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)
“Yeah.” Eurydice stops in front of the door. On the other side, we can hear Ariadne and Calypso speaking. Laughing. Her brows draw together. “It would have to be really, really bad. I want to say it’ll never happen, but a lot of things that I thought would never happen turned out not to be as impossible as I assumed.” She smiles a little. “Kind of like me and you.”
“I guess we are pretty impossible, aren’t we?” I find myself smiling in response. “Let’s get this errand done and come back to our man.”
“Okay. Let’s.”
Ariadne is remarkably resigned as we explain the situation to her. She doesn’t argue; she just follows us down to the garage and climbs into yet another identical sedan. Medusa and Calypso come as well. Even though this first wave of enemies is supposedly dead, there are no guarantees, and Eurydice knows better than to argue with either of them about taking a security detail.
Medusa drives us to the Cypress Bridge and parks against the curb half a block over. “We walk from here.”
I am achingly aware of the sun sinking toward the horizon as we approach the bridge on foot. It is as empty as it was the other night when I walked across it. That, more than anything, makes me shiver. Medusa leads the way, her hand on the grip of her gun and her eyes seeming to take in everything at once. Calypso brings up the rear, and while I can’t see any weapons on her, the way she moves makes me think she has several hidden away. She might look softer than her girlfriend, but I have no doubt she’s equally as dangerous.
We stop at the entrance to the bridge. Eurydice looks like she wants to reach out and take Ariadne’s hands, but she manages to resist the urge. There’s something empty in the other woman’s eyes that worries me. As much as we’ve gone through in the last week, she’s been going through more for longer. I’m not in charge. Even if I was, I don’t have a solution that’s better than what Hades, Persephone, and Hera have come up with. Whatever it is that the latter has in mind, anyway. I’m just assuming she’ll keep her word to her sister.
I sure as fuck hope I’m not wrong.
“I’m sorry.” Eurydice seems to make herself meet Ariadne’s eyes. “I know my apology isn’t worth the air it took me to speak it, but I am sorry. My sister will—”
“With all due respect, I don’t believe you. Hera will use me for her purposes. It’s fine. I just have to ensure I’m valuable enough for her to want to keep me alive.” She turns without another word and walks onto the bridge.
There’s no fog in the early evening to obscure our vision. We stand there in silence and watch her cross the bridge to where a lone lean figure awaits her on the other side. They speak for a few seconds, and then Ariadne follows Hera to an SUV and climbs into the back.
“Did we make the right decision?”
Medusa shakes her head. “If you think that was your decision, you’re delusional. Hades and your sister made that call. We’re just the ones implementing it. It’s the life of a soldier, Eurydice. Welcome.”
“For fuck’s sake, Medusa.” Calypso smacks her lightly with the back of her hand. “You know damn well that you reject any order that doesn’t align with our values. This one just happened to. We’re not mindless worker ants to dance to the tune our leaders have set.”
“How do you know?” Eurydice wraps her arms around herself. It’s the most natural thing in the world to slip my arm around her shoulders and tuck her against my side. She’s shivering, but I don’t think it has anything to do with her temperature. “Which orders, I mean. How do you know what the right ones to push back on are?”
Medusa shrugs. “You feel it.” She taps her upper chest, right over her heart. “But if you’re going to challenge Hades, do it privately, and make sure you have a damn good reason for it. He’ll listen. It doesn’t mean you’ll win the argument, but he’ll hear you out. That’s more than most people give.”
Eurydice seems to chew on this for a little while. Finally, she nods. “Okay. I’ll try to remember that.” She glances to where Ariadne disappeared. “And you’re right; this wasn’t an easy decision, but it was the right call.”
Gently, I turn her back toward our car. “There’s nothing to do for her now. Let’s go home to Charon.”
My skin chooses that moment to tighten almost painfully. I actually flinch. “What the—”
The answer is readily apparent as I look up into the sky and see a gold shimmering curtain descending. I only visited the boundary that separates Olympus from the rest of the world once, on a field trip back in high school. It had impressed even teenage me, the faint metallic shimmer in the air something beautiful and strange. I spent weeks after that trying to replicate the effect in my artwork, but I never quite pulled it off.