“You have to help us,” Ernie pleaded. “We have to find Zeus if we’re going to stop the mess Hera is making of things.”

“No, no, that’s not how it works, and you know it.” Hermes shook his head, his lean body shaking. “I’ll get my messenger license revoked if I do that.”

I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “And if everyone dies because you aren’t willing to break a rule, what then? The virus is sweeping the world, Hermes. My mother was killed”—oh, those words hurt, and I struggled to keep going, but I forged on—“and I need you to take me to Zeus. Please, he’s the only one who can help us stop this madness.”

Hermes cringed and shook his head. “It’s not that easy.”

Panacea made a soothing motion with her hands, as if to calm him down. “Hermes, these are desperate times. You can take a single person with you. That is allowed with your messenger license, you know that.”

Hermes cringed further. “But what if Hera finds out?”

“No buts, and Hera won’t find out,” Panacea said. “Artemis, Hephaestus, and I will stand with you if there is any backlash. But I doubt there will be once Zeus understands how bad things have gotten. Alena will show him what he has to do, and Hera will be dealt with.”

“He’s a coward,” I said, and Hermes flinched as if I’d struck him. I wasn’t going to apologize.

“No, he’s a survivor,” Yaya said. “As we all are to some degree or another.”

I didn’t like her defending him, mostly because I didn’t think he was anything of the sort. “More like an opportunist,” I muttered, but Yaya still heard me and gave me a dirty look.

Panacea motioned for me to follow her, but a figure in the doorway stopped us. Smithy stood with a handful of clothes. “Here, they are my wife’s, but I believe they will fit you.”

I nodded, somehow feeling like I’d betrayed him. “Thank you.” I took the clothes, and our hands brushed. He paused, and his eye searched mine, intense and serious.

“Are you sure?” He asked the question, and it had so many layers, three simple words.

Was I sure? Not really, but I knew that I’d been held back my whole life. The last thing I needed was another person telling me I wasn’t capable. That I couldn’t do what I set out to accomplish.

“Yes, I’m sure. You . . . You’ve been a good friend, Smithy. I can’t thank you enough for that.” I knew he deserved more than that. I closed the distance and looked up at him, close enough to kiss. He stared down but didn’t touch me. “Another place, another time . . . I think . . . I think it would have worked. But not here, not now with the cards we’ve both been dealt.”

He nodded, the whisper of a smile on his lips. “Yes, I think you’re right. The vampire, do you think he will come for you?”

I closed my eyes, my heart tugging at me with the thought of Remo. “I don’t know. I can’t count on it. I can’t. Not when so many lives depend on me making the right choices.”

Smithy’s mouth twitched again, but his eyes were sad. “Well, I think you’re going to have to decide.”

“Not for a while.” I stepped back, clutching the clothes to me.

The smell of cinnamon and honey floated to my nose, and I closed my eyes. Not now, not here. No wonder Smithy had looked at me that way.

A soft footstep, and then a hand I knew all too well turned me around gently. I kept my eyes closed. “Remo, what are you doing here?”

“Begging forgiveness, for you to understand I was trying to keep you and your family safe.”

I still didn’t open my eyes. I knew what would happen. I’d forgive him, and he’d have gotten away with treating me like a second-class citizen. “Not good enough.”

Panacea and my yaya gasped together, and Smithy chuckled. “That a girl, make him suffer.”

Remo grunted as if I’d hit him. I opened my eyes and backed up, right into Smithy. He didn’t touch me, but he was at my back. He had my back, just as any good friend would. I stared at Remo, drinking him in.

Remo looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. I mean, if vampires really slept, something I wasn’t sure of entirely. I took in his dark eyes rimmed in violet flickers, the curve of his lips, the silver fangs he had pierced through his chin, the short cropped dark hair; I took it all in and tried not to think about how much I wanted him to hold me. How much I wanted him to tell me that I could do it, that he believed in me. He’d been the only person in my life since I’d been turned who’d not doubted me. And I wanted him to hold me so I could cry and grieve my mother, truly letting out the sobs that even now built in my chest.

Remo was a safe place, and I’d lost it. All because he didn’t want to tell me the truth about the vampire council, because he thought to keep me safe by hiding the truth. I steeled my back, dropped my towel, and jerked the clothes on a piece at a time. “What do you want, Remo?”

“You killed my brother.”

Well, there was that. “It was a busy day. I baked a cake too,” I said.

Behind me Smithy groaned. “Maybe don’t piss off the vampire. I know you could take him, but do you really want to go there today?”

Smithy had a point, but then again that wasn’t the point I was trying to make. If Remo had been with me, then I wouldn’t have been the one to kill his brother. He could have done it himself and ended the territorial dispute and sent the vampire council back without having them get involved. Maybe.