The interview is a nice distraction. It’s so normal in the midst of a situation that’s anything but. Eros manages to pull himself together enough to be charming, but I know him well enough now to recognize that he’s a little off. It’s a disconcerting realization, both that what happened with Zeus was enough to throw him off his game and that I can see the signs.
As agreed, Clio keeps to the subjects we outlined when I set this up. It’s mostly softball questions about how we met and the wedding itself. A fair exchange for being the first to break with an interview. Most of the time, Olympus cares less about the real story than about whatever spin they want to put on things, but Clio isn’t too bad for a reporter. I’ve known her since before she got her most recent promotion, and we’ve helped each other out countless times over the years.
She’s a curvy Black woman with an impeccable style. Today she’s wearing loose pleated gray trousers and a sleeveless cream blouse that does wonders for her silhouette. If I’m not mistaken, I recognize Juliette’s work. It seems she took my advice to try the designer out. Good.
Clio might be on the gossip circuit right now, but she’s hungry for deeper stories than her column can provide. She’s also smart enough to realize that she can’t go chasing down those leads without the Thirteen turning on her. Not yet, anyway.
That doesn’t stop her from collecting any and all information that comes her way, mining for a gold nugget in the midst of so much mud. I hope I have one for her today.
We wrap things up quickly, and I press a soft kiss to Eros’s lips. “Do you mind waiting outside for a moment?”
He hesitates, but there’s nothing to argue about. We’re in my mother’s building, and there are no windows in this boardroom. Clio is hardly an assassin; she wouldn’t have many stories if she killed off her sources, and she’s too ambitious to throw her future away for the chance Aphrodite might protect her. Eros seems to realize that and finally nods. “Don’t be long, love.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
We watch him walk out, and Clio whistles the second the door closes. “Bold choice, Psyche.”
“You have no idea.” I manage not to blush, but it’s a near thing. Clio isn’t a friend and likely never will be, but we’re aligned in a number of ways. “I have a tip for you.”
She tilts her head to the side, her long black braids sliding over her shoulder. “Does this have to do with the real reason you went from avoiding Eros like the plague to having that giant diamond on your finger?”
“No.” I won’t break our cover, not even for Clio. Especially not for Clio. “This has to do with a feud between Aphrodite and Demeter.”
“Old news.” Clio waves that away. “They’ve been at each other’s throats for years. There’s nothing worth digging for there.”
“You’d be surprised.”
She raises her brows. “Okay, I’m intrigued. Surprise me.”
“Aphrodite is so furious that her son married Demeter’s daughter, she’s taken out a hit.”
Clio blinks. “That’s quite the allegation. Do you have any proof?”
Not that I’m willing to share. Not enough. I give her a sardonic smile. “Since when do the gossip columns need proof?”
“Fair point.” Her gaze goes distant, and I can already see how her impressive brain is considering the spin on this. “I’ll need more in order to post anything. Aphrodite is a bitch and a half, and she won’t hesitate to call for my job and slap me with a libel suit. Hearsay, even from you, isn’t enough to take that risk.”
I figured as much. I glance at the door. “There was a disturbance in Helen Kasios’s building last night. Ares’s people were called in to take custody of the assassin. They still have him.”
Clio laughs softly. “Well, that I can work with. I can’t promise to work fast, because I’ll need to verify everything, but I’ll ask some questions.” She starts to gather up her purse. “Can I assume I’ll get a call if there are any more disturbances that she might be connected to?”
“Yes, as long as you promise to give me a heads-up before you run the story.”
“You have yourself a deal.”
We shake on it. Eros is waiting in the hallway, and we head to the elevator while Clio strides out the front doors, an intense look on her face. Eros glances at me. “Do I want to know what you talked about?”
“Zeus wants things quieted down, but he won’t take our word for it or step in unless we force his hand. Utilizing Clio is one way to go about it.”
“It won’t be enough. The gossip sites run scandalous stories all the time and no one blinks anymore. He’ll write it off as fiction.”
“He would…if that’s the only thing we’re going to do.” I dredge up a smile, even though the last thing I feel like doing right now is smiling. “That’s where phase two comes into play.”
He shakes his head slowly. “You are truly terrifying, Wife.”
Wife.
No reason to get a thrill from him calling me that. None at all. This marriage might be real, but it’s not real. It doesn’t matter if I’ve fallen for Eros; I have to remember that. I wait for the elevator doors to close to step away from him, needing a little distance. “I just hope I’m terrifying enough to pull this off. My mother puts me to shame.” Though right now, I have enough anger that I’m not worried about the conversation we’re about to have.
She tried to sell me to Zeus.
It’s not even the potential marriage I have issue with. She didn’t even try to talk to me about it, didn’t trust me to recognize the value of making that play. She simply went over my head.
“I’ll follow your lead.” Eros watches me in the reflection of the elevator, but he makes no move to close the distance between us. Does he feel the pull even now? I do.
“Okay.” I take a breath, straighten my spine, and march into my mother’s penthouse the moment the elevator opens. I chose not to text her to let her know we were coming, but Mother always spends Saturday early evenings at home, usually getting ready for some event or other. I already checked her calendar, and she won’t be leaving for another hour.
I lift my voice. “Mother!”
It takes exactly two minutes for her to appear. She’s as perfectly put together as always, her dark hair pinned back, her makeup immaculate, her dark-green gown elegant and giving the earth mother vibe that she carefully curates for the public. She takes one look at Eros and shakes her head. “If you want to talk, he can wait downstairs.”
“You don’t have the high ground, Mother.” I step forward. I catch sight of Callisto in the hallway leading to our bedrooms, but she makes no move to join the conversation. It’s just as well that she hears this, too; it affects her, after all. “When were you going to tell me that you intended to marry me off to the new Zeus? When you ambushed me at the altar?”
Mother’s too good to show surprise, but her pause speaks volume. “He told you.”
“I’ve been to see him, yes.”
Her gaze sharpens. “Why?”
“We’ll get to why in a moment. Answer the question.”
“I was going to speak with you about it this week, in fact. Negotiations had reached the final stages, and I intended to sit you down and walk you through the reasons why this is an excellent match.” She holds my gaze. “Perseus isn’t his father. I doubt you would have even needed to dispose of him. He’s such a bore that you’re more than capable of handling him.” She flicks a disdainful look at Eros. “Or you would have been if you hadn’t married this one.”
Eros is wearing the same hard look he had when Zeus revealed the marriage plans. I can’t read it at all. It’s as if he’s turned to a pillar of ice. I told him the truth in the car on the way over here; if my mother had come to me with these plans, I would have gone through with them. Her read on Perseus—on Zeus—is the same I have. He may be ruthless in the extreme, but he seems to genuinely care about his siblings, which is more than the old Zeus could say. He didn’t care about anyone but himself. Perseus also has no violence in his past. I know; I looked.
But that doesn’t mean I want one of my remaining single sisters marrying him. “Take the plans off the table.”
“You know better.” Mother shakes her head. “You’ve painted me into a corner with your actions.”
Damn it, that’s what I’m afraid of. I look over her shoulder, but Callisto has disappeared. It’s just as well. The last thing we need is her getting it into her head to shove this Zeus out a window or something equally final. Succession would pass to Helen at that point, and while she seems great, she also seems so young in a number of ways. It would spell disaster for Olympus.
Love or hate the city, the fact remains that the Thirteen keep it running smoothly. Everyone has their roles, their own little slice of the pie. If they were normal people, those slices would be enough, but normal people don’t aspire to be numbered among the Thirteen. No, every single one of them is ambitious and cutthroat and willing to step on others to propel themselves higher. Left to their own devices, they would be going to war with each other inside of a year. No matter what my personal feelings are when it comes to the title of Zeus, the truth is that it requires a formidable personality to keep the others in line.
In another ten years, Helen might be strong enough. She’s not now.
There are days when I’d like to see this city burn to the ground, but ultimately, it’s home. If I want to keep the people of Olympus as relatively safe as they are right now, that means Perseus needs to stay Zeus. No convenient accidents. No outright plans for murder. Not that I was really considering killing him…
As long as he stays the fuck away from Eurydice.
Callisto can take care of herself.
I can’t worry about any of that now. I have to concentrate on surviving Aphrodite’s wrath first. For that, I need my mother. “We’ll discuss potential marriage plans later. Right now, there are more time-sensitive issues.”
“I see.” She sighs. “Come in. Having this conversation in the foyer is déclassé.”
We follow her into the living room, Eros a glaring storm cloud at my back. His energy has changed in the few minutes we’ve been here. If I don’t miss my guess, he’s gone past frozen and straight into icy rage. And it’s all pointed at my mother.
With that in mind, I grab his hand and tug him down onto the couch next to me. I don’t think he’ll harm her, but he’s more than capable of it. There are times when I hate my mother, but she’s still mine and I don’t want her hurt.
I suspect that conflicted feeling is similar to what he feels for Aphrodite.
Mother sinks onto the chair across from us and arranges the skirt of her dress around her, the very picture of a queen in waiting. “Tell me what mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”
“One could argue you got her into it.” Eros’s voice is hard.
I place my hand on his thigh and tell her. Everything. Oh, I leave out the sex because that’s none of her business, but I walk her through the sequence of events over the last few days that brought us to this place. When I finish, my mother looks a little pale and absolutely furious.
She seems to make an effort to release her death grip on the arms of the chair. “I’ll kill her.”
“You won’t,” I cut in before Eros can. “We don’t want her dead.”
“And you.” She turns hazel eyes, so similar to mine, on him. “Did you think my threats were without merit? You threatened my daughter. You—”
“Mother.” I inject steel into my tone. “That’s enough. Eros has not harmed me.”
“I disagree. He harmed you with this marriage.”
I let that go because this isn’t an argument I’ll win. “Regardless, it’s done. If you try to remove Aphrodite, I’ll bring my not-inconsiderable knowledge about you to the press. All the shady dealings and questionable moves. The stunt you pulled to try to get Persephone back to the upper city. The clean-up job on Zeus’s death. Every bit.”
She finally stops glaring at Eros and gives me her full attention. “You’re threatening me to keep the woman who wants you dead safe?”
“If you want to see it that way.”
“Why?”
Because I love Eros and I don’t want to see him harmed, even if it puts me at risk. Killing Aphrodite will harm my husband. He doesn’t have to say as much for me to recognize that.
I don’t say it. Even if they believed me, both of them would name me a fool for very different reasons. Mother never let something as mundane as emotions get in the way of her plans and ambitions. And Eros? The only thing Eros offered me was safety and sex. Nothing softer, nothing more.
“Because I am choosing the method of my revenge.” That, at least, she should understand.
She finally nods. “I don’t like it, but I will abide by your wishes in this.” She points at Eros. “With the caveat that if something harms my daughter, I will burn your legacy to ash.”
“Noted.”
“I would like you to set up a meeting for me with Poseidon.” I’d do it myself, but I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen him at events in the last year, and even before then, he never did much mingling at Zeus’s parties. If I show up to the shipyard without an invitation, I doubt I’ll be able to get access to him.
Not to mention Poseidon notoriously loathes Eros, so there will be no help on that front.
Her brows snap together. “Poseidon? Your time would be better spent focusing on Hades or Zeus. Poseidon doesn’t like power games.”
I know. That’s what I’m counting on. He mostly stays out of the intrigue native to the Thirteen, but he’s a legacy title and carries the heft of power that brings. My mother has unique access to him because she handles feeding Olympus. While most of the food itself comes from the land surrounding the city, there are certain things that simply can’t be homegrown. Poseidon is in charge of imports and exports, one of the few who can come and go from Olympus as he pleases. It’s resulted in a decent working relationship between him and my mother.
We need both Poseidon and Hades in our corner before we circle back to Zeus. “Please, Mother.”
She finally nods. “I’ll see it done, though I can’t promise it will be speedy. The man likes to dodge my calls when he can manage it.”
“I’m sure you’re more than capable of pinning him down.”
“Of course I am.” She rises. “Now, I have an event to finish getting ready for. You know where the door is.” She pauses. “Thank you for telling me, Psyche.”
“You can thank me by tossing out the negotiations with Zeus.”
She gives me a tight smile and disappears down the hallway leading toward the master bedroom. I don’t exactly breathe a sigh of relief when she’s out of sight, but some of the fight goes out of me. I turn to Eros. “I—”
“We’ll talk in the car.” He jerks his chin at something over my shoulder, and I turn to find Callisto standing there.
I tense, half expecting her to threaten Eros like everyone else in my life seems to. But she turns a hard look at me. “Is it true? Mother’s still got her eye on Hera for one of us?”
I swallow hard. “Yes, but—”
“Don’t tell me that she’ll back off. We both know she won’t. If that situation with Persephone wasn’t enough to dissuade her, nothing you do or say will.” She flicks her fingers at Eros. “He’s a monster, but he’s no Hades.”
“Thanks,” he mutters.
“Callisto, we’ll figure it out.”
Her lips curve, but her eyes stay oh so cold. She crosses to me and grips my shoulders. “You and Persephone have been taking care of us long enough. I’ll handle this.”
True fear slashes through me. “You can’t kill him.”
“I know.” She squeezes my shoulders and drops her hands.
“But—”
“Worry about yourself, Psyche. If Aphrodite lays one finger on you, I’ll make what happened to the last Zeus look like a gentle death.” She turns and walks away.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“This is bad.”
“Psyche.” Eros waits for me to look at him. “You can’t fight every battle at once. We have to prioritize, and right now we have more pressing things to worry about than your mother’s potential marriage plans for your sisters. You can chase this down after we deal with Aphrodite.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. But releasing years’ worth of responsibility and worry is easier said than done. I’ve always worked with Persephone to manage Callisto’s anger, to protect Eurydice from the worst Olympus has to offer. Letting that go is terrifying in a completely different way than dealing with Aphrodite.
But I allow Eros to steer me to the elevator and then through the lobby and out onto the street. I have to trust that my sister knows what she’s doing and that she isn’t about to land us in even deeper water.
I really, really hope Callisto proves that trust is founded. If she doesn’t, we’re in for a whole lot of trouble.
