He wasn’t asking.
I considered my options. I was in the Regis manor, with Kleos, Lucian, Silver, and perhaps Cassius lurking somewhere. I doubted unfriendly eyes could easily see through the shields around this place.
“He’s Ares,” Kleos told Lucian casually.
I turned to her, one eyebrow raised.
“As I said, Isla ran through my memories. I felt a light charm on me and dismantled it.”
“He fucked with your memory?”
I waited for Kleos’s condemnation, but unlike Silver and Lucian, she didn’t even seem mad.
“A little. But he first asked if I could keep a secret. I said I wouldn’t. I would likely have done the same in his shoes.” She smiled at me.
“Sorry,” I told her honestly. “I need to be here, and I need to be seen attempting the mission I’ve been given by my father.If I don’t, people I care about will suffer. Given the general mistrust around me, I figured announcing my name wasn’t the best strategy.”
“All forgiven,” Kleos assured him. “It wasn’t malicious. Besides, what’s a little memory spell between friends?”
I nodded, not missing the two others glaring at me.
“Be that as it may, use any harmful magic on my wife again, and I’ll personally escort your soul on a one-way trip to the depths of Tartarus,” Lucian drawled, ever so casually.
I couldn’t exactly blame him.
Clearly, Lucian and Silver weren’t going to forgive and forget as fast as Kleos, so I opted to bow out. “Well, I’d better get going. I need to get the snake from my neighbor.”
The excuse was flimsy at best.
“Wait one moment,” Kleos said with a graceful wave.
A few seconds later, a plate floated into the room, with half a dozen frosted cupcakes on top.
“Can’t let you leave without those,” she said, taking my hand. “Thank you for taking care of my best friend, Cas.”
I blinked at her, baffled by her warmth.
They were night and day in both looks and demeanor, but in a way, she made me think of Hestia. They were just as warm.
That wasn’t good. I was starting to care about some of these people.
I couldn’t afford to.
I wasn’t their enemy, but the reason I was here had nothing to do with them, or this stupid town.
Zeus was planning to raze it, burn it from the map, and there was nothing any of us could do about it.
“Right.” I cleared my throat. “Thanks, Freya.”
Freya had never been friends with the first version of Thor in the old days, just like Ares was completely indifferent to Artemis.
I’d believed I knew what I was walking into: a doomed city full of people who would not matter to me. I could focus on protecting the one person prophesized to end Zeus, and let the rest of them handle themselves or burn.
Today I had a plate of cupcakes with little butterflies flying around them, and a bratty doll with silver eyes glaring at me.
Things were getting far too complicated.
27
