Discord's Apple

Merlin and Arthur had placed themselves between Evie and Alex. The pool of blood was growing sticky on the ground at her feet. Arthur still held his sword ready, though Evie didn’t know what good he thought it would do. He said, “You aren’t handing her over to Hera, then?”

That made sense only if Alex’s pleas for her to stay away from Hera were some kind of reverse psychology. He seemed far too desperate for that.

Alex looked stricken. “No, I’m not.” His tone was flat, as if he knew he wouldn’t be believed.

Merlin said, “Hera is holding her father. We were coming to tell you.” He gave Evie a nod.

“Is he all right?” she said.

“Yes, for now. They’re at the cemetery.”

“I have to get him back—”

“Not by yourself,” Merlin said. “You should return home. It isn’t your place to face the likes of her.”

“Then what am I supposed to do? Sit around and wait?”

That was what she’d been doing for the last week—waiting for her father’s health to fail, waiting for the world to end in a rain of bombs. Waiting to give up.

Arthur said, “My lady, he’s right. You’d be safer.”

He was talking to her like she was some character in an epic. Some wilting lady in a tower. “Why do any of you care what happens to me?”

Merlin huffed like it was obvious. “You need help. Also, you are the heir to the Keeper of the Storeroom. Your place is there. It’s your destiny.”

She didn’t want a destiny. Not like that. She only wanted daydreams, tucked safely in the pages of her writing. She looked beseechingly at Alex, like she thought he would know better—he’d read Eagle Eyes; he knew the extent of her destiny.

“I have to get my father back,” she said firmly. It was his destiny they wanted to protect.

Arthur drew a handkerchief from his pocket and cleaned the blood off Excalibur’s blade. “And you will. With our help.”

“We were just talking about that,” Alex said. “We need to distract Hera, get her away from Frank. I can go to her and find out who she has guarding your father, and what we need to do to free him.”

He must have had his own agenda, his own reasons for wanting to keep the apple from Hera. Which returned Evie to the same question: Could she trust him?

Arthur sheathed the sword in the scabbard on his belt. “I think Merlin and I can overcome them now. There were only three of them in the car.”

“Easy odds, I think,” the old man said, cracking his knuckles.

“Just like the old days.”

“Hold on a minute,” Alex said. “You don’t know who these people are, what they can do. This is Hera, the goddess.”

Merlin regarded him. “Sinon of Ithaca. Hellenikouei?”

Alex looked startled. “Yes.”

“Then you’re from a land that worshipped her.”

“I don’t worship her. Give me half an hour. I can find out what’s happening—I can spy for you.”

“And if you betray us, we can kill you?” Arthur said, indicating Alex’s stomach, amused.

Alex smirked. “Evie, I only want to help you.”

He looked as earnest as Mab would, sitting on the front porch watching her leave for the grocery store: large brown eyes, hopeful and shining. All she knew of him—besides what she’d seen, which she had to admit was just as earnest, just as loyal—was what she’d read in Virgil. That told the story of how he was the consummate actor. He could make anyone believe anything. He convinced the Trojans to break their own walls, to bring in the treacherous horse.

He was either lying or he wasn’t.