“I just want all of this to go away.”
Athena sighed. “It will. After.”
“I am sorry about your arm.”
Athena tucked the bandage under her sleeve.
“Don’t be,” she said. “It’s what you’re supposed to do. If you can’t stomach giving me a feather rash, how do you expect to kill Aphrodite?”
“That’s different,” Cassandra muttered.
“Maybe,” Athena said thoughtfully. “But it would be better if you had more control.”
“I can’t control it,” Cassandra snapped, angry again in an instant. It came and went, ebbed and flared, all on its own. “Every time I think of Aphrodite I want to watch her burn.” She paused. “And sometimes when I see you.”
“It wasn’t like that on the road, with Hera.”
“No. But that’s what it’s become.” Cassandra let out a long, shaky breath, scared by her own words. Her own thoughts. One second she didn’t want to be a killer, and the next, rage flooded her heart and mind, washing everything red.
“What it’s become,” Athena repeated softly, and to Cassandra it sounded like a warning. What it had become. And what she was becoming.
* * *
“This place is a constant facial,” Hermes said, and pushed aside a vine. “The heat, the mist, the aromatics.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Odysseus. They were deep into the rain forest, far from worn paths and tourist excursions. He couldn’t tell how far they’d traveled. Their pace had been fast and uneven. Hermes led by choosing directions seemingly at random. He’d walk for miles steadily, and then reach back and grasp Odysseus under the arm to take off at breakneck speed, so fast Odysseus had to huddle close to Hermes’ neck for fear of catching a tree in the face. When he stopped, it was just as quickly as he started, and he never gave an explanation.
“I don’t believe you,” Hermes said, and peered at Odysseus’ face. “No mortal has pores that small naturally.”
Odysseus took a deep breath as he stepped over a rotting log. The smell of decaying meat and blood filled his nose in a cloud, so strong he almost puked.
“What is that?” he asked. He scanned the ground for a corpse, hoping to see half a rotted monkey, or a gutted tapir. Anything but a tanned leg and long silvery hair. Anything but Artemis.
Hermes took a whiff. “No need to panic. There’s nothing dead. It’s the rafflesia. Corpse flowers.” He pointed to an obscenely large blossom, fat red petals speckled with white. It looked more like a fungus than a flower. He sniffed again. “It doesn’t smell anything like death, really.”
“Smells exactly like it to me.” Odysseus walked carefully around the plant, like it might bite. It was oddly beautiful. He wouldn’t have touched it for all the tea in China.
“Not to my immortal nose.” Hermes sniffed the air again. Odysseus ran up against his back. He had his hand over most of his face to filter the smell.
“Can we get going?”
“Hang on. We’re coming up on something else, and it won’t do to startle them.”
“Them?” He couldn’t see or hear anything living, except for the constant chorus of insect chirps.
Hermes took off again, slightly to the right. “People. A village. There’s a little bit of smoke and something cooking.”
“Are you sure we should approach them? Are they safe?” Odysseus asked, and Hermes gave him a look. What group of natives could stand against the god of thieves? Odysseus shrugged. “Right.”
They walked through the trees, Hermes following his nose until the village became visible through the dense growth. It was an oblong stretch of cleared land, crowded through with huts that reminded Odysseus of “The Three Little Pigs”: small, rounded, and made from sticks, reeds, and woven plants. Smoke rose from several fires, and the smell of roasting meat drove the memory of the reeking corpse flower far away.
A group of children huddled in the dirt, playing some kind of game with stones. At their approach, the children raised their heads. Odysseus paused, but Hermes smiled broadly and opened his palms. The children smiled unabashedly back.
“Are you using some kind of god trick?” Odysseus asked. “To make them unafraid?”
“That’d be a pretty good trick,” Hermes answered. “But no. Look at them. At their fat bellies and rounded arms. Listen to the quiet of this forest. What reason do they have to be afraid?”