“You silly noble fool,stay down.” I pull the trigger again, but I misjudge Orpheus’s trajectory and take him in the upper chest instead of the arm. Shit. I think I broke his collarbone, but with surgery and a nice extended recovery, he should be fine. Probably. Most importantly, he’s down, Persephone is down, and Hera is down. I fire off one last shot to skim Medusa’s leg so she doesn’t feel too guilty when the adrenaline wears off. She’s a good bodyguard; she’s just no match forme.
I pack up my rifle in automatic movements, dismantling it and strapping it into the case, which then slides into my bag. I’ll clean it when I get to safety. In the meantime…
I trot down the stairs and through the dusty building, plasticsheets still covering the windows from where the company ran out of funding and, in a rare instance of nepotism failure, the owner’s family didn’t swoop in to pay for the construction to be completed. I dig out my phone and call the paramedics.
The operator answers immediately. “Hello, what is your emergency?”
“There was a shootout!” I pitch my voice to match the man I heard on the street earlier, yelling at his wife about…something. “Four people are down.” I rattle off the address and then hang up. Most of the first responders are in the country with the rest of the city’s population, but some of them chose to stay behind. By my calculations, there should be an ambulance scooping up my hapless victims inside of five minutes.
I slip out the door, pull my hood up, and whistle a cheery tune as I walk away from the scene. After two blocks, it’s clear no one is around to pay the least bit of attention to me. But then, I’m good at blending in when I feel like it. Everyone expects Hermes to be loud and boisterous and sparkly. A walking disco ball, even. It’s so much part of my branding that when Idon’tdress and act like that, even people I know have a tendency to overlook me.
It’s a very simple trick, but simple tricks are often the most reliable. Classics are classics for a reason.
My temporary destination is another half-renovated building a few blocks away. There’s a lot of that in the upper city right now. Dozens of big projects were put on hold when the news of the assassination clause broke—an irritatingly clever move on Circe’s part.
Circe.
I’m going to have to face her eventually. I want to say with allconfidence that I know how I’ll react when we finally end up in the same room, but even I’m not that much of a liar.
On an impulse, I pull out my phone again and dial Cassandra. We haven’t talked since our last spat a few days ago when I told her to stick close to Apollo, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she sent me straight to voicemail. But Cassandra is a softy, even with all her thorns. She answers. “You have some nerve calling me right now.”
“I’m made up of nothing but nerve, darling. You know that.” I can’t help putting on the charming facade. After so many years as Hermes, court jester, the lines betweenherandmehave blurred to the point where I don’t always make the conscious choice to don the mask.
“I’m sure you have a reason for calling,” she snaps.
In this moment, I can almost wish things between me and the snarling redheaddidwork out. She’s the only relationship I’ve had since Circe died—or didn’t die, as the case may be—where I could almost see a future with her. Cassandra was hurt by Olympus just as much as I was, and even when this damned city kept kicking her while she was down, she never let it break her. I loved her as much as I’m capable of these days. I guess I love her still, which is why I keep trying to convince her to leave town. “I gave you a warning all those months ago, and you didn’t take it.”
“The warning where you told me to go home so you could stand by and let Minoskillpeople.”
I’m not above getting my hands bloody, but… I sigh. “I doubt you’ll believe this, but I was only there for information and to keep an eye on his ambition. I didn’t realize what he intended until it wastoo late.”
Cassandra’s silent for a beat. “You warned me I was in danger.”
“Of course I did! You were there with Olympus’sspymaster. Apollo has always stuck his nose where it doesn’t belong, and I didn’t want you to get killed in the process.”
“Hermes, I swear…” She gives a sigh of her own. “You know I can’t take your word at face value. You were there. The murder happened. You didn’t even try to stop it.”
I hate to have it reduced to that, but I can’t argue. “Yes. I was there. Theseus murdered Hephaestus. I didn’t stop it.” Because, for better or worse, itdidserve my intent to destabilize Olympus further. I still didn’t wish ill on that Hephaestus, for all that he was a raging dickhead. I just didn’t try that hard to do anything about Theseus’s intent once I figured out what Minos was about.
“Why are you calling? It’s not to clear your conscience.”
“Darling, my conscience is hardly up for debate. No, I’m calling with another warning, and Ineedyou to heed this one. For both your and Apollo’s sake.” I might not like the man overmuch, but she does. He treats her like she’s the most precious gem in all the world, which I approve of. Cassandra deserves to be worshipped and coddled; Apollo shows every sign of doing both. “Circe made it into the city, and it wasn’t desperately fleeing Zeus and the other two. She planned it. She fully intends to kill every one of the Thirteen and abolish Olympus’s entire governing system.”
Cassandra’s most lovely and awful trait is that she sees too much. Worse, she’s smart enough to connect inconvenient dots. “You also want the Thirteen gone. That’s what this is about, right? All the shit you’ve been pulling in the last year, it’s all to changethings.”
My life would have been simpler if I could have loved her the way she deserved. Having her as a potential adversary sucks. The cheer drops from my voice. I need her to take me seriously, to fuckinglisten.“Not like this, Cassandra. If I wanted them dead, they would have been dead years ago. There isn’t a locked door in this city that can keep me out.”
“So you’re calling to tell me to…get Apollo out of Olympus?”
The tone of the question means she’s still not taking this seriously. “Yes. Right now, Circe will be focusing on Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, but it’s only a matter of time before she decides to work her way through the rest.”
“Including you.”
I stop short. I might be Hermes, might play the part of the member of the Thirteen who delivers messages and secrets and knowledge, but I’ve always been aware that I’m different from the rest of them—and not only because I want to see the whole structure of their power shatter. The vast majority of the Thirteen—both now and stretching back through Olympus’s history—come from the legacy families. Whether familiesbecomelegacy because they’ve had members tapped to become one of the Thirteen or the Thirteen only pull from certain families that already entertain an absurd amount of money and privilege is up for debate. Chicken, egg, and all that.
“I’m not like the others,” I say finally. I can’t quite inject my usual irreverent cheer into the words. Sometimes truth cuts deep. “I never have been.”
Cassandra is quiet for a long time. Finally, she says, “I hear you and I acknowledge your warning. You know I’m no fan of theThirteen and the legacy families. I always wanted to get out of this city. But, Hermes, Apollo’s roots run deep. Orpheus is still here, and so are their parents.”
