Pandora sets down her e-reader with exaggerated slowness. Her sunny smile is nowhere in evidence. “If you want an actual answer, I’m going to need you to check your tone and try that again.”

I have to muscle down the urge to roar out all my frustration and anger at her. It’s not her fault I had a shitty day in a long string of shitty days, but I thought she was in my corner and now I’m not so sure. I succeed in moderating my tone. Barely. “You fucked my wife.”

She doesn’t tend to blush, but I don’t need to see it when she’s shifting on the couch like someone poured itching powder into her leggings. “I wouldn’t call it ‘fucking.’”

“Don’t play semantics with me, Pandora.”

Her dark brows crash down. “Why are you really mad?” She waves a hand before I can respond. “Oh, I know you’d be pissed about that little indiscretion no matter what, but not this mad.”

Damn her for knowing me so well. I move into the living room and drop down next to her on the couch. “Adonis and I went to my office today.”

“Adonis,” she says slowly. “As in Aphrodite’s ex, Adonis? Someone’s a hypocrite.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about right now.”

She turns to face me on the couch, curling her legs in a position that makes me wince in sympathy for her joints. Her expression is all feigned calm, but her eyes are just as angry as I feel. “By all means, Theseus, let’s not talk about anything you don’t want to talk about right now.”

She’s pissed and she probably has a right to be, but I’m so fucking frustrated, I can barely focus. “I should have killed literally anyone else. I’m not cut out for this fucking job. All the people who answer to Hephaestus—”

“You’re Hephaestus now.”

I ignore that. “Every single one of them is a fucking snooty asshole who graduated with some obscure college degree that I’ve never heard of. Even with Adonis there, they all played innocent while they updated me on shit that doesn’t even make sense. They made me wait four hours for a bunch of reports I can’t even read. I know they’re written in English, but they might as well be Latin for all I understood it. And, those fuckers, they know it.” I am smart enough when it comes to the things I care about, but I never did well in school and college wasn’t even on the agenda.

Minos didn’t pick me because I can talk fancy and invent shit.

He picked me because he looked at me and saw a capacity for violence that he could hone into a weapon. I made my peace with that a long time ago. I don’t try to be anything but what I am.

Except now my very role in life is something that I’m not.

“Oh, Theseus.” Pandora squeezes my arm. “We’re basically invaders. Of course they weren’t going to welcome you with open arms.”

I know that. Of course I fucking know that. “It would have been better if I’d become Ares. Or even Athena or Artemis.” Unlike the Minotaur, I wouldn’t have fucked up that kill. At least then I’d be in charge of a realm that made sense to me.

“It will get better.”

I give her the look that deserves. It’s not going to get better. Minos hasn’t shared the details of his plans going forward, not now that I’ve served my role, but if he gets his way, I doubt Olympus will be standing by the end of this. That should be comforting. I am Hephaestus, but who knows what that will mean in six months, or a year. I should be happy.

Instead, it’s hard not to feel like I’ve sacrificed so much for shit-all.

“It won’t get better for them,” I snap.

“It doesn’t have to be that way. We don’t have to act this way.” Pandora shifts and tucks her hair behind her ears. “I know what we were taught, but maybe they aren’t as bad as all that. Really, they’re not that much different from us.”

She’s not wrong. The way the center city lives is still alien to me, but the same could be said of Aeaea before Minos took us in. The orphanage might as well have been on the moon for all our lives there had in common with how we lived in his house. But that doesn’t make a difference. “We came here for a purpose, and we’re going to see it through.”

“What if the purpose is wrong?”

I sink down next to her on the couch. We’ve had variations of this conversation for months. Longer, even. Pandora doesn’t feel beholden to Minos the way I do. She doesn’t understand that I will do anything to keep us from going back to a place without power, helpless to the whims of those around us.

Even if lately I feel more in common with that child in the orphanage than I do with the man I’ve worked so hard to become. “It’s not for us to question the purpose. Minos has a plan.” A plan that seems to require sacrifice from everyone but him.

Hehasn’t felt the weight of all the strings that tie me in place.

Or if he does, he hides it significantly better than I do; another lesson he never bothered to teach me.

“You have more faith in him than I do.” Pandora shakes her head, her dark eyes holding things I’m not ready to see. “I wish you would listen to reason, Theseus.”

No matter the shared history we have, Pandora will never look at Minos the way I do. To her, he’s a vicious man who ruthlessly adopted two teenagers to enact a plan fifteen years in the making. And she’s not wrong. But what she fails to acknowledge is where we would’ve ended up if not for Minos. He saved us, whether she wants to admit it or not. Without him, we would’ve been turned out onto the streets the second we turned eighteen.

And the streets of Aeaea would’ve eaten us alive.

I don’t know if I could’ve protected Pandora, not at eighteen, not without the skills that I’ve learned since joining Minos. She doesn’t want to hear that, though. We’ve had this argument more times than I care to count. I know exactly how it will go from here. We will circle round and round until we’re yelling at each other, and then one of us will storm off, only to crawl back and apologize within an hour or two.

Instead I change the subject. “Where is everyone?”

Pandora shrugs as if it doesn’t actually matter. “Icarus is off doing…whatever it is that Icarus does when no one else is around. I saw Ariadne typing away at her computer awhile back, but that’s all she seems to do these days.”

“I wasn’t asking about them.”

She gives me a look filled with censure. “You never ask about them.”

Why would I? They’re soft, coddled creatures. Even with Minos as their father, they haven’t acquired the hard edge that Pandora and I were born with. And the Minotaur? Well, he’s another story altogether. But Ariadne and Icarus have been kept safe and sheltered, and it’s spoiled them to the reality of the world. Ariadne spends all her time online, indulging in the privilege of a digital life and ignoring the blood staining the hands around her.

Icarus doesn’t hide, but his relationship with Minos is complicated. Instead of keeping his head down and obeying, he flounces and makes passive-aggressive comments, dramatic to the bitter end.

“If you’d just—”

I shake my head sharply. “No. They aren’t like us.”

“Theseus.” She touches my forearm. “It doesn’t have to be this way. You have the title now. I might not love the way you got it, but it’s done. You don’t have to keep doing the awful things he asks of you.” She hesitates. “Aphrodite isn’t all that bad. If you’d stop fighting her and start working with her, maybe we could put a stop to all this before it truly spins out of control.”

Hearing my wife’s name on Pandora’s lips banishes the warmth in my chest. I straighten, shifting my arm from her touch. “She’s using you. I thought you were smarter than that, Pandora.”

“Oh no, you don’t get to do that.” She narrows her eyes. “I grew up in the same place you did, and I learned the same hard lessons surviving that nightmare. You do not get to act like I’m some naive fool being led along by my curiosity. The Thirteen as a whole are monsters. I’ve never argued with that. But they are still made up of people. People with scars who have seen things just as horrible as what we grew up with. And that’s not even getting into the people who don’t live in the center city. There are people like us here, Theseus.”

“We’re not going after the people like us.”

Pandora tosses up her hands. “I wish you would stop and think. If Aeaea had the equivalent of the Thirteen, then Minos would sit on that board. He’s the very thing you claim to hate. You are, too, now that you’ve become Hephaestus.”

I push to my feet, driven by the need to get the fuck away from this conversation, from hearing that name on my best friend’s lips. “Whatever. I’m going to find Minos and update him.”

“Oh yes, do run away like a damned coward.”

I spin on my heel. My knee buckles, but I manage to keep my feet and resist wincing as pain shoots up my leg. I point at her. “That’s where you and I are different, Pandora. You can drag your bleeding heart all over this city, wasting it on people who wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire. I don’t give a fuck about them, just like I don’t give a fuck about anyone back in Aeaea. I give a fuck about you, and I can’t keep you safe if you’re off gallivanting around with one of those monsters.”

She sits back, her expression sad. I hate that I made her sad, that it seems to be the rule rather than the exception these days. I disappoint Pandora. I disappoint Minos. I’m fucking up. Pandora picks up her e-reader, but her voice follows me as I leave the room. “I’ve always had a monster at my side, Theseus.”

No reason for her words to plague me. I know what I am. I’m not the good guy. That was never going to be my role, and damn Pandora for pretending like I’ve ever had a choice.

In our world, you’re either predator, or you’re prey.

I had to be predator enough to protect us both. Apparently I still do.

I make my way through the penthouse to where Minos’s office is. The door is cracked, so I can hear his deep voice as he speaks to someone on the phone. I lean against the wall, waiting.

“Things are proceeding according to plan, more or less. The shipments are currently waiting in the harbor, but Poseidon has no reason to question their contents.” A pause. “No, I haven’t been able to get to the lower city. The outer barrier might be faltering, but the one on the River Styx is still strong enough to repel us if he decides to make it so, and he’s not my biggest fan.”

That’s the understatement of the year. Though, honestly, it’s a toss-up who among the Thirteen wants us dead the most. Zeus or Hades, perhaps, but we can’t discount Hera, Artemis, Athena, and my darling wife. All are formidable in their own way—even Hera, despite our reports saying it was all but an empty title. That may have been true with past Heras, but it’s not with this one. I would hesitate to give her my back, for fear of ending up with a knife slipped between my ribs.

Minos clears his throat. “The public is responding exactly as you anticipated. They’re doing most of the work for us. One of them even tried to kill Athena this morning, which is significantly more ballsy than I expected so early in the process.” A beat. “Yes, the timeline is intact. It’s a waiting game until the ship docks and our…packages…are unloaded. I’ll, of course, keep you updated.” A pause. “Stop lurking in the halls and get in here.” He’s lost the false cheer in his voice, but I prefer him this way.

When it’s just us, Minos never pretends to be anything other than what he is. A predator, just like me.

I step into the office. It’s nearly identical to the one he set up in the country house he bought from Hermes. A large, dark wooden desk dominates the space with a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the city behind it. The other two walls are lined with bookshelves, though in all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him read. Ariadne is the reader of the family, but Minos would never allow her bent and dog-eared romance novels to populate the shelves of his space.

“Shut the door.”

My stomach drops, but I obey. I clench my jaw and keep the limp out of my stride as much as possible as I cross to sink down in the chair across the desk from him. Even with that effort, his gaze lingers on my injured knee and distaste flickers across his features. He grabs a tablet and his fingers sweep over the screen. “I’d like you to explain this to me.”

He spins it to face me, and the sinking feeling in my stomach gets worse. It’s a MuseWatch article on the home page. The photographer caught me right as I was walking up to Aphrodite’s building, and I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking in that moment, but I can’t deny that I look…lost. The headline is even worse.

POOR HEPHAESTUS. AT HOME WAITING FOR HIS WIFE WHILE SHE’S OUT PHILANDERING.

I skim the article, which is pitying, but significantly more sympathetic than previous ones. Adonis’s plan is working, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about being painted as some poor sap waiting with his heart in his hand while his wife runs around town with anyone who will have her.

With Pandora.

“I—”

Minos talks right over me. “Because it looks like my foster son is playing the part of a pathetic weakling who can’t control his wife. It’s been less than a week, and she’s already been photographed with four separate people who aren’t you. The entire city is laughing at you. At us.”

That’s the crux of the matter. Pandora might think I follow Minos without question, but I know what he is and what his priorities are. How he’s acted with me since the Ares competition has more than proved that. I’m no use to him if I’m not in perfect health and the very picture of obedience. “I’m working on it.”

“Are you? Because it appears you’re pining.” He spits it as if it’s a dirty word. “You look weak, which makes us look weak by extension. I have put too much effort into garnering favor with the Olympian people to have you undo it in a few short days. It’s unacceptable.”

Frustration sinks its roots into me. “If you have a better idea to gain public favor, I’d love to hear it.”

“Watch how you speak to me, boy.” His tone goes sharp and dark. “I pulled you out of the gutter and I can put you right back into it. You’ve failed me one too many times already. Do it again, and I’m going stop being so nice.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll fix it.”

“You’d better. You won’t like how things fall out if I’m required to step in.”

You’re Hephaestus now.

“I’ll take care of it.” I shake my head sharply, trying to banish Pandora’s voice. It doesn’t matter if I’m technically one of the thirteen most powerful people in the city. So was the last Hephaestus, and look where he is now.

Six feet underground, food for the worms.

The same can happen to me.

The same will happen to me if I don’t fix this.