“Dammit.” Athena looked around at the trees. The hole Cassandra had uncovered was fairly broad, eight by ten feet at least, and the edges were smooth, gray stone.
“Thanatos,” she said, and gripped his arm. “Go get rope. Tie it off on the trees and lower it down.”
“Did we bring rope with us from the cars?”
Athena closed her eyes. She couldn’t remember.
“If we didn’t then there’s some in Henry’s trunk. Go!”
“But—” he started, but he didn’t get to finish. Athena stood and jumped down into the cave.
* * *
Odysseus attacked first. Henry thought that he should have been the one to do it. Or maybe that Achilles should have. But it seemed they might have stood there talking until Cassandra and Athena dealt with the Moirae. If no one attacked, no one had to die.
It wasn’t brave to think those things, watching Andie dart in on Achilles’ other side. But as Achilles held them off, with grace and with such goddamn ease, Henry couldn’t help thinking it. He couldn’t help seeing the young man in Achilles’ face. Neither one was older than the other. And both had their reasons. When it was over, one of them would lie dead. One of them always lay dead.
Henry took a breath and brought his sword down, his eye carefully trained on the expanse of Achilles’ exposed form. But the blade struck steel. Achilles moved faster than them all. Much faster than Henry and Andie. Even faster than Odysseus. He attacked as quickly as Henry could block, and they were all driven back. Henry’s shield arm ached miserably.
Andie and Odysseus kept on, though their faces grew strained and nervous. Achilles treated them as an afterthought, holding them off and hurting them just a little. Blood ran from Odysseus’ nose. Andie limped from a shallow gash above her knee. All of his wrath he saved for Henry. Had any one of his blows struck outside the shield, the part of Henry that met it would have been cleaved in two.
And he talked. Spat words of hate that chilled Henry’s blood.
“I’ll smash your skin, break the bones against each other.” He would feed Henry’s cheeks to Ares’ wolves.
And still, Henry didn’t want to fight him.
Henry braced the shield against his shoulder and made his swing, swung his sword hard and steady as he could. It was a good blow. It felt like it had been waiting, curled up inside his chest the whole time.
The blade sank deep, deep into Achilles’ side.
When Andie and Odysseus saw the wound, they stopped mid-attack, their eyes no wider than Achilles’ own. Achilles went down on one knee, barely believing the blood that already dripped past his lips. Henry didn’t pull out his sword so much as Achilles fell off of it.
Achilles pressed his hand down hard. Blood dripped through his fingers.
“This isn’t how it ends,” he said. He stood and stumbled backward, staring at Henry like he’d never seen him before. And then he fled down through the trees.
“Do we follow?” Odysseus asked.
“No,” Henry replied, relieved to find none of the hate in his heart that he thought might be there.
* * *
Athena hit the water and kicked up hard, shoving wet strands of hair out of her eyes, looking for Cassandra on the stone bank. But when she saw her, she almost wished she hadn’t.
Cassandra stood, drenched and shaking, not ten feet from the Moirae. The Moirae stared down at her with three sets of eyes: two murky green, and one murderous red. Five arms twitched like spider legs in their massive, monstrous form. Three of the arms held wicked, shining shears, all pointed at Cassandra’s chest.
They led her here. They led her here to take her apart. It was all a trick.
The shears were long, and bore razor edges on both sides of their blades. They could slice as well as they cut, and it would take them less than a minute to reduce Cassandra to a pile of girl-colored confetti on the cave floor.
“Leave her alone!” Athena shouted, and swam fast to the edge. Her fingers slipped once on the stone and she cursed. In the corner of her eye, the tips of the shears weaved through the air like the heads of dancing snakes.
She hauled herself out of the water and took two strides toward Cassandra before stopping short. Something was different. The power to kill gods coursed through Cassandra’s entire body. Athena felt it in the air, in waves. And she had almost run up and grabbed her.
The girl nodded and it took Athena a moment to realize the nod wasn’t meant for her.
Cassandra was speaking to them.
“Cassandra,” Athena said. “Come here to me.”