“He’s not behind this. Look to your own people for that.”
“Of course. Why would he get his hands dirty when everyone else is all too willing to spill blood for him?” She blinks rapidly, her eyes too wide. “You certainly didn’t hesitate to do it.”
Her accusation rolls right over me, absent of the sting her comments usually contain. Her voice shakes. Aphrodite always seems larger than life, like she’s walking around bulletproof, but right now every sign says she’s scared shitless.
Again, I’m not thinking things through as I wrap an arm around her shoulders and snarl at the receptionist, “We’ll wait for Ares’s people in her office.” It’s a token of just how fucked up my wife is that she doesn’t argue as I guide her around the broken glass to the hallway leading farther into the building. She must be going into shock, though she manages to stir herself and point to the gilded door that’s obviously her office.
I sweep a look around the room as we enter, not remotely surprised to find the space just as gilded as the door. It’s subtler in here, though: gold accessories on the meticulously organized desk, gold foil on the books in the small bookshelf to the right of the door, a faint hint of gold in the patterned rug beneath our feet.
I guide Aphrodite toward one of the fancy chairs. “Sit down before you fall down.”
“I’m not going to fall down.” But she doesn’t shrug out from beneath my arm. “I hope you’re happy,” she says faintly. “This is what you wanted.”
“You keep saying that. It’s not true. It’s what Minos wants.” I don’t know why I say it. She’s not wrong. We had a plan when we came to Olympus, and this destabilization is part of it. If we had won Ares, Minos still would have played out his little house party and taken over as many of the Thirteen as possible via the assassination clause.
He might not be actively behind the assassination attempts now, at least not to my knowledge, but all that means is that we’ve moved on to the next stage of whatever his plan is.
I move back from her, just a little. The cuts on her legs drip blood, but none of them seem particularly deep. Still, they’ll have to be checked for glass before they’re bandaged.
What am I thinking?
Why the fuck do I care if Aphrodite is bandaged properly or just straight-out murdered? Yes, the bullets would have hit me, too, but that’s not what I was thinking when I went for her. I wasn’t considering the danger to myself at all. “Do you have a first aid kit?”
She lifts a shaking hand and stares at it. “What must you think of me? Sheltered Olympian princess, right? Never seen violence once in her life.” Aphrodite laughs bitterly. “If only that were the truth.” She waves a hand at her desk. “Bottom drawer.”
Now’s the time to leave. Her sister will arrive with her people, and the last thing I want is to face down Ares again.
Except I don’t leave.
I round the desk and pull open the bottom drawer. I snort at the sight of the perfectly normal first aid kit. “I half expected it to be gold.”
“Themes are important.” She watches me come back with dull eyes. “My brother might prefer simpler things, but my father liked his gold. I’m Zeus’s daughter, and there’s no point in having survived what I did without reminding everyone of that fact. The gold in this office serves its purpose.”
There’s no way I can crouch, so I drag the other chair closer. “You’re Zeus’s sister now. Why not give up the gold shit if it reminds you of your father?” Minos has a file several inches thick on the last Zeus. He was corrupt and violent, covered in a thick, honeyed charm that this fucking city ate up.
I’m nearly certain Minos crafted his approach to the press by using Zeus as an example.
“I’m my father’s daughter.” She says it likes she’s pronouncing a curse.
I lean down and grab her ankle, carefully lifting her leg to drape over my thighs. “I need to see if there’s glass in the wounds.”
“Hephaestus.” She pauses. “Theseus.”
Hearing her say my real name in such a serious tone gives me pause. “Yes?”
“Why?”
She doesn’t have to elaborate. It’s the same question I’ve been asking myself since the adrenaline started to wane. “I don’t know.” I carefully clean the scattering of wounds and then prod them gently. “Any sharp pain?”
“No.”
Good. “You’ll need to get these checked by someone who actually knows what they’re doing, but at least I can bandage it.”