Hermes moved like a shadow down the narrow streets of Athens, the mortal night warm against his skin. The marketplace had long since closed, but the city still breathed—quiet conversations from taverns, the clink of dice on wood, the scent of spiced wine drifting in the air.
He wasn't here for leisure. His sources in the underworld's less reputable corners had whispered about a "thin place" between realms, somewhere in the mortal world where divine influence seeped through. If it was real, it could lead him back to whoever had nearly enslaved Zeus.
It was exactly the kind of trail he lived for—half rumor, half danger.
Which was why Hera had chosen it for him.
She'd been careful. No direct contact, no commands. Just an overheard conversation in the palace garden, between two attendants she knew Hermes trusted. Talk of an ancient ruin in the hills outside Athens, a place where "the air bends wrong" and "old words wake the stones."
