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Outside, something crashed. Seconds later, Pollux appeared. His hands were dirty, and split from the cold. But in seconds, the wounds healed.
“We’re not murdering her.” He approached Achilles.
Hector moved between them, while Paris and I observed. The two hotheads would knock the rest of the cottage down if they went at it.
“Why wouldn’t we?” I asked. What was different about this woman? We’d had to make hard choices before. Then again, those fights had involved soldiers. Kings. Warriors. “Is she not dangerous?”
Pollux snorted. “She’s five-foot-nothing.”
“And brilliant,” Hector spoke. Uncrossing his arms, he whirled toward his younger brother. “Fuck.” He dragged his hands down his beard, and then pushed his hair back from his face. “Fuck. We should have stopped her before it even got this far.”
“We came to England for a reason,” Paris reminded him.
How many years had we watched, waiting for any sign a piece of the seal was discovered? We’d been lucky to make it this long.
“We should have been looking for them first.” Achilles turned his back on Pollux. It was meant as an insult, to show he didn’t perceive Pollux as a threat.
Surprisingly, the other man didn’t rise to the bait. “It made more sense for them to stay lost as long as possible.”
It had been just one of a million difficult, and probablywrong,decisions we’d made. We’d been afraid we’d only end up leading people to the pieces of the seal, since we could only guess at their locations.
“Then we should have paid better attention.” Achilles wouldn’t let us off the hook, but—he included himself in the blame.
“People dig in Turkey all the time,” Paris replied quietly. “Who would have thought it would turn up to a twenty-two-year-old nobody?”
“You make it sound like the seal chose her.” A rock formed in my stomach.
“Didn’t it?” he replied. He rubbed his eyes, then dropped his hands to his sides. “Our power—the same in that seal—came from the gods. Even I, stupid as I am, can see how this sort of thing looks like all the other games they orchestrated.”
Hector frowned. “Paris.”
His brother lifted a hand to stop him. “I won’t let it happen again. I’ll make hard choices. So I vote yes. With Achilles. And Orestes.”
“Murderer.”
Achilles smiled. The grin a little too hungry. Like a shark.
“Wait.” The word slipped from my lips.
The four men faced me, waiting. For what? I hadn’t planned to utter a single word against Paris or Achilles. So what was my argument? “Pollux met her. Do you think this was a one-off? A lucky break?”
I could see the struggle. His lips pressed into a white line, like he was physically unable—as much as he wanted to—to lie and say,“Yes. This was pure luck.”
“Murderer.”In a flash, I felt my sister’s hand in mine, pulling me from our home as the screams—both real and god-made—filled my ears.
I stood now, in the cottage, surrounded by men who knew my darkest secrets, and tried to remember how to breathe. “We have to do it.” I had shut my eyes. The echoes were still in my head. “I’m already a murderer. I’ll do it.”
Leo
Istared at the map on my wall. The old—well,older— one, from the fourteen hundreds. I ran my finger along the coast, from the spot where the Thames met the ocean, and then north.
In my other hand, I held my phone, the image of the Lighthouse at Alexandria blown up to show a golden statue of Zeus.
A golden warning, for self-made gods.
It had taken days of laboring over the Arabic texts before I found the word. “Gods.” I hadn’t understood it right away because of the other word, “self-made.” I still wasn’t sure how one word could change the meaning of the one next to it. I really needed to get a better handle on my foreign languages.
Ugh.I liked puzzles, but for crying out loud! Spinning, I flung my phone onto my desk.
