“Sure you do,” Alia said. She was standing right next to them in her dress of gold scales, Theo beside her, his hand still at her waist. Her dark eyes were wide and startled, the pain in them a palpable thing. “You think I killed them.”
“Alia, no, that isn’t what I meant—”
“Then what did you mean, Jason?”
Diana hated herself for being so thoughtless, for losing herself in the questions Jason had posed.
“I—I only—” Jason stuttered. “I didn’t—”
“That’s what I thought.”
Alia turned on her heel and fled through the crowd.
Theo shook his head, looking at Jason as if he were a stranger. “Why would you say something like that?”
“It’s complicated,” Jason bit out. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Theo flinched as if Jason had struck him.
“Probably not,” he said with an attempt at a disinterested shrug.
“I need to go find her,” Jason said. “She’s not—”
“No,” said Diana. “I’ll go.”
“I’m her brother—”
And I understand what it’s like to feel like your crime is just existing. Diana turned and hurried through the crowd before Jason could finish.
“Alia!” she called, wending through the partygoers.
Alia stumbled but kept moving. When she reached an empty corner near the back of the room, she leaned against the wall and shucked off her shoes, collecting them in one hand. With the other, she batted at the tears that had begun to fall.
Diana thought of Alia emerging from the bathroom in her golden mail, shoulders back, head held like a queen, and felt that something lovely had been lost.
She approached slowly, afraid Alia might take off running again. She said nothing as she took up a place against the wall beside her, and for a long while, they stood in silence, looking out at the partygoers, hidden by shadows broken by slices of colored light. She hesitated, unsure of where to start, but Alia spoke first.
“Why didn’t they send me away?” she said, a flood of fresh tears coursing over her cheeks. “If my parents knew what I was, why didn’t they send me somewhere I couldn’t hurt them?”
This at least was a place to begin. “You don’t know that you caused the accident.”
“Jason thinks I did.”
“Jason was just talking, trying to ease his own mind. He doesn’t blame you. He loves you.”
“How could he not blame me?” A sob caught in her throat. “I blame me.”
Diana struggled for words that might soothe her, and the only ones she found were those she’d whispered to herself when the island had felt too small, when Tek’s barbs had felt too sharp. “We can’t help the way we’re born. We can’t help what we are, only what life we choose to make for ourselves.”
Alia gave an angry shake of her head. “Tell me some part of you doesn’t wish you had never saved me,” she said. “You and I both know I should have died in that shipwreck.”
Hadn’t the Oracle said much the same thing? Diana had almost believed it then, but she refused to believe it now. “If you’d drowned that day, if you died now, it would only be a question of time until a new Warbringer was born. If we reach the spring—”
“So what if we reach the spring?” Alia said furiously, then lowered her voice as a woman in a black taffeta gown cast her a curious glance. She pushed off the wall and turned to Diana, dark eyes blazing. “So what if it fixes me or purges me or whatever? It won’t bring Dr. Ellis or Jasmine or the crew of the Thetis back. It won’t bring my mom and dad back.”
Diana took a breath and placed her hands on Alia’s shoulders, desperate to make her understand. “My whole life…my whole life people have been wondering if I had a right to be. Maybe I don’t. Maybe neither of us should exist, but we’re here now. We have this chance, and maybe that isn’t a coincidence. Maybe we’re the ones who were meant to break this cycle. Together.” Alia held her gaze, and Diana hoped her words were reaching her. “Your parents thought there might be a way to turn your power, the legacy of the Warbringer’s blood, to something good. By going to the spring, you’re fulfilling that promise in a different way.”
Alia pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes as if trying to shove back her tears. “Diana, swear to me that if we don’t make it, that if something happens, you’ll end this. I can’t be the reason the world goes to hell.”
Diana dropped her hands. I’m going to need you to kill me. She’d hoped those words had been spoken in haste, that they were the result of shock and Alia would abandon such thoughts. “I can’t do that. I…I won’t commit murder.”
“You pulled me from the wreck,” Alia said, her voice hard with resolve. “You took me off that island. You can’t ask me to live with all the rest.”
A sick sensation settled in Diana’s gut. Making this vow would mean turning her back on everything she’d been taught to believe. That life was sacred. That when it seemed violence was the only choice, there was always another. But Alia needed strength to continue, and maybe this grim excuse for hope was the only way to give her that.
“Then we make a pact,” Diana said, though the words felt wrong in her mouth. “You agree to fight with everything you have to make it to that spring.”
“All right. And if it isn’t enough?”
Diana took a deep breath. “Then I will spare the world and take your life. But I want your word.”
“You’ve got it.”
“No, not a mortal vow. I want the oath of an Amazon.”
Alia’s eyes widened. “A what?”
“Those are my people. Women born of war, destined to be ruled by no one but themselves. We make this pact with their words. Agreed?” Alia nodded, and Diana placed her fist over her heart. “Sister in battle, I am shield and blade to you. As I breathe, your enemies will know no sanctuary. While I live, your cause is mine.”
Alia placed her own hand over her heart and repeated the words, and as she did, Diana felt the power of the oath surround them, binding them together. It was a vow Diana had shared with no one else, one that might make her a killer. But she did not let her gaze falter.
“All right,” said Alia on a shuddering breath. “Let’s find Jason and get the hell out of here.”
That was when the air tore open around them. A loud, staccato clamor filled Diana’s ears. She knew that sound; she recognized it from the vision she’d glimpsed in the Oracle’s waters. Gunfire.
Diana covered Alia’s body with her own, hurling them both to the ground as the ugly cacophony of gunshots filled the gallery, battering her senses. It was so much louder than in the vision.
“Alia—” she began, but her words were smothered by a thunderous boom.
The vast wall of windows shattered, dropping to the floor in a cascade of glass.
Diana kept Alia’s body shielded, jagged bits of glass peppering her back and shoulders like wasp stings as people cried out around them.
Men in black body armor were rappelling in through the huge hole where the windows had been. They dropped to the floor near the reflecting pool as party guests scattered, screaming and racing for the doors, gunshots echoing through the room.
Diana dragged Alia behind the shelter of a table. “We have to get out of here.”
“The others—” protested Alia.
The men were advancing from the opposite side of the gallery, tossing guests out of the way as they shone lights in the faces of the bodies that had fallen, examining their features.
They were clearly looking for someone—someone they didn’t intend to take alive—and Diana knew she and Alia didn’t have long.
She could smell the fear-tinged sweat of the partygoers, feel her heart racing in her chest, as if she’d woken suddenly from sleep. She tugged at the knots in the shawl Nim had made of her lasso. There wasn’t time to untangle them all. The one weapon she had was useless.
“We can’t just stay pinned down here,” Diana said, shrugging off the knotted rope and tying it around her waist to keep it from constricting her movements. “We have to make a break for the doors.”