Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 101264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
I shudder, but I make myself cross over and crouch down to check. Nothing. No matter what her reputation, Hermes is flesh and blood. If she’s not in this room, there’s another exit. A secret door. I’m sure of it.
I straighten and examine the walls more closely. There’s no way she could have moved the dresser, so I bypass that and examine the mirror across from the bed. It’s not as ornate as the one in Ariadne’s room, but it’s still on a hefty frame and stretches a good seven feet from floor nearly to the ceiling. The perfect size for a door. I feel a little silly, but I hold my breath as I touch the frame.
It moves beneath my fingers.
“What the fuck?” I whisper. Again, I glance at the door, but my gut says that this is a limited-time opportunity and if I go back to loop Apollo in, whatever it is will pass.
If I can find answers, we’ll have no reason to stay here. We can leave, and that means he will be safe from whatever fate Minos might have planned for Zeus’s spy.
That, more than anything, decides me. I slip off my heels and tug the mirror open all the way. It leads into a hallway that’s dusty enough for me to see the faint prints of Converse shoes leading away from my position. I hardly need confirmation that Hermes came this way, and yet here it is all the same.
Following means leaving my own trail, but this is too good an opportunity to miss. I’ll deal with Hermes knowing what I’m up to later. I step into the dark hallway and tug the mirror mostly shut behind me. The space is narrow enough to make me feel vaguely claustrophobic, but the walls don’t actually brush my shoulders as I start forward.
Why would she bother with secret passageways right now? The house is all but empty and everyone who might be curious about what she’s up to is in the living room. It’s only as I take the narrow turn and blink into the darkness that I pause to wonder if Minos hired all new staff or if the people working here were inherited when he bought the house. He must have. Surely Minos is clever enough to realize that there would be people loyal to Hermes and only too happy to feed her whatever information they could acquire? So why did he allow this to happen? Unless… Suspicion takes hold.
Hermes wouldn’t.
She wouldn’t.
I pick up my pace as much as I dare and nearly run into the wall at the end of the passageway. I catch myself at the last moment, stopping just short of it. Now that I’m this close, I can see a faint outline of light around the doorway. It was all but invisible from even a foot away. I press my fingertips to it but hesitate.
Charging into whatever may or may not be going on in the other room is a mistake. I might have followed Hermes with the intent to talk to her, but ultimately I’m here for information and this seems like exactly the situation that might relay the kind of information Apollo is looking for.
With that in mind, I carefully lean forward and press my ear to the cool wood of the door. I’m instantly glad I didn’t open it. There are two people talking, both easily identifiable.
Apparently Minos made a pit stop on the way back from ordering tea.
I wish I could see, but I don’t dare open the door. Instead, I close my eyes, blotting out even the faint light, and focus. Minos is pacing; I know Hermes’s footsteps, at least when she allows herself to be heard, and they are not the heavy tread practically vibrating the floor beneath my bare feet.
“You’re sure this will work.”
Hermes’s shrug is apparent in her tone. “It would work if you weren’t wasting opportunities on innocent people. Pan wasn’t part of the agreement. Neither was Atalanta.”
“Take that up with my fuckup of a son. I told Icarus to deal with Aphrodite, but somehow he ‘mistook’ Pan for her.” He curses. “Don’t look at me like that, Hermes. It’s the story he spun.”
“It’s not a very good one.”
“It won’t happen again. My other boys aren’t half so inept.” He laughs harshly. “And Atalanta is tied up in the basement. She’s perfectly fine. I just can’t risk her interfering with what comes next. You saw her in the Ares trials. She’s formidable.”
“Formidable enough to almost take down one of your prized foster sons.”
“Your jokes leave something to be desired.” A pause. “You’re sure they won’t run us out of town for this?”
“The laws are the laws, even if most people have no idea what little secrets from our founding the Thirteen have hidden all these years. If your boys follow my instructions to the letter, the clause will be triggered. But I never promised it would work.”