Page 121 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

“We can’t travel there unless taken by someone from that time,” I said harshly, desperately trying to concentrate while horror ate at my vision. “So, even if Tony somehow accessed our power, as Jonathan did, there’s no way—”

“Jonathan?” Æsubrand interrupted, probably because he knew that name. He should; the bastard had been working for his father.

“A dark mage who used an ancient tool of the gods to graft part of the soul of a Pythian acolyte onto his own, borrowing access to our power,” I said and saw his eyes widen.

He appeared to be having a bad day, but unfortunately for him, so was I, to the point of barely staying on my feet. I was in no mood to soft-peddle anything. Which wouldn’t help us anyway.

“But even assuming that was the case here, it wouldn’t matter,” I continued. “I couldn’t have gotten us here, and neither could an acolyte. It isn’t possible—”

“And yet, we are here,” Enid said. I’d almost forgotten her, as she’d been so quiet. She looked like she might regret her earlier outburst, as making an enemy of Bodil wasn’t a great idea. Or maybe she was just as spooked as the rest of us.

“But you don’t need to take us into the future,” Alphonse said. “You don’t gotta deal with this at all. Just get us back to where we belong. A jump into the past is all we need!”

He looked at me as they were all doing now, and I looked mutely back.

“Cassie?” Pritkin said quietly.

I swallowed and faced the other half of the problem that had white noise filling my head and threatening my sanity, what remained of it. “We’ve been here for what?” I said. “A few hours?”

He nodded. “About that.”

“The portal’s cycle isn’t that long. I timed it before, and it seemed to be ten to twelve minutes. Maybe fifteen; I’m not completely sure, but . . .”

“Just say it!” Bodil snapped. “Your power doesn’t work here, does it?”

“Well, of course not,” Faerie said as if that should be obvious. “When she vanished, it went to her heir.”

“Rhea,” I whispered, feeling like I’d just been punched in the gut. It was the name I hadn’t been able to say or even think. Rhea. . . An abrupt cascade of goosebumps flooded my body. “Is she—”

“She lives,” Faerie said, “but the gods locked down her power so that she cannot use it. She is kept like a trophy in her old court in Las Vegas but helpless. A symbol of their ascendancy.”

“Why not just kill her?” Pritkin asked, his hand under my elbow, steadying me.

“They could kill her but not the power, which would merely go to someone else as soon as she died. The only way to rid themselves of it was to consume it, which they were afraid to do as it originally came from Apollo, a powerful source. And it has since learned to hate them.

“It would be like ingesting poison.”

“So they imprison it by imprisoning her,” Alphonse said, and the sudden enormity of it all hit me—what she must have gone through, what she must have suffered. All alone and only half-trained—

I made a sound—I don’t even know what kind—and Faerie looked at me. And this time, the smile faltered slightly. “Rhea cannot use the power, but you can,” she told me. “It should return to you once you reenter Earth and it senses your presence. All you have to do is evade the gods, visit your heir, find out what happened to cause all this, return to your time, and prevent it.”

“Oh. Is that all,” I said blankly.

“Yes. Now, we must get you out of here, all of you. Come with me.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Okay, no,” Alphonse said.

After what felt like forever, because this cavern was immense, with a ceiling that soared so high that it almost felt like being outside, we’d finally made it to the throne. Only now, I wished we hadn’t. This place had been built here for a reason, and it hadn’t been the excellent acoustics.

I stared into the black water of a jagged crevasse behind the massive stone chair and felt all the hair on my body stand up.

What the hell was down there?

“This is where the Margygr used to pay court on Nimue,” Faerie told us, still playing tour guide. “This was their realm before she arrived and took the area for herself, demanding that they send representatives to her court as hostages for their good behavior. This was where they came and went after she forced the waters back and changed their course.”

She gestured at the colossal cavern. “This was all underwater once, but after she finished her conquest, she made it into her throne room. It had been the Margygr seat of power, and I think she liked forcing them to make obeisance in their former great hall.”

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