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“Magic,” Daisy answers, completely deadpan.
“It’s a mystery,” I say, when I’m done laughing. “Someone should look into the two of them.”
I mean it as a lighthearted joke, but midway through, I realize I mean it. And I realize how much of a joke it is, because nobody is going to research Uncle Hades and Aunt Persephone. They wouldn’t agree to be an experiment. I wouldn’t agree to be an experiment.
Unless, in being an experiment, I could figure out what’s going on with Apollo. The solution can’t be anything like Uncle Hades and Aunt Persephone, though. They’re in love and married, not desperately pining for each other and pretending to be engaged.
I say that only as an example. I am not desperately pining for Apollo. And he kissed me in full view of other people earlier and said we’re engaged like he meant it.
So it’s not all pretend.
The afternoon settles into a familiar pattern. Castor and Pollux emerge from Poseidon’s house and become nuisances in the backyard. Poseidon chases both of them around until they’re all in serious danger of jumping into the pool. My dad laughs at the side. Uncle Hades rolls over onto his stomach and drops his face into his arms. Aunt Persephone strokes his hair, her face caught between empathy and a smile. Uncle Hades is clearly complaining in a way that’s meant to make Aunt Persephone laugh, but she still feels for him, because all his complaints have a kernel of truth.
“Time for us to intervene,” I tell Daisy and Calliope. We go downstairs and instigate a discussion about what we should have for dinner. Cook must sense that there’s a conversation happening about food, because he emerges from the tidy guest house across the yard and comes scowling into the family room.
“Have I been fired? Is that it?” he grumbles. “Forgotten? Left to rot?”
“No!” Aunt Ashley rushes over to him and puts her arm through his. “We would never leave you to rot, Cookie.”
“If we left you to rot, we would leave you to rot at sea,” Poseidon calls.
“I quit,” Cook says.
“I formally re-hire you,” Ashley says. “I’m really hungry, so—” Her voice trails off as she walks him into the kitchen. Hercules kisses Daisy on the cheek, then goes after Ashley and Cook.
Castor and Pollux get sent out with huge trays of pigs in a blanket and veggies and dip and cheese and crackers less than fifteen minutes later.
Pollux whisks one in front of his dad and pulls it away at the last second. “Cook says you can’t have any,” he says with a fake sympathetic frown. “Because you were an?—”
Ashley sticks her head out of the dining room. “Pollux, don’t you dare call your father an asshole.”
Poseidon laughs out loud.
“Impertinent bastard,” Pollux finishes, his eyes wide. “I didn’t say that! He said that!”
“You’re fired,” Poseidon shouts in the direction of the kitchen.
Cook’s reply sounds something like an affectionate fuck off.
Apollo’s the last one to come inside, and every single person in the family room watches him cross the room and take a seat next to me on the sofa.
At first, I think he’s going to pretend he hasn’t noticed, but then he takes my hand in his and slowly, conspicuously, threads our fingers together and settles our joined hands on his thigh.
“Staring is rude,” he stage-whispers.
Daisy widens her eyes. Castor stares harder.
“Sorry,” Poseidon says, obviously not sorry at all.
Hercules comes out of the dining room with a carrot stick in his hand. He bites through it with a crisp chomp.
“What are we looking at?” He follows everyone’s gaze to me and Apollo, then narrows his eyes. “What did you guys do now? Get married?”
“Not yet,” Apollo answers, and that sets off another round of laughter.
The sunset is an orange-pink blur when I go in search of Apollo. He didn’t say much at dinner. He stepped out of the family room a few minutes ago. Today’s test run of being apart went well. I didn’t have any fevers, and he didn’t text me about any, so I’m assuming we made it through the day without any mystery episodes.
I should be comforted by that, but it feels like a purposeful lull. The calm before the storm. I don’t trust the quiet.
