“Okay.” She turns toward the door, but pauses. “Thanks for this. I mean it. Olympus is my home, too, no matter how flawed, and I want to help.”
“You are helping, and I appreciate it.” I inject warmness into my tone, but for once I’m not lying. Not really, anyway. I like Eurydice, and she’s useful. Win, win from where I’m sitting.
Everything is going according to plan.
9
PANDORA
I almost don’t go back to Minos’s home. Returning there always feels like stepping into a cloud of noxious gas, except the very air has weight. Minos mostly ignores me, which means the Minotaur mostly ignores me as well, and I prefer it that way. But that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t ignore either of them. I learned early on that knowing the most dangerous people in the room might save my life one day, and they are both dangerous.
There’s nowhere else to go, though.
For all Minos’s show of buying a house outside the city proper, it’s not convenient for day-to-day life, so he’s rented a penthouse a few blocks away from the city center. I think he tried to get closer, but all those buildings are owned by families that can trace their origins back to Olympus’s conception. They might not be giving him the cut direct currently, but none of them wanted a new, ambitious stranger living so close.
I bet they’re all happy about that after what went down two weeks ago.
I push the thought away, just like I have every day since the house party ended in violence and death. I know what Theseus is capable of. I’ve always known it.
That doesn’t make it easier to stomach.
It’s not the death that bothers me. Death is a part of life, and murder is far more common among the powerful than anyone wants to admit.
What bothers me is the fantasy Minos spun for Theseus. The one where doing this would fulfill all his dreams of stability and power. Judging by the last two weeks, all of that is one big lie. He’s got power, but stability is in short supply, and he certainly doesn’t have the freedom he craves.
Coming here was a mistake.
I’m only in Olympus because Theseus refuses to cooperate if I’m not a package deal with him, and Minos resents me intensely because of it. I’m the one relationship in Theseus’s life that predates everyone here. The chosen family that Minos cannot manipulate or control. The one person who’s known Theseus since we were barely out of diapers.
Not that Theseus listens to me. If he did, he wouldn’t be in his current predicament. The fact he thinks he can dictate my actions, though? It makes me want to put him in his place all over again the way I did this morning.
I wish I could pretend that’s why I accepted Aphrodite’s invitation.
The hook in my gut is attached to a string of pure desire, and I’m terribly afraid she might hold the other end of it. She’s beautiful and magnetic, and I’m only human. Being the primary recipient of all her attention is a heady thing. I won’t act on it…
Probably.
“Pandora!”
I give myself a shake and look up as Ariadne and Icarus wave me into the living room. It’s a wide-open space with cold leather couches, a glass coffee table, and massive floor-to-ceiling windows that give me vertigo when I stand too close.
Ariadne is lounging on the couch with her head in her brother’s lap. She’s about my size with light-brown skin and long dark hair. Truly, we look enough alike to almost be real sisters, or at least that’s what everyone says. She’s in her home clothing—leggings and an oversized hoodie that must belong to the Minotaur. I wouldn’t dare even take a piece of food off his plate, but his sweatshirts have a habit of magically finding their way into her laundry and she never seems to return them.
It’s weird, frankly.
Icarus is the opposite of Theseus and the Minotaur in every way. He shares his sister’s coloring and is lean to the point of being skinny, with delicate features and dark curly hair that somehow always seems to misbehave. It must be intentional, if only because it irritates Minos to have even a thread out of place, but Icarus is a study in underachieving. While it’s entirely possible that keeping his hair regularly trimmed and styled is merely too much effort, I suspect it’s one of a long string of rebellions against his father.
“What are you two doing?” I glance around.
“We’re the only ones here.” Icarus’s lips quirk in a sardonic smile. “No need to run and hide.”
“Icarus.” Ariadne smacks his knee and sits up. “Don’t be mean.”