“Yeah, well, thankfully that was in another life that neither of us remembers,” Henry said, and erased something so hard he almost broke his pencil.

“I remember some things,” Andie whispered. “Like holding a weapon.”

“But not holding me?”

“Gross!” Andie shouted, and threw a pillow. “Don’t say those words together. ‘Holding’ and ‘me.’ Makes my stomach want to crawl out through my ear.”

Henry laughed and threw the pillow back.

“I think your sister is pissed at me,” Andie said. She tossed the pillow into the air and caught it to her chest. “I asked Hermes to teach me to use a sword.”

“Why would you do that?”

Because it felt like the natural thing to do. Because it felt like she needed to know. “And I’m quitting hockey.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Thanks for your input. I’ll file that away under ‘none of your business.’” Andie rolled over and sat up. “Don’t you want to learn, too? Don’t you want to remember, I don’t know, some of the things?”

Henry shut his calculus text and reached for his hooded sweatshirt.

“I live in this century. I’ve got plenty of things to do here to keep me busy.”

“But do you feel it?” she asked quietly.

“Do I feel what?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t,” she said. “Don’t lie. Whatever’s happening to me has to be happening to you, too.” Old instincts bled into her muscles and got stronger every day. The past was loose, and it lingered like an itch down deep. She didn’t want to be Andromache. But she was becoming a new Andie all the same.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Henry stood, and Lux got off of the bed. “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”

“Liar,” she said. The way he held his shoulders, the way he carried himself, was all subtly different. He looked stronger, more muscular. Maybe even taller. It was Hector, breaking the surface, the shadow of a thousands-of-years-dead soldier settling on Henry like dust.

“I don’t know how you can stand it,” Andie said. “I feel like I have to do something, or I’ll explode. Like there’s too much of me in my own body.” She thought he tensed at that, but she wasn’t sure. He was always so damn stoic. “You’re not going to say anything?” She reached out and shoved him.

“Knock it off, Andie.”

“Knock you off, maybe.”

“Not in this life.” Henry grinned in spite of himself. “And not in the last one, either.”

She sprang up off the bed and got him in a headlock. Lux whined as they tried to hook into each others’ legs. When they toppled onto the bed, he barked and quit the room with an unhappy groan. His tail thumped against the door.

It was nothing new, the way they wrestled. It felt normal and natural. When she finally twisted loose, she felt Henry holding his breath, and his heart hammered in his chest. Maybe she really was stronger after all.

*   *   *

Athena stood in the driveway and looked up at her house. The house she’d bought to keep up the façade of a happy family: sick brother and concerned sister, taking time off from college. The house she’d bought so she could stay close to Cassandra.

On the walk back from the bus station, slush-water crept up the legs of her jeans almost to the knee. Her feet were soaked. Two days away from the desert and she could barely conjure a memory of its heat, though yellow dirt still clung to her jacket and rucksack.

“Hoot.”

She looked up and saw yellow eyes and a clicking beak.

“Hoot yourself, little one,” she said, but the weight of the bird’s eyes got her moving and she walked toward the light thrown by the nighttime windows.

“I wondered how long you were going to stand in the driveway,” Odysseus said from the sofa as she passed the living room.

“You didn’t see me.”

“No, but I knew you would stand, debating whether or not to come back. I’m right, aren’t I? How long? A half hour?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“In your mind maybe. Gods are horrible judges of time.”

She walked into the dining room and set her rucksack on a chair. She cringed at the sprinkling of sand it left on the upholstery. Hermes would hiss like a goose. Odysseus walked in behind her and leaned against the table.

“How is he?” She looked down the hall toward Hermes’ bedroom.