For a long time it’s hard to tell who has the advantage—everything’s unfolding too quickly, too chaotically. But I can see that Minthe’s made the ice form around her arms and hands like barbed, transparent armor. As she slashes at Phoebus’s face and chest, more floating, cudgel-like balls of ice beat at his head and back, but he seems almost unphased by it. When I catch a glimpse of his eyes, I think I might understand why.

They’re glowing, like the lightning I’d thought had fizzled out. But now that I’m focusing on it, I see that his entire body is faintly luminescent. As if he’s absorbed that energy. Been empowered by it.

But just as it looks like he’s about to have her pinned, Minthe shrieks. I can feel the power in the air as her energy gathers around her, then surges outward—drawing even more ice to her. Condensing it all into one massive, cudgel-like slab, two and a half times my height in length at least. But as it rushes through the air towards him, his glow flares suddenly brighter—and then so white-hot I have to close my eyes and shield them with my arm to protect my vision. When I open them again, the cudgel‘s been reduced to a mess of melting chunks, and Phoebus’s jaws are locked around her throat.

“Stand down! The match is won!” Announces Dean Hestia. “Phoebus Tiber wins. Kore Demeter Hades goes to Fraternity Lýkos.”

I start to get up, awkward and unsure of what I’m supposed to do, but Syn takes my arm gently and tugs me back down.

“After Assembly, everyone meets at their respective Fraternity houses. I thought you read your guidebook?”

“I must have forgotten that part,” I frown. It’s not like me, but I’ve been distracted in more ways than one lately.

By the time all the new students have their fraternity assignments, I’ve nearly forgotten I’m at a school assembly and not some gladiatorial tournament. The arena—or stage, or whatever it is—is spattered with blood and even bits of viscera, but Dean Hestia is unphased as she steps back out to the center of the otherwise empty space. What follows is rather boring by comparison. Reminders of important school rules, events and procedures for new students and other things of that nature. She closes out with some elegant formalities and final welcomes.

Then we’re dismissed, and I rise along with everyone else to follow Syn’s lead to Lýkos House. I’m just out of the amphitheater exit when a familiar voice calls my name, and I catch sight of strawberry-gold curls a little ways off through the crowd, headed in my direction. Syn bristles beside me, Overkill immediately taking up a defensive position as his back piece separates to guard the vulnerable space behind me.

“Kore,” Minthe breathes when she finally breaks through the wall of people to stand before my guardian. Syn opens his mouth, probably to correct her choice of address or tell her to fuck off—but I put up a hand to forestall him.

“I need to speak to you in private, before you go to Lýkos,” says Minthe, eyes widening slightly in response to my letting her speak. “Please,” she adds, the word grating through her teeth as though it pains her to speak it.

“Why?”

“If I could say that, we wouldn’t need privacy, would we?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t think being late to my fraternity’s first gathering would leave the best impression.”

“It’s important.”

I throw a glance over at Syn. He jerks his head slightly to one side, jaw set in a grim line.

“Let’s arrange to do it at a better time,” I say. “Later.” Then, turning from her, I make to rejoin the stream of young Variants heading back to central campus. There’s a rush of movement behind me and I whirl back around to find Overkill much closer than he was a moment before, arm flung out to block Minthe’s path. I step up to her until there’s little more than his arm and a few handspans of space between us.

“What is it, Minthe?”

Her eyes dart to the sides, then narrow—lips curving sharply downward at the corners.

“All I can say here is be careful. And…I’m sorry I lost you. We could have protected you. But Lýkos?” She scoffs, looking for a moment like she might spit on the ground at the thought of them. Someone passing by to our left scowls, one of my fratmates, no doubt. “Don’t be fooled by what you saw today. Their President’s the only truly powerful one of the lot, and he’s, well…you’ll see.” Her lips twist, like she’s tasted something bitter.

For half a heartbeat I just stare. I don’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t that. I take a deep breath. I can’t let her derail me. Not on my first day. Not this easily.

“I don’t need my fraternity to protect me. I’ve got Overkill,” I say, patting the Synthe in question on the arm. “And I’ve got myself. But I do appreciate the concern.” Then, before she can answer me, I turn from her again, already walking away with Syn at my side and Overkill’s hovering half just behind me when I call over my shoulder to her.

“Have a nice night.”

~*~

Every time I pass a fraternity house on our way across campus, I get excited. Is that the one, with the three-tiered wrap-around balcony and the greenhouse at the top? Nope, guess not. Oh, is that it? Maybe If I end up moving in someday I can live up in that little crow’s nest…oh, no, not that one either. How far away is this place?

Very far, it turns out. All the way on the opposite end of campus, well apart from the others. The buildings here are old, and obviously haven’t been touched by any of the recent renovation efforts…nor do they look particularly well-preserved. The force-fields flicker in places, letting in erratic bursts of wind, and the statues are cracked beneath their layers of icy armor.

We round the corner of a long out-of-use building, and there it is.

The most run-down house I’ve seen on campus so far. And that’s a feat—considering it’s carved directly and entirely from the stone of a rocky upthrust. The ice is thinner on its walls, thanks to the warmth from inside. Layers of colorful graffiti in a thousand different styles are visible beneath its translucent surface, and in some places the ice has been scraped away completely to make room for fresh art.

An enormous pair of stone wolves flank the entryway to either side. The place was grand, once. Very grand. Still is—in a crusty, decrepit sort of way. I smile as I walk up to the door, reaching a hand out to brush it lightly across the right wolf’s flank, where someone’s painted a lovingly detailed phallus soaring on a set of hot pink wings.

Just as I’m reaching out to pull the door’s huge ring-latch, it bursts open.

“Ah,” says Phoebus, stepping through the door to hold it open for me as the members crowded behind him part to make way. “It’s our new resident royal, her most glorious ladyship, the Queen of Hades!”

“You mean our newest little squishy baby child,” corrects someone behind him, and though I can’t quite see their face, I can hear the smirk in their voice.

“Kore works,” I say, smiling and feeling painfully awkward as the President ushers me inside and shuts the door behind us.

“Ah, then welcome, Kore! Welcome to the lowest ranking of all Fraternities.”

“Lowest of the low,” says the person behind them who’d spoken up earlier, stepping forward now.

“Worst of the worst,” says another who leans against the wall on the opposite side of the receiving hall. They look almost exactly the same as the last, though their eyes are black where the other’s are crimson. Both are tall and bulky, dressed in black and gray with silvery skin, multiple ear piercings, and dark auburn hair.

“I’m Thanatos,” says the first.

“Hypnos,” says the black-eyed one. “That one’s older sibling,” they jab a finger unnecessarily at Thanatos, who rolls his eyes.

“They cracked you out of the ExoPom like, one second before me.”

“Still, though.”

“You know my name already, I think,” says Phoebus, grinning before he launches into introductions of the rest the members in the receiving hall. One of them—a tiny woman with fiery eyes and a mane of wild blond hair—practically vaults across the room when he gets to her.

“I’m Kestrel,” she says, before Phoebus can finish the first words of introduction. “I’m a sophomore. I’m so glad you’re here. This place has been such a frozen sausage fest.”

“Meat popsicles,” mutters Overkill from immediately behind me. Syn snorts, drawing the attention of the other students—and not for the first time. I’m not sure why, but it makes me nervous.

“You’re the one who keeps drawing dicks on everything,” says Thanatos, bringing the focus back to the blonde Variant. Kestrel laughs. Moments later, more laughter filters up from a nearby stairwell, and the President gestures for me to follow. We start down the stair, and the others fall in behind us. It’s dark, damp, and narrow—cold drops of water occasionally falling into my hair from the low ceiling. The raucous noise grows louder as we near the bottom. Bands of broken blue light wash across the stone at the end of the stair, painting my skin and clothes as I step down in Phoebus’s wake.

The space opens up around us—mostly to the sides, though, as the ceiling is lower. At least up here it is, anyway. A cavern lays before us, studded in places with stalactites, much of the stone between as colorful with graffiti here as it was outside. Roughly oval in shape, its got natural tiered levels, open at the center to reveal the cavern’s pit, aglow with a deep, cerulean pool.

“The grotto,” explains Phoebus, spreading his hands. “Best part of the whole place.”

Strategically draped plastic sheets cling to parts of the cavern ceiling and to the undersides of the tiers, protecting the mismatched furniture below from some of the moisture. There, many of the rest of the returning members are draped and lounging, most with drinks in hand, eyes on my little procession as we wind our way down. Others crowd around the edges of their levels—looking down to the pools edge where the rest of the newest fraternity members wait in a tense circle.

They’re able to make just enough room around the water for me. Syn and Overkill have to step back against the wall, but the latter’s detachable piece hovers directly behind me like some kind of overprotective, flying metal manta ray.

On the tier above, Phoebus positions himself on an outhrusting bit of stone, his voice amplified and echoing through the grotto.

“Prepare yourselves, initiates!” He booms. “It’s time for you all to meet Lýkos’ oldest and most esteemed member. To pay your respects!”

Quietly at first, but growing in volume, the returning members all begin to chant.

“Mother! Mother! Mother!”

Phoebus throws back his head and howls.

My attention turns—along with that of most of the other initiates—to the pool. The same small, translucent eels I remember from before twist in the waters below. But down at the bottom, in a huge hole at the far end, something else begins to stir.