Achilles takes a long moment to think this through. From the context, Buckle must be another boy. That behavior is inexcusable, but the second punishment seems incongruously cruel. Mortals here are some style of shade and, as such, reform themselves, but Achilles knows from experience that this still hurts. Ember’s punishment seems more fit for the prisoners of Tartarus than a mischievous boy.

“It seems Miss Ember is a ruler of sorts—and a judge.” Which isn’t unusual by his reckoning. A king might settle the odd dispute among his subjects. In the time he spent observing his father do this kind of mediation, Peleus never ordered a boy to be hung from his groin and then executed.

It doesn’t please Achilles to know that Pyrrhus is complicit in this sort of enforcement. Does his son take as much joy in it as Gravoche does while explaining it?

“If someone is made to leave this place, where do they go?”