“No,” Athena whispered. “You’ll heal.”
Athena jerked the shears closed, and severed half of Cassandra’s ring and pinky fingers. The sound of the tips falling to the cave floor was covered by her scream.
Athena rolled away. The feathers made it hard to move. Hard to breathe. But she did it anyway, and scrambled across the stone. She raised the shears high over her head, and brought them down in Atropos’ chest.
Something flooded through her. Something dark.
*
“No. No, goddamn it.” Odysseus dragged himself out of the lake.
Athena knelt beside the wall of the cave with her head down, one arm out to hold herself up. Her other hand clutched the shears. Her shears.
Cassandra’s head swam. Atropos was dead. Athena killed her. And suddenly, Clotho and Lachesis weren’t talking to her anymore. But she could still hear them as they begged their new sister for help.
(Join your blood with us. Heal us. Help us.)
Athena grabbed her head as though she was trying to block them out. Trying to fight. But she wouldn’t be able to for long.
Cassandra stared at Clotho and Lachesis. They were pathetic, shriveled sacks. Weak. Dying. They’d done so much to bring her there. They’d created her. The Fates.
She got to her feet and wiped the blood from her severed fingers on her shirt. It was all right, the lost fingers. She only needed one good hand anyway.
When she plucked the shears from Lachesis’ hand, Lachesis looked at her curiously. It wasn’t until she brought the point down between her eyes that anyone started screaming, and then it was only Clotho. But soon enough, Clotho stopped as well.
Cassandra backed away from the dead Moirae, away from the blood that leaked from their sliced-open legs and from their heads. She held the shears carefully. They were so very, very sharp.
“Go see if she’s okay,” she said to Odysseus, and he went to Athena’s side. For a moment, Cassandra wasn’t sure. The next thing she saw might be the tip of Atropos’ shears through Odysseus’ back. But Athena wrapped her arm around him, and he helped her stand.
Cassandra heard her whisper, “Fucking feathers,” and smiled.
“What did you do?” Odysseus asked. He looked at Cassandra with wonder.
“What I was put here to do,” Cassandra said, and felt the dark part of her mind click shut.
EPILOGUE
Athena stood in her kitchen, making sandwiches. One black nose and one red one pressed close to the countertop, so she tossed the wolves each a slice of roast beef.
“That’s plenty,” she said when it seemed as if they’d beg for more. She smiled. If she forgot that they could walk on two legs and speak, she could almost become fond of them. And with their deaths gone, they weren’t nearly so disgusting. Panic’s red coat was almost pretty.
“Is that for me?”
Hermes poked his head around the corner.
“Make your own,” she said, but pushed the plate toward him. Old habits died hard. She might be following him around with sandwiches forever even though he didn’t need them. His cheeks were back, and his arms and chest were on their way. He was well.
“Tell me the truth,” he said with his mouth full. “When Ares didn’t show up to fight, you thought he had run off.”
“I didn’t think that,” she replied. “And you wouldn’t think that, either, if you’d seen him at the end.” The back door closed. Ares, coming back from the woods after the wolves. “He was by your bedside like a nursemaid, eyes big and wet as Henry’s German shepherd.” She smirked and handed Ares a sandwich over her shoulder.
“The hell I was,” Ares muttered.
“The hell he was,” Hermes agreed.
They stood in the kitchen and ate in silence. The space felt crowded with so many gods inside it. So many true gods. Over the course of one battle, they’d outgrown the house.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Ares said.
“For where?” Athena asked.