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“By every chance,” I correct. “New adventure. Go with it.”
He grimaces. “You mean add it to the list of the other adventures?”
Jesse throws a wicked side-eye. “Gasp.Was that sarcasm, Mr. Prieto? Careful, one might think you’re starting to enjoy this.”
Arden’s nostrils flare before his pewter-colored glare resettles on me. “There are countless artistic works created in Hecate’s name since the fifth century. Naturally, I focused on common themes in pieces between that time and the Middle Ages, when the ancient gods and their religions weren’t observed in public anymore.”
“Sound theory,” I commend. Out of the three of us, he probably had the most daunting job. Narrowing down his searches likely had to happen at some point.
“There are commonalities, of course. The most notable is that of the goddess in triplicate form, due to her affiliation with the moon and its three main phases. She’s also the guardian of crossroads, so the multiple form allows her to watch out for travelers. There are usually torches in her grasp, further enhancing the protective theming.”
“That thread runs through a lot of poetry and literature too,” I add. “She’s praised at great length by Hesiod, though a lot of scholars have taken exception to the gushing. Still, a Homeric poem from the same period refers to her as ‘tender-hearted and bright-coifed.’”
“Well, I’m a real sucker for those bright coifs,” Jesse murmurs. “How about you guys?”
Arden jogs a brow. “Was thatsarcasm, Mr. North?”
I clear my throat and jump back into it. My instincts about our time limit, while unfounded, are still an incessant throb in my veins. “The ancients didn’t have the corner on the mentions. She’s brought up again in many AD texts. Ovid, then Shakespeare, are only two writers with stories that feature her.”
“The Persephone angle,” Arden supplies. “That has to be one of them. It’s popular in vases, paintings, drawings…if the ancients knew how to mass produce T-shirts, it’d be on them too.”
“Give me a minute.” Jesse holds up his phone and begins thumbing in a search. “I’m sure there’ssomethingfun out on the interwebs…”
“Her connection to Hades’s part-time consort is definitely one of them,” I concede. “And the more well-known one. But there’s another story that’s just as intriguing. Hecate, who was originally the child of Titans, actually sided with Zeus in the gods’ war with the Titans. She also fought on his side to help overthrow the giants in the Gigantomachy. Because of that loyalty, my father honored her with a high rank in Olympus and made sure that every deity in the place gave her the same respect.”
“Which means she must have been thrilled to welcome you as much as Kara,” Jesse says, still scrolling. “No wonder you know the tale so well.”
I drop my head in an openly curious look. “So you’d think.”
His thumb freezes an inch over his phone screen. “You mean Hecate didn’t tell it to you? I mean, at least a dozen times?” He scoops Arden into his baffled moment. “Seriously, tell me if I’m wrong. Wouldn’t she find a way to slip that into the convo at least once? Twice? Everyhumandoes it. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve had to hear about what a wild child my mom was in high school. I can give you every literal detail about her and Freddy G in the orchestra pit during rehearsals forOnce Upon a Mattress—”
“We believe you,” Arden cuts in, much to my relief. “But we still don’t believeyou.” He jabs a finger in my direction. “Are you truly saying that Hecate didn’t mention anything about her exalted standing with your father?”
I let my telling pause serve as an obvious answer. “To be honest, I’m grateful she left it alone. It’s been rough to wrap my head around the subject as it is. Her trip down reminiscence road would’ve been…awkward.”
In reward for my honesty, I get thelookfrom Jesse. The one that instantly filets me, as if he knows exactly what part of my psyche to study for the complete truth. I glare back without hesitation. On this particular go-round, I have nothing to hide from the guy.
“Well, extra props to the goddess, then,” he finally says. “She didn’t have to go there for personal glory.”
“Unless there were already other things on her mind.”
I drop another indebted nod to Arden, acknowledging the statement that aligns our train back on the topical track. I wish my follow-up could surpass my gloomy mutter, but it doesn’t. “Things we’re no closer to figuring out than before.” I pull out a chair, turn it backward, and drop into it with my arms folded across the top. “Seems Hecate’s only been bested by Florence Nightingale, Mother Teresa, and Julie Andrews for global kindness icon.”
“Kindness but ferocity,” Jesse notes. “You want something done to change the world, and even the stars, give the job to a determined female.”
“Ferocity and determination—but not violence,” Arden volleys. “Not things like war. I just looked at thousands of images of the goddess. And yes, in most depictions, she’s brandishing torches or daggers. Many times, both. But not once is she in attack mode. Her weapons are there to help guide and defend. Her poses are proud and noble. Her expressions are neutral and collected.”
As he says it, his own face goes for the opposite. I already envision the guy booking a three-hour facial to get rid of his scowl lines.
Jesse adds a similar grimace, without the please-suck-my-pores melancholy. “Well…bloody hell.” He jogs his chin toward the incubus. “Pardon the pun.”
Arden dips a diplomatic nod before walking over and rejoining me at the table. At once he drums the surface with a pair of agitated fingers. “So we’re still no further to figuring this out.”
Jesse sighs. “I really wish I could be the white knight here, kids. But all my research results don’t add up to ten minutes from either of you. There’s no constellation named after the goddess, though the Asteroid Hekate 100 was discovered in 1868 and is nearly a hundred kilometers in diameter. And Arden’s statement is correct that the goddess is also associated with the moon, but most of those correlations only talk about the rituals of her worshippers when a new moon is coming. Random trivia? Her spiked head wreath is sometimes cited as the inspiration for the Statue of Liberty, though in some cases it’s a crown of stars.”
He probably has more than that one factoid, but Arden beats me to a blithe quip about an overall trivia challenge. Jesse pounces on it, ordering Arden to open his phone and look up the dive bar over on Eighth with the trivia console that he regularly beats me on.
But I’m already past the point of hearing them.
