They dashed down the subway entrance. Hearing an uptown train approaching, Selene jumped the turnstile without missing a stride. Theo, on the other hand, stopped to fumble in his pocket. Before she could drag him bodily over the turnstile, he’d found his MetroCard and swiped through. Together, they jumped through the subway doors just before they slammed shut.
Panting so hard he could barely speak, Theo sat with his head slumped between his knees. Selene was breathless, too: not from the exertion, but from Dennis’s revelations.
Theo finally looked up. “Artemis, huh?” He smiled a little.
Selene felt a strange rush in her veins. She realized with a start that she’d never heard her real name on Theo’s lips before. It terrified her that she liked it.
“I don’t know what gave him that idea,” she said lightly.
“Maybe the fact that you’re six feet tall, run like the wind, carry a bow, and look like a goddess.” Theo smiled tipsily. “There’s power in naming, you know. That’s why the gods had so many epithets. I think I’ll call you Artemis, the Eater of Much Pork, the Owner of Scary Mutt, the Protector of Professors.” He was flirting with her, she realized. She felt the heat in her cheeks and watched a corresponding flush creep up Theo’s neck.
Dennis had called him a Makarites—“Blessed One.” In ancient times, the Athanatoi used the term for heroes who earned the gods’ favor through extraordinary deeds of bravery, such as Theseus or Heracles. Since the Diaspora, a Makarites earned the title not through battling supernatural monsters but through his or her own ability to understand the gods on a profound level—whether through study or artistic endeavor. Besides a brief surge in the Renaissance and another in the Neoclassical period, when artists brought Greco-Roman mythology to life for a new audience, Makaritai had been exceedingly rare. With her penchant for avoiding mortal entanglements, she’d never even met one before. But she knew that when they did appear, the gods were irresistibly drawn to them. It would explain how Theo wound up with an Olympian for a roommate, she realized, and why I can’t seem to stay away from him either. Last night in the park, perhaps I let him hold me not because of who he is, but what he is. And was his attraction to her equally involuntary? Of course he desired her—no thanatos stood a chance when a goddess came into his life. Maybe he doesn’t actually like Selene DiSilva at all, she considered, fighting back a surprising pain in her chest. Maybe, like Acteon and all the others, he’s just blinded by Artemis. Last night, I commanded him to come to me in the waterfall. What choice did he have?
She let out an exasperated groan, and Theo looked over at her quizzically. Then the blood drained from his face. His smile vanished. Selene followed his gaze to the livid welt encircling her wrist like a tattoo. “He hurt you,” Theo said, his voice tight. “I know Dennis is dangerous. I should never have let you come with me to his place.”
“You didn’t let me, remember? It was my choice. It’s fine. It’ll fade.” Sooner than you think possible, she thought, and for reasons I can’t bear to admit. She crossed her bare arms so her wrist was hidden beneath her armpit. But would she prefer to be weak again? Could she bear it? She looked around at the subway car as if she’d never ridden in one before. The mortals sat, half-asleep or jittery with energy, despondent or ecstatic but mostly apathetic. Above their heads, ads for light beers and teeth whitening competed for space. Ways to make a temporary existence a little less painful. To improve the constantly deteriorating human form. What would she give to save herself and her mother from such a fate? For an instant, she imagined herself at the riverside, watching Helen Emerson pray for justice to a goddess who refused to hear her pleas. Then she imagined slicing through Helen’s soft flesh. A wave of nausea rushed from Selene’s stomach to her throat. She leaned her elbows on her knees and swallowed, hard.
“Selene, are you okay?” Theo’s hand, warm on her upper back, rubbed in gentle circles.
“Yeah.” She straightened up, her decision made. “Just making sense of everything.”
Theo withdrew his hand and gave her a wry smile. “Good luck. I feel more confused than ever.”
“That could be because you’re drunk.”
Theo laughed sheepishly. “Have you forgiven me?”
He asked so easily. He couldn’t know that forgiveness did not come easily or often to the Punisher. And yet even as she started to say she couldn’t, she realized she already had. She looked away and nodded.
“Good.” He held his arms out straight before him. He looked absurd: The cuffs of her flannel rode high on his wrists, the buttons strained across his chest, and her belt did nothing to hide the stain on his still-damp trousers. “You didn’t happen to grab my shirt while you were up there? As a peace offering?”
“No. Sorry.” But she wasn’t. Somehow she liked seeing him in her shirt. “But here.” She handed him his satchel and pulled his wallet from her pocket.
“Thank God,” he said, checking over the contents of his billfold.
“You certainly have interesting taste in friends.”
“Dennis is a real asshole. Always was. I should probably report him to the cops, but one case at a time, right?”
“Well, at least we learned something from him.”
“About my own stupidity?”
“We already knew about that. But now we finally know exactly why the cult’s using human sacrifice. They’re not just translating symbols into literal acts. They’re actually following a more ancient version of the Mystery. When I went back, Dennis told me all about it. Turns out the priestesses in Eleusis used to kill off a yearly Corn King to appease the Earth Goddess.”
“A Corn King? You mean a man chosen to represent the fertility of the harvest? Fascinating. None of the extant sources mention that—then again, Dennis was always uncannily good at this sort of thing. It fits into an old theory by James Frazer in The Golden Bough—that most Greek myth is derived from cult ritual involving the annual killing of a king.” Even drunk, Theo still sounded like a professor. “It’s an early version of what becomes the Christ story. The king takes on the sins of the community and dies in their stead so that everyone else can prosper. The theory’s been widely discounted, though.”
“Dennis sounded pretty convinced. He also claimed that at some point, the Mystery evolved to a more sanitized version, replacing human sacrifice with Dionysian worship and kykeon—which he thinks he figured out how to brew. That’s what you were drinking up there. If the hierophant also knows the recipe, that may explain how he’s controlling his mystai so effectively.”
Theo whistled appreciatively. “Who knew a drunk stoner like Dennis could be so useful? Ruth was right to remind me about him.”
“Ruth?”
“Helen’s roommate. I saw her at the memorial service this morning.”
“How was that?”
“Devastating.” He chewed his lip as if to stop himself from saying more.
An unfamiliar discomfort nibbled at her, somewhere deep in her chest. He caught her staring.
“It was a long time ago,” he said, as if he’d read her mind. “Helen and me. I’m not pining for a lost love, just a lost friend. I want to find out who’s doing this.”
“Theo…” She didn’t know how to tell him that she knew exactly who the hierophant was.
“If you’re about to tell me to get lost, don’t,” he said, his smile belying his stern tone. “And don’t run away again. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” He threaded his fingers through hers. Selene looked up into his eyes, bright and green and incredibly warm, and she knew exactly whom Apollo would choose as his Corn King.