“Why do you think that?” Athena asked.
She had figured it out—it had gradually worked its way into her head after she caught a glimpse of his more-than-human quickness. The ones who had fallen and been brought back—Odysseus, Cassandra, and Achilles—they were more than they had been when they died. And they were more than they had been when they lived before. They were two bodies in one. The hero and the myth. So Achilles being stronger, Athena understood. But Cassandra was no great warrior.
“Cassandra and Achilles,” Odysseus explained, “are archetypes. Touched by the gods. I was a traveler, with a good head on my shoulders and the finest patron goddess a man could ask for. But I was still only a man. Not divine.”
Athena nodded. Achilles was once a near invincible fighter. Now he was unkillable. And Cassandra, once an oracle, had seemed to become almost as Fate itself.
“We’re ourselves,” Odysseus said. “And we’re the old myths.”
“But you can’t kill gods?” Athena asked.
Odysseus smiled. “I’m not a weapon. Just an old hero. Although I may have been imbued with the powers of supersmartness.”
Athena thought back to Demeter’s words. Make her remember and she’ll be more. They still are what they were.
“The Fates are responsible for this,” she said, “but I don’t know why. Achilles I understand. But why would they put Cassandra in motion when they can’t control her?”
Odysseus shrugged.
“Maybe the Fates are like the rest of you lot. Maybe they can’t agree.”
Behind them in the tunnel, closer than Athena thought possible, Ares cleared his throat.
“Had enough of your reunion?” Ares asked. “We don’t exactly have the time to waste.”
“Why not?” Aphrodite asked from his arm. “All we’re doing is waiting for the dead to bring us Persephone.” She looked at Athena and Odysseus with surprising fondness. “Let them have their time. Our reunion lasted for days, remember?”
Ares tugged her close. They looked happy and miserable all at once. Passion edged with resentment. But that was how they’d always been.
Athena pursed her lips. She stepped away from Odysseus. After all this time, she’d finally blundered into Aphrodite’s domain. Love. It felt dangerous. Foolish. As if all the wisdom gained from watching mortals wear their hearts on their sleeves and ruin themselves meant nothing.
Persephone’s scream cut through the corridor, and Athena tensed. Aphrodite trembled and closed her eyes. She clamped her hands down over her ears like a child. It was the first sign of instability she’d shown in the underworld.
“We should probably move.” Odysseus craned his neck around a curve in the wall. What would they see when Persephone rounded the corner? A mass of blood-rushed dead swarming all over her? Or perhaps they’d be driving her from the rear like cattle.
Athena looked at Ares. “Where did you intend to take her?”
“The only place we can hold her,” Ares said. “Across the river.”
*
Persephone crossed the river screaming curses, boiling from the center of an army of corpses. Their arms and legs writhed like a bed of snakes. If Persephone hadn’t been a goddess, she would’ve been pulled apart, or drowned. They all might have been. But Athena and the others were able to stay just ahead of the pack, swimming fast across the Styx, splashing and squinting with closed mouths.
Athena waded as quickly as she could toward shore. Her legs felt like logs, still weak from the loss of blood. Beside her, Aphrodite stumbled and Athena caught her by the arm before she could go under.
“Stay up!” Athena shouted. “Wolves, help!” For a second she thought they wouldn’t obey, but then both Panic and Oblivion turned and let Aphrodite grab onto the shoulders of their coats.
“Athena!” Ares called.
He was still hip deep in the river. Persephone hissed and struggled in the arms of the dead a few feet beyond.
“The dead can’t cross the Styx,” he said. “The rest of the way is up to us.”