Poseidon felt it before he saw her.

The sea always told him when something familiar crossed its edge not with words, not with warning, but with a subtle shift, a hesitation in the tide like it was reconsidering itself. He had come to the coast for no particular reason at all, which was usually when the universe decided to be funny.

He was ankle deep in the water when it happened. The current curled back on itself. The waves quieted, not in obedience, but in something closer to respect.

That was new.

Poseidon straightened slowly, eyes scanning the shoreline until he found her standing a short distance away, shoes kicked off, toes just out of reach of the surf like you knew better than to let it touch her.

Of course it was her.

She hadn’t changed much. Older, maybe sharper around the edges. Calmer. The kind of calm that came from making decisions and living with them. Magic clung to you faintly, not wild or flaring, but deliberate. Contained.

Hecate’s work.

Poseidon huffed a quiet laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

She looks up at the sound of his voice, surprise flickering across her face before settling into something guarded. Not fear. Not relief. Just… readiness.

“So,” she said, dry as ever. “It’s still impossible to avoid you near large bodies of water.”

“That’s funny,” Poseidon replied. “I was about to say the same thing about you.”

His gaze swept over her automatically, instinctively and then stopped.

The sea stilled.

It wasn’t obvious at first. Nothing dramatic. No glow, no prophecy humming in the air. Just the absence of something that should have been impossible to miss.

Poseidon frowned.

He’d sensed her power the moment he arrived, but now now there was something else. A distortion. Like the world was politely declining to finish a sentence.

“You’re hiding something,” he said, tone light, but his attention sharpened.

She didn’t laugh. Didn’t deflect. She folded her arms instead, eyes flicking briefly toward the horizon, where the water refused to come any closer.

“I’m protecting something,” she corrected.

The word landed harder than thunder ever could.

Poseidon went still. Gods weren’t often surprised, and when they were, it usually came with fire or fury. This came with… math. Cold, quiet realization clicking into place.

Time. Magic. Wards he hadn’t been able to feel until now.

Hecate.

Of course.

“You didn’t tell me,” he said carefully not accusing, not yet.

“You didn’t ask,” she replied. “And before you say it—no, that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to an explanation.”

The sea shifted uneasily at his feet, like it knew better than to argue.

Poseidon looked at her then. Really looked. At the tension in her shoulders. At the way her hand rested unconsciously over her abdomen, protective and habitual, like it had been there a long time.

Something ancient in him went quiet.

“How long?” he asked.

She met his gaze, steady and unflinching. “Long enough to decide what I want.”

Silence stretched between them, thick and fragile all at once. The wind carried the scent of salt and something else—possibility, maybe. Or consequence.

Poseidon exhaled slowly, deliberately, forcing the sea to remain calm beneath his feet.

“I’m listening,” he said.

And for once, he meant it.