“Well,” Athena said. “Not everyone’s as stupid as a Cyclops.”
“Not everyone’s as hardheaded as you.” He rubbed his hands together and eyed the sheets of the cot. “Now, how to get that shoulder back in the socket? Maybe we can tie off some of those sheets.”
“Just pull it.”
“Even with the bone broken?”
“Just pull it, or I’ll jam it in myself, on the wall.”
He blew breath out, but he stood and grasped her arm between the elbow and wrist. “Bloody stubborn,” he whispered, and yanked hard. The cracked bone in her arm sang a friggin’ aria, and fire burned up the whole side of her body as the joint popped back in. But it went in. The bone was only cracked, after all. It wasn’t like it was sticking out of the skin.
“Okay?” He touched her shoulder gently.
“Okay.” She took a breath. The adrenaline had begun to fade. It would be an extremely uncomfortable flight home, followed by perhaps a few days off her feet. But just the same, she couldn’t help feeling excited. She’d found the other weapon. She looked again at Achilles, where he stood waiting patiently. He was a sharp new knife indeed. Sharp enough to cut her stepmother’s head off. The invincible brute would plow a path straight through to the gods, and Cassandra would walk unharmed in his wake.
“The Fates are still with me,” she whispered.
“What?” Odysseus asked.
“Nothing. Just taking stock.”
“And you’re pleased?”
“Yes,” she said. “And that’s as close to an apology as you’re going to get.”
“Well. It’s shitty, but it’ll do.” He hadn’t moved away. He stayed close, half-kneeling, bent toward her. “What you said in the car. About Calypso. About us. Is that really what you want?”
Her eyes moved over his familiar form. The muscles in his shoulders. The way his hair fell across his cheek.
“Yes,” she said.
“But what if I can’t?”
“Don’t be difficult. You can do—” She stopped. He’d picked up the bowl of water and blood and stared down into it. Something floated in the center, small and dark and speckled. A feather. There’d been a feather in her blood.
I don’t like to be dying. I don’t think I’ll like to be dead.
“Athena,” Odysseus said.
“Sorry.” Achilles walked abruptly back in and headed to the corner of the shelter to dig through his stacks of books. “I didn’t want to forget this.” He held up a thin white volume and flashed it at Odysseus. A book on trap building. “Best book you ever got me. Did you get her patched up?”
“Could you give us a minute, Achilles?” Odysseus asked, but Athena grabbed him by the arm.
“Hang on. You got him that book? The book that taught him how to make the traps?”
Achilles ignored them and flipped through pages.
“I thought it’d come in handy, and it did.”
“You knew there would be traps, and you didn’t warn me.”
“I didn’t know for sure,” Odysseus said. “And besides, you wouldn’t have been killed.”
“I might’ve been maimed.”
“You could’ve been maimed; he could’ve stayed dead. All that’s in the past. Let it go.” Odysseus stood and rolled his shoulders back.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get him home.”
*
Odysseus wanted a beer before the flight, so they pulled up at the first bar they found along the concourse and wedged their way into a corner table. Odysseus ordered a round of Guinness, and all three flipped open their passports for the waiter.
“It must be strange,” Achilles said to Athena. “Getting carded. You’re what, five thousand? That’s got to be legal everywhere.”
“It’s the purple streaks,” Athena said, and pulled a few locks over her shoulder. The last of her punk highlights. “I should cut them out.”
“Don’t,” Achilles said. “It looks good. Wild. Besides, it isn’t your hair. They’d card you anyway.”