Page 118 of Ungodly Rich

He wondered, briefly, how she knew to ask him. Did the Aegis give her some kind of instinctive sense of his powers, or had all this exposure to magic finally made her aware of its existence, if only subconsciously?

Or maybe she was asking out of sheer desperation. Turning to the only other friend she had here, aside from that mortal woman.

“I can help,” he promised. “Meet me in the lobby in half an hour.”

Hades didn’t seem all that surprised to find Hermes at his door in the middle of the night. He was already dressed, in crisply ironed pants and a cotton shirt that Hermes could tell was deceptively expensive. Or maybe Hades slept in those clothes, Hermes thought, if he slept at all.

“I need you to follow through on your promise,” Hermes said without preamble. “Can you get Julia off the island?”

Hades started briskly down the hallway, leaving Hermes no choice but to fall into step alongside him. He pulled his phone from his pocket—why did Hades’s phone work when the rest of theirs weredown?—and began typing a message. “I’m summoning Charon. He’ll be at the ferry station in ten minutes.”

“Charon?”Hermes spluttered. “As in, the boatman who ferries souls to the Underworld?”

“Is there an Underworld?” Hades asked conversationally, philosophically. “Despite what the mortals say about me, I’ve never seen it. I just send them to their final resting place, whatever that is.” He shrugged, still walking at a fast clip. “Charon has transported mortals through this realm before. Orpheus. Ernest Hemingway. Theodore Roosevelt.”

Hermes recalled that those mortals had all very nearly died—from attempted suicide, or plane crashes, or bullets in their chest—only to survive, forever changed by the experience. Hopefully Julia’s encounter with Charon wouldn’t leave her scarred.

“You’ll be with her the whole way,” Hades added, as if reading Hermes’s thoughts. He tossed over a set of keys. “When you get to the mainland, find the black Ferrari in the ferry’s parking lot.”

Hermes grinned. He’d always wanted to drive Hades’s chariot.

Julia had been admirably brave through the whole thing: a little surprised by the grizzled ferryman who met them at the docks, but she hadn’t complained when they rode a motorboat through the storm, or when Hermes tugged her into the Ferrari and began speeding down the empty highway. The Atlanta airport was far enough inland to still be operating the international flights, the ones with the largest planes, so that was where he’d taken her.

At the departures door in the predawn light, he’d handed her a small bag. “You’ll need this,” he told her, through the surprising roughness in his throat. It wasn’t much, just a new passport and a couple of credit cards under the same name—illusion magic, flimsy stuff. “Be careful,” he warned. “The passport will only scan a couple of times at best.”

Julia’s eyes had widened in surprise, but then she’d leaned across the dashboard to give him a fierce hug. “Thanks, Percy.”

Wherever she was now, at least she was out of danger. Far from Hera and Aphrodite and all their meddling.

Hermes looked at Zeus, ready to finally do what Julia had urged.You should stand up for yourself,she’d told him.You deserve more than the scraps from their table.

“I want my position guaranteed. A position of greater influence than I currently have,” Hermes declared.

Zeus held out a hand in a gesture that said,Go on.

“I am sick of being treated like the hired help. When you make decisions, I want to be part of the process. Maybe that means a role in the company, but more than that, I want my position in the Olympic Pantheon secured. I want your word that I will never be demoted to make way for some other god or goddess.”

Zeus’s eyes had widened as Hermes made his list of demands. At last, he said, “You’re asking for a great deal. I assume your information is very valuable indeed.”

“Trust me, it is,” Hermes assured him.

“I don’t trust anyone except my wife,” Zeus said with the flippant attitude of a man who had no idea what his wife was capable of. “But why don’t you go ahead and share this secret. If you’re right, and it’s of critical importance, then I will grant all that you ask.”

One thing about Zeus, he never went back on his word. Hermes knew he would do as he promised.

“Julia isn’t just any mortal. She’s the daughter of your former lover Claire Henningsen. She changed her name after her aunt and uncle legally adopted her.”

Surprise flickered over Zeus’s features. “Claire had a daughter, but she died.”

Hermes took a deep breath and explained the whole sordid tale. How Julia had been protected by a fragment of the Aegis: a ring, which she still wore on her right hand. How she remembered a man who’d dated her mother that final summer, a man who brought toys to life and danced with his feet hovering above the ground.

How Hera had set the fire that killed Claire.

“Hera wouldn’t dare,” Zeus said automatically.

“Julia says that a woman had been at the house that very evening, shouting at her mother,” Hermes said gently. “I suspect that Hera set the fire out of rage. By accident, maybe, but she set it nonetheless.”

Zeus looked across the room to where his wife was bickering with her two sons. Anger roiled through the room like a thundercloud, as if the storm that had been gaining force all week had now moved inside the ballroom.