82 | ACT V, SCENE IX

P R E V I O U S L Y

The curator was Cosmo.

MUSÉE DU LOUVRE, PARIS.

EDWINA

I WENT STILLER THAN DEATH, my gaze never leaving Cosmo's moss green eyes.

Forgive your father when you find out what he did for you, he had told me at my coronation. Told me before he took the potion of reincarnation, dying and leaving his crown to us.

He looked as young as the day he had died. Early twenties, clean shaven face, gleaming white hair and ancient green eyes the colour of moss, shining with the secrets of the unknown.

The name plaque read 'Cosimo Mallory Hightower, Head Curator, Museé du Louvre.'

"Holy fuck," Tristan whispered beside me, a warning hand on my shoulder.

Cosmo had been reborn as a human immediately after he died, it seemed. And in the twenty years which had passed here since Eric's last visit, he'd already risen to power - just the way I had.

"Miss Tremont," the young man said efficiently, not getting up but instead leaning back in the leather chair. His gaze still held the sharp edge of authority. He did not gasp or flinch at the sight of us, no, this man was composed and cool with an aura of power around him, this man who had been King in his previous life.

"Cosmo," Eric began. "Do you-"

"-my name is Cosimo, young man," he cut us off sharply.

I looked at the others, who shook their heads at me.

If he didn't remember anything of his previous life...

"Gods."

"None of the sixty curators under me have that name. Are you looking for someone else?" he asked coolly.

There was no doubt. This was Cosmo.

"You - don't you remember anything? You were a god, a King in the previous life," Tristan said quietly, observing him with a steely glint in his dark eye.

Nothing," Cosmo - Cosimo - said silently, then his eyes fell on me. "Well, miss Tremont. To what do I owe this pleasure? As far as I recall, you were last seen alive twenty years ago."

"I..." I fell at a loss for words, still not having recovered from the shock of seeing my dead great grandfather alive and breathing again - living, breathing proof that the potion he took had worked.

"Ask him... has he seen anyone looking like Aidon around..." Eric muttered from behind us.

"Have you seen a man-" Tristan began.

"I have seen a lot of men, perhaps a bit more than I'd like to see. I'm surrounded by them all day, you see," Cosmo said briefly, rising an eyebrow.

The statues of naked men in the museum.

"Good to see he still hasn't lost his queer sense of humor," Tristan muttered in my ear with a dry chuckle.

"Was there - did you recently see any young man with red hair, chartreuse green eyes, tall and well built?" Amphitrite inquired, trying to describe our brother.

"Ah," Cosmo sighed and his moss green eyes shone dimly as we waited expectantly. "I do recall seeing a man of that description wandering around some time ago. He was caught for thievery and rounded up to jail for shuffling through the museum's art. When I went in to check on him the next day, he had disappeared into thin air."

It sounded exactly like Aidon. He must have been looking for the second piece here and then have been caught. Then he'd have put on the ring and gone back to Endollon.

"Do you know where he went?" Tristan demanded.

"No, young man. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do. If you could leave, miss Tremont."

"But we need to know where he went! Did he find anything here?" I echoed.

"I do not know."

"He had been here! Is there - is there something that looks like a tiny golden screw in this museum? It's a part of the Logogram-"

"-I do appreciate your love for stories of horror and fear and myth, but no such artifact is found here," Cosmo muttered, his patience now wearing out as he got up and held the door open.

"It's here. It's supposed to be here, that man had been looking for it, we need it, desperately," Eric pleaded.

"I trust you can pursue your paranormal extracurriculars by visiting some haunted places, Miss Tremont. A visit to the Eastern State Penitentiary in Pennsylvania might satisfy your taste for such gruesome stories. Now leave, please," the young man pushed us out of the office, slamming the door in our faces.

"That son of a bitch!" Tristan hissed. "Did he remember who we were? Was he deliberately playing with us?"

"We have no way of knowing," Eric said with a furious scowl. "Goddamned bastard. Didn't answer even a single question straight."

"Come on," I dragged them out of the corridor. "We're not going to find anything here."

"But we need the second piece, woman!" Tristan protested. "If we don't complete the Logogram and turn its nature, someone - Aidon- might find the pieces. And if he doesn't turn its nature the Titans will come back - and kill us all - he wants vengeance on Cosmo's offspring as retribution for losing the first Titanomachy!"

"But he wasn't saying!" I wailed. "Where the hell do you expect us to look?"

"It's in the Louvre. We came to the Louvre. Now what?" Eric asked thoughtfully, chewing his lip and muttering. "Fuck it, wait!" he suddenly snapped.

"What?" I looked coldly at him.

"Eastern State Penitentiary in Pennsylvania!"

"What?" Tristan deadpanned.

"He was telling us! He was telling us the whole time - lord - Edwina - that's where the second piece is! The key to finding the second piece was in the Louvre! Cosmo was the key - he had led us on to the place where we can find it!"

"Do you know where this place is?" my husband asked.

"The U.S."

"Can you take us there?"

"But he was just joking-"

"-look, it can't hurt to just look, right? Come on," Eric coaxed. "Take us there."

"Alright," I sighed. My hands found theirs and I let my mind find the place.

• • • • •

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, THE U.S.

"2026, 2027... ah, here," I sighed, taking another step into 2027, Fairmount Avenue. It was here, a huge castle, with boarded walls. But the walls weren't meant to keep the evil out. They were to keep them in.

"How the hell do you know so much about all this?" Tristan asked curiously, quickening his pace as I looked around.

"I travelled a lot. This was the first Penitentiary ever built."

"But it's closed?" Amphitrite observed softly, reading the boards. I only gave her an obvious glare.

"We're back in the U.S. It's nine at night. This place is a National Historic Landmark, open for tours only between ten in the morning to five in the evening."

"Closing so early?" Tristan raised an eyebrow. "Are mortals really such fearful rabbits?"

"They believe this place is haunted, Valmont. Really badly haunted. No one who goes there after hours ever comes back alive."

"The hell?" Eric exclaimed, looking back over the gates where soldiers stood guard. "But you've clearly gotten us over the gates."

"Obviously. I'm Edna Tremont."

"We - are - w - are you planning to go in after hours?" Amphitrite stuttered.

"Come on, you're a goddess. You don't need to fear this mortal scum," Eric rolled his eyes and took her by the arms, moving to the door.

"You can stay here," I gave her another frigid glare that sent her shaking back to his arms, and he looked at me with ice in his eyes.

"Damn it, Edwina - can't you cut us some slack?" Eric hissed.

"No," I snapped back, and Tristan pulled me to him, trying to calm me down.

"Come on," he said, his voice quiet as he rubbed his palms together.

"Are your palms cold? Should I warm them for you?" I asked sweetly, pulling him to me and bringing his cold knuckles to my lips, letting them brush softly over his white skin.

"You missed," he grinned, tilting my head up so that my lips met his, locking me into a passionate embrace for a full minute before Eric finally gave a sharp snort and kicked the door open.

There were looming, gloomy high stone walls, crumbling corridors, and stark cells that once housed thousands of hardcore criminals.

"There are seven large sections of cell blocks. Where do you people want to go first?" I asked in the darkness.

"You've been here before, right?"

"Yes."

"Then where do you suggest we go first?"

"Let's see... after hours, there are reports of ghostly faces in Cellblock four, shadowy figures darting along walls on Cellblock six. Children are heard crying in Cellblock seven. Echoing voices and cackling in twelve. Lots to choose from."

"Mortals," Tristan laughed. "So circular. I'm pretty sure it must be some of Thanatos's shades inhibiting the place. Having fun scaring the daylights out of humans, I suppose."

"I - I don't - know - yo - you decide-" Amphitrite stammered, climbing right on top of Eric. I only sent her yet another look of judgement before tossing my shoulders and leading the way.

In the darkness, the place was silent and empty. I heard something. Footsteps. Wails. Whispers. The same stories, over and over again. Death and his shades.

I used a fraction of power and a flame sprung up in my hands, illuminating the darkness and throwing everything in stark contrast.

At the same time, I felt a force grip me so tightly that I was unable to move - like a negative, horrible energy that showed me nothing but black death.

We chanced upon three huge stone gargoyles in the room. They were elaborately carved in rose-colored stone and marble, not river clay fired in a coal grate. With beautiful, unnerving, smug faces, that hinted at pride, cut in the shape of three men.

"State your business, immortal stranger," a rich, female voice chimed out in the darkness.

Amphitrite jumped, hiding into her husband's neck as Tristan cautiously slid me behind him despite my vocal protests.

Someone was living here in the darkness - someone had spoken.

And yet the voice had felt oddly familiar.

"State your purpose, unknown stranger," the female voice continued from the deep shadows, rippling like light on pitch black water.

"Who are you?" Tristan demanded of the darkness, his blue eyes bright as sapphires. "What do you want?"

No one replied for a moment. Then someone materialized out of the darkness.

"Holy shit-" he whispered, and I looked at the place he was staring at.

It was Titania.

"Oh god - noooo... she's a ghost," Amphitrite wailed fearfully.

The former Queen only gave her a beaming smile. She was as pale as ice, but her eyes were still the vivid, bright shade of aquamarine. The ancient, mortal gaze of the reincarnated Queen sparked with remembrance, as I inched slowly towards her.

"You... are you real?"

"I'm human now. You could kill me if you wished, sweetheart," she said with a knowing smile.

Cobwebs glinted in her eyes.

"He was here too," she said softly, casting a look across the stone gargoyles. "Your brother."

"Did he find it?" I whispered. "The second piece?"

"No," Titania breathed. "It has been tethered here since eons... ever since Pandora planted it here long ago. Do you truly think I would have let it fall into the wrong hands?"

"So you - you remember?" Eric asked softly, his voice dry.

She threw back her head and laughed richly.

"Our souls remained the same, son. They only left an immortal body to enter a mortal one. It was hard at first, yes. I remembered nothing. Only flashes. Sparks. We were both reborn as siblings. And when we grew old enough, we both figured it out."

"So if you had been alone-"

"-I may not have remembered then, yes. But I do, now. We both hunted the second piece for seven years, child. We both remembered. Exactly one month ago, we found this place. Aidon saw me. He didn't know it was here - but you can sense it, can't you?"

True. The room was still thrumming with negative energy, the eddies swirling and weaving fear into the very particles.

"I ran," she said quietly. "For I knew this world. I managed to lose him halfway across the states, but he caught sight of me again as I escaped to the Louvre Museum, where Cosmo lived as curator. I hid out, but he knew I was lingering there - that I knew."

The key. The key to finding the second piece.

It was in the Louvre.

"We waited for him to leave. And then we waited for you to capture him - to make sense of all the hints and come to look for the piece yourself," she finally finished, her voice tinged with tragedy.

We could only stare at each other, jaws dropped.

"So Cosmo - he remembered us... he was just toying with us?" Eric murmured, curious.

"He has always had that strange sense of humor," Titania chuckled breathily.

"Do you know where the piece is?" I asked carefully.

She nodded, her lips curling in a smile.

"Its under your feet."

"Under - under our feet-" Tristan let out a low hiss, shuffling around.

Titania amusedly slid the three gargoyles off their spot on the floor, clearing the area around a single black tile which seemed to be looser than the others.

"It should work if one of you three touch it-"

Tristan dropped to a knee and held out a shaking hand, slowly lowering it to the single black tile. The silver star on his wrist shone in the darkness as a creak rent the air.

The tile slid back, and lying there was-

"The piece!"

The golden screw lay right there, covered in dust. I picked it up, watching the fine threads on it gleam - an identical twin to the first one we had found in Erida's hand from the Vezort Island.

Eric got the incomplete Logogram out of his pocket and slid the screw into the second hole and turned, fixing it.

"Just one more left," he sighed contentedly, then met Titania's gaze. "Thank you."

"Go," she ushered. "Time runs short."

I looked back at her one last time, and a thankful smile curled up my lips. She gave me a nod, a regal gesture from one queen to another.

"We can start hunting for the third piece hidden in Seattoria tomorrow morning. Calchester Citadel has a map of it somewhere. Then we just need to anoint it with water from the Derwentwater. Put an end to this for once and for all."

"Alright," I consented, drawing out the enameled box and selecting the platinum ring and sliding it down my finger before the darkness swept us away.

• • • • •

BELLHAVEN, STEFFITH.

We were now on the outskirts of the capital, just a short walk away from Steffith, right outside the Ryvvendel Mansion.

There were bells ringing.

"Why the hell are the bells ringing?" Tristan hissed, as Amphitrite stretched her hands and Eric gasped.

"Not bells. A single bell. One tower tolling. They ring all the bells only when a Monarch dies. This is a summoning bell," he corrected. "That's the sound of the bell of Calchester Citadel. Something's wrong, none of the immortals are here, the servants don't know anything-"

Power flooded our veins, Tristan being the first to teleport to the front streets of the Calchester Citadel. Beside me, Amphitrite and Eric appeared, and we pushed past the mob to discover what was going on.

Two girls skipped past us, splashing through a puddle of thick mud and giggling as an old man shouted after them. Other people were moving too, heading up, streaming into the Citadel to see what the noise was about.

A man saw us and screamed.

"Gods, Lord save us, your Grace!" he shrieked, and Tristan impatiently sauntered over and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Speak clearly."

"They're carrying them, your Grace - for the execution, today - the three Everly cousins and the Queen's brother-"

"Today?" I snapped. "The execution was set for after a week!"

"I think - Edwina - I think that while we were in the mortal world, one week passed here in Endollon -" Amphitrite said repentantly.

"Week or no week," Tristan hissed, "Thanatos cannot carry out an execution without a formal order!"

The bells seemed louder now, clanging, calling.

"They - they said - Lord Thanatos said that you had given the order -"

"WHAT THE HELL?"

The stream of people made way for us to let us pass, all yammering excitedly at each other and straining to get closer to the Citadel's door.

"Stop! Stop, please, not my husband!" a woman cried out, a voice I recognized as Irina's, distinctly joined by my father's shouts and the bawling of a young child. Dustin.

"We can not wait. This man is a traitor, isn't he? Traitors must be executed at once. Death waits for no one," I heard the cold, harsh voice of Thanatos.

"That impatient scum of a god," Tristan snarled at the people, who, terrified, let him pass at once. He set foot first into the room, the sky began to shake the ceiling as anger welled up in me in waves.

Clustered around the Citadel was a huge knot of gods, goddesses, other mortals and high lords. What I saw in the center nearly made me stop in my tracks.

Thanatos, the gods' justice, with his huge Bloodstone axe, dragged Aidon across the floor, who was spitting and shouting curses at the top of his voice.

"Thanatos, stop this very instant!" I shouted, sprinting faster. I noticed every immortal family in the crowd, even catching the back of Deimos's black head as he shouted and cursed for his children to be released.

"STOP!" he roared.

"You haven't been given the order, you fool, stop!" Eric yelled at the top of his voice.

Thanatos merely smirked.

"Only death can pay for life," he grinned, summoning ten shades who held Aidon down, and he raised his axe of Bloodstone.

He meant to strike his heart.

"Stop, please, stop!" Irina cried, I saw ladies and lords gasping and whimpering as the god of death openly flouted our orders.

Thanatos brought the axe down and struck my brother right in the heart.

My voice faded from my throat as I collapsed to a stop in front of my brother, blood pooling around his dead body. The screams and shouts rose higher. Tears rolled down my cheeks of their own accord as I held my dead brother's limp body in my arms. Even in death, he bore a grim, nasty countenance. Prayer after prayer escaped my frightened soul as I watched the light leave his eyes and blood pool out of the huge wound in his chest.

Suddenly, a pair of white hands pulled me back violently, my spine colliding with a leathered chest. I let out a cry as Aidon's body left my arms, and that was when I noticed that the corpse was twitching and jerking uncharacteristically, and then it began to smoke.

Green smoke.

The smoke kept on seeping out of his chest and a tall, slender woman finally stepped out of the green haze, unfolding like smoke.

Pitch black eyes without whites.

Gold silver hair.

Green robes.

"Hello, Edwina," she cooed in a shrill, musical voice. "Long time no see?"

The woman I had been seeing all this time.

It was the woman.

• • • • •

How many of you spotted the Game Of Thrones reference in 'only death can pay for life?' It's one of my favorite quotes, and I knew I had to put it in. But quotes aside...

...the woman who has haunted us since the beginning is here. Not a vision, not an illusion - but in the flesh. We don't know who she is, but she is most definitely a Titan. And having a Titan right in front of you - let's just say that things are gonna get super super dangerous next chapter. Our gang managed to retrieve the second piece of the Logogram, but with a Titaness in front of them, the odds of getting the third piece from Seattoria are VERY VERY SLIM.

I hope this chapter cleared up my main purpose of giving Edwina a backstory as a human, even though it was a painful one. She was the only one who could help get the second piece. However, this was only half my explanation for giving her a mortal life, and you'll know the full explanation by the time we reach the last chapter of the book. The ending is hopefully gonna be bomb with a lot of twists and shocks and pain!!

Over 80% of this book is completed, so we're moving into very, very dangerous territory now. And if Aidon is dead, Edwina is gonna be broken again - and that will be bad because she is hurt too much to be hit with the death of a family member :(