Dreamless

“spent” on the other side. If they were lucky, Orion was coming back right now after being allowed to stay in the Underworld long enough to hear what Persephone had to say. Helen could only hope that Orion had succeeded where she had so obviously failed.
    Helen shivered violently and realized that she had to get out of her room and warm up somehow. She remembered Hector’s lecture on the beach, right after he had nearly drowned her. Helen might be impervious to weapons, but she was not completely invulnerable, and extreme cold could kill her as surely as drowning.
    Muscling her icy door open as quietly as she could, Helen poked her head out of her bedroom and looked around. Luckily, her dad was still downstairs watching TV. She shut the door firmly behind her, pushed the bean-bag heat stopper up against the crack on the bottom to hide the unreal cold in her bedroom from her father, and shouted down to Jerry that she was going to take a bath to help her sleep. He grumbled something about how she should just close her eyes and give it more than one second, but he didn’t ask any questions or object.
    As she headed into the bathroom, Helen smacked herself on the forehead with her phone a few times as punishment for her terrible blunder in the Underworld. She couldn’t believe she had been so stupid. Hades was probably not the best place to talk about freeing the captive queen, as “the boss” was probably listening the whole time. And Helen had openly threatened to take away the one thing in the entire multiverse that Hades cared about—his queen. Stupid! Now Helen was banished. How the heck was she supposed to accomplish her task if she couldn’t descend?
    As she stripped and filled the tub up with hot water, she thought through her meeting with Persephone. It struck her as odd that Hades hadn’t intervened one way or the other when she and Orion talked about freeing the Furies. It was only when Helen opened her big yap about freeing his queen that Hades had put his foot down.
    Helen gingerly lowered herself into the hot water, phone still in hand, and filed that bit of information away. Then she sighed and soaked, trying to figure out how she was going to thaw out her room before her father found out about it. Her phone vibrated.
    Are you up? Orion texted.
    OMG, did you hear the name of the river? Helen sent back.
    What r u talking about? I got booted right after P said you were going to die.
    Oh. There was more , Helen replied, ignoring the whole dying thing and hoping Orion would, too. She told me that we need to give the Furies water from the River . . . I didn’t hear the name b/c I got booted, too.
    Still good intel. I’ll find the right one eventually.
    Wait, “you’ll” find? What about “we’ll” find?
    What part of “won’t survive” did you not get?
    That’s only if I don’t dream.
    You don’t dream?
    Not when I descend.
    Then you’re not descending anymore.
    Helen thought that was a little bossy.
    NOT really your decision , she texted back.
    NOT going to argue came his defiant reply.
    Hang on. You don’t control this.
    N.O. Now go away. I have to drive.
    For ten minutes, Helen sloshed around the tub, muttering to herself. There was something he was missing—a point that she knew she had to make—but she couldn’t see it just yet. She tried to get him to come back to the argument with all kinds of texts. She even threatened to lie down and descend immediately. After that, he came back with a long reply, one of those texts that you have to pull over to type.
    If you get back into bed, I swear to you, I’ll swim to Nantucket, kick in your door, and tell Jerry everything. You can explain to him why you want to die. Stay out of the UW. I’m not joking around anymore.
    Threatening to tell her dad was just plain low—she’d told Orion that Jerry was a “no-fly zone,” and he’d promised never to violate that. But she had to admit, if she was really considering doing it, telling her dad was the only threat that would have stopped her. Orion knew her very well. She wondered how he’d managed that in such a relatively short amount of time. Helen smiled at the phone for a moment, and then forced herself to stop. She didn’t like being told what to do, but she did like that he cared enough to try.
    I can’t descend, anyway , she finally admitted after a long lull in their exchange. Hades banished me and booted us both out of the UW because I threatened to take P away. Can you