The Iron Queen (Daughters of Zeus) - By Kaitlin Bevis Page 0,53

me.

“If we want to break the cycle, shouldn’t we not send our youngest most promising fighter this round? Why don’t we do something different? Athena, you’re the oldest. Why don’t you give it a whirl?” Laughter was evident in Ares’ voice.

“Sending Persephone only solves our problem because she can’t possibly survive the fight.”

“I shouldn’t be hearing this,” Aphrodite said. “Besides, I’m bored. Surely there are more demigods to rescue or something.”

“I need to check on my people,” Apollo said.

“Hey Demeter! Hades!” Aphrodite raised her voice. “Has anyone seen them?”

“Not since the trident incident.” That soft voice again, so low I had trouble hearing it. Who was that?

I waited a beat before calling “Yeah?” and walking into the kitchen. There was nothing in their faces to suggest they’d just been talking about sacrificing a seventeen-year-old girl so they could all continue to live freely. It was an effort to keep my voice even, but I managed. Aphrodite met my gaze with a knowing glance, and I suspected I had her to thank for the conversation happening unshielded in the kitchen. Charm could be subtle.

“I’m so bored.” She gave me a flirtatious smile. “Are there any other gods or demigods or anything for me to track down?”

“Want to track a prophet?” Zeus kept manipulating us like chess pieces on a board, but his moves were too good. No mortal prophet would have enough experience to predict anything useful, but an immortal prophet would do the trick. I knew of one, but couldn’t for the life of me remember his name.

Demeter walked into the kitchen and grabbed a pitcher of water from the refrigerator. “Did someone call for me?”

“Can you teleport me home?” Apollo asked. “I keep getting calls from my people—” He broke off at Demeter’s withering stare, then seemed to find the courage to continue. “I just need to explain that I’ll be gone for a bit. They get antsy when they don’t know where I am.”

“Tiresias.” I remembered. “Zeus gave him immortality, right?”

“That old pervert?” Athena demanded. “He’s immortal?”

“Wait, the cross dresser?” Ares asked at the same time.

“He’s completely insane. There’s no way Zeus would be able to get anything useful out of him,” Apollo said.

“Beats sitting around here doing nothing.” Aphrodite tossed her red hair over her shoulder with a grin. “I’ll find him.”

“I’m going,” Melissa announced.

I turned, surprised. I hadn’t noticed her sitting at the table.

“Me too,” Ares, Adonis, and Hephaestus said at the same time.

“He’s not far from my church,” Apollo added.

I’d forgotten Apollo was Tiresias’ patron. Demeter and I exchanged glances. He hadn’t always treated his prophets well. It would be easier to talk to Tiresias without him, and if Apollo planned to return to his church with any kind of fanfare, maybe Tiresias wouldn’t see Aphrodite coming for him. Because the gift of prophecy came from Apollo, the visions were biased. Cassandra told me once she hadn’t even seen the Trojan War coming because she kept having visions of Apollo crashing his new chariot.

“You should have a service,” Demeter suggested.

“Really?” Apollo sounded surprised.

“Oh yeah, that’s a great idea,” I agreed. “Tell them what’s going on. We need worship now more than ever if we’re going to overpower Zeus.” I spoke without a trace of sarcasm. We did need the worship. Orpheus had been writing blogs and doing interviews and concerts all over the place to try to bring our levels up. Apollo’s followers would only help.

“Then shouldn’t they be praying to me?” Ares asked. “Since, you know, I’ll be the one fighting him.”

“If they pray to Apollo, and he swears his powers over to you, it shouldn’t make a difference.” Artemis’ voice was low, and she looked at me with laughter sparkling in her eyes. I knew how she felt. Apollo having his own cult of drugged-out hippies was never going to stop being funny.

“Hey, yeah!” Apollo enthused. “We’ll have, like, a really big service. Let me go get it all set up.”

Demeter smiled. “There’s safety in numbers. I’ll come with you. Hades?”

“We can come,” Artemis volunteered, grabbing Ryan’s hand. “I’d love to see your—” she snickered “—church.”

Ryan shrugged. “Um, sure.”

I studied him for a minute. He’d taken the news of Artemis’ divinity pretty well. Most humans needed more time to process our existence than he did. I shoved my hair out of my face. “I need to swing by the Underworld and check in. But I’ll catch up with you guys.”

Demeter nodded, then turned her attention to Melissa. “I’m granting you travel rights for