Page 31 of Wildfire

He hadn’t liked Marco all that much. He hadn’t exactly disliked him, but the young man had felt a need to compete with Wilder constantly, and that kind of relationship was never going to be his favorite. He couldn’t let his guard down around someone who would get a laugh out of seeing him fall on his face.

Which was an odd thought, because he thought if he literally fell on his face, Hermes would laugh.

But then... then afterward he might help him up. And maybe it wouldn’t be the kind of laughter that meant he enjoyed Wilder’s pain and failure.

Wilder had never imagined being laughed at in a nice way. Was that even a thing?

He set Melly’s food down, then went to empty the container on her automatic litter box—something he did every day, because he doubted she wanted to live with the smell any more than he would.

When he got back after scrubbing his hands, he found Hermes going through his collection of old vinyl records. When he glanced over the guy’s shoulder, his first instinct was surprise—but then he remembered that Hermes was older than anything Wilder could name. Why wouldn’t he like music written a few hundred years ago? It had the same relative merit as anything made in the modern era.

“Für Elise?” he asked. “A little overused, don’t you think?”

Hermes waved a careless hand in the air. “It got big for a reason. It’s good. It catches a person’s attention, and you can’t help but follow along. I’m no Apollo; I don’t know why it’s good. It just is.”

It seemed as valid a conclusion as anything else that could be said about a piece of music, and Wilder was no expert on the subject, himself. He’d grown up listening to Beethoven, so he listened to Beethoven. His parents liked to make a big deal of “that upstart, Mozart,” and how he was “clever, but sometimes that wasn’t a good thing.”

Yes. Wilder knew his parents were assholes. He’d gotten it somewhere, after all.

Hermes expertly set the record on Wilder’s turntable, flipped the correct switches to turn it on, start it, and then gently lifted the needle and set it in the groove. He clearly had experience with the motion; there wasn’t even a hiss of static, let alone a scratch.

For a long time, they sat there in Wilder’s parlor, listening to Beethoven in silence. Wilder hadn’t realized the god capable of such extended quiet, but it was nice.

And when Hermes stood and held out a hand to help Wilder up, he didn’t hesitate. Instead of turning back into snarky, frisky Hermes when they got to the bedroom, he gave a soft smile and gently helped Wilder out of his clothes, setting them over the bedroom’s wingback chair with surprising care. Then he slid into bed with Wilder, snuggling close and holding him as he drifted off to sleep.

A Vow

Athena wasn’t sure she’d ever seen her father look so pensive.

He stared out the window at the wide-open sky, distant and unavailable as he never was—not to her.

Always, she had been his favorite. She was smart enough to know that it colored her view of him, as well as everyone else’s, but she wouldn’t have given it up for anything.

Zeus was her father. He was beautiful, eternal, wonderful in so many ways, and heartbreakingly flawed.

“Has everyone been informed?” he asked, and she didn’t know why, but the evenness of his voice was a surprise. This breakout was everything they hadn’t known they should fear. They had all become so complacent in their tiny, insignificant modern lives that the return of the titans—even a single titan—had become unimaginable.

He wasn’t looking at her, but she gave a curt nod anyway. “They have. Hermes spent half the day handling it.”

An unhappy half-smile twisted his lips. “It’s not him. I don’t know how, but I know that.”

Of course that was what he was thinking about. The prophesy that one of his own sons would kill him. “Have you spoken to Prometheus about it since his escape? Perhaps free, he’ll be more inclined to give you what you need.”

It was possible, but she thought it unlikely. Prometheus knew well what would happen if he told Zeus which of his sons would kill him, and as much as her brothers had put up with from their father over the millennia, killing any one of them would cause an irreparable break between them all.

Including her, no matter how much she loved him.

She knew he was capable of it, but she could not live with a father who had killed any one of his sons. It would make him no better than what he now feared. No better than his own father.

“He told me enough,” he finally answered, and she startled.

Prometheus had prophesied so many years ago that Zeus would be killed by one of his sons, and ever since refused to offer more information. Had freedom truly incited him to offer more?

Finally, he shook his head and turned to her, mouth set in a grim line and eyes more somber than she’d ever seen them. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I did as Prometheus suggested. Everything is ready. But I won’t have Cronus outlive me. I won’t let my life’s greatest work be undone now.”

“You mean to destroy him this time,” she said. She’d expected nothing less. They had known how even during the war, but for the sake of Gaia, Zeus had spared his father. He would not do so again.

His only response was the tiniest dip of his head.

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