My Date From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy, #2)

Famous Last Words (Part 1)

We returned to the living room to find Theo and Festos still crammed onto the loveseat. Hannah and Pierce leaned together over by the dance machine. Pierce looked dazed. Actually, Hannah did too. And her lips were tinted red.

Normally, I would have had to comment but I was still taking calming breaths to steady myself.

"Eros," Festos said to Pierce, "look at your hidden talents. Who knew?"

"Back off," Hannah and Theo said in unison.

Festos grinned at them. "Kidding." He batted his eyes at Theo for good measure.

Theo studied my face as I took a seat on the long, red leather sofa. "What happened?"

Kai sat beside me. "She remembers."

Hannah rejoined us, choosing a wide, modern chair. Pierce perched on the arm.

My friends' expression hovered between concern and relief.

"We were talking," I began.

"Is that another euphemism?" Festos asked.

Hannah turned on him. "Do you need an intervention, smut brain?"

Theo seemed delighted that someone else had snapped at Festos, who made a snarky face at Hannah and looked away.

"Seriously, Fee?" I exhaled hard. Getting the memories back really was a happy occasion. Just somewhat enormous.

Kai tucked me into the crook of his arm, glowering at anyone he thought might upset me. Right now, that meant Festos.

"It was a heavy talk." I scrunched up my face. "Now that I think about it, any time a memory has ever come back to me, it was when I felt emotional or stressed."

Hannah pursed her lips, thinking it over. "It correlates. High emotion is stressful. And it could have been a trigger for overriding the memory spell, at least temporarily."

"Not to mention, the memory spell wasn't working at 100% efficiency anymore, thanks to Kyrillos' original kiss. That facilitated its dissolution now," Pierce pointed out.

"Exactly." She shot him the tiniest grin of delight that he had followed her deductions.

I predicted their long and happy future together.

"If you had put yourself into a vulnerable state during this talk," she glanced at me for confirmation and continued at my nod, "it seems your heightened stress levels were enough to cast off the spell once and for all." She stretched her legs out, looking pleased.

"What exactly did you remember?" Festos asked, sounding as if maybe I'd broken my brain after all.

"All of it." I drummed my fingers on my thighs, eager to get on with everything, now that I had Persephone's knowledge at my disposal. "It's coming to me in pieces, but somehow I know it's all there."

"Kind of like a pre-consciousness," Hannah said.

I nodded, restless now. "Sure. Whatever that means."

"When your thoughts seem like they're unconscious or buried, but they're not," she explained. "They can be recalled. Become conscious to you again."

"Yes. That. I'll have to sort through it all but I have Persephone's memories."

"You did well." Kai nuzzled the side of my neck. Not the happy spot side, which was probably good, given the circumstances.

I still squirmed and blushed.

"Oh, she's going to be intolerable now," Hannah said.

Pierce leaned over and whispered something in her ear.

Hannah turned beet red.

Theo rolled his eyes. "Moving on. Where are you and Kai supposed to do the ritual?"

"Wait!" Festos headed over to his laptop, his limp more pronounced since he hadn't bothered to bring his cane, and hit a key. Greek music played. He motioned for me to continue.

"Eleusis," I said automatically. I grinned. "The location! We have it."

Theo and Festos immediately started conspiring about how they were going to ward it up and the amount of blood they'd need to draw from Kai and me.

I glanced at Kai but he gave me a reassuring smile.

"So where's Eleusis?" I asked.

Festos limped into the kitchen. He began rummaging through the drawers.

Five pairs of incredulous eyes shot my way.

"Fine. Guessing it's in Greece."

"Geez, Soph," Hannah groused, "sometimes I think the only reason you wanted those memories back was so that you wouldn't have to do any research."

"Hi-larious."

She certainly thought so. As did those other unsupportive jerks.

Festos returned with a large, overflowing first aid kit. He set it on the coffee table and dropped heavily into the free space beside me, rubbing his leg.

I glanced at him with concern, but he waved me off.

"You and I are going to have a very long talk, and lay out exactly what we know and what we still need to learn," Theo told me.

"Ward it first, please," I said, holding out my arm for Festos to swab. I hoped he didn't need to take too much blood from me to create the wards. "Let's get a jump on the dads, otherwise ..." I shuddered.

"You might as well set humans out on the curb and call them trash," Festos said, cheerfully. He waved a hand at me. "On it, honeybunch."

He pulled out a plastic package with a needle inside it.

Theo put a hand to Festos' arm to stop him. "It's nice you want to help, but I still haven't agreed to the date."