“So how do you like living with Pan and Persephone?” I asked, changing the subject. Alec frowned, then confessed, “It’s great. It really is. They’re very accommodating. My only complaint is not getting any sleep, with the nymphs and satyrs coming and going from the hideout all through the night.” I smirked. “You’ll get used to it. The rest of the Monster Watch and I did. We still like to camp out there every once in a while. Then again, it usually just turns into a party.” A dark-brown flash caught my eye, and I watched a deer run through the meadow, cutting right through the blanket of mist. Suddenly, an arrow pierced its skull, and the deer crumpled to the ground before it could even take another step. It was dead. Instead of feeling sorry for the deer, I just grinned and quickly pulled out my walkie-talkie from a belt loop. “Artemis, was that you?” I asked, knowing that the goddess of the hunt would have her walkie-talkie on just in case anything bad happened while she was alone. From afar, I watched her step out into the meadow next to the deer, accompanied by two tree nymphs that served as a couple of her virgin huntresses. When she heard my voice, she looked wildly around her murky surroundings, trying to catch sight of me in the darkness. I waved, and then Alec and I walked toward her. “What happened to you two?” she asked in Greek, studying the bandage that covered Alec’s entire midsection. “Alec wanted me to train him,” I informed Artemis, placing my hands on my hips. The blonde only smirked as she yanked the arrow out of the deer’s forehead and pulled out a burlap sack from behind her. Alec and I helped her stuff the dead deer into the sack, and then we tied it tight. Next, Alec lifted the sack up onto his shoulders, but his wound started to gush even more blood, and I could see his fresh bandage already turning red. “I’ll do it,” I told him, shaking my head. He nodded reluctantly. Together, the three of us made our way to Pan’s hideout, leaving the two green-skinned tree nymphs to go back to their own neck of the woods. When we finally reached the hideout, Pan was still swimming in the river with some water nymphs, and Persephone sat on his throne, leaning forward and braiding the long hair of a young tree nymph. Meanwhile, Artemis and Alec took the deer out of the big brown sack and started to skin it and cut it in half using swords and pocketknives. Persephone only frowned and turned away, not wanting to look at the poor dead animal and all of its sticky blood, but I did not have any sympathy for her. After all, without Artemis hunting for them every once in a while, the nymphs and satyrs would be forced to consume nothing but berries. Monsters tended to gravitate toward the deer as well, since tasty, unarmed humans no longer strutted foolishly through the forbidden woods. There were always smaller rodents running around the forest floor at night, of course, but natural predators like owls tended to pick those up. Leaving Alec and Artemis to finish slicing the deer, I walked over and sat down in the grass beside Persephone, who had been stealing glances at me suspiciously. “You’re hiding something, aren’t you?” she whispered, tucking a piece of light-brown hair behind her ear, but not meeting my gaze. “Every time you look at Alec . . . it’s like you know something about him that no one else does.” “So what if I do?” I challenged with a shrug, pretending it wasn’t a big deal and glaring at Alec’s back as he helped Artemis hand out slices of deer meat. Persephone was looking at me now, raising her eyebrows expectantly. “Don’t you think you should tell the rest of us gods?” I shook my head. “Not yet.” “When?” I sighed irritably. In my mind, I flashed back to when I was nine, sprinting alone through the forest one day, a particularly frightening moment only two others knew about. My dignity had depended on me escaping that godforsaken arrow—and I had, in fact, escaped—but upon reflection, I was sure that arrow would have led to a better fate than what awaited me now. So, when an image of the Oracle placing a finger to her lips flashed through my brain, all I could say to Persephone was, “When the prophecy comes true.” I couldn’t even bring myself to specify the part of the prophecy to which I was referring, the part of the prophecy that no one really understood yet. “Why not now?” she questioned, shrugging. “Won’t you feel guilty keeping secrets from all of us? At least from Zeus, you must.” “I would feel even guiltier if I did let them know. Right now, Alec’s my problem, not theirs,” I explained, frowning at the ground and picking at the incredibly long blades of grass around my legs. Shaking her head at me, Persephone only sighed and admitted, “I’m not sure if I’ll ever completely understand you.” “Maybe it’s better if you don’t,” I replied shortly. Then I pushed myself off the ground and followed Artemis and Alec away from the hideout to deliver the other half of the deer to the Oracle of Delphi. We all still wore our armor, knowing that this northwest area was where most of the monsters lived, and that they would be attracted to us for two reasons: one, we had a bloody deer with us, which would be some excellent free food for them. And two, monsters tried to track and kill every person who knew about the Greek myths, which was the whole reason the Knowing had Warriors. Even though he was with two powerful gods, Alec was still a prime target. Hopefully, we would be lucky and not run into any monsters, but all three of us knew that it was probably not going to happen. We gods had learned early on in our exploration of the forest that luck was almost never on our side. Slowly, we wove our way through the maze of spider webs and pine trees, toward where we thought the Oracle’s camp was. However, even for us, this part of the woods was still not fully explored, and so we ended up taking two wrong turns. On the bright side, Artemis managed to shoot a Harpy in the process, before it got too close to us. Eventually, we stepped into a very tiny clearing, with a small fire raging outside a tiny camouflaged tent. The Oracle sat by the flames, braiding her black hair with purple ribbons, and turned to face us as she said, “You brought food?” We nodded silently, and I threw down the burlap sack, which landed with a loud thump next to her. All of a sudden, she started to shake, as if the sound had caused a reaction, and her eyes glowed bright green. Artemis and I had seen her do this before, and we knew she was about to tell a prophecy. Her mouth opened, and more green light flowed out as mist started to cloud around her. Finally, she spoke. “In six years’ time will come one god’s prime, And he will be tired of being under fire. He will fight for what he thinks is his right, But it could tear apart the balance that’s fair, And the duty will fall upon you all, In order to save the world.” Alec stood very still, his mouth wide open, as he heard the prophecy for the first time. Artemis and I, however, just waited for the Oracle to return to her normal self so we could leave. I was not too shy to admit that being around the Oracle was not very comfortable. To put it simply, she was not very sociable, and the gods thought the fact that she fainted every time after she spouted out a prophecy was kind of creepy and unnerving. She had never even told us gods where she was born or where she had originally come from—only that she had been reared by nymphs here in the forest. Suddenly, we heard a huge roll of thunder, and a white-hot flash of lightning lit up the entire forest. It started to pour within mere seconds, and a few drops of rain were already starting to leak through the thick cover of the trees, splashing onto our confused faces at random intervals. As you could probably guess, such a storm was very unusual. Even during battle practices, when all the gods’ powers clashed at once, the sky wasn’t this unpredictable. Zeus, what have you done? I thought to myself worriedly. It had to be him, even though he was at Hera’s party. It had to be. He was the only god I knew of who could have made a huge storm like this within a few short seconds. But why? Something had made Zeus so upset that he could accidentally cause a deadly flood, and I knew we had to stop him. The Oracle, who had regained consciousness by then, quickly stamped out the fire and dove into her tent for cover. “You must save us!” she exclaimed to us over her shoulder, sounding quite panicked. We didn’t need to be told twice. Without another word, Alec, Artemis, and I took off in the direction we thought was toward our houses, though there was no way for us to be sure. As branches slapped and stung our fatigued bodies, I couldn’t help but think that the prophecy was finally coming true, and by the looks on Alec’s and Artemis’s faces, I could tell they were thinking the exact same thing. I could only hope we would get there in time to prevent any further damage from being done . . .