“We have to climb how many steps?” Calix gasped.
Griffin studied the path before them, a steep, winding staircase carved into the side of a mountain. It was more than a little daunting. From where they stood, he couldn’t see the top of the mountain. Or the top of the stairway. He could only guess at the number of steps that stood between them and the oracle’s cave.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Looks like maybe two hundred?”
Or five. But he didn’t want to freak the kid out.
For the first time, Griffin was grateful that Phoebe had made stairs a consistent part of their regular training regimen. If he hadn’t been running them by the dozens for the past few months, the climb might have intimidated him.
He might have felt as dismayed as Calix looked.
The boy shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Of course you can,” Griffin insisted.
Calix backed up a step. “I’ll just wait for you here. I think I saw a nice bench back there in the temple. I’m sure Apollo won’t mind if I—”
“You have to seek the quest,” Griffin told him. “That’s how it works.”
“I’m not fit enough.” Calix turned his wide eyes on Griffin. “The only exercise I get is walking the stacks in the library to find another book.”
Griffin hid a wince. He tried to sympathize. Climbing a mountain to seek a quest from one of the scariest beings in all of mythology was no easy task. When the prize was literal immortality, though, wasn’t a little physical effort worth it? Clearly, Calix didn’t think so.
But Griffin hadn’t coached the junior runners’ team for the past three years without learning a thing or three about how to motivate young athletes.
“Look,” Griffin told him, “I know this is going to be hard.”
Calix snorted nervously at the understatement.
“But focus on the reward.” Griffin flashed an encouraging smile. “Think how happy you’ll be when you’ve made it to the top.”
Calix shook his head. “Nope, I’ll be much happier here at the bottom.”
“Think how happy your mom will be when you’ve finished your quest.”
A strange emotion passed across Calix’s face.
“This won’t make her happy,” the boy said. “Nothing I do makes her happy.” He gestured up the mountain. “Killing myself on these steps won’t change that.”
Griffin couldn’t argue with that. It couldn’t be easy having Hera for a mom. But pleasing her wasn’t the only reason for the quest.
“And you’ll have your immortality back,” Griffin reminded him.
Calix gave him a look that was a cross between annoyed and resigned.
Griffin pushed harder. “Isn’t that worth a little mountain climbing?”
The boy stared at the ground for several long seconds before sighing. “I guess so.”
“We can take plenty of breaks along the way,” Griffin promised. “One step at a time.”
Calix lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the sun as he stared up at the mountain. “I wish you could just autoport us.”
Griffin recognized this tactic. A last-ditch effort to put off the inevitable.
“You and me both, buddy,” he replied. “But it’s the oracle’s rules.” He gestured up the mountain. “I guess she thinks you have to earn your quest.”
“That’s so unreasonable,” Calix complained. “Quests are already almost impossible. Why make even getting one almost impossible, too?”
Griffin didn’t have an answer. And he wasn’t about to fight the system. If playing by the oracle’s—and Hera’s—rules got him his parents back, he would be a freaking Olympic altar boy. Whatever it took.
He wanted to give Calix some kind of pep talk. Like, The longer we stand here, the longer it takes. But he had a feeling that would have the opposite effect. Maybe he needed to employ some reverse psychology to get things moving.
“You’re right. It’s a rotten situation.” He turned away from the mountain, gazing out beyond the temple of Apollo to where the blue-green Aegean lapped at the shore. “Maybe we should give up and go home.”
He pretended not to notice as Calix turned to gawk at him.
The boy didn’t jump at the chance to retreat. That was a good sign.
Griffin stared off into the distance, pretending to be lost in thought as he counted down from one hundred. When he got to zero, he looked at Calix. The boy was studying him intensely. Like he was reading Griffin’s mind.
Which he might have been doing… if Calix hadn’t lost all of his powers along with his immortality. He no longer had his mother’s psychospection—or any of the other dynamotheos abilities.
“Why are you helping me?” Calix asked.
Griffin jerked back. That was not the question he’d expected.
“Because your mom asked me to.”
“Obviously,” Calix replied. “But what are you getting out of it? What’s in it for you?”
A twinge of guilt pinched Griffin in the chest. The boy wasn’t wrong.
He thought about lying. Thought about making up some kind of motivation—like Hera had promised him great wealth or power or a gold medal in the next Pythian Games. But Calix deserved to know the full truth. He deserved to know who was helping him and why.
Griffin shifted uncomfortably on the path, the crunch of gravel beneath his sneakers echoing the tight churn of his stomach.
Why was the truth so hard to admit? He just had to get it over with.
“I’m the one who stole your immortality,” he blurted.
In an instant, he was both relieved and extremely nervous. It felt good to have the truth out in the open, but there was no going back. He held his breath, waiting to see how the boy would react.
The reaction never came. Calix stood there, his expression unchanged.
Maybe he hadn’t understood.
“When you were a baby,” Griffin explained, “a friend and I fed you ambrosia, which took your—”
“Yeah, yeah, you and Nicole Matios,” Calix said. “I’ve only heard the story like a billion times. My mom won’t shut up about it.”
Now it was Griffin’s turn to blink and stare. Calix knew? He didn’t seem angry at all.
“I get that you want to make up for what you did,” the boy continued. “But why now? What has my mom promised you?”
Griffin felt the guilt squeeze tighter in his chest. Like he was afraid to say it out loud, afraid that speaking it into the universe would invite the universe to laugh in his face. But he knew he had to. It wasn’t right to keep the reward a secret. Calix deserved to know.
“My parents,” Griffin said softly. “If I help you regain your immortality, she’ll unsmote them.”
He held his breath. He didn’t mean to, didn’t even do it consciously, but as he waited for Calix to respond to that truth bomb, Griffin couldn’t make his lungs work.
After studying Griffin for what felt like forever—especially to someone who was getting increasingly oxygen-deprived with every passing second—Calix shrugged and said, “Okay.”
“Okay?” Griffin blinked.
The boy’s mouth quirked up to one side in an expression that looked both like a smile and a frown. “Okay. As in, let’s do it. I want to help you get your parents back.”
Griffin stood there, mouth hanging open like the gates of Hades, as Calix walked past him and started up the mountain. He didn’t know what surprised him more: that Calix seemed to care more about helping Griffin than getting his own immortality back, or that he was now willingly climbing the steps.
Either way, Griffin wasn’t about to look a Trojan Horse in the mouth. They were back on the path to the oracle, the quest, and the only chance he’d ever had to get his parents back.
Griffin hurried up the steps after Calix.
Calix stood at the entrance to the oracle’s cave, the toes of his hiking boots lined up to the edge between sunlight and shadow. The difference was so stark that there had to be some kind of mystical barrier dividing the two.
“Is this a bad time to mention that I’m afraid of the dark?”
Griffin moved up to stand next to him. “Yeah, I’m not a fan of caves either.”
“You go first,” Calix said a little too brightly.
Normally, Griffin would take that as a challenge. But he didn’t want to leave the boy outside, alone, with a chance to change his mind.
“It’s your quest,” Griffin replied. “You should enter her realm first.”
Calix gave the biggest sigh. Then, without any more prodding on Griffin’s part, the boy took a step forward and disappeared into the shadows.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed from within.
Worried that something dangerous lurked inside, Griffin jumped across the threshold. All kinds of dangerous, mythological monster-starring scenarios played through his mind. Hera was only just now maybe thinking about forgiving him for stealing Calix’s immortality more than a decade ago. She would never forgive him if he let the boy get eaten by a basilisk or mauled by a chimera on the first day of the quest.
The moment Griffin stepped into the cave, though, he knew that Calix’s shout wasn’t one of fear. It was awe.
All around them, on the entire inside surface of the cave, multi-colored crystals sparkled like they were lit from within. As if every square inch had been covered with prisms.
They had walked into a literal rainbow.
“This is…” Griffin couldn’t find the words to explain what he was seeing.
In the end, Calix said it best.
“Whoa.”
“Yeah,” Griffin agreed. “Whoa.”
It was as if color itself came to life and swirled through the air around them.
“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” Calix asked, his voice full of wonder.
Griffin shook his head. “No, nev—”
“WHO DARES TO ENTER MY MYSTICAL SANCTUM?”
The booming female voice echoed through the cave, vibrating off the crystals and sounding completely otherworldly. Griffin looked at Calix, who stared back at him with wide eyes. The boy was ready to run.
Say your name, Griffin mouthed.
Calix started to shake his head, but then seemed to change his mind. After blinking several times, he nodded.
“Calix Aigophagos,” he called out into the cave.
When he didn’t say more, Griffin elbowed him in the arm.
“Son of Hera,” Calix added, “Queen of Olympus.”
Surely that was enough for the oracle.
They stood there, waiting for… something. For her to appear. For her to tell them to go away. For anything.
When she didn’t, Calix elbowed Griffin in the arm.
“Maybe you need to say who you are, too,” he whispered. Then, his voice dropping even lower, he added, “She already knows you’re here.”
Griffin swallowed hard and nodded.
“And Griffin Blake,” he shouted. “Descendant of Ares and—”
He hesitated. Few people knew his secret. A very few. Phoebe. Nicole. His Aunt Lili and Headmaster Petrolas. He wasn’t ashamed of his heroic heritage. More like he was afraid that he couldn’t live up to it. If no one knew, then they couldn’t be disappointed.
But he had a feeling that the oracle wouldn’t stand for half-truths.
“And descendant of,” he continued, “Hercules.”
To his credit, Calix didn’t even blink. Maybe the boy already knew. Or maybe he had a really good poker face.
Apparently, the oracle was satisfied because almost as soon as he named his second ancestor, she spoke again.
“You may enter, Calix Aigophagos, son of Hera, queen of Olympus, and Griffin Blake, descendant of Ares and descendant of Hercules.”
Her voice grew softer as she spoke, and yet somehow more powerful.
“Join me,” she continued, “at the Well of Apollo.”
Calix flashed him a pained look, but before Griffin could even give him an encouraging nudge, the boy started walking in the direction of the voice. Griffin took a deep breath and followed him deeper into the cave.
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