Helene spends the week before the Calling Ball breaking us down and building us up with details we need to know to survive it. Such as, Xavier's wife, Posey, is a stickler for protocol, including us curtseying to her.
“No one curtseys anymore, but she demands it,”Helene imparts as we toss a 15-pound medicine ball around between us. Cat nearly topples over when Helene lobs it to her.
Helene focuses on me and Zara, trying to get us into shape. She mostly ignores Cat, which Zara finds strange. Zara is the only person out of all of us who doesn’t know Cat isn’t really in the running. Helene is hardest on me, at one point pushing me over during yoga while I’m balancing in Tree Pose.
I collapse on the ground and stare up at her with fury in my eyes.
“Do better, Daphne. You should be as sturdy as a tree, that’s the fucking point of the pose.” The next time she tries it, I close my eyes and try to brace myself, envisioning I am rooted to the ground, and I don’t fall.
The hierarchy of the gods is the most important thing she drills into us. Xavier is at the top, the God of Gods, as he calls himself. On the same level, though Xavier hates to admit it, are Helene’s husband, Kai, and Essos. In the court hierarchy, they are the three kings, and not even the God Supreme ranks above them. The God Supreme has more raw power than them but would bow to his sons and son-in-law. Galen, the baby, falls into the fodder with all the other gods, only given a distinction as a brother of kings.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love my daddy, and I do mean that literally and not as a cute nickname for my husband, but that deadbeat can’t be trusted to brush his own teeth, let alone govern a kingdom,” she says between blowing a whistle for box jumps.
While Helene is harder on me, Zara seems to be the one more in need of help, so Cat tries to aid her when Helene is focused on bullying me. A hateful, jealous part of me gets a little thrill at seeing Zara winded. We have patched our relationship, but it doesn’t change that she’s my chief competition. I want to question that angry little voice in my head—what does it matter if Essos picks her if I want Galen?—but it fights back, refusing to let go of the way he looks at her.
Helene lets us know that Xavier hates her husband. “He thinks that as King of the Gods, anything and everything should want to screw him. I’m his twin, not his concubine. Besides, my husband is a god in his own right, and a total babe.”
As much as she is willing to gossip about Xavier and Posey and their marital problems, she offers us nothing about Essos or Galen. She rebuffs Zara when she pushes for more information about Essos’s love life.
“As I told Daphne, you have to ask Essos.”She is immovable on this point, the way she has been since we first met her.
She focuses more on the interpersonal rather than grander-scale details. She does confirm that a family member started each of the world wars over a petty disagreement, and that many of the large worldly disagreements can be traced back to their family or offshoots.
Helene works with us and beside us, making sure that we are prepared in ways that Xavier and Sybil didn’t. We are coming away armed with information we will need. Cat is rightfully annoyed that we spent the first few months learning none of this. Our time was wasted parading around in dresses, ignorant of all the things that mattered.
On the last day, Helene relents for several relaxing hours of yoga and massages. We sit in a mud bath she conjures for us on the beach, unable to move, not just from the mud but also from the pure exhaustion.
“Since I have your full and undivided attention… What I really have to say is, don’t fuck up tomorrow. It was nice knowing you all and nice to see us finally get to this point for once. You each make my brother happy, and I am hoping to see this through to completion.” She gives me a wink. “I actually have my own preparations to make for tomorrow, so I’ll get out of your hair. Relax for the rest of the day, just the three of you, because after tomorrow, you may never see each other again. Toodles!”
She skips off into the house, leaving us sitting there with her words sinking in. I meet Cat’s eyes across the mud bath, mad that most of our final month was stripped from us. Helene worked us so hard that each night, we didn’t even want to chitchat—we just passed out.
“What do you think she meant by never see each other again? You don’t think Essos will let you stay?” Zara tries to lift her arm, but it’s stuck in the mud.
I cast a sympathetic look in her direction. I don’t have a plan, but if things wind up the way Galen wants, I don’t know what will happen. I exist in Essos’s world, stuck between life and death. If the ball will unlock my memories, will that return me to my former state of life? If I reject him, I assume that means he will ask Zara to be his partner. I like to think Essos would indulge his new queen and let Cat stick around for emotional support. They’re still good friends, if not in the same way Cat and I are.
Would Cat want to stay? She’s here for me, but if I’m not here, will she pass on? I haven’t been able to see Galen alone all week to ask him what to expect from the ball, and what comes next.
I’ll never be able to get back the nights this complaint stripped us of, so I plan to make our last night together time just for us girls.
CHAPTER30
That night, we are exhausted. Essos and Xavier are working hard on arranging the menus and tables and making the house ready for an influx of gods. I overheard Essos trying to put it off, but Xavier insisted, saying that his wife demanded it since he doesn’t do anything anyway. Because of the sheer amount of people who will be in attendance, some of the prep work is being done the mortal way. The dining room is being prepared for the ball, so we eat on plates in the living room, sitting on the couches and on the floor.
Galen stops by and observes us from the doorway as the three of us struggle to lift our arms to eat. “What has gotten into you three?” he asks. While Essos and Xavier have had their heads bent over seating charts, he’s been noticeably absent. I don’t know where Galen went each day; we never saw him on the beach, but he always returned at mealtimes.
“Helene has—” Zara begins.
“Left us with grueling exercise routines that we’ve been doing, and it’s exhausting,” I cut her off, throwing her a look.
Essos and Xavier walk in together in time for the end of my complaint. Essos catches my eye, but I pretend not to notice.
“Good,” Xavier says, sipping from his glass tumbler. “My wife is going to eat you all alive.” There’s a vicious gleam in his eyes.
I narrow my eyes at him, mentally noting that, in the library, he didn’t tell us his wife would want us to curtsey to her and address her by her formal title—Her Royal Majesty, Lady Posey, Queen of the Gods, Goddess of Mothers. Hardly seems sporting that he set us up to fail.
I heft myself up and go into the deserted kitchen to refill my drink. With everyone preparing for the ball, I don’t want to disturb the staff. We have a separate section set up exclusively where we can serve ourselves away from the bustle of their preparations.
Galen follows me into the kitchen and grabs my hand, spinning me around to face him. He brings his hands to my face, cupping it gently. For a moment, I think he’s going to kiss me, but instead, I get another memory.