35

35

Apollo

I find Cassandra sitting on the edge of the bed, looking lost. I hate that I’m about to add to her stress. I drop my phone on the dresser and sigh. “I would love nothing more than to give you a night of rest, but Zeus has called us in. The tribunal to officially deal with Theseus happens tonight.”

She blinks at me. “Deal with Theseus.”

“Yes.” Zeus didn’t yell when we spoke, but his fury practically iced over my phone. Up to this point, I could usually guess the direction of his thoughts, but I honestly don’t know what he’ll do. Murder—outside that damn outdated clause—might technically be a crime, but if he shoots Theseus in a room full of other members of the Thirteen, who will speak out against him? “I’m not entirely certain what he means to do.”

She glances down at her phone. “It’s too late. The gossip sites have ahold of this information and are running with it. Even if he tosses Theseus off a building, the secret the Thirteen have been fighting for so long to hide is out. None of you are safe.”

I pick up my phone and pull up MuseWatch. They’ve been a boon and a curse in equal turns during my time as Apollo, and the flashy report on their landing page puts them firmly in curse territory this time.

Theseus Vitalis murders his way into the heart of the Thirteen!

“Fuck,” I breathe.

“It’s bad.”

It took everything the last Apollo had to keep the information about what Cassandra’s parents attempted to do locked down, but the timing of this news breaking is highly suspect. “Minos is behind this information leak.”

“Without a doubt.” She pushes to her feet and picks up her discarded dress. “Do we have time to stop by my house so I can change?”

I almost tell her yes, but then my mind catches up. “I can drop you off there if you’d like, but with this information public, the tribunal is all but unnecessary. There’s no reason for you to go through the whole process if you don’t have to. If Theseus disappears, Minos will ensure the public turns against Zeus. We have to instate him as Hephaestus. We no longer have a choice.”

“Why not kill Theseus and the rest of his family? Name them traitors. Act like the assassination clause doesn’t exist.” She says it so hesitantly, I cross to hug her.

“Even if we’re willing to do that—and I’m not—it’s too late, love. The law exists, no matter how deep we tried to bury it. If people know to look for it, they’ll find it. The information is out there and there’s no taking it back.”

“I figured as much. It was worth asking, at least.” Her shoulders slump. “I’m not happy that this situation is so fucked. I’m not happy that you’re in danger now because of what they’ve done.” She lifts her head and meets my gaze. “But I don’t think Ariadne had much to do with the whole scheme. And she tried to help us.”

She did, but we could have avoided this whole nightmare if she’d just spoken frankly. She said nothing, which makes her guilty by association.

Or at least it will in the Thirteen’s point of view.

I smooth back Cassandra’s hair. “After the meeting, I’ll ensure Zeus holds up his end of the bargain. The money will be in your account tomorrow. The passage out of the city will be ready whenever you are.” It hurts to say it. Each word feels like I’m ripping out pieces of myself with my bare hands. “You’ll get everything you wanted, Cassandra. I’ll make sure of it.”

She opens her mouth like she might argue, but my phone starts ringing again. I press a kiss to her forehead and release her. “Get dressed. We need to move.” I scoop up my phone as I head for my closet. “What?”

“Artemis just reached Dodona Tower. She’s calling for Theseus’s head, and I’m inclined to give him to her.”

I drag on my pants, holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder. “It’s too late. Minos leaked the information to MuseWatch. The whole city is watching us now.”

“Fuck.” For the first time since this whole thing began, Zeus raises his voice. “Fuck. This is going to change everything.”

“Yes.” The only titles immune to this particular clause are Hades, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hera by virtue of being Zeus’s spouse. But even that isn’t a guarantee that they won’t be targeted. “I’ll be there shortly. I have to drop Cassandra at her apartment first.”

A pause. “I’ll hold to that bargain, but she’s at the bottom of my list right now, so she needs to cool her heels while we deal with this.”

I wrestle into a shirt and start buttoning it up. “You will transfer the money to her now, Zeus. It’s not her fault this went poorly, and I won’t have her punished for it.”

“Fine.” He curses. “It’ll be in her account by the time you get here. Now, get moving.”

By the time I finish dressing, my phone is lighting up. I scroll through the texts but stop when I see one from Hector.

Hector:Saw the news. Sorry I didn’t find the info in time. Are you and Cass okay?

Me:Yes. Don’t be sorry. It wouldn’t have mattered. Things were already in motion.

Me:Any progress on the emails?

Hector:Some. I forwarded what I have so far to your email.

Me:Thanks. Now get some sleep. Need to meet in the morning and bring everyone up to speed.

A quick check finds a trail between Minos and Hermes, confirming what Cassandra heard. They were in contact months before he came to Olympus. There’s nothing in their communication that’s actually new information, though. He reached out first, but she didn’t turn him away.

No matter what Hector thinks, there wasn’t enough here to make the leap to Minos’s actual plans.

Cassandra has her clothing back in place. It’s so tempting to try to coax her into staying here, but the longer she’s with me, the harder it will be to release her. And I will release her. It’s what she wants, and it’s what I promised at the beginning of this. I won’t go back on my word, no matter that the thought of a future without her is agony. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

The drive to her apartment takes entirely too little time. She’s lost in thought, only jarring back to the present when I stop next to the curb. I eye the empty sidewalk. “Do you want me to come up?”

“No, that’s okay.” She reaches over and takes my hand. “Be careful. Please.”

Cassandra, of all people, understands the implications of what’s coming. It’s impossible to guess the scale of the public reaction. I don’t expect it to happen overnight, but ambition is a river that runs deep in Olympus, and there will be those who look to this new information as a way to skip climbing the ladder entirely in their goal to end up at the top.

Not to mention Minos’s benefactor. They’ve really set the stage to destabilize us and leave the city ripe for the picking the moment the boundary falls.

Athena and Ares will have their hands full.

We’re all going to have our hands full.

“I’ll be careful. I promise.” I try for a smile. “I’ll have your belongings retrieved from Minos’s house and delivered here tomorrow.”

She nods once and then she’s gone, walking out of my life without looking back. I sit at the curb well after she disappears through that rickety door. She might not be staying in this place much longer, but I make a mental note to track down the owner and insist on the door being replaced so the next occupant doesn’t have to deal with what Cassandra has.

I head to Dodona Tower. It’s late enough that there’s little traffic, and I make good time. It’s only been a little over a week since I was here last, but it feels strange to step out of the elevator and into the doorway-studded hall that leads to the ballroom. That’s not my destination tonight. Instead, I head to the previously mostly unused boardroom halfway down the hall. The last Zeus preferred to keep the Thirteen as separate as possible, but our current one has a different, more unified goal for the group.

I’m the last one to arrive. The rest of the Thirteen sit around the table. All except Hephaestus. Guilt surges through me. I didn’t like the man; he was an active foil again and again to our current Zeus’s attempts to bring the Thirteen into one balanced alliance. That doesn’t mean he deserved to be murdered, though.

I sink into the chair between Ares and Poseidon, a giant white man with red hair and beard and a permanently furious expression on his brutal face. He hates these meetings the most out of anyone, preferring to stay in his shipping yard running the imports and exports out of Olympus.

Zeus sits at the head of the table, Aphrodite on his left and Athena on his right. The latter is a beautiful Black woman with black curls cut short on the sides and longer on top and a bearing that makes people take notice of her when she enters the room. She’s as ruthless as she is brilliant. She flicks a quick look at me, taking in my bruised face. “I see you got your hands dirty, Apollo.”

“Something like that.”

Demeter sits on the other side of Poseidon. She has the look of her elder three daughters, a white woman in her fifties who projects the persona that she’s all too ready to step in as a mother figure for anyone she comes across. Only a fool would underestimate her.

For once Dionysus looks entirely sober, and he’s inched his chair away from Hermes. She doesn’t appear concerned, though. She’s got her chair balanced on the back two legs, her hands behind her head and her gaze on the ceiling. Personally, if Artemis was looking at me with that expression on her face, I wouldn’t be so relaxed.

Hades and Hera occupy the end of the table opposite Zeus. They’ve become another pair that’s a large pain in Zeus’s ass, though they’re usually subtle in how they dig in their heels and fight him. Hades is a brooding white man with dark hair and a neatly trimmed dark beard who favors black on black suits, like he’s wearing today. Nothing shows on either of their faces.

Zeus clears his throat. “I had hoped to get ahead of this, but there’s no help for it. Theseus has killed Hephaestus and claimed right of might. The title is his.”

“The fuck it is.” Artemis shoves to her feet. “Being a member of the Thirteen doesn’t make him untouchable. I’ll kill him myself for what he did to my cousin.”

“You will do no such thing.” Zeus doesn’t raise his voice, but the bite in it cuts her legs out from beneath her and she drops back into her chair. “The press has picked up the story.”

“How strange,” Hermes mutters.

I had assumed Minos was responsible for the leak, but… “Do we have you to thank for that as well?”

“Who, me?” She rights her chair and gives me a long look. “Everything I do, I do for Olympus.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Artemis spits out. She’s so furious, she’s practically vibrating. “I know you told that bastard about the assassination clause. How does that help Olympus?”

Hermes looks around the table. “Minos didn’t come here on his own. He’s answering to someone more powerful.”

Zeus looks like he wants to press his fingers to his temples but manages to resist the motion. “That information would have been helpful several weeks ago. Why not speak up before we instated him as an Olympian citizen? Why pass him information that allowed his son to infiltrate our highest body of power?” His voice is so cold, the temperature in the room seems to drop several degrees.

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

“That’s bullshit, Hermes.” Ares twists to pin her with a look. “With one move, he’s effectively destabilized the entire city.”

“That remains to be seen.” Hermes shrugs. “Maybe we need to crack a few eggs to make an omelet.”

“Hermes.” This from Hades. His voice is low with a faint rasp. He rarely speaks in these meetings, but I’ve seen how he runs his territory. He’s a good leader. The lower city is arguably better off than the upper city when it comes to its citizens’ individual lives. “You know I have no love lost for the rest of the Thirteen.” He looks around the table. “But this is impulsive, even for you.”

“If you say so.”

Zeus sits back slowly, drawing the attention back to him. “No laws were broken, so there’s no recourse to be had. We move forward with this because we have no choice, but we need to leash our new Hephaestus and do damage control. If the city has something else to talk about, we might be able to turn the tide away from speculation on how best to murder everyone in this room.”

Artemis is still shaking. “And how, pray tell, do you plan to do that?”

“I am open to suggestions.”

“A wedding.” This from Aphrodite. “We’ve seen it before: nothing distracts the good people of Olympus more than a scandalous match.”

Ares’s spine snaps straight. “Oh, fuck no. Not this again. I already won in the arena; I am not marrying that murderous bastard.”

“Not you.” Aphrodite gives a thin smile, though her eyes are chips of ice. “Me.”