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“What?” he spits out. “Feed mefacts, boy, not poetry. And put that beast down!”
I lower my hand to feed the spider into one of the fern banks along the grass. “Hecate,” I state, straightening and confronting the rebellious expression I’ve fully expected. “Yes,thatHecate,” I go on. “Your ally hasn’t been feeling the supportive vibes lately. Best I can guess, she hasn’t been feeling them for quite a while. Your adventures away from the palace, along with Hera’s retaliatory antics, have been a drain on the whole pantheon, as well as the lesser deities.”
His head jerks as if I’ve punched him.
Here comes the humility.
“My adventures? Do they mean the days and months andyearsI put in to ensure harmony among the realms?”
I hike my own brows, my only defense against spewing with a laugh. “Doyoumean to really use the just-business-trips line with one of your bastard kids?”
He spins away in a silent fume. For the next few minutes, I’m playing the waiting game while watching the violent rise and fall of his hunched back.
“All right. What’s her plan?” he finally mutters. “I’ll have all of it, right now.”
I bristle but smooth it out with an actual chuckle. It has to be better than my first instinct, to smack my father in his pretentious face.
“Okay, sure. Let me get right on that. I think I have all her strategic plans in my back pocket here…”
“I’m sorry.” He pivots back around with a morose head shake. “You deserved none of that. I don’t do well with broadsides.”
“Don’t know anyone who does.” I see the ante of his apology, which likely didn’t come easily, and raise it by a quiet reassurance. The kindness is a necessity considering what has to come as my follow-up. “And I wish I could help you with more details, but we know very little right now. Only that terms likewarandsacrificeare being woven into conversations that reference battle strategies and rearranging shadow constellations.”
“Who? The Iremiaministras?” His stance stiffens. “They’d never.”
“They already have,” I counter. “In order to hasten the moment that Kara and I met each other.”
There’s a sound from beneath his breath, shooting like a profanity but in a strange combination of languages, before he switches to something intelligible.
“They’ve played with cosmic fire. Tempted spectral dangers even I cannot control.”
A lot of air gets hauled into my lungs. I expel it before drawing more, but the extra oxygen doesn’t help me with my response. Not this time. Not at this massive crossroads. Even with my pulse pounding through my ears, I know that this time is the occasion to listen to my father. His rasp has just told me so. This isn’t his first time hearing a piece of news like this. Or being this freaked about it.
When the king of the gods is drained of all his color in ten seconds, a guy is wise to pay attention.
And maybe, in his small way, to offer some help.
“Well, we’re pretty certain why they dared it.”
“Sure. Obviously.” He’s so terse about the comeback, I already know he doesn’t see the whole picture. “Kara is the ace Hecate needs up her sleeve. The hybrid who assures that hell and its dwellers will take the witches’ side in this thing. Hades and his high council will have no other choice.”
Another long intake of breath. “Close but not exactly,” I say during the exhalation.
His gaze flares. His lips fall apart. At last, the total truth is sinking in.
Weirdly, my own breath comes steadier. Watching the turbulence of his comprehension brings an odd comfort. A fellowship we haven’t had, even after the disastrous field trip to Labyrinth. Probably because I was never certain—and still aren’t—that Z hadn’t accepted some private payout from Hades to get me there and ensure I was too plowed to resist the hell god’s stabs into my mind and memories. Especially the ones about Kara.
Bitterness I force myself to release right now. An anger I don’t even want to hold on to as my father levels his gaze and beholds me with new intensity. With an energy I’ve never experienced from him before. All right, maybe the ferocitywasalready present, but I refused to see it. Refused to lethimsee past my walls of disappointment and abandonment.
I have to be better than that.
I have to start right now.
I’m not going to repeat this empty distance with my own kid.
Somehow, Zeus reads that across the fresh expression on my face. But even more, he’shearingit.
“Maximus,” he rasps. “Are you and Kara… Is she…”
