Starcrossed

few times, Helen was aware of Cassandra shuttling trays up and down the stairs, but it didn’t sink in that those were for Lucas until Helen was falling asleep over something sweet and nutty made out of dough.
    “Ready for ice cream?” Noel asked her, absentmindedly pushing a thick swath of Helen’s long hair behind her shoulder so it didn’t fall into her food.
    “I think I’ve gone blind,” Helen replied, unable to chew or swallow or see straight anymore.
    “Finally,” Noel sighed as she sank into a chair across the table from Helen. She looked as tired as Helen felt. “Jason? Do you think you could take her up?”
    “Sure,” Jason replied, and scooped Helen out of her chair. She was suddenly very awake.
    “I can walk! Really, you don’t have to carry me,” she said, squirming in his arms.
    “Sure you can. Now hold still or I’ll drop you,” he replied with a good-natured smile. She had no choice but to relax and let him carry her.
    When they got upstairs, Cassandra came through one of the many doors, holding a tray stacked to overflowing with dirty dishes, and Helen got a brief glimpse of Lucas lying in bed. She tensed and tried to crane her head around Jason’s shoulders to get a better look, but Cassandra shut the door.
    “Is he really going to be all right?” Helen asked Jason as he brought her into the guest room.
    “Yeah,” Jason said, but he didn’t meet her eyes when he said it. He forced an uncomfortable laugh. “Luke’s just milking it to get Cass to pamper him. He’ll be fine,” he said. He laid her down and turned to go.
    “I’m really sorry,” Helen called out as Jason reached the door. He stopped uncertainly and turned to listen as Helen unburdened herself with increasing emotion. “I was so scared and I was running away into the fog and then I felt really light and really cold. When I looked down and realized that I was flying, I fainted. I always knew I was strange, that there was something wrong with me, but I didn’t know . . .” Helen trailed off. Jason came back to her bedside and touched her shoulder.
    “Nobody blames you,” he said, but Helen waved a dismissive hand.
    “Yeah, you do. You all do. Because I started this when I attacked Lucas in the hallway at school.”
    “You didn’t start this,” Jason replied forcefully. “This war started thousands of years ago.” Helen gave him a confused look, but he shook his head before she could ask any questions. “Get some sleep, and don’t worry about Lucas. Even compared to other Sons of Apollo, he’s really tough.” Jason switched off the light on his way out, but left the door open a tiny crack in case she needed to call out for help in the middle of the night.
    Helen snuggled into the down comforter and tried to relax, but she was jittery with exhaustion and overwhelmed with the strangeness of the room and the house. And the flying . She could fly—there was no denying it now. She wasn’t just a gifted athlete with paranoid notions about possibly being some kind of genetic experiment. She could frigging fly , which is aerodynamically impossible for Homo sapiens, so she had to be something else. Something other than human.
    The only explanation was what Lucas had said, but that didn’t make much sense, either. The Greek gods were myths, anthropomorphic manifestations of powerful natural forces, not historical figures with actual descendants—or so she’d been taught in eighth grade. But now she wasn’t so sure. She thought of how it felt to fly, how the air had become solid—a malleable object—and she knew that the argument was over in her heart. Somehow, she was a demigod, and she was just going to have to accept it.
    In the early morning hours, Helen woke up with a start and looked around at the dark, unfamiliar room. She had been dreaming about flying, which was great, until she realized she had no idea how to land. Her first waking thought was that she would have to get Lucas to teach her. Then it occurred to her he might never be able to fly again.
    Despite what his family said about him being fine, Helen knew she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep without checking for herself. She needed to see his face tanned and normal, not white and scared as it was when they were in the dry lands together.
    She touched her feet to the floor and tested them, applying more pressure until she was sure she could stand, and then made her wobbly way down the hall to Lucas’s room. She had never