Personally, Alia thought the pants were great. Was it wrong to notice how good someone’s butt looked when a second earlier you’d thought he was dead?
It only took a few moments for Diana to scale the tree and cut Theo loose. He fell to the ground in a heap and gazed up at them from the dirt. “Can we never, ever do that again?”
“Sold,” Jason said, offering him a hand. He pulled Theo up and drew him into a quick hug, clapping him on the back. Alia wanted to plant kisses all over Theo’s ridiculous face, but she was going to have to fall out of a few more planes before she had the guts to do it.
“How did they find us?” said Nim. “How did they know we were headed to Greece?”
“I don’t know,” said Jason. “It’s possible they found the jet via satellite. Maybe they were just waiting to see where we intended to land, and once we were in range—”
“They took a shot,” said Theo.
“They’ll have seen where the jet went down,” said Diana. “We need to move. If they don’t already know we escaped the crash, they will soon.”
“But where are we?” said Nim. “And where do we go?”
Theo pulled out his phone.
“Don’t!” said Alia, swatting it out of his hands onto the ground.
“Hey!”
“Maybe that’s the answer to how they found us,” said Nim.
Theo looked almost insulted. “You seriously think I let anyone track me through this thing? If anybody goes looking for Theo Santos, they’re going to think I’m sunning myself on Praia do Toque. Which, honestly, I wish I was.”
“I wish you were, too,” said Nim.
“Does anyone else have a phone?” said Jason.
Nim shook her head. “It was in my clutch at the party.”
“I never got a new one,” said Alia. “And Diana doesn’t have a phone.”
Theo clutched his chest. “No—no phone? How do you function?”
Diana cast Theo a haughty glance that looked like it had been pulled straight from Nim’s playbook. “I wear practical shoes and avoid the branches of olive trees.”
“So cold,” said Nim with a grin. “So accurate.”
“Shhhh,” Theo said to his pointy-toed shoes. “She didn’t mean it.”
“Just keep the phone off for now,” Jason said.
“Fine,” Theo retorted. “But for a guy who knows so much biology, you don’t know shit about tech. This thing is literally untraceable.”
In the end, Diana led them southeast, the setting sun to their backs. They made their way through olive groves and farmland for hours, lurching along, lost in their own thoughts. They kept away from the roads and left a wide perimeter as they skirted farms and houses, keeping Theo at the front of the line and Nim at the back, since they didn’t seem to be able to stop insulting each other, regardless of the danger. Alia still caught them throwing angry glares each other’s way.
Occasionally, Diana or Jason would jog ahead to scout their route, and it was nearly dusk when Diana returned to say they were on the outskirts of an area called Thines.
“Do you think we’ve gone far enough?” asked Alia. She refused to complain, but her feet ached and her whole body felt weary with fatigue. Though her ankle was obeying, she was desperate to take her weight off it for a while.
“Even if we aren’t, it’s getting too dark to see,” said Jason. “We need to find shelter for the night.”
“I don’t think we should risk seeking lodging,” said Diana. “I saw what looks like an abandoned building not far ahead.”
“How are you not tired?” said Nim grumpily.
Alia smiled. She’d almost gotten used to Diana’s limitless reserve of energy. “Annoying, isn’t it?”
They followed Diana through another mile of orchards and across a dry creek bed, where the stones glowed nearly white in the gathering dusk, then back into another olive grove. Through the trees, Alia occasionally caught sight of lit windows or the shape of a building. Once they passed close enough to a house that she glimpsed a television through the window, flickering blue in the living room. She felt like she’d looked through a portal to another planet. How could something so ordinary be happening when they were running for their lives? She was glad when they left the cultivated groves and began picking their way up a low rise, through a tangle of dense trees and scrub that provided plenty of cover.
Eventually, they came to a building that looked like it had once been a chapel but had long since been abandoned. They’d almost missed it, tucked into a copse of cypress and deadfall. Hopefully, the men looking for them would head straight for the neighboring farms and never think to seek them out here.
Alia felt along the wall near the door and found a small lantern hanging from a rusted hook. “It still has oil in it,” she said. A few more minutes of fumbling and they’d found safety matches in a tin box tucked into a niche in the wall.
“Keep the flame low,” Jason said.
Alia lit the wick and turned the little bronze key as low as it would go. By the dim light, they could see whitewashed walls reaching up to a blue enamel dome and a packed-earth floor beneath them. Rusted hulks of farm equipment and piles of rotting pews had been stacked haphazardly in the apse, but there was still plenty of room.
“We can spend the night here,” said Jason.
“We’re far enough from the farmhouses?” said Diana.
“I think so.”
“And we’re stopping for the day?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” she said. In a single movement, she freed the lasso from her hip and slung it over Jason’s shoulders. “Then what exactly are you, Jason Keralis?”
Diana snapped the lasso tight, and for a moment, its fibers seemed to glow in the dim light of the church. Jason stumbled but kept his footing, thrashing at the end of the rope like a fish on a line. Despite what she’d seen on the jet, the reality of his strength still came as a shock.
“Diana!” Alia yelped.
“Oh dang,” said Theo.
“What is that thing made of?” said Nim.
Diana ignored them. “Who are you?” she demanded. “What are you?”
“I’m exactly who I said I am,” Jason said through gritted teeth.
“How did you catch hold of the jet’s wing at those speeds? How did you hang on? What are you, Jason Keralis? Speak.”
Jason gave an angry growl, his muscles flexing, the tendons in his neck drawn taut. But he was no match for the lasso’s power.
“What’s happening to him?” Theo asked, a frantic edge to his voice. “What are you doing?”
“He’s fine,” said Diana, though she wasn’t entirely sure that was so. “The lasso compels the truth.”
Jason grimaced. “I am a descendant of Helen and Menelaus, just as Alia is.”
Of course he was—he was Alia’s brother—but that didn’t account for his abilities. “Another Warbringer?”
“Something…else.” He spoke the words as if they were being torn from him. “I carry hero’s blood. The blood of Menelaus and the Spartan kings before him. My mother and father helped me keep my strength secret.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Alia said. Diana could sense the worry she had for her brother, but the hurt in her voice was clear, too.
“Mom and Dad didn’t want anyone to know,” said Jason. “It was dangerous for all of us.”
“You held back when we fought at the hotel,” Diana said as realization dawned.
“I’ve been holding back my whole life,” Jason snarled. “Now get this thing off me.”
“Let him go,” Alia said. “This is wrong.”
Diana narrowed her eyes but let the rope slacken.
Jason pulled it over his head, casting the lasso away from him like a snake. “What the hell is that thing?”
Diana yanked the lasso back. “A necessity in the World of Man. You’ve been lying this whole time. To all of us.”
“And you’ve been so forthcoming?” He pointed an accusing finger at her. “You come out of nowhere. You shrug off bullet wounds like they’re paper cuts. You can outfight my best security guards.”
“I’ve made no attempt to hide my gifts,” Diana replied. “The secrets I protect do not just belong to me.”