Instead I change the subject. “Where is everyone?”
Pandora shrugs as if it doesn’t actually matter. “Icarus is off doing…whatever it is that Icarus does when no one else is around. I saw Ariadne typing away at her computer awhile back, but that’s all she seems to do these days.”
“I wasn’t asking about them.”
She gives me a look filled with censure. “You never ask about them.”
Why would I? They’re soft, coddled creatures. Even with Minos as their father, they haven’t acquired the hard edge that Pandora and I were born with. And the Minotaur? Well, he’s another story altogether. But Ariadne and Icarus have been kept safe and sheltered, and it’s spoiled them to the reality of the world. Ariadne spends all her time online, indulging in the privilege of a digital life and ignoring the blood staining the hands around her.
Icarus doesn’t hide, but his relationship with Minos is complicated. Instead of keeping his head down and obeying, he flounces and makes passive-aggressive comments, dramatic to the bitter end.
“If you’d just—”
I shake my head sharply. “No. They aren’t like us.”
“Theseus.” She touches my forearm. “It doesn’t have to be this way. You have the title now. I might not love the way you got it, but it’s done. You don’t have to keep doing the awful things he asks of you.” She hesitates. “Aphrodite isn’t all that bad. If you’d stop fighting her and start working with her, maybe we could put a stop to all this before it truly spins out of control.”
Hearing my wife’s name on Pandora’s lips banishes the warmth in my chest. I straighten, shifting my arm from her touch. “She’s using you. I thought you were smarter than that, Pandora.”
“Oh no, you don’t get to do that.” She narrows her eyes. “I grew up in the same place you did, and I learned the same hard lessons surviving that nightmare. You do not get to act like I’m some naive fool being led along by my curiosity. The Thirteen as a whole are monsters. I’ve never argued with that. But they are still made up of people. People with scars who have seen things just as horrible as what we grew up with. And that’s not even getting into the people who don’t live in the center city. There are people like us here, Theseus.”
“We’re not going after the people like us.”
Pandora tosses up her hands. “I wish you would stop and think. If Aeaea had the equivalent of the Thirteen, then Minos would sit on that board. He’s the very thing you claim to hate. You are, too, now that you’ve become Hephaestus.”
I push to my feet, driven by the need to get the fuck away from this conversation, from hearing that name on my best friend’s lips. “Whatever. I’m going to find Minos and update him.”
“Oh yes, do run away like a damned coward.”
I spin on my heel. My knee buckles, but I manage to keep my feet and resist wincing as pain shoots up my leg. I point at her. “That’s where you and I are different, Pandora. You can drag your bleeding heart all over this city, wasting it on people who wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire. I don’t give a fuck about them, just like I don’t give a fuck about anyone back in Aeaea. I give a fuck about you, and I can’t keep you safe if you’re off gallivanting around with one of those monsters.”
She sits back, her expression sad. I hate that I made her sad, that it seems to be the rule rather than the exception these days. I disappoint Pandora. I disappoint Minos. I’m fucking up. Pandora picks up her e-reader, but her voice follows me as I leave the room. “I’ve always had a monster at my side, Theseus.”
No reason for her words to plague me. I know what I am. I’m not the good guy. That was never going to be my role, and damn Pandora for pretending like I’ve ever had a choice.
In our world, you’re either predator, or you’re prey.
I had to be predator enough to protect us both. Apparently I still do.
I make my way through the penthouse to where Minos’s office is. The door is cracked, so I can hear his deep voice as he speaks to someone on the phone. I lean against the wall, waiting.
“Things are proceeding according to plan, more or less. The shipments are currently waiting in the harbor, but Poseidon has no reason to question their contents.” A pause. “No, I haven’t been able to get to the lower city. The outer barrier might be faltering, but the one on the River Styx is still strong enough to repel us if he decides to make it so, and he’s not my biggest fan.”