Page 105 of We Are the Match
It was a different destruction than the one I had imagined once. The gods ablaze. Helen at my mercy. The Family in chaos.
Helen. Helen.Mine.
And come morning, we will have to reckon with this: both the love and the war.
For now, I brush hair from her face—hair I was pulling only hours ago. My hands are gentle, but she loved them when they were rough.
We have so much to explore, Helen and I.
I want a thousand nights like this one with her. I want to touch her a thousand times, in a thousand ways. I want to call noises from her she cannot contain. I want to see my ring on her hand for years yet.
I tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, and she stirs. Sighs softly.
Helen. Oh, Helen.
There was never any chance for us.
I flick my lighter open and shut in my hand, just once, before slipping it into my pocket. I twist the rings around my fingers, just two of them now.
En morte.
In death.
I shrug on my leather jacket, pull the sleeve down past the bands.
It is a reminder, as always. I am a girl from Troy, but also a girl marked by Lena’s choice—like Eris was. Like Thea was. Like Cass was, until she burned.
I bend down, press a kiss to Helen’s forehead.
Whiskey and vanilla, poppies and rain.
Before I go, I pull the poppy from my pocket—it is crushed now, worse for wear from being carried in my pocket and then being capsized. It is still damp from the sea, a few petals lost on its journey—but it is ours all the same.
And then I slip out the window, shrugging my jacket up to obscure my face as I go.
Just a girl in the alley with a hood to hide her face.
I had planned to do exactly what I had told Eris: once we reached Troy, I would find a bigger boat that could carry us across open water and safely to the mainland. But neither Zarek nor Lena will give Helen up without a fight—and if I am no longer willing to useheras my bargaining chip, I need something more.
And I can only hope it will be enough: the bracelet that will buy Lena entrance to Zarek’s fortress and—hopefully—Helen’s safety and freedom.
So I turn, at last, toward the house on the hill where my sisters died.
And I go to find the queen who killed them.
Helen
For the first time in all the years I can remember, I wake alone.
I do not want to wake up, because Paris is not beside me.
I do not know when she left, did not feel her sudden absence, but I feel the grief of it even before I am fully conscious.
I wake with my face wet with tears, though I cannot remember the dream. I wake and I look for her and I do not find her.
I want to walk through the doors and have Tommy waiting for me at the table, waiting to talk me out of my bad idea or tell me to take care or just hold me while I cry. But he is gone gonegoneand so is Paris and Erin and Mama and everyone else I have loved.
And all that is left of me is grief.
