Angelina inclined her head in a gesture of respect before retreating. Patrick stayed standing in the sunlight, eyes flicking from Isadora to Hermes and back again. Isadora sipped at her tea, the porcelain coming away clean, her lipstick as perfect as ever. Her eyes never left Patrick’s face. Hermes ignored them both and kept shoveling fried potatoes into his mouth.
Patrick cleared his throat. “Hera.”
“Sit,” the titular queen of the Greek gods ordered.
Patrick sat, because he liked his balls still attached, and Hera wasn’t a goddess to be crossed. Jono took the seat opposite him with a blank look on his face, carefully pulling off his sunglasses and hanging them from the collar of his shirt.
Patrick didn’t serve himself any food, despite the empty plate in front of him. Jono, after contemplating the abundance of breakfast choices on the table—from eggs to fruit to pastries—chose to follow Patrick’s lead.
“It’s rude not to break bread, Patrick,” Hera told him.
“I broke bread for you already,” he said.
“Guess the bacon is all mine,” Hermes announced. The messenger god picked up the platter of bacon and used his fork to push the fried strips of meat onto his plate. “You’re missing out, Pattycakes.”
“I doubt that.”
Hera set her teacup down on its saucer and leaned back in her chair. She had seemed older when they’d first arrived, but Patrick knew that form was a lie, because Hera was young again. No wrinkles tugged at the corners of her eyes, and the laugh lines around her mouth had smoothed out. Her thick brown hair was braided into a crown around her head, no longer carrying streaks of gray in it. Her rich brown eyes were ancient and otherworldly in a classically pretty face.
Her aura was blinding.
Patrick had to look away.
His thoughts tumbled through his mind, bits and pieces of knowledge slotting together to form a fraction of a whole. He remembered what Setsuna had said the day he’d touched down in New York City, how he’d been the only one she could send to handle this problem.
“You ordered Setsuna to give me this case,” Patrick said.
Hera delicately spread cream cheese onto a piece of smoked salmon before stabbing the fish with her fork. “It is your job to fix your family’s mess. They took my husband. I want him back.”
Patrick tried not to flinch, but Hera saw right through him. The smile she gave him wasn’t benevolent at all. The mere idea of Zeus in the hands of Ethan was a nightmare Patrick would like to wake up from.
This whole fucked-up mess was like the Thirty-Day War all over again, with immortals taken prisoner by human greed and the world at stake once more. Only this time the frontline was New York City, home to millions and millions of people, with no one the wiser about a spell being cast through murder to kill a god.
The scars on Patrick’s chest ached at that quiet confirmation. The nightmare he’d woken from that morning was still fresh in his mind, but he wasn’t sure the warning had been about Hera. She had no affiliation with war or the dead, and ravens had never flocked to her.
“Why did you stay?” Patrick asked, looking past the goddess, not at her. “If they’re calling your power through sacrifices, why not leave?”
“Most of us have,” Hermes explained. “We’re the only ones left in the state.”
Patrick couldn’t decide if it was hubris that kept the two of them in Manhattan or stupidity. He wasn’t going to ask.
“Not the only ones,” Hera said darkly, taking another sip of her tea. “Hades was sighted in Manhattan early last week.”
If he didn’t think she’d strike him down and make it hurt, Patrick would get up from the table and leave.
“I have the coins Hermes gave me. I have the Fates giving me warnings instead of help,” Patrick said.
“Not our Fates,” Hera reminded him.
“Then maybe you should check that the Moirai still belong to you because the ones I’m dealing with can’t see the future.”
Hera took another bite of salmon, her teeth scraping over the metal prongs of the fork. She chewed carefully, attention still focused squarely on Patrick. “Perhaps if you did your job, their blindness would not be a problem.”
“Murder isn’t easy” was Patrick’s flat reply.
There were icebergs in the Arctic warmer than Hera’s voice when she spoke. “You’re good at it. Be better.”
Which was true, if you counted what he’d done in the Mage Corps and what he did for the SOA now. Killing for the gods was different.
