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My mother ended up making her own deal with the god of the dead.

In exchange for her freedom, which included her being granted access to the Elysian Fields, far, far away from him when she died, she would leave her soul with him.

Zef took her to the human realm, where Kaohs cannot walk, and hid her and himself, believing he’d outsmarted everyone and would get to live a happy, quiet life with us until he was called to ascend.

I startled, leaping up from my chair. My hand clutched at my chest. Everyone looked at me in surprise.

Had I remembered her saying that or had that been her…

actually saying that? Now wasn’t the time to freak out about it.

Not when I had an angry god right in front of me.

But…I… Those words had been from Calypso.

I remembered her telling me those exact words except—except—I felt her telling me now. Through the tie.

“Cal? Cal? Can you hear me? Can you feel me?” I screamed .

Was that even possible with me tied to Anna’s magic and Cal magicless other than my SunTamer powers?

Walter startled. “What’s going on? You all right? What is it?” “I-I heard her. I heard Cal…or I guess, I felt her. I know I did. Just now.” I struggled to catch my breath.

He grabbed my shoulder in an attempt to straighten me up as he eyed Kaohs warily. “I thought the Fates severed the tie?” he whispered.

“We—no. We never spoke through the tie really.” Disappointment weighed down my stomach before it bottomed out and I was filled with grievous hope again. “But I never saw the Fates sever the tie between us, at least not before I died.” I could hear how filled with hope my own voice sounded.

Walter and everyone else had the courtesy to look away when my eyes began to water. I felt her—like she was talking just to me right now. “You’re exhausted. You haven’t slept since you got here. Just hang in there a little bit longer and I’ll find you a room, okay?” Walter said.

I nodded at him, feeling a bit like a child being told greebles didn’t exist. “Forgive my outburst. I’m sorry,” I said to Kaohs as I returned to my seat.

Kaohs eyed me apprehensively, waiting to see if I would interrupt him again.

Cal? I said inside my head. I listened so intently, I heard my own heart beating but nothing else.

“As I was saying, Cede was my favorite. My life.” He clenched his angular jaw tightly sending little pulses across it. He stood abruptly and walked to the other side of the small room, continuing to run his hands through his hair.

Walter and I locked eyes again in a silent question.

I didn’t know Kaohs at all, but it was playing with my head to see the feared god of Tartarus so torn up that he couldn’t even finish his story.

It was possible that he was either not as bad as I had heard and was capable of feeling far more emotion than I could have ever guessed, or he was a deranged, malicious god whose every vengeful action was fueled by impulsive emotions—right now, feeling the crackle of magic in the room, I guessed the latter.

Anna took over for her father. “Zef, the king of the gods, the Titan Artemi, is my and Caly’s father only as far as sperm goes.” She cleared her throat as if the words she spoken were jagged shards of glass.

At her words, Eletha snorted, causing Walter to smile before he fought it away.

Suns, Anna reminded me of Cal…but in a softer, feminine shell.

Her attitude toward her father caught me off guard.

I’m not sure why though. Cal had had the same hatred of Zef until she got to know him in Moirai.

Immediately I perked up. “You haven’t met Zef yet to know, but he’s not a bad guy.

He explained—why he left you guys, everything.

You’ll see for yourself.” I was out of my chair and sitting next to her on the bed in a second.

It hadn’t happened the way I’d expected, but I’d found her.

I struggled for a second to undo the clasp of the necklace, but it gave way this time, and I ran my thumb across the Feuhn Kai Greeyth engraving for the last time.

“Here. This belongs to you. Your father can’t wait for you to join him in Moirai. ” I smiled.

“He is not her father!” Kaohs boomed, making the walls rattle. “I am, and I’ll be the Fates’ spit valve before I let him take another soul from me!”

My palm tightened around the pendant before yanking it back and rising from the bed.

Anna made her body limp and dramatically flung herself back on the bed, hitting the mattress with both fists. “Aagh! Timing, Dad! Timing! I almost had it!”

“I don’t care,” he snarled as he raised his hands in the air, palms angled at the cabinet filled with candles. “Perhaps you should go to Moirai just to kill the bastard, Anna!” he roared.

Boy, would he like Cal when he met her.

The taker of souls let out another low growl, this time sending wide arcs of white-blue flames onto the cabinet.

In four seconds, the entire cabinet and the corner of the wall had been incinerated, leaving a black and smoky cabinet-sized hole into the room next to us.

A haggard-looking man stood with a large round of cheese and an even larger green bottle held up to his lips.

He paused, wide-eyed, when he realized the entire corner of his room was missing and we were all staring at him.

Eletha gasped. “Gods damn you, you moldy piece of shit! Get away from my cheese, Bexley, you lifeless drunk, or I’ll send you to the tiers again! ”

The crusty-looking man dropped the wheel of cheese and staggered drunkenly out the door of that room, slurring curses at Eletha between stumbles.

I was still stuck on Anna calling Kaohs “Dad.” “You’re Adrianna’s father? But I thought Zef?—”

“Zef is nothing but a snake and a liar and not the fun kind. He deserves to rot in the tiers for what he did,” Anna snapped. “That overheated carcass stole Cede from me,” Kaohs bellowed. “Took her right out from under my nose. Do you know the gall it takes to steal from me?”

I stood between Eletha and Anna, silently watching the god’s temper cool.

“The Fates used to send Zef here for negotiations on their behalf. Most gods cannot simply step away from their duties to make menial decisions, so they send their apprentice or right-hand man.”

“Are you capable of leaving Tartarus? Who is your right- hand man?” I asked, feeling the pit in my stomach sink.

Kaohs smiled. “Thankfully there is an exception for dead gods who can only travel amongst the departed, such as Aether and me. They typically come to us, which as you’ll soon hear, isn’t always better. As for my successor, you are standing right next to her.”

My eyes snapped to Eletha, immediately catching the way she proudly perked up and smiled back at me. Poor Walter, I thought. Infatuated with the woman that will one day be the queen of the damned.

She took a half step closer to me and leaned in so close I predator on her skin. My fox instincts flared, and I found myself frozen. Eletha’s powers tickled my skin like sharp fingernails. She was a goddess—literally. It suited her, being queen of the dead.

“Not me,” she whispered with a slow smile. “Huh?” I murmured.

“Me.”

Eletha stepped away and Anna stepped into view, hands raised to her face level, wiggling her fingers around her grinning cheeks.

My mouth dropped and my stomach bottomed out. “What?” I gasped, taking a step back as I covered the pendant with my hand, shielding it from what I’d just heard. Neither of the women tried to hide their laughter as I stepped closer to Kaohs. “No, Adrianna can’t be your successor?—”

“Anna,” Kaohs corrected. “And do tell me: Why not?” His dark eyes creased at the corner, obviously loving whatever he was seeing in my bewilderment.

“Yes, I’d like to hear too,” the heathen herself said.

“But…you’re Artemi. Wildly powerful and…

good. All Artemi are good and gentle and wholesome, that’s literally why they all automatically go to the Elysian Fields when they die if they haven’t yet ascended.

An Artemi can’t rule the pits of death and horror!

” I could feel how red my face was turning.

I looked to Walter for help, but he looked just as shocked as I was.

“And why can’t an Artemi rule Tartarus?” Eletha snapped.

My mind was reeling. “None of this makes any sense!” My fingers tugged at stray clumps of hair as if I’d find the answers hidden between the follicles.

“You will be free from here. You can finally go to Zef and Moirai and ascend. You will be free from this place. We are tied and…and I can’t be tied to the step daughter of the Underworld! ”

Adri—Anna’s eyes visibly brightened to a whole new shade of electric blue as she moved toward me. The small lights hanging in the room flickered, leaving only her blue eyes aglow in the moments of complete darkness. A rumble grew slowly louder somewhere in the distance.

“Anna,” Eletha warned in a calming tone.

I looked to the lights as they continued to flicker. Just like back home, they were fireflies.

“I have been in Tartarus since I was six years old. Kaohs took me in as if I were his own flesh and blood. Eletha has spent more time as my sister than Calypso,” she gritted out through clenched teeth.

The fabric on the walls rippled with the breeze of power that filled the space.

Everything in the room began to rattle as if it were unable to contain her power.

I heard a harsh, high-frequency zap and the lights went out on one of the lamps. The fireflies fell to the floor, dead.

Oh.

My.

Suns.

She killed the insects. Artemi didn’t kill. Artemi loved nature and animals—they had an animal bond for suns’ sake! Artemi were too powerful to be bad. They were gentle, with kind hearts of gold.

“All right, darling,” Kaohs said, attempting to rein his daughter in.