And something dawned on Keras.
Meadow had used Lisabeta’s blood to cast an illusion, but it had been weak enough that it hadn’t worked properly on all the guards.
“We need to speak with Zeus.” He grabbed Enyo’s hand and turned with her, towards the road that led up to the temples clustered on the steep side of Mount Olympus.
His gaze fixed on the largest of the white columned temples, one that occupied the top of the mountain and looked down on all the others and the city.
Only he didn’t need to go there.
Zeus appeared before him.
It had been a long time since he had seen his uncle, but he still wore the same crisp white thigh-length robe beneath his fine golden armour, and white leather boots that bore matching gold plates that covered the length of his shins. The delicate band of twisted gold that circled his head matched his eyes, glittered just like them as Zeus looked at him, a faint smile curling his lips and causing lines to bracket them and his eyes.
“Keras. It has been too long.” His deep voice rolled over him, as warm as Keras remembered, heavy with a note of authority that had the four guards behind him and everyone else in the vicinity dropping to one knee.
Including Enyo.
Zeus turned warm golden eyes on her and leaned to one side, causing the soft waves of his thick brown hair to fall down over his crown as he peered past Keras. “Rise, Enyo. You do not need to bow to me.”
His uncle was in a suspiciously good mood.
Normally, Zeus demanded all bowed to him.
Keras took a closer look at him, noticed the worry lines on his worn face and that shimmer of uncertainty in his eyes as they shifted back to meet his.
“I tried speaking with Hades, but your father is being his usual stubborn self.” Zeus straightened as Enyo came to stand behind Keras.
Now Zeus’s mood made a little more sense. He hadn’t wanted to deliver bad news to Keras and thought Keras had come here to speak with him about his father, maybe even pick Zeus up on the fact he hadn’t been able to convince his brother to do his bidding.
“It is not why we came.” Keras stepped forwards and held his right arm out. Zeus gripped it near his elbow and he did the same. “But thank you for speaking with him.”
Zeus nodded, a curious edge to his eyes as he looked from Keras, to Enyo and then his guards and the gate. “Why did you come if not to speak with me about your father?”
Keras relayed what the guards had told him and his theory about how the furie had used the blood of Lisabeta, a daemon with the ability to cast powerful illusions, to cloak her and Marinda, and most likely a witch and Meadow’s daemon bodyguards. Keras doubted that the enemy had managed to find more valkyries to serve them. It was more likely that Meadow had brought her daemon entourage with her.
Zeus’s face darkened throughout Keras’s report, a troubled edge entering his golden eyes as he frowned.
That troubled look soon became one of anger.
Keras knew why.
It was easy for Meadow to get from here to the Underworld through the gate that linked Olympus to his father’s realm.
Zeus had allowed the enemy to slip unnoticed into Hades’s realm, and his father was going to be furious.
He needed to warn his father, although he doubted that Meadow would be foolish enough to mount a direct attack on Hades with only a few daemons and possibly a witch as her allies. Even with the spells protecting the daemon brutes, the furie wouldn’t win.
There had to be another reason she had risked everything to get to the Underworld in this way.
“Something is troubling you.” Enyo’s soft voice invaded his thoughts and he blinked and looked at her. “What is it?”
Keras dropped his gaze to his feet, his eyebrows meeting hard. “Meadow, the furie, risked a lot to use this method of entering the Underworld. A direct attack on my father with such a small force will only end in failure. It would have been better for her side if she had opened the Tokyo gate and forced it to remain open. It would have weakened my father.”
“Perhaps they seek to meet with Nemesis and her forces?” Enyo’s gaze drilled into him, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at her, couldn’t tear his eyes away from the pale flagstones as he mulled that over.
“That’s logical, and makes the most sense.” He pressed his hand to his stomach. “But it doesn’t feel right.”
“If the reports Enyo filed are correct, Nemesis does have a strong force behind her. Teaming up with them is the only logical reason the furie would endanger herself by using these gates.” Zeus’s deep voice rolled over him, a confident note in it that backed up what Enyo had said and made Keras want to believe they were right.
But his gut said they were wrong.
Why would Meadow enter the Underworld this way if not to meet with Nemesis and attack his father though?
He frowned harder as he reached for a reason, as he pieced everything together and looked at it from all angles.
It didn’t make sense, because it went against what the Moirai had foreseen. The future was changeable, but an event of this magnitude wasn’t something the three fates were likely to get wrong, and if he and his brothers had altered the course of the future to a new one, then the Moirai would have foreseen that and warned his father by now.
Meadow must have come directly to the gate to Olympus in Greece as soon as she had managed to capture Marinda. Marinda had to be the reason Meadow had made this move. Together, they were stronger, formed a cycle of power that increased whatever abilities they had at their disposal as they passed them between each other. Marinda didn’t have to be compliant in order for Meadow to use that cycle of power to her advantage, or take whatever powers Marinda might have gained by being in contact with Keras and his brothers.
Including the power to open a gate.
The only logical move that made sense to Keras would have been Meadow taking Marinda to Tokyo to breach the only gate between the mortal realm and the Underworld, just as the Moirai had foreseen.
His eyes widened.
“What is it?” Enyo moved a step closer.
“If the future had changed then the Moirai would have seen it.” He looked at his uncle, and Zeus nodded. “They would have told you or my father immediately. So the future has remained unchanged. The enemy will breach a gate between the mortal world and the Underworld.”
Enyo looked from Zeus to him. “But the Erinyes have the power to open the gate, and they are both in the Underworld. Do you think there is another enemy in the mortal world who could open a gate for them? Do you think Meadow plans to convince Calistos to open a gate for her?”
Keras shook his head. They were both solid theories, but they were both wrong.
He looked her in the eye. “I think the future the Moirai saw is different to how we’ve interpreted it. We thought the enemy would breach the gates from the mortal side… but there are two sides to a gate. What if the enemy isn’t going to open and damage the remaining gate from the mortal side, but from the Underworld side?”
Enyo’s jade eyes slowly widened. “It makes sense. You and your brothers have closed all but one gate in the mortal world and the enemy must know you will protect that fiercely. They know there is little hope of them being able to breach it from the mortal side where you all are. They know you are exiled to that realm too, so unlikely to interfere with them if they are in the Underworld.”