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She turned in a circle, eyes roaming over his space.

He’d forgotten how much he liked being here, how safe it felt compared to the club, which was always alive, always on.

This space was quiet.

The walls were warm in color, mostly covered by shelves, packed haphazardly with books. There was a simple linen couch and a glass coffee table opposite a fireplace, and on the mantle were more books. The windows were lead-paned but covered with heavy drapes. He rarely opened them, rarely wished to look at the world he saw so often.

“Where are we?” Ariadne asked.

“My home,” he said.

“You live here?”

“Yes, I live here,” he said. “Surprised?”

“Well, you always seem to be at Bakkheia.”

He didn’t tell her that it had been a month since he’d been here.

“Why are we here?” she asked, facing him. “Why not go back to the club?”

“I don’t want to be there right now,” he said.

It was too much—too loud, too bright, too crowded.

She took a breath and shrugged off the jacket he’d draped around her shoulders, then took a seat on the edge of the couch. Dionysus watched her. He could not help it. He wanted to know what she was thinking.

“What happens now?” she asked.

Fuck me. Of course she was thinking about their next move. What were they going to do now that they knew Medusa had last been seen near the ocean, near Poseidon’s realm?

“I don’t know,” he admitted. He needed time to think, time to process. The question was, did they have time?

“Can we trust Michail not to tell anyone who we were looking for?”

“No,” said Dionysus.

She stared at him. “Then why didn’t you kill him?”

Dionysus raised a brow. “Easy, Detective. I thought you were opposed to killing?”

She glared at him. “It is not as if Michail is a good guy.”

He didn’t argue because he agreed, but then Dionysus had a hard time believing anyone was good in this world. Everyone was capable of bad things.

“It does not matter if Michail lives or dies,” said Dionysus. “People will still hunt Medusa.”

“But have they gotten as far as us?” she asked.

“It’s hard to say, but I can assure you they have likely not gotten any further.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“Because everyone who’s in search of her will either abandon the cause once they discover Poseidon is involved or find themselves at the end of a glorified pitchfork.”

“Including you?”

“I admire that you think I could go head-to-head with Poseidon.”