Pandora takes my hand as we step into the elevator. She’s startlingly warm, and I’m not ashamed to say I cling to her as the car descends. “She has to be okay.” I’ve said it a dozen times since we started cleaning. I don’t seem to be able to say anything else.
“She’s going to be better than okay,” she says firmly, just like she has answered me every other time. “She’s going to come out of surgery spitting mad and ready to make whoever is responsible pay.”
I shake my head slowly. “Best I can tell, the attacker wasn’t there for Eris. If they were, they wouldn’t have panicked when she got stabbed. They would have finished the job. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.”
Pandora tenses beside me. “They were there for Theseus.”
“I think so.” Which means they were sent by one of the Thirteen.
I hate to admit it, but I believe that Zeus isn’t responsible. He would wait until Theseus wasn’t near Eris to have his people strike. No, this was someone else, someone who didn’t necessarily care if Eris—if Aphrodite—was caught in the cross fire.
Maybe even someone who hoped she would be.
“Who sent them?” Pandora looks up at me, her normal happy expression nowhere in evidence. She looks furious enough that I almost take a step back. “You have an idea.”
“It wasn’t either of her siblings. But there are plenty of people among that group who wouldn’t care if she got caught in the cross fire. They wouldn’t shed a tear if she dies.” Artemis, in particular, has plenty of reason to hate Theseus…and Eris for standing in her way when she wanted revenge for her cousin’s death.
“Adonis.” Pandora’s hand becomes a vise around mine. “Right now, she’s alone and helpless on an operating table. Do you think one of them might try to take advantage of that?”
I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. Artemis has no overt in at the hospital, but that doesn’t mean she’s not capable of finishing the job. “We need to move. Now.”
My car is in the parking garage. We hurry to it and then we’re flying out the exit and toward the hospital. “Zeus won’t let anyone hurt her.” Maybe if I say it enough times, I’ll actually believe it. He won’t let anyone close…except the nurses and doctors and whoever else is needed in the surgery room. “Godsdamn it.”
“What?” Pandora clutches the handle above the door as I fly around a turn, running a red light. “We’re not going to help Eris if we die on the way there!”
“Everyone is the enemy.” I have to force my foot off the accelerator as we come up against traffic. “That’s what your people wanted, isn’t it? Look at us now. Some doctor or nurse might decide to kill her right there on the table to take her title.”
Pandora looks sick. “It wasn’t my plan. I know that doesn’t make it better, and it might actually make it worse because I came with Minos even knowing there was something going on. But I never wanted anyone hurt.”
It’s so tempting to take my anger and fear out on her. It’s also not fair. I know how these things work better than most. People at the top make the decisions and tip the dominoes over.
It’s everyone else who pays the price.
Ten minutes later, we’re screeching into the hospital parking lot. Pandora has to keep me from sprinting wildly into the hospital, though we move at a quick walk that’s almost a run. She laces her fingers with mine and provides a steadying presence even though her lips are tight and her eyes worried.
We barely make it two steps inside before we’re stopped by two people dressed in black with a patch on their right shoulders of helmet and a sword crossed with a spear. “No civilians. We’re having an emergency.”
“Let them through,” says a tired voice behind them. “They’re with us.”
Ares’s soldiers part to reveal the woman herself. Achilles and Patroclus flank her, both looking just as worried as I feel. She eyes me. “You got here fast.”
“We were motivated.” I step forward. “Any news?”
“No, not yet. We have our team in there, though. The best doctors on the Thirteen’s payroll. They’ll see her through.” Ares speaks in the quiet tone of someone barely hanging on.
“The clause—”
“They are our people,” she repeats. Her eyes are colder than I’ve ever seen them. “And they know I’ll personally put a bullet between their eyes if they try something.”
It’s not a guarantee, but it’s all we have. I’m not a doctor. I can’t perform surgery. I take a shaky breath. “Okay.”
Pandora is squeezing my hand so hard, I’ve lost feeling in my fingers, but her voice is relatively even. “We’ll wait with you until we know she’s safe.” She glances at me, a silent message there that I’m in total agreement with. Neither of us will be sent on our way once Eris wakes up. I don’t care if I have to fight Ares, Achilles, Patroclus, or even Zeus himself. I am getting into that room to see Eris with my own eyes and make sure she knows she’s safe now.
But she’s not the only one I’m worried about.
I allow Pandora to lead me to one of the uncomfortable seats in the waiting room. We sink down and exchange another look. “Will Theseus be okay?”
“I don’t know.” A line appears between her brows. “Minos has been very careful to use disappointment and praise in turn to keep Theseus in line, but that was when Theseus worshipped the ground he walks on. If he confronts Minos directly, that won’t hold. I don’t know what Minos will do.”
Despite my best efforts, I think back to the final Ares trial. The Minotaur fought Achilles, Patroclus, and Helen at the same time. He almost killed Patroclus, and when Helen eliminated him, he kept fighting and might have killed Achilles, too. I’ve never seen anything like it. The whole time he enacted such violence, he didn’t have any expression on his face.
“If Minos sets the Minotaur after Theseus, what will happen?”
She flinches. “Blood and tears, Adonis. Blood and tears.”
36
HEPHAESTUS
Pure rage carries me all the way to Minos’s home. I can’t stop replaying the attack. I should have been stronger. Faster. Fucking something. The attacker got the drop on us, but Eris should have stayed down. What was the fool woman doing, rushing at the fucking assassin?
Trying to protect me.
I can’t pretend the cloying feeling in my chest is anything but guilt. It’s sticky and sharp and every breath seems to drive it deeper into my lungs. She was trying to protect me, her enemy, the man she only married to keep this fucking city safe.
The city doesn’t deserve her. The Thirteen sure as shit don’t.
I shove open the door hard enough that it bangs into the wall behind it and tries to rebound. I catch it easily. “Minos! Where the fuck are you?”
It takes seconds to reach his office and find it empty. I charge into his bedroom with the same results. Those are the only two places in this apartment he spends any time, which means he’s not here.
Footsteps sound, but I know before Ariadne rounds the corner that it’s not the person I’m seeking. She skids to a stop, her eyes wide. “Theseus. Oh gods, is that blood?”
“Yes.” I start past her. “Where is he?”
“Shouldn’t you, um, maybe wash your hands? Take a breath?”
I don’t grab Ariadne and shake her, but the temptation is there. “Where is he?” I repeat. I keep my words so low, they’re almost incomprehensible. I don’t care. If I start bellowing, I’m going to annihilate this apartment. I want to rip into the walls, to smash and break whatever I can get my hands on and howl to the fucking moon.
None of it will make a difference or ensure Eris lives.
Ariadne hesitates. She looks around and steps closer. “I heard about Aphrodite. I’m sorry.”
“Ariadne.” I take her shoulders and lean down, getting in her face. “Where the fuck is your father?”
“Are you going to kill him?” she whispers.
I don’t ask her if she’d try to stop me. Minos’s relationship with her and Icarus is no less fucked than his relationship with me and the Minotaur. It’s just a different flavor of fucked. Maybe she doesn’t know if she wants to stop me or get out of my way. That’s fine. I don’t know what I want right now, either. “Where is he? I’m not going to ask again.”