29 | ACT II, SCENE I

P R E V I O U S L Y

Cosmo and his whimsical Logogram had never been a joke. The Logogram was real.

CALCHESTER CITADEL, STEFFITH.

EDWINA

I COULD NOT SPEAK.

DANGER lurks before the gods, while safety lurks behind, somewhere still exists the contraption I hid for you to find.

Tristan was as still as a statue. Eric looked like he was carved from granite. His eyes were the only living things on his face. I sat down on a chair, putting my head in my hands. Terror burned in my blood.

This was not possible. This could not happen.

"Cosmo..." Eric uttered softly, his eyes misty. "He wasn't lying. The Goldberg Logogram does exist."

"Meaning that the Titans might return," Tristan observed quietly to himself, whiter than a sheet. That seemed to the only sign of alarm on the handsome god, yet only I could notice the rigid set of his jaw that gave away how tensed he was.

Put together the crafty device, strike it up and down, so Tytos can be free once again and cause the Triarchy harm.

"The Triarchy," I murmured slowly. "It refers to us. Three Monarchs in a Monarchy. A Triarchy."

"Tytos," Eric added in a trembling voice, "refers to House Tytos, the House of the Titans. And... written by Pandora? She was the one who created the Logogram in the first place!"

It was impossible.

It was like saying that the sun had stopped shining, or that trees had ceased to grow, or that glaciers had melted and drowned all land in sight.

Even that could happen. But not this.

The seconds turned to minutes.

"You - must have... made a mistake, Valmont," I said, my voice queer and loud in the strangled silence. "Maybe you read it wrong."

"There's nothing wrong with the way I read it," he growled with a low rumble in his silk throat. "This message makes perfect sense. Apparently, Pandora left clues for one of her Titan children to find the Logogram, finish it and kill all the gods."

"That's not possible," I argued hotly. "All eight Titans of House Tytos were imprisoned in Seattoria by Cosmo! Pandora, Zadicus and all their six children. There is no way they can be back in Endollon!"

"You don't get it, do you?" he hissed defensively, curling his fists. "Pandora and Zadicus are the head Titans, the ones who founded House Tytos! They both lie buried in the middle of Seattoria with the thickest chains you have ever seen."

"So you are saying that the rest of the Titans - her children - are chained around the peripheries of the demonic realm?" Eric asked mildly, trying to regain his composure. "Making them easier to come back?"

"Possible," Tristan said, his voice still shaken to the core. I watched his face return to its normal color as he scratched a faint five o'clock shadow on his chin. "It seems that Pandora expected one of her children to escape their imprisonment, find this letter, assemble the Logogram and kill all the gods to make the Titans the supreme family of the universe."

"Look," I tried to reason, sucking in huge gulps of oxygen. "That sort of escapement needs a large amount of power!"

"Something that can easily be supplied," Tristan shrugged nonchalantly, trying to look careless and unshaken.

"You speak as if that is the easiest thing in the world," I laughed cruelly, mistrust wavering in my voice. I wanted to shake his shoulders and slap him across the face to make him see sense.

"It is," he glared, shooting up as his blue eyes blazed like midnight fires. "Unfinished Blood Rituals that call upon spirits and leave them unattended to cause a huge disturbance of power. An amount which might be more than enough to wake a Titan child!"

"Do you mean Rituals which do not dispose of the called entity respectfully?" Eric asked.

"Yes. For instance, summoning shades. Because you need to be very, very careful in calling a spirit. And if you do not show it proper respect, it will not go back. Especially with a malevolent spirit outside our own home dimension," Tristan mused, his voice still angry and unbelieving. "And if you are doing something like calling upon vengeful spirits for reasons like... taking revenge or trying to change the future, well... you're fucked."

"I've heard of those," I piped up, leaning against the wall and crossing my arms. "There are certain which involve giving up a lot of your body's blood in exchange?"

"Yes," he said. "The amount goes up to... one fifth of your blood in certain sacrifices."

"Ah, Eric said delicately, "well... that explains it. Someone performed a Blood Ritual and it backfired? Letting loose a Titan of Seattoria into this world?"

"I suppose?"

"You, Edwina - lord - you saw the lady that night," he said wildly, rivulets of sweat running down his temples as he forcefully took in a deep breath through his nostrils. "That woman must be the escaped Titaness!"

His sudden outburst left me reeling as my head spun with this new intake of information which somehow, somewhere, made complete sense.

All the pieces fell into place and clicked.

"She must have been one of Pandora's daughters," I said silently. "That night, she must be looking for this letter. The piano must have sensed her demonic presence and begun to play to draw her attention to this letter," I gasped. "And now... well, she has her mother's instructions." I squinted to reread the music. "Instructions to look for the pieces of the Logogram, assemble it, and kill us all!"

"By Uranus," Tristan swore vividly under his breath, balling his fists. "If I catch hold of that person who performed the Ritual, I will not leave them alive," he growled. "What are we going to do now?" he barked.

"Let's not get too ahead of ourselves," Eric suggested quietly, tugging the decoded sheet of music from my hand.

"Let's not get too ahead of ourselves?" Tristan echoed hollowly, turning around. "Do you want to die, Eric?"

"Die?"

"The escaped Titaness might be looking for the pieces of the Logogram right now!" I scolded him, staring right into his eyes. "If that flying lady finds the pieces and completes the Logogram, we'll all die!"

"You missed out the part where they'll wreck cities apart, drench the streets in blood and make trophies out of our spines," Tristan added shrewdly, "but I do believe you got the gist."

"They'll kill us all?" Eric softly whispered.

"Doubtless," I snorted. "The Titans do not understand love or pain or emotion the way we do. The only thing they do understand is revenge. And suffering."

Zadicus, Pandora's brother - husband, had been the god of destruction and terror when he lived. Only when Cosmo locked him and the remaining Titans in Seattoria, peace was returned to Endollon.

"We need to stop her," I hissed furiously, "we need to stop that woman - Pandora's daughter - whoever she is! Else she will complete the Logogram and ruin this realm!"

"Pandora and Zadicus had six Titan children. Three sons, three daughters. Leora, Noire and Cellica," Tristan mused quietly. "You saw a lady with green robes, white hair and black eyes. Helios might be able to identify her if you ask him," he said, referring to our grandfather and the god of day, Helios, who fought alongside Cosmo in the Titanomachy.

A slight chill ran down my spine as I recalled the events of that particular night. It seemed too real. Even now, I felt I could see it all in perfect detail. The black of her eyes. The way they gleamed threateningly, looking right through me. The way her silver white hair slowed down her back like moonlit rivers. The way her blood red lips curled as they pulled up in a smile, gliding up to our wedding suite. Farther, my memory traveled, right up to the nights before our wedding, to the way Tristan had clasped his hands around my neck in a fit of anger. The way his white fingers traced a crooked line down the silk of my skin. The way he had let go almost immediately. And the way another set of hands, garlanded with bruises, had latched themselves around my throat.

Those had been her hands.

Again and again, whenever she appeared, she was visible only to me.

Why was I the only one who could see her?

Slowly, I shook out of the hazy reverie, adjusting myself into the conversation between the two gods in the room, arguing heatedly.

"But how are we going to stop her?" Eric was fuming, his hands crossed over his sturdy chest. "How the heck do we stop this escaped Titaness from completing the Logogram?"

"There's only one way," Tristan interjected with a roll of his eyes. "We find it before her. And then, we destroy it."

• • • • •

"The letter, give me that," I demanded, seizing the ancient sheet of paper to scan the broken musical code again, hoping to look for clues.

"How do we figure out where the first piece is?"

I did not answer, impatiently scanning the little riddle we had unlocked, hoping it would unlock some more clues as to where we could find an answer. The words kept swirling over and over in my head.

Concealed is the Logogram under golden gilded weight, for ten moonlit hours the gates open when the hour strikes eight.

"What gate is the letter talking about?" Tristan asked over my shoulder, peering keenly. His hot breath wafted over the sensitive skin on my neck, setting off slivers of adrenaline into my blood.

"It appears to be a gate that opens for ten moonlit hours when the hour strikes eight?" Eric asked.

"Moonlit hours..." Tristan wondered, eyes flickering with extensive interest. "Moonlit hours!" he exclaimed. "On a full moon night!"

"You mean this gate remains open for ten hours on a full moon night?" I inquired, my curiosity piqued.

"From eight o'clock on a full moon night till six o'clock on the next morning, I think," Eric confirmed. "For ten hours... this supposed gate opens so that the finder can hunt down one of the pieces of the Logogram?"

"Don't you remember what Cosmo told us about the device?" Tristan cut in. "It apparently has three pieces - one hidden in the mortal world, one hidden in Seattoria and one hidden on Endollon!"

"But we don't know what gate is referred to here!" Eric whined, waving about the letter. "Where is this secret gate? And where does it exist? And most importantly, how do we get to it?"

"Fuck!" I gasped suddenly, bursting with realization as my mind recalled a sentence I'd heard before somewhere.

I was wrong. I had to be wrong.

"What is it?" Eric demanded, taking in the wild gleam in my eyes as my lips opened and closed in silence.

"Woman?" Tristan demanded, turning around to look at me. His eyes softened slightly, yet they burned with curiosity around the edges, glimmering a dark blue.

"I - I know where the gate is," I choked out, breathing harshly. I felt as if I had been hit by a wall.

"What is it?"

"It was something the Rotavelles said to me the last night," I spat out, injecting the words with enough venom to poison an elephant.

"We should have taken Eros and Erida as well. Then we'd have a whole new family!" Favian had leered as Elias smacked him on the head with a muffled curse.

"Erida is gone. Ever since she passed through those cursed gates of hell," Elias had said.

Cursed gates of hell.

The missing Erida, Atherton and Cymbeline.

Oh lord, no.

"Those gates," I exhaled sharply, breathing harsher than ever. "Those gates are the gates to Vezort Island. The place where the three gods disappeared. The place where you can't get it or can't get out. The cursed island. The first piece of the Logogram is hidden on Vezort Island."

• • • • •

TRISTAN

Oh lord.

Eric had completely lost any semblance of sanity, his gaze fixed to the floor.

Vezort Island.

I would have never even imagined it.

The gates!

"It can't be," Eric said desolately. "It can't be. I lost my mother on that island, Edwina!"

"Don't you see!" she manically shook his shoulders. "That is why the three gods got trapped in the island! Because they didn't know when the gate opened and when it closed!"

"Damn it," I cursed with a low hiss. "That explains it. Erida, Atherton and Cymbeline got trapped in during a night having a full moon-"

"-because the gates were open that night - it was a moonlit night!" Edwina finished excitedly, her eyes gleaming.

"Those three must have wandered to explore the place, but by the time they returned to the starting place, their time was up! It must have been beyond six in the morning already!" I added, rubbing my palms.

"Which is why they are stuck in the island!" she realized with a shock, her lovely face coloring. Curiosity and a sense of adventure flooded my veins, I was always up for a challenge. I was ready to go to the dangerous island.

"Pandora created the mysterious tribe of the Dessari and placed them on Vezort Island. Now I know, they were placed there to guard the pieces of Pandora's Logogram! No one except Pandora's own can get there, because they wouldn't know how the gates opened!"

"Don't you understand what this means, Eric! If we manage to successfully get into the island, we might be able to find Erida and the other two gods as well!" Edwina excitedly tugged at his sleeves, lightly slapping his white face to snap him back into his senses.

"What? Really?" His eyes suddenly filled with tears. "Will I really be able to get my mother back?" he asked softly.

"It is fairly possible, yes," I reassured, patting his shoulder. I gave him a small smile for his sake, joining Edwina at his side as we both tried to cheer him up and bring him out of his misery. "If the Dessari have not harmed them, we might be able to get the three of them back."

"When can we go?" he asked indignantly, breaking out of his bubble. "We have to go. I have to go! When is the next full moon? I need to go to Vezort Island and get my mother back!"

"And also retrieve a piece of the Logogram," Edwina interjected worriedly, shooting me a glare.

I suddenly groaned.

"Yesterday night was a full moon," I smacked my forehead, frustrated to high heavens. "The next full moonlit night comes after thirteen more days!"

"Oh, no," Eric whined, putting up his hands. "If only it had been a full moon night today!"

"We'll go there after thirteen nights," I promised him. "And we will find them. We will uncover a piece of the Logogram too."

He leaned against a corner, quiet and unmoving. A light still gleamed in his wise grey eyes, shining with a ray of hope. Hope of finding his mother back.

"I have to go home to Ellesmere," he finished silently, making for the door. "I have a pregnant wife to take care of and a sister's wedding to arrange." Dark circles were thrown in relief under his tired eyes as he unlocked the knob of the door. Then he paused. "The next fortnight, we go to end this," he swore solemnly. "Promise me."

"I promise."

"And so do I," Edwina swore. "Thirteen nights from now, I swear by Uranus. We will get them back."

• • • • •

YES! We'll be going to a dangerous mystery island to look for the first piece and the three missing gods! And let me tell you, it's quite dangerous. So dangerous that someone might even die ;) Remember the prologue and the person who did the Blood Ritual? It all connects! The person made and mistake while banishing the spirit, and instead called up one of Pandora's daughters, a Titaness who is going to wreck havoc! It's gonna be a lot of fun.