“If it’s possible now, it’ll be possible after,” Athena hissed.
“There won’t be an after,” Cassandra said. “If someone doesn’t take me, then I’m not going with you to Olympus. Good luck with Hera. She’ll turn you to feathery paste.”
“You’re making threats now?” Athena asked. “Giving orders?”
“Stop.” Calypso stepped in between them. “You don’t need to do this. I’ll take Cassandra, if you won’t.”
Cassandra smiled triumphantly; Athena looked as if she’d swallowed a rock.
“Don’t be ridiculous. We have no idea what condition the underworld is in,” Athena said. “And it’s no picnic on a good day.”
“I don’t care,” said Cassandra.
Athena glared at her, every muscle in her jaw clenching. But Cassandra wouldn’t give in. She couldn’t. Not if it meant Aidan.
“Go home and pack,” Athena muttered and turned her back. “Get an hour of sleep if you can. We leave before dawn.”
*
Odysseus went with Cassandra to her house, along with Andie and Henry. After the growl of the Mustang faded, Athena went back into the yard and kicked the stone statue of Hera in half of its face over, and over, and over. In five minutes, the toes of her favorite boots were ruined, and chunks of Hera lay scattered across the grass.
“Dress rehearsal?”Achilles asked.
Athena smiled ruefully. “Maybe.”
“We could do it all ourselves, you know. Walk in there. Blow up the place. Walk back out. Just you and me.”
He sounded so confident. Very Crocodile Dundee. But it wouldn’t work.
“No,” she said. “We need her. We need Cassandra.”
“The other weapon of fate.” He nodded. “Right. You think that’s why we’ll win. Because if you have us, you have the Fates.”
“Why do you think we’ll win, Achilles?”
He walked to her and picked up half of the statue, as easily as she could have.
“Because you’re the goddess of war.” He blew dust off the cracked stump of Hera’s neck. “That’s why I joined up. What could be mightier than you?”
*
Andie didn’t look like herself, sitting on the corner of Henry’s bed, her knees up and her hands pressed against the blankets. She looked afraid. Like a backward-scuttling crab.
“Lux,” Henry said, and gestured with his head. The dog bounced up onto the bed and curled into her lap.
“Dog therapy,” Andie said.
Henry shrugged. “It usually works for me.”
Her phone buzzed, and she reached into her pocket then texted something fast and furious.
“Who’s that?” Henry asked.
Andie made a face.
“It’s Megan, nosy. We were supposed to go to a movie.”
“Not anymore?”
“What do you think?”
Henry sighed. She’d probably be this snappy until the moment they left for Olympus.
Olympus. They were going to real, live, legendary, mother-effing Olympus. The only thing that could make it feel larger and more ridiculous was if they got there on Pegasus.
“This is what we trained for,” he heard himself say.
“I guess.”
“You’re the one who wanted to start using swords.”
She squinted at him. “What’s that supposed to mean? It’s a good thing I did, or we’d both be in Ares’ wolves’ stomachs right now.”
“That was weeks ago,” Henry said. “We’d actually be in little piles of Ares’ wolves’ poop right now.”
She cracked a smile, but just barely. “Big piles, you mean.”
Around Henry’s room, nary a piece of wall was visible for all his posters. Childish, outdated relics. Andie had made fun of him for it once. But the big blue Avatar face sure felt comforting now, when his sister was packing for the underworld across the hall. They would go and sit with her soon, he supposed. After she and Odysseus finished discussing whatever secret reincarnated-handshake crap they were discussing.
“Henry?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think it’s done any good? The training, I mean.”