Dreamless

still go down?
    Pretty sure. You’re banished? Wow. There really is such a thing as a good god. Strange that it’s Hades.
    She knew he was just worried about her safety, but there was something really wrong with his logic. Helen started typing before she even knew what she was going to say. Her scattered brain finally hit on why she was so upset about being banished, and why she had argued with Orion so belligerently to begin with.
    But remember the prophecy , she typed frantically. I’m the Descender—the only one who’s supposed to be able get rid of the Furies. If I don’t do this, how many more will suffer? You’d never see your dad again.
    Helen bit her lip, agonizing over whether or not she should tell him what she was really thinking.
    We’d never be able to see each other again. I don’t think I could handle that , she finally sent, adding in her thoughts, for what little time I have left, anyway.
    There was a long pause where Orion didn’t respond, and Helen wondered if she’d just made a huge mistake. To take her mind off him, she sent an email to Cassandra and the rest of the Greek Geeks, explaining everything that had happened in the Underworld. Then she stared at the face of her dark phone until she heard her dad come upstairs, get in bed, and start snoring. Still, Orion didn’t text back.
    Helen got out of the tub and dried off. She didn’t really know what she was going to do next, but she knew that she couldn’t go back to her frozen room. There was always the couch downstairs, but she decided that whether she lay down or not, it really didn’t matter. She’d lost track of how many weeks she’d gone without true rest, anyway.
    She spent a very long time in the hot bathroom catching up on the grooming ritual that she’d neglected for ages. She clipped things that needed clipping and rubbed all of her bendy parts with gooey oils. When she was finished, Helen wiped the steam off the mirror over the sink and for the first time in ages, she took a good look at herself. The first thing she noticed was her mother’s necklace. It stood out in sharp relief against her flushed skin, glowing on her throat as if it had sucked power from all of her self-pampering. Then she looked up at her face.
    It was the same face that so many people had died for eons ago, that so many were still dying for. Scions were still killing each other to avenge deaths that went back all the way to the walls of Troy—all the way back to the first woman to wear the exact face that Helen was looking at in the mirror.
    Was any face worth all that? It didn’t make any sense. There had to be more to the story. All this suffering couldn’t be about one girl no matter how pretty she was. Something else had to be going on that wasn’t in the books.
    She heard her phone buzz and rushed to grab it, knocking over half the toiletries on the sink as she did so. She snatched the assorted bottles and tubes out of the air before they had a chance to clatter noisily against the floor and wake her dad. Suppressing a nervous giggle, she put them silently back in their proper places, then looked at the message.
    I’ve thought it over. If this is what it takes to keep you alive, then I’m ready for it , Orion answered, almost half an hour after they’d stopped texting. I’ll let you go, I’ll let this whole quest go, but I can’t let you die.
    Helen slumped down on the edge of the tub in disbelief. Giving up would damn Orion to a life on the run, without a home or a family. He was willing to suffer all that—for her.
    Or was it for her stupid face? After all, they barely knew each other. What could inspire that kind of self-sacrifice?
    Daphne had called their nearly identical faces cursed, and Helen had always assumed that her mother had meant that their faces had cursed them. For the first time, Helen considered the possibility that her mother had meant that it cursed the people who looked at them. The thought of Orion sacrificing everything he’d ever wanted just because it was dangerous for her didn’t sit right with Helen. There was so much more at stake than just one person’s life, even if that life was her own.
    Helen felt something give way inside—so what if she had a crush on him, or if he had one on her? Orion couldn’t give up now. Not just because of what it would cost him, but because of what it would cost them all. If no one got rid of the Furies, what would happen to Hector and the other Outcasts? What