Messing up with a Captial 'M'

Breakfast continued while his escort tested her bow, easing the string forward with a pleased smile. Matt kept his bowl on his knees and made use of the spoon while it remained in his possession.

“Stronger,” she said. “And I can think more clearly. Some of the things we said yesterday seem particularly foolish this morning.”

“Some?” Phoebe asked over her cup. “I include myself,” she added when he glanced toward her, leaving him to return to his food rather than decide what answer that required. He had heard enough apologies to last him through breakfast, and Zoë’s voice nearby was already making it difficult to concentrate. Whenever she addressed another Hunter, he found himself looking up, then hastily attending to his bowl before she turned his way.

The Hunter cleaning her bow across the fire noticed. She laid the cloth over her knee, amusement gathering in her face. “Has the blessing improved our appearance as well? You seem to be taking considerable trouble not to look.”

“I think I’m eating.” He raised the spoon to demonstrate, but his escort laughed and put her bow aside.

“You may look at us, Matt. Nobody is offended.”

“Or reaching for an arrow,” Phoebe said as his eyes went toward the bow. “Your breakfast will be cold before you finish checking.”

He took the mouthful, unwilling to give them another answer to enjoy. Beside the log, Zoë accepted a cup from the Hunter tending the pot and thanked her, close enough that he could hear the unfamiliar shape of the words. When she glanced down at him, he met her eyes before remembering his intention to study absolutely anything else.

“You are extremely beautiful,” he muttered, lowering his attention to the bowl.

“Thank you.” His escort rested her hand lightly on his sleeve, and he looked toward her, realising how widely the remark had been received. Her smile distracted him from correcting that impression. He could have sworn the curve of her cheek had been less delicate a moment ago, though the Hunter across the fire was drawing his attention just as readily now, tucking her hair behind one ear as she smiled at him.

“Thou art generous,” Zoë said.

Looking up at her did nothing to clarify matters. The silver circlet caught the sunlight above her dark eyes, and he found himself holding her gaze long enough to feel the heat climbing into his face. “I was complaining.”

“So we gathered.” His escort released his sleeve and nodded toward the spoon he had stopped halfway to his mouth. “A terrible inconvenience for you.”

Phoebe lowered her cup, making little effort to hide her amusement. “Leave him enough peace to finish. He has scarcely touched it.”

“I wonder why.” Matt resumed eating before somebody could supply a reason. Across the fire, the Hunter picked up her cleaning cloth again, still grinning, while his escort settled comfortably beside him. His irritation seemed to please them almost as much as the compliment. He knew this sort of teasing from the cabins at Camp Half-Blood, where protesting only encouraged everyone, but he had never expected to endure it surrounded by Artemis’s Hunters.

At least nobody was threatening him. He managed several more mouthfuls while the conversation returned to the blessing. His escort offered more food, Phoebe asked about his throat, and Zoë assured him there was no need to hurry, until being threatened began to seem like the only familiar part of a Hunt visit they had yet to provide.

“With the way you’re all carrying on, your Lady is going to walk in here, tell you the vows of chastity are no longer required under this new blessing, and have every one of you fall deeply in love with the first male you lay eyes on.”

His escort began to laugh, then rose as silver light flashed along the path between the tents. Matt caught the bowl against his knees and looked up with the others to find Artemis standing at the edge of the clearing, bow in hand. He set his breakfast down carefully. After spending most of the night dreading her return, he had apparently chosen the moment before it to make a joke about her vows.

“My lady.” Zoë approached and bowed her head while the other Hunters stood around the fire. Matt stayed on the log, hoping the goddess’s attention would remain on her lieutenant, but her gaze passed over him before moving across the assembled camp. She showed no displeasure, which left him wondering how much she had heard.

“The blessing has strengthened,” Artemis said. “You have grown beyond much that once troubled you, and I am pleased to see it. With this blessing, I release you from the vow of chastity. Your place in the Hunt no longer requires it.”

Beside him, his escort’s pleased expression gave way to surprise. Zoë lifted her head with a questioning “My lady?” and Matt looked toward Phoebe, waiting for somebody to object to what he was fairly certain he had just heard.

“You remain my Hunters,” Artemis assured them. “And each of you shall fall deeply in love with the first male you look upon.”

His hand missed the cup beside his bowl. He left it where it had landed against the log, unwilling to move while he tried to account for the goddess repeating almost exactly what he had said. She must have heard him. Gods heard things they had no business hearing, and he could readily believe one would repeat a boy’s ill-considered joke before explaining what it was going to cost him.

But Artemis merely inclined her head to Zoë. “Be well, my Hunters.”

Silver light flashed across the clearing again, making him blink. He was still staring at the empty path when his escort stepped beside his knee, drawing his attention back to her. The amusement had left her face. As their eyes met, her smile softened with such unguarded tenderness that he leaned back, suddenly conscious of how close she stood.

“Matt,” she said, lingering over his name while he searched her expression for the joke.

Behind his escort, Phoebe set her cup down without looking at it. The Hunter across the fire lowered her bow as two others came around the log, drawing Matt’s attention toward Zoë. Surely there was some ceremonial meaning to what Artemis had said, something her lieutenant could explain before this became any more uncomfortable.

But Zoë was watching him with the same tenderness as the others. She approached slowly, her composure making it harder to dismiss the look as surprise, and stopped a few steps from his knees.

“Thou art pale. Dost thou feel unwell?”

Matt glanced at his breakfast. Something in the food would account for a goddess arriving to repeat his sarcasm, although he could not remember eating anything before the Hunters had started behaving strangely last night. Unless the ambrosia counted. He was trying to remember when he had taken the first piece when his escort leaned into view.

“I think I need a minute,” he said.

“Of course.” She moved the bowl aside to sit beside him, leaving enough space that their legs did not touch. “Take as long as you need.”

From there, she could follow his gaze as he searched beyond Phoebe toward the tents. A visiting god would do. A satyr, even, or somebody returning along the path whom the Hunters might have seen before turning toward him. Instead, he found more of them looking his way, their abandoned breakfasts and half-finished tasks making it increasingly difficult to pretend he had misunderstood where their attention had settled.

“Art thou looking for someone?” Zoë asked.

“No.” He reached for his cup, discovered it was empty, and lowered it again. “I’m just trying to understand what she meant.”

“So am I,” his escort admitted. Her eyes briefly returned to the path where Artemis had stood, but when she looked back at him, she was smiling with a wonder that made him wish she had sounded doubtful.

Matt set the cup down between his boots and pressed his palms against his knees. He could remember putting the boots on, pulling at a stubborn lace, feeling the cold ground through his socks. Dreams could include things like that. They could certainly include Zoë Nightshade asking her sisters to give him room while looking as though she would much rather sit beside him herself.