“The other weapon of fate.” He nodded. “Right. You think that’s why we’ll win. Because if you have us, you have the Fates.”
“Why do you think we’ll win, Achilles?”
He walked to her and picked up half of the statue, as easily as she could have.
“Because you’re the goddess of war.” He blew dust off the cracked stump of Hera’s neck. “That’s why I joined up. What could be mightier than you?”
* * *
Andie didn’t look like herself, sitting on the corner of Henry’s bed, her knees up and her hands pressed against the blankets. She looked afraid. Like a backward-scuttling crab.
“Lux,” Henry said, and gestured with his head. The dog bounced up onto the bed and curled into her lap.
“Dog therapy,” Andie said.
Henry shrugged. “It usually works for me.”
Her phone buzzed, and she reached into her pocket then texted something fast and furious.
“Who’s that?” Henry asked.
Andie made a face.
“It’s Megan, nosy. We were supposed to go to a movie.”
“Not anymore?”
“What do you think?”
Henry sighed. She’d probably be this snappy until the moment they left for Olympus.
Olympus. They were going to real, live, legendary, mother-effing Olympus. The only thing that could make it feel larger and more ridiculous was if they got there on Pegasus.
“This is what we trained for,” he heard himself say.
“I guess.”
“You’re the one who wanted to start using swords.”
She squinted at him. “What’s that supposed to mean? It’s a good thing I did, or we’d both be in Ares’ wolves’ stomachs right now.”
“That was weeks ago,” Henry said. “We’d actually be in little piles of Ares’ wolves’ poop right now.”
She cracked a smile, but just barely. “Big piles, you mean.”
Around Henry’s room, nary a piece of wall was visible for all his posters. Childish, outdated relics. Andie had made fun of him for it once. But the big blue Avatar face sure felt comforting now, when his sister was packing for the underworld across the hall. They would go and sit with her soon, he supposed. After she and Odysseus finished discussing whatever secret reincarnated-handshake crap they were discussing.
“Henry?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think it’s done any good? The training, I mean.”
“Sure,” he said. He flexed his arm. “Check out my bicep. It’s almost doubled.”
She smacked him. “I mean, do you think it’s made a difference? Do you think we can stand against gods?”
“Hermes won’t let us face gods,” he said. “We’ll handle the wolves. We’ve faced off against them before.” He didn’t look her in the eye. He didn’t look Lux in the eye either. The deep red scar on his cheek said enough. “And we have you-know-who. What’s-his-ass. Achilles. Besides, I don’t want my sister to go alone.”
“Me, neither.” Andie stuffed her hands into Lux’s fur, and his tail thumped. “I don’t know what I’m saying, anyway. They killed Aidan. Hurt Cassandra. Hurt Lux. It’s our fight.”
“Hey,” he said, and pointed to his cheek. “And me.”
“Yeah,” she said. “And you.” She moved Lux’s head from her lap and stood up, looking at the posters like Henry had just done. “I spend more time in here with you than I do with Cassandra these days,” she said. “Must be annoying. Bet you never counted on your kid sister’s friend always hanging around.” She crossed her arms. “I don’t remember you dying. But it feels like I do. And that almost feels like a premonition.” She looked back at him. “Or an omen? I don’t know what the word is.”
Henry swallowed. He’d never seen Andie so small and scared and nervous. He didn’t know what to do, so he didn’t do anything.
“When the wolves said that you were the boy who had to die, everyone thought that they made a mistake,” Andie went on. “That they thought you were Odysseus, or somehow Achilles. But what if they knew you were you?” Her voice grew quieter, but more breathy, more intense. Her cheeks flushed rosy, and she shook from shoulders to wrists. “What if Hector has to die?”
“I’m not Hector.”
“It doesn’t matter to them!” She turned on him with big, scared eyes and rushed him, hugging him hard and fierce, like he always guessed her hugs would be—part affection, part cutting off circulation.