It was about that time of day when the cold began seeping into your bones, but this was different. I had flown here in about ten minutes, simply because of how secluded the House of One’s manor is on one of the islands connected to New Olympus. Once, when I was really young, a bridge stretched across the waters and connected the two. Not anymore. Not since dad died. Concrete pillars rotted in the choppy waters, sticking out like chewed fingers. The further out I got, the more bitter the winds became. Fuck me, I thought, as my hair whipped in the wind, lashing against my cheeks. It was either gonna come down hard today, or it was the house itself screwing with the winds.

  You could never really be sure with someone like Hekka behind those giant manor walls. At least, I think that’s what he would be doing right now, making it really, really freaking hard for any news helicopters or really enthusiastic reporters with the ability to fly to get anywhere near their manor. The island itself was lush and green, overgrown with wildlife and vegetation that swallowed up nearly everything around it. I chose to land on the main road leading toward the manor, descending into a fog that sat on the damp, weed-splintered tarmac. Almost straight away, I felt a chill rake down my spine. It was the silence. The quietness. This looming presence of something.

  Like I said, ever since I had been on the farm with Cleopatra, my powers had gotten a little more minute. More focused. The voices in my head were still there, background noise chattering like the dead. But now my skin was prickling and my gut was tying itself into an unbearably tight knot. No, I wasn’t afraid, by the way. I doubted there was anything on this island that could kill me outright, and besides, Hekka was a superhero. He’d never.

  You had that same hope for Lucas, too, Ry.

  I walked down the quiet street, hovering over fallen trees, potholes so large they consumed half the tarmac, and dead animals that littered the sides of the pine-littered road. Busted street lights. Fallen electricity poles. Hands in my pockets, my hoodie tightly wrapped around me, and the cold was still painfully annoying against my skin. Kinda looks like nobody’s been home for ten years. The only reason I walked here instead of knocking was just because the old me would have gone in there demanding I saw Hekka, or anyone else alive in his family. But I’d kinda learnt that people have a bad impression of me, especially the ones who really needed my help, which also isn’t a good thing if you wanna be a superhero. Sure, instinct told me to force the front door open and look around.

  Common sense, this awesome thing I’d bought into recently, told me to stand in front of the rotting wrought iron fence and gape at the giant manor sitting amongst the dead willow trees and broken black statues. I didn’t get any further. I stood there, breaths puffing out of my mouth. I squinted, but there wasn’t a single light on inside of the house. I knocked on the gate, making it rattle and shed the dead black roses off its iron. I even took a gamble and rang the bell, but heard absolutely nothing. No electricity, remember? I know what I just said, but I was also in a bit of a hurry, and the faintest rainshower was just beginning to make itself known, so like…come on.

  I flew over the gate and over their yard, silently cutting through a chilly rainshower that was dampening my clothes and sucking the air right out of my lungs. Broken statues stood around their front lawn in awkward places. Their heads were missing, and so were their arms and legs. Some lay on the grass, twisted and turned by the roots that wrapped around their bodies. It kinda looked like a graveyard beneath me, one that thinned the further up the hill you got toward the manor itself. The closest statue lay broken inside an algae-filled fountain, half of its face glaring up at the countless dark windows looming over me. I landed there, right on the lowest steps of the manor, and held my breath. Complete and utter silence. It almost made my ears ring a little. It did make my ears ring.

  Either I had tinnitus from all the times I’d been bashed in the head, or nothing lived here anymore.

  Which would just be the peak of my life so far this week for either option.

  The manor was this massive black slab of oak and concrete, arching glass windows and archways that led into silent courtyards and overgrown gardens. The windows were filthy, and each step I took off the gravel and up the stairs echoed. That feeling inside of me was only getting worse. My skin pricked, and then a burst of pain went right up my knuckles when I knocked on the heavy wooden front door. I cursed under my breath and shook my hand out, waiting for an answer, some kinda reply or noise that would tell me that, hey, we’re still alive in here.

  I got nothing in return. Not after the first three agonizing knocks on the door.

  It felt like getting electrocuted, except a lot more jarring. That symbol on my chest faintly burned again, making me rub it gently until it stopped. Whenever it started to hurt, bad things usually also started happening.

  All I could do was hope this time would be different.

  I sighed and spread my arms, raising my voice as I said, “Hey! Uh, I need your help!”

  Nothing. I was talking to a door with a rusted brass handle on it that stared at me with its beady eye and the roman numeral for one pointing at me. I guess it’s not really breaking and entering if it’s for a good cause, so…

  I pressed my shoulder against the door and pushed. It stood firm. So freaking firm that my sneakers slid against the wet tiles underneath me. I hovered and tried again, this time a lot harder. The doors budged, heaved, then something gave way, and they swung open, leaving me stumbling inside, hovering in the doorway of it all.

  I hadn’t been inside of very many wealthy people’s homes, but this was what I figured they’d look like. Walls of archaic ornaments. Scarlet carpets that stank of decay and mold. The air was stuffy, thick and dusty and held the smell of years of neglect. I searched through the house, skimming over the spiraling staircase and the grand old hallways that led to ballrooms and kitchens, bedrooms and studies that were all so freaking empty. Not a single book or spoon or even a hair fibre I could find on the lumpy, rat-eaten mattresses. I didn’t want to accept it, so I flew faster, searched harder, but not a single room stood out to me. It just looked like an old money kind of house.

  The kind of house devoid of life or love and filled with years and years of silence and solitude. The family had left this home to sit on this island and rot into the wilderness. They’d let the shadows and the whispers of the wind make it their home. The only thing that screamed Hekka in this entire manor was on the main floor in front of the doors. I had to hover over the foyer to see it properly and light my hand up with electricity to push the darkness even further away—it was a symbol of some kind, embedded in the wood paneling. It took me a second to figure it out, then I saw the solitary eye carved into the wood, surrounded by a pentagram on a scale, tilted the other way.

  The other half of the scale was empty, and yet it was still heavier than that crest.

  Which I was more than sure I’d seen somewhere before. At least in part.

  Didn’t Cadaver have that symbol on him? I thought. Without the eye?

  I paused. Held my breath. The wind had stopped blowing through the doors. The creak and groan of the manor being pushed around by the wind suddenly silenced. I lowered, but didn’t let my feet touch the old crest. I kept my hands beside me and my breathing even. Something wasn’t wrong. It was just that something had changed. Shifted. I waited for a scent or sound, a flicker of movement—nothing. But I couldn’t shake the feeling. An instinct that screamed at me to stay perfectly still, because something was happening around me. Something that I’d only felt around dad and my uncle—obedience. Not just from me, but from everything. The world itself held its breath.

  I didn’t know if the humans had ever felt it, but being next to either of them was like having a vice around your throat or your head getting crushed between their hands. I figured it was nature’s way of telling you to stop it.

  Because dad and Titan (and now this growing silence) was probably going to make you stop, too.

  There.

  My hand met flesh, then came the silent eruption of sound that shattered the silence.

  To my right: nothing. Nothing except for the thin air I clenched in my fist.

  The air flickered and warped, revealing a hand, then a wrist, and finally a guy around my age. He had deep brown skin and wore a finely pressed black and white suit. His hair was cut short. His eyes a mesmerizing shade of black that felt like I was looking into a void, just like it always felt when Witchling stared at me. Except her eyes were solid black—his eyes still had some white in them, but none of the warmth Hekka’s had. We looked at each other, almost in surprise (a lot of surprise, actually), then I looked at his wrist in my hand, and just as quickly as he appeared, he vanished. My fingers slipped into thin air, and I was immediately on edge, head swiveling and ears straining. Who was that? Last I checked, Hekka was old. He wouldn’t look that young. He never had a sidekick.

  “Burden,” a voice hissed in my mind, louder than the normal chatter. I flinched and instinctively cupped my ear, but that didn’t stop its voice from seeping into my bones. “The boy bears as many souls as you hold lives.”

  You again, I thought, spinning around, trying to let my senses alone find him again. Thought you left.

  “For as long as you walk this plain of existence, we shall be bonded, God-Butcher.”

  How thoughtful.

  “I’m not here to try to steal anything!” I said to the silence. “All I need is help.”

  “How?” a voice said, my mind filled with the word. I shook my head. Too many voices upstairs to keep up with, and adding what I guessed was the guy’s wasn’t a fun thing to do now, too. “How did you make it this far?”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “I walked, I guess?” I said helplessly.

  “Impossible.”

  “It’s pretty easy when you get old enough,” I said. My throat dried when the doors slammed shut on their own. Silence and darkness filled the foyer in seconds. “Look, I came here for Hekka. I need his help, then I’ll—”

  “He’s dead.”

  I paused. The voice said nothing else, but I also wasn’t going to believe him on a whim. For the longest time, I had also thought Cleopatra was dead, and now I kinda had a new aunt in the form of a former Olympian.

  “Yeah?” I said, folding my arms. “Then show me proof he’s dead, and I’ll leave you alone.”

  Nothing.

  Thought so.

  The doors swung open again, and standing in the intersection between the dreary light outside and the glum darkness in here was the same guy from before, this time with his hands in his pockets. “You’re not Zeus.”

  “And you’re not Hekka,” I said, landing softly on the crest.

  “That was his title, not his name.”

  “You think it was any different for Zeus?”

  We stared at one another, and I decided to make the first move. I walked toward him, watching him watch me, those eyes so terribly black they could probably watch right alongside Witchling’s. I stopped in front of him and offered a hand. “Name’s Rylee,” I said. To my surprise, he took my hand and shook it. “I’m also Olympia.”

  “Is that some kind of title?” he said, still shaking my hand, his grip getting tighter.

  Tight even for my standards.

  “You can think that, sure.”

  I tried to pull my hand away, but nothing happened. I stared at him, looking up into his eyes, scanning his face. He was handsome, sure, but he also had a striking resemblance to Hekka. Sharp nose. Straight jaw. Finely cut eyes and this air of arrogance around him, like he knew he was the best thing that probably ever happened to Earth.

  And trust me, I know how people like that feel—hell, I was one of ‘em a few months ago.

  They were never fun to deal with, were they?

  But, also…

  “Have you never heard of me before?” I asked. We stopped shaking, but his hand remained on mine.

  “I don’t go out much,” he said to me, his voice lulling, smooth—deep. “Don’t have that kind of luxury.”

  I stared at his hand, but I knew he was still looking down his nose at me, eyes squinted.

  “No,” he said quietly. “You’re not quite like him. Almost, but not quite.”

  Then I felt the air shift around me.

  Next thing I knew, I was hurtling through the woods, head over heels and skipping across the forest floor like a stone on a lake until I very suddenly (and very fucking painfully) smashed into a tree. Too thick for me to make fall, but weak enough to groan and bend and explode wooden shards of shrapnel through the air. I cursed and picked myself off the soil, shaking my head as the bite of the wind got to me again. How the…? I got on one knee and wiped the mud off my face, then stared at the destruction I’d caused when I’d been thrown through the woods.

  About half the trees in front of me had been decimated, and the other half fell in real time, shedding pine leaves and water onto the forest floor. Birds shrieked into the cloud-filled sky, and for once, I was thankful I had left Ava on the mainland so she wouldn’t add insult to injury with some stupid input. Slowly, I stood back up, sneakers squelching in the mud. Not great with new people, then. My ears prickled. I stepped back and searched the sky.

  A fist materialized out of the thin air in front of me, one so large it trumped my entire body.

  I flipped out of the way before it punched into the tree I’d slammed into, disintegrating it and turning it into a pile of wood and leaves and shrieking birds. I landed in a crouch, panting, watching as the first flickered and vanished. What the hell is going on? Didn’t have time to think. The ground underneath me shuddered, then opened up, and when I say opened up, I meant like a gaping mouth, teeth and tongue and saliva and all that devoured the forest and its mud, the trees and the roots and the stones surrounding me. I shot into the air, then smacked into the fist like a fly against a window. It grabbed me out of the air, then threw me hard against the forest floor again.

  I fell like a stone and hit the ground harder than one with a shallow whumph.

  My head whined as I picked myself up again, getting really tired of going up and down again in sick little acrobatic routines. Mud and rain and leaves were slick against my skin, soaking through my clothes. I groaned and shook my head, letting my hair come loose from its braid as the rain dampened it. I heard a noise come from just beyond the crater I had made. I looked up, and saw a silhouette standing above me, hands still in his pocket, and eyes just as dark as the canopy above us. Once again, I got onto one knee. Once again, the ground trembled.

  I spat mud out of my mouth and wiped mucus out from under my nose.

  “Nice shot,” I yelled over the droning rain. “Gonna have to hit me harder, though.”

  Like this.

  My fist was in his jaw the same second he almost vanished. A thunderclap of sound exploded from the impact, throwing us both backward several times over. A hand erupted from the soil and grabbed him, cushioning his tumble. I had no other option than to flip over and skid into a crouch, staying low, watching him, eyes trained.

  I flexed my fingers, then wrapped electricity around them, making the rain hiss and turn to steam around my body. I didn’t stop until I was dry again. I didn’t stop until the hand made from mud and stone stood him up.

  Haven’t had a good brawl in ages, especially one that wasn’t me fighting for my life. I rolled my shoulders and walked in slow circles around him. He didn’t move. Barely even tilted his head to look at me. I know it was just a little counterproductive to fight him, but I also wasn’t gonna be made to eat shit after getting insulted. I stopped.

  We stared at one another, the rain droning against the mud and the trees and the leaves. A raven called and a clap of thunder shook the sky. Come on, let’s do this, since you want to so badly. I could always beat it out of him.

  It worked most times.

  He finally pulled his hands out of his pockets. I clenched my fists by my sides, making electricity crackle.

  His fingers flicked, and the trees surrounding me uprooted and shot toward me like missiles. I leapt and dodged, spinning through the air and shoving off tree trunks mid-flip larger than most buildings. They impaled the soil, showering us in muck that burnt off me and didn’t even touch him. Then he was gone, and I was in the air, not taking any chances. That didn’t matter to him though. I heard whistling coming from behind me, and I ducked from reflex alone and watched as shards of spiraling metal sliced through the air. And just as I was mid-flip, I paused.

  Because a giant red mallet had appeared in the air above me, and swung like a pro batter.

  I was caught off guard. Almost in shock at the absurdity and the freaking audacity.

  And that’s what I get for being mesmerized by a giant red mallet. It hit me like a freight train and then some, leaving me spiraling through the air and rocketing back down to the forest floor. I was woozy, my head in a spiral, too, and barely had enough time to brace myself before the giant mouth in the soil opened and swallowed.

  I smacked into a concrete wall so thick I didn’t even dent it. I stumbled, then fell, my knees hitting the floor as well as my hands. Fuck me, who the hell is this guy? I held my head in one hand, waiting for my daze to pass before I tried standing and inevitably falling flat again. It was dark in here, just like everywhere else on this freaking island. Cold. Silent. A basement, I figured, with nothing but an old boiler in the corner and a set of old wooden stairs leading up toward a solid concrete wall. Trust me, I found out it was solid by trying to punch at it.

  Nothing. It didn’t even register when I hit it, like it wasn’t bothered that I had tried and tried again.

  I walked backward down the steps, panting like a dog in summer. I was wet through and through now, cold and kinda pissed off that I’d been smacked around like an idiot. My heart still beat against my chest, my lungs still ached for a fight, and so did the rest of me, because what the fuck! Come on, Ry. You fight monsters and villains, and a mallet takes you out of the fight? This wasn’t fucking Looney Tunes. I was trying to save Bianca. And then here comes this asshole with his suit and his huge house and his weird British accent and those skin-crawling black eyes that had stared into my soul and his telekinesis and holy shit, he’s a Special Grade just like Witchling, isn’t he?

  I massaged my temples, knowing that I should have known better. But hell, he started it.

  I’ll be the first to admit, right here and now, that I hadn’t been taking him seriously. Come on, look at me, I’ve fought way worse this summer. Been under a lot more pressure. I’d taken my foot off the gas pedal a little bit because a part of me kinda knew that I was top of the food chain power-wise, and that’s why finding Bianca was so hard, because people were avoiding me on purpose. I’d beaten Adam twice, once even ripped off his arm. My cousin…well, if she was still alive, she would have beat the brakes off me if she’d ever been healthy enough to give me a proper rematch, this time as equals. Witchling wasn’t a threat to me—if she was, we’d have tried to properly go for one another’s throats, and she’d pretty much bailed on me the second she got her book. The Kaiju? Very dead.

  I still didn’t really understand how Adam had beaten it, and should probably find out if that meant he was a lot stronger than when we last caught up, but if you thought for one second I cared more about beating him a third time compared to finding my best friend, you’re crazy wrong. He could keep his goodwill and giant graffiti artwork.

  And yeah, maybe some of my frustration was bleeding out into the wrong places, but after a few days of playing detective and feeling like I was getting nowhere, I was starting to itch for something I could actually do.

  Like the old days, when punching something harder was my biggest worry.

  Or I could be making excuses for myself, and I was just rusty.

  I hadn’t gotten beaten, though. I never tapped out.

  The wall at the end of the staircase opened, or more accurately, it simply just vanished, putting an end to my rant in the dark. I hovered a little, poised and even more ready, and there he stood in his suit and tie, now with sunglasses in his fingers that he slid over his eyes as he took one step down at a time, forcing me to wait for him.

  Don’t get it twisted. He didn’t stop level with me. He stopped a few steps above me so I looked up at him.

  “You do that with all your guests?” I asked him.

  “Just the ones who trespass.” Hands back into his pockets, red-tinted sunglasses reflecting my golden irises. “The thing is, we don’t usually get that many visitors anymore, especially not ones like you, Olympia.”

  “By ‘you,’ do you mean superheroes who knock politely?”

  He remained silent, then: “Those don’t exist anymore. Zeus was the last.”

  Where have I heard that one before? “I’m keeping the cape warm until someone else thinks they’re better than me and actually does something instead of telling me how shitty I am at this gig.” Maybe I’d let my feelings slip a little, but I was getting tired of the same push and pull word salad games. “So yeah, I’m a superhero, and I’m also looking for Hekka, so if you know where he is, or if he can take a memo, then I’d really appreciate that.”

  “Like I said,” he deadpanned. “Hekka is dead.”

  “You put me through a tree when I asked for proof.”

  He tilted his head, lowering it so his black irises could stare at me from just over his sunglasse’s ridge. “Take it from the person who read his last rites,” he said. “My father never looked so peaceful than in his grave.”

  I gaped at him. Hekka had a son?

  “So…you’re it?” I asked, a little in disbelief. For the longest time, I’d only ever known about one other kid from the Olympian’s that wasn’t me, but Ares’ son didn’t like to play nice the last time we met, and the less we spoke about that douchebag, the better. But this…this was great. Freaking amazing. My first thought was to get Cleopatra down here to check out his story, but Gods above, this rocks. I’d been expecting to deal with a grumpy old man filled with years of regret and deadlocked morals that kept him here in the darkness of his own rotting home, but now I had someone just like me I could finally deal with. “You’re all that’s left of the House of One?”

  “I’m all that’s been left for the past ten years.”

  I raised an eyebrow and folded my arms. “Hekka made it off Olympus Hill, just like Shrike did.”

  He shook his head. “Unfortunately, that wasn’t him. Not the same man who went to try to kill Zeus.”

  What? “I know you’ve been cooped up here for years, but the Olympians went there to kill Titan, dude.”

  “So that’s the tale he told the world,” he muttered, heading back up the stairs. “How interesting.”