Hera stood on the highest balcony of the Palace of Zeus and counted the reasons she could not sleep. The boy she had made was on Earth, growing stronger every week. He was the son Zeus did not know he had fathered, and the son fated to pull Zeus down from his throne. Hera had arranged it herself, in a night of anger she now could not take back. She gripped her scepter until the lotus petals caught the torchlight and threw color across her hands. She needed to know what kind of ruler this boy would be before Zeus learned he existed at all. She had tried the usual ways. Her songbirds could not follow him. He walked among mortals in a tower of glass in a city that never darkened, and her small spies were lost among a million lit windows. Reports came back thin. He was clever. He was rich. He was rude to servants. None of it told her what she needed. She could not act on rumor. She could not warn Zeus, or hide the boy, or end him, without proof of who he truly was. Behind her, wings moved. Argus landed on the marble rail, his tail spread, each golden eye on his feathers open and watching. He was the only spy Zeus could not spot from a mile away, because Zeus never looked twice at her peacock. Hera set her palm on his crown. "I need eyes inside his rooms," she said. "Not a feather in a hall. Every choice he makes when he thinks no one is watching." Argus tilted his head. The eyes on his tail blinked in slow order, waiting for her to commit. She pressed the lotus tip of her scepter against his breast. Light bled from the crystal petals into his feathers. One by one, the golden eyes on his tail brightened and held. She was binding her scepter's memory-catching power into him. Whatever he saw, the scepter would keep. "Go to New York," she said. "Find the boy called Conner Alderwyne. Do not be seen. Watch him for a full turn of the moon. Bring me every word." Argus lifted from the rail. His wings threw color across the gilded columns, and then he was gone into the low clouds below Olympus. Hera lowered the scepter. Her hand was steady for the first time in weeks. She had chosen. In a moon's time she would know if Aether was a king worth hiding, or a monster she had to unmake before Zeus ever saw his face. Then a small sound made her turn. A crow sat on the far end of the rail, black against the gold. It carried a green sprig in its beak. Demeter's mark. Hera's steady hand closed on the scepter again. Her friend had sent word, and Demeter only sent word when she already knew something Hera did not.

The crow held its place on the rail until Hera lifted her hand. It dropped the green sprig into her palm and flew off toward the lower gardens. Hera closed her fingers on the sprig. Demeter did not send crows for small matters. Hera had just sent her peacock across the ocean to watch the boy, and already her friend was telling her the watching would not be enough. She left the balcony and went to find Demeter herself. She found her in a low grove behind the palace, walking a row of young olive trees. Demeter was Hera's oldest friend on Olympus, and the only goddess who could kill a harvest with a mood. Her golden hair caught the last of the sun. She did not turn when Hera approached. She only touched a branch, and three new leaves opened under her fingers. "You sent a bird," Hera said. "I did." "Say what you came to say." Demeter dropped her hand from the tree. "Your peacock will bring you pictures. Pictures are not enough. You will watch that boy eat and sleep and speak to servants, and you will still not know him. You need someone inside his life. Someone he trusts." Hera's grip tightened on her scepter. "He trusts no god." "He trusts his sister." Hera went still. "He has no sister I made." "He has one the world made. A twin. Sophia Alderwyne. Raised beside him. Sharper than him. She lives in London. She sees him without the mask he wears for the rest of us." Demeter finally looked at her. Her green eyes were level and cold. "Hermes is in her bed on and off. He will carry to you whatever she says of her brother, if you ask him plainly." Hera heard the offer and heard the price under it. Demeter knew too much already. Demeter was telling her so, without saying it. "Why help me?" Hera said. "I am not helping you. I am telling you what you do not know. What you do with it is yours." Demeter turned back to the tree. "Winter is coming again. I would like fewer secrets on this mountain, not more." Hera stood a long moment. Then she bowed her head once, the way queens do when they accept a debt they cannot yet pay. She left the grove and did not stop until she reached the messenger's court. She sent word for Hermes to attend her at dusk. She did not write the reason. She would speak it in his ear, and she would speak the girl's name. Hera walked back to her balcony with the sprig still in her hand. Her peacock would bring her the boy's face. The girl would bring her his heart. And Demeter, smiling in her grove, now held the leash on them all.