“Actually, it’s more like potato, artichoke,” he shoots back.
“Please. I would never touch an artichoke. It’s poky.” She shoots his shirt and tie a look of revulsion before turning back to me. “So tell me, Eleanor—”
“Penelope.”
“Ellie,” Fifi corrects her at the exact same time.
“That’s right, Ellie!” She snaps her fingers a couple of times. “I knew it wasn’t Penelope.”
I have absolutely no idea what to say about that.
“So what is it the three of you need help with?” She lowers her voice. “You want me to put a curse on someone for you?”
My eyes go wide. “You mean you can do that?”
She shrugs. “Not really. But it sounds like it could be fun to try.”
I pause for a moment, wondering what kind of muse Iwould have gotten if I’d actually made it into Athena Hall. But then I shake it off, because there’s no use crying over lost muses. And I still have answers to find.
“Actually, I was kind of hoping you could help me with this.” I hold up the book. “Can you read Attic Greek?”
“Of course I can read Attic Greek. I’ve been around so long it used to just be called Greek.” She turns to Frankie with a scowl. “Seriously? You dragged me out of a poetry reading for this?”
“It’s more important than a poetry reading.”
“We’ll see about that.” She pulls a pair of half-moon glasses out of the inner lining of her vest and switches her aviators out for them. “Give it here.”
I’m still irrationally reluctant to let go of the book, but Calliope is supposed to be here to help me, so in the end, I do as she says and place the book in her outstretched hand.
“Okay, now, what do we have here?” she mutters as she flips it open to the first page. And then promptly drops it. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where did you get that thing?”
I’m too busy choking on the dust cloud that rose up the second the book hit our dorm room floor to answer.
She turns to Fifi’s muse. “Frankie, where’d she get that?”
“You sure you don’t want to go back to that poetry reading?” he snarks. “If you leave now, you can probably make the last twenty minutes.”
“Okay, fine. You made a good call.” She bends over and picks up the book so gingerly that I half expect it to bite her. “This is serious stuff you’re playing with, Penelope.”
Funny how she gets my name right when she wants to chastise me.
“I’m not playing with it. I just want to know her name.”
Frankie and Calliope exchange another long look. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
“That’s basically what Frankie said.” Frustration rises inside me, drowning out the little voice in the back of my head telling me I should be cautious here, that Calliope holds a whole lot of my future at Anaximander’s in her tattooed hands. “Why can’t somebody just tell us the truth instead of dancing around it? We’re old enough to handle it!”
“You sure about that?” Calliope fires back, right before she drains her entire cup of coffee. “Fine, but if we’re going to do this—”
“We’re actually going to do this?” Frankie’s voice breaks in shock.
She shoots him a look. “If we’re going to do this, I need pizza.”
She snaps her fingers, and seconds later, a giant thin-crust pizza from New York City shows up on my bed. “I hope everyone likes vegan cheese.”
I’ve got no problem with it—Athenas are big on alternate dairy and protein sources—and neither does Arjun, but Frankie and Fifi both somehow manage to look repulsed and resigned at the same time.
Five minutes later, we’re all seated around the floor with paper plates loaded with pizza. Only after she’s taken several bites of her slice—“That Joseph really knows how to make a pie”—does she open the book.
