Page 85 of Deathless
"She's not a weapon," Jasper said.
"No," Zeus agreed. "She's a child who needed protection, training, and the truth about the dangers she faces." He reached over and straightened the first aid kit on the coffee table, aligning it with the edge. "I've never lied to you, have I?" he said to Mila.
She shook her head. Then she took a step closer to Zeus. A small step, but anyone paying attention would read where her center of gravity fell.
"You're twisting it," I said.
"I'm providing context." Zeus picked a piece of lint off his cardigan sleeve. "You think I'm the villain. But from her perspective, you're the armed strangers who broke into her home covered in blood." He paused. "Who's the threat in this scenario, Diego?"
He was right. We'd come through the door as exactly what Zeus had warned her about.
"She has a family," I said. "My mother. My people. A whole clan who'd take her in and love her and never ask her to be a weapon in exchange."
"Your people live in a tunnel," Zeus said, "and they were attacked. How many did you lose?"
I curled my hands into fists on my knees. “Too damn many.”
Mila shifted her weight toward me, just barely, like she kept recalculating where safe was.
Zeus leaned forward and wiped a smudge off the coffee table with his thumb. "Tomorrow I'm throwing her a birthday party," he said, inspecting the clean spot. "Witnesses from the Directorate will formalize her position as my heir."
"Your heir," Jasper said.
"Someone has to lead when I'm gone." Zeus softened as he looked at Mila. "Someone who understands that power isn't violence. It's control."
He stood. "You're welcome to attend. Eight deserves to have her father there."
"I'm not leaving without her," Jasper said.
Zeus smiled. "I'm not asking you to leave."
Mila looked at me, then at Jasper. "Do you want to see my room?"
The hope in it wrecked me.
"Yeah, pequeña," I said. "We'd love to."
She grabbed my hand and pulled. I followed. Jasper came behind us, and when I glanced back his good hand hovered at his side. He wanted to reach for her. I could read it in the angle of his wrist.
Her room was at the end of the hallway. She pushed the door open and went in ahead of us.
It looked like a kid's room. She had a bed with a purple comforter and stuffed animals lined against the pillows. Books filled a shelf, colored pencils scattered across the desk, and drawings covered the walls.
My throat closed. This was what I'd wanted for her. A real room, a real bed, a place where she could be safe.
Then I looked closer at the drawings.
The walls showed tactical diagrams, guard rotations, and building layouts. She'd marked escape routes in red. The stuffed animals sat at even intervals along the bed, serving as line-of-sight markers. The books on the shelf mixed fairy tales with strategy texts, Sun Tzu next to Grimm.
My stomach turned over. The kitchen had hurt. This made me sick.
Jasper stood in the doorway and took it all in. He went blank the second he clocked the drawings. I stepped close until my shoulder pressed his, and he leaned into the contact.
Mila went to her desk and picked up a wooden puzzle box. "Patéras gave me this. You have to solve it to open it." She held it out to Jasper. "Want to try?"
Jasper took it. He shook, just slightly. He turned the box over, examining the mechanism.
"There's a trick," Mila said. She climbed onto her bed, cross-legged, watching him. "You have to think about what you can't see."
