by Aimee Carter
“You said I had to steal it. You never said I had to give it to you.”
“Mac!” she said. “A little help?”
Mac, who was busy rummaging through the pile the guards had left behind, raised his head and blinked. And without saying a word, he ducked back down to examine a bag of beans. My grin grew wider.
“Tell me why you want it, and I’ll give it to you,” I said.
“It’s worth your weight in gold, that’s why.”
But the cautious way she watched the pendant didn’t make sense. She didn’t act greedy about it—instead she reeked of desperation. Like this meant more to her than air. “I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care,” she snapped. “Hand it over, or I’ll change my mind about you joining us.”
She wasn’t getting rid of me no matter what she wanted to think, but I needed her cooperation. And she didn’t handle teasing very well. Dangerous combination.
“All right, you win,” I said, and I offered her the pendant. She snatched it from me, cradling it as if she was holding her heart in her hand. What could possibly be so important about a necklace? “Just do me a favor from here on out.”
“What?” she mumbled, turning the pendant over in her hands. She wasn’t admiring it or appraising its worth—she was inspecting it for damage.
“Trust me. Or at least try. I’m on your side.”
“No one’s on our side but us,” she said, and she finally looked up, her fingers clutching the pendant. “No one.”
“Then let me be one of you. I can help hunt, I can gather, I can do whatever you need me to do, and I will be your subject, not the other way around. I promise.”
“Yeah? What’s in it for you?” said Tuck. By now the boys had finished packing up the loot, and Mac lumbered toward us, carrying a good two-thirds of our take. “You could survive in these woods for the rest of your life without any help from us. So why bother sharing?”
I hesitated. Not because I didn’t know what to say, but because my answer was too close to the truth for me to swallow. But it was either that or lose everything. “I’ve been alone for a long time, and I’m sick of it. I won’t take advantage of you or rob you blind or ditch you, I promise. I help you, and in return, the lot of you won’t give me the cold shoulder whenever I do something wrong. Which will be as infrequent as I can manage,” I added. “That’s all I want. Friends. A family. Somewhere to belong.”
Tuck’s expression softened, and her grip on the necklace loosened a bit. Silence hung between us, but before things got too awkward, Perry moved beside me and slipped his hand into mine. “We’re all family,” he said in a shy voice. “You can be part of it, too, as long as you don’t eat too much.”
I managed a chuckle. “I’ll do my best to gather enough game so none of you will ever have to worry about portions again.”
He beamed, and all four of us looked at Tuck. For a long moment, no one said a word, and at last she sighed. “Oh, fine. As long as you hold up your end of the deal, you can stay.”
The boys burst into cheers, and I gave her a pat on the shoulder. “You won’t regret it.”
“I better not.” She slipped into the woods, leaving the four of us to trail after her. I grinned. No matter what she wanted me to think of her, I knew the truth: she wasn’t nearly as bad as she pretended to be.
* * *
We spent the rest of the day in camp. I showed Mac how to make sure a cooked rabbit stayed juicy; Perry and Sprout tidied up in between wrestling matches; and Tuck examined our bounty, though her hand was never far from that pendant.
It was nice—almost domestic, something I’d never had before. The council rarely spent time together in groups of more than two or three, and the way the boys laughed and played—it really was a family. Tuck was more an older sister than a mother, but they all deferred to her regardless, and while Perry occasionally called for her to join them, she stubbornly remained sitting.
There was something different about the way she held herself, too. A secretive smile danced across her lips, and she was more relaxed, more confident, not as nervous as she’d been before. Almost as if she’d conquered the unconquerable. I slid closer to her.
“You look happy,” I said, and her smile vanished. “So how do you know that earl?”
“What’s it to you?” she said.
I shrugged. “Just curious. You don’t seem to like him much.”
“Not many people do.”
“So what’s your reason?”
She sighed. “You’re obnoxious, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told. You still haven’t answered my question.”
She tugged on her braid, staring into the fire. It was twilight now, and if I’d wanted to, I could’ve gone back to Olympus. But as far as I was concerned, I was staying right here for the foreseeable future.
“He killed my mother,” she finally said. “And he’s the reason their fathers are dead.” She nodded to the boys, who either were ignoring us or couldn’t hear her soft voice over their own laughter. “That’s why we all banded together.”
“How did he do all that?” I said, and she gave me an odd look.
“The war? Weren’t the men of your village recruited? Weren’t you?”
I frowned. “Why do you assume I lived in a village?”
“Well, you weren’t raised by wolves, were you?”
In a manner of speaking. “So this man—this earl, he sent all of your fathers off to war?”
“And killed my mother,” she added. “That’s important.”
“So what does the pendant have to do with it?”
She stared down at the necklace, brushing her thumb almost wistfully against the blue jewel. “I already told you. It’s—”
“Worth more than I could possibly imagine,” I finished. “I still don’t believe you.”
“Too bad.” She glanced into the purple sky. The stars were just beginning to appear. “Can you keep an eye on the boys? I have somewhere I need to be.”
“Yeah? Where’s that?”
“I know a guy who will buy the loot we can’t use.”
“Like your pendant?”
Her fingers tightened around it. No way was she letting that go anytime soon. “Yeah, like the pendant.”
“Let me come with you. You shouldn’t go on your own.”
Her eyes flashed. “Why? Because I’m a girl, and I need your protection?”
I snorted. “The day you need my protection is the day the sun rises in the west. I’m good with trade, that’s all. I could make sure you’re getting your money’s worth.”
She mumbled a curse under her breath. “If I let you come, will you stop asking stupid questions?”
“Only if you promise to be honest with me from here on out.”
“When have I not been honest with you?” she said. I nodded to the pendant.
“Right there.”
Tuck stood. “I’ll think about it. Are you coming or what?”
Leaping effortlessly to my feet, I gave her a grin. “You won’t regret this.”
“I already do. Mac, you’re in charge,” she called, trudging into the woods. I gave the three boys a wink and followed.
For most of the journey, silence hung between us. Tuck looked about as willing to talk as Hades did most of the time, and I tried to come up with a way to ease her into it. There was a reason I’d wound up here with her, and if she wasn’t willing to talk to me, then I might as w
ell accept the imminent death of my entire family.
Right. Not gonna happen.
I cleared my throat as we worked our way over a fallen tree. “It’s great of you to take care of the boys like you do.”
She shrugged. “We take care of each other.”
“What’s your plan?” I said. “I mean, are you going to be robbing the wealthy when you’re eighty?”
Tuck let out a hoarse, almost violent laugh. “Please. At this rate I’ll be lucky to see twenty. In three years,” she added before I could ask.
“How long have you been out here on your own?” I said.
“Six months. We make do.”
Six months—so the spring and summer. Persephone’s seasons. “What about the cold months?”
She slipped in the narrow space between two trees and said nothing. I walked around them to rejoin her.
“Have you thought that far ahead yet?”
“I’ve let you join us, haven’t I?” she snapped. “How do you survive the winter?”
I shrugged. I’d never actually spent one this far north. “Guess we’ll see.”
Without warning, she grabbed my elbow and spun me around to face her. “If you turn us in or abandon us or do anything to hurt them, I will hunt you down, carve out your eyeballs, feed them to the dogs and flay you. Got it?”
“Is that all?” I said lightly, and she glared at me. “Tuck, I’m on your side. Believe me. I meant what I said this morning, about family and all.”
“Yeah? What’s someone with your skills doing anyway, running away from yours? Aren’t they starving without you?”
“Hardly.” The idea of Zeus wanting for anything was laughable. “They know how to take care of themselves.”
“I bet,” she muttered. “Still, you know why I ran. Why did you?”
I didn’t know her reason why, actually, but it didn’t seem like the time to correct her. Not when she was finally talking. “How do you know I’m running from anything?” I said, and she rolled her eyes.
“You’re not nearly as mysterious as you think you are.”
I set my hand over my heart. “You wound me.”
“Not as badly as I will if I find out you’re a spy. No one walks around in the middle of these woods without so much as a satchel or a skin of water.”
“I’ve already promised to show you how I do it,” I said. “This would all be a whole lot easier if you at least tried to trust me.”
“The last time I trusted someone I didn’t know well, my mother wound up dead.”
I was quiet for a long moment. “How did it happen?”
Tuck shook her head, her gaze distant. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Come on, it’s just up ahead.”
She changed her angle, as if she was circling around something, and I followed. Right—she didn’t want anyone to know which direction she was coming from. She was smart, smarter than the rest of the council would give her credit for, but I still had no idea what answers she was supposed to give me. And it wasn’t as if I could come right out and ask. She’d think I was crazy.
So for now, all I could do was watch her. Not that that was the worst job in the world—there was something inherently pure about her, despite her sharp edges. She cared for those boys more than Zeus had ever cared for me, and the thought of staying here with them in the woods sounded a hell of a lot better than returning to Olympus.
I still had to find the answers—no matter how my family treated me, I couldn’t walk away from them. But in the meantime, I could enjoy this life, too. I could enjoy being part of something, being appreciated, being needed. Being more than the one who constantly made mistakes everyone else had to clean up.
We arrived in a clearing alive with chirping crickets. Tuck lingered on the edge, cloaked in darkness, and I remained behind her. Together we waited, letting the forest drown out the sounds of our breathing.
At last something rustled in the trees, and a weedy young man stepped out from the other side of the clearing. He was older than Tuck, but still gangly, as if he hadn’t adjusted to his long limbs yet. Or maybe he was just too thin.
“I know you’re here,” he said. “I haven’t got all night.”
Tuck held her finger to her lips, and we remained still. The young man paced up and down the length of the clearing, sighing often and dramatically.
“I heard ’bout your job this morning. The whole bloody village has. I’ve got buyers, so how about we stop all these games and get down to business?”
Even in the darkness, I saw Tuck’s posture change. Crooking her finger at me, she stepped into the clearing, her shoulders square and her blue eyes bright in the moonlight.
“What kind of buyers?” she said, and I followed a few paces behind.
“The kind that pay with anything you want,” said the young man with a gap-toothed grin, and he trained his focus on me. “You must be the thief I’ve heard so much about. Seems you gave our dear earl a right scare. I don’t see it, personally.”
“Yeah, well, wait until he has a knife to your throat, Barry,” said Tuck. “Now let’s talk price.”
I stayed quiet as the two of them bartered. Tuck only accepted food that would keep and things we would need to survive in the forest—clothes, weapons, the essentials. Anytime the young man, Barry, mentioned gold or silver, Tuck shook her head and steered him back toward useful trades.
There had to be something I was missing—something the Fates needed me to see—but what was it? A thought nagged in the back of my mind, but every time I tried to get closer, it moved just out of reach.
Perfect. Wasn’t as if the entire fate of my family was on the line or anything.
At last they seemed to reach an agreement, and Tuck moved back toward the trees. “Meet me back here at dawn with the goods. I’ll bring the loot. If anyone follows you, I’ll hang you from a tree using your own innards.”
Barry grinned, and there was something unnerving about it. “Couldn’t possibly turn you in, m’lady. That wouldn’t be at all chivalrous.”
He slipped back into the darkness, and as Tuck and I headed through the trees—a hundred and twenty degrees in the wrong direction—I realized what felt so wrong about this whole thing.
“He didn’t mention the pendant,” I said as we started to turn back toward camp. “He knew exactly what was taken, down to the bean, but not a word about the earl’s most prized possession.”
A line formed between Tuck’s eyebrows. “Because he knows I’d never give it up,” she said, but there was doubt in her voice.
We walked the rest of the way in tense silence, both undoubtedly contemplating the same thing. Did Barry know she wouldn’t give the pendant up? Or was there another reason?
I should’ve known—mortals weren’t that difficult to figure out most of the time, but when Tuck wasn’t willing to give me all of the information, I didn’t have a chance. Hard to put the pieces together when they weren’t all there.
Less than fifty paces from camp, I heard it—the faint sounds of rustling behind us. I froze and held up a hand to Tuck, and she stopped midstep.
Climb a tree. Never in a million years should I have talked to a mortal like this, but we didn’t have much choice. Her eyes widened, and all the color drained from her face. Do it. We’re being followed. I’ll explain later.
To her credit, she only hesitated for a split second before she soundlessly climbed the nearest tree. I didn’t have time to admire her skills—I scampered up
after her, and together we balanced precariously on the highest branch that could hold us. She clung to the tree, her nails digging into the bark, and I wasn’t sure which she was more afraid of: me or the people following us.
Four men emerged from the trees within seconds. They wore the same black as the guards from that morning, which helped them blend into the night, and the one on point held up his hand. Beside me, Tuck stiffened. And we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
“They’re gone,” whispered one of the guards, and another one nodded in agreement. The leader grumbled.
“Gotta keep looking. I’d rather not be flayed, if it’s all the same to you lot.”
“We’ll have no chance,” said the first guard. “Not without a trail.”
“Couldn’t have gone far. If we split up, we’ll have a better chance of—”
He stopped cold, and in the distance, the sound of Perry’s laughter filtered through the night.
The boys. They were sitting ducks.
Except for the fact that I was a god and had plenty of options. I took a breath, ready to divert their attention and send them in the opposite direction, but before I could tell Tuck I had it handled, she screamed.
It was an earsplitting scream, the sort that would be heard for miles, and I grimaced. There went our chances of getting out of this. The guards shouted and pointed upward, but all I saw on Tuck’s face was grim determination. The scream wasn’t out of fear; she was trying to warn the boys.
But naturally, as Tuck jumped from the branch and landed on one of the guards, the boys came running toward us. Even if Tuck had planned some sort of signal ahead of time, she severely underestimated what they were willing to do to help her.
Sprout charged through the trees, brandishing a club, with Perry and Mac close behind. He caught the first guard by surprise, bashing his kneecaps, while Perry launched himself at the second. Mac sent his elbow flying into the face of the third, and Tuck continued to wrestle with the leader.
I dropped to the ground. It was chaos—limbs flying, shouts echoing through the night, and the screech of metal against metal as the guards unsheathed their swords. Fists and knees were one thing, but they didn’t stand a chance against weapons.