“Theo, this isn’t your fight,” said Jason. “Or yours, Nim. I’m going to have Ben put us down at an abandoned landing strip near the airport in Araxos instead of the airport in Kalamata. From there, I can arrange for a flight back to—”
“Stop,” said Nim, holding her hands up. “If people are willing to blow a hole in the side of the Met to get to you, then they know who we are, and as soon as we pop back up on the grid they’ll be coming after us, trying to find out where you went.”
“She makes a good point,” said Diana. “We can’t afford to underestimate these people again.”
“All right,” Jason said, considering. “We’ll find a safe house. Someplace secure—”
“You’re going to find some olive grove to stash us in?” said Theo indignantly.
“I was thinking a hotel,” said Jason.
“Forget it. If our roles were reversed, would you just sit around sipping ouzo while I was in danger?”
“No,” conceded Jason.
“Then I’m coming with you.”
“Me too,” said Nim.
Alia shook her head. “No way. You saw what we’re up against. You could get hurt. Maybe killed. I couldn’t bear that.”
“I know,” said Nim. “It would be a terrible loss for you and the world. But you’re my best friend. And honestly, I’d rather be shot at than spend a week in a hotel room with Theo.”
Alia knew she should argue harder. Tell them to hide out, do what Jason had suggested, make a real effort to ensure their safety. But despite the danger and their constant sniping, she wanted them with her. She and Jason had lost so much, and Theo and Nim had become their family—loving, supportive, and, occasionally, completely insufferable.
Alia met Diana’s eyes. “Can we keep them safe?”
“I don’t know,” Diana said honestly, and Alia felt grateful for that truth. “But I’m not sure leaving them behind somewhere would be much better. If they were caught…”
Diana didn’t have to finish the thought. If Theo and Nim were caught, maybe it would be by one of the good good guys. Or maybe it would be by one of the groups who wouldn’t think twice about torture.
Alia didn’t like it, but they were out of real choices. “All right. You can come. But let’s try not to do anything too stupid.”
Nim reached out and gave Alia’s hand a sharp squeeze. “Don’t ask Theo to make promises he can’t keep.”
Maybe Alia’s warning had gotten to him, or maybe Theo was just in a good mood, because all he did was grin and lift his ginger ale.
“A toast,” he said. “To the villains.”
Diana longed to wash the battle from her skin. The smell of smoke was in her hair, caught in the remnants of her gown. With every breath she was pulled back to the chaos of the attack, the terrifying sight of bodies on the ground, the echoes of the war cry that continued to reverberate in her blood.
Even though she still wasn’t used to the feeling of being airborne, she forced herself to leave the reassuring solidity of the cushioned banquette and make her way back to the showers. She washed and changed into the leathers she’d stowed in her pack, looping the lasso at her hip. Diana would be conspicuous on the ground in Greece, but they’d be traveling quickly, and she felt more herself in Amazon clothing. If they faced another attack, she wanted any advantage she could get.
For a while she read through the files Jason had brought, keeping her back to the jet’s window. She didn’t like looking out into the dark and seeing her own face reflected back at her. She didn’t want to think about the fact that she was hurtling through the air in a machine that mortals had constructed from metal and plastic and what seemed to be an unwarranted optimism in their own innovation. If she’d been the one at the controls it might have been different, but she did not like being in someone else’s hands, no matter how reassuring Ben’s manner and military experience might be.
Eventually her eyes grew heavy. Tucked into the plush seat, lulled by the sound of the engines, she managed to sleep. She dreamed that she was back on the battlefield that she’d seen in the Oracle’s waters. She heard what she now knew was gunfire, saw the blackened ruins of an unknown city around her, the piles of bodies. But this time it was Tek who looked on as the jackal-headed beast tore out Diana’s throat.
Diana woke gasping, hand clutched to her neck, still feeling the monster’s long teeth lodged in her flesh.
The jet’s cabin was silent. How much time had passed while she slept? Light gleamed from beneath the drawn window shades, and Diana realized they’d caught up to the sun.
Alia was curled next to Nim on the banquette, Theo across from them. Jason was in the back of the plane. When the girls had fallen asleep, Diana had seen Theo pour himself a drink that wasn’t ginger ale. She said nothing, but she wondered if his behavior was out of habit or fatigue or something darker. Did he suspect his father’s involvement in the attack? Could he be responsible himself? She didn’t want to believe the worst of someone Jason and Alia cared about, and Theo’s surprise and confusion about Alia’s identity as the Warbringer had seemed genuine. But Diana didn’t trust her instincts when it came to mortals and their deceptions. She felt like she was wandering in the dark through this world, catching only flashes of understanding, grasping one thing, then stumbling on to the next.
Alia’s eyes moved beneath her lids, and Diana wondered if she should wake her. The dream she was having did not look pleasant. Her brow was furrowed, and she clutched one of the file folders in her arms.
Project Second Born. That had been the name Alia’s parents had given to their research using Alia’s blood. The majority of their information came from documents and artifacts passed down through the Keralis line, family legends, and the work of private investigators they’d hired to pursue leads on Helen’s other descendants. There were photographs of archaeological sites, of private digs they’d funded at the locations of ancient battlegrounds, diving expeditions that ranged off the coast of Egypt to the depths of the Black Sea. They’d set up what seemed to be a secret division of Keralis Labs devoted to archaeogenetics, and though they’d begun their research looking for an answer to the problem of the Warbringer line, it was clear their minds had been engaged by the possibilities of what might be gleaned not only from Alia’s biology but from the DNA—or aDNA—of the heroes and monsters they had come to accept might be more than legend.
Diana had flipped through page after page on the laptop’s screen. It had taken some getting used to, and her fingers still hungered for the feel of paper, but her mind was greedy for the information that flowed before her. One after another, the images slid by, covered in annotations—Achilles with his famous shield in hand, Hector gifting his sword to Ajax. Aeneas. Odysseus. Helen’s brothers, the legendary Dioskouroi. But there were other images, illustrations and models that had sent a chill skittering up her spine: the Minotaur with his great bull’s horns in the labyrinth at Knossos; the sea monster Lamia, queen and child-eater; six-headed Scylla, with her triple rows of shark’s teeth; the cannibal giants of Lamos; the fire-breathing chimera. What had the Keralises been tampering with? The files were troubling enough, but the gaps and missing pages worried her, too.
Now she looked at the screen filled with an image of Echidna, mother of all monsters, part woman, part snake. There were extensive notes on possible uses for gene therapy and the extraction of DNA, as well as a list of possible sites for Echidna’s cave, where she was thought to have died. Diana shuddered. No wonder I had nightmares.