30

30

Cassandra

Hermes slips through the door as people start settling in for the coming tea, and I don’t pause to think. I go after her. I step into the hallway and find Hermes’s dark hair and bright yellow sweater disappearing around the corner.

Where is she going?

She’s already bypassed the bathroom conveniently located halfway down the hall, and she’s not heading in the direction of the stairs to the second floor. I frown and start after her. I reach the corner in time to see her duck into what appears to be a random door. Strange.

I glance back toward the living room. The temptation to check in with Apollo before going farther is nearly overwhelming, but I already told him I planned to talk to Hermes. This might not be going like I expected, but everyone in the house is in that living room and I hardly think one of the staff is going to harm me. Probably.

I really hope that isn’t the last thought Pan had, too.

Worry pricks me as I hurry down the hall to the door Hermes went through. I step inside and pause.

The room is empty.

“Hermes?” Her name comes out in a whisper, but I can’t make myself raise my voice. I look around the room slowly. It’s a mundane-looking bedroom, nowhere near as elegant as the guest rooms upstairs. The king-size bed is as simple as the dresser and nightstands. There’s not even a door to a bathroom. There’s also nowhere for Hermes to be hiding unless she’s under the bed.

I shudder, but I make myself cross over and crouch down to check. Nothing. No matter what her reputation, Hermes is flesh and blood. If she’s not in this room, there’s another exit. A secret door. I’m sure of it.

I straighten and examine the walls more closely. There’s no way she could have moved the dresser, so I bypass that and examine the mirror across from the bed. It’s not as ornate as the one in Ariadne’s room, but it’s still on a hefty frame and stretches a good seven feet from floor nearly to the ceiling. The perfect size for a door. I feel a little silly, but I hold my breath as I touch the frame.

It moves beneath my fingers.

“What the fuck?” I whisper. Again, I glance at the door, but my gut says that this is a limited-time opportunity and if I go back to loop Apollo in, whatever it is will pass.

If I can find answers, we’ll have no reason to stay here. We can leave, and that means he will be safe from whatever fate Minos might have planned for Zeus’s spy.

That, more than anything, decides me. I slip off my heels and tug the mirror open all the way. It leads into a hallway that’s dusty enough for me to see the faint prints of Converse shoes leading away from my position. I hardly need confirmation that Hermes came this way, and yet here it is all the same.

Following means leaving my own trail, but this is too good an opportunity to miss. I’ll deal with Hermes knowing what I’m up to later. I step into the dark hallway and tug the mirror mostly shut behind me. The space is narrow enough to make me feel vaguely claustrophobic, but the walls don’t actually brush my shoulders as I start forward.

Why would she bother with secret passageways right now? The house is all but empty and everyone who might be curious about what she’s up to is in the living room. It’s only as I take the narrow turn and blink into the darkness that I pause to wonder if Minos hired all new staff or if the people working here were inherited when he bought the house. He must have. Surely Minos is clever enough to realize that there would be people loyal to Hermes and only too happy to feed her whatever information they could acquire? So why did he allow this to happen? Unless… Suspicion takes hold.

Hermes wouldn’t.

She wouldn’t.

I pick up my pace as much as I dare and nearly run into the wall at the end of the passageway. I catch myself at the last moment, stopping just short of it. Now that I’m this close, I can see a faint outline of light around the doorway. It was all but invisible from even a foot away. I press my fingertips to it but hesitate.

Charging into whatever may or may not be going on in the other room is a mistake. I might have followed Hermes with the intent to talk to her, but ultimately I’m here for information and this seems like exactly the situation that might relay the kind of information Apollo is looking for.

With that in mind, I carefully lean forward and press my ear to the cool wood of the door. I’m instantly glad I didn’t open it. There are two people talking, both easily identifiable.

Apparently Minos made a pit stop on the way back from ordering tea.

I wish I could see, but I don’t dare open the door. Instead, I close my eyes, blotting out even the faint light, and focus. Minos is pacing; I know Hermes’s footsteps, at least when she allows herself to be heard, and they are not the heavy tread practically vibrating the floor beneath my bare feet.

“You’re sure this will work.”

Hermes’s shrug is apparent in her tone. “It would work if you weren’t wasting opportunities on innocent people. Pan wasn’t part of the agreement. Neither was Atalanta.”

“Take that up with my fuckup of a son. I told Icarus to deal with Aphrodite, but somehow he ‘mistook’ Pan for her.” He curses. “Don’t look at me like that, Hermes. It’s the story he spun.”

“It’s not a very good one.”

“It won’t happen again. My other boys aren’t half so inept.” He laughs harshly. “And Atalanta is tied up in the basement. She’s perfectly fine. I just can’t risk her interfering with what comes next. You saw her in the Ares trials. She’s formidable.”

“Formidable enough to almost take down one of your prized foster sons.”

“Your jokes leave something to be desired.” A pause. “You’re sure they won’t run us out of town for this?”

“The laws are the laws, even if most people have no idea what little secrets from our founding the Thirteen have hidden all these years. If your boys follow my instructions to the letter, the clause will be triggered. But I never promised it would work.”

“Hermes.” Minos practically growls her name.

“What do you want me to say, Minos? There are no guarantees in this world. You asked me how to accomplish your goals and I provided the information.” Her voice goes hard, harder than I’ve ever heard it. “Now, stop toying with me and give me the information that was promised.”

Silence for several beats. I don’t have to see his face to know that he’s debating whether he can risk crossing Hermes. Finally, he curses. “Very well. The woman you seek is my benefactor.”

“Excuse me?”

“She approached me a year ago with an offer that centered Olympus as the prize. She’s not among those I brought, though.”

“Minos.” Something dark and dangerous flits into Hermes’s tone. “You have strung me along for months with the promise of precise information on her. I have provided you a house, insider knowledge, and a vote to bring you into Olympus as a citizen. I sincerely hope you have more than ‘she’s my benefactor’ as payment.”

I can barely process what I’m hearing. In all the time I’ve known Hermes, she’s been something of an enigma. Even when I shared her bed, there was always part of her held in reserve, and I respected that because I, too, held parts of myself back. But I never doubted for a moment that the protection of Olympus was her main goal.

I…

I close my eyes and try to keep my breathing under control. I don’t know who she’s talking about or what’s going on, so all I can do is listen. I can have an emotional reaction to this later, when it’s safe.

But…

What thefuck, Hermes?

Minos is silent for so long, I begin to think he might not respond to her threat. Finally, he sighs. “I agreed to those terms before I realized you know more about her than I do.” A hesitation. “I have a way to contact her, though I can’t guarantee anything will come of it.”

“Is that all?”

I flinch, but Minos doesn’t seem affected by the icy anger Hermes exudes. “She’s not one to make herself available, which you should damn well know. This is all I have.”

A tapping of a foot against hardwood floor. “I am very displeased, Minos. You can play the rest of the Thirteen all you want, but playing me?” She laughs sharply. “I highly suggest you come up with something more—and soon.” The slide of a chair. “Do not tell her that I’m looking for her, or you won’t live to see your little plan enacted.”

“I understand,” he grits out.

This is winding down. I didn’t get nearly enough information to figure out what Hermes’s game is, other than her wanting information on…someone…but I know enough. There’s only one law they could be speaking of, and it’s one I am entirely too familiar with thanks to my parents’ ambition.

Minos means to kill a member of the Thirteen and take their place.

Possibly multiple members of the Thirteen.

The thought makes my entire body break out in goose bumps and I shudder. I hold little love for the Thirteen as a general whole, but Minos is an unknown in a number of ways. I saw his foster sons’ brutality in the arena. If they bring that same violence to the ruling body of our city…

I won’t be here to see it. Maybe that should mean I don’t care, but I do.

There’s no help for hiding my footprints and Hermes is too savvy to miss their existence, unless she’s distracted by the new information, but I can’t hope for that unlikely occurrence. Wiping away the proof is a waste of time, too.

In the split second it takes me to realize I have no way to conceal the fact that someone overheard, Hermes and Minos are wrapping up their conversation. I’m out of time.

I hurry back down the passageway as quickly as I dare, unable to resist casting looks over my shoulder. The door remains closed as I turn the corner and rush back through the mirror and into the bedroom where I left my shoes. I look down at my dirty feet, but there’s no help for it. There’s no time.

The temptation to confront Hermes is strong. Even now, when I’m questioning everything else, I don’t question that she means me no harm. She wouldn’t have warned me away from this place, this party, if she didn’t care what happened to me.

Similarly, I can’t believe for a second that she’d set Dionysus up on the chopping block. She must have negotiated his safety ahead of time with Minos.

But everyone else?

The thought leaves me cold. I slip on my heels and stride out the door, careful to close it softly behind me. I want to rush back into the living room and grab Apollo and get him as far from here as possible, but I make myself walk slowly to the bathroom and slip inside. I take the time to wash my hands. To attempt to steady myself, though it feels a fool’s errand. My reflection stares back at me, too pale, eyes too wide. I’m shaking and I can’t seem to stop.

We were wrong. So fucking wrong. Pan was a mistake. Atalanta disappeared because she’s too formidable and would stand between Artemis and a threat. Hermes has been working with Minos to potentially assassinate one or more of our leaders at a moment when the city is most vulnerable to outside threat. An outside threat Minos seems to be playing vanguard for.

Treason.

They’re talking about treason.

The murders have to happen at the party. Soon. It was a stroke of pure luck that the mistake with Pan didn’t send everyone scattering. Once they return to their lives in the center city, there will be security and other things in play that will make it harder to target them. No one brought security to this party, which I didn’t find strange until now. I know why Apollo didn’t, but why not the others?

Unless… Maybe I wasn’t as wrong as I thought. Maybe this really is the double bluff; it’s just happening sooner than anyone could have dreamed. I saw Dionysus’s face after Pan was attacked. He looked sick. With guilt?

If they thought they were making dark deals with Minos, they wouldn’t bring security here to witness it. People talk, and if you start overtly betraying friends and your people, you won’t have many friends or people standing around you in the future.

Only the Thirteen would be arrogant enough to think they had nothing to fear.

Charon, Adonis, and Eurydice should be safe, barring more mistakes. Their value lies in their connection to the various members of the Thirteen and the power they hold individually, but killing them brings Minos and his people no benefit.

Whowill be the target?

I’m so wrapped up in worrying at the problem that I don’t hear Hermes come in, don’t even notice her until she appears at my shoulder. “Someone’s been eavesdropping.”

I jump and then curse myself for jumping. I hadn’t planned on confronting her, but she’s here and we have too much history to let this go. “What are you thinking? Minos? Murder? Treason?”

“Everyone who is in danger knows the law.” For once, she doesn’t have her easy smile in place. “Just like they understood that accepting the title of one of the Thirteen came with risks. If they choose to ignore that, it’s their mistake.”

“You’re a member of the Thirteen,” I grind out. “He could stick a knife in your ribs and then all your plotting and planning will be null and void.”

“He could try.” She nods slowly. “But I’m better than he is, and he knows it.”

“Hermes…” I search her face for the woman I fell for all those years ago. “I never thought you would hurt this city for your own ambitions. Why are you doing this?”

“I have my reasons.” An answer and yet no answer at all.

I shake my head slowly. “You won’t get away with it. Not you and not him. I’ll tell everyone. They’ll leave and the opportunity will pass, and Zeus and Apollo will drive Minos and his people from the city. All this will be for naught.”

“You can tell them, Cassandra.” She smiles now, but it’s bittersweet in the extreme. “But honey… No one other than Apollo will believe you. At least not until it’s too late.”