Three – 05

[This post is from Thom’s point of view.]

Staring down at a blank page of his sketchpad, Thom cleared his throat. “So. Persephone?”

“Right,” Matt said, tone slightly rueful. He shifted the metal again in the coals, then let go, stretching slightly and seeming to marshal his thoughts before he started to explain. “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a complicated thing but it’s something that kind of got shunted aside with that last attack and all. Hecate thought she was dead and probably wouldn’t know anything otherwise if she hadn’t found a way to ask J.T. for help.”

Thom glanced up from the page, brow furrowing. “Hecate asked Jay for help?”

“No,” Matt said quietly as he shifted the iron in the coals one more time. “Persephone found a way to reach out to J.T. That’s how we know she’s alive—J.T. came to Hecate to ask for help. She’s out there somewhere, probably—almost definitely—a prisoner of Olympium.”

“Shit,” Thom breathed. “You’re sure?”

“As much as we can be,” Matt said. He pulled the iron back out of the fire, settling it against the anvil and taking up his hammer again. “Like I said, with the mess that last attack left us with, we haven’t had much of a chance to do anything about it—not yet, anyway.”

“You sound like you’re planning something,” Thom said, attention drifting back toward his sketchbook. He finally put pencil to paper, starting to sketch without quite knowing what he was designing. He glanced up, pencil still moving, watching as Matt started to hammer a blade into shape.

“Nothing solid,” Matt said. “Nothing certain. She still hasn’t recovered from dealing with the dark nymphs in the last battle.”

Thom winced. “I—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have sent her to the wall without warning her why I was doing it.”

“It turned out all right.” Matt sighed. “And you weren’t wrong to send her. She told me how it happened and even she thinks you were right. Once she was on her way to us she understood and you were right, trying to explain it would have taken too long and she might have hesitated. It would’ve been a hesitation we couldn’t afford.”

“But she’s all right?”

“She will be,” Matt said, then smiled. “You’re worried.”

“Of course,” Thom said, glancing down. “She’s your wife, and that makes her my sister. She’s family.”

Matt grinned. “She said the same thing about you.”

Thom snorted softly. “Good to know I’m someone’s sister.”

Matt laughed. “That’s not—”

“I know,” Thom said, staring blankly at the sketchpad in his lap.

A cradle? But I—

He stared at the page for another few seconds, then looked up at Matt.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Thom said. “Just thinking.”

He turned the page.

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