Dreamless

sneeze at.
    The Fates had a thing against Scions in general, but Scions who broke tradition usually found themselves on the Fates' extra-special hate list. Plus, most of those archives were hexed against the uninitiated. The only reason Cassandra let Helen in the library at all was because no one could think of a hex that could harm her. Helen was protected by the cestus. In the real world she was impervious to practically everything. But Claire most certainly was not.
    Helen followed her stubborn friend down the hallway, feeling her shoulders slump more with every step. She hated the thought of going against Cassandra, but when Claire set her mind to something there was no point in arguing with her. Helen just hoped that whatever Claire was planning didn’t get her permanently cursed with boils or lice or something equally horrid. Claire could get seriously hurt.
    The bell rang just as Helen and Claire scooted into homeroom. Mr. Hergesheimer, or “Hergie” as he was called behind his back, gave them one of his most disapproving glares. It was almost like he could smell the trouble brewing inside Claire’s head. Hergie assigned both of them two words of the day for the next morning as preemptive punishment for whatever it was they were so obviously up to. From that moment on, Helen’s day got progressively worse.
    Helen had never been the most attentive student, and now that she was spending her nights slogging through the Underworld, she had even less interest in school. She was scolded in every class, but at least one of her peers was doing even worse than she was.
    As their physics teacher tore into Zach for not writing up his lab, Helen wondered what had happened. Zach had always been one of those guys who looked awake and alert no matter what time it was. Usually, he was a bit too alert, sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. Helen had never seen Zach looking so washed out and disconnected. She tried to catch his eye and smile at him in solidarity, but he turned away.
    Helen sat staring at his blank face until it finally sank into her sleep-deprived brain that about a week ago she had heard someone say that Zach had quit the football team. Zach’s dad, Mr. Brant, was the football coach, and Helen knew that he pushed Zach to be perfect in everything he did. There was no way Mr. Brant would allow his son to quit without a fight. Helen wondered what had happened between them. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good. Zach looked horrible.
    When the bell rang at the end of class Helen tried to touch Zach’s arm and ask him if he was okay, but he acted like she wasn’t even there and walked out of the room. There was a time in their lives when Helen and Zach had been friends—he used to share his animal crackers with her on the playground—but now he wouldn’t even look at her.
    Helen had just resolved to ask Claire about Zach and his mysterious condition at track when she caught a glimpse of Lucas from afar. Everything else dissolved like a chalk drawing in the rain.
    He was holding a door open over someone’s head, politely making a bridge so that a smaller underclassman could walk beneath his arm. He glanced back down the hallway at nothing in particular and spotted her. His eyes narrowed in anger.
    Helen froze. It felt like someone was kneeling on her chest again. That’s not Lucas , she thought, unable to breathe or move.
    As Lucas disappeared in the throngs of rushing students, Helen made her way down to the locker room to change for track, her mind wiped clean, like the sky after a thunderstorm.
    When Claire showed up, Helen immediately started asking her questions. She’d stumbled across this trick a few weeks back when she realized that if she peppered her best friend with questions, Claire wouldn’t have time to ask how she herself was doing. This time, Claire really did need to talk. Jason was having a bad day and Claire was worried about him.
    Jason and Claire weren’t officially dating, but ever since Jason had healed her they were obviously more than just friends. They had become very close very quickly, and now she was Jason’s closest confidante.
    “Are you going over to his house after track?” Helen asked quietly.
    “Yeah, I don’t want to leave him alone right now. Especially since Lucas is still MIA.”
    “What do you mean?” Helen asked, alarmed. “He hasn’t been home at all since . . .” Since he told me to go to hell, hit his father, endangered his