2

2

Apollo

I have to fight not to stare at Cassandra’s big, perfect ass as she stalks down the hall away from me. It doesn’t help that she favors pencil skirts and heels, which only serve to showcase her generous curves further. I can’t ask her to change her style simply because I want her. It’s my problem, not hers. If I’ve taken more than my fair share of cold showers since hiring her five years ago? Well, that’s a small enough price to pay for lusting after my employee.

That’s the crux of the problem.

I hired her.

She works for me.

Letting her know I’m interested would be highly inappropriate. Even without the employer-employee power dynamic, I am one of the Thirteen and that skews things too far in my favor. If I asked her out and she felt she couldn’t say no…

I shake my head and turn back down the hall. Which is right around the moment I realize I’ve been staring after Cassandra in front of the new Ares. She gives me a wide-eyed innocent look that I don’t believe for a moment.

“She’s got quite the mouth on her, doesn’t she?”

Even though I know she’s baiting me, I can’t help defending Cassandra. “Wouldn’t you after everything she’s gone through? People in this city treat her like getting too close will poison them, too.” The worst part is that they’re not entirely wrong, if not for the reasons everyone believes.

Twelve years ago, Cassandra’s family was one of the most powerful in the city…until, almost overnight, they weren’t. As far as the greater population is concerned, her parents did something to anger the last Zeus and were set to be exiled. They died in a car crash before he could enact that punishment.

The truth is far more sinister. Her parents attempted to exploit an ancient, barbaric clause in Olympus’s laws and were removed as a result.

The clause states that if someone manages to assassinate a member of the Thirteen—exempting the legacy titles of Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon—then that person will take the title. Our history is filled with black holes where information should be, but best I can tell, this immutable clause was added to protect the city if one of the Thirteen turned corrupt beyond all reason.

For obvious reasons, its existence is kept a closely guarded secret. It effectively paints a target on ten out of the Thirteen and would breed utter chaos if widely known. Yet if Cassandra’s parents had succeeded, her role in Olympus would be very different. She’d be the daughter of one of the Thirteen rather than the daughter of a disgraced house.

Her parents would still be alive.

Ares shrugs. “Olympus is what it is.”

A vague and unsatisfying statement. Our city might be home, but very few people would go so far as to claim it’s fair and just. Not with power skewed so heavily in one direction. Maybe that will change with our new leadership…

I turn my attention back to Zeus’s door as Ares nods goodbye and leaves me to my work. Zeus truly entered a trial by fire when coming unexpectedly into his title. Between how things hashed out with his sister claiming the title of Ares and the exile of the old Aphrodite, the transfer of power has been anything but easy. I glance down at the file in my hands. The information it contains is worrisome if not downright damning.

Olympus is in trouble.

But even with all the resources at my disposal, I can’t say for certain how much trouble.

Up until this point, Olympus has mostly existed in its own little snow globe. The greater world wrote us off long ago as an unreachable prize. We all took for granted that it would always be that way, that the barrier keeping Olympus from the rest of the world would hold forever.

Now, it’s failing. And no one can figure out why.

A problem for another day. We have enough to worry about right this second.

I step back into Zeus’s office and close the door behind me. “Sorry about the interruption.”

He sits behind the big desk in the middle of the room, a white man with blond hair and a perfectly tailored suit. He’s the spitting image of his late father, though he wouldn’t thank me for pointing it out. That’s where the comparison ends, though. This Zeus doesn’t have the same mercurial charisma that the last one could turn on at the drop of a hat, and that fact has made his taking of the title challenging.

Honestly, I prefer it. He might be difficult to work with at times, but I don’t have to worry about any nasty surprises. It’s a relief after dealing with his father.

He nods, and I resume my seat across the desk from him. Only then does he speak. “You were saying…”

I set the file aside. I don’t need it, though I appreciate Cassandra taking the time to bring it all the way here. The woman is as foul-tempered as a wet cat, but she’s remarkably kind when she forgets to snarl at everyone around her. “Despite exhausting my information network, I still don’t know where Minos came from. He and his people are ghosts. For all intents and purposes, they appeared out of nowhere a few weeks ago to participate in the Ares tournament. We can’t even pinpoint how they knew to come in the first place.”

Zeus steeples his hands before his face. “They paid dearly to enter the city. That kind of money doesn’t just appear when someone wishes upon a star.”

“I’m aware, but maybe Poseidon should have asked more questions before he arranged transport.”

“That’s his prerogative.” Zeus leans back. “If I start asking too many questions, he’ll start growling about overreaching.”

He’s not wrong. Poseidon doesn’t participate in most of the political squabbling, but he’s no pushover. “This is important. Surely he realizes that.”

“Possibly.” Zeus shrugs. “But that’s less important to him than protecting his territory and his power base. We know he brought in Minos and his people. That’s enough. He was entitled to do so, thanks to the tournament. It’s open to everyone.”

I hardly agree that it’s enough, but I let him move us along all the same. Ultimately, all that matters is that Minos and his people are still here despite the tournament being over. “It’s no accident that Minos pushed his way into the city and is now brokering secret information about Olympus’s enemies in order to stay.”

“I know.” Zeus sighs. “He was planning this from the beginning. If one of his people became Ares, we’d have less maneuvering power than we do now, but we’re still not in a good position to ignore whatever information he claims to have.”

If there is an enemy capable of taking the city, we need to know about it before we lose our main defensive measure—and so far, Minos has given us very little of what he supposedly knows. “I’ve spent the last few weeks searching, and there’s nothing. Either Minos is bluffing or this group rallying against Olympus is good enough that they’re essentially invisible.”

“Fuck.” Zeus presses his fingers to his temples. “We can’t risk it if he’s not bluffing. The information he’s already let drop is enough to make me think there really is a threat.”

“I agree.” I, of all people, am aware that knowledge is power. There’s no telling how much this shadowy enemy might know about us. Olympus might not broadcast all its secrets, but there are always exiles and I imagine most of them would be willing to talk for a price. Or out of sheer spite. “We have to assume worst-case scenario, that they know plenty about us.”

“And we know nothing about them. Not without Minos.”

Minos is well aware of the position he’s put us in, and he’s leveraging it for all he’s worth. That’s why we’re having this meeting today. He’s offering to tell us all he knows about this supposed enemy. In exchange, he wants money, a home, and Olympic citizenship for all the members of his family.

The first two are easy enough. The latter is complicated because Zeus granting citizenship is as good as elevating the family to the highest levels of Olympic society. It will change the balance within the upper crust of the city, and we might have a revolt on our hands as a result.

If there’s anything Olympus hates, it’s change, and we’ve had more than our fair share of it in the last year.

“We have to give him what he wants.” Zeus curses. “This had better be worth it, because we can’t take it back without an even bigger mess.”

That’s what I’m afraid of. No matter what steps we take today, the consequences are far-reaching. “If you give me more time—”

“I can’t do that.” Zeus pushes slowly to his feet. “Every day counts right now, and we’ve already spent too long trying to find a different solution. Another week or two won’t make a difference.”

Impossible not to feel the sting of his blunt statement. It’s my job as Apollo to be plugged into information streams that aren’t accessible to anyone else. I’m essentially Olympus’s spymaster, and even with my team and all the resources at my disposal, I’ve failed. Between this and my inability to figure out why the boundary is failing, I can’t help bristling. “There has to be another way.”

“We’ve looked. There’s not.”

“You can’t deny this feels like a trap. He has the whole world. Why settle here?”

Zeus sighs, suddenly looking a decade older—and even more like his father. Sometimes I wonder what it must have been like growing up knowing that someday the role would be his. Zeus has been a Kasios since the founding of the city. My distant relatives have been Artemis, Apollo, Hephaestus, and even Athena, but there are no guarantees among any but the three legacy titles. There were no members of the Thirteen in my parents’ generation, so they were particularly pleased when I was named Apollo thirteen years ago.

Each position within the Thirteen is filled a little differently. Demeter is voted on citywide. Aphrodite names their successor upon stepping down. As Apollo, I was appointed by vote among the Thirteen.

I’ve been trying to live up to the expectations of that appointment ever since. In this way, I suppose, Zeus and I are the same.

“There has to be another way,” I say.

“It’s bad news no matter which way we look at it. We need the information he has, and we can’t get that without bowing to his demands. He hasn’t done anything to justify more…extreme measures.”

“No, he hasn’t.” I’ve been coordinating with Athena to ensure we have a bead on Minos and his people at all times. Between covert operatives and my access to various information streams, we have as full a picture of these people as possible.

Which is the problem. They haven’t given us anything at all. None of them have done anything noteworthy since the competition for Ares ended. It should be a relief, but it just makes me more suspicious. “It’s a trap,” I repeat.

“It’s a trap we’re going to walk into. We don’t have another choice. We’re just going to have to hope we can deal with the consequences when he springs it on us.”

I intensely dislike being propelled to a course of action that’s not of my choosing. Olympus isn’t exactly a secret, but it’s intentionally difficult to get information on the rites and rituals that keep the city running. Minos has more familiarity with our customs than is comfortable.

Almost as if someone is feeding him information.

But even if I can’t track Minos’s history, I do keep an eye on all people exiled from Olympus. Best I can tell, Minos hasn’t had contact with any of them. Unfortunately, I can’t trust that information. I can’t trust anything. “If you’d just—”

“Apollo.” He doesn’t snap, but the harshness in his tone is enough to stop me in my tracks. Zeus holds my gaze. “We have to grant his request for citizenship. Whatever he’s waiting for, he needs that first. I will get that process started so we can finally get to the bottom of this.”

I stand and straighten my suit. “Fine. I’ll keep looking in the meantime.” I’ll call in my people and see what we can come up with. The meetings so far have been fruitless, but the people who work for me are the best. We’ll figure something out. We have to.

Thinking of my team has me thinking of one member in particular. I wish Cassandra had waited for me. She’s more than capable of taking care of herself, but she lives on the edge of the upper warehouse district. It’s not safe there, even if she cabs in. At least if I’d accompanied her, I could see her to her door…

The thought of her response to that almost makes me smile. She wouldn’t be a fan. Ah well, boundaries exist for a reason and it’s just as well. She wouldn’t thank me for my interest. She might actually push me in front of a moving vehicle. Cassandra’s made her opinion of the Thirteen and the people who aspire to be them clear—and honestly, who can blame her after what they did to her parents all those years ago?

The only reason she took a job with me was because I pay her nearly double what she can find anywhere else. I won’t lie and say that charity didn’t play into it. I saw her get turned away from job after job for weeks before she finally came knocking on my door. With her parents gone, she’s been supporting her sister this entire time. I couldn’t let them starve.

Ironic that she ended up being invaluable to my operations. She’s smart and sees things I don’t. Her reports have been priceless over the years. Truly, I should give her another raise.

“Apollo.” From the edge to Zeus’s tone, it’s not the first time he’s said my name.

Unfortunately, my fascination with Cassandra tends to have this side effect. Which is why I don’t usually allow myself to think about her during work hours. “Yes?”

“Stay close to Minos. We need to know what he’s up to.”

Only a lifetime of practice keeps my distaste for the order from showing on my face. It’s a logical thing for Zeus to command, but that doesn’t mean I relish the idea of being in close proximity with Minos. The man is cunning and there’s a glint in his eye I don’t like. He’s the kind of person who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else in the room.

I mean to prove him wrong.