“You’d make a pretty good thief.” Ernie smiled. “If you weren’t a giant snake, that is.”

“Shut up, Ernie.” I grasped what I could and yanked it out of the hole. The door leaned open. I grinned up at the cherub. “Got it.”

I slipped through the door, Ernie right behind me. The nurses’ station was ahead and to my right, and Yaya’s room was to the left. Two nurses were sitting, watching a small TV, both with headphones on. That had to be against the rules. But it had worked in my favor. I dropped to my belly and army-crawled forward. “You be the lookout for me.”

I turned to see Ernie already floating above the nurses’ heads. “They’re watching a porno.”

“They are not!”

“You want to see?”

I hurried, not answering him, slithering on my belly down the hall until I reached room 415. Moving into a crouch, I reached up and opened the door, let myself in, and finally took a deep breath. I looked around the room, seeing easily despite having very little light. Another perk of being a monster. I went straight for the bed on the right, where Yaya’s earbuds lay on the side table.

“Yaya?”

A shuffling of sheets and she sat up, looking around for me. Of course, she couldn’t see me like I saw her. She fumbled for her light and flicked it on. “Alena?”

Someone across the room muttered, “Shut the damn light off, you old kook.”

I grabbed the curtains around Yaya’s bed and pulled them, closing us off as best as I could from the other person in the room.

“How did you get in here?” Yaya’s eyes were wide.

“The nurses are . . . distracted right now. Yaya, Achilles took Tad, I have to go see Zeus in about an hour, and I don’t know if he’ll help me. I don’t know what to do. What if Tad is already—”

“Hush, he isn’t. I’d know.”

“You would?” I sat on the edge of her bed and took her hand. “How?”

“I’m his grandmother. I would know if he died. Just like I knew when Owen slipped away from us.”

“Yaya, I have no idea where to start looking for Tad. And I know it’s going to be a trap, but—”

“Listen to me. You’re going to go to Zeus. He will fill you in on what he can. While he can be difficult, he won’t lie to you. I think.”

I grimaced. “Well, that’s comforting.”

She shrugged. “The pantheon can’t be trusted, most especially when they say, ‘Trust me.’ Achilles has the weaponry to kill you, Alena, just as you have the weaponry to kill him.”

I bit back the desire to say I didn’t want to kill him. He had Tad.

And I would do anything to save my brother, even if it meant I would damn what was left of my soul to hell.

“Where would he go, Yaya? You know Achilles, don’t you?”

She sighed. “I know of him. I’m old, but not that old, you cheeky girl. Achilles is prideful, like all the heroes. He will want to make an example and a spectacle of you. The bigger the better.”

I clutched her hand. “That doesn’t really give me an idea of where he might be.”

“Somewhere with a TV feed,” Yaya said. “He’ll want as many people as possible to see how wonderful he is.”

My mind raced with the possibilities. Or lack thereof. “How do I . . . kill him?” The words were hard to say, and she tightened her hand on mine.

“Your fangs will be the best bet. Unless he’s got a satyr right with him, there is no one who could heal him.” She patted my hand. “You can do this, Alena. You are stronger than you realize. In every way. Only someone with the heart of a lion could be turned into a Drakaina; the change is not something easily done.”

“How do you know that?”

“Merlin came to visit me earlier. He said there was no one in the world who could have been turned into the Drakaina besides you.” She frowned. “Then he spouted off some nonsense that the only way our world was going to survive was if the monsters came back. Then again, he is a magician and they are always full of riddles.”

From the other side of the room came a shuffling footstep. “You two better shut up or I’ll page the nurses!”

I glared at the silhouette against the curtain and snapped, “They won’t like you bothering them right now. They’re watching porn.”

Yaya’s roommate gasped, and I heard a distant buzzer go off. “I’d better go.” I bent and kissed her forehead.

She clutched at my hand. “One last thing. Forgive your mother. She has a reason for being the way she is, even if she isn’t ready to tell you yet.”

I gave her a quick nod. “I’m trying.”

Without another word I slipped between the curtains and out into the hall. The nurses were headed my way. The only hope I had was to distract them. “The old man, he’s trying to jump out the window!”

One ran toward the room; the other moved to the desk and pointed at me. “Don’t you go anywhere, I’m calling security.”

I held my hands up. “Of course not.”

As soon as she looked down, I ran for the hall, hit the door I’d broken, and was in the stairwell. In seconds I was on the main floor, running across the open entranceway and out the doors. Steven the receptionist waved frantically at me.

“Call me!” I yelled over my shoulder.

“Okay, but wait, I don’t have your number!”