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For all his arrogance, Okeanos seemed to forget that he too was dead.

“Well, perhaps neither of us would have been here had you not fucked the wrong woman.”

Hades punched Okeanos again. This time, his teeth bite into Hades’s skin. The cuts healed as quickly as they were formed.

“He’s fucking with you, Hades,” Hermes said.

“You don’t even know how much you are to blame.” The demigod laughed, though it sounded more like a wheeze.

Hades lifted his fist again, but before he could strike Okeanos, Hermes caught his arm and met his gaze.

“Allow me,” he said and turned toward the demigod. “It seems you’ve forgotten our strength. Let me remind you.”

Okeanos smirked.

“Give me your best, trickster.”

“I’ll do more than that…brother,” said Hermes, and with a wave of his hand, the chair disappeared from beneath Okeanos, and before he could fall to the floor,Hermes caught his arm and twisted it behind his back until the bone cracked, sending him to his knees.

The demigod screamed, huffing through his teeth, but still he managed to speak. “You may have strength,” he said. “But we have weapons.”

“So we have heard,” Hades replied. “Why don’t you tell us more?”

Okeanos shook his head, breathing raggedly.

“Oh, don’t stop talking now,” Hermes said, jerking his broken arm back farther. “You were just getting to the good part.”

Okeanos’s roar of pain echoed throughout the room, making Hades’s ears ring. It was a while before it dissolved into sobs.

“Nothing to say?” Hermes asked, and just as he was about to wrench the demigod’s arm again, he spoke.

“No! No! Wait!” Okeanos shouted into the floor. “Please. Please. Please.”

“Since you said please,” Hermes said.

“There’s a warehouse in the Lake District. The weapons are made there. The attacks…they were tests to see if they would work.”

“Are you saying they were…practice?”

Hermes spoke deliberately, his anger barely restrained.

“The goal was always to lure an Olympian,” Okeanos admitted.

“WhichOlympian?”

“At first…Aphrodite,” Okeanos choked out.

Hermes and Hades exchanged a glance. “Why?”

“Because Demeter ordered it. It was her price in exchange for the use of her magic.”

Hades had suspected Demeter was helping supplyweapons to Triad, but he had not expected her to have ordered the attacks on Adonis and Harmonia. Now that he considered it, though, it was not all that surprising. Aphrodite was the only reason Hades had approached Persephone that evening at Nevernight. Her challenge—make someone fall in love with you—was why he’d drawn the Goddess of Spring into a bargain that saw her visiting the Underworld nearly every day.

Hades frowned. What Okeanos said was true—he really was to blame.

“Then why Tyche?” Hermes asked, holding his arm tighter.

“I don’t know,” Okeanos moaned. “But Demeter’s war is with the Fates.”