Page 2 of Claimed
“No.” Stefan could feel his pulse jumping in his jaw. “The American provides a credible cover for an exploratory mission. We go in, we look around, we get out. If you—any of you—have any information you could share to help guide our search, we’d appreciate it.”
He’d pitched his voice louder to include the sea nymphs in the gallery, and they responded with the chirruping whistles of their native tongue. Hermes straightened, the grin back on his face.
“They know nothing of Ari, like always—it’s as if the boy was spirited away by another god, if you ask me, and dropped into the middle of nowhere. He’s not dead—I would have known. But he’s caught up in some darkness I can’t penetrate from here.”
Stefan nodded. One of Hermes’s many roles was as a psychopomp, guiding souls across the River Styx and into theUnderworld at the end of their lives. It had been the only reason why Stefan had held out hope for Ari to still be alive after all these months, despite the decision by the Crown to move forward with installing Kristos as crown prince in place of his missing brother. The people of Oûros needed the assurance that the royal family was stable.
However, Stefan hadn’t missed the fact that Ari’s wristwatch had turned up within a bare week of Kristos’s accession ball. Not all the gods were ready for the royal family to move on, it seemed.
“What do they know that they can share?” he prompted, favoring the nymphs with a smile. As usual, the nearest ones to him giggled and preened, male and female alike. Nymphs liked attention almost as much as the gods.
“There’s been a lot of activity in Alaçati in the past several days. Particularly south of the city. The port has been full of international traffic for some sporting event, but the event has happened before with less activity. There’s something going on beyond entertainment.”
“Any sign of Typhon?”
“No,” Hermes confirmed the chirruping dissent of the nymphs. Like any demigod of Hermes, Stefan could easily translate any language—even the native tongue of these ancient creatures—but he allowed his patron to continue. “That doesn’t mean he’s not involved, just that he hasn’t shown his hand. And they think he is involved. There’ve been deliveries to the Port Alaçati Marinathat are problematic. Live animals and maybe creatures who are not exactly animals. They’re sent into the city and never seen again.”
“How long has this been going on?”
Hermes spread his hands at the chorus of dismayed and defensive chirruping. “For months. And stop scowling. Thenymphs were looking for a golden prince, not a cargo of the damned.”
Stefan worked to school his face. “How could any of those creatures escape Olympus?”
“Same way as always,” Hermes shrugged. “The gates to Olympus are barred, but the Underworld? That’s Hades’s realm. If he lets a few nasty bits slip out on occasion, we don’t raise a fuss. They can’t survive in the modern world for longer than a few weeks at a go. The air is poison to them. But if your goal was to use them for sport, they’re dead anyway.”
“As you say.” Stefan didn’t like any of this, but he couldn’t ignore it. “And there’s been a new delivery since Ari’s watch was recovered?”
Another wave of murmurs and chirps. “Several, it would seem. Again, no clue of what, exactly, but—it’s alive. I will say, I’m looking forward to hearing of your adventure. You’ll be back with a full report, I expect?”
“Of course,” Stefan said, recognizing the dismissal in his patron’s words. He bowed his head in respect, but when he lifted it again, he was surprised to find Hermes staring at him, his dark eyes curiously intent.
“Have a care with Windsurfing Barbie,” Hermes said, already growing more diffuse as his focus waned. “She strays too close to the veil at her peril, and Hades has always had a soft spot for any fire that burns so bright.”
Stefan bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Acting on instinct, he reached out to keep the mercurial god from disappearing, but it was already too late. The forest hissed, darkness swirled around him, and his grasping, outstretched hand banged into the unforgiving iron bars of the gates of Olympus—now once more shut tight.
He turned on his heel and strode back into the night.
One
Nicki Clark inched her fingers along the thick ridge of the stone wall, grateful as always that the capital city of Oûros had a deep and abiding love for ornamental frescoes over every door, window and empty roofline. She hadn’t tried escaping the palace at this particular point before, but the descent so far had been easy.
Getting down the last several feet would be more of a trick.
“One…two…” she muttered, planting her right foot solidly as she eased her way down. She didn’t have to jump the entire distance, not yet. The wall was smoother below this point, but it was nevertheless hewn out of thousands-year-old chunks of stone. She could keep going for at least another yard, then drop. Her shoes were sturdy and her grip strong. Besides, she’d already done this a dozen times since she’d first been trapped inside the gilded palace of Oûros like a caged lion.
She shimmied downward, her heart rate picking up. She’d only glimpsed this specific four feet of wall from down the alley when she’d been out shopping the day before with Emmaline, Frani, and Lauren. It’d looked promising, but the space below her was currently hung with early morning shadows, and she couldn’t see beyond the next small jut of stone.
She swung a foot out experimentally?—
And nearly fell off the wall when it was forcibly stopped by someone’s hard grasp. A grasp that was infuriatingly familiar.
Nicki gave her foot a hard shake. “Back off, Stefan.”
The diplomatic ambassador of the royal family of Oûros—and hello, ademigod,whatever the hell that meant—held fast.
“If you insist on clambering over walls to escape the confines of the royal palace, you should at least do a better job picking your locations,” Stefan said in his cool, superior voice. When he wanted, like now, he could speak English without so much as a trace of the thick accent she’d heard him use when he spoke his native tongue. As usual, she wished he would stick to Oûrois so she didn’t have to listen to his complaints about every detail of her existence.
“So far as I can tell, there’s nothing beneath me but you. And if you have your hand on my foot, it’s not a far drop. So go away.”