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“That’s all I ask.” I sit up and do some stretching of my own. No matter how comfortable the position, sitting in place for an hour and change leaves a person stiff. “I know you’ve said I’m your muse in the past, but I can’t be your everything. I don’t want to be. I want to have my own life, and I want you to have your own life—and I want us to choose each other.”
“And Charon.”
I study him carefully, but there’s no unhappiness in his expression. He states it as fact. Still, I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings between us. “I care very deeply about Charon too. Just as much as I care about you, though it’s a little different. He’s not an addition to the two of us, just like you’re not an addition to me and Charon. Maybe I could work in a pair, but I don’t think any of us could deny that it feels good to be a trio.”
“Yeah.” Orpheus grins suddenly. “It really does feel good to be a trio.”
As if on cue, the door opens and shuts down on the first floor. I lift my voice enough to carry. “We’re up here.”
A few seconds later, Charon walks into the room. He looksutterly exhausted, and he nods at Orpheus before he comes over to the couch and drops down next to me. I open my mouth to ask him what’s going on, but he slips an arm behind my back and tugs me firmly against his side. “Just let me hold you for a few minutes.” He holds an arm out to Orpheus. “Both of you.”
Orpheus only hesitates for a few seconds before he walks over and takes up the empty position on Charon’s other side. I swallow down my questions until Charon relaxes fully against me. It takes long enough to worry me. “That bad?”
“Worse. It’s going to be war. We don’t know the full scope of it yet, but it’s bad.” He brushes a kiss to my temple, more like he needs comfort than like he’s trying to give it. “Circe was the second Hera. Her information on Olympus is only slightly outdated, but if Hermes is on her side, then we’re well and truly fucked.”
Because Hermes would’ve been feeding her information. With her help, Circe would know our moves before we even had a chance to make them. Hermes is known for having secrets she shouldn’t, and if she’s passing those on to the enemy…if that’s the case, we never stood a chance of stopping this.
I try to reconcile the idea of Hermes as a traitor. It doesn’t feel right. But then, what do I know? Up until a year ago, I only interacted with her in passing. Once I came to live in the lower city, I spent more time with her though. She’s a trickster and clever enough that half the time I have no idea what she’s talking about, but to help instigate a war on the city that she is supposed to protect? “I’m not ready to believe Hermes is on her side.”
“I don’t want to believe it either. We’d be fools not to look at this from all angles though.” Charon takes a long slow breath. “Butnot tonight. The whole mess will be waiting for us in the morning. Tonight, I’d like to focus on the three of us.”
Orpheus carefully, almost tentatively rests his hand on Charon’s chest. “Yeah, I think it’s time we talked.”
It’s funny how, despite everything else I’ve dealt with in the last couple days, this is the thing that makes me most nervous. “So let’s talk.”
28
ORPHEUS
Eurydice has already given me a lot to chew on, and now we’re driving right off the deep end again. I’m trying to take what she said to heart, but it’s hard to reconcile with the feelings I’ve been carrying around for the last year. Nothing has been what I expected. I’m still having a hard time believing that she really wants a future with me…that theybothwant a future with me.
“Have either of you eaten?”
Eurydice and I exchange a look over Charon’s chest. She doesn’t seem in a hurry to answer, so I answer for both of us. “We might have missed lunch.”
“Thought so. Come on, we can talk while I cook.”
We make our way down to the kitchen, and Charon herds us into the chairs at the counter. I start to get up to help, but Eurydice shakes her head at me. If feels wrong to sit here and watch Charon cook for us, but I understand why after only a few minutes.
He moves about the kitchen with a growing relaxation, chopping vegetables and heating up two pans to cook them and the meat.Cooking unwinds him, removing some of the stress of the day. Once all the ingredients are sizzling happily away, he turns to us. “You seem more at ease with each other. I take it you talked this afternoon?”
“We talked.”
I wait for Eurydice to continue, but she’s got a stubborn set to her jaw that I recognize all too well. It’s the same expression she wore earlier when she backed me into a corner about what I want to do with my life. I’m still feeling raw after that. It felt like ripping open my rib cage and exposing my still-beating heart to her. Everyone knows I love to paint, but I’ve never admitted that I hate all the other bullshit. I don’t even know that I understood my feelings on it until my life fell apart and I realized how little I value the same things my so-called friends hold so highly.
I still don’t see a way forward entirely. Networking is a necessary part of the art world, which means I’ll have to engage in it to some extent. But I don’t have to do it right now. More than that, if Charon’s right that war is coming, there’s going to be little need for art in a city under siege. I don’t know if that thought stresses me out or brings a little relief. For better or worse, I have time to figure my shit out.
Still, there’s one thing left to address. I clear my throat. “You didn’t have to buy the painting supplies for me. It’s too extravagant. I don’t deserve…” I shoot Eurydice a guilty look. “It’s too much,” I finally say.
“It’s a gift, Orpheus,” Charon says mildly. “I did it because I wanted to.”
“But—”
“Did it feel good to paint again?”
I don’t want to admit exactly how good it felt, but doing anything else amounts to a lie. I drum my fingers on the countertop, glaring at them instead of at Charon and Eurydice. The words try to stick in my throat, but I push through. “Yes. It felt like waking up after a long sleep. It will take me some time to get into the rhythm of it again, but it felt very, very good.”
Charon nods as if I answered a question beyond the apparent one. “Then it was well worth the cost.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “And the rest?”
