“Make no mistake, I want the blood,” said Ares. “But leaving him alone doesn’t seem right. And I didn’t catch a knife in the gut saving those two downstairs,” he nodded to the door and down to Cassandra’s parents, “just to let them get skinned two days later.”
So much for his bitter words about playing the hero.
“After he’s gone, I’ll come and find you,” he said. “I’ll stash the parents and pick up your trail.”
“We’re headed up the southern face of Mount Emmons. I’ll look for you.”
“If something goes wrong,” he said. “If Atropos can’t be stopped. What do you want me to do?”
She looked at Hermes on the bed, so pale he’d turned gray. They’d come so far. She’d led them here.
“I’m not your general, Ares. I never have been. But if I were you…” She took a slow breath. “I’d spring Aphrodite from the underworld and spend as much time with her as I could. Someplace warm. I’d run and I wouldn’t look back.”
They stood beside Hermes’ bed together for a long time. Athena had been unfair to Ares, and he to her, for as long as she could remember, but it didn’t matter. Ares would look after their brother, and Athena would trade herself so Ares could heal.
“So long, Ares,” she said, and he flinched when she touched his shoulder, like she might hit him. It made her smile. They would never be friends. But they were family.
*
Cassandra watched Athena’s house recede as Thanatos backed out of the driveway. Inside, a god she’d hated from the moment she laid eyes on him sat beside Hermes’ bed, and protected her parents.
“Are you sure we can trust him?” she asked, and in her side mirror, she saw Athena glance up to the house.
“You killed his mother and he saved yours,” she replied. “That earns him at least a little slack, don’t you think?”
Cassandra clenched her teeth. But it wasn’t Ares who weighed on her mind. The instinct to go where her vision indicated was so strong it pulled. Strings tightening around her heart.
29
NO HIGHER GROUND
Their caravan drove northeast, racing the dawn for higher ground. Where Athena intended to take them, there were no good trails. No cleared paths at all, save the ones made by deer. But their legs were fresh, and their fear would keep them sharp. For a little while at least.
Somewhere ahead, Mount Emmons waited in the dark, one of the high peaks of the Adirondacks. They’d push their way up and wait for Atropos and Achilles to come up behind. With luck, they’d hold the high ground, and maybe find cover to dig into.
“What if they don’t come?” Cassandra asked. “What if by not going where we’re told, we’re spoiling Clotho and Lachesis’ plans?”
“What if,” Athena said. Her teeth caught the edge of an emerging feather and she winced, but she felt strangely elated. “I think it was when we deviated,” she continued after a moment. “I think that’s when it changed.”
“What are you talking about?” Cassandra asked.
“Fate isn’t fate anymore. The Moirae grow weak. We turn away from their plans, and they don’t turn us back.”
“That’s all in your head.”
“No,” Thanatos said from the driver’s seat. “I feel it, too.”
Cassandra turned. Her eyes shone in the dark like marbles. “You both know how this is going to end.”
Athena smiled.
“I don’t.”
*
Henry followed Athena’s car down back roads that turned from blacktop to dirt, and finally to not much more than twin tracks. He didn’t know how she knew where they were going. Maybe the gods’ innate sense of direction. Maybe Athena had used part of her long, immortal life to commit every inch of the globe to memory. However they did it, Henry kept the Mustang close to the rental’s taillights.