“You’re the boss.” Odysseus poured water into a bowl and sponged most of the blood off, but the wounds still bled, and in no time the water was thick and crimson. “I’m going to clean it a bit, all right? I know you don’t have to worry about infection, but—it’s nice to be tidy.”
He lifted and turned her foot with gentle fingers, dabbing the gaping holes with iodine. It stung like hell, but it was the kind of pain she could take. The kind she knew she’d heal from. Not like the feathers.
“Odysseus?”
“Yeah?”
“That thing you said—that you kept saying. Being a kid caught up in our shit,” she said. “I never believed you meant it. I didn’t see how you could. You were always my Odysseus.”
“I am your Odysseus.”
Only he wasn’t. Despite the same wavy dark hair and mischievous eyes, the same crooked smile, this Odysseus wasn’t that Odysseus. This Odysseus had a future and choices the other hadn’t had.
“I think oaths expire when you die,” she said softly.
“Then you don’t know much about oaths. There.” He set her ankle on the ground and reached for the padding and bandage. “Hold this.” She bent and pressed the white pad to her foot. Where her fingers touched, blood seeped through immediately. “I didn’t mean it, right?” He wrapped gauze round and round. “I mean, not for me. It was just something to say to keep you from killing Achilles. Not one of my most successful lies.”
“Well,” Athena said. “Not everyone’s as stupid as a Cyclops.”
“Not everyone’s as hardheaded as you.” He rubbed his hands together and eyed the sheets of the cot. “Now, how to get that shoulder back in the socket? Maybe we can tie off some of those sheets.”
“Just pull it.”
“Even with the bone broken?”
“Just pull it, or I’ll jam it in myself, on the wall.”
He blew breath out, but he stood and grasped her arm between the elbow and wrist. “Bloody stubborn,” he whispered, and yanked hard. The cracked bone in her arm sang a friggin’ aria, and fire burned up the whole side of her body as the joint popped back in. But it went in. The bone was only cracked, after all. It wasn’t like it was sticking out of the skin.
“Okay?” He touched her shoulder gently.
“Okay.” She took a breath. The adrenaline had begun to fade. It would be an extremely uncomfortable flight home, followed by perhaps a few days off her feet. But just the same, she couldn’t help feeling excited. She’d found the other weapon. She looked again at Achilles, where he stood waiting patiently. He was a sharp new knife indeed. Sharp enough to cut her stepmother’s head off. The invincible brute would plow a path straight through to the gods, and Cassandra would walk unharmed in his wake.
“The Fates are still with me,” she whispered.
“What?” Odysseus asked.
“Nothing. Just taking stock.”
“And you’re pleased?”
“Yes,” she said. “And that’s as close to an apology as you’re going to get.”
“Well. It’s shitty, but it’ll do.” He hadn’t moved away. He stayed close, half-kneeling, bent toward her. “What you said in the car. About Calypso. About us. Is that really what you want?”
Her eyes moved over his familiar form. The muscles in his shoulders. The way his hair fell across his cheek.
“Yes,” she said.
“But what if I can’t?”
“Don’t be difficult. You can do—” She stopped. He’d picked up the bowl of water and blood and stared down into it. Something floated in the center, small and dark and speckled. A feather. There’d been a feather in her blood.
I don’t like to be dying. I don’t think I’ll like to be dead.
“Athena,” Odysseus said.
“Sorry.” Achilles walked abruptly back in and headed to the corner of the shelter to dig through his stacks of books. “I didn’t want to forget this.” He held up a thin white volume and flashed it at Odysseus. A book on trap building. “Best book you ever got me. Did you get her patched up?”
“Could you give us a minute, Achilles?” Odysseus asked, but Athena grabbed him by the arm.
“Hang on. You got him that book? The book that taught him how to make the traps?”
Achilles ignored them and flipped through pages.
“I thought it’d come in handy, and it did.”
“You knew there would be traps, and you didn’t warn me.”