Goddess (Starcrossed)

out of the bottom. The wand felt right in her hand and easy to carry. She waved it a few times, willing sparks to puff off of it as they paused in front of the glass-blowing booth and watched a man make a little glass dragon.
    Neither of them could stop smiling. Helen heard the carousel and ran the last few steps. She hopped onto the back of a unicorn as it swung past, waving her glittery wand in the air like it was a riding crop.
    “Tally-ho!” she cheered to her painted ceramic mount, but it didn’t go any faster. The pole down the unicorn’s middle was brass, and it smelled tangy and crisp in the autumn cold.
    Lucas jumped up next to her, standing by her side rather than getting a ride of his own. He stood over her, his coat opening around her when he gripped the brass pole. They stared at each other for a long time as the rest of the world spun by them. The bright, fairground colors streaked and smeared in the corner of Helen’s eye but Lucas was still.
    “Why won’t you kiss me?” she asked quietly.
    “Can’t you make me?” he replied, raising a teasing eyebrow at her.
    “I wouldn’t want to. Especially not on our first real date.”
    Lucas laughed softly. “I was thinking the same thing when we were in the café. You and I had coffee together once before school, but we never really dated, did we?”
    “We never got the chance. The world was always about to end, or one of us was on fire or something equally annoying.” He chuckled. She looked up at him and tried not to blush. “You know, we can do whatever we want here. I can make sure there are no consequences.”
    She could feel his breath quicken and see his eyes gleam with more than just the cold. “You remember, months ago, you gave me some advice about how I should go about making tough decisions?” he asked.
    “Decide what you absolutely can’t handle, and do the opposite,” she said, surprised that he was bringing this up when she had been thinking pretty much the same thing not too long ago.
    “That’s why I won’t kiss you.” He raised a hand and touched her face, and quickly dropped it. “Eventually, we’ll have to go back, and I’ll lose you again. I know for a fact I can’t handle that.”
    Nor could Helen, and she was starting to consider other options. Like figuring out a way for Aphrodite to remove the curse that required Helen to have a daughter in the first place. Maybe instead of accepting her situation—which was ridiculously unfair—she needed to at least try to fix it.
    “I’m tired of going round and round,” Helen sighed.
    The carousel came to a stop. She stood up and jumped down, the lights of the carnival shutting off section by section around her as she walked off the fairgrounds. She dropped her wand, and snow began to fall. Billions of tiny stars were blotted out and seemed to fall through the night sky as unique little crystals. It looked like the air around them whirled with shimmering bits of frozen stars.
    “Helen,” Lucas began, following her. She heard him bracing himself for another one of their legendary arguments.
    “I’m not angry with you because you won’t kiss me,” she said, turning around and stopping him. “I get why you won’t kiss me. I can’t go through all that again, either.”
    “So what’s the matter?” he asked patiently.
    “I’m sick of believing that there are these shadowy all-powerful deities who are greater than me, keeping me from what I want. Because that’s a lie. I’m just as strong as any of the beings who would hold me back. And I know I can beat them.”
    “Ah. Helen?” Lucas hazarded. “You’re not going to run off and start picking fights with the gods or anything like that, are you?”
    “Well, no,” she said, shifting uncertainly from foot to foot. “I was thinking I’d start by asking a few questions and take it from there.”
    “Good,” Lucas said, relieved. He reached out and took her hand, his eyes narrowing with determination. “And if talking doesn’t work, we’ll bury them.”
    Helen watched a dark shadow pass across his face. “We’ll think about this later,” she said, leading him to a path that wound into the woods. “I’m not ready for our date to be over yet.”

ELEVEN
    A bout half an hour after Tantalus, Daedalus, and Pallas left his camp, Matt heard the alarm again. There was a commotion outside, the sound of struggling, and moments later Telamon was at the entrance of Matt’s tent with a report.
    “A Scion