Somewhere ahead, Mount Emmons waited in the dark, one of the high peaks of the Adirondacks. They’d push their way up and wait for Atropos and Achilles to come up behind. With luck, they’d hold the high ground, and maybe find cover to dig into.
“What if they don’t come?” Cassandra asked. “What if by not going where we’re told, we’re spoiling Clotho and Lachesis’ plans?”
“What if,” Athena said. Her teeth caught the edge of an emerging feather and she winced, but she felt strangely elated. “I think it was when we deviated,” she continued after a moment. “I think that’s when it changed.”
“What are you talking about?” Cassandra asked.
“Fate isn’t fate anymore. The Moirae grow weak. We turn away from their plans, and they don’t turn us back.”
“That’s all in your head.”
“No,” Thanatos said from the driver’s seat. “I feel it, too.”
Cassandra turned. Her eyes shone in the dark like marbles. “You both know how this is going to end.”
Athena smiled.
“I don’t.”
* * *
Henry followed Athena’s car down back roads that turned from blacktop to dirt, and finally to not much more than twin tracks. He didn’t know how she knew where they were going. Maybe the gods’ innate sense of direction. Maybe Athena had used part of her long, immortal life to commit every inch of the globe to memory. However they did it, Henry kept the Mustang close to the rental’s taillights.
Andie sat beside him, still not speaking much. She hadn’t said she’d forgiven him for trying to become Hector. He wasn’t quite sure if he forgave her for not understanding why he should have. But there’d been a moment, at Hermes’ bedside, when she let him put his arm around her.
Brake lights lit up ahead, and Thanatos turned off the road completely. The cars bumped and lurched through fields of greening grass and mud. Trees popped up in the Mustang’s headlights, and he couldn’t see the sky ahead anymore in the face of the mountain. Just when he thought they couldn’t go any farther, Thanatos’ brake lights lit up and stayed lit.
Henry threw the Mustang into park. The ground felt too soft even behind the wheel. If they survived the fight, they might return to find the cars sunk in up to the tire rims.
Andie opened her door.
“Hey,” he said, and popped the trunk. “Are you going to stay mad at me the whole time?”
She turned and kissed him.
“I’m not mad at you. Just nervous. It’s not every day I have to fight an insane hero of legend.”
She got out and walked around to the trunk. Henry followed.
“What do you mean you’re going to fight?” he asked. “I’m the one who has to do it.”
“Who has to kill him. Right. But no one ever said you had to do it alone.” Her eyes narrowed at him in the light from the trunk, and Henry wasn’t about to tell her no.
Odysseus walked out of the dark and reached in for a bag of supplies.
“Did you tell him?” Odysseus asked Andie.
“Why else would he have that look on his face?”
Odysseus smiled. “Come on, Henry. You didn’t expect us to just sit up on the wall, did you? He put a sword through my chest. That needs answering.”
“And with us along,” Andie said, “you might not die.”
* * *
Cassandra looked up toward the summit of the mountain. The cave where the Moirae lay was hours away. The pull of it made her chest ache, and the dark part of her mind throbbed like a burn.
“Are you all right?” Thanatos put his hand on the back of her neck and it felt like a bucket of ice water.
“I’m just hoping we don’t break our legs walking up a mountain in the dark.”
“It won’t be dark for much longer.”
Her eyes strained. After a minute it seemed that the sky grew lighter.
We’re wasting so much time. Clotho and Lachesis need us. Now.
Her brain screamed it. But her gut told her to take Athena’s advice. To do something contrary. Something outside the plan. Even if it was only defiance for defiance’s sake.
“I’ll take point with Henry and Andie,” Odysseus said.
They’d assembled and armed themselves, loaded down with backpacks of supplies and first aid, swords and spears drawn or strapped to their backs. The Shield of Achilles rested against Henry’s leg and gleamed in the headlights.
“Cassandra and I will sweep behind.” Athena looked at Thanatos. “Are you fighting?”