Page 25 of Destinies of Diamond
“Maybe she thought it was a minor detail and she didn’t want to worry you,” Sphinx suggested.
Or maybe she’d hidden it on purpose, I thought to myself. I didn’t make that suggestion out loud, since I doubted Selene would appreciate slights to her mother’s character. Besides, I didn’t know Tanya Renard well enough to judge. I’d only seen her a few times, from the distance, and she’d struck me as quite formidable. But like every other priestess, she’d been unable to see past my hiding technique in Gaia’s Haven, so it wasn’t out of the question that she might know even less about this than I did.
“I’ll look into it more, okay, Selene? I’ve tried to keep a low profile until now and haven’t gone too deep into the city, but I’m familiar enough with the place to approach the temple now.”
“Are you sure? I don’t think it’s worth taking the chance. I can always just go back to…”
She trailed off, as if she’d suddenly changed her mind. For some reason, the idea of returning to New Washington didn’t appeal to Selene.
Something else had happened to her when she’d gone to see her mother. I needed to find out, at once.
“All right,” she murmured. “You can go. But just be careful, okay?”
“I’m always careful,” I replied with a light laugh. “Besides, it’s not so easy to hurt a Heliad. You stay safe too. I can’t imagine this whole business with Vincent will end well. If he keeps giving you trouble, let me know and I’ll find a way around it.”
I couldn’t contact him and tell him the truth about me. It was one of our most sacred laws as Heliads and the oath we had to take when we offered our bodies, blood, and destinies to Helios. It was why Teela had never actually told her brother she was still alive, even if she could have. But there were other ways of getting through to Vincent, even if they were more violent than I’d have liked.
As it turned out, I didn’t get the chance to pursue my plans. All of a sudden, the Sphinx started to shake. Selene went pasty white and slumped against me, and this time, it wasn’t because of the shock at what she’d done to Vincent.
Instinctively, I reached out to touch her—and that was when I knew the situation might be far more complicated than we’d originally thought.
****
August
“So there’s been a malfunction at the generators in Tartarus Base.” Harold Rhodes pursed his lips, obviously displeased. “That is worrying. I can’t provide any insight in the matter. We’ve had some fluctuations in power, but nothing of significance.”
I nodded, unsurprised by the news. None of the other places I’d checked out before coming here had reported massive anomalies. The outer garrison of Tartarus Base could have been the exception, but apparently not.
The visit didn’t give me any information on what I’d come here to do, but it did make me wonder about General Rhodes’s involvement in all our other problems. Did he know I was part-apsid? If he did, he didn’t let it show, and I had no way to find out.
“Thank you for your assistance, Sir,” I told him. “If anything of importance does occur, please contact us at once. Right now, communications with Tartarus Base are down, but the lines should be fixed soon.”
“Of course, Flight Lieutenant Cavallero. I’ll keep His Highness posted.”
I excused myself and left General Rhodes’s office, heading back to the Charybdis. She was waiting for me in the garrison hangars, curled on the ground like a gigantic serpent. Several staff members stared at me as I walked, and I wondered if they found it strange that I’d survived being exposed to the unfiltered rays of the sun. Or was their silent scrutiny caused by something else?
This was so annoying. A dark fire bubbled underneath my skin, aching to come out, and while I tried to remain calm, the uncertainty wasn’t helping my state of mind.
I knew what could help, though. As soon as I was inside the Charybdis and launched my chimera into space, I contacted Pollux. I suspected he wasn’t doing much better than I was, since he had to go see his family on top of everything else.
The call connected and Pollux’s face appeared on the displays. “You’d never believe what I just found,” he said without preamble.
“What? Were there any attackers at the houses you checked?”
“Not at all, although maybe that would’ve been preferable.” He let out a low, bitter laugh. “My mother is screwing King Philip.”
Wait, what? Since when? As far as I knew, Pollux’s parents had their faults, but they’d never cheated on one another. “Are you sure? Your mother doesn’t strike me as the type to do that.”
“That’s what I thought too, but apparently, my father is aware of the affair and agrees.”
I didn’t know if that made it better or worse. The problem wasn’t Odette Donadieu’s love life. It was the fact that she was sleeping with the man who was responsible for Stella’s loss.
Pollux let out a slow breath, as if he was forcing himself to calm down. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about this any longer. They’re not worth the time or the heartache. Did you find anything?”
“No. I just went to the garrison, but it was a waste of time. General Rhodes mentioned some abnormalities, but nothing of real concern.”
Pollux grimaced. “I don’t know about you, August, but I find this utter absence of any side-effects suspicious. Was it really an accident? A localized attack? What?”
