“Marvelous,” I said, uncaring. “Are you going to eat?”
“Ah, yes,” Janus said, “just one minute more.” We waited, and I looked at him until the door opened to his right and a girl a little taller than myself stepped out. She looked just a hint younger too, dressed in black shirt and pants, with an apron tied across her waist. She wore a broad, feigned smile as she stepped out to greet us.
Her hands were neatly clasped in front of her. “Good morning,” she said with an accent. “Can I help you?”
“We were considering breakfast, my dear,” Janus said with a condescending sort of sweetness.
“We have the best Greek breakfast in town,” she said, her accent only faintly noticeable; she showed no sign of knowing Janus, and I wondered what his game was.
“Of that I have little doubt,” Janus said, pouring it on thick with his own brand of sweetness. It reminded me of seeing an old man flirt with a waitress. I thought about Kat and Janus and realized that I might in fact be witnessing just that. I started to feel nauseous again and wondered if I was about to be involved in a thousand-year-old man making an effort at picking up a teenager.
“Why don’t we go inside and take a seat?” he said to me, jarring me out of my reverie. Personally, at that moment I wanted to be about a thousand miles away or, barring that, at least in a different restaurant with the man, preferably someplace with guys as waiters. That might be more palatable.
“Come right in,” the girl said and held the door open for us. Janus made a great show of stepping inside, gesturing for me to follow. I passed the waitress with a little reluctance; part of me wanted to tell her to get out while she could. “My name is Athena,” she said, and that part came out sharply accented, “and I’ll be your server.”
“Excellent,” Janus said as she led us to the table. “Do you know where your name comes from, Athena?” I realized somewhat belatedly that Athena was in fact, Greek, and working at a Greek restaurant. Coincidence? Doubtful.
“I was named after the Greek goddess,” Athena said, a little off balance, “of wisdom, inspiration, law, justice, strength—”
“Let us call her what she truly was,” Janus said somewhat broadly, “a woman who encompassed the ability to speak to the betterangels of our nature, to borrow a fitting phrase.”
Athena cocked her head at him. “Ah … all right. What can I get you to drink?” she stepped aside at the table she had led us to while Janus and I took our seats. We were near the front window, and behind us was a long counter. To either side of us were unoccupied tables set up with seats for twos and fours but no larger groups. They were all unoccupied, and I wondered what time of day it actually was. I was guessing I had missed traditional breakfast hours and we were about to shift to lunchtime.
“I will take a glass of wine, whatever the house white is,” Janus said with a wave. He glanced at me. “My friend will take water.”
I blinked at him in confusion. “I will?”
“It might be best for your stomach,” he said. “And you, Athena?” he asked, turning his head to look at her. “What would you like?”
Athena blinked at him in confusion. “I … uh …” She seemed to strain the very boundaries of her English, looking for what to say. “I’ll get you your drinks—”
“Why don’t you sit with us for a few minutes?” Janus asked, and he said it gently. It was strange, but the way he did it compelled even me. I wanted her to sit even though a moment earlier I didn’t care what she did.
“All right,” Athena said hesitantly and pulled up a chair from a nearby table to sit between the two of us. I stared at her, and she stared at me from behind her thick-framed glasses. On a man, they would have been hipster glasses. Hers were older, I guessed, and probably all she could afford.
“Athena,” Janus said, “I want to tell you something. Something you already know, really. You are not a human being.” She blinked back at him and started to speak. “Now, now, let us not play games. You were raised in a cloister, I would guess, around other metas, yes?” He tilted his head to look at her with a piercing gaze, and I saw her burn beneath it like an ant under a magnifying glass. “You need not answer. I can tell that it is so. You ran away, yes? From home? To the big city of London?”
She nodded, hesitant. “I found … passage … a job … from a man in a nearby town, to work in his brother’s restaurant here in London.”
“Ah, so you came from Greece itself,” Janus said with a smile that was cool, a little distant, something beneath the surface. “And your family? They remained in the cloister?”