Starcrossed

said, feeling guilty. Jason had tried to push Claire away to keep her safe, but Helen hadn’t. “I get it now.”
    “You have other things to deal with,” he said, his eyes already starting to close. “Go. I’ll guide her through.”
    “If you lose your way, I’ll follow you down,” Helen told him, already feeling the baked air of the dry lands leaching all the moisture out of the atmosphere.
    Suddenly, Helen knew what the dry lands were and why she had always been too frightened to recognize the truth when it was staring her in the face. The desert that she wandered into while she slept, the land Jason now had to traverse to save Claire, was the land of the dead. For the briefest of moments she could see Claire’s fetch, confused, scared, and soundlessly calling out Jason’s name. Helen banished that disturbing image and spoke directly into Jason’s ear. “I know the way through the rubble, and I promise, if you can’t make it on your own, I’ll come down and carry you both out.”
    Jason’s eyes snapped back open in shock, but his spirit was already following Claire’s, and although he tried to fight it, his eyes closed again as he slipped into a deep comalike slumber. Helen left the room, trusting him completely with Claire’s heal. Mentally, she was already joining the battle that awaited her in the living room.
    Helen picked her way down the stairs, hearing her mother’s raised voice as she neared. It was already hauntingly familiar even though she had known the woman only a few short hours. Daphne’s voice was Helen’s own, coming from outside her head like a recording played back on a crappy answering machine. Helen hated it—not the sound, but feeling like she was stuck in someone else’s mistake, doomed to adopt the worst qualities of the people she was supposed to love the most.
    Helen paused for a moment to steel herself before she went into the living room. In the few short minutes Helen had been upstairs, a fight had begun.
    “I’m to blame?” Daphne shrieked at Pallas, reacting to something he’d just said. “If you all had just stayed in Cádiz, away from Helen, none of this would have happened!”
    “That was my fault,” Hector admitted, trying to get everyone to calm down. “My family had to leave because I nearly killed one of my own kin.”
    “You wouldn’t be the first,” Daphne said out of the side of her mouth.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Pallas asked indignantly.
    “Are you finally ready to talk about the elephant in the room?” Daphne said bitterly. “I didn’t kill Ajax. Tantalus did.”
    “You’re a liar!” Pallas said, taking a menacing step toward her.
    “Then how come I’m alive? Tantalus told all of you that he killed me himself, didn’t he?”
    Pallas stared at her furiously.
    “Just answer this one question. If I killed your brother Ajax, then why don’t you see the Furies right now?” Daphne asked, throwing her arms out as if to show she wasn’t hiding them anywhere.
    Everyone looked around at one another, as if they were expecting someone else to have an explanation, but no one did.
    “Pallas, do you remember how Ajax and I hated each other, more than just the rage of the Furies could account for, but at the same time we wouldn’t allow ourselves be parted? Do you remember how we used to seek each other out, like we couldn’t bear to be separated for even a moment?” Daphne asked in a softer tone.
    “You were his obsession,” Pallas said darkly, his eyes shooting briefly over to Lucas.
    “And he was mine. Eventually, we fought, but at the last moment, instead of killing each other, there was a terrible accident. We ended up saving each other’s lives. When we did that, I paid my debt to the House of Thebes. And he paid his debt to the House of Atreus. After that, Ajax could be with my family without inciting the Furies, and I could be with his. How could I stand in front of you if this weren’t the truth?” Daphne motioned to Helen and Lucas. “You’ve seen it happen again, right in front of your eyes, and you all already know what the outcome is. Once the Furies were gone, Ajax and I fell in love.”
    “Liar!” Pandora hissed.
    “No,” Lucas said, shaking his head with a stricken, almost fearful look in his eyes. “She’s telling the truth.”
    “I touched his body with my own hand,” Pandora screamed, tears tangling her pretty pixie face into a snarl. “He was dead!”
    “I think we were both dead for