Page 35 of The Brothers Bane

He lifts an eyebrow. “It isherwe guard, not the cottage. I go where she goes.”

Campe doesn’t disagree, but looks miffed that he’d point out the obvious. At least Alcides has the grace not to look smug about it.

“We miss you,” Pan says, a desperation in his voice that sends a pang of guilt into my gut. I look at each of their faces and the feeling deepens, growing into a need to be engulfed by all of them.

“I’m sorry. I miss you too, but I’m not ready to come back. Maybe after this is over and I have a better handle on how to come and go.”

Campe clears her throat. “About that… You should know that the bauble Vesh gave you is redundant. You had the power to enter or leave the prison all along, something he would have known the second he stepped foot here, but chose not to reveal to you. This is your doorway, Nemea.”

She gestures broadly around the courtyard we stand in,mysanctuary courtyard. Flowerbeds explode with colors even more brilliant than when I visited with Alcides only hours ago. The sky above is even bluer, and the temple itself rendered in more exquisite detail, if that’s possible.

To illustrate further, Campe strides down the path to the temple and a door that wasn’t there before appears between two columns. This one has a vivid green, eye-like jewel embedded in the upper half, and iridescent black scales covering its surface. She opens the door to reveal a room with lush furnishings in brilliant colors.

She beckons me close and I go, peering in. The decor fits her, with its decadence mixed with utilitarian organization. In between shelves of shining baubles and treasures are racks of weapons and armor just as rich. It looks well lived-in.

I start to step through, but she grabs my arm. “No. He’ll know, and I don’t think you’re ready for that yet.”

That’s when it hits me that beneath all the trappings, the room is crafted of the same shining black glass as the rest of the tower in Tartarus.

“This is your room at the prison, isn’t it? What are you telling me?”

“That each and every one of us is a door, Nemea. You can go anywhere in the world from this sanctuary, much the way Vesh can travel. You can also go back to the prison if you choose, and you can come and go through these doors. We’re all linked to both him and to you. You can use us to travel freely to and from the prison.”

My heart leaps into my throat, and it’s all I can do not to step through just to test her promise.

“Can you all enter through each other’s doors?” I ask.

She cocks her head. “That I don’t know.”

“We can,” Asterius says. “Pan and I were in my library when we felt her return. We both left the prison through my door.”

I stare back through Campe’s door, biting my lip.

“What is it?” she asks.

“We are incomplete,” Typhon offers from behind me. He is in his human form, the shape of the beautiful, young golden god he seems to prefer when inside me. He rests a hand on my shoulder and I lean back against him, his contact filling a void I didn’t realize I had until now. “Cerberus still has not bonded with her yet.”

“I’ll go get him,” Chrysaor says, stretching his wings to hover off the ground before swooping toward the side of the temple and disappearing through his door.

Campe frowns. “You really want Cerberus too?”

I give her an incredulous look. “He’s one of you.”

“I know, but he’s…” She lifts her upper lip in a sneer of disgust.

“What’s wrong with him?” I ask, uncertain now. I only interacted with him the first night through Vesh, but he’s in my sketchbook.

“Nothing is wrong with the hound,” Asterius says, moving to my side. “He just prefers his beastly shape, which Campe finds disturbing.”

“At least they have a choice,” Typhon mutters.

“It’s not his beastly shape I find disturbing,” she says. “It’s that he flaunts his assets whenever he’snota hound.”

Pan chuckles. “You’ve seen all ourassetsfor eons. Why are his any different? Why not be disgusted by Erebus’ monstrous junk with all its spiny protrusions?” He waggles his fingers in the air to mimic the spines on his friend’s cock.

As if in response, the large shadow that had only hovered silently nearby solidifies behind Pan, whose shoulders twitch. “He’s behind me, isn’t he?”

The magnificent creature with shining black skin and spikes erupting from his forearms and shoulders grins through Pan’s horns. He reaches a hand between them at hip height and makes a motion I can’t see from where I stand. Pan yelps and launches forward several feet, spinning on his hooves and rubbing his backside.

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