But I can. I’ll learn.
“We’re not really so far from Ithaca,” Calypso said. She sat near the window picking fries out of her pita and dipping them in tzatziki. Ithaca. Odysseus’ island. “I hated that island,” she went on, “for taking him away from me. And now I’d give anything to go and find him there.”
Cassandra said nothing. Anything she said would come out wrong, or hollow, or just plain stupid. She knew. She’d heard enough from other people after Aidan died.
“If I turn my ear the right way into the wind,” Calypso said, “I can almost hear him. A memory on the air. Ithaca must remember him even after all this time. Or at least I’d like to think so.” Calypso looked down. “Can you feel Aidan? In this ancient city?”
“I haven’t been listening.”
Calypso nodded. “Too busy sniffing out Hades.”
“Yes. But not only that. The Aidan who would haunt Athens wouldn’t be Aidan. He’d be Apollo.”
“They’re one and the same.”
No. They weren’t. But Calypso needed to think so. Because she needed to believe that Odysseus was the same boy who had loved her beside the sea.
“Yeah, well,” said Cassandra. “I hate him as many days as I love him, anyway. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to kill myself now that he’s gone.”
Calypso stopped chewing.
“I didn’t mean it to come out that way,” Cassandra said. “I get … pissed off at the drop of a hat, these days.”
“I know. I understand.”
“I didn’t mean to make you sound—” What? Pathetic? Go ahead, idiot, stick your foot farther down your throat.
“It’s all right, I said.” Calypso pushed a piece of meat into her mouth and went back to looking out the window. Conversation over. They ate the rest of their lunch in silence.
By the time Thanatos returned, Cassandra had fallen asleep on the couch watching a European version of MTV. She woke to the sound of the shower turning off. The rest of the suite was empty. Calypso had taken enough of her crap and fled.
The bathroom door opened. Thanatos poked his head out and peered at her.
“Did you find him?” she asked.
“Where’s Calypso?”
“Don’t know.” Cassandra shrugged. “Did you find him?”
He pulled the towel off his shoulders and ran it through his hair.
“I found his house. Without him in it.”
Acid churned in Cassandra’s gut and heat flooded her fingertips. They’d come all that way to find an empty house. On another continent. Across an ocean. She was up and pacing before she knew it, back and forth, back and forth.
“So where did he go? Ant-fricking-arctica?”
“He didn’t go anywhere, really. He went underground. Off the map underground.”
To the underworld. Cassandra narrowed her eyes. Had someone tipped him off? Had he run?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Thanatos said. “And yes, he probably knows you’re coming. But he wouldn’t run from you. Hades wouldn’t run from anything.”
“So he’ll be back?”
“He’ll be back.”
“Good. We’ll go to the house, then, and wait. He might not expect that. What? What’s that look for?” She narrowed her eyes, and he looked away.
“You don’t think I can kill him,” she said.
He threw his towel over the back of a chair.
“Can I?” she asked. “Or is he like you? Have you known this was impossible the whole time?”
“He’s not like me,” Thanatos said. “He’s the god of the dead, not death himself. You can kill him. What I’m beginning to wonder is if he can kill you.” He closed the distance between them in a few slow steps. Not sad or worried, but curious.
Don’t be stupid. He’s a god. And death, besides. It doesn’t matter how many times he’s kind, or if he’s saved my life. Death is what’s underneath. He’s not wondering if Hades can kill me. He’s wondering if he could do it himself.
“Why are you helping me?” she asked. “Why are you here?”
“I’m here because a girl with a broken heart came looking. And I have a soft spot for girls with broken hearts.” He reached out to touch her hair. His face was so charming and harmless when he smiled, like a pinup in a girls’ magazine. You could take the god of death home to meet your parents, as long as he was smiling when you did it.