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“Ehhh.” After rocking back again, she jacks her head back. “I don’t think the reading club regulars and the downtown mission crowd are a sound point.”
Her snort gets a run for its money when Jesse jerks forward. “Time for thinking bigger picture, soldier.”
“A whole lot bigger,” I add.
She drops her head and sweeps narrowed eyes at us. “Which means what?” Just as fast, her pupils dilate and her jaw pops. “Ohhh,bollocks.After you got back…the earthquakes…”
“Weren’t random.” It’s stating what she clearly already knows, but it feels good anyway.
“It was Hades?” Her mahogany lips take on a full purse. “The wanker got a bit cuckoo when someone took away his interesting shiny-pretty, eh?”
“In a few fun words, yes,” Jesse quips.
“But we’re not that far from the autumnal equinox! He had only a couple of weeks at most before Persephone’s return!”
Now my friend yo-yos his rubber toy. “Ever try telling an oligarch they’ve got to wait two minutes for a glass of water, let alone two weeks for their queen?”
“But the quakes stopped,” Reg states, once more flicking her glance between Jesse and me. “Do I want to knowthatpart of the story? How’d you get him to stop faffing over all of it?”
A defined breath makes its way into my lungs. At the same time, I trade a purposeful look with Jesse.
He jogs his brows, encouraging me to go ahead with my next words.
“All right. Check your battery life and open a new file,” I tell her. “Notes will be necessary.”
“I’m ready.” She steps over and settles a hip against an arm of the couch. “I take it the lecture topic isHecate?”
“From beginning to end,” Jesse mutters.
She only shrugs at that, which helps me sort through the insane twists of the last week. Right now, because I still can’t help my impatience about getting together some kind of a plan, I hand pick only the essentials. Hades’s horrifying appearance atop the Valari mansion’s pool. Hecate pulling off the miracle we needed, yanking Kara from a second stint in the hell king’s clutches. Her cryptic summons for us to join her at the Iremia compound, somehow cloaked from the human world in the middle of Topanga Canyon. The haven we couldn’t believe we’d found there, on the banks of a eucalyptus-lined creek. And finally, the awful truth we discovered instead. The secrets of Hecate’s ultimate plan.
“A war.”
Reg’s reiterating croak is a harder ordeal than all the words I’ve just had to form. As I expected, this was the part she didn’t see coming. It brings new movement across her face. Rapid flickers betraying harsh thoughts. Lines of worry for friends who are likely still stationed in Olympus. Furrows of fear for the toll this conflict will take on the realm she now knows and cares for. Clenches of anger at the goddess who cares nothing about any of it.
“Has she gone utterly dingbats?”
I clench my jaw. “To her? No. Not dingy. More like despondent. It’s obvious when she’s privately speaking about the issue. As if she’d like to show everyone the bruises from banging her head against the wall. Centuries of looking on while Z, Hera, and the rest of them quibble…”
Reg bristles. “It’s not always quibbling.”
“But it’s not always diplomatic disagreement,” I counter. “Right?”
Her answer doesn’t tumble out in words. But the way she rears back, as if I’ve uncovered a jar of bees, hands over my validation like a thousand stings. I don’t want to be right about this. Any of it.
“So warisher intention. But so far, not her execution. How are we going to separate the two? Permanently?”
Her challenge already has Jesse popping forward, swinging his plastic hand like a dagger on a rope dart.
“A few humble musings? We’ve got to get the grimoire back first. But if Hecate’s gone to ground, or even back to Iremia—”
Reg whips around. “Hecate doesn’t have it.”
“What?” I demand. “But—”
“I’ll stake every inch of my armor on that.”
“How are you that sure?”
