Page 39 of Wildfire

Actually getting inside was an entire feat. Ares took up more of the stoop than any one being should, and while Wilder managed to get into his own home without getting too ruffled, Hermes had to wiggle past with all his bags while his brother cocked a brow at him.

“Shut up,” Hermes hissed. “HesaidI could get them all.”

And there it was, that tiny twitch at the corner of Ares’s lips that proved he had something going on in there somewhere. It was a kind of begrudging amusement shared by all of Zeus’s sons—well, except Apollo, who was best loved and even when he wasn’t, preferred his sister’s company to theirs. No one else understood exactly what it was like to have a father who, well, feared you as much as he loved you. Sometimes more.

Hermes smiled back. “Come on in, big guy. I assume you’re here for a reason.”

He shuffled into the open kitchen and dumped everything on the island. Wilder started unpacking the bags, and Hermes backed off. No doubt he had a special arrangement for his pantry that Hermes would ruin just by trying to help.

Instead, he leaned back into the corner of the kitchen counter, across the island from Ares. It wasn’t like he thought his brother would rip his head off or anything, but Hermes had a habit of keeping enough space between himself and any gods that running away would be no issue.

“So what’s the deal, bro? You running errands for Dad now that I’m busy?” Hermes shot him a broad grin, but they both knew there was no such thing as too busy for Zeus.

Ares’s hands folded behind his back when he came to rest, and he shook his head. “Atlas escaped as well. Cronus has his general. Father needs one too.”

Holy shit. Hermes couldn’t help the laugh that burst out of him then. “And he picked you? The ‘most hateful of all the gods on Olympus’?”

Every single son of Zeus remembered that fight—Zeus had told Ares exactly how loathsome he was. He’d said things to Ares that would’ve made Hermes collapse in on himself for centuries. Zeus had sworn that if Ares weren’t his own son, he’d have cast him from Olympus.

Of course, that hadn’t stopped him from chucking Hephaestus off, but Ares’s bones were perfectly straight. He had no disability whatsoever—in fact, he looked very much like Zeus—so that meant he could stay, right?

Gods, his family was fucked.

Ares’s cheeks hollowed. “Athena has her hands full at the school.”

“Uh huh.” Hermes didn’t buy that for one second. Athena was the world’s best multitasker.

If Zeus was calling on Ares—gathering his own sons to him—something had changed. He’d learned something, or resigned himself to...

“Holy shit,” Hermes whispered. “Is this end game?”

Ares simply stared at him. “This is war, Hermes. That’s all.”

But if Ares wasn’t looking past the veil, that was only because he didn’t want to. Everything was laid out clearly in front of Hermes—the cultists, his father’s begrudging forgiveness, Cronus’s return... letting Prometheus go. Zeus was preparing, and there was only one thing that Hermes could imagine would shake Olympus this much.

Zeus was preparing to die.

“I’ve been to see Hephaestus,” Ares said, while Hermes was still struggling to settle into his new worldview. “He’s making weapons again. If you have any particular requests, let him know as soon as possible.”

Hermes sighed. He really wasn’t much of a warrior. He had his caduceus, but that was more for trickery than for pummeling titans. “Anything’s fine. You know, standard fare. I can work with a xiphos. Except... oh my god, can he make me a bazooka? Like, a holy bazooka? I want that!”

There was a twitch in Ares’s cheek when he replied, “He’s not making you a bazooka.”

Hermes hummed, squinting one eye shut. “But shouldn’t he, though? Aholybazooka.”

It’d been so long since he’d upgraded. A new weapon could be right up his alley, after all.

With one long, deep breath through his nose, Ares pivoted to Wilder. “And you train mages?”

“Heteachesmages,” Hermes cut in, worried that Wilder wouldn’t know just how big a difference that was to someone like Ares. And with a sidelong glance at Wilder, he had to admit that he wasn’t completely sure he wanted the man on the front lines. Sure, he might win, become immortal, and Hermes would have to have an actual conversation about hisfeelings—insert full-body shudder here—but he might also get himself killed. Either way, Hermes stood to lose—either his pride or his professor. “He’s a professor. At Banneker.”

Ares frowned. “Professor” being, of course, an insufficient moniker to him. But it wasn’t quite enough to get him to back off.

As stiff as his neck was, it seemed Wilder didn’t like Hermes speaking for him. Hermes leaned back on the counter to glance between the two of him—his brother and this strange, uptight man who was absolutelystarving. Starving for something Hermes thought he could give him—a distraction, or perhaps something more. The attention he craved, at least.

And then he saw it. They had the same set to their shoulders, the same stance. Wilder’s chin was held every bit as high as Ares’s. Neither one of them had relaxed. It was no wonder Athena called Wilder her protégé. She wanted to make him into that, a sort of Ares-lite, a creature so beaten down by his millennia of misery and constant conflict that Hermes wasn’t sure where he found the energy to wake up in the morning.

Hermes was beginning to worry he wouldn’t get his brownies.

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