I held still, not sure how I felt about what she was saying. A part of me understood she wanted to be obedient to what she believed, but another part of me would never grasp turning away from her family. Not even for my soul.

Dad grabbed her arms and gave her a shake. “Bea. This is not the world they tell us it is. Our children are alive. They’re here. We are a family. You think you’ll go to hell because you love your babies? Babies we fought to have? You’d let them go so easily?” His words seemed to hit her like slaps, and she flinched with each thing he said.

Babies they’d fought to have. I looked at Tad, and he shook his head. There had been no stories of difficulties getting pregnant. What else didn’t we know about our family’s past?

A knock on the front door stopped all the words, and the five of us slowly turned. “Do you have company coming today, Yaya?” Dad asked.

“Nope. You two kids go hide.” She shoved at Tad and me, and I stumbled down the hallway to our parents’ bedroom, Tad right behind me.

Voices rose in the other room as we closed the door. I looked at Tad and he shook his head, finger to his lips. Yaya could be heard over everyone else.

“You are not welcome here, you, don’t make me hurt you. Bunch of pointy hat–wearing monkey balls.”

I looked at Tad. His eyes were wide. “I don’t know. SDMP doesn’t come this far off the Wall. Ever.”

“We can’t leave them out there.”

“What if it’s Firsts?”

“They don’t wear hats, it’s forbidden. You know that. God might not see them if they cover their heads from him.”

His lips twitched. “I’d forgotten about that one.”

That it wasn’t Firsts made the decision easy for me. I shoved the door open and strode down the hall, focusing on the anger that kindled in my belly. Foreign and invigorating, the emotion was so unexpected I rode it all the way to the main room.

I skidded to a stop at the scene in front of me. Six men stood positioned around the room. Each held a gladiator sword in one hand and a shield in the other. They wore helmets with bright-red crests running down the center, along with a band of metal running down the middle of their noses. Armor wrapped around their chest, and leather kilt things hung to their knees.

The man who stood next to Yaya pointed his sword at Tad and me. “Serpents.”

I pointed a finger back at him. “Donkey butthole.”

He pulled his helmet off and threw it on the floor. Dirty-blond hair that looked like it had been crammed in the helmet for more than a few hours stuck out everywhere on his head. His eyes were dark, like the color of unsweetened chocolate. “You would insult me, monster?”

“You started it. And do I look like a monster to you?” I cocked a hip and put a hand on it, feeling for the first time the power that came with a body and face that could stop traffic.

His eyes traveled down my body, then back up to my face. “You hide behind beauty. It’s the way of your kind, to seduce and destroy. But I will not fall for your evil.”

Yaya moved to the center of the room. “This home is under my protection; would you forfeit your right to Zeus’s guidance?”

The men shifted, leather skirts creaking and sandaled feet shuffling on the floor.

“This is not a shrine of Zeus. Besides, we do not answer to him.” Blond Boy turned his back to Tad and me in order to face Yaya.

She drew herself up to her full five-foot-nothing height. “I am a priestess of the god of thunder and one of his favored women. So what are you going to do about that . . . Achilles?”

CHAPTER 8

“Achilles?” I spit the name out, my tongue flicking along the s a little too long. He spun, his sword raised to my face.

“Do not speak my name, serpent.”

I mock-frowned at him while a distant part of me freaked out. A man was pointing a sword at me, and I wasn’t afraid. Shouldn’t I be terrified? Quivering with fear? Achilles was the one who took down Troy, the one who defeated Hector. Achilles was the greatest hero of Homer’s Iliad. And he was standing in front of me, threatening to kill me. He was a hero of heroes. Yet I felt nothing but a slight irritation.

Maybe my mom was right, maybe there was something wrong with me. Maybe I had no soul and therefore could no longer feel true fear—

He pulled his arm back and whipped it forward, the sword catching the light. I leapt sideways into the coffee table, stumbled, tripped, and fell to my hands and knees while my heart did triple time. So much for not being afraid.

The soldiers laughed and Achilles grinned down at me. “I will be merciful, for your beauty softens my hand. Be still, and I will take your head, ending your suffering.”

“What? Why?”

“You are the serpent I am to face. You are the first of the five monsters reborn to the earth. The first of five who must be destroyed so our queen can rise again.”

“Oh, well, that clears up nothing.” I pushed to my feet. “Sorry, it’s been a long day, and I don’t know why you want to hurt me, because I don’t even know what I am. My mother won’t hug me, and you’re standing here with your sword sticking at my face.”

Yaya snickered. “His other sword would be better, I think. He’s quite good in bed from what I hear.”

“Yaya!” Tad choked on her name, and I struggled to keep a straight face. Achilles, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have a sense of humor.

“It matters not to me which sword I stick you with”—he moved around the side table—“or what you think you are, only that you are the first to die.”