“I didn’t know for sure,” Odysseus said. “And besides, you wouldn’t have been killed.”
“I might’ve been maimed.”
“You could’ve been maimed; he could’ve stayed dead. All that’s in the past. Let it go.” Odysseus stood and rolled his shoulders back.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get him home.”
* * *
Odysseus wanted a beer before the flight, so they pulled up at the first bar they found along the concourse and wedged their way into a corner table. Odysseus ordered a round of Guinness, and all three flipped open their passports for the waiter.
“It must be strange,” Achilles said to Athena. “Getting carded. You’re what, five thousand? That’s got to be legal everywhere.”
“It’s the purple streaks,” Athena said, and pulled a few locks over her shoulder. The last of her punk highlights. “I should cut them out.”
“Don’t,” Achilles said. “It looks good. Wild. Besides, it isn’t your hair. They’d card you anyway.”
Athena didn’t know, really, how old she was. Passing years weren’t something immortals paid attention to. Or at least they hadn’t been.
She watched Achilles as he waited for his beer, talking to Odysseus amiably about cricket, of all things. His eyes darted this way and that, taking people in. All the harried travelers speed walking down the concourse. It was probably more people than he’d seen in a year.
Athena tried to remember what he’d been like, in his other life, but she didn’t know. The only thing that mattered was the way he fought. Achilles had been able to take down twenty, thirty armed and trained soldiers by himself. She couldn’t wait to find out what he could do now that he was truly invincible.
But Henry and Cassandra. It felt wrong to ask them to see the sense of it.
It was a lot to ask.
“How long until we get to Kincade?” Achilles asked.
“Too long,” Odysseus muttered.
“About twenty hours to Philadelphia, and then we connect to the Kincade Airport.” Athena stretched her back. A full day of travel, with a torn-up foot and a cracked arm.
“I hope they have a good in-flight movie,” Achilles said.
“I hope they have eight good in-flight movies,” Odysseus said, and took a long drink. If he kept drinking like that, he’d be passed out for most of the trip. Which was probably his plan in the first place.
“What did you do, Achilles,” Athena asked, “in the middle of nowhere for so long?”
“What do you mean?” he asked. “Clearly, I made traps.”
“I’m serious.”
“Athena,” Odysseus said.
“I’m just making sure he didn’t go Unabomber out there. A year’s a long time to spend whittling and playing the harmonica.”
“What’s a ‘unabomber’? Never mind. I get what you mean. And I assure you, I’m sane.” Achilles looked around awkwardly. “Not sure how I’m supposed to prove it, though.”
“You put up all those traps,” Athena said. “And you hid. So why join us now?”
He took a drink and nodded thoughtfully. “I hid. I did. I thought it was the best thing, and so did Ody. He can be right convincing, I’m sure you’ve noticed. But a year is a long time, and I know what I can do. What I’m supposed to do. So when you made it through the traps, I figured, she must be the one. She must be the side to fight for.”
“You’re not angry at me for killing you?”
“Not at all. I guess it doesn’t bother me as much as it would someone else.”
She snorted. “I suppose it wouldn’t.” She watched him closely. “What about Hector?”
He swallowed and set his glass down, hard. “What about Hector? I ran a spear through him a few thousand years ago. He burned on a pyre.”
“Listen, mate—” Odysseus started.
“Hector is with us,” Athena said. “In Kincade. He fights with us.” She waited for the glass to break, for Achilles to launch across the table. Thousands of years and a lifetime later, Hector’s name still made his blood boil.
“It can’t be,” he said. “Why would he be brought back? Why would fate put him here? He was nothing. Less than nothing.”
“He was second only to you,” Athena said.
“Patroclus was second to me,” Achilles spat, referring to his best friend who had meant more to him than a brother. The one Hector had killed.