word we. She seemed to be saying that she and I shared this experience—the loss of an only sibling. But she had suffered so much worse. My sister couldn’t die. I couldn’t lose her permanently.
Then, after a moment of disorientation, like I’d been flipped upside down, I realized she wasn’t talking about me losing someone. She was talking about Artemis—Diana.
Was she suggesting that my sister missed me, even grieved for me as Thalia grieved for Jason?
Thalia must have read my expression. “The goddess has been beside herself,” she said. “I mean that literally. Sometimes she gets so worried she splits into two forms, Roman and Greek, right in front of me. She’ll probably get mad at me for telling you this, but she loves you more than anyone else in the world.”
A marble seemed to have lodged in my throat. I couldn’t speak, so I just nodded.
“Diana didn’t want to leave camp so suddenly like that,” Thalia continued. “But you know how it is. Gods can’t stick around. Once the danger to New Rome had passed, she couldn’t risk overstaying her summons. Jupiter…Dad wouldn’t approve.”
I shivered. How easy it was to forget that this young woman was also my sister. And Jason was my brother. At one time, I would have discounted that connection. They’re just demigods, I would have said. Not really family.
Now I found the idea hard to accept for a different reason. I didn’t feel worthy of that family. Or Thalia’s forgiveness.
Gradually, the funeral picnic began to break up. Romans drifted off in twos and threes, heading for New Rome, where a special nighttime meeting was being held at the Senate House. Sadly, the valley’s population was so reduced that the entire legion and the citizenry of New Rome could now fit inside that one building.
Reyna hobbled over to us.
Thalia gave her a smile. “So, Praetor Ramírez-Arellano, you ready?”
“Yes.” Reyna answered without hesitation, though I wasn’t sure what she was ready for. “Do you mind if…” She nodded at me.
Thalia gripped her friend’s shoulder. “Of course. See you at the Senate House.” She strode away into the darkness.
“Come on, Lester.” Reyna winked. “Limp with me.”
The limping was easy. Even though I was healed, I tired easily. It was no problem to walk at Reyna’s pace. Her dogs, Aurum and Argentum, weren’t with her, I noticed, perhaps because Terminus didn’t approve of deadly weapons inside the city limits.
We made our way slowly down the road from Temple Hill toward New Rome. Other legionnaires gave us a wide berth, apparently sensing we had private business to discuss.
Reyna kept me in suspense until we reached the bridge spanning the Little Tiber.
“I wanted to thank you,” she said.
Her smile was a ghost of the one she’d had on the hillside of Sutro Tower, when I’d offered to be her boyfriend. That left me in no doubt as to what she meant—not Thank you for helping to save the camp, but Thank you for giving me a good laugh.
“No problem,” I grumbled.
“I don’t mean it in a negative way.” Seeing my dubious look, she sighed and stared out at the dark river, its ripples curling silver in the moonlight. “I don’t know if I can explain this. My whole life, I’ve been living with other people’s expectations of what I’m supposed to be. Be this. Be that. You know?”
“You’re talking to a former god. Dealing with people’s expectations is our job description.”
Reyna conceded this with a nod. “For years, I was supposed to be a good little sister to Hylla in a tough family situation. Then, on Calypso’s island, I was supposed to be an obedient servant. Then I was a pirate for a while. Then a legionnaire. Then a praetor.”
“You do have an impressive résumé,” I admitted.
“But the whole time I’ve been a leader here,” she forged on, “I was looking for a partner. Praetors often partner up. In power. But also romantically, I mean. I thought Jason. Then for a hot minute, Percy Jackson. Gods help me, I even considered Octavian.” She shuddered. “Everybody was always trying to ship me with somebody. Thalia. Jason. Gwen. Even Frank. Oh, you’d be perfect together! That’s who you need! But I was never really sure if I wanted that, or if I just felt like I was supposed to want it. People, well-meaning, would be like, Oh, you poor thing. You deserve somebody in your life. Date him. Date her. Date whoever. Find your soul mate.”
She looked at me to see if I