The Shadow Prince

chapter thirty-seven HADEN

“That was very nice,” I say from the doorway of Daphne’s bedroom. She jumps and almost drops the guitar she’s been playing. I’d caught her right at the end of a song.

She shoots up from the edge of her bed. “What are you doing in here?”

“The door was open … and I didn’t want to interrupt you.”

“What, did you just walk right into the house? An open door isn’t an open invitation. Joe always forgets to shut it. And you’re not allowed in my room anyway.”

“Sorry.” I take a long stride backward so I’m now standing in the hallway outside her open door. I jam my hands into the pockets of my jeans because I don’t know what else to do with them. “I knocked on your front door. Your servant let me in. She said I could come on up to find you.”

“We don’t have a servant,” she says, like it’s an accusation.

“Thin woman? Hair slicked back into a hair … ball … thing … on the top of her head? She seemed too young to be your mother.”

“Oh. That’s Marta. Joe’s assistant.” Her tense stance softens a little. “Why are you here?”

“You said you’d help me with the festival song. It’s been a week, as you requested. Is this not your earliest convenience?”

“Oh. Yeah. I guess I didn’t mean in exactly a week. The festival isn’t until the end of November, you know that, right?”

“I don’t believe in procrastination.”

“Meaning I do?”

It had been a week since I had an excuse to talk to her, and not talking to her was making me feel addled. But I can’t tell her that. I point at her guitar. “Will you show me how to play?”

“You don’t know already?”

“I’ve had more important things to do.”

“If you were serious about the music program, you’d make time.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” I temper myself, remembering that Dax told me to be nice. “I need your help.”

Daphne picks up the guitar and brushes past me through the doorway. I follow her to a large living room. She sits on the couch and looks up at me. “You coming?”

I sit on the opposite end of the couch. I set my schoolbag between us.

“How much do you know about playing?” she asks.

“Not a thing.”

She sighs. “We’ll start with the basics, then. Let’s go over finger placement, and then we’ll talk about the different chords.”

“Actually, will you do that song for me again? The one you were just playing in your room? I want to learn that one.”

“You’re not ready for that one.”

“Please?” I ask. “I want to hear it again.”

She locks eyes with me for a moment and then shakes her head in a resigned sort of way. “Okay.” She places the guitar in her lap, and I study the way she positions her fingers on the strings, memorizing each tiny movement as she begins to play the song. After a few notes, her voice joins in with the guitar and I almost forget to keep watching her hands. Her voice is soft, tentative at first, as if singing in front of me embarrasses her, but as the song builds, her voice flows out of her with a force that makes me almost quiver. Her words mingle and dance with the sounds her hands make as she plucks and strums the guitar.

I can feel a familiar ache in my own hands as my brain records the movements of Daphne’s fingers and imprints them in my muscles. I feel as though I am in a trance. When the song ends, I don’t snap back out of it until she says my name.

I hold my hands out for the guitar. “Can I?” I want to give it a try while the memorized movements are still vivid in my mind.

“Knock yourself out.” She gives me the guitar. “But don’t be upset if you don’t get more than the first couple of notes.” There’s an edge of challenge in her voice.

I place my hands on the guitar, perfectly mimicking her placement when she’d started the song.

She nods. “So far, so good.”

I think hard, replaying the song in my mind for a few moments, and then pick out the first few notes.

She raises an eyebrow. A slight smile plays on her lips.

I almost smile myself, liking that surprised look on her face. The stiff strings of the guitar bite my fingers, but it’s a welcome sensation as my power of mimicry takes over my hands. I launch into the next few measures of the song, playing with a precision that should make me proud—except even though the movements of my hands are perfect and the notes I play are correct, something about the song doesn’t sound right to me. That same warm feeling doesn’t fill me the way it did when Daphne played the song and sang. I don’t dare join my voice in with the music, but I concentrate harder on the guitar, launching into the more difficult part of the song.

I look up at Daphne, expecting to see a full smile on her face, but instead her lips have twisted into a frown.

“Stop.” She snatches the guitar from me, sending my last note screeching. “Get out,” she says. Her words are quiet, but they rumble with anger. She points toward the hallway leading to the stairs.

“What? Did I do it wrong?” Why couldn’t I make the music sound the same as she had?

“Very funny, jerk. Pretending you don’t know how to play. ‘I don’t know a thing about music. I need your help. Did I do it wrong?’ ” she says, mimicking my voice in a not-so-flattering way. “Are you just trying to make me feel stupid?”

“No, I swear. I have never played before. I’m just a really fast learner. I’d never even heard music before I heard you sing in the grove the other day—” I swallow hard, realizing I’ve probably said too much.

She gives me a look that makes me want to wither. “How is that even possible? Music is everywhere. You can’t even go to the grocery store without hearing it.”

“Maybe I’ve never been to a grocery store.”

“What?

I look down at my shoes. “What is your deal?”

“My deal?”

“Let me guess: some spoiled rich kid who’s never had to lift a finger in his life? Do you have servants who do all your shopping for you?”

“My family, they’re … different. My home is a very controlled environment. Music isn’t allowed.”

“Seriously?”

“I am serious. There’s no music, no television, no movies, no parties, no girls.” I glance at her and then train my eyes on the clock over the fireplace. Maybe she’ll realize that’s why I keep saying all the wrong things.

“Sheesh, and I thought my mom was strict. Your parents sure sent you to a funny school, if they hate the media. Do they know you’ve joined the music program?”

I shake my head. “My father wouldn’t approve.”

“Then why did they send you here?”

I hold my breath, trying to come up with a plausible explanation that doesn’t involve my telling her that I’m supposed to bring her back to the underworld with me. I flip through the compartments of information stored in my brain until an idea clicks. “Have you ever heard of a rumspringa?”

“Isn’t that an Amish thing? Where they send their teenage kids out into the world to see everything they’ve missed out on before deciding for sure if they want be Amish for the rest of their lives … Holy crap, you’re not Amish, are you?” She throws her hands over her mouth sheepishly, like she’s afraid she’s offended me.

I almost laugh. The sound gets caught in my throat. “Definitely not Amish,” I say. “But that is what I’m kind of here for. This is kind of like my rumspringa. I’m here to experience the rest of the world before I go back home again.”

“So what happens if you choose not to go back?”

“I don’t know. Nobody in my family has ever chosen not to return.” I run my hand through my hair, finding myself still surprised at how short it is. “Choice doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

I’ll return because I must. It’s my destiny.

“And where is home?”

I can feel heat rising in my chest. She asks too many questions. She’s probably mentally recording my answers to share with Tobin later. “Upstate New York, but my father is Greek,” I say, telling her the cover story that Simon made me rehearse before starting school.

“Where is your mother from?”

“The West.”

“How did your parents meet?”

“I don’t remember.” Energy continues to build inside of me. I feel as though I am being interrogated by one of the royal guards.

“Is she as strict as your father?”

“You’re curious for a—”

“For what? A girl?”

I was going to say human but had caught myself.

“Is that a problem?” she asks, taking my silence for an admission. She stands up. “I’m not allowed to be curious because I’m a girl?”

She’s infuriating is what she is. I can feel electric heat rolling under my fingertips. Why is it so much harder to control myself around her?

“Your mother didn’t teach you not to be a total misogynist.”

I stand up to meet her. “My mother is none of your affair,” I say, electricity crackling in my voice.

She stares at me, our faces only inches apart. I know she must feel the heat radiating off me. I wait for her to tell me to get out again, to get lost, but instead she backs away and sits down on the couch, almost crushing the bag I’d placed there. Which is when the bag lets out a hiss. “What the …?” Daphne bounces away from the now-wriggling bag. A second later, a furry little thing pops out of it, launches itself at me, and perches on my shoulder. All the while hissing its displeasure over almost being squashed.

“Well, it’s your fault, Brim, for hiding in there!”

Brim growls, baring her tiny fangs.

“Oh my gosh, is that your kitten?” Daphne asks. She sounds strangely amused, and the anger melts from her expression.

“In a way. But she’s not a kitten,” I say, because I know Brim hates being called that. “She’s nearly seven years old.”

“But she’s so tiny! Like, barely bigger than a guinea pig.”

I try to pet Brim to calm her, but she swats at me with her claws. “What she is, is angry. That’s not a good thing.”

“It’s adorable.” Daphne laughs. “Come here, little girl,” she says in a singsong voice, reaching for Brim.

“Not a good idea,” I say, and try to pull the cat away from her reach. Brim bites my finger. I snap my hand back, and to my horror, Daphne snatches up the cat. To my utter astonishment, Brim lets her, though she’s still growling and hissing.

“I know how to soothe a savage beast,” Daphne says, like she’s singing. “My mom is always bringing home cranky strays. Grab the guitar. Try the song again.”

I scoop up the instrument and sit next to her. I pick out the notes again. After a few seconds, Daphne joins her voice in with my strumming. She sings in a lower, more gravelly tone that carries the same timbre as Brim’s small yet ferocious growl. Listening to her feels like the sensation of someone wrapping a warm blanket around my shoulders. But it’s been so many years since someone has done this for me; I am surprised I remember what it feels like.…

We’re halfway through the song when I realize that Brim’s growling has been replaced by a steady purr. She’s curled herself into a tiny ball in Daphne’s hands. Daphne smiles down at her.

I suddenly feel jealous of the cat.

I haven’t dared to add my own voice to the music for fear of spoiling it. I don’t even know how to sing, but as the song rounds into the final lines, the warmth of the music engulfs me to the point that I feel as if something inside of me is pushing its way out to meet it. I cannot help myself. My voice crackles at first and is barely audible, but when Daphne turns her smiling eyes on me, my voice grows stronger, mingling with hers. Our voices ring together, and for a moment, I feel as though I am free. Even freer than I felt in the Tesla. Freer than owls soaring from their roost.

I hold the final note of the song with Daphne, almost afraid to let that feeling of freedom go. Finally, she lets the note fall and I end the song.

I pull my fingers from the guitar strings and find Daphne staring at me. Her head is cocked to the side as if she is listening to something even though the music has stopped.

“What is it?” I ask her.

“Huh. I didn’t think you had an inner song, Haden Lord,” she says softly. “I guess I was wrong.”

I have had five lessons with Daphne in the last two weeks. Each one starts almost the same as the first. She peppers me with questions about my family and my past until she becomes frustrated with how little pertinent information I give her, and eventually she moves on to the music. I bring Brim with me since she seems to have a softening effect on Daphne, who lets her sit on her knee as we play.

My mastery of the guitar is coming along quite nicely, thanks to Daphne’s gifted hands. She has even let me play the piano in her father’s studio a couple of times. I prefer the guitar, though; it gives me something to hold on to.

It is late in the evening. I am headed back to Simon’s mansion after my latest lesson with Daphne. Brim clings happily to my shoulder, enjoying the fresh air, and I carry the loaner guitar that Daphne has sent me home with to practice. It’s an ebony black Stratacoustic from her father’s collection. “Believe me, he won’t even notice it’s gone. Besides, he owes me one,” she’d said. I think of how her hands had brushed mine when I took it from her.

I am crossing the bridge that leads to the school, taking a shortcut to Simon’s, when the smell of sulfur permeates my senses. Brim catches the scent also and jumps from my shoulder. She yowls and runs across the bridge, following the scent.

“Stop!” I shout. But she doesn’t listen. Harpies. I hitch up the guitar and take off after her, thinking of the consequences of letting a hellcat get loose near a school.

I don’t have to go far before I find her. Thankfully, she’s just standing on the back end of a parked car, meowing plaintively at something behind the vehicle. That is when I see it.

The body.

She lies on the ground behind a crop of bushes just beyond the parking lot, her hair splayed out around her head like a brown halo. Gashes cover her arms, and her chest has been ripped open. Her heart is missing.

This time, the Keres has done more than cause a heart attack. It’d ripped it right out of her. I wonder how the town officials will try to explain away this death.

I can’t tell what set the Keres off at first, why it had gone after her in the first place, but then I notice a small bandage on the woman’s pinky. Probably no more than a nick on her finger from a piece of paper.

My fears were right. The Keres is growing stronger.

Its thirst for blood is making it bolder.

I look more closely at the woman, realizing that I know her. Mrs. Canova, the teacher who had dragged Garrick and me to the counselor’s office after the fight.

Garrick.

The realization hits me so hard, I don’t know why I didn’t see it the moment I first glimpsed the Keres the night it attacked Lexie. There is only one person in the mortal world right now who would know more about Keres than I do. Only one person here who had access to them before we came.

Only one person who could have known how to bring it here …

“It’s not fair,” Garrick says as he and Dax enter the mansion via the garage. “When are you going to let me drive?”

I hear them coming and stand up from the couch, where I have been waiting for them to return.

“Sorry, kid. You’ve got to be at least sixteen here to get a driver’s license.” Dax tosses a grease-spotted paper sack onto the coffee table. “Dinner,” he says to me.

“Dax picked,” Garrick says. “So I hope you like deep-fried fat.”

“They’re called chimichangas. And they’re awesome. Almost as good as tacos.”

I wrinkle my nose at the smell. “I’m not hungry.”

Garrick flops into an armchair. His leg dangles over one of the arms. I assess him for a moment and notice how he’s dropped the small, cowering mannerisms of a Lesser. He has become too comfortable here. “Can’t you get me one of those fake ID things you got Haden?” He leans over and digs into the paper bag. He takes out two bundles wrapped in grease-spotted paper. He tosses one to Dax, who catches it without looking up, and then offers the other to me.

“I don’t want it.” I wave off the foul-smelling food. Garrick doesn’t even notice me glaring at him.

“I could get you an ID, but I won’t. You’re too young. I wouldn’t let you near Venus.”

“Venus?” he asks mockingly. “Is that what you call your car?”

“She’s my little goddess. And I’m not letting you near her again. You tried to eat a chimi in the front seat.”

“What’s that?” Garrick asks, with a mouth full of meat and cheese, pointing at the guitar Daphne gave me. It’s tucked under the coffee table.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s something.” He bounces up and grabs it out from under the table. His greasy fingers leave prints on the black gloss paint. “What the Tartarus is this thing?”

“Put it down,” I say, but he doesn’t listen.

His filthy fingers are on the strings now.

“Don’t touch that.” I reach for the guitar just as Garrick slides his fingers over the strings and a discordant jumble of notes fills the air.

“Harpies,” he says, almost dropping it. The clatter of notes as it smacks against his leg makes me cringe.

“You dung eater!”

“That thing makes music,” Garrick says. I can see the panic in his eyes. Finally, an expression that belongs on a Lesser. “What are you doing with it?”

“Give it back.”

“It’s forbidden. If King Ren finds out—”

“He’s not going to find out.”

Garrick squeezes the neck of the guitar hard in his hand. I can feel the pulse of electricity building in his body.

“Don’t you dare.”

“We should destroy it.”

“Give it to me. That’s an order, Lesser.”

“No.”

I can’t tell if he refuses because he’s concerned about my well-being, or just because he wants to be defiant. Because he thinks he can be. He raises his free hand, tiny wisps of blue light crackling in his palm. I’ve never seen a Lesser use his lightning power before. The electricity is weak, but still strong enough to cause damage to the guitar.

I lunge at him.

Garrick squeals and scrambles up onto the armchair, but he can’t get away from me. I wrestle the guitar from him and thrust it at Dax, who tries to stop us from fighting. I grab Garrick by the collar. I raise my other hand. The energy that pulses through me would be enough to knock the teeth from his mouth.

“Why did you do it?” I ask.

“Music is forbid—”

“Not that,” I snarl into his face. “Why did you bring it here?”

Garrick’s eyes go wide. His mouth quivers. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do!”

“Haden, stop,” Dax says. “What is this about?”

“The Keres,” I say. “Garrick brought it here.”

“What?” he says. “That’s impossible.”

“Think about it. He works in the Pits. He has access to them. He must have brought one with him.” I shake Garrick by his collar. “But I want to know why. Did you think it would be amusing? Did you do it to distract me? Why, you little harpy?”

“Stop this,” Dax says, trying to pull me off Garrick. “Listen to yourself. Garrick didn’t know you were going to choose him to come with us. How could he have planned it? How could he even get a Keres out of the Pits? The barriers of the Pithos prevent it.”

Dax’s reasoning edges at my rage. I’ve acted again without thinking it through.

“It was an accident,” Garrick says softly. He cowers, holding his hands in front of his face defensively. “It must have attached itself to me. They can do that. Like a second shadow. It was a stowaway, like how you suggested to Dax that first night. I had no idea it was here until I heard you tell Dax and Simon that you saw it. Then I realized what I had done.”

“You idiot. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because I knew you would react like this.”

“I don’t understand,” Dax says. “How is any of this even happening? The Keres can’t get out of the Pits. Only Hades himself could summon them through the barrier. I wouldn’t believe any of this if Haden hadn’t seen it himself.”

“The locks on the Pits are starting to fail. The barrier that keeps the Keres out of both the Underrealm and the mortal world is beginning to fall,” Garrick says. “Pandora’s Pithos is opening.”

“But that means more could get out. They could all get out.”

One Keres is a dangerous thing on its own. But one can become more when it becomes strong enough to multiply. The Keres are kept weak in the Pits to keep their numbers low. But even a handful of Keres, which hunt in packs, could rip through the Underrealm in a matter of days. If more get into the mortal world, especially depending on the type of Keres—disease, fear, violent death, war, pestilence—they can destroy a state, a country. Unchecked, they can multiply and multiply until they destroy this entire realm—and then move on to the others.

We’ve been lucky with this Keres that is loose on Olympus Hills, I realize. This one is merely a reaper. I’ve only ever heard of one other Keres escaping into the mortal world since their imprisonment. Humans called it the black plague.

“How can the Heirs stop the Pithos from opening?” I ask.

“They can’t,” Garrick says. “Not without the Key of Hades.”

I finally let go of him. Dax and I exchange a look. We are back to the Key once again. No wonder the Court is so desperate to find it. Bringing the Cypher—bringing Daphne—to them has more importance than just restoring the Underlords’ ability to move freely between the realms, even more than restoring their full powers—it is needed to stop the five realms from ceasing to exist.

“That’s just a worst-case scenario,” Dax says, as though he can read the thoughts that have slammed through my brain. The gravity of it all must be written on my face. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“How do you kill them?” I ask Garrick. “How do we stop this one before it gets strong enough to multiply?”

“You can’t,” he says. “That’s why Hades locked them away.”

“You have to know something.”

“I don’t,” Garrick says, and pushes me away from him. “I don’t know anything. I’m just a Lesser, remember?”

“You brought this thing here. Accident or no accident, you are responsible for what it does. The lives it takes are on your head. You have to help me stop this thing.”

“No,” Garrick says. “This is your responsibility. You brought me here, which means you brought the Keres here. It’s not my fault it was attached to me. That’s the hazard of living in the Pits. And you and I both know the real reason I was banished to the Pits in the first place. Which means what that monster does is on your head. Not mine.”

So he does know his banishment was my fault.…

He raises his fist as though he wants to blast me. Tiny threads of blue light encircle his hand. My shame prevents me from trying to stop him.

Dax grabs Garrick’s fist. He winces as Garrick’s lightning shudders up his arm, but he doesn’t let go. “Do not forget your place, Garrick. Haden is our Champion. Your insubordination is a crime, even in this place.”

Garrick’s face clouds over with the look of a hellcat. Then he drops his head like a scolded kit. “Fine.”

Dax lets go of his fist. “Go upstairs.”

Garrick grabs the grease-spotted bag and huffs up the stairs.

“Garrick,” Dax calls after him. “That’s Haden’s dinner.”

“Let him go. I’m not hungry.”

Dax sits in the armchair that Garrick vacated and looks at me. “What did he mean by all that?”

“It’s nothing,” I say in a tone that makes it clear I don’t want to talk about the things Garrick said.

“Haden?”

“I’m respecting your secret. You can respect mine.” Dax is the last person in all the realms I want to know what I did to Garrick. Dax is the only one who doesn’t look at me with disdain because of what I did when my mother died, but if he knew what I did to Garrick two years later, to get rid of the walking reminder of my shame, he may not be able to look at me at all anymore.

I sit on the couch with the guitar. I want to distract myself, like the way I feel when I sing with Daphne, so I play a few bars.

“That sounds pretty good,” Dax says. “I take it things are going well between you and Daphne?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I mean, I got her to help me prepare for the festival, and she trusts me enough to loan me a guitar.” I wipe at the fingerprints Garrick left on the finish. “But it all seems like such small steps. What if it doesn’t add up to enough before the Eve of the Return?” The night I have to tell her the truth and ask her to come with me through the gate.

“Don’t let the importance of your quest make you feel like you have to rush—it’ll only scare her off. There’s a reason we’re given six months—other than the confines of the gate—it takes time and patience to win her affection. She’ll come around. All the little things will build on each other. Like that song you’re playing. It works because you let the tune build as you go. You don’t try to play all the notes at once.”

I look down at my hands, not realizing I’d started playing an actual song. It’s the one Daphne first taught me.

“I can’t make it sound like she does, though. I do all the right movements, hit all the right notes, but it still doesn’t feel right.”

“That’s because music isn’t just about precision and mimicking movements. It’s an emotional experience. True music comes from inside. I heard someone say once that the ability to create musical expression from emotional experience is a uniquely human trait.”

“Then I probably shouldn’t bother,” I say, zipping the guitar into its case.

“Don’t forget, Haden. All of us Underlords are part human. Your mother—”

“Don’t,” I say, standing. Why would Dax try to remind me of her? Why would he encourage me to tap into my human side when, all my life, I’ve been taught to repress it?

I hear the garage door open. Simon has returned from wherever he goes during the day. I don’t feel like dealing with him. And I don’t want him to try to stop me from dealing with the Keres again.

“Where are you going?” Dax asks as I head out of the room.

“Hunting,” I say.

Because Garrick is right. It’s my fault the Keres is here.

And now it’s my responsibility to figure out how to stop it.

I return to the school parking lot with the idea of inspecting the scene more closely in hopes of finding clues as to where the Keres went next. But I am too late. The humans have already found the body, and the area is cordoned off by Olympus Hills security. I stand in the shadows and watch as they load what remains of Mrs. Canova into the back of the OHMC vehicle—until I notice that someone else is watching me.

I see him at the far end of the parking lot, idling on a motorcycle. He wears the same full-coverage helmet that hides his face, but I am certain he is the rider I saw outside the mayor’s party. The same one that seemed to be watching me then, too.

Was he working for Simon or something?

There’s only one way to find out. I start making my way toward him, sticking close to the perimeter of the school, but he must sense me coming, because he revs his engine and peels out of the parking lot before I close in.

I chase after him, running at top speed over the bridge that leads off the school’s island, but my legs are nothing compared to his motorcycle. He speeds away and disappears into the night.