“Screw the odds,” Lucas said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “That’s not what bothers me.” His eyes skipped around as he thought. “What I want to know is who’s going to challenge you, and why is Hades taking the trouble to prepare you to fight back? What does he really want?”
Helen shrugged. “I don’t know. I could ask, but I doubt he’d tell me in a way I’d understand. Hades doesn’t do easy answers.”
“I’ll bet,” Lucas mumbled, still thinking.
Helen reached for the guitar and slowly nudged it into his hands. He was onto her, though.
“Is this a hint?”
“A big fat one.” Helen grinned at him.
Lucas plucked a few strings and grimaced, tightening and loosening knobs as he went. “Figures. You’re so tone-deaf even your perfectly constructed guitars are out of tune.” Helen’s body crumpled as she laughed at the pained look on Lucas’s face. “And this guitar is strung for a leftie. I’m not Matt, you know.”
“Here, let me fix it.” Helen concentrated, and all the strings rearranged themselves. Lucas strummed the guitar and rolled his eyes when it made a comical twanging sound.
“It’s out of tune again.”
“You did that on purpose,” she said, grabbing his toe and squeezing it. “Just play!”
“Yes, your goddess-ness.”
Lying on her side, the warm fire at her feet, Helen’s laughter died away as Lucas suddenly went from tuning to playing.
It was like an orchestra in an instrument.
He played with both hands—not one hand picking and the other holding down strings—but with both hands so that it sounded like more than one guitar was playing. Sometimes he hit the strings to make them hum like a harp, and sometimes he hit the body of the guitar like a drum to add bass and keep time. It was the most fascinating thing Helen had ever watched, like Lucas had a dozen voices in his head, all singing the same song, and he’d figured a way to make them come out of ten fingers.
Helen looked at his face and could tell why he loved it. It was like thinking for him, only this was a puzzle that he could share with her as he solved it.
He’d walked into her head when he’d come to her world. And she’d walked into his when she finally heard him play.
It was heaven.
“Where have you been?” Helen scolded.
“Waiting, forlorn and heartbroken, for your return,” Morpheus answered languidly, his silver eyes melting into hers.
She laughed and squeezed his hand. Helen and Lucas had fallen asleep in front of the fire, and she’d woken up in the shadow lands, lying on her back, shoulder to shoulder with the god of dreams. Their faces were turned to each other, and their hands tightly entwined.
“Little sneak. How did you know I needed your help?” she asked.
“You brought yourself here. I can’t make you come here, all I can do is leave the door open for you.”
“Is that what you did?” Helen said, thinking about the different borders that Hades had made for his world, and Morpheus had made for his. Hades left the door open for the dead, and Morpheus left the door open for dreaming minds.
Helen turned her head and looked up into the night sky of Morpheus’ Dream Palace. Her head was cradled in inky silk pillows, and the strange follow-me-lights that looked like a candle flame inside a soap bubble danced over her and her host like they wanted to play.
“Are the borders of our worlds separate from the world itself?”
“I suppose so. Minds come and go, ruffling my hair on the breeze as they let themselves into and out of my land, but they do not control my land once they are here. I make the dreams,” Morpheus replied.
“But in Hades it’s the opposite,” Helen remarked, on the edge of understanding. “The borders are hard to cross—you usually have to kill yourself to do it, but once inside his world, you make your own existence. Or at least I did when I was there.”
“I’ve never thought of it this way, but yes, I’d say the borders are separate from the world. They follow a different set of rules, but they are still controlled by the maker.” Then he regarded her with narrowed eyes. “What’s troubling my Beauty so much she must come to me to talk philosophy?”
“I need your help. Who is going to challenge me, now that I’ve built my world, Morpheus?”
“Olympus. Zeus, mostly. In the past, the small gods challenged some of the other Worldbuilders while the Olympians were trapped by Zeus’ oath.” Morpheus chuckled. “Odysseus really was a clever one.”