Achilles glares at us. “Can you be trusted to sit still and not fuck yourself up further while I go get some food for us? Or are you going to be vaulting out of windows and fighting the Minotaur?”
I roll my eyes. “It was a trial. I would say I got out pretty clean considering that I was facing down Theseus.”
“Yeah, guess you did.” He suddenly grins. “Saw his knee. Nice job, princess.”
I flush in response to his praise. He offers it so freely, without a single string attached. I don’t quite understand it, but I like it a lot. “Thanks.”
“Go.” Patroclus leverages himself slowly to his feet. It’s painful to watch, but he’s already moving better than he was earlier. He won’t be in the morning, but that’s a fight for tomorrow. “Get plenty of ice, too.”
“Of course.” Achilles gives him one last long look and leaves the room.
Patroclus shakes his head. “Come on. If we’re not sitting docilely and waiting when he gets back, he’s going to take it as evidence that we’re in worse shape that we claim, and he’ll be hollering for a second opinion from another doctor.”
I smile a little despite myself. “Gods forbid.”
“You joke, but Achilles goes into mother-hen mode the same way he goes into a fight. There’s no winning.”
“It’s kind of cute, don’t you think?” I lean carefully against him and prop my head on his shoulder. It’s nice. Really nice.
He snorts. “‘Cute’ is one word for it, I guess.”
Achilles comes back through the door less than ten minutes later. He rakes a gaze over us but seems satisfied. “Well, that’s something.” He sets a giant box on the table, filled with several ice packs and more food than I know what to do with. “Let’s eat.”
It’s so easy to be with them. Even though I’m tired and I hurt and my heart is still aching from Paris’s poisonous words, I’m more at ease here with these two men than I have been in longer than I can remember. I’m not worried about my lack of makeup or my relaxed appearance or about them trying to use my careless words as weapons to launch at me when I least expect it.
It’s nice. More than nice. It’s an indulgence I know better than to allow myself to enjoy. Yes, we all passed the second trial and granted our little trio a reprieve, but the end result is still the same. One of us will be Ares. The others will lose out on a dream they’ve spent far too long chasing.
“Helen.” Achilles’s voice pulls me out of my head. He’s watching me closely. “What Paris said in the van—”
Some of the warm feeling in my chest dissipates. “It’s not important.” I refuse to admit that Paris scares me. He pokes holes in my confidence, in my emotional security, and then stands there with that little smile on his lips when I lose control and rage. There was a time when I reassured myself that at least the damage was confined to the emotional, as if that makes it better. The truth is that he’s done lasting damage to me, both mentally and emotionally. I take a deep breath. “He is not important.”
Patroclus doesn’t look like he believes me. “It’s not right how he talks to you.”
“No. It’s not.” I can see the question on their faces, and maybe that’s why I answer without making them ask. Why were you with a man like him? “He wasn’t like that when I first met him. He was…nice.” Humiliation flames my face. I was raised in Olympus. I should have known better than to believe a nice facade, no matter how complete. But I was so starved for kindness that I’d fallen right into Paris’s arms. “It was the whole frog-in-boiling-water thing. I didn’t even notice he was cutting away at me until it was almost too late.”
Achilles cracks his knuckles. “Want me to kick his ass for you?”
I smile despite everything. “That’s not necessary. I can fight my own battles.”
“Thank you for telling us, Helen.” Patroclus considers me for a moment and finally says, “Paris won’t win. He’s the weakest contender, and with Hector eliminated, he doesn’t stand a chance.”
I wish I believed that. The problem is that Paris shouldn’t have managed to get past the second trial. He works out enough to keep what he’s decided is the ideal body type, but he’s not an athlete or warrior like the other champions. There’s absolutely no way he should have pulled off being the first through the door. When it comes to combat? He might not win in a fair fight, but Paris has never been in a fair fight even once in his life. How he ambushed Atalanta more than proves that.
“Underestimating him is a mistake.” When they both look like they’re going to argue, I wave it away. It’s easier to focus on this—the tournament, the champions—than it is to think about what the rest of the future holds. Not to mention we have no answers about the assassin or why they were removed from Athena’s jurisdiction. The only person who can give those answers is Zeus, but he won’t hand them over without a fight, and I can’t do that until after the tournament is over. I can’t imagine I’m going to be happy with those answers. I rarely am when it comes to things my family would rather keep hidden.