“Mother—”
“So don’t ask me to take you before them. Don’t ask to look upon them before you are forced to. Just trust me when I tell you that they are terrible.”
* * *
Cassandra walked into her house quietly. If she was lucky, no one would see her and she could sneak up to the shower before her dirty hair and the strangely identifiable odor of jungle raised questions. All she had to do was clean up, stash her bag, guzzle a pot of coffee, and she’d be good to go.
Her luck held. The house was silent.
“Lux?” she whispered, and waited for his cover-blowing woof, or the click-clack scramble of his toenails on the floor. Nothing. Henry must’ve taken him out. But the lack of clamoring dog wasn’t the only thing missing. “Mom?” she called. “Dad?”
The clock on the kitchen wall read six thirty. On a Wednesday. They should have been sitting around the table eating dinner. Maybe they had gone to a movie, she supposed, but then where was the dog? She pulled her phone out of her bag, but it was dead. No outlets in the rain forest. “Dammit.” She fished her charger out of the front pocket and plugged in her phone, then called her mom.
“Cassandra? Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call since yesterday, and your phone’s been off. Why weren’t you at school today?”
“Athena was having a bad day,” she said quickly. “Got bad news about Hermes. So we sort of took a spa day.” Not the best lie. Athena at a spa was more than a stretch. But she could’ve done worse after getting off a very long, exhausting, international flight.
“That’s not—” Her mother sighed. “We’ll deal with that later. Call Andie and get a ride to the hospital. Your brother was attacked by wild dogs yesterday.”
“What?”
“And don’t go into the woods! Animal control hasn’t found them yet.”
“Is Henry okay?”
“He’s fine. We were supposed to take him home today, but he’s having a reaction to the rabies vaccine. They’re keeping him one more night, to be safe. Get here soon, all right? I bet Andie will give you a lift.”
“Okay, Mom,” she said, and hung up. Wild dogs and Henry in the hospital. She dialed Andie, hoping that Kincade truly did have a roving dog problem, and it was nothing god-related. But come on.
“Oh, thank god you’re home,” Andie said. “Are you okay? We walked into a world of crap while you were gone.”
“What? What happened?”
“Four little wolf things, that’s what. Friends of Ares, Cally says. I didn’t even know Ares was around. They attacked us in the woods behind your house and almost killed us. And Lux.”
Cassandra looked around the kitchen like the dog might come padding in at any second.
“Where’s Lux? And who’s Cally?”
“Still at the vet. But he’s going to be okay. And so is Henry.”
Cassandra waited. “And Cally?”
On the other end, Andie took a deep breath.
“That, my friend, is an even more interesting story.”
* * *
Athena looked up at her house, at their house, at the quaint brown siding and wood rail of the widow’s walk. They were home.
“First thing I’m doing,” said Hermes as he extricated himself from the backseat, “is calling in an order at Stanley’s Wok. Pot stickers and a few dozen chicken wings.”
“How can you be hungry?” Odysseus asked. “You just ate out the entire plane.”
“Look, I know you’re British, but you should really rephrase that.” Hermes thumped his fist on the trunk.
“It only opens with the key.” Odysseus tossed it, and Hermes opened the trunk and threw the others their bags.
“Let’s go in,” Hermes said. “I want a fire, and a hot cup of something.”
The sensation of coming home was magic: silence broken by stomping feet and brushing fabric. Athena breathed in a mingled smell of cleaning products and ash from the fireplace, and just a whisper of Hermes’ sandalwood incense. It was so poignant and comforting that it took her a minute to notice the house wasn’t empty.
“Wait,” she said, and put her hand on her brother’s shoulder.
“Wait for what?”
The girl came around the corner from the living room, wearing a cream-colored sweater and camel skirt over dark leggings. Her sand-and-sea eyes lit up at the sight of Odysseus.
“Odysseus!” She ran and threw her arms around his neck. He had half a second to glance at Athena in shock before they were kissing.