I find my mother presiding over what I can only term as a war room. There’s a massive round table she must have hauled out here from the country house, so large it takes up half the space. On it is what appears to be a very accurate representation of theencampment and its resources. My mother is speaking softly with one of her advisors, a white person with a shock of red hair whose name escapes me.
The moment she sees me, she waves them away with an impatient flip of her fingers. “Come here right this instant and let me see you.” She rounds the table as I walk to meet her and then her hands are on my shoulders, turning me this way and that as she examines me critically. Her expression falls and she pulls me into a tight hug. “Gods, I was so worried about you. I’ve spoken with Persephone, but our conversation was too brief to get all the details. What happened?”
This is the moment. That text message from an unknown number is a grim reminder of how high the stakes are. My mother loves power, but I’m about to wager on the hope that she loves us more. I wish I could be certain of how those scales will balance. “We need to talk.”
She eases back to take my shoulders again. My mother is smart, and she takes one look at my face and nods slowly. “Of course.” She releases my shoulders and takes a step back, resuming her Demeter mask. Even out here, she’s wearing a floral wrap dress, committing fully to the bit. Earth mother, beloved by all. There was a time, so far back that I can barely remember it, where she favored jeans and simple shirts. We had a working farm, and my mother isn’t the type to sit back while others do the labor for her. She’s always led by example, and those years were no exception. She had no problem getting her hands dirty.
She still doesn’t, to be honest, but it’s a different kind of dirt that she deals with now.
“I’m listening,” she says when I take too long to speak.
I haven’t been fully honest with anyone in so long that it’s hard to push past the instinctive resistance. It would be so easy to blame Hermes for all of this the way I did with Perseus and take that angle.
It won’t be successful with my mother. She has worked alongside Hermes in the Thirteen for a decade and change. The others tended to see Hermes as she presented herself: the court jester, the petty thief who breaks into people’s houses because it amuses her. My mother never could figure out what was beneath the trickster persona, but she knew there was something. She respects Hermes. I don’t know if she will after this, butHermesisn’t the one sending me pictures of my family in the sniper’s scope.
Any less direct threat will be too easy to brush off.
I take a deep breath and it shudders around the edges. “Mother, we’re in trouble.”
To her credit, she doesn’t point out the tent we’re standing in or the civilian encampment we can hear through the thin walls of fabric. “This isn’t about the shooting.”
“It is.” I take another ragged breath. “But not only that.” I suddenly want nothing more than to dump this entire problem into her lap. I may be my mother’s daughter, but even at my most ruthless, I can’t measure up. It never really bothered me, not when we go about things in different ways, but failure after failure has left a horrible taste in my mouth.
And the stakes have never been higher.
I meet her hazel eyes, so similar to my own. “The Thirteen are going to fall. I don’t know if Circe will be the one to do it, or ifHermes will, but the writing is on the wall. Maybe it has been for a long time.”
“That’s defeatist thinking.”
“No, that’s reality. Hermes waylaid me on my trip back to the city. All this time, she’s been working to dismantle the Thirteen. She wants to set up a new form of government in Olympus. One that is determined by the people instead of by lineage and politicking and backroom alliances. Circe sure as fuck seems to want the same thing, albeit through a significantly bloodier path.”
My mother’s brows rise with every word I say, until they disappear beneath her fringe of bangs. “You don’t seem nearly as angry about the idea of a new form of government as I would expect.”
“I hate this city. I always have,” I say flatly. “I’ve been the most vocal about my distaste for how things are run. That doesn’t mean I want the Thirteen put to the sword, metaphorically or otherwise. If the outcome is inevitable, then we need to take the path to ensure our family is safe.”
“The legacy families will revolt before they allow even a modicum of power to slip from their grasp. And even if Hermes—or Circe—somehow managed to pull this off, those positions would still be filled with legacy families the same way they are now. They have too much power and money and influence for it to be otherwise.” But even as she speaks, she wanders around the table, her hazel eyes speculative. “What she’s after is a fool’s dream. Look at any other government in the world, and you’ll see they’re just as corrupt as we are. The rich see after themselves and everyone else suffers for it.”
I blink. “Since when have you concerned yourself withgovernments outside of Olympus?” Up until recently, the barrier ensured that while we have trade alliances, they’re limited. The only people who could bring ships—or people—through the barrier were descendants of the original Poseidon. It’s only been three days since the barrier fell. The rest of the world hasn’t yet realized we’re no longer separate and protected, but when they do, we’re going to have bigger problems than just Circe.
My mother gives me a sharp look. “All knowledge is worth acquiring. There’s a lot of good information out in the world, and it would be absolutely silly to ignore it just because we can’t have active alliances with other countries.”
I imagine she’s utilized more than a little bit of that knowledge to further her own goals. My mother has never met a tool she’s unwilling to use, and knowledge is only one component of the equation. I clear my throat. “Even with the hurdles, changing the government might be a wise move to regain the goodwill of the people. Their faith in the Thirteen has fractured beyond repair. They deserve to be represented by leaders they choose.”
“Are you sure this sudden change of tune has nothing to do with your not wanting to be Hera or married to Zeus?” She crosses her arms over her chest. “It won’t work the way you’re imagining it, and even if it could, there would be chaos in the changeover. You’re not thinking things through, darling.”
I drag my fingers through my hair, fighting to remain calm. This is myone shotand I’m fucking it up. I’m not Psyche or even Persephone with the right words to accomplish my goals. Usually, I go with pure viciousness, but that won’t work with my mother. “I could say the same of you. Why are you so resistant to the idea ofbeing voted in? That’s how you acquired the title of Demeter. You don’t think you could win another election?”
She scoffs. “Of course I could. That’s not the point. It’s about stabilization, which is something we’ve been lacking for nearly a year now. Look around us.” She motions widely, even though there’s nothing to see but the opulence of her tent. “The entire population of Olympus is living out of tents in the mud on land that sat fallow for nearly a decade before I purchased it recently. They aren’t happy. They won’t put up with this for long. We have to find a solution so they can go back to their homes before we can even consider a project of such scope.”
She’s not wrong, but the Circe problem won’t resolve itself unless the government problem does. Even if Perseus is right and there are people secretly coming in through some mountain pass, we still would have registered a standing army. It’s not here.
That’s not comforting in the least. Circe doesn’t seem to be of the mind that she needs a government in place to take over for the old one. She wants the Thirteen gone in a permanent way, and if there’s a plan after that, none of us will be alive to worry about it. “Mother, I need you to listen. I—”
“We need to leave.” Perseus shoves through the tent flap, his expression all storm clouds. Behind him, he drags a blond woman with a furious expression on her handsome face. “Now.”
“Zeus. How lovely of you to finally join us out in the countryside. And who is this?”
He shoves the stranger forward and pulls his coat from her shoulders, revealing that her hands have been zip-tied behind her back. “We found four of Circe’s people going over maps in thefoothills. They’ve infiltrated the encampment. Ares and a small team are taking the other three back to the city, but this one is for you to question.”
