of energy bringing itself back from the dead. I contemplated a run to the kitchen, but decided I’d dip into the box of granola bars I kept in the filing cabinet in my sitting room instead. Buying myself a filing cabinet had been silly, since most of my paper files had been destroyed by the sprinkler system in my old office, and I rarely kept much in the way of paper files anymore. But it made for a handy pantry, and I grabbed a chocolate bar for dessert while I was at it. It wasn’t exactly the healthiest meal I’d ever eaten, but it was damn convenient.
Crunching on my granola bar, I opened up my laptop and went in search of something, anything, to keep my mind occupied so I wouldn’t keep thinking about what had almost happened to me this afternoon. It was worth a try anyway.
I was just finishing my chocolate bar and trying to resist the urge to go foraging in my filing cabinet again when there was a knock on my door. I had the cowardly urge not to answer. I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, wanted to lose myself in something completely mindless—not that I’d had a whole lot of success with that so far.
“Come in,” I finally said with weary acceptance.
The door opened, and Anderson stepped inside. No doubt he would have let himself in whether I’d invited him or not. I closed my laptop and laid it on the coffee table, then stood up, scattering a bunch of granola crumbs all over the place. I brushed at my clothes to dislodge any remaining crumbs, giving the task way more attention than it deserved. It looked like I was going to have to talk about all the things I didn’t want to talk about after all, and if I could put it off for a few seconds, I was all for it.
Finally, I was as crumb-free as I was going to be, and I raised my head to look at Anderson. I expected to see pain, anger, and even sorrow, but what I saw on his face was none of the above. Instead, I saw a frozen, almost lifeless calm. I’d seen him run both hot and cold with anger, but I’d never seen anything quite like this before, and there was something so forbidding about it I had to fight the urge to take a step back.
“I came to offer my apologies,” he said, and his voice was off-the-charts weird, too. Completely flat and noninflected. Inhuman, almost, though not exactly godlike, either.
“Umm . . .” I couldn’t think of what to say. The man who stood in front of me wasn’t Anderson, at least not the Anderson I knew.
“I was blind to Emma’s faults, and you almost paid an unspeakable price for it.”
He was saying the right words, but without any emotion behind them it was hard to tell if he actually meant them or not.
“A-are you all right?” Stupid question, of course, because he was obviously anything but all right. I realized his face was so immobile he wasn’t even blinking, like his body was some kind of automaton. Was the Anderson I knew even in there?
His head moved slightly in a sad imitation of a head shake. “No. I am far from ‘all right.’ I am dangerous in my current condition.” There was still no emotion in his voice, like he was reading off cue cards. “I cannot afford to feel anything just yet. I will try to act more like myself when we meet with Cyrus tomorrow.”
I shivered, more freaked out than I wanted to admit by the talking husk Anderson had left behind. “We’re meeting with Cyrus?”
“One of his Olympians has broken the treaty. We will meet to discuss the consequences.”
Not a conversation I particularly wanted to participate in. “Do you really need me—”
“You are the injured party. You are coming.”
Not much chance he was going to be flexible about that. “You’re not going to kill her, are you?” I didn’t know what this faux-Anderson was capable of. Maybe in his current state he wouldn’t mind letting the world know just who and what he was.
“No.”
He turned to leave, and I should have just let him go. But of course I had to open my big mouth again.
“So what exactly are you hoping to accomplish at this meeting?”
After what Emma had tried to do to me, I should have been screaming for her blood. I should