Goddess (Starcrossed)

as Daphne was concerned, sanctified by a lot of mumbo jumbo from the last Oracle—who they all knew had gone crazy after making her first prophecy. But it worked.
    Lots of Scions left their vast properties behind to be plundered by the House of Thebes in order to play dead and avoid the slaughter—like Daedalus and Leda, Orion’s parents. Like Daphne herself. But Daphne had never cared for money. Then again, she’d never had any moral qualms about taking money when she needed it. Other Scions, like Orion and his parents, did have qualms about theft, and they’d struggled for the last two decades while the House of Thebes lived in luxury. Remembering this, Daphne placed Helen on the bed and destroyed the lovely comforter with a little smile.
    Before Daphne could turn to get water and gauze to clean her daughter’s rapidly healing wounds, Helen disappeared and life-draining cold took her place. Daphne assumed that Helen had descended. Time ticked by. Daphne waited, her anxiety growing with each moment. She had thought that trips to the Underworld were instantaneous—that time didn’t pass. So much time went by that Daphne began to wonder if she should wake up the rest of the house, but before she made a move, Helen reappeared. Her body smelled like the barren air of the Underworld.
    Daphne’s teeth chattered, not from the cold, but from the fearful memories the smell of that air awoke in her. She had nearly died so many times now that she could guess what part of the Underworld Helen had visited. The smell was not baked enough to be the dry lands, and there was a touch of damp mud clinging to Helen’s feet. Daphne guessed that meant she must have gone to the banks of the River Styx itself.
    “Helen?” Daphne cooed. She smoothed her daughter’s hair and peered into her chilled face.
    Helen had been terribly injured in her battle with Ares, but if she were going to die, Daphne knew she would be dead already. Helen must have used her ability to descend to the Underworld on purpose, probably to look for her newly dead friend—the envious one who’d unfortunately gotten himself enslaved by Automedon.
    More than once, Daphne had gone on a similar journey looking for Ajax, but she did not have her daughter’s ability to come and go in the Underworld at will. She’d had to all but die to get there. After Ajax had been murdered, she had no will to live, but she knew that killing herself wouldn’t reunite her with her lost husband. Daphne had to die in battle like Ajax had, or she would never end up in the same part of the Underworld. Heroes went to the Elysian Fields. Suicides went—who knows where? She had thrown herself into every honorable fight she could find. She sought out the other Scions in hiding and recklessly defended the weak and the young—just as she’d done for Orion when he was a little boy. Many times, Daphne had been nearly killed in battle and made the journey down to the Underworld, always seeking her husband by the banks of the River Styx.
    But all she had found was Hades. Unrelenting, enigmatic Hades, who would not restore her husband to life and take her instead no matter how much she begged or bargained. The lord of the dead did not make deals. She hoped Helen hadn’t descended in the hopes that she could raise her friend back to life. It was a fool’s errand—for now, anyway. But Daphne had been working for nearly two decades to change that.
    “Can’t see you,” Helen murmured, and her fingers flexed, like she was trying to grab something. Daphne immediately understood. She, too, had wanted desperately to see Hades and had tried to pull the Helm of Darkness off his head. Eventually, after Daphne half died enough times to pay off all of her blood debts and rid herself of the Furies, Hades had finally showed her his face.
    It was recognizing Hades that had set her plan in motion. The plan that had broken her only daughter’s heart by separating her from the one she loved.
    “Oh. Sorry,” Matt said from the doorway, startling Daphne out of her spiraling thoughts. She wiped her damp face and turned to see that Matt had Ariadne draped limply across his arms. She was a ghastly shade of gray and barely conscious, having exhausted herself trying to heal Jerry. “She wanted to sleep in her own room.”
    “I’m sure they’ll both fit,” she said, gesturing to the wide bed. “I didn’t know where else to take Helen.”
    “Seems like there’s an injured person on every piece