CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
SILVIANA      DUVALL

Sylvie didn't see how it could get any worse. She had to go on a horrifying solo quest, she knew nothing except for her own name, and she was going to have to die with that. She was going to have to die, not knowing anything and not knowing anyone.

As the baby-blue scooter zipped through the streets of Rome, the goddess Rhea Silvia gave Sylvie a running commentary on how the city had changed over the centuries.

"The Sublician Bridge was over there," she said, pointing to a bend in the Tiber. "You know, where Horatius and his two friends defended the city from an invading army? Now, there was a brave Roman!"

"And look, dear," Tiberinus added, "that's the place where Romulus and Remus washed ashore."

He seemed to be talking about a spot on the riverside where some ducks were making a nest out of torn-up plastic bags and candy wrappers.

"Ah, yes," Rhea Silvia sighed happily. "You were so kind to flood yourself and wash my babies ashore for the wolves to find."

"It was nothing," Tiberinus said.

Sylvie felt light-headed. The river god was talking about something that had happened thousands of years ago, when this area was nothing but marshes and maybe some shacks. Tiberinus saved two babies, one of whom went on to found the world's greatest empire. It was nothing.

Rhea Silvia pointed out a large modern apartment building. "That used to be a temple to Venus. Then it was a church. Then a palace. Then an apartment building. It burned down three times. Now it's an apartment building again. And that spot right there—"

"Please," Sylvie said. "You're making me dizzy."

Rhea Silvia laughed. "I'm sorry, dear. Layers upon layers of history here, but it's nothing compared to Greece. Athens was old when Rome was a collection of mud huts. You'll see, if you survive."

"Not helping," Sylvie muttered.

"Here we are," Tiberinus announced.

He pulled over in front of a large marble building, the facade covered in city grime but still beautiful. Ornate carvings of Roman gods decorated the roofline. The massive entrance was barred with iron gates, heavily padlocked.

"I'm going in there?" Sylvie asked. This quest was seeming more hopeless by the second.

Rhea Silvia covered her mouth and giggled. "No, my dear. Not in it. Under it."

Tiberinus pointed to a set of stone steps on the side of the building—the sort that would have led to a basement apartment.

"Rome is chaotic aboveground," Tiberinus said, "but that's nothing compared to below ground. You must descend into the buried city, Sylvie. Find the altar of the foreign god. The failures of your predecessors will guide you. After that... I do not know."

That makes two of us, Sylvie wanted to say. She didn't. Instead, she elected to remind herself of the things she did know:

1.) Her name was Sylvie.

2.) Demeter was sending her off to restore the Demeter of Knidos.

3.) Gaea probably wanted to kill her.

Sylvie's backpack felt heavy on her shoulders. She'd been studying the bronze map for days now, scouring everything she could for information. Unfortunately, the few things she had learned made this quest seem even more impossible. "My siblings... none of them made it all the way to the shrine, did they?"

Tiberinus shook his head. "But you know what prize awaits, if you can liberate it."

"Yeah."

"It could bring peace to the children of Greece and Rome," Rhea Silvia said. "It could change the course of the coming war."

"If I live."

Tiberinus nodded sadly. "Because you also understand the guardian you must face?"

Sylvie swallowed thickly. "I understand that curses don't just abruptly appear. I understand they have to be placed by some strong power. Gaea mentioned her daughter."

Rhea Silvia looked at her husband. "She is brave. Perhaps she is stronger than the others."

"I hope so," said the river god. "Goodbye, Sylvie. And good luck. Just because none of your siblings could restore their memory, doesn't mean it's impossible for you to break the cycle."

Rhea Silvia beamed. "We have such a lovely afternoon planned! Off to ship!"

Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn sped off on their baby-blue motorbike. Then Sylvie turned and descended the steps alone.

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

As far as Sylvie's memory went, she couldn't remember ever being underground before. The realization—or lack of, really—squeezed fear into her heart. It was dark, and she was alone, and suddenly something made Sylvie freeze entirely. Timidity kept her glued in place.

Sylvie didn't understand what she was doing. She didn't comprehend how she was meant to succeed in this, when she couldn't even succeed in knowing who she was. If the final boss battle consisted of saying where she was even thirty minutes ago, Sylvie was done for.

Her head throbbed with the unknown. If there was anything more terrifying than going on a doomed quest alone, it was going on a doomed quest alone without any memory. Sylvie was left completely clueless in every aspect. She was so desperate for help that she blindly followed Tiberinus and Rhea Silvia.

What if this was a trick? she wondered. What if those other children of Demeter died because the two gods led them into a trap? Would Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn do something like that?

She forced herself to keep going. She had no choice. If the Demeter of Knidos was really down here, it could decide the fate of the war. People needed her. The gods needed her. Without any memories, that was all Sylvie was useful for right now.

At the bottom of the steps, she reached an old wooden door with an iron pull ring. Above the ring was a metal plate with a keyhole. Sylvie started considering ways to pick the lock, but as soon as she touched the pull ring, a glowing shape grew in the middle of the door: an ivy vine. The door swung inward.

Sylvie looked up one last time. At the top of the stairwell, the sky was a square of brilliant blue. Mortals would be enjoying the warm afternoon. Couples would be holding hands at the cafés. Tourists would be bustling through the shops and museums. Regular Romans would be going about their daily business, probably not considering the thousands of years of history under their feet, and definitely unaware of the spirits, gods, and monsters that still dwelt here, or the fact that their city might be destroyed today.

Sylvie stepped through the doorway.

She found herself in a basement that was an oxymoron in itself. Ancient brick walls were crisscrossed with modern electrical cables and plumbing. The ceiling was held up with a combination of steel scaffolding and old granite Roman columns.

In the back of the basement, the floor had been excavated, revealing another set of steps—these of white stone—leading still deeper underground.

Sylvie crept to the edge. Even with the glow cast by her daggers, it was too dark to see below. She felt around the wall with her dagger until she found a light switch.

She used the tip of her dagger to flip it. Glaring white fluorescent bulbs illuminated the stairs. Below, she saw a mosaic floor decorated with deer and fauns—maybe a room from an Ancient villa, just stashed away under this modern basement.

She climbed down. The room was about twenty feet square. The walls had once been brightly painted but most of the frescoes had peeled or faded. The only exit was a hole dug in one corner of the floor where the mosaic had been pulled up. Sylvie crouched next to the opening. It dropped straight down into a larger cavern, but Sylvie couldn't see the bottom.

She heard running water maybe thirty or forty feet below. The air didn't smell like a sewer—just old and musty, and slightly sweet, like moldering flowers. Perhaps it was an old water line from the aqueducts. There was no way down.

"I'm not jumping," she muttered to herself.

As if in reply, something glowed green in the darkness. The Echo of Demeter grew to life at the bottom of the cavern, revealing glistening brickwork along a subterranean canal forty feet below. Sylvie felt taunted. Of course a glowing fucking symbol knew more than she did: Well, this is the way, kid! So you'd better figure something out!

Sylvie considered her options. Did she want to jump? Yes. But that was more because she wanted to end this waking nightmare more than anything. In reality, it was too dangerous of an idea. She didn't have any ladders or ropes either.

Frustration crawled through her like an army of termites. Sylvie's memory was so horrible that she couldn't even think past the dense fog. She wanted to cry right then and there, because hope had dwindled to nothing. She couldn't obtain the Demeter of Knidos. She couldn't avenge her mother. She couldn't get down a hole.

Sylvie's hand instinctively found a coral ring that resided on her odd necklace, the one with the colorful beads. She fidgeted with it to ground herself and focus.

What did she have in her favor? Obviously, the two mismatched bronze daggers in either of her hands. Although, that did nothing for her right now. She had her backpack with a water bottle, a few pieces of ambrosia for emergencies, and other typical items that demigods brought to aid themselves on quests. At least, Sylvie assumed they did. She didn't remember what was typical quest equipment anymore.

Harvest's daughter walks alone.

That didn't mean just without other people, Sylvie realized. It meant without any memories.

Okay... so Sylvie had to rediscover by herself how she could get through this quest. She had to find her own way of getting down this cavern safely and make sure she had a way to get out again if necessary.

Sylvie racked through the list of certainties:

1.) Her name was Sylvie.

2.) Demeter had sent her off to restore the Demeter of Knidos.

3.) Gaea probably wanted to kill her.

She was a daughter of Demeter. She was aware of that much.

If the Echo of Demeter's symbol was an ivy vine, then did that mean...?

Sylvie concentrated with all her might. She wanted to say that she never concentrated harder on anything before in her life, but she obviously didn't know if that was true or not. Still, she couldn't dwell on it.

Power surged through Sylvie's veins like the roots of weeds. Then—Sylvie could somehow sense the Echo of Demeter below with exact precision. She tensed as she willed the power inside to strengthen.

Suddenly, the Echo of Demeter materialized into something more tangible and real. The ivy vine grew into a thick stalk. It planted itself into the ground of the cavern floor and only continued growing upwards. Sylvie didn't stop making this stalk rise until it rooted up into the ceiling as well.

Sylvie tested the stability of what she created before she did anything: she hacked at it with her daggers, to which the vine didn't even budge. She tried kicking and pushing at it, and still, the stalk remained stable.

"I had to have been insane in my past life," she told herself.

Then Sylvie breathed deeply, in and out.

She wrapped her arms and locked her legs around the thick stalk. She began riding the vegetation down like a firefighter sliding down a pole.

Sylvie screwed her eyes as tightly shut as she could the entire time. It was a terrifying feeling, the wind pushing up on her as she sped down. She was positive this would be where she died. Along with the mistiness of her brain, there was a constant and alarming anxiety screaming at her. The combination wasn't great, but so far, it had kept her alive.

Sylvie said that, because now she was safely to the bottom.

Unfortunately, she landed right in the canal. Fortunately, it turned out to only be a few inches deep. Freezing water soaked into only her shoes.

Sylvie held up her glowing daggers. The shallow channel ran down the middle of a brickwork tunnel. Every few yards, ceramic pipes jutted from the walls. She guessed that the pipes were drains, part of the ancient Roman plumbing system, though it was amazing that a tunnel like this had survived, crowded underground with all the other centuries' worth of pipes, basements, and sewers.

Sylvie debated which way to go. The tunnel seemed the same in both directions. Then, about fifty feet to her left, the Echo of Demeter glowed against the wall. Sylvie could swear it appeared just to be passive-aggressive, as if to say, What's your problem? Hurry up!

Or, it wasn't saying anything at all, and Sylvie had finally gone completely insane. Seriously, she'd started giving the ephemeral ivy vine a voice.

Sylvie glanced across the tunnel. There was a broken section in the brickwork, as if a sledgehammer had knocked a hole in the wall. She crossed to take a look. Sticking one of her daggers through the opening for light, Sylvie could see a lower chamber, long and narrow, with a mosaic floor, painted walls, and benches running down either side. It was shaped sort of like a subway car.

She stuck her head into the hole, hoping nothing would bite it off. At the near end of the room was a bricked-off doorway. At the far end was a stone table, or maybe an altar.

The water tunnel kept going, but Sylvie was sure this was the way. She remembered (somehow) what Tiberinus had said: Find the altar of the foreign god. There didn't seem to be any exits from the altar room, but it was a short drop onto the bench below. She should be able to climb out again with no problem.

She lowered herself down.

The room's ceiling was barrel-shaped with brick arches, but Sylvie didn't like the look of the supports. Directly above her head, on the arch nearest to the bricked-in doorway, the capstone was cracked in half. Stress fractures ran across the ceiling. She decided she'd rather not spend too much time here. With her luck, it would collapse in the next two minutes.

The floor was a long narrow mosaic with seven pictures in a row, like a timeline. At Sylvie's feet was a raven. Next was a lion. Several others looked like Roman warriors with various weapons. The rest were too damaged or covered in dust for Sylvie to make out details. The benches on either side were littered with broken pottery. The walls were painted with scenes of a banquet: a robed man with a curved cap like an ice cream scoop, sitting next to a larger guy who radiated sunbeams. Standing around them were torch bearers and servants, and various animals like crows and lions wandered in the background. Sylvie wasn't sure what the picture represented.

At the far end of the room, the altar was elaborately carved with a frieze showing the man with the ice-cream-scoop hat holding a knife to the neck of a bull. On the altar stood a stone figure of a man sunk to his knees in rock, a dagger and a torch in his outraised hands. Again, Sylvie had no idea what those images meant.

She took one step toward the altar. Her foot went CRUNCH. She looked down and realized she'd just put her shoe through a human rib cage.

Sylvie swallowed past a sob. Where had that come from? She had glanced down only a moment before and hadn't seen any bones. Now the floor was littered with them. The rib cage was obviously old. It crumbled to dust as she removed her foot. Nearby lay a corroded bronze dagger very much like one of her own. Either this dead person had been carrying the weapon, or it had killed him.

She held out her blades to see in front of her. A little farther down the mosaic path sprawled a more complete skeleton in the remains of an embroidered red doublet, like a man from the Renaissance. His frilled collar and skill had been badly burned, as if the guy had decided to wash his hair with a blowtorch.

Wonderful, Sylvie thought. She lifted her eyes to the altar statue, which held a dagger and torch.

Some kind of test, Sylvie decided. These two guys had failed. Correction: not just two guys. More bones and scraps of clothing were scattered all the way to the altar. She couldn't guess how many skeletons were represented, but she was willing to bet they were all demigods from the past, children of Demeter on the same quest.

"I'm not going to be another skeleton on your floor," she called to the statue, hoping she sounded brave.

A girl, said a watery voice, echoing through the room. Girls are not allowed.

A female demgiod, said a second voice. Inexcusable.

The chamber rumbled. Dust fell from the cracked ceiling. Sylvie bolted for the hole she'd come through, but it had disappeared.

She was trapped.

Along the benches, a dozen ghosts shimmered into existence—glowing purple men in Roman togas. They glared at her as if she'd interrupted their meeting.

She did the only thing she could. She put her back to the bricked-in doorway. She tried to look confident, though the scowling purple ghosts and the demigod skeletons at her feet made her want to turtle in her dress and scream.

(Question: Why was she wearing a dress, exactly?)

"I'm a child of Demeter," she said, as boldly as she could manage.

"A Greek," one of the ghosts said with disgust. "That is even worse."

At the other end of the chamber, an old-looking ghost rose with some difficulty and stood by the altar, his dark eyes fixed on Sylvie. He had a glittering robe, a pointed hat, and a shepherd's crook.

"This is the cavern of Mithras," said the old ghost. "You have disturbed our sacred rituals. You cannot look upon our mysteries and live."

"I don't care what you say, I'm going to live," Sylvie decided. She only realized just then how much she meant the words. "I'm following the Echo of Demeter. Show me the exit, and I'll be on my way."

Her voice sounded steady and powerful, which surprised her. She had no idea how to get out of here, and she didn't even have an idea of who she was, but she knew she had to succeed where her siblings had failed. Her path led farther on—deeper into the underground layers of Rome.

The failures of your predecessors will guide you, Tiberinus had said. After that... I do not know.

The ghosts mumbled to each other in Latin. Finally the ghost with the pointed hat struck his shepherd's crook against the floor. The other ghosts fell silent.

"Your Greek goddess is powerless here," said the head ghost. "Mithras is the god of Roman warriors! He is the god of the legion, the god of the empire!"

"Clearly he's not that important," Sylvie protested. "No one cares about him where I come from."

"Sacrilege!" the old man yelped, banging his staff on the floor a few more times. "Mithras protects! I am the pater of this brotherhood—"

"Still means nothing to me," Sylvie sighed, forcing boredom.

"Do not interrupt! As pater, I must protect our mysteries."

"What mysteries?" Sylvie asked. "A dozen dead guys in togas sitting around in a cave?"

The ghosts muttered and complained, until the pater got them under control with a taxicab whistle. The old guy had a good set of lungs. "You are clearly an unbeliever. Like the others, you must die."

The others. Sylvie made an effort not to look at the skeletons.

Her mind worked furiously, grasping for anything she knew. Obviously, that was a short list of three things right now, but Sylvie needed to survive Mithras. She needed to think of something.

Sylvie had no idea what to do. She wanted to start sobbing, to break down entirely and cry on the floor. She was memoryless, and her fate was hopeless. Demeter was cruel for putting Sylvie through this.

She scanned the floor mosaic—seven pictures in a row. She studied the ghosts and noticed all of them wore some sort of badge on their toga—a raven, or a torch, or a bow.

"You have rites of passage," she blurted out. The information was completely a guess and absolutely pulled from her ass. "Seven levels of, uh, membership. And the top level is the pater."

The ghosts let out a collective gasp. Then they all began shouting at once.

"How does she know this?" one demanded.

"The girl has gleaned our secrets!"

"Silence!" the pater ordered.

"But she might know about the ordeals!" another cried.

"Ah, yes, the ordeals!" Sylvie said. "I know about them!"

Another round of incredulous gasping.

"Ridiculous!" the pater yelled. "The girl lies! Daughter of Demeter, choose your way of death. If you do not choose, the god will choose for you!"

"Fire or dagger," Sylvie guessed.

Even the pater looked stunned. Apparently he hadn't remembered there were victims of past punishments lying on the floor. Sylvie was the opposite—since her knowledge had dissipated, she'd had to start analyzing and registering her surroundings in full.

"How—How did you...?" He gulped. "Who are you?"

"The daughter of Demeter," Sylvie said. "But not just any daughter. I am... uh, the mater in my sisterhood. The magna mater, in fact. Persephone herself tells me so!"

"The magna mater!" a ghost wailed in despair. "The big mother!"

Sylvie tried to bite back a wince. She wouldn't have called herself the magna mater if she had known the actual translation for it—she'd just thought it sounded authoritative.

"Proserpina!" another ghost cried in fear. "The queen of the Underworld will punish us!"

"Kill her!" One of the ghosts charged, his hands out to strangle her, but he passed right through her.

"You're dead," Sylvie reminded him. "Sit down."

The ghost looked embarrassed and took his seat.

"We do not need to kill you ourselves," the pater growled. "Mithras shall do that for us!"

The statue on the altar began to glue.

Sylvie pressed her hands against the bricked-in doorway at her back. That had to be the exit. The mortar was crumbling, but it was not weak enough for her to break through with brute force.

She looked desperately around the room—the cracked ceiling, the floor mosaic, the wall paintings, and the carved altar. She began to talk, pulling deductions from the top of her head.

"It is no good," she said. "I know all. I remember everything. You test your initiates with fire because the torch is the symbol of Mithras. His other symbol is the dagger, which is why you can also be tested with the blade. You want to kill me, just as... uh, as Mithras killed the sacred bull."

It was a total guess, but the altar showed Mithras killing a bull, so Sylvie figured it must be important. The ghosts wailed and covered their ears. Some slapped their faces as if to wake up from a bad dream.

"The big mother knows!" one said. "It is impossible!"

Unless you look around the room, Sylvie thought, her confidence growing.

She glared at the ghost who had just spoken. He had a raven badge on his toga—the same symbol as on the floor at her feet.

"You are just a raven," she scolded. "That is the lowest rank. Be silent and let me speak to your pater."

The ghost cringed. "Mercy! Mercy!"

At the front of the room, the pater trembled—either from rage or fear. Sylvie wasn't sure which. His pointed hat tilted sideways on his head like a gas gauge dropping toward empty. "Truly, you know much, big mother. You remember all, unlike your other siblings. But that is all the more reason why you cannot leave. The omniscient warned us you would come."

"The omniscient..." Sylvie realized with a sinking feeling what the pater was talking about: the guardian of the shrine. This was the one time Sylvie was glad she didn't remember the answer. It sounded terrifying, but she tried to maintain her calm. "The omniscient fears me. She doesn't want me to follow the Echo of Demeter. But you will let me pass."

"You must choose an ordeal!" the pater insisted. "Fire or dagger! Survive one, and then, perhaps!"

Sylvie looked down at the bones of her siblings. The failures of your predecessors will guide you.

They'd all chosen one or the other: fire or dagger. Maybe they'd thought they could beat the ordeal. But they had all died. Sylvie needed a third choice.

She stared at the altar statue, which was glowing brighter by the second. She could feel its heat across the room. Her instinct was to focus on the dagger or the torch, but the longer she did, the more she found her head pounding. This wasn't right. If she could avoid making her curse worse, she would.

Sylvie looked away, and instead, concentrated up above. Another idea came to her—all the details clicking together.

"Neither torch nor dagger," Sylvie said firmly. "Instead I will prove my power is greater than Mithras. I can bring down this chamber by my own will."

The ghosts wailed and trembled and looked at the ceiling, but Sylvie knew they didn't see what she saw. They didn't feel what she felt. They weren't children of Demeter, who could detect the puny roots and weeds growing above after so much time in the dense underground. If Sylvie played her cards right, she could manipulate them to make the cavern collapse.

"Impossible!" the pater shouted. "The omniscient has paid us much tribute to destroy any children of Demeter who would dare enter our shrine. We have never let her down. We cannot let you pass."

"Then you fear my power!" Sylvie said. "You admit that I could destroy your sacred chamber!"

The pater scowled. He straightened his hat uneasily. Sylvie knew she'd put him in an impossible position. He couldn't back down without looking cowardly.

"Do your worst, daughter of Demeter," he decided. "No one can bring down the cavern of Mithras, especially without touching anything. Especially not a girl!"

Sylvie raised her hands, feeling for the plants above. Once again, her veins felt like roots with the power growing through her. She searched with a sixth sense of her until she located all the vegetation.

The doorway behind her was blocked, but in theory, if the room started to collapse, those bricks should weaken and crumble. She should be able to bust her way through before the entire ceiling came down—assuming, of course, that there was something behind the brick wall; and assuming that Sylvie was quick enough and strong enough and lucky enough. Otherwise, she was about to be a demigod pancake.

"Well, boys," she said. "Looks like you chose the wrong war god."

Sylvie threw her hands down. For a moment, nothing happened.

"Ha!" the pater gloated. "You see? Demeter has no power here!"

The room shook. Weeds seeped through cracks above, creating a fissure through the length of the ceiling. The far end of the cavern collapsed, burying the altar and the pater. More plants grew, widening more cracks. Bricks fell from the arches. Ghosts screamed and ran, but they couldn't seem to pass through the walls. Apparently they were bound to this chamber even in death.

Sylvie turned. She slammed against the blocked entrance with all her might, and the bricks gave away. As the cavern of Mithras imploded behind her, she lunged into darkness and found herself falling.

╰━━━ ◦ ✸ ◦ ✸ ◦ ━━━╯

BAILEY YAPS...

Is it too late to say I'm sorry for the previous chapter??? Would anyone even believe me???

I'm sorry flayedcrank nation I'm sorry Persylv nation I'm sorry everyone just know it could've been a lot worse :) <3

 Anyways I think the memory loss is somehow making Sylvie cooler... Her ass has to rely on her knowledge but she doesn't HAVE any knowledge so she has to make assumptions with little to no thinking time and somehow it's working and somehow she's gotten farther on this quest than any of her other siblings and she doesn't remember being an awkward ball of anxiety so she's less shaky and yeah I just love Sylvie Duvall

Sylvie lost her southern accent cus she doesn't remember being southern btw :/