Mortal Gods

“Taking a break?” Athena asked.

“I needed one. Achilles is quick, and stronger than me. How are you healing?”

“Fast.”

Calypso raised her glass. “Can I get you something to drink before you start?”

“You’re the guest here,” Athena said. She ducked into the refrigerator and grabbed the milk. “Can I get you anything before I start?”

“I’m not a guest.”

The urge to drink from the carton was strong. But that was stupid. She wouldn’t mark her territory with milk drinking. She grabbed a glass from the cabinet.

“Your name’s not on the mortgage, and you’re not family.”

“But if you asked me to leave, I wouldn’t,” said Calypso.

“So you’re a squatter.”

Calypso shook her head. “Why do I try to argue? I remember that day, on my island, when Hermes came and ordered me to give up Odysseus. Never mind that it was my island. Never mind that I loved him.”

“He wasn’t yours, Calypso. He had to go home.”

“Excuses, excuses. You hate me even though I’m on your side. There’s no winning with you.”

“I don’t hate you,” Athena said. “I resent you. It’s completely different.” She drained her glass and wondered why she’d said that. Why she’d let Calypso bait her.

“You resent me,” Calypso said quietly. “Because of Odysseus. Because I found him. Because I was with him.” She paused, and her voice slipped lower. “Because you can’t be.”

What was that tone? Compassion? Or pity? Athena looked into Calypso’s eyes, ready to knock them through the back of her pretty head. But she saw no malice. Had there ever been any there? She glanced over the nymph’s brown, braided waves, her narrow waist and feminine curves. She was more beautiful than most goddesses, certainly more beautiful than Athena. But more miserable, too. She’d come so far for a boy who had left her with embraces, maybe with promises. And when she’d found him, he’d turned her away for someone else.

None of it was Calypso’s fault. It hadn’t been on the island, and it wasn’t now. She only loved him, and try as she might, Athena couldn’t despise her for that.

“I don’t have any right to Odysseus,” Athena said. “Do what you want.” She walked past Calypso, gently, and that was it. The words hadn’t choked her after all.

*   *   *

As Henry had predicted, the school held Odysseus back. The principal called him down to the office in the middle of first period and explained that he’d missed too many days to graduate. It was not, they made clear, an expulsion. They even offered to let him audit the rest of his classes.

“At least I can still keep an eye on you,” Odysseus said. “Which was the whole point anyway.” He tucked the official letter into his shirt pocket. “I can’t believe they expelled me! Did you see this coming? With your—” He whirled his hand around at Cassandra’s head.

“They didn’t expel you,” she said. “And no, I didn’t foresee it. I didn’t have to. But I did know you were going to wear that shirt today.” She crunched through an apple on their way to her last class, Algebra III.

“Damned good thing I already finished school in London,” he grumbled as they pulled up next to the door. “You coming along tonight? To watch Achilles train?”

“I want to see him,” she said through her teeth. “And I never want to see him.”

Odysseus flashed his most charming smile.

“Give it a month,” he said. “You’ll love him. And even if you don’t, at least you can watch Hermes punch him in the face a bunch of times.”

“I’ll never love him.”

“Come on. He might save your life.” Odysseus touched her shoulder, and she shrugged away. No need for him to feel the hate-filled heat coursing all the way up her arms.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “But remember. He died in the war, too.”

“Yeah,” Cassandra said. “But he liked it. It made him a legend.”

Odysseus looked at her funny. Sort of cockeyed. “Huh,” he said. “You just reminded me of someone.”

“Who?”

“You. The old you.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes.

“You’re just pissed because I don’t automatically take your word for it like everyone else does,” she said.

“No, that’s not it,” he said, and peered at her close. “You haven’t been quite right since that day in the jungle with Ares. It got to you, didn’t it? All that blood under your fingers.”