I have a new diagnosis for you …
Theo imagined some shrink with an Austrian accent, peering excitedly over the rim of his glasses.
First you exhibited all the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Then manic depression with suicidal ideations. And now… The shrink would nod wisely and stroke the little gray goatee on his chin. Classic masochism.
Ah, come on, Doc. It’s not that bad …
The shrink would gesture to their surroundings with a pensive frown.
Then tell me, Mr. Schultz, why are you sitting in a temple to the Olympians if you just want to forget them all?
Theo stared up at the sky through the round oculus in the domed ceiling, searching for an answer he already knew: In all his many visits to Rome, he’d always made a pilgrimage here.
The Pantheon.
The great Roman temple to all the gods, still intact nearly two thousand years after its construction. Within its enormous, vaulted sanctuary, he’d felt most in touch with the ancient world. For much of his life, that meant he’d felt most fully himself. It had been a place of peace and meditation to him—the closest thing he knew to a sacred space.
The massive twenty-foot-tall bronze doors remained firmly locked this late at night, but his time with Selene had taught him a thing or two about sneaking in through side entrances.
Only a few small lights illuminated the interior of the temple. In the dimness, he could easily ignore the crucifixes and oil paintings of saints—reminders of the building’s current function as a Catholic church—and fall under the spell of the original Roman design. The geometric pattern of green, gold, and red porphyry across the floor. The soaring coffered dome of concrete, a masterpiece of Roman engineering. At the very apex, a large circular opening to the sky: the oculus—the eye. In the daytime, as clouds drifted by against the backdrop of pure blue and the occasional bird swooped through like a messenger from the heavens, he’d always thought it a window onto the gods themselves. Now he knew better.
Theo lay down on the floor directly beneath the opening. The marble cupped him gently, worn concave from centuries of libations poured by the Sky. He stared straight up into the infinite black of space. The stars, he knew, told the stories of Artemis and Zeus—the heroes they blessed, the monsters they created. Yet from inside the temple-turned-church, Theo could see only a smattering of pinpricks, the constellations as broken and hidden as the lives the gods now led.
Is this what I want? he wondered. To no longer know the gods’ stories? To imagine them as lost figments and fractured tales rather than breathing, feeling flesh?
When he heard the side door creak open, he knew it was no night watchman. He could smell the sudden breath of pine on the summer air. Her appearance didn’t surprise him. She was the Huntress; she’d always track him down, no matter how far he ran. Perhaps he’d even come to the Pantheon because he wanted to be found. Because he needed to hear the words from her own lips: I had a choice to love you—or to break you. I chose the latter.
He wondered whether he should sit up. Stand, perhaps, so he could look her in the eye. But what was the point?
To his surprise, Selene lay down beside him on the floor, her body a careful foot from his.
She didn’t speak at first, and he didn’t turn to look at her.
“Saturn is still unconscious, but we’ve got him under lock and key,” she said at last. “And my father’s resting back in our apartment.”
She said “our” apartment, Theo noted. Hers and Flint’s.
“I have my father back in my life. Alive and safe. That’s because of you.”
“Don’t thank me,” he retorted. “I didn’t go there for him.” He left the rest unsaid.
They fell back into a tense silence that he steadfastly refused to break. He could hear her breathing, its slight hitch the only sign of her distress.
“I’m not going to apologize,” she said finally.
Of course not.
“I was trying to protect you,” she continued. “If I’d held on to you that night above the harbor, we would’ve both died. I let go to save you. I was ready to die for that.”
The thought of her in his arms, making that fateful decision, instantly grabbed at his heart. He knew something about dying to save the one you love. He took a deep breath before saying quietly, “I know.”
“Then why are you so angry?” she asked. Her voice had sunk to a defensive murmur. He didn’t believe for a second that she didn’t know the answer to that question, but he couldn’t help himself from laying it all out for her anyway.
“Because when the Fates smiled on us both and spared your life, when you washed up on the shores of New Jersey or Staten Island or wherever it was, you could’ve come to me and saved me again.”
“You were saved.” From the corner of his eye, he watched Selene prop herself on an elbow to stare at him. “I made sure of that. Scooter kept tabs on you for me. I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you.”
At that, Theo sat up. She did the same, looking at him with an expression more indignant than apologetic.
“Except I died, Selene! And I don’t even mean today, for God’s sake, although that too. I mean when I woke up in a hospital bed after crash-landing in Lower Manhattan and I remembered I’d never see you again and I couldn’t save you—I died. I couldn’t feel anything except pain. For months. I didn’t care about my friends, my students, nothing.”
“That’s not true, the arrow—” She broke off, looking suddenly ill.
“What arrow?”
“Nothing.”
He stared at her until she relented. He’d learned that technique from her.
“I asked Philippe to make sure you didn’t suffer too much, that’s all,” she muttered.
“You told the God of Love to shoot me with one of his damn darts?”
“It worked!” she insisted. “I watched you look at Ruth and you seemed better. I thought you’d learn to love her and forget about me.”
“You watched.” He wanted to scream, but the words came out as cold and hard as anything Selene had ever said. “You had to have your way with my emotions even then.”
“I was trying—”
“You thought I’d love Ruth.” He couldn’t let her speak. He needed to release his own words first. “I wish. She’s everything I thought I ever wanted in a partner. Kind. Brilliant. Generous. Thoughtful. Loyal.” He spoke the words like accusations, and he knew that to Selene, they would be. “But if you thought a god’s powers would make me forget about you, then you were wrong. I didn’t find any pleasure in life until I decided I could bring you back. That’s what’s kept me going these last months. Not Ruth. You.”
“Theo,” she began, her face suddenly full of pleading. He knew she understood what she’d done, but he wanted to press home the point. To wound her with an arrow as unerring and terrible as her own.
“I learned my lesson from Orpheus and Eurydice: True love requires trust. By coming back to life, I think you finally accomplished what you never could’ve by dying. If you could sit there and watch me grieve, knowing it was in your power to save me, and decide to walk away, then you no longer deserve my love.” He got to his feet, feeling incredibly weary. “I don’t need a love dart this time to help me get over you, Selene. You’re doing a damn fine job all on your own.”
Before he turned away, he caught a glimpse of her stricken face. For all his brave words, he still felt the pull of her grief. But this time, he obeyed the pull of his own instead.