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)
I blink. “You did what?”
She won’t quite meet my eyes. “Like I said, my father wasn’t always neglectful and too busy with his master plan to worry about being an actual father. But ten years is plenty of time to learn any skill, including hacking. It’s not like it’s hard.”
I would beg to differ, but it’s not really my place to argue with her on the subject. “Are you going to keep me in suspense or tell me what you found?”
Her smile steadies a little. “The trouble was that I thought she gave us a fake name, so I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out who she really was. It’s a rookie mistake. Usually the simplest answer is the correct one.” She pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them. “She didn’t have all this information about Olympus because she was like my father, someone on the outside desperately looking in. She had it because she’s from Olympus.”
I jolt. “What?” Even living in the country before my mother became Demeter, we should’ve heard about an exile. They are exceedingly rare, with the last Aphrodite being the only one in the last twenty years…or so I thought.
The thing is, once you exile someone, they stop being under your purview. Apollo might have technology to ensure that the former Aphrodite can’t be a danger to us, but was that technology in place fifteen years ago?
Maybe they killed the people they exiled…
The thought makes me shudder. I could ask my mother about this, except no, I can’t, because I agreed that I am working for Hades, which means all my reports will go to him. My mother can no longer be the main authority in my life.
“Does the name Circe ring any bells?”
___________
I feel strange as I head back to the house with Minthe at my side. She hasn’t said anything since we arrived at Calypso and Medusa’s apartment. She played the part of the silent guard, but I know that she’s Charon’s second-in-command, which means she must have thoughts about what we just heard. I open my mouth to ask her but stop before a single word escapes. I’m not sure what the protocol is surrounding something like this. She heard everything I did, but are we allowed to talk about it? I don’t know.
Better to report directly to Hades and sidestep any potential errors.
We find him still in his office with a stack of untouched paperwork in front of him. There’s a strange look on my brother-in-law’s face that I’ve never seen before. It’s frightening. I don’t know what happened in the time since I saw him last and now, and I don’t know if I’m allowed to ask.
He looks up as I knock on the doorframe. “Did you get the information we need?”
“I think so.”
“Come in and shut the door. Minthe, report to Charon.”
Minthe squeezes my shoulder and then heads down the hall. I may have known Hades for over a year, but it still takes more courage than I’ll ever admit to step into the office and close the door behind me. I follow his silent command to take the chair across the desk from him.
The silence gets to me immediately. Maybe I’m supposed to start? “Her name is Circe. I think she was exiled from Olympus fifteen years ago, and she apparently went straight to Aeaea and offered them Olympus on a platter. Ariadne was kept out of the actual nitty-gritty plans, so most of the information she has is what she could glean from her father’s emails and conversations she overheard.”
Hades steeples his fingers in front of his face and leans forward. “Go on.”
“The gist of it is that Minos was intended to soften up the city and sow chaos, as well as undermine the power of the Thirteen. He was to destroy public confidence in them. Then, after an undisclosed amount of time had passed, they would bring the barrier down.”
“How? Not even Apollo is entirely certain of how it works—or why it’s failing.”
I feel absolutely sick over what I have to say next, and I would do anything not to be the messenger that delivers this information. But he has to know. They all have to know. “It started failing fifteen years ago. It may have taken us longer to realize it, but that’s when the process began.”
“You can’t know that.” He leans back. “Circe may have claimed that she’s behind that, but it’s impossible.”
I wish he was right, because it’d mean Apollo has a way to fix the barrier. “Unfortunately, it’s not. She took a piece with her when she left. Ariadne couldn’t tell me what it looks like, or how it functions, but it was the proof the council on Aeaea needed in order to go along with Circe’s plan.” I shiver. “The barrier will fall, and when it does, she will be waiting there with an army.”