"The floral scent you identified is narcissus."
It wasn't so much as the words than the way Hadrian's jaw had hardened that caught my attention.
"It's the key ingredient in Echo's spell," he said said flatly, "which is used to remember certain words and play it back...using the same exact voice."
I knew I wasn't as brainy as either of these two, but even I didn't need to have the consequence of that spelled out. Someone had obviously used Echo's spell to unlock the door to Mira's laboratory, and as for SR-41...
Oh, this cousin of his...
I had a feeling 41 was supposed to symbolized my age, which normally I didn't give a whit about, but now that I was suffering from the most exaggerated symptoms of menopause...
She obviously wanted to annoy me, and she got what she wanted. I was annoyed, never mind if we both knew I was the equivalent of a three-month-old fetus when compared to her ancientness.
"Let me guess," I said darkly. "SR stands for Saoirse Repellent, doesn't it?"
"I only had the word 'remedy' in mind," Mira answered, "but seeing that milady's quite obsessed with repellents..."
Cousin, I reminded myself. She was Hadrian's cousin, which made her my cousin by marriage.
Hadrian walked towards the table where the vials were, and I followed behind him. There was a set of vials placed in a cooling tray, with one spot conspicuously empty.
"The formula still needs a couple of tweaks," Mira told us, "but I've tested it on a couple of basilisks—-"
I took mental note of this so I could Google it later on. Why a basilisk and not the usual rat or guinea pig?
"And it worked," Hadrian ended for her. "Didn't it?"
"We have enough samples of Zeus' thunderbolts here, so it was quite simple to create miniature carbon copies and bespell them in a similar way. I then placed them inside the basilisks' cage, and not a single one of the thunderbolt was activated. They didn't recognize the basilisks as targets at all!"
I wanted to start cheering at this, but Hadrian's forbidding expression made me think twice. "Isn't this a good thing?" I asked uneasily.
"If SR-41 proves safe and effective to use for humans and non-humans," he answered reluctantly, "then that means we have created something which could potentially make anyone invincible to Zeus's thunderbolts."
"So again...that's good, right?"
"It could destroy the natural balance of things," Hadrian said grimly, "especially when placed in the wrong hands."
Which a thief's hands certainly were, I realized.
"I take full responsibility for the theft, Hades." Mira's voice was tight, and the look on her face made it seem she was on the brink of committing seppuku at any moment. "But I also want you to know that all is not lost. We'll know if that vial is opened within the Underworld. Milady's blood has a distinct scent—-"
Oh, for the love of...would it kill her not to insult me at every turn? She had good as said I had bloody odor.
"I'll take a vial and have Cerberus take a sniff."
I had been imagining myself throttling Mira at that point, but Hadrian's words distracted me. "Cerberus as in..."
"My pet," Hadrian said easily, "and now he's yours as well."
I couldn't help feeling excited. "In Hercules, Cerberus was—-"
Hadrian was glaring at me.
Right.
I kept forgetting how touchy he was about the animation film-slash-TV-series. I honestly didn't understand why. I'd love to have Disney make up a film about my life, but oh well. I decided to take the diplomatic route, saying, "I just wanted to make sure we're talking about the same Cerberus."
"Depends," Hadrian murmured. "Our Cerberus is a warrior on its own, a legendary three-headed beast and thus undeserving of being disrespected with animated comparisons. So..." He raised a brow. "Are we talking about the same creature?"
It was all I could do to keep myself from smiling. "Yes, milord." A smart girl knows how to pick her battles, and this was one of those I'm better off losing, if it meant seeing Hadrian act so cute. "Anyway..." Deciding it was time to change the subject, I asked pointedly, "What was that you were saying about Cerberus and SR-41?"
"No creature can rival his ability to track by scent." Hadrian's voice was once again serious. "Once we give him a whiff of SR-41, and our thief opens that vial while in the Underworld, he's good as caught."
"If, on the other hand, our thief is planning to take it out of the Underworld..." Mira's lip curled once again, and I'm beginning to understand this was her go-to expression for everything. This time, it was meant to express her scorn, and...that was understandable.
A few years ago, a prisoner had been able to escape Tartarus, and Underworld's security had undergone a complete revamp since then. So this lockdown Hadrian ordered? Not even a baby ant had the slightest chance of leaving or sneaking in without the Lord of the Underworld knowing, and since that was the case...