Page 49 of Invoking Ruin

My mother is dressed like some punk-rock reject: torn jeans, a scuffed and battered leather jacket. The hem and collar of the red shirt underneath are already frayed.

Her clothes had probably been pristine when she’d put them on this morning. It’s a testament to her ability to break anything. Clothes, walls, people, gods. They’re all the same to her.

If Nyx is a terrible grandmother, then all I can say is that the apple never fell far from the tree. Speaking of, in her hand, glinting in the dying sunlight, sits her golden apple.

“Mother,” I say in greeting.

Eris glances beyond me, her lips pursing as she catches sight of the lyre. “You know, Apollo’s been looking everywhere for that.”

“I guessed as much.”

“He’s been saying how much he wants to sing to me, put music to his poems about my many charms.” Her nose wrinkles. “Of all the things you could have chosen, did you really have to return the lyre?”

Surprise has me biting back a laugh. My mother has never been predictable. “It was what I had on hand.”

“You could just return the knife, instead. We’d all stop chasing you then.” She raises both eyebrows—she never could raise just one—as though the knife were the obvious choice.

I glance around, trying to spot Nemesis or Lethe or another of Mother’s allies. “I don’t have the knife with me.”

“No, you’re not foolish enough to keep it with you,” she agrees.

Rare praise. I don’t know what to do with it, so I just shrug. “If I weren’t foolish, I wouldn’t have fallen into such an obvious trap.”

And it is a trap. She came here so fast, as though she’d anticipated my move. I should have gone for a more remote site. Should have seen this coming.

Then again, I never should have tried this plan to begin with. Only a desperate fool would trust the Moirai.

Oh, Chaos, what a desperate fool I am.

The only thing I don’t understand is why the Moirai would push me towards the Olympians. When have they even considered, for a second, helping that lot?

You will bring the ruin you have visited upon others down on yourself.

This wasn’t even my fault. I was only following their deeply flawed plan. More like, they would bring the ruin down on me themselves. The message must have been garbled.

“It wasn’t a well-laid trap, Atê. We were just lucky. We’ve been waiting for you to come to Athens for a while, now.” Eris tells me, all but confirming it.

We’re at an impasse. An uncomfortable one. She could take me in a fight, I’m sure of it. Eris has lost none of her powers, and I doubt I could easily subdue her with my silver tongue like I can the others. She’s a goddess for the battlefield. And I have no weapons.

Absolutely fucked.

“I’m not going to make this easy for you,” I threaten.

“Of course you’re not. No one so far has made anything easy for me.” Eris rolls her eyes, as though my desire for freedom is a terrible inconvenience to her. “Nothing you say or do is going to spare you from Tartarus.”

A chill runs down my spine, as though Tartarus already has an icy grip on me. “I see your own jail sentence didn’t make you merciful. You locked up your own mother and daughter there, so I guess another is no skin off your back, is it?”

My mother is never going to be merciful, but I had hoped her need for discord might have made her my ally. Just for spite’s sake.

Eris arches her eyebrows. “Do you feel better, painting me as the monster? Got it all out? I’m not the one at fault for your choices.”

“When did you start caring so much about rules, anyway? As far as I remember, you preferred breaking them.”

I’m stalling, delaying the inevitable, but there’s a chance, a sliver of a chance, that if I can get Eris talking, I can compel her to turn around, to let me go.

Eris can’t resist an opportunity to snipe at someone. It’s in her nature, the same way it’s in mine. If genetics remotely applied to gods, I’d say I got it from her. As things stand, I know how to exploit the need.

“Being queen changes things.” Eris squeezes her apple, which is one of her tells, if you know what you’re looking for.

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