“That you were full of fire. They talked about you like a prize horse to be tamed.”
“Nice. Livestock. Very flattering.” But horses weren’t only livestock to the Trojans. They were revered partners. Her brother Hector carried them in his name. Hector, tamer of horses. Maybe that’s why Henry had insisted on another Mustang after they’d totaled the last one.
Odysseus reached out and touched her hair. “It made me want to meet you.”
“Stop it.” She swatted him away. “I think you wanted to meet everyone. Weren’t you married? You must’ve made a horrible husband.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I think I did. But I only ever loved one girl at a time. Or at least, that’s what it feels like now.”
He looked so sad suddenly. Almost regretful, and Cassandra took a breath and relented.
“People change,” she said. “They change in two years, let alone how many have passed since you and I were last alive. I didn’t mean to make you feel guilty.” She chewed her lip. “But I did mean what I said. I don’t care what they thought of me then.”
“But?”
She crossed her arms and tried to seem disinterested.
“But now that you’ve met me, are you disappointed?”
“Not sure yet,” he said. “I do wonder what you were like before we came to town.”
“I was ordinary,” she said. “I blended in.”
“Impossible. With Aidan? You can’t blend in with something that pretty on your arm.”
“Don’t call him ‘pretty.’” Her knee knocked into his. “And you weren’t here. You didn’t see how well he hid.”
“Okay. But then why aren’t you thanking us? If everything was so boring and ordinary.”
“I like ordinary. People only wish for adventure until they’re stuck in the middle of one. Haven’t you ever seen The Fellowship of the Ring?”
“Sure. Lots of times. But I’ve been both hero and zero, and make no mistake—”
Cassandra exhaled. “Look. The difference between you and me is that you slid into your old life like it was a pair of old shoes. Mine has toes filled with razor blades.”
Odysseus pushed off the wall.
“The difference between you and me, Cassandra, isn’t our old lives,” he said. “It’s that I know who I am in this one.”
“I know who I am in this one,” Cassandra said. “The same as I was in the last one. A small fish caught in a big stream. Full of sharp rocks, gods, and assholes.”
Odysseus laughed. “Assholes?” He pushed her hair off her shoulder, a gesture she was getting very used to. “But I cheered you up a bit, didn’t I?”
“Distracted, maybe,” she said. “But the fact remains. This is the only thing I can do now.” She held up her hand. “What I was made for, Athena says. So she’d better not try to stop me from doing it.”
“Just Aphrodite though, right?” Odysseus asked. “What about the others?”
“What?” Cassandra asked, and dropped her hand.
“Other gods,” he said. “Major and minor. Ares and Hades. Hephaestus. Good old drunk Dionysus. Will you be able to point that thing in their direction, when they haven’t murdered the love of your life?”
Cassandra looked down and said nothing.
“You hadn’t thought that far ahead, had you?” he asked.
“I killed Hera.”
“Because she was trying to kill you. You’re not a murderer, Cassandra. You’re not a hunter. And when it comes down to it, you might find it not so simple. Even with Aphrodite. When you look into her eyes. When you understand. It might not be so easy.”
“Then I hope I’m too angry to hesitate,” she snapped. But she wasn’t angry now. Only exhausted, and more than a little scared to really think about what Odysseus said.
“I just want him back, Ody. There has to be a way, doesn’t there? There has to be a way to go and bring him back.”
Odysseus hugged her and rested his chin on her head.
“I don’t know. But if you find a way, I’ll be there. Right to the end of the earth and over it.”
3
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