Page 70 of Becoming Monsterous

"Not all of them," she admits. "Just like humans, many are beyond saving. But we can at least stop torturing them. After all, what we do to them is more aboutusthan about them."

Watching Angus and Morpheus carry the Magistrate's stone figure to a dark corner of the cave, I silently agree.

I could kill him. Gods know that he deserves it.

But I'm better than him. Just like I was better than Aphrodite.

What I do to him—or don't do—is aboutme.My choices. My character. Not his.

Besides, it's more fun to imagine him sputtering and raging in silence than it would be to deal with his dead corpse.

"He's been alive for so long," Madame Renoire muses. "I've been wondering for a long time how."

"That's what we're going to figure out next," I promise her. "Morpheus thinks he has some kind of immortality stone or something. I'm not sure about that, but if Medusa's memories are right, he's been around longer than even a summoner should be around."

"Let me know when you figure it out. That's one mystery I'd like to solve."

I blink at her. "You're not coming back with us?"

The old woman chuckles at me. "No, I don't think that I will. I'd rather stay here and change things. I can supervise the summoners—they've come around nicely now that you've put them under your love spell. And I'd like to make this place a real sanctuary... just like he would've wanted."

She reaches back to brush the feathers of his single wind, a soft smile on her face.

I guess love really does last forever.

Looking over at my trio of monstrous men, I smile a little.

I certainly hope that mine does.

Chapter44

Ellie

The Magistrate's office is full of secrets.

"I thought this spell had been destroyed," Prince declares, pulling a sheaf of papers out of a filing cabinet and marveling at them. "It wasn't supposed to have survived the Library of Alexandria."

"Wellthisspell wasn't even supposed to be possible." Lise has pulled a bottle of strange-looking sand out of a glass cabinet and is holding it up to the light. "It breaks the laws of physics."

Staring curiously at the bottle, I find myself looking into what appears to be a tiny black hole in the middle of the sand, and decide some things are best left alone.

While the summoners are going through all the spells, books, bottles, and papers, Morpheus has been picking a locked door in the back of the room. When he gets it open, he smiles triumphantly and opens the door with a flourish.

"After you."

Aleron and Angus sat this one out—apparently neither of them really cares what Percy was up to. They were more interested in supervising the summoners in the gorgon cave and messing with Percy and Aaron's stone statues than anything. We left them there to entertain themselves, coming here instead. I for one desperately want to knowwhyPercy did what he did.

After all, he had so much power and influence. Magic spells, a nearly eternal life, endless contracts over the monsters. He even got Dorian convinced to turn on his own people. Why was he so willing to start a war just to have more of the same?

We find the answer in the dark, nearly empty room hidden at the back of his office.

The air is still in here, without even the faintest breeze. There are no overhead lights—only a single wall sconce near the back of the room. The door we went through is the only way into or out of the room that I can see.

Most of the room is full of old artifacts: books, gold lamps, wooden crates, framed paintings, swords, shields, statues, and various treasures. They're piled up all against the walls, with a single path leading through them, but it's clear that they aren't important. Percy discarded them, covered in dust and half broken.

What he must havereallywanted is located in the back of the room.

"Is that..." I swallow, walking slowly closer, unable to believe my eyes. "It can't be."

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