There wasn’t a dry eye in the place—oh, that’s right. They were underwater.
But Angel knew tears when she felt them, and they were what was sliding down her cheeks. And what she tasted when she kissed Logan. “I love you, too,” she whispered against his lips. “I never lied about that.”
“Then it’s settled.” Zeus clapped his hands and a giant golden abacus with different colored pearls floated in front of The Council.
Angel looked past Logan as Zeus swam over to it.
What was the head god up to?
She caught Mariana’s smile before her sister tucked her chin to her chest and draped her long hair in front of her face.
She had a feeling Mariana knew exactly what Zeus was going to do—and she had a feeling she was going to be eternally grateful to her sister.
“In the system of checks and balances that we use On High, two negatives—” the god slid two small black pearls to the side—“equal a positive.” He slid a pink pearl on another row.
“Angel offered herself in Michael’s place. Knowing Ceto as we all do, that was certain death.” He slid one of the black pearls back toward the middle. “Then we have Logan. Mortal, Human Logan who dared to venture back into Ceto’s palace to save the woman he loves. Again, almost certain death.” The other black pearl slid home.
“Two sacrifices.” He tapped the one small pink pearl. “One positive left.” Then he slid the pink pearl back.
“The precedent’s already been set. Noble sacrifice earns Immortality. Reel will testify to that.”
Angel looked at her brother, who held his wife’s hand to his lips. Reel had earned Immortality for sav¬ing Erica’s life, then declined it to spend the rest of his with her.
“And if someone’s Immortal, they cannot be hooked, killed, or destroyed. Which is how Ceto survived her own seaquake. She and I had a little chat after she slith-ered out of that trench she buried herself and half the continental shelf in. I believe I’ve put the child issue to rest with Ceto. She’s on indefinite community service at Artemis’s orphanage.”
Zeus brushed his hands, and the abacus disappeared. Then he raised his hands, palms down, toward where Angel and Logan sat, and closed his eyes. “So, by the power vested in me, I now bestow Immortality upon you, Angel Tritone, you, Logan Hardington, and any progeny thereof.”
He opened one eye, then the other, nodded, then clasped his hands behind his back, and faced The Council. “Rod, I believe all that’s left for The Council to do is decide a fitting punishment since a death sentence is now a non-issue.”
Thorsson tossed up his hands and Santos grumbled something.
Henri, however, had something to say. “Humans are the worst punishment I, personally, can imagine. Filthy air, crowded living arrangements, ignorance of other civilizations… I say we give Angel the job she so desperately wants. Talk about a fitting punishment. And marriage—especially to a Human—is just one more shackle.”
Not in her mind. To her, Henri couldn’t have given her a better punishment. Logan, Michael, and the free-dom to do what she wanted.
This trial had turned out better than she’d ever expected.
Q
Hera was waiting for Zeus when he returned home. “You just had to do it, didn’t you?” She crossed her
arms and tapped her foot beneath the saffron toga he’d given her for Mother’s Day.
Zeus grabbed a bottle of ambrosia out of the icebox
and wiped it across his forehead. “It was fascinating, sweetheart. They’re finally flexing their Free Will muscles. It’s only taken them two millennia.”
Hera huffed and walked over to her prized hyacinths. She picked up the spritzer and watered first the purple, then the pink, then finally, the white. His wife was a creature of habit. In some things. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to simply observe. You just had to play deus ex machina to the hilt, didn’t you?”
One of her habits was to keep his feet firmly planted in the clouds.
He took a swig of the ambrosia. “Don’t get your lau-rel leaves in a tither, Hera. Logan found a way around the statute with no help from me. Give me a little credit for knowing my creations. I just showed up to bestow the Immortality. Besides, you can’t tell me you don’t love a good happily-ever-after.”
Hera’s spritzer hit the window ledge.
“Whose creations?” She turned her head so slightly that the long braid down her back barely swayed, but it was all the more effective for its lack of movement.
Oh shit. “Um, our creations, dear. Ours.”
She nodded and picked up the spritzer. “That’s better. So, you gave Ceto something to make her happy and keep her out of trouble, and you saved a Mer, a few Humans, and their civilizations.”
“Don’t forget coming up with a fitting punishment for those two sharks.” He tried to keep Smug out of his voice, but Hera knew him too well.
Surprisingly, his wife laughed. “Yes, sticking A.C. and Harry in a Human aquarium was a stroke of genius. How long will they be there?”
Zeus let Smug out. “I figured five selinos ought to teach them a lesson. Three if they’re on their best behavior.”
Hera sniffed. “That I’d like to see. So, what’s next on your agenda?”
Zeus picked up the latest edition of Natural Geographic. Easter Island. Hmmm. Every so often Humans revisited the origins of the statues. He won-dered what Mariana thought of that.
Smart girl, that Mariana.
“I think we ought to take a vacation.” He thumbed through the article to the map and ran his finger across the twenty-seventh latitude, west of South America. “How does Chile sound?”