Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92659 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92659 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
She curses. “I already spent hours doing it. They dodged our cameras.”
“The ones closest to the greenhouse, yes, but we need to widen the search.” There’s a feeling in my gut, an instinct demanding I follow it. I’ll do as Hades asked and check our people again. It’s smart to button up all avenues of investigation. I just don’t think we’ll find anything there. “They’re not local. I’d bet good money that they’re not even staying on this side of the river.” It’s risky. But they’re not coming over the bridges, or we’d know about it. Even so, I can’t afford to ignore any possibilities at this point. “No matter how good they are at dodging cameras, there’s evidence of them somewhere.”
She’s silent for a beat. “What makes you so certain they’re not local?”
A guess. An instinct. When I answer her, I speak slowly, feeling my way. “Remember that report we got from Hades two weeks ago? The one that came from Poseidon?”
“The one about Minos’s missing shipping containers?”
“The containers weren’t missing. Their contents, on the other hand, were.” Contents that Poseidon claims he doesn’t have any record of. I don’t know if I believe him, but Hades does, and he would know more than I would. He interacts with the Thirteen directly. I only have secondhand information. “Someone unloaded them before Poseidon could act on the information we got.”
“You think Triton had something to do with that?”
I hadn’t really thought it through. Like so many other things that come from Hades’s many meetings with his peers, it’s a problem for the upper city. So much of that shit never crosses the river to bother us, so I only focus in on the information I need to keep our people safe.
I’m only now starting to realize what a mistake that assumption is. Just because no one has tried to kill Hades in an attempt to take his title—an impossible task since the legacy titles among the Thirteen are familial and therefore exempt from that clause—doesn’t mean we are free from enemies in the lower city. Or enemies who will sneak across the river to sow fear.
That’s what the attack on the greenhouse feels like. The action of an enemy.
“I think we can’t take anything for granted,” I finally say. “Search the cameras again, with a wider net this time. If they’re not locals, someone has seen something. They’re entering the lower city somewhere, if not by the bridges. They’re moving around on the streets.”
“What if someone’s harboring them?”
Minthe has a way of speaking the things I’d rather not think about. It’s incredibly frustrating but makes her an excellent part of the team. “Then we deal with it. It’s a big job. Pull whoever you need for it.”
“Was already planning on it, boss.” She puts an ironic lilt on the last word. She might show a little more respect to Hades, but she and I have known each other too long to stand on ceremony. When we were teens and her parents were having a hard time accepting her identity, she moved into this big ass house with us. Her relationship with her parents has mended in the years since, but she never moved back out again.
A lot of people who work for Hades have similar stories. Minthe once joked that we’re like the Island of Misfit Toys, and she’s not wrong. Hades has a habit of collecting the desperate, the broken, and the hopeless. Then he gives us a home. Acceptance. Safety.
As a result, every one of us would die for him.
15
ORPHEUS
I sit in the back of the car for a long time. Our driver, a buff white woman with short blond hair and snake tattoos, grudgingly left the engine running for me before she followed Eurydice into the restaurant. I don’t need the faint heat coursing from the vents, but I do appreciate the gesture. It gives me time to think. Up to this point, I’ve mostly been flying by feel. I would’ve done anything to prevent being sent away. I didn’t expect to enjoy it so much though.
And now? After this morning, everything is crystallizing into a hope I never thought I would fulfill. I don’t want this to end once I’ve paid penance to Eurydice’s satisfaction. I didn’t think it was possible to earn her trust again, but now I wonder.
And then there’s Charon.
Every time I think of him, I expect to feel a stab of jealousy. Eurydice is beautiful; she always has been. There’s something about her that makes people want to gather her up and put her on a shelf. I’m guilty of it myself. I wanted to hoard her time and her presence for me and me alone. She was my muse, after all. As much as I enjoyed the way people’s gazes would linger on her whenever we were in public, there was a part of me that wanted to throw my coat over her and shield her from their attention.