He glanced up in feigned surprise. “Oh, that’s the why. We’re still on the how. My power in your veins allows us to communicate, although not for long. You used most of it chastising poor Aeslinn—”

“What you aren’t using to attack me!”

He smiled slightly. “But not to kill you. Not yet. I thought we might revisit our previous conversation first.”

“Why, if I’m going to be a corpse in a minute?”

“That, my dear, is entirely up to you. Come, sit, let’s have some tea.”

A proper tea service appeared on the table, much like the one that Gertie and I had shared.

I stubbornly continued standing.

“You do so remind me of your mother,” he sighed.

“Don’t you dare to speak of her!”

He looked surprised again, this time genuinely. “Why? She wronged me, not the other way around. But I bear her no animosity. She paid for her crimes, as all must in the end. But it would be a shame for you to share her punishment.”

“You didn’t seem to think that way on the river.”

He shook his head. “That little stunt was Aeslinn’s idea. One that I do believe he is regretting.”

“Is he dead?”

“No, although he’s in quite a bit of pain. He’s also furious.”

“What a pity.”

“Not at all.” He paused to take a puff or two, little ones, to get the cigar started. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry; it wasn’t him bleeding out on the bed. “He made the mistake of underestimating you. He’s paying the price for that.”

“You don’t sound too disturbed.”

He shrugged and blew a smoke ring skyward, enveloping and then leaving behind a falling leaf. “Should I be? At least his hubris gave me the chance to get a look at you.”

“And you couldn’t do that before?”

He smiled around the cigar, showing big, strong, white teeth. He was pleasant looking, a grandfatherly type, the kind you’d smile back at on a sidewalk somewhere if you didn’t know him. It bothered me.

Villains should look like villains, like Ares, the towering, red embodiment of hatred. Nobody looked at him and thought ‘what a nice old gent.’ Of course, nobody who looked at him thought anything, because they didn’t live long enough.

But still.

Zeus, on the other hand, set off no warning signals. A fact that set off warning signals all by itself, because I’d known guys like this before. Tony, my old guardian, was fat and jolly and charming in his own way, when he felt like making the effort.

Right up until he wasn’t.

I’d seen him have that same pleasant smile on his face while watching somebody be ripped apart.