[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]
“How long do you think they’ll stay away this time?” Hecate asked. “Olympium. Their nose is bloodied, but I think we’d be foolish to believe they won’t come again.”
“That question could be answered by either one of us,” I muttered, then sighed. There was a tightness in my chest, like a giant hand had wrapped around my heart and squeezed. Part of it, of course, were the lingering thoughts of losing Thom, the fear that I’d lived with every day since he’d been thrown into that watchtower rail. “The short version of the answer, I think, would be the same.”
“Not long,” Hecate said, glancing up again, studying me. “Matter of time.” She sighed and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. We can win.”
“We will win,” I said quietly, still staring out at the rain. “Though I start to wonder if maybe it’s time we took the fight to them.”
Hecate stiffened slightly, then visibly forced herself to relax, exhaling slowly. “It might not be hard.”
“Maybe not,” I said, then looked at her, brow furrowing. “Besides—they still have Persephone, right?”
She shivered. “So far as I know. I can’t be sure but I don’t know where else she’d be other than in their hands.” Her gaze drifted back to her sketch. “Otherwise, I think she would have found us somehow. She reached out to J.T. If she figured out I was still alive, she’d come looking. She—for a long time, she was my only friend.”
“All the more reason for us to get her out of whatever situation she’s stuck in—especially if it’s an abusive one.”
“With Pluton gone, it definitely is,” she whispered. “He wasn’t the greatest, but he wasn’t the worst, either. Someone else has probably claimed her now and it won’t be good.” She exhaled a shaky breath. “The myths are silent on a lot.”
“How could they not be?” I asked softly. “I can’t imagine that anyone would want much of the truth to come out, if it’s as dark as it all seems.”
“You’re right about that,” she said. “You have no idea how right, honestly. But he never hurt her, not more than a couple usually does. He just kept her, that’s all. She wasn’t free.”
“That’s—”
“I know,” Hecate whispered. “I know.”
