Hecate kept her eyes on a lot of people. All over the country they sent prayers her way, asked for guidance, cried for help, urged her to lend power to their revenge. She aided where she could, eased pain or caused it, found those that were lost and occasionally led those who deserved it into places they’d never be found. Less so with the latter, lately, but not never (Caligula would get out, eventually, but for now he was a very, very long way from Kyos and Clementine.)
These prayers took her travelling, but she had still continued to circle back to New York on the regular, because there were a good number of people here she was keeping her eye on, too. Some followers, yes, but that wasn’t what brought her here tonight.
The children of the gods required special attention, and ever since Marcie killed Apollo, Hecate had been trying to watch them all. Ares' daughter had been the lynchpin of the truce between Ares and Apollo and with that in mind, the appearance of Apollo's daughter on the scene had risen hackles and alarm bells ('well fuck', she'd texted Athena, the night Apollo announced Rosario's existence). If Ares found out – but he hadn't, yet. Or if he did know, he was surprising Hecate with his restraint, which was… bonechillingly terrifying, actually, if that was the case. She could only hope he didn't know. Ares, while he could be viciously dangerous, was also reassuringly dense.
But Hecate was also watching Rosario for Kaden's sake, Kaden who was not a child of the gods in the traditional sense but in some ways, born of her. Kaden, who could potentially cross paths with the young woman born of Apollo at Merlin's. There were cards that said it would happen, cards that said it wouldn’t, cards that promised of disaster and others of strength. Honestly, the unpredictability of mortals lives weren’t jiving with her cards right now, and Hecate wasn’t overjoyed at the risk, but she found she trusted Merlin, and the work was one of the things bringing Kaden back to life, so Hecate wasn't going to meddle. Just… watch. Paths could be kept from crossing with careful guidance… Another in her list of hopes.
In any case, Apollo's daughter had not shown up to any of Apollo's penthouse, god-filled parties, which struck Hecate as deeply sensible and gave her a fondness for the young woman even though they'd never met in person.
She wasn’t planning to meet her. Just, circling. Careful, careful, when it came to Apollo’s daughter. It wouldn’t pay to do anything that let Apollo know she was watching. Oh, chances were that it would just give him a bigger head, that other people were paying attention to his magnificent daughter, but he was still really touchy since that night they broke into Clio’s office together to scry for her whereabouts, when he’d realised she was keeping a secret from him. His ego had already been bruised multiple times by Ares' presence in Melpomene’s life and the fact that Ares' daughter had gut him like a pig, and he shouldn't have been surprised that his light couldn’t burn a secret out of Hecate’s shadows, but he had been, and the times she’d seen him since she could feel the grudge reverberating. It was ridiculous; Hecate kept secrets from everybody, he wasn't special, but oh no, he'd had to be extra Apollo about it and take it as a personal affront.
Maybe, too, he could sense that she’d cursed him, but Hecate had pulled so many complex layers of magical misdirection over that one that unless he got an astonishing burst of power (and she was watching popular culture, closely) he’d never see why. Not unless Kaden did something astonishingly stupid and broke the you can’t see me curse himself, which Hecate… well, she wasn’t ruling out the possibility, but she did not yet know what she could do to save him if he did.