Electric Idol (Dark Olympus #2)(9)

I’m no saint. I’ve long since made my peace with my path in life. But fuck if it doesn’t smother me sometimes, especially when Aphrodite gives an order that feels especially cruel. Psyche helped me, and now my mother’s commanded my hand to be the one that strikes her down.

I head through the penthouse to what passes for my safe room. I use it to store things I don’t want nosy guests—or Hermes—to get their hands on. She’s tried at least a dozen times to break into it, and so far my security has held, but I’m all too aware that eventually she might prevail. Still, it’s the best option available to me.

Once I lock that door, I sit behind my computer and consider my options. This would be so much simpler if Aphrodite just wanted to make a nonlethal example of Psyche. She might be crafting a reputation as an influencer in that quiet way of hers, but reputations are easy to burn to ash. I’ve done it dozens of times over the years, and no doubt I’ll do it many more. All it takes is some patience and the ability to play the long game.

But no, my mother wants her literal heart. How very Evil Queen of her. I shake my head and bring up my files on the Dimitriou sisters. I have files on all the Thirteen and their immediate families, as well as close friends. In Olympus, information is 90 percent of the battle, so I work hard to keep myself informed. Since the party two weeks ago, I’ve taken a particular interest in Psyche, and I can’t even blame my mother for it.

Psyche didn’t have to help me.

She would have been so much smarter to turn away and pretend she never saw me. Anyone else would have done as much. Even some of the people I consider friends would have made that choice. I don’t blame them for it. In Olympus, it’s every person for themselves.

I click through the most recent articles on MuseWatch. Persephone visited her family last weekend briefly and caused quite the stir because she brought her new husband with her. The Hades-Demeter alliance is one nobody saw coming, and it’s feeding into my mother’s paranoia. She had the last Zeus on a leash, but his son hasn’t taken the bait she keeps dangling in front of him. It’s got her worried.

I stop on a picture of Psyche and her sisters shopping. The Dimitriou sisters seem to genuinely love and support each other. They might dip their toes into playing the power games, but they mostly hold themselves separate. I don’t know if it’s because they think they’re better than the rest of us or if the rest of us are just so naturally insular that we didn’t exactly welcome them with open arms when they first showed up. My mother likes to label the whole family as social climbers, and more than a few within the Thirteen’s inner circles have taken to doing the same.

But if that were true, Persephone Dimitriou wouldn’t have braved crossing the River Styx to try to get away from a marriage with Zeus.

And Psyche wouldn’t have helped her.

Even I’m not sure exactly what happened that night, but I know Psyche was involved—and it wasn’t to play the part of the rational party convincing her sister that this marriage would help their family’s position. If they were any other family, Psyche would have taken advantage of her sister’s absence and placed herself in front of Zeus as a candidate for the new Hera.

Instead, she helped her sister. Just like she helped me.

I study the image of Psyche. She’s got long, dark hair and full lips that always seem curved in a secretive smile. Looking at her, I can’t blame the gossip sites for being so obsessed: she seems comfortable in her body, and that kind of thing is sexy as fuck.

She’s extremely photogenic, but the pictures still don’t do her justice. There’s something about her presence in person that makes people sit up and pay attention, even when she’s dimming her light as best she can the way she always seems to at the parties we’ve both attended over the years.

She wasn’t dimming herself in the hallway or down in the bathroom where she patched me up. I don’t think it was on purpose, but I caught a glimpse of a bright and inquisitive mind behind that pretty face. She might play as if her looks are all she has going for her, but she’s smart. Too smart to get caught alone with me, and yet she took that risk and got burned. Why? Because I so obviously needed help. Because even monsters need help sometimes.

All this leads me to one very unfortunate conclusion.

Psyche Dimitriou might actually be what passes for a unicorn in Olympus—a good person.

I curse and close the window. It doesn’t matter if she’s hot or that I respect the way she’s so effectively dodged the power games since her family arrived on the scene or that she’s nice. My mother has a task, and I know the consequences of failing.

Exile.

Being left with nothing. Being nothing.

Aphrodite likes to remind me that the only thing I’m good at is hurting people. Even recognizing the blatant manipulation for what it is…she’s not wrong. I don’t know how to run a corporation like Perseus. I don’t know how to charm people and put them at ease like Helen. Fuck, I’m not even that good at breaking and entering like Hermes.

Not to mention more than a few victims of Aphrodite—of me—have suffered exile. If I end up sharing their fate, I don’t like my odds of lasting a year without one of them tracking me down and taking their just revenge.

Best not to think about that too closely. I’ll take care of the task, and then I’ll find a few partners and lose myself in a week of fucking and drinking and anything it takes to numb me out completely. Just like I always have.