Starcrossed

a few seconds,” Daphne said compassionately. She was trying to get Pandora to listen to her, but in vain. Pandora shook her head at everything Daphne tried to tell her. “Ajax and I never really understood exactly what happened, but I swear to you, I didn’t kill him.”
    Pandora whirled away from Daphne, turning her back and still shaking her head in denial. Ariadne went and stood next to her and took her hand, but Pandora would accept no comfort. She dropped Ariadne’s hand and crossed her arms tightly across her chest, like her insides hurt, her left hand cupping the cuff-locket on her right wrist.
    “Oh, how typical! The House of Thebes thinks it knows everything because it’s the House of the Oracle,” Daphne said to Pandora’s back, almost pleading with her. “And the irony is that it’s because you think you know it all that the other Houses have been able to hide so much from you—our relics, like the cestus—even our very existence. You thought the House of Atreus was extinct, but here I am . Open your eyes! Whether you want to believe it or not, Pandora, Ajax and I saved each other’s lives that night, and then we fell deeply in love.”
    “Then the two of you ran away together?” Castor asked, shocking everyone with his sympathetic tone.
    “We had no choice. Even though I had paid my debt to the House of Thebes, and I could be near any of you without inciting the Furies, you all still wanted me dead,” Daphne replied with a shrug. “Ajax said that if we could explain what had happened to Tantalus, he would take our side. He really believed your brother would help us. We were so young, only seventeen.” A powerful emotion overwhelmed her and she suddenly clenched her fists and her jaw, as if she was refusing to cry.
    “Finish your story,” Lucas said evenly.
    “’Jax and I were living on a sailboat, hiding at sea. Tantalus rowed out to meet us because we were too frightened of an ambush to come ashore. As soon as Tantalus saw my face he went mad. They fought over me in the rowboat. I can’t swim—I swear, I couldn’t get to them. Ajax lost,” Daphne said. She stared directly into Lucas’s eyes. “Tantalus claimed that he killed me that day, but obviously that’s a lie. He has been chasing me ever since, maybe because he wants me for himself, or maybe because he intends to kill me and he doesn’t want anyone else coming after me for the sake of a Triumph. I’m not entirely sure what he wants anymore.”
    “I don’t believe it, no matter what you say, Lucas,” Pallas said, shaking his head in denial. “Tantalus loved Ajax.”
    “Yes, he did. He loved his brother, and then he killed him,” Daphne said, frustrated to the point of cruelty. “Now, as a kin-killer, he’s an Outcast, and he can’t have contact with anyone from the House of Thebes without the Furies revealing his sin to you.”
    “Pallas,” Castor said gently. “Didn’t it ever bother you that our brother stayed hidden even when there were no other Houses left to fight?”
    “But there were other Houses, and there still are!” Pallas shouted, pointing to Helen and her mother. “He must have known she was still alive, and that she can seduce anyone, even us, to help her get to him.”
    “I haven’t used the cestus on you, Pallas. Not even to get you to believe me,” Daphne said tiredly. “I want you to know in your own heart who killed Ajax. I need you to believe that I wasn’t the one who killed my husband .”
    “Everything she’s saying is true,” Lucas said, locking eyes with Helen. “She hasn’t used the cestus. And she and Ajax were married.”
    Helen looked away, although she could feel him studying her face.
    “The Fates have done this many times,” Cassandra intoned, a hint of the Oracle’s glow in her eyes and voice as she momentarily peeked through the Veil. “The Star-Crossed Lovers are in the warp and weft of the pattern, and my mothers are compelled to repeat it again and again. Symmetry must be maintained or the fabric of the universe will be ruined. All Four Houses have been preserved this way.”
    “All four?” Lucas repeated as his eyes sought out Helen’s. A glimmer of hope flared up in him, but instead of seeing his own elation echoed in Helen, her face was pale and empty. She looked away.
    “Four Houses in Three Heirs,” the many voices continued to chant. “The Star-Crossed Lovers have preserved the bloodlines. And the Three shall raise Atlantis.”
    A strange