I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to leave him.
He picks up his phone and sighs. “I’ll take this in the living room.”
I’m about to say that’s not necessary when my purse starts ringing. It startles me so much, I stare at it, my brain shorting out. It’s Apollo who walks over and digs out my phone, passing it over before slipping out the door to answer his call.
Guilt rises at the sight of my sister’s name on my screen. I hadn’t even thought to update her, but why would I? I try to keep the unsavory aspects of my life from touching her. Until this point, that included how gods-awful everyone with the tiniest bit of power is to me, how stressful the bills get, how much I resent our parents for painting us into this corner with their selfishness even as I grieved them.
This is different.
I take a deep breath and try to erase any fatigue from my voice. “Hey, Alexandra.”
“What happened?”
I blink. “What do you mean, what happened?”
“Cassandra.” Her exasperation practically pours through the line. “It’s all over the gossip sites. Hephaestus is dead. And he was at the same party you were at this week with Apollo. What’s going on?”
I open my mouth to tell her that she needs to worry about college and not about me but stop short. I don’t want to drag her into this, but dismissing her question is shitty. “Some stuff happened, but it’s best if you stay out of it. I’m okay, but I don’t want you to worry about stuff you can’t control.”
“Cassandra, I love you, but that’s a load of horseshit.”
“Excuse me?”
She doesn’t sound angry. More like she’s exhausted. That almost makes it worse. “I’m not a kid anymore. You don’t have to shelter me from the bad stuff in this world. I know it’s there.” A weighted pause. “Be honest with me. For once.”
She’s…right. Alexandra is an adult. Wanting to shield her from all the bad stuff is as much about me as it is about her, and that’s not fair. I sigh. “It’s like it was with our parents. The new family in town? The Vitalises? Theseus killed Hephaestus and claimed right of might.”
“What?”
“He…” I drag in a breath. Honesty only goes so far. I’m not going to expose my sister to the level of violence I witnessed at that party. “It doesn’t matter. We’re getting out of here. I have enough money to pay for us to start a new life outside Olympus. Poseidon has already agreed to get us out.” A lie, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s a small price to pay. I’ve shielded my sister from so much. I can’t tell her the price I almost paid for this escape.
“What did you just say?”
I frown. There’s something in her tone that I don’t like. “I have a way out for us. A new life. It’s what we wanted, Alexandra. This place is fucking poison, and you’ve been working so hard. You can finish out your degree at any college in the country. Gods, you could probably attend any college in the world.”
“Cassandra.” My sister’s voice shakes. “What about Apollo?”
My heart cries out, and I can’t keep the waver out of my own voice. “It was never going to work with him.”
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Alexandra curses. “It does to me. You like him. You’ve liked him for a long time. Obviously he feels the same way. Why would you leave that behind?”
I start to tell her I’d do anything for her, but I’ve been dishonest about too much. I can’t quite manage it now. “We’re too different.”
“Explain.”
I frown. “You’re kind of being an asshole right now.”
“And you’re kind of being a self-righteous martyr.” Alexandra exhales slowly. “I don’t fault you for wanting to get out of here. You don’t exactly talk about it, but it couldn’t have been easy to shoulder the burden of raising me while we lost everything. I don’t blame you for hating this city and the upper circles, but… Cass, I don’t. My friends are here. I love my graduate program and, well, I was going to tell you this at dinner next week, but I got accepted into an internship with Demeter’s company. Cass, my life is here. But we’re not talking about me right now. We’re talking about you.”
It feels like the world just flipped me around and dropped me on my head. I stare at the tangled sheets of Apollo’s bed. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that even if I wanted to leave the city, it wouldn’t make a difference. You’ve given up too much, Cass. Don’t give up on him, too.”
“It’s not that easy.” The truth bubbles up, all the fears I’ve been shoving down since I realized exactly how high the stakes were. “It’s like our parents all over again. They were comfortable committing murder to accomplish their goals. They knew the risk and didn’t care, and they were killed because of their ambition. That’s the world they moved in. That’s the world Apollo moves in. He’s comfortable there. I never will be.”
“Cass…” Alexandra hesitates. “If you need to leave Olympus, I won’t hold it against you. But make sure you’re leaving for the right reasons. You might say that you’re not comfortable in the world Apollo moves in, but you’ve been his right hand for five years. You’re already moving in that world.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it? You interact with the other Thirteen and the legacy families all the time. What would be different if you and Apollo kept dating? If you got married?”
The thought of being married to Apollo nearly knocks me off my feet. I have to close my eyes and swallow hard. “I’ll drown, Alex. The waters are too deep.”
“So learn to swim. You’re the smartest person I know. If anyone can do it, you can.”
I don’t know what to say to that. It feels too big, too easy, when nothing about this is easy at all. The violence we encountered at Minos’s party shook me to the core…but even at its worst, Apollo was at my side. Refusing to leave me. Protecting me. Allowing me to do the same for him.
“I’m afraid.”
Alexandra’s voice warms. “When has that stopped you from doing something that mattered to you?”
She’s…right. I’ve been scared for a very long time. Of failing her. Of letting the legacy of our parents drag us down. Of letting anyone close. My throat tries to close, but I swallow past the feeling. “When did you get so smart?”
“My brilliant older sister has set a really outstanding example for me to follow. If you want to credit someone, credit her.”
Gods, now I’m going to cry. I blink rapidly. “If you change your mind about leaving—”
“Then that will be my choice,” she says gently. “And I’ll take care of it myself. Without you making any more sacrifices for me. It’s time for me to stand on my own, Cass. You’ve shown me how. Trust me enough to do it.”
“Okay.” I wipe at my eyes. I barely know how to process this pivot, but I don’t have time. Not yet. The crisis that started at the party isn’t over. Not by a long shot. “What else are they saying on the gossip sites?”