Page 169 of The Games Gods Play
“Yes.”
“Then why can’t I?”
He crosses his arms. “My star…has anyone ever called you stubborn to your face?”
“You’re still stalling.”
He looks bored, reminding me of the night we met.
“Fine. I won’t call you Phi. But back to the Band-Aid… I’ll imagine much worse things. It’s better to tell me now and get it over with.”
He glances to his right at a window with curtains drawn across it. “They didn’t wait.”
My heart plummets to my gut. “They went ahead with the next Labor without me?” Shit. “Who won?”
“Diego.”
Double shit. Now he’s won two, and Boone’s counting on me.
“Start from the beginning, and tell me everything,” I demand.
Hades runs a hand through his hair, the pale lock flopping onto his forehead, making him appear disheveled. “Damn.”
“What happened to your poker face?” I tease with a wan smile. “Now I really need you to tell me.”
He looks away, and I can tell he’s debating it, but eventually his expression flattens to something grimly resigned. “Fine.”
I exhale deeply. He really could have said no.
“Samuel won Hephaestus’ Labor, beating Trinica by only two seconds. His prize was a compass Hephaestus made that will always point the correct way to go.”
“Three Strength virtue wins in a row,” I say. “Do you get the feeling the Labors are rigged?”
Hades lifts a single eyebrow. “When have my siblings ever played fair?”
Good point.
“Demeter’s was the eighth Labor,” he continues. “She had them run through the Fields of Forgetting. If they succumbed and got lost, storms would chase them down.” After a pause, his voice is gentler when he says, “Neve didn’t make it.”
My stomach turns over, then over again. Another of us is gone?
I swallow around a throat thickening with grief but nod for him to continue.
“Diego won, and his prize was the Protective Mark of the Algea—he can’t feel pain. Physical or mental. The ninth—”
I hold up a hand. “Wait.” No. Tell me they didn’t. “They’ve completed more than one Labor while I’ve been out?” I ask slowly.
He nods.
We’re fucked. “How long was I out?”
“Almost two weeks.”
“Two—” I feel the blood drain from my face. I thought it was days. Suddenly, Hades is standing by my side, tipping a cup of water to my lips. I swallow some, which helps. Before my injury, the Crucible was being run with only a few days between Labors at the very most. Almost two weeks?
Hades sets the cup down and takes my hand in his, a lifeline of steady strength.
“How many did they get to?” I ask.
