From Darkness (Hearts & Arrows Book 3)(36)

Perry rolled her eyes and laughed. “That was the best they could do?”

“Zelos said I wasn’t woman enough for Ares.”

Perry’s mouth hung open at that. “He did not.”

“He did so.” Dita took a gigantic bite, so big that she struggled to chew it.

“Well, he and Pheme have to be the biggest gossips in Olympus.”

“Today sucks,” Dita said around a wad of food.

“What else?”

Dita sighed and dropped her half-eaten burger on her plate. She dusted her hands off and slumped, reaching for her wine again. “I don’t know. I just…I mean I do know, but…” She shook her head. “I’m not sleeping, and it’s fucking me up. I think that’s the short of it.” That, and she had obsessively been watching Adonis on an enchanted mirror, but there was no way she could tell Perry that.

“Is there anything I can do?” Perry asked with furrowed brows. “Maybe I can help.”

Dita looked into Perry’s dark eyes. “I don’t know if anyone can help me.”

Perry moved around the bar and hugged her friend, laying her cheek on the top of Dita’s head. “Time. You can’t fast-forward through it.”

“I know.” Dita’s throat was tight and burning. “I just want it to be over.”

“It will be—eventually. Want to talk about it?” Perry pulled away and sat next to her.

The words stuck in Dita’s throat, so she shook her head.

“That’s the other part of healing. You know that. I’m here for you as soon as you’re ready.”

Dita nodded and took another long pull of her wine.

“So,” Perry said with levity, “what have you been doing? I saw you got Jon into the station today.”

Dita set her glass down and spun it on the bar. “Fat lot of good that did. I almost missed it, too. He was walking right by. That would have sucked.”

“At least he got Rhodes’s name, right?”

“Yeah, but without Josie, he’s not going to get very far. Josie had nothing on Rhodes until she went to Montana. I can’t imagine Jon would have some magical information source to pull from.” Dita looked down at her food, no longer hungry.

“No, but he has you.”

Dita huffed. “Yeah, because I’m doing a bang-up job so far.”

“It’s day three. Give yourself a break.”

“Ugh. I feel nasty. Seriously nasty,” Dita said as she sank even further into her chair.

“You know what I was wondering? What happened with the note Jon left Josie?”

Dita frowned. “I don’t know. Why? I haven’t really thought about it.”

“I mean, how many things could have happened to it?”

Dita considered it for a second. “It was early in the morning, and he left it on her doorstep. Neither Josie nor Anne saw it or knew about it. Would someone really have walked by and picked it up or thrown it away? There’s no kind of accident that makes sense.”

“Right? That’s what I was thinking. Do you think any of the gods had anything to do with it?”

They sat in silence for a moment, but then they met each other’s eyes and said at the same time, “Hera.”

“That bitch,” Perry said under her breath.

“I mean, who else? Just how much do you want to bet she was hoping to get Tori and Jon back together so they could be the perfect little family? I fucking hate her. No one else would do something that blatantly cruel.”

“Well, okay, maybe there’s some other reason, or it was someone else. Devil’s advocate, and all that.”

“Maybe, but probably not.”

Perry eyed her.

Dita put her hands up in surrender. “Don’t worry; I’m not going to go hunt her down or anything. What’s done is done, and she can’t interfere at this point. Artemis certainly wouldn’t work with her. It’s just fucked up.”

“So basically like everything Hera does.”

“Pretty much.” Dita stood. “I should get going.”

“You sure? I can hang for a while. Hades is working.”

The thought was appealing, but the mirror called to her, her obsession. She felt like Gollum, but she just didn’t have it in her to fight the addiction.

She smiled at her friend. “I’m okay. Take your time decompressing from me.”

Perry laughed. “Okay. I’m here.”

“I know,” Dita said as she hugged her friend before leaving the underworld.

Her anticipation grew in the few minutes it took to get to her apartment. When she held the mirror in her hands, she felt herself sink into fixation again, and she absently sat down on the couch, breathless as she watched Adonis, the anxiety from what she’d missed snaking through her like poison.





Day 4





THE SUNLIGHT SHONE THROUGH the ring of trees where Eleni stood. Her boots were planted firmly in the spring grass as she nocked an arrow, took aim, and fired at one of the targets on a tripod. She hit the bull’s-eye and bowed at Artemis with a challenging smile.

Artemis rolled her eyes as she nocked an arrow of her own, drew, and loosed in almost one motion. Her arrow split Eleni’s down the middle.