Chapter 24
Hecate
Even if Demeter hadn’t texted me a heads-up that Circe was moving the trials to a location near Cypress Bridge, I would have figured it out. I just needed to follow the crowds of people streaming down the streets with determined looks on their face.
Olympus has fallen.
I knew that—of course I knew that—but there’s something about leaving the city proper for a couple days and returning to find it unrecognizable that truly drives the point home. It’s not happening how I wanted, but it is happening.
Strange to realize maybe I don’t actually have the stomach for revolution.
I perch on the rooftop of a building a few blocks from where I shot Hera and Persephone during their little meeting only a short time ago. So much has changed since then. Nothing has changed.
Below me, the crowd murmurs as more and more people stream in, packing in tighter and tighter.
If something goes wrong, people will die from being trampled.
I don’t know if that’s a feature or a bug in Circe’s plan.
Even if I asked, I don’t think she’d tell me.
And Atalanta? She isn’t taking my calls, every single one going to voicemail over the last twelve hours.
I’ve never felt more alone.
I shiver and pull my hood up. The wind is vicious up here, and I’m just superstitious enough to see it as a sign of things to come. Demeter is certain she can turn the tide in her favor. If anyone can do it, she can, but I’m so fucking afraid we’re underestimating Circe. Again.
I begin to set up my rifle. It feels like busywork, like a fool’s errand. I already know I won’t shoot Circe. If I were capable of killing her, things would be so much simpler, but it would be like putting a bullet into my own heart, no matter how rotted and poisonous.
My phone buzzes gently against my hip, and I put my earbuds in and go back to my rifle. “Yeah?”
“Hey.”
I stop short. “Atalanta.”
“Where are you?” She sounds tired and…guilty. We may not have spent as much time together as I’d like over the last decade, but I’ve spent considerable time attuning myself to her moods, steady as they are, and this has alarm bells ringing. Especially considering how our last call ended.
I still, suspicion blooming. “Tell me you didn’t.”
Instead of doing that, she laughs bitterly. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander and all that.”
It’s all but confirmation that she did, in fact, sleep with Circe.
When? How? I clamp my jaw shut to keep from shouting the questions and close my eyes.
Does it matter? That’s the true question.
She’s right; I don’t have a pedestal to stand on when it comes to falling into bed with Circe.
Even knowing that, jealousy makes me sick to my stomach. “This is a tangled fucking situation.”
“You can say that again.” She sighs. “I didn’t call to be an asshole, no matter what you think. I need to see you. This whole thing is off the rails.”
“Yeah, I know.” I open my eyes and screw the suppressor onto my rifle. “Do you know what she’s planning?”
“No.”
I don’t know if that’s a check in the positive column or the negative.
Circe wasn’t whispering secrets to her in bed, but then Circe has never been the secret-sharing type.
Gods, I can’t focus on this now. There’s movement in the crowd, people parting to make way for two columns of soldiers walking down the middle of the street. “Stay away from Cypress Bridge today.”
“It’s too late. I’m here.” Now that she mentions it, I can hear the crowd in the background on her side of the line. Damn it.
I scan the faces of the people on the road, but there’s no chance of picking out anyone in the crowd…
except Circe and Demeter. The former is resplendent in a long-sleeved gown that hugs her body and swishes about her feet with every step.
The latter is in another one of her wrap dresses, this one a subdued gray with roses under an open peacoat.
Behind them, a person walks with a bag over their head. Artemis.
No Atalanta, though. I didn’t really think she’d suddenly switch sides, but I also didn’t think she’d fuck Circe. I don’t have a damned leg to stand on when it comes to jealousy, but that sort of emotion is hardly logical. “Where are you?”
“Where are you?” She curses. “We don’t have time to fuck around, Hecate. Tell me and I’ll come to you.”
I have to close my eyes again. She never calls me by that name. Even in frustration, it sounds sweet in her low tone. “I’m on top of the Griffin Building.”
“Okay.” She exhales slowly. “Okay, good. I can be there in ten. Less. I’m coming.”
I don’t tell her that it might damn well be over by then. It won’t. We both know it. “I’ll be here.” I hang up before I can say anything else and settle my rifle on the half wall on the edge of the roof. I scan the crowd and then focus on Circe.
She moves as if she’s not of this world, seeming to float above the ground, a serene smile on her face as she spares a word or a touch for the people on either side of her. Does she notice how they look to Demeter just as often as they look to her? Knowing Circe, she’s clocked it.
For her part, Demeter displays no evidence of strain. She’s spent decades perfecting her public persona, and that shows now more than ever. She’s the earth mother, here to visit her people on the ground, to deliver justice to those who have hurt them.
I move back to Circe, my finger brushing the trigger. I’ve been so sure that it’s too late for her death to stop things from spiraling out of control. Now, I’m wondering if I clung to the belief because it meant I wouldn’t have to feel guilty for not being able to take this final step.
No matter what happens today, it’s a tipping point. We just have to survive what comes next so someone is left to pick up the pieces and put Olympus back together again. No matter what happens, we aren’t going back.
Circe’s group stops just short of the bridge and moves to clear a rough circle around her, Demeter, and the captive Artemis.
A real fucking bummer, there. Artemis has been a pain in my ass since I became Hermes, and she would have happily allowed Atalanta to die, so it’s not like I’m going to cry if Circe puts a bullet between her eyes.
But doing this here is a clear message in multiple ways.
It’s designed to rile the crowd further, for that destruction to roll out in waves as the result of a single death.
I hope Demeter knows what she’s doing. We’re balanced on a knife’s edge, and one wrong move can send us into chaos we might never recover from. “Damn you, Circe. What the fuck are you doing?”
I hear Atalanta well before she arrives at my side, her steady stride one I know as well as my own heartbeat. She crouches down next to me. “We can’t let her do this.”
“Well, you could have snapped her neck while she was eating you out, so I don’t want to hear it.” The snarl in my voice surprises me as much as the words.
“Hecate.” I jerk back from the rifle and twist to find Atalanta looking at me with disappointment in her warm brown eyes.
“You’re above that kind of bullshit and you know it.
We both had a chance to end this. Neither one of us did.
Yeah, I have less of an excuse than you do, but there’s no point in fighting about it. ”
“I actually kind of want to fight about it.” I hold up a hand before she can speak. “Give me a second.”
“Sure.”
It takes several more beats before I can be sure I won’t say some fucked-up shit that I might not be able to take back. When it boils down to its foundation, my anger has one question as the heart of it. “Did you do it to hurt me?”
Atalanta opens her mouth, stops, and seems to consider my question. “I don’t know.”
“Oh.”
She shakes her head. “Look, I was really hurt to wake up and realize you snuck off to fuck her while I was recovering from a damned stab wound she gave me. It still hurts, because no matter how much you care about me, you care about her more. Or differently. It doesn’t really matter. There is no me and you without her.”
I flinch. “But—”
“Hecate.” She says my name, my true name, so gently that it feels like a knife between my ribs.
“I don’t operate in fantasy; I exist in reality.
That woman has her claws in you…and I guess in me, too.
” She shrugs. “You could have taken a shot at any time, and you didn’t.
You aren’t going to, because you love her and you already lost her once.
If there’s a way to save her and the city, you’ll do it. ”
I can’t breathe. Gods, why can’t I breathe? There’s a whole-ass sky above me, and yet I can’t find the air. “What if there isn’t a way to save both her and the city?”
Atalanta smiles bitterly. “I guess you cross that bridge when you come to it.” She shifts her attention to the scene below us. “I guess we both will.”
“You don’t love her.”
“No, I don’t. I sure as fuck don’t trust her.
” She frowns a little, still staring at Circe.
“But there’s something about her that draws me in despite myself.
I don’t know what the future holds, but we have to deal in facts.
The fact is you won’t kill her—and I won’t if I have another choice. So what’s the plan?”
There’s a special kind of relief that comes from setting aside messy personal shit and focusing on things too big to properly wrap my arms around. “Well, the next hour is going to change everything one way or another.”
She settles down next to me, her shoulder against mine. “You have a secondary scope?”
“Yeah.” I dig into my bag and pass it to her. We’ve never done this, played sniper and spotter, but it feels as natural as anything I’ve ever experienced. “Demeter is with us. That shit with Peitho and Eros scared the shit out of her. Oh yeah, Eros is alive.”
“No shit?” Atalanta whistles under her breath. “That was quick thinking on her part. I believed her.”
“I did, too.” If I release the events of the last couple days, I can still feel that loss inside me, a deep hole where my friendship with Eros was. I don’t know if our friendship survives the downfall of this city, but at least he’s alive to hate me.
“So what’s Demeter’s plan?” Atalanta asks neutrally. “Toss Circe in the river?”
“If she did, we have a route to fish her out.” I point to the narrow path leading down to the riverbank.
It’s difficult to see from this position, but I wouldn’t have held the Hermes title for as long as I have without considering all possible outcomes and planning escapes for all of them.
“The river is particularly deep in this area, so if she could keep from drowning long enough for me to get to her, I can save her.”
“Hecate.” She gives me a patient look, amusement blooming in her eyes. “Is Demeter’s plan to toss her in the river?”
“No.” I exhale slowly, trying to sink into the cool, still place I need to be in to shoot with the confidence that my bullet will go where I intend.
“She intends to turn the people toward a future without the Thirteen and angle for a peaceful exit from this shit show so we can start working on a new form of government—and arrest Circe.”
“Simple as that.”
I snort. “Nothing about this has been simple, and there’s no way this doesn’t go tits up.
Circe won’t go quietly, and she’s smart enough to have half a dozen plans to pivot to.
We just have to hope Demeter can get ahead of her and twist the narrative to serve our purposes—and that the crowd’s love for Demeter is enough to tip them in her favor. ”
“Hecate, this is less a plan than a dream that might have the potential to be a plan with some time and effort—neither of which we have.”
“Working with what I’ve got, love.” I risk a glance from my scope to find Atalanta looking at me instead of the scene below. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here.” I swallow hard. “And I’m sorry for hurting you.”
She shrugs, but the move isn’t as careless as she’s aiming. “I’m sorry for hurting you back.”
“But you wouldn’t do anything differently.”
She grins. “And neither would you.” Atalanta shakes her head. “What a pair we make.”
What a trio.
I manage to keep that internal, but only barely.
I can’t see a way out of our current mess, let alone to something resembling a happily ever after with the three of us.
The three of us. The very thought is absurd, and yet there’s a part of me that suddenly wants it desperately.
Below us, Circe holds up her arms, commanding silence from the crowd.
It’s go time.