34

34

Zai Aridam

In a blink, I slip out the door and back onto the street. I don’t breathe easy until I leave the entertainment district behind entirely, heading west toward the temples.

Since Aphrodite offered the original suggestion, I decide to pray for Isabel in hers, so I aim toward the one that screams goddess of love thanks to the pink glow coming from inside it. Apparently, Hades isn’t the only one who publicly leans into perception but privately is something quite different.

As I pass the temple dedicated to Hermes, though, movement inside catches my eye, and I pause. The boniness of Zai Aridam’s shoulders is hard to mistake. His back is to me, and I can see the way his dark hair curls a little against the nape of his neck.

Hesitation stays my steps. Clearly, he is praying, and maybe, like me, he’s struggling with what happened today. In which case, I should just give him privacy. But…

I need allies. It’s the whole reason I’m risking my neck being out here.

Does this make me an opportunistic bitch? Probably. But I walk inside all the same.

Lit by oil lamps along the walls and between columns, the temple is a simple circular room with a shrine at the front—a beautifully carved, almost lifelike depiction of Hermes mid-flight, with his winged helm and winged sandals. He holds his staff in one hand like a weapon, and clouds spiral down from his feet. Serpents and wings adorn the domed roof, and two potted palm trees stand to either side of the shrine.

Zai is standing directly before the statue, head bowed. Freshly lit incense burns, rising in an undulating tail of smoke and filling the room with a layer of clove and cinnamon with lavender, lemon, and safflower blended in a scent so familiar to me, it’s like coming home. After all, until now, I’ve prayed to this god more than any other.

“Do you come here to pray to the god of thieves?” Zai’s question comes out of nowhere, since he hasn’t so much as lifted his head. I didn’t even realize he knew I was here.

“No. I was going to…” I hesitate, glancing around. Talking about praying to a different deity while in another’s temple is probably a bad idea. “I saw you.”

He lifts his head, turning slowly to look at me. “I see.” He seems to study my face. I’m not sure what he thinks he’ll find there. “So, you are here to kill me, then?”

I can’t help the knee-jerk reaction that makes me hold a hand out toward him. “No!”

Confusion flickers in eyes the color of oak. “No?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Don’t you blame me? For Isabel’s death?” He holds himself completely still. “Or maybe you consider her death lucky. One less competitor.”

I pull my shoulders back. “If that’s how you see it, then we have no need to talk.”

I spin around and am nearly to the entrance before his voice stops me. “That’s not how I see it.”

When I turn, he’s sort of hunched over and his eyes are half closed, as if that little outburst was all the energy he had left and now he’s having a hard time staying on his feet. Not for the first time, I wonder what’s up with his health. Is he sick or something? He’s spent the last hundred years in Olympus… Does their food not nourish mortals?

I consider leaving him alone to rest.

“What did you want to talk about?” he asks, opening his eyes fully.

I take a step forward. “It seems to me that you and I could—”

“Zai!” a voice shouts from somewhere outside. “Zai!”

Zai’s eyes go wide with fear. “Hide,” he hisses at me.

“What? I—”

“It’s my father. If he sees you in here with me…” He shakes his head, but the implication of dire consequences for me is easy enough to pick up.

There aren’t exactly a lot of places to disappear in here, but I squeeze myself between one of the columns and the wall and pray Mathias Aridam doesn’t come to this side of the temple. Hopefully, the flickering of the lamplight doesn’t give me away with a shadow on the wall.

I’m out of sight just as Mathias stomps into the room. “Here you are, boy. Wasting your precious energy on guilt for that woman still.”

“She had a name, Father,” Zai says. “Isabel.”

I frown at the difference in Zai’s voice from a second ago—it’s gone flat, emotionless.

“A name that is not worth learning. She’s already dead.”

Wow. Heart of gold, this one.

Zai says nothing.

“You looked like a fool out there today.” Mathias spits the words like a cobra. “Why Hermes didn’t pick one of your brothers, I will never know. Either of them would have won that Labor, not looked like a drowning rat in need of rescuing. You reflect on me.”

I picture the two young men who were with Mathias when the gods introduced us to the previous winner and his family. Tall, strapping men, so he’s probably not wrong.

Still nothing from Zai.

“Allergies,” Mathias scoffs next. “What a pathetic excuse for weakness.”

So that’s what Zai is dealing with? They must be bad to make him look so haggard.

“Everyone blames you.” Mathias doesn’t even pause for Zai to answer. “They are all saying you are the reason that woman died. What did you think you were doing?”

Felix might have been a callous father figure and boss, but—even with my curse—he would have never said words as vile as this to me.

Mathias Aridam is a nasty piece of work.

“You told me not to trust anyone,” Zai says. The flatness is still there, almost like he’s quoting facts from a schoolbook. “So I didn’t let Lyra cut me loose.”

“And she made you look even weaker than you are, showing you up like that.”

Asshole.

Zai doesn’t acknowledge what his father said. “You told me not to use the gifts Hermes gave me unless I absolutely had to. I didn’t…even when I could have saved Isabel.”

I put a hand over my mouth as my heart thuds painfully. Zai could have saved her today? He had to sit beside her, as close as I was, after she’d been injured helping him, and watch her die. No wonder he’s in here praying.

“Don’t you lay this at my feet—”

“You told me to let the other champions kill themselves dealing with any of the physical Labors. I listened.” There’s a small pause. “So far, listening to you seems to be the problem.”

A clap of sound pops in the room. I know that sound. Flesh hitting flesh.

“You’ve always been an ungrateful whelp, but don’t dare disrespect me, boy. I am a Crucible winner and your father.”

Zai’s voice is still as flat and cold as a sheet of ice. “A father who is looking down the barrel of being returned to the Overworld like a relic that no longer works. You need me to win to keep you here, living in the manner to which you’ve grown accustomed.”

The crack of another hit comes swift and hard, followed by stomping feet that fade away, making it clear Mathias has left the temple.

A soft sigh reaches me. “You can come out now.”

I scoot around the column to find Zai standing in the center of the room. The bright-red outline of a handprint stains his left cheek. Despite that, his hands are clasped behind him, his shoulders straight, head up, and gaze steady on mine.

“You were about to ask me to form an alliance with you.” It’s not a question—he’s sure of what he knows. He also doesn’t protest, doesn’t point out the danger his severe allergies put him in, doesn’t offer excuses or ask for anything.

“You have allergies? Well, Zeus cursed me to be unlovable a long time ago. You should know that up front.”

He doesn’t even pause before he nods.

I study him for a long moment. “You are clearly intelligent, and that little display with your father tells me you also have a backbone.”

He says nothing, listening and watching without moving.

The problem is, I can practically hear Hades groaning when I tell him about Zai.

“If I help you with the physical parts of the Labors, can you help me with the intellectual parts?”

“Lyra Keres!” a voice yells. A drunken, slurred voice.

I flinch. Poseidon must’ve followed me after all. That or someone told him I came this way. Snitches.

“Lyra Keres,” he bellows. “I’m coming for you!”