Chapter 31
Circe
As I watch Hecate set up things to record her video, I can’t help wondering if maybe I actually died in the river. Or maybe I actually died all those years ago, a victim of Zeus’s violence. Surely that makes more sense than the truth.
That I let my hate be my defining trait for nearly one-third of my life.
That I orchestrated so much violence and death, and yet the ones who paid the cost are the people I brought into the city.
Yes, Olympians have died, but the numbers are on their side.
After making a few calls this morning, I discovered that only Nerissa escaped from the mob. Only Nerissa.
I press my hand to my chest. I thought I could cut myself off, could hold myself apart to diminish the chance the world had to hurt me. No, not the world. My ambition. It’s always been my fucking ambition to blame.
All those years ago, Hecate only wanted me. She didn’t give a shit about fancy presents from the upper city, but I was so determined to prove we deserved nice things, to give her a taste of the life we could have if we moved to the city… And then I never made it home.
I’ve never been more tired than I am in this moment, even with the sleep I’ve managed to snag while wrapped up with Hecate and Atalanta.
Was this all for nothing? Or was it all an unnecessarily complicated plot to bring me right to this moment.
To Hecate, who I never stopped loving. To Atalanta, who I never could have anticipated.
I don’t want to lose them—or, more accurately, the possibility of a future with them.
I can’t let my ambition cause more pain, more suffering.
“I’ll do it.” I don’t mean to speak, but the words spill out all the same.
Hecate and Atalanta pause in their setup to look at me in question.
It’s enough to keep going. “Whatever you need, I’ll do it. Even if it’s leaving.”
They exchange a glance. Hecate clears her throat. “As much as I appreciate your strong statement, it will have to wait until we’re done with this next step. And, like, no offense, but even with the hot sex and the whole still-loving-you thing, I don’t entirely trust you.”
“I haven’t given you good reason to trust me, but I’m asking for it now.
I’ll leave the city—without a fight, without causing any further problems, without any plots or plans.
” I wrap my arms around myself. It’s impossible to channel the untouchable queen I was when I arrived in Olympus again.
But she never existed anyway. “I only have one condition.”
“Here we go,” Atalanta mutters, but there’s no heat to her words.
“We need to get what remains of my people out safely. I have enough resources to settle them somewhere safely, but the city isn’t exactly traversable for us right now.” I’ve had the resources for years. Taking down Olympus wasn’t cheap by any definition of the word. If I’d gone a different route…
No. If I allow myself regrets, then they’ll crush me. I made mistakes. I miscalculated a number of things. People who I care deeply about died…
I rub my chest again. What is grief if not regret? I can’t banish it. Not when I know the last thing Antigone did was push me over the edge in an attempt to give me a chance to survive. She…
“Circe.” Hecate covers my fingers with hers. The skin on my chest aches, and I belatedly realize I’ve been scratching myself as if I can dig my heart out of my chest with my bare hands. She squeezes. “I’m sorry. For everything.” She pulls me into a tight hug.
I cling to her, letting the familiarity of her roll over me. So much has changed, from our bodies to our circumstances, and yet I would know her even in a world devoid of all my senses. “I’m sorry, too,” I whisper. “I should have come back for you instead of letting my hate and rage fester.”
“There was a lot of hate and rage to go around.” She kisses me lightly and leans back. “But we’re going to leave Olympus better than we found it.”
“I love you.” How could I not, when her brilliance shines through even the darkest times? No matter how many setbacks and losses she’s experienced, she has her eye on what the future could be, and she’s willing to use all of her considerable skills to bring it into reality.
“I love you, too.” She cups my jaw, her pretty face almost serene. “It will be worth it, Circe. I promise.”
I turn to find Atalanta watching us. I brace for jealousy—this triad is so new that surely there will be some kind of jealousy or balance problems—but she’s wearing a contemplative expression. I bite my bottom lip. “I’m glad to have found you, too, Atalanta.”
“I know,” she says simply. “But you’re acting like we’re making grand declarations before we all go die nobly, and I’m not interested in that outcome.”
Hecate laughs a little and disentangles herself from me. “You’re right. We’re being unbearably dramatic.”
Atalanta surveys me. “It’s best we let Olympus believe you died in the river. Nothing has hit MuseWatch about the possibility that you survived. If the public thinks you’re dead, it will be easier to get them to focus on the future instead of continuing their rampage as they search for you.”
I open my mouth to argue, but the logic is sound and it would be my pride talking. I sigh. “I guess Olympus has killed me after all.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Hecate bumps her shoulder to mine. It’s a testament of her resilience to be able to joke about this while the situation is still developing.
“I suppose I need to start making my plans to leave the city.” Alone, again. Except not entirely. I’ll have Nerissa and the few surviving people I brought with me to Olympus. If they will have me, which isn’t a guarantee at this point.
“The sooner, the better.” Atalanta doesn’t blink. “Hecate—or, Hermes, rather—needs to be the thing they unify against in order to pull them forward into a new form of government. I’m not leaving her here to do it alone without anyone to watch her back.”
If I leave Olympus and they spend potentially months in each other’s arms, they’ll have all the opportunity in the world to realize they don’t need to make their twosome a threesome. That I carry more baggage than the two of them combined. That I’m more trouble than I’m worth.
They’d be right.
I swallow down the words I’d need to convince them to let me stay, to hide until it’s time for us all to leave.
If we have any chance of something developing outside of trauma and forced proximity, I have to do the right thing.
I hate doing the right thing. “I don’t know the extent of my surviving people’s injuries, but it’s safe to assume our best option would be taking a ship. ”
“You need to—” Atalanta cuts herself off and blinks. “You’re just giving in without a fight?”
“I can listen to reason. Occasionally. Yesterday rocked me right down to my foundations, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to having doubts after Eros’s death.” It takes more effort than I want to admit to meet her gaze. “After everything I’ve lost—we’ve lost—I won’t be the reason you fail.”
Hecate smiles, though it’s bittersweet in the extreme. “We’ll get you a ship, Circe. But you have to take all your people—even the ones in the lower city.”
A flash of fear goes through me. What she’s asking is all but impossible.
“Hades won’t bring down the barrier, and he certainly isn’t going to march my people safely through it if he knows where they are.
” I can’t be responsible for deaths of more people who believed in me enough to risk everything and come here.
Going back to Aeaea isn’t an option, not when the nobles retreated with their tails between their legs.
They’ll be looking to punish someone for their weakness, and without me, my people don’t have the power to stand against them.
Even if Icarus is somehow victorious in his efforts to change Aeaean politics, he won’t look kindly on my people, either.
“I’ll ensure they make it to you safely. No one else will die.” The way Hecate says it, firmly and confidently, I almost believe her. She glances at Atalanta, reading some unspoken communication there. “It’s time.”
Part of me wants to retreat, to walk into the bedroom and shut the door, maybe to take a shower for good measure. Every instinct I’ve developed over the years has been in the effort of only allowing part of myself to be perceived. If they can’t see all of you, they can’t hurt you, not really.
What Hecate is about to do is the equivalent of dancing naked in the middle of the street, but if she’s brave enough to broadcast this vulnerability to the entire city, then I can be brave enough to witness it firsthand.
She arranges herself on the couch in front of the phone we’ve positioned on a makeshift stand: a stack of books and other things we found around the apartment. I hate how alone she looks. I hate…
Atalanta sits next to me, close enough for her thigh to press tightly to mine.
She takes my hand and laces our fingers together without saying a word—a silent acknowledgment of how fucking hard this is…
and not just for me. Her thigh contains the faintest tremor, as if she’s forcing herself to hold still instead of knocking the phone off the pile of things and wrapping herself around Hecate.
Hecate who looks soft and tired and all too vulnerable in this moment. But the recording has started, and it’s too late to do anything but bear witness.
Hecate smiles softly at the camera. “You know me. Or at least you think you do. I’ve held the title of Hermes for roughly ten years.
In that time, I’ve been your favorite form of entertainment, a court jester for you to laugh at and with in equal measure.
But I wasn’t always Hermes. It’s time for me to introduce myself properly.
” She takes a deep breath. “My name is Hecate, and this is my story.”
I know the events she’s relating by heart, and yet it feels like she’s stripping me down piece by piece as she speaks.
“I was born in the countryside. My father died in a work accident when I was seven. My mother died several years later of a cancer she likely got from breathing in the fumes from her work without the proper ventilation and equipment. My aunt and uncle took me in and did their best, but it wasn’t an easy life.
” The pain is there in her dark-brown eyes, so open and honest.
“When I was a teenager, I fell in love with a girl.” Her attention doesn’t move from the phone, but I swear I feel it flick to me all the same.
“Even as hard as things were, we were immortal in the way teenagers believe themselves to be. When we were sixteen, we dropped out of school and took jobs for the last Demeter.”
We were so sure it was the right choice.
The only choice, really. Her aunt and uncle were having their own health problems by that point, and Hecate didn’t want to be a burden.
I had no one but her; I would have done anything she asked, anything to carve out a little place in the world that was just ours.
“It wasn’t a perfect life, but we were happy for years.” She pauses, gathering herself. “And then my girlfriend took a day trip into the city to buy me an anniversary gift—a wedding ring.”
I flinch. How did she know that? I’d never confessed my plan leading up to the trip, and I certainly hadn’t told anyone about it in the time since.
Hecate’s eyes are luminous with unshed tears.
“You know at least part of the story from here. While she was in the city, she had the grave misfortune of drawing Zeus’s attention.
He was in want of a wife, and she didn’t have the power to tell him no.
” She shakes her head. “No one in Olympus has the power to tell Zeus no. Not the legacy families. Not even the Thirteen.”
Atalanta squeezes my hand again, a silent comfort. I hadn’t realized I’d started rubbing my chest, for all that my discomfort isn’t physical. I’ve told this story, but it’s different now. Hecate isn’t using this tragic tale as leverage the same way I did. She’s laying herself bare.
“She was too fierce, too wild, and he killed her for it.” A single tear slides down her cheek.
“Or at least we all thought he did, but that’s not part of this story yet.
” She wipes the evidence of her grief away hastily.
“I was distraught. I fell into a pit I didn’t think I’d ever get out of again, one I only survived with the help of a friend. ”
Now it’s my turn to rub my thumb over Atalanta’s knuckles, giving comfort as she joins the path through ugly memories.
Hecate leans forward to prop her elbows on her knees and laces her fingers together loosely.
“I looked around and so many things became clear. We live in a world where one powerful man can take a spouse against their will. Where he can kill them without fear of consequences. Except it wasn’t just one powerful man.
It was thirteen people and the legacy families that feed their positions.
The entire system is corrupt down to its very bones.
We are allowed to vote for one of those positions, and that election is flawed because only the rich and powerful have the resources to run a proper campaign. It has to end.”
Now she straightens, blazing with her truth.
“I became Hermes to dismantle the system from within. While things haven’t gone according to plan by any stretch of the imagination, we now find ourselves at a place where we have a chance, as a city, to make a different choice.
” She takes a deep breath and launches into the invitation—and threat—giving the details she’s already relayed to the lead figures of the various factions of Olympus. Just as we planned.
And then it’s over, and it feels like she’s sucked every bit of air from the room. I huff out a pained laugh. “There’s no way they won’t listen after that.”
Atalanta wraps an arm around my shoulders and tucks me against her side. “Come with us to the university. Hades won’t bring the barrier down in the next two days—and maybe not even then, depending on which way the wind blows. You and the rest of your people need to stay out of sight.”
She’s right. This new role I’ve unexpectedly come to occupy isn’t comfortable in the least. I don’t like relying on other people—even these two women—but I don’t have much choice.
Too many people I’ve cared about have died because of my mistakes.
I won’t allow any more of them to. “I’ll do whatever it takes.
In the meantime, I’ll organize a strategic retreat to somewhere far from here. ”
It’s strange to think about the potential for after. I always intended to take Olympus as my own, to create new memories for the places where my trauma still lingers. To make it mine in a way it never could be under the current ruling class.
There’s a whole wide world out there. One that I could explore…that we could explore. Together.