Goddess in Time
Authors: Tera Lynn Childs
HE
T
WELVE
*
D
YNAMOTHEOS
P
OWERS
AEROKINESIS—The ability to control and move air and wind.
AUTOPORTATION—The ability to move oneself to a different location through nonphysical means.
CORPOPROMOTION—The ability to use the body to its fullest extent.
CORPOPROTECTION—The ability to protect oneself from harm, whether seen or unseen.
HYDROKINESIS—The ability to control and move liquids.
NEOFACTION—The ability to create an object out of nothing.
PHOTOMORPHOSIS—The ability to control light and fire.
PSYCHODICTATION—The ability to communicate, whether in words, feelings, or other senses, telepathically with another hematheos.
PSYCHOSPECTION—The ability to read the thoughts and emotions of others.
TELEKINESIS—The ability to move objects through nonphysical means.
VISIOCRYPTION—The ability to hide, mask, or cloak an object.
VISIOMUTATION—The ability to change the appearance of an object.
ONTENTS
D
ISCLAIMER
W
hen it comes to using
dynamotheos
powers, there are three unbreakable rules.
1. Don’t use them against other students at the Academy, the ridiculously cliquish private school for
hematheos
—descendants of the gods—where I am currently entombed.
2. Don’t use them to succeed in the
nothos
—nondescendant—
human
—world.
3. And, under absolutely no circumstances can you use them to travel through time.
Most people are frightened off by the consequences. The prospect of spending an eternity in the Olympic dungeons—or, if the gods are feeling particularly softhearted (insert eye-rolling sarcasm here), a flat-out smoting—is enough to keep the average
hematheos
from stepping over the line.
If you’d met me a week ago, I would have told you I’d never break those rules. Okay, I might have severely bent the first one on occasion because, seriously, some of the
theo
brats at my school deserve a little thunderbolt to the backside every once in a while. But I definitely don’t need to use my powers to get by in the real world. And the power of time travel . . . that’s just a fairy tale.
There are twelve powers, ranging from the ability to control the wind
(aerokinesis)
to the ability to change the appearance of something
(visiomutation).
Twelve powers. That’s it.
Well, at least I thought so. But that was before. Before the trip to the secret archives. Before I found out the mysterious thirteenth power of time travel was full-blown reality. Before I realized what might be possible—what might be undone. Before.
Nothing’s been the same since.
And right now, I’m about to shatter rule number three.
I
probably shouldn’t have taken the book. Burn that—I
know
I shouldn’t have taken the book. Mrs. Philipoulos is pretty cool for a descendant of revenge goddess Nemesis, as long as you don’t mess with her library books. If she had seen me stuff one in my bag she’d be in serious fits. Instant detention for at least a year.
But when you’re in the top secret archives of Olympus in the top secret second basement of the top secret school for the descendants of the Greek gods, on a tiny island in the Aegean that the rest of the world believes to be uninhabited, and a book starts glowing as you walk by, you kind of have to pay attention. It would have been practically negligent of me to ignore it.
I almost passed right by. I was only in the archives to help
my friend Phoebe find the transcript of her dad’s trial, but she was several steps ahead of me. The dusty burgundy cover didn’t exactly stand out among shelf after shelf of musty, old, leather-bound books. Except for the Olympic records, which include files from forever right up until the present, nothing in the archive is less than a hundred years old. In other words, it blended like ice in the Arctic.
As I got close, though, the faded lettering on the spine glowed. Commanded my attention. I couldn’t help but read the words formed by the light-etched script.
The Art and Science of Chronoportation
No author’s name. No publisher’s mark or call number or any writing beyond the title on the spine. Nothing to indicate it might even be listed in the admin-only section of the digital catalog.
I pulled the volume from the shelf, shoved it into my messenger bag, and pretended like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.
Now, in my dorm room almost a week later, with the door locked and my extraspecial do-not-enter assurance in place, I know why the book glowed. Why it called to me. It was waiting for me, to give me the one thing I’ve been waiting ten long years for: the chance to fix everything.
And today is the day I will finally find the courage to actually read it.
“Calm the fluff down,” I tell myself, pacing back and forth in front of my desk like the kind of person who stresses about things, which I’m (usually) not. Like saying the words out loud might have more impact on my freak-out. “Just because it’s the title of the book doesn’t mean it’s real.”
I pull out my desk chair, plop onto the seat, and straighten the book on the surface of my desk. I nudge it into perfect center.
Letting my nervous energy out by chipping the black polish off my nails bit by bit, I resist the urge to start pacing again.
I am so not a fidgeter. I push limits and bend rules and pretty much let everything go. Or at least I try to. But most of the annoying stuff in life is inconsequential, which makes worrying about it ridiculous.
This book—this possibility—is . . . world-changing.
I’ve heard about
chronoportation
all my life. The mysterious, dangerous, and highly illegal power of time travel. But it’s just a joke, an urban legend like Bigfoot, Atlantis, and the Seven Cities of Gold.
Hematheos
conspiracy kooks have spent centuries trying to unravel its secrets, to find the key to unlocking the fourth dimension. It’s an unending quest because it doesn’t exist.
The book is real, though.
I’ve rubbed my fingertips over the edges enough to make sure of that. The leather is worn so smooth I know it must be centuries old, and the heavy coating of dust on the top edge suggests it hasn’t been touched in almost as long. Which also makes me believe it might be legitimate. Why would Olympus and Mrs. Philipoulos go to all the bother of hiding the book in the super-restricted archives if the thirteenth power was pure fiction?
There’s only one way to find out.
Sucking in a deep breath, I lean forward to my desk, where the book sits. Waiting. It’s not that I’m afraid to flip open the cover. Okay, I’m a little afraid. Who knows what will happen to me when I take a peek? If Olympus really wanted the contents of the book hands-off, they might have installed supernatural protection. There might be a hideous or painful curse sealed into the pages.
Which is why the book has been sitting under the hamper in my closet. Every morning I take it out and put it on my desk, with every intention of finally reading it. I don’t know what’s holding me back. Let’s just say fear is a completely foreign emotion to me, so I’m not dealing with it particularly well.
“Oh for the love of Zeus,” I snap at myself. “Stop being ridiculous.”
How can I fix things if I’m too scared to even read a stupid book?
I reach for the leather cover.
My hand freezes, hovering over the gilt lettering of the title, almost like an invisible force is keeping me from making contact. I know the only force at work here is fear. Fear of the unknown.
“Not knowing is worse,” I whisper. Worse than any punishment Olympus could throw at me.
Without allowing myself another weakhearted thought, I dip my fingers beneath the cover and fling the burgundy leather to the side.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Aaarck!”
I leap back, away from the book, sending myself and my chair sprawling across the linoleum tile floor. My heart races, prepared for swarms of locusts or fire-breathing monsters. Or both.
I check my skin for boils.
Knock, knock, knock.
It takes a few seconds for my brain to register the fact that someone is knocking on my door. Probably someone mostly human—I hope—since minions of Olympus don’t usually bother much with courtesy.
“Yeah?” I call out, forcing my breathing and heart rate back to the vicinity of normal. I think I pull off nothing-out-of-the-ordinary pretty well for a girl flat on her back under a desk chair.
“It’s me,” a male voice answers.
Troy!
“Crap,” I whisper, then louder, “Just a sec.”
I scramble off the floor, righting the chair as I snatch the book off my desk and try to shove it in a drawer. Only I can’t find an open spot. My drawers are too full of old homework and school notices and other junk.
“Come on, Nic,” Troy whines. “You wouldn’t believe what happened in chemistry today.”
“Yeah, hold on,” I answer, searching desperately for a hiding spot. My room is not exactly spotless on the scale of cleanliness. Closer to pigsty. “I’m just, uh—” Maybe under the bed. “Getting dressed.”
Diving to the floor, I shove a pile of stuff out of the way, slide the book under, and—just in case—move some of the clothes back into place.
Perfect.
“What are you doing in there?” he asks. “Sounds like you’re tackling the furniture.”
“I told you, Travatas,” I gasp as I unlock my door and swing it open wide, “I was getting dressed.”
His gentle green eyes, with bright gold centers that match the color of his short-cropped hair, give me a once-over beneath raised brows. He knows me too well. To sell the lie, I tug at my tank top hem to make it look like I had to rush.
Troy Travatas is my best friend on the island—and, since I’m pretty much stuck here until graduation, thanks to Olympic decree, that makes him my best friend anywhere. I don’t like lying to him. But we’re practically opposites on the bold-and-daring front. Even the
thought
of stealing a book from the archives would give him a rash. The prospect of attempting time travel—if it really exists—would probably kill him.
Apparently buying my just-getting-dressed act, he shrugs and takes a step forward. Right into my do-not-disturb assurance.
“Ow!” he howls, jumping back from the
photomorphosis
electric-shock curtain I laid over the doorway.
“Sorry,” I say, waving my hand over the invisible shield to make the power disappear. “You rushed me and I forgot.”
He scowls as he steps—tentatively—into my room.
A burnt smell wafts by me. His Imagine Dragons tee is smoldering at the shoulders. I act quickly before he notices, pretending to brush some dust off his shoulder as I use a little
aerokinesis
to cool off the red cotton knit. He still hasn’t forgiven me for the fireworks incident with his Green Day tee. And that was just a tiny hole.
“That hurt more than last time,” he complains. “What’d you do, double the strength?”
“Not on purpose.”
I must have been so keyed up about the book that I added some of my nervous energy to the projection. Usually I don’t have to worry about keeping anything more dangerous than a cheerleader out of my room. With the book here—I guess I went a little overboard.