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“Except me.”
“Except you.”
It’s the smallest trust, but it is trust. Even so, I can’t entirely celebrate. Eurydice is meeting with the daughter of the enemy, and while I think she’s smarter than anyone gives her credit for, that doesn’t mean that she can’t get in over her head. If Ariadne is as clever she says, she might be laying a trap. It’s been done before, after all. “It’s not safe.”
“It’s Olympus. There’s nothing about the city that’s safe. I know that better than anyone.” She climbs out of the cab and starts toward the gardens that the university boasts on its grounds.
I told myself I wouldn’t push her, but I can’t let that statement stand. I pay the cab driver and hurry after her, my guilt so thick that it chokes the breath from my lungs. I catch up to her just as she enters the gardens. “I’m sorry. I know words don’t mean a goddamn thing when you experienced harm, but I’m so fucking sorry, Eurydice. I should’ve known that there was more going on, but I was so selfish that it never even occurred to me until…” Until I’d seen the headlines. I may play the part of the pretty fool, but I’ve always prided myself on seeing the rhythm of things. Of understanding what isn’t being said. There wasn’t a single positive reason that Eurydice would be in the lower city. Only negative ones. By the time I realized it the next day, it was too late.
“I know.”
Her quiet confidence stops me short, and then I have to scramble to catch up again. “What do you mean you know?”
“You’re right—you were a selfish prick. Maybe you still are, but the only thing you ever harmed was my heart. I don’t believe that you would have set me up if you knew what Zeus really planned.”
Maybe her words should reassure me, but somehow they make it so much worse. Because she’s right; I did harm her heart. “I didn’t say I was a prick.”
“Am I wrong?”
Well…no. “I don’t understand how you can even look me in the face. Why didn’t you turn away when I came to you on the bridge?”
She slows her pace, and we take several turns through the gardens in silence. I haven’t come here since I graduated, but I used to spend a lot of time haunting these pathways. No matter what time of year it is, the gardens are a riot of inspiration.
They have nothing on Eurydice.
She finally stops and turns to face me. “I loved you.”
“Loved. Past tense.”
“What do you want from me, Orpheus?” She crosses her arms over her chest and glares at me. “I have a lot of conflicting emotions right now, all campaigning for supremacy. I don’t know what I’m feeling at any given moment. Sometimes I still love you. Sometimes I really would like to run you over with a car. It varies.”
I know I should be focusing on her wanting to run me over with a car, but all I can hear is those four words.I still love you. The fledgling hope in my chest sprouts a second set of wings and beats madly as if trying to escape my rib cage. “I still love you too.”
She curses and throws up her hands. “You are one of the most infuriating people I’ve ever met.”
I grin. Her irritation only increases my joy. We have a chance. We havebetterthan a chance. If the love is still there, then we can figure out the rest. I may not always be the smartest person in theroom, but even I know better than to say that out loud. “I’m sorry.” I do my best to sound meek and repentant. From the look she gives me, both irritated and amused, I don’t do a good job of it.
Her phone pings, and then pings again and again and again. Eurydice pulls it out of her purse and her expression goes waxen. “Oh, fuck. We need to hurry.”
I almost asked her who we’re meeting, but the risk of her sending me away if I irritate her too much is too high. I’ll find out my answers soon enough.
Eurydice hurries through the pathways, moving with an assurance that tells me she’s definitely been here recently. She’s not going to school here right now. From my understanding, she dropped out at the start of winter quarter last year. Another fault to lay at my feet. I’ve cost her so much, she must be a damned goddess to still love me after it all.
Most daysIdon’t even love me.
I get my answers as we walk through the doors to the greenhouse and into balmy heat. I shake out my hands, which instantly start prickling from the change in temperature. If the gardens outside reflect the change in seasons, the various plants readying themselves for winter, in here it’s a permanent summer.
The woman who steps into view is one I haven’t met personally, but after a few seconds, I place her. Ariadne. She’s only been photographed with her father a handful of times since arriving in Olympus, but the woman in front of me hardly looks like the same person. Oh, she has the same light-brown skin, curvy body, and straight black hair, but she’s wearing a pair of leggings and a long sweatshirt that clings to her hips and waist and chest. She alsodoesn’t have on a drop of makeup, and it’s clear she hasn’t been sleeping well by the circles under her dark eyes.
Those eyes take me in with suspicion, which she turns on Eurydice. “You were supposed to come alone.”
“Consider Orpheus an extension of me.” Her sharp tone softens, and she takes a step forward. “What’s going on? You said we wouldn’t be able to meet for a while, but your texts seemed pretty panicked.”
“Yeah.” Her full lower lip quivers. “I need you to get me out, Eurydice. I need you to do it right now.”
16
EURYDICE
