You failed first, Apollo. You know you failed, I hear it in your breathing as you crouch behind that gutter waiting for our attack. Your heart broke the first time a Utopian turned down Mars, but you have done the same. You could have escaped, taken the waiting shuttle to the Moon where Saladin and I could never touch you. But you knew Seine Mardi was in danger, and you have a conscience, and you think you could not live with yourself if you abandoned her. You were never strong enough to destroy this world to save your better one. You bound your fate to hers, and once my Saladin and I have steeled ourselves with a last kiss, we will burst out from behind this dumpster and face you two in battle. You and your earthbound lover must either slay us and survive together or die here, on Earth, failure Apollo, and never touch the stars. And now it turns out they are all as weak as you are. Grounded by conscience, the Utopians are not brave enough to let billions die while they hide away to safeguard everything. They won’t abandon this world to destruction, not even to protect all better ones. They bind their fate to Earth’s. No second chance. Utopia will join the war.

“Do-on’t,” my voice cracked. Are you surprised I stayed silent so long, reader? I was not silent. I was screaming through all this, screaming beyond what breath and blistered throat could sustain, but the Delian’s black lion had muffled my screams with its kind paw, until exhaustion weakened grief enough to grant me words. “Don’t be Troy.”

Somebody has to be.

Not them. Not them! They could have been distant Phaeacia, guarded by the black and airless sea that lies between them and the bloody fields of Troy. Or like Olympus! They began this conflict, hold the heavens, but have no need to fight in it. Let them descend from time to time to aid some side, or mourn some passing hero, but suffer nothing worse than fleeting wounds and sorrow. You know, my master, what story was in the mind that conceived this war, whether you blame Bridger or Apollo. The side that gives the first offense, the one that breaks trust and hospitality, that steals Helen and all her treasures, that side unites all the Greek forces against it. That is Troy. That side will fall. We cannot afford for it to be their towers that topple when their towers touch the stars. Don’t be Troy. Someone, I beg you, make them not be Troy.

Fear not, Mycroft. They gave those towers away.

“Achilles…” I choked out. That was the someone to pray to, not our distant Maker; He had already given us the key. Achilles can stop this. He can choose them. The side that has Achilles can’t be Troy.