“Your son” Her arms tightened around the baby, and a mockery of a smile curled across her lips. “You must be mistaken. The only child in this room belongs to me.”

Without another word, she walked through the door in a cloud of victory, leaving me empty and utterly alone.

She wouldn’t take his life—that meant there was still time. But how long would it take before she got tired of obeying Cronus and killed the baby just to watch me bleed

I had to get to him. I had to save him. Even if Calliope didn’t touch a hair on his head, the thought of him being raised by that monster, twisted into something black and beyond recognition—if my time in the Underworld had taught me anything, that kind of life was infinitely worse than the peace of death.

Desperation clawed at me, tearing me up from the inside out, and I slowly turned toward Cronus.

His queen. My life, my choices, my freedom for my son’s.

“Please,” I said, hiccupping. “I’ll do anything.”