“It refers to the original meaning,” said Jason. “From the Greek. To dissolve. To break apart.”
“Procatalysia,” Diana murmured. “She who comes before the world dissolves.”
Alia clamped her lips shut. A cold sweat had broken over her skin, and her clothes suddenly felt too tight. She thought she might be sick. Her eyes registered the horrors on the screen, but her mind was full of other images, too. The riot in Central Park when she and Nim had gone to that free concert. The brawl that had broken out at the junior dance. Nim and Theo, usually so cheerful and easygoing, screaming at each other in the backseat when they’d all tried to drive up to Maine together. The arguments—so many arguments and breakups and accusations that had seemed to come from nowhere. Class debates that turned nasty. Teachers who suddenly went into a rage. Mr. Kagikawa had slapped Kara Munro. They’d all been shocked. He’d been fired. But then they’d forgotten, gone on with their lives.
Alia had never thought to question it. That was just the way life worked. It was why she liked being home, why she didn’t like crowds. The world was a hostile place. Maybe she’d been sorry she and Nim didn’t seem to be able to hold on to friends, told herself it would get better when she went to college. She’d spent more time on her own and convinced herself that was a choice. But had she ever added it up?
Recently, she’d felt the tension rising around her, and she’d hoped that a change of scene, getting out of New York, would help. Then things had been just as bad aboard the Thetis. In fact, even on the flight to Istanbul, the passengers had been snapping at one another. Again that voice in Alia’s head had clamored, Go home. Hit reset. Things got loud and ugly out in the world. But what if that wasn’t the case? What if things had only been that way in her world?
On the screen, a woman ran from a burning building. She held the limp body of a child in her arms. Her clothes were smeared with blood, and her mouth was open in a silent howl. I did that.
Alia stumbled past Jason and Diana, bolting for the bathroom. Her knees knocked painfully against the tiles as she collapsed to the floor and vomited a sludge of candy and bile into the toilet.
Warbringer. Procatalysia. Haptandra. They could call it whatever they wanted. It sounded a lot like monster. She couldn’t remember much about the Trojan War. She’d thought it was all mythology, old poetry. She’d thought Helen was just a character from a story. Maybe she was. And maybe Alia was a character in a story, too. The kind that got people killed. The monster that had to be put down.
“Al?” Jason asked quietly from the doorway.
“Don’t call me that,” she muttered into the bowl, flushing away the mess she’d made.
“Alia—”
She didn’t look at him when she asked, “Do you believe I’m…do you think it’s true?”
He was quiet for a while. “I think it might be,” he said at last. “Yes.”
“Because Mom and Dad believed it?”
“That’s part of it. Some of the work they were doing…They had a team searching out ancient battlegrounds, looking for the blood of ancient heroes and kings, extracting biological material. They believed, Alia. They thought they could do good with the knowledge. And they wanted to protect you. I wanted to protect you.”
“So all this time—”
“The threats to our family have always been real. But—”
“But you knew people might come for me, try to kill me before I could, y’know, destroy the world.”
“Yes.”
Alia pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. She felt ridiculous sprawled there on the bathroom floor, elbows resting on the edge of a toilet bowl, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. She kept seeing that woman running from the flames. She could feel the limp weight of the child clutched in her arms. “Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
She heard footsteps, and then Jason was crouching beside her. He put his arm around her shoulders. “Yes, it would. Wars happen, Alia. Even in generations when no Warbringer was born, people still found plenty of excuses to kill each other. And you know what? Humanity survived it all. Maybe Mom and Dad were right, or maybe it’s all just a legend, but the one thing I know is they told me to keep you safe, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
Alia shrugged him off, forcing herself to her feet. “What makes you so sure you can?” She picked up her toothbrush and squirted a huge dollop from the travel-sized toothpaste they’d bought, scrubbing the sour taste from her mouth. “Someone blew up my boat. They killed innocent people to get to me.”
“The company owns a cabin up in Canada. It’s isolated, secure. We’ll go there, try to figure out what’s happening, if there’s a way to fix this.”
“I’m sorry,” Diana said from the hall. “I can’t allow that.”
Jason whirled on her. “If you try to hurt her—”
“I risked my life to save her,” Diana said. “I risked everything.”
“Then you should know the safest place for her is far away from all of this.”
“There’s a spring in Therapne, near the boundaries of ancient Sparta. If Alia bathes in its waters before the sun sets on the first of Hekatombaion, the world need not suffer an age of bloodshed, and the cycle of Warbringers will be broken.”
“Therapne?” said Jason. “In Greece? Are you out of your mind?”
“Alia,” Diana said softly. “Please.”
Alia met Diana’s gaze in the mirror. She’d pulled her from the waters. Brought her back to life. I risked everything. And what if Diana was right? What if there was a way to stop this? What if Alia could fix this instead of letting the world descend into war?
As if sensing her thoughts, Jason said, “No. Absolutely not. I’ve never even heard of a spring. It wasn’t in any of the files Mom and Dad left.”
“The spring is real,” said Diana. “It’s near the Menelaion, where Helen was laid to rest.”
“I’m not dragging Alia halfway across the world and betting her life on a magical spring.”
Now Alia raised a brow. “You think I’m a walking, talking teenage apocalypse, but you draw the line at a magical spring?”
“It’s too big a risk.”
He didn’t believe Diana; why should he? He hadn’t witnessed what Alia had. Alia didn’t know what was real or imagined anymore, what was fiction or fact. And it didn’t matter. This was her reality now. “It’s a risk,” she said. “But it’s my risk to take.”
“How much do you even know about this girl?” Jason said, waving at Diana. “We have to be careful. People—”
“She doesn’t want our money, Jason. She isn’t a reporter. She isn’t a gold digger. She saved my life.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to go traipsing off to Greece with her. I forbid—”
Alia turned and jabbed a finger at his chest. “You do not want to finish that sentence. Jason, you’re my big brother and I love you, but this is on me. I’m the one who has to live with being the biggest mass murderer of all time if this plays out the way you seem to think it will. You can’t expect me to just go hide in the wilderness.”
“Alia,” he said desperately, “this isn’t your responsibility. We go to Canada. Wait it out. We—”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Diana, but we only get one shot at this, right?”
“Yes,” said Diana. “You must reach the spring before the sun sets on the first day of Hekatombaion. After that—”
“After that a lot of people die.”
“That’s less than a week away!” Jason said.
“You weren’t on that boat. Those people would be alive if it wasn’t for me. I’m going to have to live with that forever. I’m not going to have Armageddon on my conscience, too. You can lock me up. You can try to stop me, but I’m going to do this.”
“No,” Jason said, hands cutting through the air in a decisive gesture. “I made a promise to Mom and Dad. You don’t know—”
“Are you so sure you can stop us?” said Diana.
“Beg your pardon?”
Alia almost laughed at the indignant look on his face.