“I hardly know anymore, Hector. From my mouth. But where that is … I’ve been stretched so far it’s hard to feel.”
“But you’re not in pain?” Henry asked.
Her eye blinked slowly.
“No. Not in particular. I sleep. Often. I dream.”
Hermes nodded along with the polite conversation until he couldn’t anymore, particles of dust falling out of his hair.
“Where’s Athena?” he blurted.
All five eyes snapped to his face, but come on, they hadn’t walked across miles and miles of skin and sand to talk about his aunt’s aches and Andie’s exposed bra straps. This was what they wanted to know. It was all they wanted to know. And he feared the answer the second the question left his lips.
“She’s in the underworld. Fighting my daughter.”
The underworld. The words flickered into his head in neon lights. But that was so easy. He could get there. He could get there in less than a day. All he needed was water, a river maybe, and a boat … and blood. Always blood. Only there had to be more. Something else. Demeter never spoke so plainly.
Except when it doesn’t matter. When there’s nothing to be done about it.
“Is she dead?” His voice trembled. “She’s in the underworld. But is she dead?”
“If she’s dead…” Andie whispered.
“We’ll pull her out anyway!” It had been done before. By him, on occasion. Of course, that had been under orders. Demeter’s eye narrowed and she scoffed.
“You? Pull her out? Messenger of skin and bones is going to stand against my daughter and the king of the underworld? Hades doesn’t let the dead go. And you’ve never been anything, compared to him.”
You old rag. You don’t know what I would do for her. What I could still do, for any of them.
Rage bubbled up his throat and sang down to his toes. He could tear her to ribbons before she knew what was happening. Before she had a chance to pull her edges in. His anger was hot enough to almost make him believe it, but his knuckles rattled in his hands like dice and kept him still. He could only lie to himself until he looked in a mirror.
Andie crossed her arms over her chest and shouted down at the eye.
“Why did you bring us out here, then, if there’s nothing we can do? Where’s Cassandra? Where is she, you … saddlebag made of E.T.—”
“Andie!” Henry grabbed her and pulled her back. “Fricken zip it!”
“Don’t tell me to zip it. She’s my best friend. I’d be crying right now if I had any liquid left in my body!”
Henry looked at Hermes angrily, demanding he do something, but aside from grabbing them both and whisking them off of the skin, and dropping another two pounds in the process, there was nothing Hermes could do.
Demeter took a deep breath and lifted them five inches.
“Cassandra is alive,” she said. “I told you that much. And I didn’t bring you here. That was your idea. If Hermes told you there’d be easy answers, or the answers that you wanted, then he’s still the same silver-tongued liar I was always so fond of.” She glanced his way. It was as close to an olive branch as he was likely to get.
“But where is she?” Henry asked. “Why doesn’t she come home?”
“Because she has work to do. You’re thinking too much about these errant girls. You have work of your own.”
Hermes bent down and rested his knee against her warm surface. The day had grown hot again, and bright, and relentless. He pitied her, stretched thin every day to bake, and for dry winds to rake over.
“Our work is to find our sisters,” he said.
“Your sisters will find their ways home. Your job is to still be alive when they get there.” Her eye narrowed again. “Do you not dream, Messenger? Do you not sleep and see the shears shining in the dark? Can’t you hear the sound they make when they cut down through your skin and bones?” She sighed. “That is all I dream of, now. Atropos and her blood-ringed eyes.”
“Atropos?” Andie asked.
“Atropos,” Hermes replied. “The Moirae in the middle. The black-haired one, sucking life from her shriveling sisters. The Moirae of death.” He brushed pebbles and grit from Demeter’s skin. “I wouldn’t be afraid of those shears, if I were you, Aunt. I’ve seen the Fates, and as they are, they’re not much of a threat to anyone. Joined at the legs, their limbs grown together like a pile of melted plastic dolls. It’s one sad-looking potato-sack race. They could certainly never catch me.”