Transcendent (22 page)

“I guess so.”

“And the remote, godlike, very un-Calum demeanor?”

“I don't know.” He shrugged his shoulders, uncomfortable. “Is it a cop-out if I say maybe?”

“
I
don't know,” she echoed him. “Are you serious?”

Cal tipped his head back and he sighed, staring hard at the ceiling. “Heather . . . until you told me something was wrong between us, I honestly had no idea. I actually thought we were good together.”

She paused, obviously taken aback by the sudden topical tangent.

“We were,” she said.

“I didn't know you were unhappy.”

She laughed a little. “I've told you before. I wasn't.
You
were.”

“And I told you that I didn't know I was unhappy.” Cal shook his head and gazed out the window. The view used to be screened by the branches of the Gosforth oak. Now it was unobstructed and the empty sky frightened him. It wasn't the only thing. “I've been thinking a lot about it,” he said. “About you, and about . . . Mason. About how I really, truly feel. And it terrifies me.”

The waves of Heather's blond hair fell over her shoulders and it struck him how absolutely beautiful she was. And how easy it
should
have been to love her.

“What does?” she asked quietly.

“All of it. Everything that's happened over the last few months. I know the way I'm acting—the way I'm feeling—is wrong. But I can't help it.”

“Yeah, well.” Her lips twisted in a bitter smile. “Love sucks sometimes.”

“It's wrong and it's hopeless!” he exclaimed. “And it's not something I even
want
. And you wanna know the really crazy part? I actually feel like one of those ridiculous characters in one of those stupid old myths!” A bubble of anguished laughter strangled his throat. “I feel like Apollo chasing Daphne through a meadow or Orpheus scrambling down into Hades after Eurydice—like one of those guys who just loses his freaking mind over some girl and then pursues her until he's dead or she's dead or some other god takes pity on them and turns someone into a tree or a flower or they get ripped apart by crazy nymphs—something just to put an end to the stupidity.”

Heather frowned. “Maybe you are.”

Cal paused. “What?”

“I'm serious,” she said. “Maybe you
are
one of those guys in one of those old tales. Maybe this—this whole thing with Mason?—maybe it really isn't
you
.”

Cal watched as her frown grew deeper and she stared sightlessly down at the glass in her hands and he wondered if she was right. Maybe what he was feeling really weren't
his
feelings, after all.

Maybe . . .

And then he realized that it didn't matter. It wasn't
something he could change, even if he wanted to. A wave of dull gray despair washed over him and he said, “It doesn't change anything.”

She looked up at him, a sudden shine of tears on her lashes.

“I wish I could love you, Heather,” he said as gently as he could. It sounded about as gentle as a gunshot to his ears. “I wish I could hate Mason.”

“No, you don't.”

“Okay. Maybe not hate. Maybe . . .
un
-love. I really do, but I think it would actually kill me to try,” he said, shrugging helplessly. “And that—I
fully
realize—is the stupidest thing that's ever come out of my mouth.”

“I'm not gonna deny that,” Heather said, with a stab at her usual wryness.

“Why don't
you
hate her?” Cal asked suddenly.

“What?” She looked at him. “Why would I?”

“Because you love me,” he said, dropping his gaze to his hands clasped between his knees. His fingers were twisted around each other like a nest of newborn snakes. “And I love her.”

“I dunno. Do you hate Fennrys?” Heather asked.

The look Cal gave her was so bleak that it was comical. She laughed, and then felt instantly terrible that she was making fun of his pain but, at the same time, she almost couldn't help herself. Everything about the whole situation was so horribly wrong and yet, here she was, back sharing Cal's bed—technically—with him, teasing him, alone with him . . . When Heather had broken up with Cal, she'd thought she was
doing what was best for both of them. In hindsight, she probably should have just shut up and never let him know that he was in love with Mason . . .

Wait
.

What if it had been her all along? Heather felt a cold chill crawl across her scalp. Her father was notoriously under Daria Aristarchos's thumb on the Gosforth school board. What if . . . what if it had all been a setup? What if Cal really
wasn't
in love with Mason? Not really—not under his own power . . .

There was a knock on the door and Heather realized that she was going to have to come back to that one. Cal walked over and opened it. Mason was standing in the hall.

“Everyone is gathering in the dining hall to figure out what to do next,” Mason said to Cal by way of greeting. “I'm, um, gathering strays.” She fidgeted for a minute and then, glancing over Cal's shoulder and seeing that Heather was awake, said, “Can I talk to Heather for a minute? Alone?”

“You go on ahead, Cal,” Heather said, standing up and smoothing the bedspread. “We'll be there in a second.”

Before Cal slipped past Mason and out of the door, one hand lifted involuntarily to touch her cheek. She turned away from it before his fingers had a chance to make contact. His shoulders stiffened, but he just kept going, his footsteps quick and angry, down the hall.

Mason turned back to Heather. “Am I ever glad you're awake.”

“Yeah. I would be too,” Heather said. “If ‘awake' wasn't
currently synonymous with ‘migraine.'”

“You gonna be okay?” Mason asked quietly, nodding her head backward in the direction of Cal's retreating form.

Heather knew she wasn't referring to the lingering effects of the Miasma curse and said, “Sure.” Then she sighed and leaned against the wall. “I mean, I guess I can actually say that I was the girl who dated the Greek god at her high school, right? That's gotta count for something later in life . . . assuming there is a later in life for us. Gotta say, I was a little surprised when I found out.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Really? Because I'm kind of under the impression that you're, like, a charter member of the same club, Starling.” Heather stared at her with keen eyes. “I mean, I get—as much as it's possible
to
get something like this—that the whole Gos student body are all weirdly dedicated in service to some pantheon or other. Whether they know it or not.”

“Mostly not, I think.”

“Right.” Heather nodded. “But it seems
you
got the full-on mythological embodiment deal. And no, I am not jealous. I'm just not sure how it happened.”

“It was only recently.” Mason sighed. “
Not
my idea, and I'm not even sure exactly where ‘Valkyrie' fits in on the whole semi-demi-full-blown-god pie chart.”

“How? Was it all that stuff that went down with Rory on the train?”

“Yeah. And even then, nobody—not even Rory—expected that it would happen like that.” Mason shook her head. “It was
an accident. Well, actually, it wasn't. It was . . . more like a setup.”

Mason gave her the point-form rundown of what had happened to her in Asgard. When she got to the part about casually running into Taggert Overlea on the field of battle in front of Odin's legendary feast hall and how Tag had actually led some of the Einherjar against the draugr, Heather boggled at her, mouth agape.

“Oh my god!” she exclaimed. “Local ape makes good! Okay, that actually makes me feel a little better.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, the mess of her hair curtaining her face for a moment. “I mean, I almost lost it when your dad—” She broke off abruptly and bit her lip.

“When my dad what?” Mason asked.

Heather shoved her hair off her face with her forearm and her eyes opened, her weary gaze locking with Mason's own. She was silent for a moment before she said, “When he killed Tag.”

“
What
?”

Heather told her then what had happened on the train—how Gunnar Starling had torn the life force out of Tag's body right in front of her—and Mason couldn't even muster up real surprise. Her father was a madman. And he was a murderer. Her brother was sick and twisted and full of an unfathomable darkness. And her other brother had killed Mason when he was a child. Was it any wonder then that she herself was destined to end the world?

“You're not.”

She glanced back at Heather, having drifted away for a moment inside her own grim thoughts. “Sorry?”

“I said ‘You're not,'” Heather repeated.

“Not what?”

“Whatever it is you think you're going to do. Or be. You're not defined by your family. Or your destiny. Or any damned thing else. Anything else except you.” Heather huffed in frustration. “It's all just so much bullshit, Starling. It's . . . it's
marketing
. It's what they want you to buy.”

“Yesterday I would have believed that with all my heart, Heather. But yesterday I wasn't a walking prophecy.” She shook her head. “Right now, everyone is holding out hope that Fenn is just a guy who happens to have an unfortunately prophetic name and, coincidentally—or, y'know, thanks to yours stupidly—happens to also now be a wolf.”

Heather's brow furrowed. “And that's
not
the case?”

“He's down in a tunnel underneath the school right now having a little father-son chat . . . with Loki.”

“Oh. Shit.”

“This whole thing is my fault,” Mason groaned. “Fennrys wasn't
Fenris
until I made him that way.”

“So
un
make him.”

“How?”

“Find a way.”

Mason shot her a look. “I
know
a way. Let Roth kill Fennrys before Fennrys kills my father in an epic battle at the end of the world.”

“Yeah . . . no.” Heather shook her head. “Find another way.”

“That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Away from Cal and the others.” Mason dug around in the pocket of her jeans. “Listen. What you did back at the Plaza? That was a really brave thing. I didn't want you to have to run around without that kind of protection, so I rifled through Rory's room and found this.” She pulled out a golden glowing acorn and held it up. “I figured he would have left one hidden in his room just in case. Roth will know what to carve on it to make it work. Toby probably does too, but Toby's coming with me. I need him.”

“And where are you going?”

“I'm taking Fennrys and we're leaving. I have to keep him safe, but we also have to find . . . something. I'm not sure what yet, but it might be the key to stopping this. To maybe—like you said—finding another way. One where Fennrys doesn't wind up getting killed.”

“And you're not telling the others?”

Mason shook her head. “Just you.”

“Okay, then. I guess I'll just stick with the Man from Atlantis until this blows over.” Her gaze drifted back down the empty hallway.

“Oh, Heather . . .” Mason sighed. “Why are you doing this to yourself? You know you could just walk away from him.”

“You've forgotten what I told you about love already?”

Mason snorted, remembering. “You're
not
a drooling brain-dead.”

“Close enough.” Heather shrugged. “Only it's more than that. Look, Starling . . . I saw the way Queen D looked at her darling boy when Cal got all glowy eyed with the trident and the demigod thing and the stabbing of your boyfriend. I
know
that look. Cal's mom might think her son is some kind of freaky unnatural hybrid, but she's smart enough to know that he's a
powerful
freaky unnatural hybrid. And Daria's scruples—assuming she has any to begin with—don't really stick when there's power to be had.”

“Wow,” Mason murmured, thinking of her father.

“Yeah.” Heather sighed. “I don't know if she hates Cal or loves him to death. But I do know she'll use him if she can. I don't know how, and I don't know if I can do anything to stop that from happening, but I know I have to try. You get that, right?”

“More than anybody.” Mason raised her gaze to Heather's face. “Did you ever think high school would turn out to be this complicated?”

“I did . . . just not complicated like
this
.” Heather laughed. “I thought, you know, I'd have to deal with peer pressure and underage drinking and sex and flunking classes because I spent too much time shopping or because I wasn't smart enough.”

“Yeah. A few days ago
I
thought blowing the Nationals trials was the end of the world.” Mason snorted. “Perspective, huh?”

“Yup. Sucks.”

“I also thought you hated me not so long ago,” Mason said,
wanting to get that off her chest. In case there wasn't another opportunity.

Heather looked at her and smiled. “I know. I tried.” The smile faded. “Be careful, Starling. Okay?”

“Yeah. You too, Palmerston.”

She forced the smile back onto her face. “Hey—I've got a golden acorn! Plus, you know, I'm packing heat . . .”

“What?”

Heather's purse was sitting on the end of Cal's bed. She grabbed it and opened it so Mason could peer inside. There was something shiny nestled in there, beside Heather's phone and a makeup compact. Mason looked closer at the thing that resembled a pistol with . . . wings.

“Is that, like, a baby
crossbow
?”

“Yup.”

Mason raised an eyebrow. “Where did you get a crossbow?”

“Uh . . . I think a god gave it to me.”