Starcrossed

been a good father, and if she couldn’t be completely honest with him, the least she could do was lie as little as possible.
    She flew out of her window and back to the Delos compound as soon as she was done writing. It was a comfort to Helen to know that while she was sneaking away later that night her father would still be oblivious. Hopefully, for all of their sakes, Kate would be there for Jerry in the morning when he found the note. Thinking of that, she flew east across the darkening island with a feeling that approached peace.
    Before she even touched down, Castor was running out of the house to meet her on the lawn, waving his arms over his head as if to signal her to hurry. He was shouting something about her mother.
    Daphne had to wait until the little strategy session broke up before she could sneak into the library and look around. All she needed was the return address on the last few bits of mail from Tantalus to the Nantucket faction of the House of Thebes. Then, after so many years, she might finally be able to figure out Tantalus’s pattern of motion.
    She was only missing a few bits of information—a city name and she would know where to go from there. Then she would find Tantalus and kill him exactly the same way he had killed her sweet Ajax. Daphne had imagined it a million times. As soon as he came to the door she was going to chop off his head while his wife watched. If she avenged him, then maybe when Atropos cut her string, Ajax would be waiting for her on the other side of the river. She still had a ways to go and a lot of work to do before she could allow that to happen. First, she needed a city.
    Daphne started reading the postmarks on the topmost letters on Castor’s desk, but a quick glance told her that what she was looking for wasn’t there. She knew Tantalus’s handwriting like she knew her own, and she didn’t see it anywhere. Then she realized that although Castor was the smartest and the bravest of the Delos clan, he would be the last person Tantalus would contact. She went over to the other side of the library and began another search in another desk.
    She saw a safe under the other desk, put her hand on the spin dial and hoped that it wasn’t designed by a Scion. After a few moments on her knees listening for the click inside the tumbler, her search was abruptly ended. She felt the hot, thick jab of a needle invading the vein in her neck. She gasped, recognizing the drug cocktail she used on other Scions. She dimly remembered that when she had subdued Helen, she had left a spare syringe in her bag, loaded and ready, just in case. In seconds, her field of vision shrank to nothing.
    When she woke, Daphne could feel that her hands had been shackled with something metallic. As she blearily tried to focus her eyes she saw that she was on a dark beach. She heard the jingling of chains as she moved her hands closer to her face, and saw that her wrists had been cuffed. There were deep vertical slashes on both her forearms that were still leaking fast-pumping blood even as they healed. She was thirsty from the blood loss, but she ignored that and summoned a bolt.
    The cuffs heated up until they glowed so bright Daphne had to turn her closed eyes away or be blinded by the light. The brightness was nearly unendurable, but the cuffs didn’t melt, not even as she drained the last of her volts. There were few substances that could withstand so much heat at normal atmospheric pressure without turning into a liquid or a gas.
    “Tungsten,” she whispered through her dry, cracked lips, angry with herself for acting without thinking first.
    The white-hot links of nearly unmeltable metal led to a lightning rod that was jammed into the ground like a stake. Not only was she immobile, but any attempt she made to throw a bolt at an enemy would only end up dissipating in the sand.
    “I wouldn’t have thought you had any bolts left,” a woman’s voice called from down by the waterline. The crouching shape rose and walked over to Daphne. “I took a lot of your blood to dehydrate you, or at least I thought I did.”
    “Why are you doing this?” Daphne asked softly. “You’re not a killer, Pandora.”
    “I know I’m not,” Pandora admitted with a humiliated nod. “I tried to kill you while you were unconscious, but I couldn’t do it.”
    “Then let me go,” Daphne said with a sad smile. “I know why you’re doing this. Denial is a powerful thing, and grief can make a good person