“Tell us what is?” Odysseus asked. “That’s all? After you tried to kill us?”
“We did not. But some of you have died.” Cassandra’s head turned, a little too far. A joint popped, and her head turned back quickly, as though the Moirae were surprised by the limit. “It is Atropos who kills you. Atropos who would kill us all.”
Athena remembered how the Moirae had looked on Olympus. Clotho and Lachesis were two deflating balloons, bleeding into their dark-headed sister.
“All this time we have struggled with her in secret,” they said. “Our sister is sick. And when the Moirae of Death is ill, she spreads her sickness down. To all her leaves and branches.” They peered past Odysseus, to Hermes, lying still on the couch.
“He’s unwell,” they said. “He’ll be gone soon.”
Fast, angry tears blurred Athena’s vision. A fat lot of nerve they had, coming into her house and telling her that her dying brother was dying. A fat lot of nerve, coming to them now. When it was too late.
“We need to kill her,” said Clotho, or Lachesis, or perhaps both. “Kill Atropos.”
“So kill her,” Athena said.
“She is weakened. But she will not go easily.”
“So kill her harder.”
The Moirae inside Cassandra frowned. They looked at Athena the way a parent looks at a child they’ve just discovered has been spoiled.
“You have other brothers,” they said. “Other sisters. Think of them.”
Athena wanted to tell them where they could stick it, but only clenched her fists.
“You’ll help us now,” Clotho and Lachesis said. “You and Cassandra. You’ll help us kill Atropos to win your lives back. And in exchange for your lives…”
In her mind Athena ransacked the house for any weapon she could use to batter the Moirae out of Cassandra’s body. They came with balls the size of grapefruits, demanding help and payment for their lives besides.
“What the hell can you possibly want?” Athena asked.
“After Atropos falls,” the Fates sighed. “Cassandra will join us.”
“Join you?” Odysseus said. “What do you mean, ‘join you’?”
“The Moirae are three. Life, Destiny, and Death. We can cut Death out. But Death must replace her.”
Athena looked hard into Cassandra’s eyes, trying to see any of her in there. Could she hear? Was she trying to fight while they stood there talking? Was she afraid? Angry? But no matter where Athena looked, all she saw were the Moirae. They’d invaded Cassandra’s head and taken over, and before they were through, they would take the rest of her, too.
“She is ours, anyway,” the Moirae said, and shrugged with Cassandra’s shoulders. “Our perfect creation, brought into being by us, given the gift of prophecy by us, and touched with the hand of Death. It was all put into motion so long ago.”
The Moirae pursed Cassandra’s lips and crooned inwardly to her, as if crooning to a pretty bird they’d recently swallowed.
A perfect creation. But that’s not what Athena saw. Athena saw a girl with too many lives inside. Too many pains and wrongs and losses. A girl her brother Aidan had loved and ruined, but mostly loved.
I promised to take care of her. And even though she hates me, she’s still my friend.
“Would you take me instead?” Athena asked.
“What? No. No, they won’t take you instead!” Odysseus stared at her as though she’d lost her mind. She wanted to look at him, to try to explain, but if she did that she’d never be able to say what she had to.
“I can take lives as well as she can,” Athena said. “I’m strong. You can give me the sight.”
“Understand what you offer, goddess,” said Clotho. “To join us is to become us. To join us is to disappear.”
And that’s what you intended for Cassandra. To put her through all this shit, just to lose herself anyway.
“Of course I understand,” Athena said. “I’m a goddess. Not a stolen girl.”
The Moira wearing Cassandra considered the trade. And nodded. An obsolete goddess of battle would become the Moira of Death. It was more than fair, on all sides.
“Athena, you can’t do this,” Odysseus said. “How do we even know they’re telling the truth?”
“As a token of good faith,” Clotho said in her Cassandra-but-not-Cassandra voice, “we will tell you a very great secret.”
“What’s that?” Athena asked.