like one of the Bonisagi?"
To my surprise, he looked uncomfortable and toyed with his documents. Reluctantly, he said, "I suppose there is someone who has been helping me with administrative duties, who could take over if necessary."
"Good!" Zoe said briskly. "Who is it?"
"Please summon your lieutenant so we can settle everything now," Ynez commanded. "The sooner we finish here, the sooner we can return to dealing with the gods. I mean the spirits."
Casting a quick, almost nervous glance in my direction, he suggested, "Let us delay this meeting. I will take you on a tour of your domain first."
Narrowing her eyes suspiciously, Ynez shook her head definitively. "No. I am not interested in a tour. Let's meet your lieutenant and get everything over with." However she denied it, my baby sister was now Queen of Hades, and here, in her throne room, her word was law. The spearhead flashed once, in warning.
"I'll see where she is, then."
She?
With no enthusiasm whatsoever, Thoren rose and tapped the corner of the map. Immediately a small dot lit up next to Tantalus' pool with a label next to it.
Inga, it read.
I couldn't believe it. All the hurt and wounded pride I had felt when I first read his diary crashed back down on me. "You went back to her?" I gasped.
"She is a fine administrator," he replied tersely.
"And no one else in this entire underworld is?"
"She is intelligent, well organized, efficient, and diplomatic. Well, when she wants to be," he said shortly. "She was the best choice for my second-in-command."
Ynez, who had never succeeded in reading his diary through my curtain of hair, whipped her head back and forth between the two of us, looking completely bewildered by my hostility and his grimness. Zoe, perhaps inferring the truth, leaned down and whispered something, and Ynez's eyes flew wide open.
"No!" she whispered back.
"It has to be!" Zoe hissed.
I ignored both of them. With heavy skepticism, I asked, "Was she, really? Throughout the entire underworld, only she would do?"
"Yes!" he said emphatically. "There is no one I trust more."
Not even me?
Oh, that hurt, even though he was right. Maybe especially because he was right. After all, I had withheld crucial information from him; I had allowed myself to be manipulated and exploited by my mother, even unto the destruction of my city and possibly large swathes of Europe. Thoren was right not to trust me without reservation. No one should.
But that didn't make me feel any better.
Furious, I demanded, "What about all your fine talk about knowing that I was coming for you? You didn't wait very long, did you?"
Thoren betrayed some signs of frustration. "When I arrived, I sought out old friends," he stressed. "That's not exactly a crime. Did you expect me to lock myself away like a hermit while I waited for you? How was I to know how long you'd take?" In a lower voice, he confessed, "I was lonely, Marina."
Even though he'd been accompanied by ten of his mages? Completely unmollified, I asked incredulously, "So you chose her? Of all the people you could have chosen, you went back to her?"
Trying to reign in his anger, Thoren said tightly, "I've known Inga for longer than you've been alive, Marina. And yes, we were lovers for years, but she was my closest friend even before that. And she's just a friend now. You do know there is such a thing as staying friends with past lovers, right?"
Well, if we ever broke up, I certainly wasn't staying friends with him.
Off to the side, Ynez and Zoe exchanged uneasy looks. Ynez opened her mouth to say something — I don't know whether to me or Thoren — but Zoe shook her head quickly, and without a word, they tiptoed out of the room, herding the entire Hadean bureaucracy ahead of them. Neither of us acknowledged their exit.
Rationally, I could understand why Thoren might have been lonely — perhaps even a little intimidated — in the underworld, and why he might have preferred the company of an equal to that of his subordinates. But I wasn't in a rational mood. I was tired and stressed and, as Tel would say, I'd had the most awful month of my life — plus I wanted that spectacular fight Thoren had averted by dying prematurely. He had said he was looking forward to my harsh words. Well, he could have them.
"No!" I screamed at him. "I know no such thing! All I know is that I destroyed my reputation for you! Do you have any idea how mean everyone was after you died? And then I destroyed my home for a chance to save you, and everyone thought I was crazy to want to bring you back and kept trying to talk me out of it and I was completely miserable and now I've finally found you but you're back with your ex-lover! The one you kept writing poems to, and comparing me to in your diary! Can't you see how this looks? Everyone's going to say that I'm an idiot for coming down here at all!"
"Stop acting like a self-centered child!" Thoren shouted back, losing his temper at last. "If you want to discuss why we're all here right now, it's because your House made some unbelievably reckless, dangerous, selfish decisions!"
"It was not my fault!" I shrieked, as I had at Leona. "It was Despina who bound Hestia! I didn't even know about it! I didn't know anything!"
Cruelly, he retorted, "Then maybe you shouldn't be Secunda of your House." Shocked, I took a step back, but he rose from the throne and advanced on me. "You have always had choices, Marina bani Criamon. From what Ynez has said, you chose to bond with one of the Muses, and you chose not to tell me about the dual nature of the children — " that was a low blow, considering that I had confessed it as one of my deepest regrets — "and you chose to follow the mice's lead and implement Astera's plan without even ascertaining its end goal!"
"We couldn't talk about it!" I protested, my voice going all high-pitched and wavering out of control. Somewhere along the line, the direction of this fight had changed entirely and careered onto a very raw, painful subject for both of us. "It wouldn't have worked if we had!"
"Marina — when you're this powerful, you cannot embark upon a world-changing scheme without making sure that you understand each part of it and exactly how it will work! It was your choice to say no!"
Without even intending to, I began to cry, and it made me angrier. "Well I'm sorry if I'm not omniscient! I'm sorry if I wanted to bring you back and make things right! I made the best choices I could with the only information I had at the time, and if I had to go back and do it all over again with the same information, I'd do the exact same thing!" I sniffled ferociously at him.
"Great," he said in disgust. "Tears? Really, Secunda?"
"Yes!" I shouted at him. "In case you haven't noticed, I've just had the most awful month of my life — I lost practically my entire family and my home and my city. And on top of all of that, I started dating a complete jerk!"
Spinning on my heel, I stormed off into the depths of Tartarus. Cly was planning a book on all the realms of Hades, wasn't she? Well, it should be only too easy to find some truly awful people down here (Thoren included) to interview.
A couple hours later, I was perched near the top of a tree, doing my best to question Sinis, whose traveller-murdering career had been ended by Theseus. My distant relative had bent the tips of two pine trees to earth, tied Sinis' hands to one and his feet to another, and then released the trees, ripping him apart. With his finely honed sense of poetic justice, Thanos had replicated Theseus' strategy: Tied forever between great pine trees that threatened to tear him in two, the murderer writhed in eternal agony.
At the moment, he was suffering a novel kind of torment.
"Yes," I said with exaggerated patience, "but I need to know how you felt when you learned Theseus' identity. What thoughts went through your mind? Did you realize that he was going to kill you? What did you think of him?"
"What did I think of him? What do you think I thought of him?" he bellowed.
"That's not very helpful," Cly said primly from the other tree, quill at the ready. "Can you be more precise?"
"Oh Hades have mercy on me!" he cried. "If I'd known that I'd be subjected to the torturous interrogation of third-rate historians, I'd never have harmed an ant!"
"Third-rate historian?" Cly puffed up indignantly. "I am the Muse of History herself!"
"The second-rate historian that inspires the prattlings of third-rate historians then!"
A low chuckle drifted up to us before Cly could murder him a second time. At the base of my tree stood Thoren, peering up at me through the branches. "Marina, you've been up there for an hour!" he called. "Ynez and Zoe are getting worried. Will you come down now?"
So Ynez and Zoe were worried, but he wasn't? "No!" I yelled back down defiantly. "I'm perfectly comfortable up here and I'm doing important work!"
Sinis moaned very loudly at that.
With an equally loud sigh, Thoren leaped up and heaved himself onto the lowest branch. "Very well then, we can talk in the tree," he said, straightening and reaching for the next branch.
Sulkily I watched his progress. I could have used Ars Essentiae to lift him up, but he was the one who'd scolded me over and over for my casual use of vulgar magic. He could climb. A man of his years probably needed the exercise anyway.
When he reached me at last, Sinis appealed to him, "Please, can't you remove both of them? Haven't I been tortured enough for my crimes, my lord?"
"Actually, I've abdicated," Thoren informed him. "And you don't know Marina bani Criamon at all if you believe one can simply remove her from somewhere she wants to be."
For all his faults, he had always treated me with respect.
"I don't want to know her at all," the murderer moaned.
Cly poked him with her quill. "Go on, Marina," she encouraged me. "I can finish interviewing Sinis. Just make sure you remember your exact conversation with Thoren. It might be relevant for our history."
I supposed I did have to patch things up with him eventually?
Although I was tempted to fly down and leave him to struggle his own way out of the tree, I took one look at his tentative smile and couldn't do it. I had, after all, trekked all the way into the depths of the underworld to find this man. And Zoe would probably say that pettiness was unworthy of a Secunda. With a sigh and a roll of the eyes, I took Thoren's hand and floated both of us down, hoping that he wouldn't want to talk about our fight or, gods forbid, our feelings. I'd had more than enough of talking about my feelings for the day. Possibly the month. Maybe even the year. Somewhere in the middle of interviewing the Danaides, who'd slaughtered their husbands on their wedding night, I'd reluctantly accepted Thoren's argument that he could have a perfectly platonic relationship with his ex-lover, but that didn't mean I wanted to discuss it.
Luckily, he seemed to be of the same opinion, and he inquired conversationally after how the interviews were going and offered suggestions on how Cly and I could structure our book, until my anger had dissipated entirely. Sensing a detente, Thoren draped an arm around my shoulders and said casually, "While I was in the Elysian Fields, I devoted some time to the study of Foci. Based on back-of-the-envelope calculations, I believe that for a given Effect, there's a tradeoff between the precision and consistency of using the exact same rune — or carving — every time, against the flexibility of tailoring it to the situation. It's an interesting optimization problem, and I was thinking that we could collaborate while I'm building up my practical abilities with my new avatar. It will be a good project to introduce you to magical theory...."
And so ended our quarrel. There would be many more, of course, in the years to come, because Thoren's arrogance and my irascibility were bound to clash (spectacularly) from time to time. Indeed, the early days, when both of us were struggling to adjust to the altered balance of power between us, were a special trial to everyone around us.
One of the most memorable fights (which all of us were very careful never to mention) occurred before we could even exit the underworld. Failing to see Ynez's spear in the gloom, the Hecatoncheires, those hundred-handed giants who patrolled the outskirts of Hades, sounded the alarm and attacked us. As one seized a hundred boulders to hurl, I screamed, "Thoren! Stay back!"
As we'd journeyed back towards earth, Thoren's powers had waned, and by this point he had no more practical ability than a Sleeper scholar of magical practices. Several times I'd caught him lifting his hand to trace a rune, only to drop it again a little forlornly. However, he'd never said anything, and, unsure of how to console him, I'd pretended not to notice — until now. I was used to protecting people in fights, yes, but not people who were entirely defenseless!
Frantically I hacked at a piece of wood to throw up an Ars Essentiae shield around him. In my terror, the only shape that came to mind was a basket — because you could catch rocks in a basket, right? (Later, when I reviewed the events, it wouldn't make sense to me either.)
"Go hide with Cly!" I ordered. My avatar had already wisely ducked behind a large rock.
Stumbling forward instead of obeying my command, Thoren shouted over the giants' warcries, "Marina! Don't improvise! Carve something you're familiar with! Like a shield!"
Terrified that he'd get himself killed, and heedless of his pride, I screamed back, "Go away! Leave me alone! I know what I'm doing!"
Unfortunately for my argument, I botched the Effect and the wood burst into flames, scorching the hand already blistered by that idiot three-headed dog. With a sharp cry, I dropped wood and pocketknife alike.
A boulder the size of one of Hestia's fireballs nearly crashed into Zoe, who barely threw herself to a side and rolled out of the way.
"I am the warden of the spirits!" Ynez screamed at the giants, brandishing her spear wildly. "You will let us pass!"
Zoe shrieked, "Watch out!" as a massive hand the size of a bear swiped at Ynez.
Trying to jump backward, Ynez tripped over her own hem and tumbled onto the rocky ground, hitting her head so hard that she nearly lost consciousness. Directing her seraph to attack the giant in a flurry of sword strokes, Zoe leaped to her side and struggled to free Hestia's sword. But the scabbard was twisted awkwardly under Ynez, and Zoe couldn't work the blade loose. "Ynez! Ynez! Wake up!" she screamed instead, using Ars Mentis to revive my sister.
Still panicking, I scrabbled around on the ground for anything I could carve, but found nothing but rocks and dirt. Ynez moaned and stirred and groped weakly for the spear shaft, but one of the gigantic hands slammed down and nearly mashed her and Zoe. Losing my head entirely, I shrieked out some Enochian — half conjugated, half declined, in a garbled mess of the Criamoni and Bonisagi dialects — and melted a rock into a rough bowl shape, using Ars Vis to create a Focus for Ars Essentiae.
"For the love of Odin, Marina!" yelled Thoren, who apparently had no sense of self-preservation and still wasn't running away. "What are you doing?"
It was an incredibly ridiculously convoluted thing to do. But it worked. As another massive hand hurtled down to crush us to pulp, it rammed into a dome of hardened air. The giant recoiled and roared in pain, but a network of cracks erupted across the dome.
"Marina!" Thoren grabbed my shoulders and shook me hard. "Stop doing party tricks! Use Ars Vis to shield us!"
Oh, right. We were in the Umbra. If ever there were a time for Ars Vis shields, this was it.
Another hand slammed down on the dome, and my Effect exploded into shards of glass that speared at us and the giants alike. Scrambling to her feet and dragging Ynez back, Zoe shouted Biblical passages at the giants in a head-on Ars Mentis attack.
"My spear...," Ynez said weakly. "I need my spear...."
Darting forward in a surprisingly courageous move, Cly scooped it up and shoved it at her before running away to cower behind a tree.
"Repeat after me!" Without releasing me, Thoren shouted a string of Enochian. "Marina, say it! Now!"
I repeated it as fast as I could, and a shell of white light blazed up around each of us.
Holding her spear aloft and waving it back and forth until the tip burned fiery patterns in the mist, Ynez bellowed, "Hecatoncheires, I command you to cease your attack! I am the warden of the spirits and the queen of the underworld! You will let us pass!"
All of a sudden, the giants went deathly still, three sets of eyes transfixed by the spear. At last, their leader rumbled, "Apologies, mistress," and dropped to his knees. The other two followed suit, shaking the ground with the impact.
Hastily clutching at Zoe's arm to steady herself, Ynez replied regally, "Your apology is accepted. Do not let this happen again. Now go, and let us pass."
Instantly, the giants stood and strode away.
Before the ground had even stopped trembling beneath their footsteps, Thoren yelled at me, "Marina, what in Odin's name were you doing? You cannot afford to lose your head like that!"
"I — " I started to defend myself, but he overrode me, which was probably a good thing since I didn't know how to justify my actions either.
"Marina bani Criamon, an Adepta Maior, and especially the Secunda of a House, cannot ever lose her head in the middle of a battle!" he raged at me. "Your conduct was completely unacceptable! You could have gotten everyone killed! You could have died! I can't do magic anymore, Marina — if you freeze during combat, I can't save you!"
Except that he had, by telling me exactly what to do. "But — " I protested. I'd only panicked because I'd been too worried about him, but I didn't know how to say so without insulting him.
Ynez didn't exactly help matters by barging into our fight. "Magister Thoren," she said sternly. "Marina is my second-in-command. I will discipline her when I see fit."
Both of us flinched, Thoren at the reproof, me at the prospect of being scolded or even punished by my little sister.
Regaining his composure first, Thoren replied gracefully, "I apologize, Prima, that my concern for Marina led me to overstep my bounds."
Ynez raised her eyebrows at me, looking more like Thoren than she'd ever admit. Gods, were we all picking up one another's habits now?
Sighing, I hung my head and muttered, "Sorry, Ynez. It won't happen again."
To my surprise, it was Zoe who came to my defense. "It was a very human response to a stressful situation. In House Quaesitor, we train daily so that we do not freeze in combat. Ynez, perhaps before we confront Hestia and the others, we should institute a training regime."
"That is an excellent idea," Ynez approved. "Please draw up a plan after we return to earth. I will ask Tessa if we can stay with her for a little longer while we prepare."
As she led the way back into that ridiculously ornate hallway, Zoe, who'd turned pink with pleasure at Ynez's praise, followed closely on her heels. I hesitated before crossing the threshold, and Cly slipped up to me. "There, there," she said, trying clumsily to comfort me. "That was only to be expected. I did warn you to stay out of historical events."
"I would if I could!" I said in exasperation.
"We shouldn't fall too far behind," Thoren warned. "Come on, Marina, Cly."
In a dazzling display of emotional maturity, I refused to speak to or even look at him for the next mile or so of histrionic paintings. While I stormed after Ynez and Zoe, fuming over his (admittedly fairly well-justified) tongue-lashing, Thoren and Cly trailed along behind me, conversing animatedly about magical history and critiquing various treatises.
When Thoren gauged that my stomping had decreased sufficiently in intensity, he caught up and said easily, as if I'd been part of their conversation all along, "Cly and I were just saying that House Criamon's style really reminds us of House Tytalus. Its motto is 'Incrementum ex certamine,' after all."
From conflict, growth. That did sound like us.
"Plus it specializes in Ars Essentiae," Thoren continued. "All of you practice Ars Essentiae, don't you?"
Seizing the opportunity he'd given me, I replied in a halfway normal voice, "Everyone except for Ghallim. Although I guess he's not technically a member of House Criamon anyway."
"Growth through conflict," Cly mused (haha). "That really should be your motto. Maybe you should all switch Houses. Individuals do so not infrequently — you yourself know Leona bani Bonisagus, formerly Bjornaer — and off the top of my head, I can think of several instances where entire Hermetic Houses rebranded themselves. That is much less common, of course, and it requires permission from the ruling councils of both the old and new Houses — "
"We'll consider it, Cly," I said quickly before she could start reciting all the regulations and bylaws of Houses Criamon and Tytalus.
Thoren caught my eye and quirked an inquiring eyebrow at me, and I smiled back.
Up ahead, a bar of golden light overwhelmed the candles and revealed a sunlit vision of the plains of southeastern Greece. In the distance, I could see farmers bent over plows for spring planting, Tessa gesturing imperiously over the fields, Jamie raising his head sharply from a book — and much closer, Tel loping towards us followed by the human figures of his parents. At their feet gamboled Timo, still a dog but no longer a puppy. There was no way I was sharing a pillow with him anymore. We probably couldn't even fit in the same bed.
"Welcome back!" Tel shouted, waving enthusiastically. "Did you find him?"
"Of course they did!" Jamie yelled gleefully, slamming the book shut and dashing towards us.
As soon as Ynez stepped out of the Umbra, Tel picked her up and swung her around in a circle, completely ruining her dignified return. Zoe cleared her throat very emphatically and repeatedly until he finally set Ynez back down. "Marina!" he exclaimed, running to me next and hugging me hard. "There you are! I can't believe it took you a whole year! Oh, hi, Magister Thoren. I hope you're less of a jerk now?"
I groaned very loudly. "Tel!" I hissed and elbowed him, just as I had the first time the two of us had met Thoren — right before Jamie tackled me from behind and Timo barreled into my legs and nearly knocked me over.
As he had at that first meeting, Thoren hid a smile at the informality and enthusiasm of Criamoni greetings. "It is a pleasure to meet you again too, Telemachus," he said gravely.
A pointed 'ahem' from Lily finally reminded Tel of his manners. Stepping back and looping his arms through his parents', he said proudly, "May I present Gustavus and Laelaps? They're my parents!"
After the obligatory flurry of introductions and explanations — complicated and, er, enlivened by our tendency to shout all at the same time and over one another while bracing ourselves against Timo's slobbering onslaughts — Tel drew a deep breath and asked the set of questions he'd never learned to stop asking. "So, what happened? What did I miss?" Then — "Wait, Marina, do I want to know?"
"Well," I replied, not even bothering to hide a smirk. "We might rebrand ourselves as House Tytalus."
A very long, stunned silence from everyone but Thoren, who doubled over with muffled laughter, and Cly, who observed us alertly, quill poised over parchment.
And then, in unison from Tel, Ynez, Zoe, Jamie, Gus, Lily, and even Tessa: "WHAAAAAAT?"
Ah, the sweet sounds of home.