Henry picked at the paint on the bathroom door. He seemed ashamed, and Cassandra’s heart sank. She’d seen that look before, a lifetime ago. She knew what came next.
“Maybe that’s why I’ve been a coward now,” he said. “To make it up to you. I lay in that snow like a baby. I would’ve died if Cally hadn’t saved my ass. I couldn’t protect Lux. Or Andie.”
“Andie would say she doesn’t need protecting.”
“Don’t I know it,” Henry said. He touched the wrapping on his wounded arm. “When this sling comes off, I’m going to ask Hermes to train me.”
*
Athena loved Australia. The ruggedness and the wild. It was so many things at once, and easy to get lost in. She hadn’t been there in decades. She should have come back sooner.
“I hate airplanes,” Odysseus grumbled from behind aviator sunglasses as they walked toward the Rent-A-Car in the Sydney Airport.
“Would you have preferred a boat?” she asked.
“Not with you around. The trip might’ve taken ten years.” There was an edge to Odysseus’ voice, and it was more than just travel crankiness. The closer they got to Achilles, the angrier he became.
“A plane or a boat. Scylla or Charybdis. Feel familiar?” Athena asked, and smiled.
He dropped his duffel into a plastic chair. “Just shut up and go rent us a car. Something decent. Something with four-by-four.” He waved her off, and she ground her teeth. But fine. Let him have his mood. What she would do to Achilles later would rankle him worse.
Ten minutes later they were on the road, headed for the Hume and Monaro Highways in a rented Land Rover. Odysseus insisted on being behind the wheel, no doubt to feel more in control, and Athena turned on the AC. It was early March, but the temps were still high. They’d come too soon for falling leaves and dying foliage. Pity. It might’ve made spotting Achilles easier, if what Calypso said was true and he lived half-wild in the mountains past Jindabyne.
Athena watched the land pass through the window. Buildings and metal and roads and people. So many cars. She’d stayed away too long. When she’d been there last, it had been another world.
Another world, in sixty years. Everything changes. Even gods.
Athena glanced at her wrist, bare now, the gauze gone. The feathers had all been plucked, and the scabs healed to faint curling scars that would disappear in a week. There hadn’t been any feathers since, except for the one she’d coughed out of her lung.
“No new feathers?” Odysseus asked, reading her mind.
“No. I must’ve used up my feather quota for the month. Maybe I should have Cassandra zap me more often. Feathers through the wrists aren’t so bad. I could bear an eternity of them, if it meant they’d stay out of my lungs.”
“That was stupid,” he said. “I should never have left you alone with her.”
“Don’t be such a dad,” she said, and set her foot up on the dash. “You’re not the boss of me.”
“Hmph.” Odysseus snorted. “You’re looking awfully chipper for someone who’s about to kill a boy.”
“I’ve killed lots of boys. And none of them were so wicked as the one I’m about to.”
“You don’t know him. He’s just a kid caught up in your mess like the rest of us. He went mad with grief, and you called him evil.”
“He behaved like a god, but he wasn’t one,” Athena said, annoyed. “Maybe it was you who didn’t know him.”
She looked back out the window and tried to relax, focus on the changing scenery. All that sunlight and wind in the brush. After the war was over, maybe she’d come back. She and Hermes could stand on top of mountains. But no. Hermes would want somewhere with satin and wine. Shirtless boys and roast meat on silver platters.
Still, Australia was a country she wanted more of. If they were wrong, and the war didn’t save them, it would be an excellent place to die.
“What are you thinking about?” Odysseus asked.