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The moon overhead is split by the branches, then whole. Split, then whole. A trick of perspective. The moon is always whole. Nothing has managed to touch it yet. Not enough to break it apart.
There are no signs that Artemis has been here, which is to be expected. This isn’t a game we play because we’re unevenly matched. This is a game we play because nobody else comes close. Artemis doesn’t give herself away unless she wants to be given away, so I’m aware—with every step I take—that I might be walking into a trap.
Then again, I might find her before it springs shut.
I listen for Artemis the same way I have since the day I came to Zeus’s house. To my father’s house. Sometimes, when I’m starting to wake up, I can smell the contrast between the life we ran from and the one we landed in.
Sometimes, I’m sure that when I open my eyes, I’ll be back where I started, with a man’s voice in my ear and a chain rattling stubbornly in the next room.
Zeus’s house smelled like chocolate when we walked in. It was Christmas Eve, and the air was saturated with sugar. They’d been baking cookies. Cook, who came with Poseidon from his ship and considers it a mortal insult if anyone suggests that he stop cooking for all of us, had made chocolate peanut butter fudge.
What if I’d let her arrow touch me that night?
What if I’d jumped at the last moment and let it hit my chest?
Would that have fixed everything?
Either way, it doesn’t matter. I didn’t let it touch me. I closed my hand around it, looking into Artemis’s eyes. It felt like a challenge, like everything else felt like a challenge. The soft beds and the clean clothes and the welcoming smiles were practically daring us to refuse them like a mirage in a fairy tale.
Did I refuse the arrow when I caught it in some ironic twist of fate?
I don’t know.
In the moments afterward, there was heat. In my blood and in my muscles and in my face. Not like an episode. Like excitement. Like a thrill.
The arrow didn’t have anything to do with what happened after.
Unless it did, and the world is more mysterious than we ever could have guessed.
The breeze changes directions and whispers across my face. There’s a hint of Artemis in it. Sweet. Clean. Pure.
Not ruined, like me.
I follow it.
Other people would probably consider this a disadvantage to Artemis in a playful hunting scenario, but it’s only a disadvantage if it’s one-sided.
It isn’t.
Not for the first time, I wonder what Artemis follows when she senses me.
I can only imagine it’s dark, like oil in the ocean. A stain you can’t get out, but you would if you could.
I’m getting closer.
It’s not a trail in the underbrush or broken branches that tells me so. It’s the energy in the air, growing stronger but somehow—somehow—using the wind as a disguise.
At the edge of a clearing, I stop and breathe as slowly as possible.
Which is exactly the moment my phone rings.
Buzzes—I’m not the kind of madman who uses a ringtone—and it can only be someone in my family, Delphi, or a person calling my private work number.
“I’m not a man who much cares for waiting,” the senator greets me.
“And I’m not a man who much cares to be rushed.” I don’t bother to mask the irritation in my tone. He’s ruined my stalking.
“Unfortunately, you’re out of time for dilly-dallying over your cares. When should we expect you at the airfield? My pilot is fueled and waiting to take you to Mociar.”
