“Does this mean you’ll stop looking for other pieces?” Orestes asked.
He’d been quiet since his friends had joined us, and had chosen a seat away from me. After his compassion on the train, I thought he’d stay close. I’d hoped he would. With him and Pollux on either side of me, I could breathe. Or at least not worry that Achilles would try to stop me from breathing.
The man in question stared at me. I didn’t think he’d try anything again.
“Are you going to try to kill me again?” I asked.
Lifting an eyebrow, Achilles shrugged.Shrugged.
Here I was, thinking about the law and titles. But this seal, it was important enough that the man sitting across from me—with his long, messy hair, and stubble, and cold hazel eyes—had tried to end my life.
“I’ll stop.” It was a lie. A straight-up, nose-growing,I’m a real boy,lie.
As the words left my lips, a car went by the pub. The headlights illuminated all of us for a second, and Paris’s face was spotlighted. He was staring at me, dark eyebrows drawn low over bright, blue eyes. And he frowned.
Lie.
Lie. Lie. Lie.
And I’d just been caught.
Hector
Dr. Ophidia was lying to us. Which just proved how smart she was. I could read everything on her face. She was watching us, taking stock. Achilles scared the hell out of her.
Which again proved how smart she was.
But right now, he wasn’t any danger to her. She didn’t know that, but she didn’t know him like I did.
She reminded me of someone—though I couldn’t put my finger on who. The obvious comparison was my wife—Andromache—but I considered it and then tossed that comparison aside.
Andromache was a product of a very different time. She didn’t get the chance to become everything she could have been. If she was born now, during this period of time when women chose their own destinies, then maybe there would be some similarities. But to compare a modern woman to my wife wasn’t fair.
We’d reached an impasse, and I didn’t know how to move forward. We had to stop her. She couldn’t find the pieces and put them together.
That would be the end of everything.
“I don’t understand why you don’t want me to find the pieces.” She crossed her arms over her chest, mirroring my own posture. “You act like it would be the end of the world.”
“It would,” Paris spoke quietly, but it seemed like the entire pub hushed at the same time.
She chuckled, and too late, I realized we should have laughed along with her. When none of us did, she froze.
Disbelief. Annoyance. Confusion. All those emotions crossed her expressive face. She couldn’t hide anything.
Paris suddenly moved. He pushed the pints of beer out of the way so he could prop his elbows on the table and stare at her face. Animated, passionate—he was more alive than I’d seen him in a millennium.
“What if it did? What if finding those pieces meant the end of the world? Would you do it? Risk it?” His blue eyes blazed from beneath his dark brows as he pinned her with his stare.
Studying him, she shook her head. “Stuff like that isn’t real.”
“The polar ice caps are melting. No one believed that could happen either,” he replied. As I watched in disbelief, he reached for her, pulled her arm from across her chest and grasped her hand.
Paris didn’t do this. He didn’t reach for people. He didn’t connect.
What the hell was happening?
Sitting back, I scanned the faces of my friends. Each one of them were as shocked as I was. But also… understanding?