18 Ariadne

18

Ariadne

Dinner at the Dryad is horrendous. Not the food. It looks lovely and smells appetizing, but I can't bring myself to do more than push it around on my plate. My stomach is tied in knots and my tongue feels too thick in my mouth. Luckily, it seems my presence is the only thing that's required tonight. They might as well have brought a cardboard cutout for all that the people present expect me to engage in conversation.

I try to focus on the discussions around me, swirling faster than a raging river, but it's all white noise. Every single member of the Thirteen is here… Well, except for Hades. He hasn't crossed over to the upper city since erecting the barrier along the river. But the other twelve? They're here. Even Hermes.

Some of them—Artemis, the new Hephaestus, the new Aphrodite—watch me as if they expect me to pull a gun out and start shooting. Or as if they'd like to push me into traffic. Demeter and Hera lean close to each other and speak so softly that I can't pick up their words. It's enough to make me wonder if Demeter is aware of what her daughter's plotting. With that family, it's difficult to say.

Ares is here with her two partners, Achilles and Patroclus. The trio is beautiful enough to make my eyes hurt, and they all watch me warily. Zeus sits between his sister and his wife, and yet he might as well be on the moon for all he appears to be present. His cold blue eyes are watching something a thousand miles away.

Next to me, Dionysus and Hermes chat easily, belying the tension I picked up from him when he mentioned her previously. There are a couple of other partners here; Apollo has brought his fiancée, Cassandra, and Athena has Atalanta at her side, though I can't tell if she's there as a bodyguard or a girlfriend.

"Ariadne."

I turn my head slowly, belatedly realizing that it's not the first time Dionysus has said my name.

His dark eyes are sympathetic as he takes me in. "Are you okay?"

No. I'm not even a little bit okay. I try for a smile but give up halfway through. "I'm a little overwhelmed."

"Understandable. All of us together is a little much." His grin is crooked. "If you need some air, there's a stairway back by the bathroom. Technically, the balcony that it leads to is designated for employees taking a smoke break, but I don't think anyone will begrudge you a few minutes up there." He squeezes my arm. "Take as long as you need."

I might be trapped in a snare of my own making, but I really could do worse for a spouse than Dionysus. He's Olympian, but he's gone out of his way to try to make me feel safe and comfortable. Even when he himself wasn't feeling safe or comfortable.

"Thank you," I whisper.

"Go on. All we have left is dessert, but they're bound to get drinks and make this stretch for at least another hour before someone starts a fight."

I hastily murmur an excuse that no one listens to and slip away from the table. The bathrooms are tucked in the back corner of the restaurant, and the stairwell is cleverly hidden around the corner from there. I make it up one step when an arm comes around my waist and a hand clamps over my mouth.

This time, I don't bother to scream. I know this hand, this arm. Asterion.

He releases me after a beat. "You're learning."

I don't dignify that comment with a response. Instead I turn to face him. Even standing one stair above him, he still towers over me. I take in the sight of him, my breath stopping in my throat. Asterion always looks good, and there's a part of me that has suspected for years that he gives off some specific pheromone I'm weak for. But seeing him in a suit? It's a different experience entirely.

When some people wear a suit, it tames their sharp edges, serving them up in a more palatable form. Not so with Asterion. With his long, dark-red hair, big body, and scarred face, all the suit does is showcases his brutality. No one will look at him and assume that he's an executive. He's a warrior right down to his bones.

"Did you come to fuck me on a table in front of everyone?" I mean for the question to come out sharp and sarcastic, but my voice is a little too breathy to quite pull it off.

He gives me a long look as if I've disappointed him somehow. Then he steps back and holds out his hand. "Those peacocks won't miss you for a while yet. Come with me."

It's nothing more than Dionysus already said, but I can't help shooting a guilty look at the hallway leading back to the restaurant as I slip my hand into Asterion's. "I don't have much time."

"You have enough."

I'm not really sure what I expect, but it's not for him to lead me down a different set of hallways deeper into the employee side of the restaurant. We pass a handful of servers, each balancing trays filled to the brim with beautiful food, and then Asterion pulls me through a door into a small and meticulously organized office.

"Whose office is this?" I look around, but the answer is readily apparent in the sticky notes with comments about different flavor profiles and appetizer ideas and the calendar with a color-coded employee schedule. This must belong to the head chef. "I'm not fucking you in some stranger's office."

Asterion's still got that disappointed look in his eyes. I don't like it. Before I can say anything, he snorts. "All I'd have to do is crook my finger at you and you'd fall to your knees and beg for my cock, so don't pretend otherwise." He turns for the door. "But that's not why I'm here. Sit down. Don't touch anything. I promised him we wouldn't fuck with his stuff." He's gone before I can pepper him with further questions.

Part of me didn't believe that he'd come tonight. The Olympians don't necessarily have a price on his head, but he's hardly safe here. I eye the rolling chair—it's a fancy wide-set one that probably cost a small fortune. It's remarkably comfortable when I sit down. There's a part of me that wonders if Asterion thought of even this, but surely that's a step too far.

He returns a few minutes later with a covered plate on a tray. It looks absurd in his large hands, and he doesn't carry it with the same grace the servers at the restaurant do. Still, he manages to place it in front of me with a little fanfare.

He removes the lid and steps back, and I'm left staring at a replica of the main course that I ordered but was too nervous to eat earlier. I don't know how he timed it so perfectly, but steam rises from the pasta, and the parmesan has barely begun to melt.

I shift my attention to him, noting the way he stands perfectly still as if he's holding his breath. As if he's not quite sure of my reception. "Why?" I finally manage to ask.

"You never eat at political dinners. Your nerves get the best of you and then you spend the rest of the night starving because you're too ashamed to admit you're still hungry."

Not that my father would have permitted midnight runs to the kitchen. When I was younger, he caught me once or twice, and I had to sit through a lecture on gluttony every time. I learned to be sneaky after that, though Icarus usually got there before I had a chance to leave my room, showing up with an armful of snacks and a mischievous grin on his face.

I look down at the plate before me and then back at Asterion. "You had the chef make me an extra plate because you knew I wouldn't eat?"

He holds my gaze even though he clearly wants to look away. "That's what I said, isn't it?"

I pick up my fork and set it down again. I'm a smart woman, for all that it sometimes takes me a while to realize certain truths. I'm a little ashamed that I misread the situation so intensely. That I misread him so intensely. "You were never going to kill me, were you?"

"Eat your food. You don't want it getting cold on you."

It's not an answer, and yet at the same time, it is. I don't know what this means. I don't see how it can change anything. If Asterion doesn't obey my father's commands, then he'll just find someone else to do it. If I don't marry Dionysus and get the blueprints, then it won't matter what my father wants, because Hera will demand her due. I'm still trapped.

But…maybe I'm not trapped alone? I'm terrified to even hope that's the case.

"Thank you," I say softly. This gift is damn near priceless, because it shows the depth of knowing that only exists between me and two other people. My brother…and Asterion. I pick up my fork again, determined to honor this. My stomach is still twisted up, but here in this room with only us, I relax enough to take a first bite. And then another. And another.

It's phenomenal. It tastes just as good as it looks, just as good as it smells. Asterion doesn't speak as I eat my way through the meal, but he slips out of the room right as I'm about to finish, reappearing a few moments later with a small bowl. "This isn't technically on the menu, but I saw the chef and sous chefs trying it out, so I…convinced…him to give me one to sample."

I stare at the chocolate dessert and have to fight not to cry. "This isn't going to end well for us. I don't see a path forward."

"You don't have to." He sets it on the desk in front of me. "I'll see the way for both of us."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I just am."

What must it be like to have that kind of confidence? I'll never know. I fight and scramble and do my best not to be helpless, but at the end of the day, I suffer at the whims of those more powerful than me. Truly, Asterion and I should be on the same page when it comes to that. He fought his way up from nothing, but even now, more powerful physically than anyone I know, he's still my father's man. But he's not letting that stop him from doing what he wants. For…me.

I eat the dessert slowly, and it's truly the best thing I've ever tasted. The entire dinner is. Some of that is the nature of the food itself, but a good portion of my feelings is the result of the care that went into planning this. I always knew that Asterion saw me. I just never quite understood what that meant. I'm still not sure I do.

It's over far too quickly. I know better than to try to make it last, but I still eat slower than is wise. When I finish, Asterion takes my plate and presses a light kiss to my forehead. "Tomorrow, Ariadne. Bring the blueprints to me, and then we'll talk about the next steps."

I don't tell him that I got the blueprints the morning after our disastrous meeting at his apartment. I've had them since yesterday, and not even I can explain why I hesitated to hand them over. It's not because I hold some fondness for Zeus or even really care if he lives or dies. The man might play at being a king, but he's just as much a monster as his father was. He must be for Hera to plan to kill him. Though, truth be told, she's plenty monstrous in her own right.

"I want to get out of the city."

Asterion crouches in front of me. He's tall enough that we're almost the same height. He studies my face as if memorizing it, as if for the first time in as long as I can remember, he's not entirely sure of me. "I can get you out. Not yet—not everything is in place to make it happen—but I can do it."

I want out with a desperation I don't know how to grapple with. Wanting that makes me a bad person. There's no two ways about it. "For us to get out, that means the barrier will fall."

"The barrier was always going to fall, sweetheart. Circe made sure of that."

He's right, I think. And yet I can't stop the guilt that threatens to swallow me whole. "How many people have to die for her vengeance? For my father's ambition? If the barrier stayed up—"

"It won't."

I press on, pretending I didn't hear him. "If the barrier stayed up," I repeat, "then Circe and her army would have to give up."

"Ariadne." He waits for me to look at him before he continues. "You're not that naive, so stop pretending. Even if the barrier didn't come down, the Thirteen would keep on fucking with the people less powerful than them. You've been to the lower city, to the countryside. You're a smart woman; you understand that this is not some utopian city where everyone is treated fairly. And neither was Aeaea. The world is fucked up, but it's consistent. Powerful people do awful things to maintain their power. The barrier was destined to fall the moment Circe left and took a piece of it with her. There's no stopping it. This shit is bigger than us. It always has been."

I can't tell if I want to shove his words away or hold them close to my heart in reassurance. Doing one feels just as naive as he labeled me. Doing the other feels self-serving in the extreme. If we're just two cogs in the machine and nothing we do has any long-term consequences, then we can do anything at all. We could bring down the damn barrier and tell ourselves that it was fate.

"That's a cop-out, Asterion."

"Is it?" He reaches out and brushes my hair back from my face. "Look around, sweetheart. Every single person in this fucked-up world is only looking out for themselves. It's time you do the same."