Page 4 of Edge of Stars

“But I’m still not getting it. Maximus is teaching classes virtually, and you’ve scaled back to remote shoots and interviews. And neither of you have been to a single industry event since the EmStar awards… Oh, shit.” Her face loses color once her rant fades into realization. “The night of the awards…the billion-and-one photographers…”

“And the dramatic dip that Maximus insisted on in the middle of the entrance carpet,” I supply.

“Oh, no.” Rickety dread defines her repetition. “But still…how?”

“We’re not entirely sure. But let’s just say that Sprout had as much fun with the dip as Maximus and I did.”

“And someone caught it in a picture.”

“That was sold to a tabloid.”

“Shit.” Her head rears back. But not for long. “And Mother never said a word?”

“She probably gave it a fast glance and little else. At first look, it’s just a trick of the stage lights.”

She realigns her stance, looking ready to roll her eyes. Her fresh blurt is the stopgap for that. “So who found out first?” she charges. “Nosey All-father or Freaky Hell Man?”

“Not sure. They confronted us with it together.”

“When?”

“The night Maximus proposed.”

“Wait.” Her forehead crunches as quickly as her other expressions. “When he whisked you off to El Capitan? After your first gown fitting?” She adds an incensed nostril flare. “Nearly three weeks ago?”

I step back and spread my hands on the air. “There’s a good reason I didn’t tell you.”

“Out with it. You have sixty seconds.”

I haul in a hurried but full breath. This wasn’t the conversational path I expected to be skipping down with her, but here we are. No U-turns. Not with my sister looking like she’ll yank either the whole story or my beating heart out of me.

“Zeus and Hades were certain that Hecate would soon spot the picture too. And once she did, she’d be coming for Sprout.”

Even more color drains from her. “The only demigod-demon-human-witch hybrid in existence. Which she’d grow in one of her barn incubators if she had to, while the flies fed on your decimated body.”

My grimace is instant. “Really gross but really right. And practically what Zeus said too.”

Her shrug is equally fast. “Who said it’s hard to rule a realm?” After I jump both brows, challenging if she really wants me to fill in that answer, she pushes on. “So tell me he also arrived with a solution for you? Or Hades did?”

“You think they’d have shown up otherwise?”

At that, I do supply her with Z’s and Hades’s certainty that Hecate’s would soon put together our truth for herself. That once that happened, the goddess would see nothing but her end goal: overthrowing Olympus with all the forces she could rally, including harnessing my child’s power. Whatever it cost her. Whatever it cost me.

That in order to prevent it, they were certain I had to be hidden. That it had to be in one of their two realms.

“So they ordered you to make a choice?” Kell inserts with a stunned gawk. “One or the other? Hell or Olympus?”

I try to let my face register most of my incredulous affirmation. This wedding gown, while one of the most beautiful garments I’ve ever worn, has too many beads to lose if I gesticulate an inch in the wrong direction.

“Like a rock and a hard place—if rock means ninth circle and hard place means a realm in which Hecate can access with any road she chooses.”

Kell shakes her head. “So what happened? How’d you get out of it?” Her posture stiffens. “You got out of it, right? You two haven’t been getting day passes for good behavior, right? I can’t see Hades doing that. But if you went with Zeus and—”

“We didn’t go with Z,” I intervene. “Maximus told them both to go pound sand.”

Her gaze flares. “And how far did the sparks fly?”

I’m ready with my own quick shrug. “Actually, they didn’t. I think they were both certain we’d be back soon enough, banging on one or both their doors, and they’d be able to name more conducive conditions for hiding us.”