Page 36 of The Fifth Gate

The waves lap the shore, like perfectly carved gemstones edged in alabaster foam. There’s no gate here. When I arrived on these shores, back then they were Azhrea’s hellish domain, choked in ash and soot. It had been the Pegasus Nyxus who had brought me here, flying me to the distant shores of the Underworld.

But there’s no night black winged steed waiting for us now.

The relics all pick up a persistent throbbing, drumming like a pulse inside my head. We’re almost out of time.

But what do I do? Where do I go?

My hand falls to the diamond choker that Aphrodite gave me when I left. She said it would help me when I needed it, but it was just a way for her to yank me out of the Underworld when I got in over my head. It would have been touching if it weren’t so insulting, especially because it was more to cover her ass than mine.

I could use it.

Mother would be able to drag me straight back to Olympus. But it’s a lifeboat that’s only big enough for one. If I use it, I’d have to leave Adonis and Ares behind, stranded on the edge of the Underworld’s Ocean.

Can I do that? For Janie? If I get her out before the deadline, then I can come back for them.

Or maybe not.

I only got into the Underworld with Mother’s blessing and the quest she gave me, even if it was a cover story. What are the odds that she’d let me turn around and go back? Especially to rescue Ares, since that would kind of reveal what she’d done to him, and that’s assuming he didn’t first throttle her.

I can’t risk it. Not even for Janie. The thought makes my heart clench inside my chest, a piercing ache, like I’ve been stabbed.

“There!” Adonis thrust his arm towards the water, just off shore.

I follow the line of his finger, and new energy sizzles up my spine. A whirlpool has formed just away from the shallows. Even from the shore, I can feel the power in it, the currents of magic bound up into its being.

Maybe it’s a trick, but I’ll take it. The alternative is too bitter to even think of.

“Go!” I charge forward, right into the sea. Warm water laps at my legs, the waves sending salt spray up my thighs. I can hear Adonis and Ares right behind me as I fight my way through the water.

Once I get close enough, it’s easy to let go, to just let the whirlpool drag me in. There’s a bad moment when the deep blue water closes over my head, pulling me down, down, down into the depths. Air rushes out of me, bubbles like a string of pearls. I can’t see Adonis or Ares through the movement of the water, my own hair blinding me as it bells around my head.

And then the water swallows me up, and the world fades away. The last thing to go is the droning buzz of the relics.

SIXTEEN

PEN

As a child and a teenager, I’d always hated going to Olympus to visit Aphrodite.

For one, she never really had any time for me, always packing me off with some tutor or teacher to learn everything a demi-goddess should know.

For another, Olympus wasn’t a place where you could ever have a moment to yourself. It was baffling, really. In a place that wasn’t strictly a ‘place’ as the real world sees things, it was more a sprawling infinity, shaped only by the gods and their needs, why did it always feel like people were crawling on top of each other?

Every time I turned around, there was some minor deity or nymph or daemon underfoot. And after I grew up a bit, most of them seemed intent on getting into my bed, since I was Aphrodite’s daughter, and they knew she’d never give them the time of day. It didn’t really make it easier for a girl growing up in the shadow of the Goddess of Love. Especially when it had been made excruciatingly clear that, as a half mortal, I would never actually belong there.

So, when Adonis and I step down onto Olympus and find the place the closest thing to deserted, it’s weird as hell and instantly has my shackles up.

“Where is everyone?”

Adonis is too busy staring around at all the gardens and temples to answer, which, fair. I remember being absolutely in awe as a child the first time I’d set foot here. Way back before everyone who dwelled here had managed to disappoint me enough that it wore the shine away permanently.

Adonis has never been here before, so I can excuse a bit of gawking. He also doesn’t know how supremely strange it is to find the marble streets and golden temples empty.

I finally catch sight of some lesser goddess or other darting towards one of the largest buildings on Olympus. The Acropolis, where Zeus likes to hold court on the days he actually plays at being King of the Gods, instead of chasing around whatever poor nymph has most recently caught his attention. Zeus must be making a proclamation, or setting a new law, if that’s where everyone’s gone. Or he’s just telling war stories about how impressive he is, and everyone is sitting around listening for political reasons.

I tug Adonis’s arm and manage to get him to tear his eyes away from the statue of a lion made of living gold. It shakes its mane at us as we move past it. Hephaestus always builds the coolest shit, I have to admit.

Together, we hurry up the huge marble steps and past the columns to step into the shade of the building itself.

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