We walk in silence until a sidewalk paralleling the main street comes into view. Along with crowds. I stop walking. He stops, too, glancing back. “Problem?”
“Um…” I stare past him, and he follows my gaze. Three more feet and everyone will be able to see us together. See me…with the god of freaking death.
“Don’t worry about them,” he says as though reading my mind. “Only you can see who I truly am. Everyone else just sees a regular mortal man.”
Right. Awesome. Except the pledges still hanging around this place might see me with a strange man and ask questions. Can I get out of this?
“Come on.”
I guess I can’t.
We emerge onto the teeming sidewalk, and I pause. Should I say goodbye before we part…or something?
I offer him a small salute. “I appreciate you not smiting me.”
I think I’m home free as I turn to walk away, but he spins me toward him by the shoulders, grip firm. Suddenly, I’m staring up into eyes of swirling, molten metal, but burning. The way coal burns black.
“Be more careful with your words, my star,” he says in a voice that isn’t as smooth as before—it’s more like raw silk now. “You never know when the gods might take up the gauntlet you just threw down… And any other day, I probably would have.”
Every single particle of me is strung so taut I might snap at any second, adrenaline so hot in my veins that my skin tightens. But that’s the problem. In this moment, I feel more…alive. As if every second I have left is precious because those seconds are numbered.
“Smiting is a quick death,” I whisper. “There are worse things.”
His eyes flare as he searches my expression, and I hold my breath, anticipating the flash of pain before the nothingness of death. That’s how I imagine it.
It doesn’t come.
Instead, his expression alters. The change is subtle enough, slow enough, that at first, I’m not even sure I’m seeing it, but the burn of warning turns…softer. A different kind of heat.
Hades lifts a hand to draw a fingertip from my temple to my jaw, the touch a mere whisper against my skin, leaving a trail of heady sensation in its wake. He stares at me, and I stare at him, and I know I should look away. Of the two of us, I’m the mortal, so I should be the one to break, to give in, to acknowledge defeat.
I can’t. I won’t.
“You’re right, my star,” he murmurs. His gaze trails lower to linger on my lips. “There are worse things.”
Then his gaze goes from fire to ice in a blink. He straightens abruptly, spins me around, and gives me a little push into the crowd, like he’s releasing an undersized fish back into the ocean.
Somehow, even though the rest of me has gone offline, my feet manage to walk me away. I’m thirty feet away before he calls after me. “Stay out of trouble, Lyra Keres.”
I come to a dead stop but don’t turn. That is not the name I gave him.
I’d love to know how he knows mine or why he bothered to ask, since he clearly already did, but self-preservation has finally kicked in, even if a bit late, and escape is literally right around the bend.
So, I lift a hand in a wave of acknowledgment…and keep walking, counting my steps like they might be my last.
6
The Chosen Few
Being required to attend the opening rites of the Crucible is worse than a trip down the River Styx.
Felix is losing his shit. I know he is because every time I catch a glimpse of him through the crush of people, he’s gnashing his teeth together and looking around wildly. Nice of him to make an appearance, finally. At least I’ve managed to rejoin the others on the city side of the bridge without catching his eye.
A minor miracle, actually.
I haven’t been spotted by Boone or Chance, either. I have a plan to keep it that way. As soon as things here really get started, I’m sneaking back to the den. Not just to avoid various confrontations, but also to process everything that I’ve been through tonight. Especially a certain god.
Felix swings his gaze in my direction, and I duck, trying to make myself as small as possible. Maybe he doesn’t know I abandoned my duties earlier, but this isn’t the time to find out. When he turns back without seeing me, I let out a silent breath of relief, then can’t help but smile a little to myself. Frustration really doesn’t sit well on his craggy features.
Not that I can blame him. This is a thief’s paradise. All these pockets so very ripe for the picking, and all his pledges have had their hands tied, since it’s now a little past midnight and the festival has officially begun.
The gathered people are smooshed together in milling multitudes. It feels like every living soul within a thousand miles of San Francisco—even those who don’t worship this set of gods—is here.
That makes sense if I think about it.
Most mortals have a vested interest in who is crowned ruler of the Olympian gods next for several reasons—a favorite or most hated or feared god or goddess, or a certain god as a patron, like me. And some are more directly impacted. I’m guessing many farmers favor Demeter to win, to bless their crops and harvests. Soldiers would favor Ares. Scholars and teachers want Athena. And so on.
Even mortals who worship other gods are interested because of the spectacle of it all. Or maybe they dislike a god with similar or competing powers to their own. Or maybe, most simply, they just don’t want to offend said gods.
No matter which way you look at it, the world is watching with interest.
And despite that, every single valuable is safe now.
No wonder my old mentor looks harried. Not a single whistle sounds. At least not the kind our pledges make when they coordinate around a potential mark.
And this will last the entire month.
