Apollo held up his hands. “I doubt he wants me getting involved. I wrote a song for Hera a few months ago, and he’s been annoyed with me ever since. Said I was choosing sides.”
“Well, it’s definitely not me,” I said wryly.
Hephaestus chuckled softly. “You think?”
“Now is not the time for laughter.” Artemis shot him a look of pure condemnation. “I’ll go get the urn. All three of you, stay here. When Zeus discovers what’s happened, he’ll want to have a word.”
I, along with the two remaining Olympians, watched Artemis vanish out the door, her soft blue dress billowing behind her. Soon, others would arrive and find the dead vampire. They would likely react just as Ares had. Of course it had to be me. Who else among them would stab Hestia’s heart? And if I didn’t convince someone I was innocent, they’d find a way to punish me, likely by targeting Orpheus.
“I didn’t do it,” I said to no one in particular.
Apollo nodded, his golden hair gleaming beneath the torchlight. “We’re not the ones you need to convince.”
“But do you believe me?”
He exchanged a glance with Hephaestus, then shrugged. “It’s hard to say. You’re convincing. But…if you didn’t do it, who did? Despite all our differences, there’s one thing we all agree on. We love Hestia.”
“Loved,” Hephaestus said softly.
Apollo winced.
I trailed across the floor and knelt beside the ash. It intrigued me that they all loved her so much, though I wouldn’t say that out loud. For a group of cunning vampire monarchs who were quick to exploit the weaknesses in others, they had a surprising amount of affection for someone who had been so soft. Hestia had wanted nothing to do with power. If the tales were true, she’d never fought another living soul. Her feeds were gentle, and she spent a great deal of time in the stables tending to horses.
A shimmer caught my eye. Frowning, I leaned further forward and examined the pile of ash. There, amongst the usual blackened grains, were small clusters of red and silver specks.
I pointed. “What’s that?”
Hephaestus shuffled closer and peered over my shoulder. “Um, it’s Hestia, love. I thought that was fairly obvious…”
“No, in the middle of it. There’s something in the ashes.”
“What? Wait, you’re right. That’s odd. Whatisthat?”
“What are you talking about?” Apollo joined us by the ash, his blond hair falling into his eyes when he knelt. “Oh. Huh.”
“Have you ever seen that before?” I asked. “These other specks in a fallen vampire’s ash pile?”
Apollo shook his head. “No, it’s—”
Heavy footsteps pounded the floor, followed by the scrape of a wooden blade against steel. “Get away from her, Titan.”
I swallowed and stood. From the flicker of fear in Apollo’s eyes, I knew without looking that Zeus had a blade pointed at my back. Keeping my body steady, I lifted my hands.
“You speak of duty, but you didn’t even wait a single day to kill one of our own. You will pay for this, just like Theia paid for her own disobedience. In blood.”
I flinched at the sound of my mother’s name on his tongue. What I would give to take a steel blade and cut that tongue out of his mouth so that he could never speak her name again. Suddenly, his weapon tapped the space between my shoulder blades.
“Speak, woman,” he barked.
“As I’ve told Ares and the others,” I said, flicking my gaze toward Hephaestus, who looked worried, “I’ve never killed another vampire, let alone one who was the advisor of a fellow monarch.”
He shoved the weapon harder into my back. “Lies.”
“I speak only the truth. I’m afraid it was someone else.”
“What’s going on in here?” another voice rang out from behind me—soft, feminine, and edged in vicious anger.
Hera.
