Dreamless

was to be pushed and pulled in so many different directions that she didn’t know how to behave. She didn’t even know who she was supposed to be around him anymore. She resented him for it, but worse, she was disappointed in herself for wanting him even after he had treated her so badly.
    Ashamed of her own thoughts, Helen didn’t allow herself to look at Lucas as they flew to a lower altitude. When she could breathe easily outside his slip of air, Helen noticed that they were over some dark part of the continent. She searched for the familiar glowing nets that she recognized as Boston, Manhattan, and DC at night, and couldn’t believe it when she found them. By Helen’s estimation they were hundreds of miles away.
    “How fast are we?” she asked Lucas in awe.
    “Well, I haven’t been able to beat light . . . yet,” he said with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Helen turned her head and stared at him, amazed that he was acting like himself again. This felt right. This was the Lucas she knew. He smiled for a moment, then seemed to stop himself. Still staring at her, his lips slowly slackened and dropped.
    Helen felt like she was falling toward him. She realized that Lucas was an emotional black hole for her. If she was anywhere near him, her heart simply couldn’t get away. Helen dropped Lucas’s hand and drifted ahead of him. She needed a moment to get a hold of herself.
    She turned her attention back to the situation, forcing herself to focus and take control. She had to keep her mind busy or she was lost.
    “I gather from both your reactions that this Myrmidon is a really big problem,” she said.
    “Yeah, it’s big, Helen. Myrmidons are faster and stronger than Scions, but worse than that, they don’t feel emotions like we do. Having one spying on you is a very big deal. And I never even knew it was there.” He sighed, like this was somehow his fault.
    “But how could you have possibly known? We haven’t been anywhere near each other in over a week.”
    “Come on,” he said. Lucas began drifting toward the East Coast, brushing off Helen’s last comment. “We need to get back and tell the family.”
    She nodded and took the lead. They didn’t hold hands on the way down, but Helen could still feel Lucas near to her, disturbingly warm and solid. She kept telling herself that she was only imagining that they were in sync, but her actions proved her wrong. They touched down in unison, transitioned, and continued on into the house without ever breaking stride with each other.
    Lucas walked in the front door loudly, flicked on the lights in the hallway, and began calling out to the rest of the family. Moments later, everyone was in the kitchen, and Helen was repeating everything that had happened to her that night, minus the bit about visiting the outer atmosphere with Lucas.
    “This is cause for a Conclave,” Castor said to his brother. “Bringing a Myrmidon into the equation could be considered an act of war within the House.”
    “Did you get a good look at the Myrmidon’s face?” Cassandra asked. Helen nodded and tried not to shudder at the thought of how his head had flicked around like something alien.
    “It had red eyes,” Helen answered squeamishly.
    “Did Hector happen to mention the Myrmidon’s name?” Pallas asked Helen quietly. “It would help if we knew which one we’re dealing with.”
    “No. But next time he calls, I can ask,” Helen replied gently, aware that even saying Hector’s name upset Pallas. Helen could tell that Pallas wished for nothing more than to be able to talk to his son directly. It wasn’t right that Hector couldn’t be there, she thought angrily. They needed him.
    Cassandra led everyone into the library. She went directly to a book that was so fragile Castor and Pallas had dismantled it and put each individual page in a separate plastic covering. Helen approached Cassandra as she gently leafed through the stack of pages, and noticed that the book was really old—like King Arthur old.
    “This is a codex from the time of the Crusades,” Cassandra said, holding up a painted page of a knight in black armor. Like the Myrmidon, he had bulging red eyes and a skeletal face.
    “It looks a lot like him,” Helen said as she peered at the page. It was a beautiful work of art, but it was still a painting, not a photo. Helen shrugged. “I can’t tell for sure from this. Do all Myrmidons look about the same?”
    “No, some of them had black, faceted