[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.]
The sound of Matt’s tread reached her ears a moment before he joined them and Hecate’s shoulders slumped slightly in something that almost felt like relief. She twisted slightly, looking back over her shoulder toward him, the weak smile she’d mustered for Tala still on her face.
He arched a brow at her as he joined them by the fire and moved to reclaim his abandoned cup of coffee. His warhammer was slung across his back and he set her crescent moon blades down next to her as he rejoined her on the ground near the fire. “What serious conversation did I interrupt here?” he asked, his tone curious and vaguely concerned.
“Just speculation,” Tala said, rescuing Hecate from having to formulate an answer that wouldn’t make Matt more worried about her than he more than certainly already was. “Talking about who it might be coming.”
“What was the assessment?” Matt asked as he picked up his cup of coffee again.
Hecate stared at the fire for a few moments, rubbing Lin’s back. “Leviathan,” she said softly, glancing at him. “We never did give him an answer.”
Matt’s expression changed. Something flickered through his eyes, almost too quickly to be seen, but she saw it.
Guilt. But what does he have to be guilty about? She reached over to squeeze his arm. “Matt?”
He shook his head. “Don’t,” he murmured. “Leave it.”
“Leave what?”
“I’m all right,” he lied. Her stomach twisted.
“Fuck, we’re not doing this, are we?” She leaned closer, resting her chin against his shoulder. He squeezed his eyes shut, not looking at her, fingers tightening around his coffee cup. “Matt.”
When his eyes opened, it was to stare into his cup of coffee. He took one slow, deep breath, then another, still saying nothing. Hecate didn’t care that Tala was watching, that she would hear. Maybe it was a fragment of one of her old selves that caused it or perhaps she really had started to trust the people here as friends.
“I know that look,” Hecate said in a low voice. “I know it and there’s no reason for it. Leviathan would have come after you and I no matter what—even on our own, he would have come. Don’t for a second believe this is your fault or that you should have done something sooner because there’s nothing we could have done. There’s no way out of the cage he built other than fighting our way out. I think both of us know that now. Don’t we?”
Matt’s lips thinned and he said nothing.
Her heart began to ache.
