The Goddess Hunt (Goddess Test #1.5)(6)
Author: Aimee Carter

At last he stopped, breathing as heavily as I was. His eyes were crazed, and his hands reached out for something that wasn’t there. “Casey!” he screamed, the name long and drawn out.

“Lux—Lux, he isn’t here.” I touched his elbow, but he jerked back, raising his fist as if he were going to punch me, too. Our eyes met, and after a long moment, he lowered his guard.

“This is your fault. You’re the reason we got separated.”

“No, I’m not,” I said, but he was beyond reason. He leaned against a tree, slumped over and pale with exhaustion. At least now I understood why Casey had been trying to get him to rest. He could barely stand up.

“It’s your fault,” he whispered, sinking to the ground and digging his nails into the soil. As he squeezed his eyes shut, tears slid down his cheeks, carving a path through the smudges of dirt. “He’s gone, and it’s your fault.”

I was silent. There was nothing I could say or do short of producing Casey that would make this any better. My insides ached with worry, but Casey was with James, and he wouldn’t let anything happen to him. He couldn’t.

With a gut-wrenching sob, Lux turned his face up to the star-filled sky and screamed, the sound of it reverberating through my very being. I closed my eyes. After everything they’d been through, this would not be the end. I would make sure of it.

Henry

Henry slumped against his black diamond throne, and with a wave of his hand, the woman he’d spent half the day arguing with disappeared back into her afterlife. He enjoyed a good debate as much as the next person, a necessary trait when it came to ruling over the reluctant dead, but hours upon hours of irrational stubbornness in the face of logic and reasoning made him want to jump headfirst into the River Styx.

Of all the members of the council, he was the one most likely to sympathize with those who had been dealt a fate they did not want. But it was not fate itself that mattered; it was how a soul handled it that he had to judge. The vast majority of citizens in his kingdom never set foot inside his throne room, and he preferred it that way. However, for those who came to him without any idea of what sort of afterlife they deserved, he judged as fairly and without bias as he could. Sometimes it was a kind afterlife; other times it was not. But his rulings always stood no matter how lively the debate became.

“I see you have had a rough day,” said a familiar voice, and Henry glanced up. Walter stood framed between the columns that lined the aisle, his lips turned downward.

“Yes, I have,” said Henry. “And I have the feeling it is about to get worse.”

“Perhaps, or perhaps not,” said Walter. “It all depends on which you value more.”

Henry frowned. It would be one of those conversations then. Walter never missed an opportunity to lord information over other members of the council, especially the original six siblings. “Get to the point.”

“Temper, temper. I setmight decide not to tell you after all.”

“Very well, then don’t.” Henry stood, feeling every single one of his eternal years as he stretched.

For a split second, shock displayed on Walter’s face, and Henry had to hold back a smile. It never failed. Though Walter was powerful and rightly King of the Sky, the one thing he could not handle was losing control over a situation. Normally Henry indulged him, but not today. The stress of letting Kate go was difficult enough. No telling where she was or what she was doing, or worse, who she was with. And if she did not return come September—

Henry stopped that train of thought. No use thinking about it. He’d promised her privacy, and he would hold himself to it.

He was halfway down the aisle when Walter managed to regain his senses. “Tell me, brother, what would you do to get your hands on the twins?”

At first Henry kept walking. He was far too weary for riddles. But as he was about to pass into the antechamber, the solution dawned on him, and he faced his brother. “Castor and Pollux?”

Walter’s mouth twisted into a satisfied smirk. “The very same.”

“You’ve found them?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Walter gestured to the empty pews on either side of the aisle. Normally they were full of souls that awaited judgment, but Henry had dismissed the rest, sending them into a peaceful afterlife for now. He’d had enough for today.

Together the brothers sat beside one another, and Walter folded his hands, pausing in a clear attempt to regain control of the situation. He knew he had Henry’s attention, but Henry did not mind. Not if it meant finding Castor and Pollux.

“I received a tip that they are in Greece,” said Walter at last, enunciating each syllable. “Ella has hunted them down.”

“Excellent,” said Henry. “She will bring them in?”

Walter hesitated. “She has not yet managed to…er, apprehend them.”

“Of course she hasn’t.” Henry pinched the bridge of his nose. It was always something. After millennia of chasing the twins down, this certainly wasn’t the first time they’d come close, and it wouldn’t be the first time they’d lost them either. “And you have come to me why?”

“Because we’ve managed to separate them,” said Walter. “Unfortunately they were not alone when Ella found them.”

Henry stilled, and he wrapped his fingers around the edge of the pew. There was only one reason Walter would come to him instead of the others. “Kate?”

His brother nodded, and Henry swore softly. Of course she was the one to run into them after the council had spent thousands upon thousands of years searching for them. What else did he expect?

“How on earth did she find them?”

“As my understanding goes, she is spending the summer in Greece with James.”

The wooden pew turned to splinters in Henry’s grip, and his body0%"and his went cold. James. Of all the people in the world, she was spending her time away with James.

With James.

He’d been right. His day had just become exponentially worse.

“What do you expect me to do about it?” he said through gritted teeth. “She is my wife, not my charge, and it is her time off. I have promised to give her six months to lead whatever life she wishes, and I will not interfere with that.”

“I am not asking you to interfere,” said Walter, though it was clear from the defensive note in his voice that that was exactly what he’d planned on. “I am asking you to simply…be prepared.”