This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2)(57)

“I’ve seen Hecate with my own eyes,” I said.

Hermes turned to look at me, his jaw slung open. “It isn’t—it cannot be. If she were still in existence, she would be the oldest among us by more eons than you can possibly fathom. She was born from the night itself.” He fell into a contemplative silence.

“The last piece of the Heart is on Aeaea,” Circe said. “We have to get to it before Karter and the others. Did you—did you tell him who you are? Does he know?”

Hermes shook his head. “I told them nothing.”

Persephone stood at Circe’s side. “We need a vessel,” she said. “And we need any information you can tell us about Aeaea. If the Great Eye can’t lead us to it, then we have to figure out another way to get there.”

Hermes rolled his head back and sighed. “I’ve been there many times. When Circe was in exile there, when Odysseus and his men came upon her and she turned them to swine. But the sirens guard it now.”

“So you can help us?” I asked again. “You can show us how to get there?”

“Why should I?” he asked. “I don’t dabble in the lives of mortals. It’s forbidden. There was a time when gods and men were intertwined, but that time has long since passed.”

“Mrs. Redmond—Karter’s mother—your descendant—killed my mom,” I said. “Hecate said I could bring her back if I could reunite the pieces of the Heart. I need the piece that’s on the island to do that.”

“She said this to you?” He was dumbstruck. “Why?”

“You don’t have anybody in your life that you love, do you?” I asked.

Persephone gasped. “Briseis—”

I faced Hermes. Fear settled in the pit of my stomach, but I had something to say and this man—this god—whatever he was—was not going to stop me. “You’re not concerned with the lives of regular people like me and my family. Fine. But I care. Hecate cares.”

“Then where has she been?” he asked. “Seems she could have helped you at some earlier junction. She’s let you travel across the world and offered you no help. This is what you fail to understand. Those of us who remain are so far removed from mortals. We do not burden ourselves with your troubles. We can’t.”

I hated that he had a valid point. Hecate hadn’t intervened in all this time. But something had changed. Something had driven her to step in and offer me this chance to get my mom back, and I wasn’t going to allow this dude to pretend like that didn’t matter.

“You sleep in that bed,” I said, measuring my words carefully. “You got this fire goin’. You live in a lighthouse and the people in a few towns over think your name is Mr. Herman.” I almost laughed. “You’re doing all of this, putting up this front—for what? You don’t seem to mind if people around here think you’re just the caretaker. I’m pretty sure you don’t need a fireplace to keep you warm or a bed to sleep in. You’re a god. You could be or do anything, and what you chose is to act like a regular person. If you’re so disinterested in mortal life, why do you do it?”

Hermes sighed, and I braced myself for his reaction.

“Because I am numb, Briseis.” He removed his hat and set it on the arm of his chair. He ran his hand over the top of his head, a gesture that struck me as uniquely human. “The lives of mortals begin and end in a breath for me. But you love and grieve and suffer and are joyous. Your lives burn so bright and yet so brief. You burn with the light of a million feelings, longing and angst, elation … love. What I have is despair. Unending hopelessness.”

Persephone shifted where she stood.

Hermes glanced at her. “You have only begun to taste what eternity will offer you—a bitter fruit.”

“Not tryna be disrespectful, but you sound a little jaded,” I said.

“I am,” Hermes said. “There is no shame in admitting that.”

“We find purpose in the way we help others,” Persephone said. “I’ve been helping my mortal family for generations. There is meaning in that. I think that’s what Briseis means when she asks you if you have someone to love, someone to care for.” She nodded at me. “You have so much time and you spend it hidden away? Doing—what?”

“I should find love?” Hermes huffed. “So that it can be snatched away from me in the blink of an eye? So that their presence can fade from my memory like they never existed to begin with?” Hermes raised an eyebrow. “Come find me when you’ve wandered the earth for eons, after everyone you’ve ever known or loved or cared for is in the underworld. Tell me how much purpose you find in that.”

“Are you gonna cry about it?” Marie asked suddenly. She was fully awake and fully over listening to Hermes.

Hermes angled his head to look at her, too.

She marched up to him with no hint of hesitation. “I don’t appreciate you hypnotizing me or whatever it was you did. Keep that staff out my face. Got it, Jafar?”

A smile crept across Hermes’s lips. He was either about to snatch Marie out of her skin or he understood her Aladdin reference. I wasn’t sure which was more terrifying.

“We need a boat,” Marie said. “And some help figuring out which way to sail it. That would be helpful for what we’re tryna do right now. You’ve been around forever, you’re sad about it. Got it. Completely understandable. Have you tried therapy in the last couple hundred years? It might help.”