“She’s not wrong,” I say.
“She’s not,” he agrees. “But some scars can’t be smoothed over, no matter how dire the circumstances.”
My wife huffs out a breath. “Which, for the hundredth time, is why we’re in this circumstance to begin with.” Really, it’s a miracle she managed to hold her tongue as long as she did. She doesn’t yank her hand from mine, though; she just leans forward and pins her brother-in-law with a harsh look. “You have two choices, Hades. We all have two choices. We leave or we fight. The time for pussyfooting around and politicking has passed. Circe literally executed Peitho, and the city cheered while she did it. No matter how beloved you are in the lower city, the rest of Olympus will celebrate if she puts a bullet between your eyes.”
“I know.” He tugs Persephone into his lap and rests his chin on her shoulder and his hands on her round belly. It’s a show of trust that he lets down his mask even that much. “But I’m only human. I’ve spent my entire life protecting the lower city. I owe it to the people here to do more than simply hand them over to Circe to save myself.”
Callisto shoots to her feet, nearly yanking my arm out of its socket in the process. “What about your wife? Yourchildren?”
“Callisto.” Persephone’s tone is the deceptive calm before a hurricane. “I am sitting right here and more than capable of advocating for myself.”
“Thendo it.” She finally realizes she’s holding my hand and actually hesitates before she slips free so she can pace the full length of the room. “This is what I wanted to avoid, and no one—sure as shit not anyone in this room—believed in the danger enough to listen to me. Now Eros isdead.” She misses a step and goes still.“Eros is dead,” she whispers.
I’m already on my feet as she turns to me, my arms open to hold her against my chest as she shakes. “I’m sorry.”
“I liked him,” she whispers. “He was good for Psyche. She loved him.” She buries her face in my chest. “Oh gods, Psyche.”
“Mother will take care of her.” I can’t tell if Persephone believes her own words. Her expression is troubled, but she holds it together better than Callisto. Probably because she wasn’t running for her life a few days ago.
My wife hugs me tighter but turns her face to her sister. “Yeah, she’s doing a stellar job of it.” Callisto sniffs, gives me one last squeeze, and steps away. It takes every bit of control I have to release her when all I want to do is hold her close and battle the awful feeling in my chest.
This isn’t over. It’s only beginning.
7Hermes
Circe’s people haul me into a private room. I barely have the capacity to register the path we travel. My bones feel loose and fluid, my muscles lacking the strength required to move them. I…didn’t think she’d do it.
Circe has always had the capacity for violence. Executing Peitho, who had a direct hand in the abuse she suffered? That makes sense. But Eros? He was another person who the system of Olympus failed: abused and manipulated by his bitch of a mother, groomed to be the bloody knife against her enemies. No, he wasn’t innocent—not by a long shot—but he was finally moving past all the bullshit and into a truly disgustingly perfect happily ever after.
“I can’t believe you killed him,” I whisper. “You didn’t evenhesitate.”
Circe nods to the woman at my back. “Release her.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Antigone,” she snaps. She’s lost some of the smoothness she seems to cultivate these days, her tone sharp and filled with the promise of rage. “I am more than capable of handling this by myself. Leave us. See to the cleanup with Nerissa. We’ll speak about next steps tonight.”
A pause as if this Antigone will defy her further, but then the harsh grip on my arms is gone, leaving me to slump to the floor. I’ll get up in a minute, will become the person—the weapon—I need to be in order to keep moving forward. In a minute…
Circe crouches before me. I hate that she looks even more perfect up close, her beauty only having been sharpened in the years since I saw her last. We were so fucking naive, filled with hope and fear and rage in the way only someone young enough to be sure they’re immortal can be.
She smooths back my braids. “Oh, Hecate.” It would be so much easier—maybe—if she spoke to me with the same hate she reserves for the rest of Olympus. But she doesn’t. When Circe talks to me, it’s with the same love and fondness she felt the last time we spoke, before both our worlds crumbled down around us. I canseethe woman she was, mixed in with the woman she’s become. She’s not a stranger to me. This would be so much easier to navigate if she was.
“I’m not Hecate anymore.” I buried that foolish version of myself the moment I took the Hermes title. I had to in order to survive.
“You’ll always be Hecate to me.” She shifts her touch to trace her fingers along my cheek. “All you had to do was stay out of the way. I fully intended to leave you alone until I finished my work here, but now you’ve made a mess of things and riled up both the citizens and my people. I’ll fix it, but I can’t let you leave.”
“Imade a mess of things?” I jerk back, breaking contact. “YoukilledEros.”
“Yes,” she says simply, though her green eyes are troubled. “It wasn’t part of the plan, but if he had gotten his hands on me, you know exactly what he would have done. Would you have preferred that outcome?”
My mouth works, but no sound emerges. Of course I don’t want her dead. I’ve barely come to terms with the fact she’s alive. And yet it can’t change anything. I can’t allow her to rampage through my city, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this. I wasn’t supposed to beconflicted. There’s no space in the future I’m trying to carve outin her namefor the woman herself to bust in and fuck up all my plans. Circe is the same woman I fell in love with all those years ago, and yet, she’s a stranger to me.
She cups my face, so damned gentle that I could die from it. “I truly am sorry. I know he was someone you valued.”
“Don’t.” I jerk back again, meeting the wall. There’s nowhere to run. She’s not attacking me, not in an identifiable way. Her gentleness is pure cruelty, but I can’t think clearly enough to stop myself from craving it. “You can’t do this.”
“Darling, I already am.” She doesn’t try to touch me again, but she’s too close. It would take nothing at all to tip forward, to let her catch me before I hit the floor. Even after all this time, afterbecoming strangers to each other, I have no doubt she’d never let me touch the ground.
