26. Charon

26

CHARON

I know my long day is about to get even longer when I’m summoned to Hades’s office again. I walk through the door to find him glaring at his computer, which only means one thing—he’s about to meet with the rest of the Thirteen. Since the new Zeus took over the position, Hades has been venturing into the upper city for these meetings. I will admit more than a little relief about the fact that he’s not doing it tonight. After the attack on the club, we need to lock down.

He won’t give that order. Not until he absolutely has to. He doesn’t normally care about public perception the same way the others seem to, but he’s certainly more aware of it since he married Persephone.

“I want you sitting in on this meeting. I’m sorry I’m not able to give you an update before I deal with the rest of them, but time is of the essence.”

“Of course.” I take position just off his right shoulder where I can hear what’s said and see the screen, but no one on the screen can see me.

He pulls up the software to initiate a video call, and then hesitates. “Eurydice has been safely escorted back to your town house. Minthe arranged for someone to relieve her when her shift ends. They’re not inside the house, but they are keeping watch.”

Relief twines with alarm. “You don’t normally take this kind of interest in nitty-gritty things like schedules.”

He gives me a slashing look. “We are talking about my sister-in-law. The reason I don’t take an overt interest in details like scheduling is because that’s your job, and I’m not interested in stepping on your toes. You’re my second-in-command for a reason, Charon. I’m informing you so you can focus on this meeting without worrying about Eurydice. She’s safe.”

This is about the information Ariadne gave. He’s expecting me to have an extremely negative response to it. I take a slow breath. “I appreciate that.” There’s nothing else to say. We don’t have that kind of relationship anyways. We’re friends as such things go, but until Hades met Persephone, he attempted to keep a thick icy wall between him and anyone else. Things might’ve thawed in the last year, but old habits are hard to break.

Hades scrubs his hands over his face and smooths back his hair. It’s the only sign of nerves he gives. When he pushes the button to initiate the call, his shoulders are straight and his face is a cold mask. One by one, squares pop up with various members of the Thirteen. There’s Zeus and Hera, sitting a very careful distance apart. There’s Poseidon, looking like he hasn’t slept in days. They aren’t who I’m interested in. My gaze skips over Hephaestus and Aphrodite, both newly appointed barely a month ago when the last two stepped down.

Finally Hermes arrives. She appears to be on a mobile phone, walking somewhere quick enough to give me motion sickness. Her dark-brown skin gleams with perspiration in the low light, and sometime since I saw her last, she’s put her hair in braids.

I’m not the only one who’s waiting for her to arrive. Zeus leans forward as if he can reach right through the screen and throttle her. “Hermes. You haven’t reported for the last month’s worth of meetings. Where are you?”

“Here and there, hither and yon. You know, the usual.” She grins, but it doesn’t quite have her usual carefree vibe. “This meeting wasn’t called to talk about me, was it? Why are you so obsessed with me?” She laughs.

“Maybe because you’re a fucking traitor.” Artemis doesn’t yell. She doesn’t have to. Her words cut through the tension like a knife. “For all we know, you’re working for the enemy.”

“How very dramatic.” She opens her mouth, no doubt to continue needling Artemis, but Zeus cuts in before she can continue.

“This meeting wasn’t called by you—either of you. Hades, you have something to say?”

I feel a twinge of sympathy for Hades. It can’t be comfortable having twelve pairs of cold dangerous eyes staring at him, waiting for him to give them what is inevitably bad news. He doesn’t flinch. “One of my people has been in contact with Minos’s daughter, Ariadne. They were able to turn her to our side in exchange for several things that I will not disclose at this time, but suffice to say that those things do not endanger Olympus. The information she passed on, however, does.”

Apollo flinches. I’ve seen him before, of course, but considering that his little brother is back in my town house and was in my bed last night, I study him with new interest. He and Orpheus share the same coloring, with their dark eyes and black hair, but Apollo has more of his father in him. He’s built broader than Orpheus, and his jaw is nearly as square as Zeus’s.

When he speaks, his tone is careful. “Someone was able to turn Ariadne?”

“Who?” This comes from Demeter, mother to Eurydice, Persephone, Psyche, and our current Hera. She’s a middle-aged white woman who’s started to go soft in a way that has nothing to do with weakness. I’ve seen pictures of her from her youth, and she looks just like Eurydice and Persephone. In the decade since she won the title of Demeter by popular vote in Olympus, she has truly embraced the matronly earth mother persona.

She’s also one of the scariest people I’ve ever encountered.

Hades doesn’t flinch in the face of her suspicion. “It’s immaterial. The information I have, however, isn’t.”

“Tell us.” Zeus sits back. He’s a cold motherfucker, and right now is no exception. I can’t read anything on his face. The last Zeus was charismatic and boisterous, always the biggest personality in any room he walked into. His son either doesn’t have the skill to manipulate people like that, or doesn’t have the interest. I know which I would prefer to deal with, but the people of Olympus have been raking him over the coals for being so unlikable. He won’t play the game, and they resent him for it.

“Does the name Circe mean anything to you?”

I search the faces on the screen, looking for recognition. I don’t know who this person is, but I can connect the dots when they’re laid out in front of me. She is Minos’s benefactor. Which means she’s the enemy. I’m not comforted by the confused looks on everyone’s faces—except three. Zeus, Ares…

And Hermes.

Hermes bursts out laughing. “Gods, it took you long enough to figure it out. I thought I was going to have to send a carrier pigeon.” There’s a sound in the background, sharp and booming, and she looks over her shoulder. “Oh damn, I have to run. Have fun, darlings.” A second later her square disappears.

Hades sits back with a sigh. “Apparently some of you are in on the secret. Her name is unfamiliar to me.”

Zeus shakes his head, and for the first time, something resembling an actual expression appears on his face. “What you’re saying is impossible. Circe is dead. She died fifteen years ago.”

Ares is so pale, she looks like she might pass out. “Perseus, her body was never recovered. At the time, I thought it was Father covering things up, but…”

“But?” Aphrodite stops short and seems to try to compose themself. “What are you talking about? Who is Circe?”

“You wouldn’t recognize the name because she’s not from one of the legacy families. It happened so fast, everybody was focused on who she became, rather than who she was.” Ares tucks her hair behind her ears with shaking hands. “She was only a couple years older than me at the time, but it was pretty clear right off the bat that Father bit off more than he could chew. He didn’t wait long to make his move.”

Pieces fall into place, one by one. I see my suspicions reflected in the faces of the people in the meeting, in the sudden tension in Hades’s shoulders. The last Zeus had a reputation as a wife killer. His first wife, mother to his four children, died from an unfortunate fall down the stairs. An accident, Zeus claimed, and supposedly he wasn’t anywhere in the house when it happened. His third wife died from a rumored overdose. The official story is that she accidentally mixed meds and had an adverse reaction, but whether that was intentional on her part—or her husband’s part—is anyone’s guess.

But the second wife?

A drowning accident during a romantic trip to the coast during their honeymoon.

Hades leans forward and props his elbows on the desk. “Are you saying that Circe, Minos’s benefactor, enemy to Olympus, is the previous Zeus’s second wife?”

“It’s understandable that her real name doesn’t ring any bells.” Zeus smiles, but not like anything is funny. “When you would’ve known her, her name was Hera.”

Things devolve pretty quickly after that. Hades manages to get out the rest of his information, including the fact that apparently when Circe slipped out of Olympus, she took a piece of the barrier with her. She’s the reason it’s failing. No one has a good solution. Athena offers to send one of her people to take care of the problem quietly, but Zeus tells her that the situation is already beyond that point. Artemis refuses to believe that a Hera could be the source of all these problems. The new Hephaestus promises to take a look at the barrier, certain that xe can find a solution that no one else has managed to before now.

In short, it’s a fucking mess.

Two hours later, when Hades cuts off the call and sits back with a groan, no solutions have been solidified. He rotates his chair so he can look at me. “What do you think?”

“There was always a possibility that the enemy originated from the city. The information Minos had was too specific to come from an outsider. The assassination clause is too cleverly hidden. This mostly confirms what we already knew.” I drag my hand over my face. “If she was married to the last Zeus, even for a short time, she has more than reason enough to hate the city. Everyone stood by and let him do whatever the fuck he wanted for far too long. Can’t blame her for wanting revenge.”

Hades nods slowly. “No, I can’t blame her for wanting revenge, but I can blame her for all the violence and suffering her plans have caused. If she had only come back and killed him, I would have shaken her hand and been done with it. She’s responsible for a number of deaths and an increasing amount of unrest that means the violence is just beginning.”

“Not to mention the attacks on the greenhouse and the club.” She has to be behind it. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if she gave the order directly or if Minos did, because she is his benefactor.

“Not to mention the attack on the greenhouse and the club,” Hades agrees. “She softened us up so much, I don’t know if we can manage to bring together enough people for a standing army to defend the city. Ares has her soldiers, but there’s only so many of them, and their experience leans more toward bodyguard work than actual battle.”

We don’t have even that much in the lower city. The last Zeus never would’ve stood for that kind of gathering of power, even if Hades was interested in it, and it hasn’t been a high priority in the year since that Zeus died. We have a couple dozen people on staff, and another couple dozen rotating in periodically as needed. Not enough. Nowhere near enough.

“What do we do?”

He stares at the now-blank screen of his computer for several moments. “We keep doing exactly what we were doing before this. We drive the enemy from the lower city.”

It should be enough, but I can’t help pressing him. “And after that?”

“I…don’t know.”

That scares me more than anything else that’s happened today.