Kato glances at the wizard. “How does he know?”
“He knows everything. That’s why he’s completely mad,” I say, winding my finger around in circles next to my head.
The men glance anxiously toward the house, but the wizard isn’t paying any attention. My antics are of supreme disinterest to a being like him.
After another half hour or so, something cool licks at my skin. At first, I think it’s just the wind, but when it happens again, goose bumps break out on my arms. The same persistent coolness dips into my head, probing.
I sit up straighter. I know this feeling. Two Oracles have demanded my thoughts and tasted me with their frosty tongues. This is both subtler and more powerful, and my fingers tense reflexively around the torn-up grass in my lap, all of me stiffening. After one slightly panicked breath, I force myself to relax and open my mind. I’ll lay myself bare in a way I rarely do, even for myself, if it means helping Griffin avoid a war.
The feeling of icy habitation recedes just as a gust of wind blasts through the valley. It’s chilly, even for me. Next to me, Flynn shivers. His brown eyes flick to mine.
“Shouldn’t you stand?” he whispers nervously.
“You whisper really loud,” I whisper back really loudly.
Flynn scowls. “I feel like we should light candles and pray. Like this is a temple.”
“That,” I say, pointing to the hovel, “is a hovel.”
Flynn gasps. It’s funny, especially since the wizard seems to have finished exploring my mind, and we’re not dead.
“Do you see those marks?” I point to the grassless depressions littering the field around the shack. “Those are from God Bolts. The wizard has a direct line to Zeus, whose favorite weapon is the thunderbolt. If he wanted us gone, we would be. Permanently. As indisintegrated. Poof. Nothing but ash.”
Flynn’s eyes dart from side to side, taking in the dozens of charred pockmarks scattered all around us. “People the wizard, or Zeus, decided shouldn’t be here?” he asks.
I nod, and he looks suddenly grumpy. Or like he has an upset stomach. Or maybe both.
“You failed to mention that before we got here,” Flynn says tightly.
I shrug. “I was pretty sure we’d be fine.”
Carver snorts. “‘Pretty sure’ is a pretty big gamble.”
I wave off his concern. I wasn’t worried. Not really. “Not killing us doesn’t mean helping us, though.”
Griffin sits down next to me, his eyes on the impossibly still man and his creepy black staff. “‘Pretty sure’ from Cat are odds I’ll take any day.”
I offer him a small smile. His confidence both warms and scares me. “Zeus is my ancestor. I think, Ihope, he’ll point us toward the Ipotane.” I can’t explain exactly why I think Zeus favors me, and I have no real proof that he does. Except maybe that booming voice at Ios, that crack of thunder and flash of lightning. I think Zeus may have helped me heal Griffin and then chastised me for praying to his brother Poseidon, my go-to God, when I should have turned to the king of Olympus instead.
I’m here now, Zeus. What’s next?
Glancing north across the lake, I give myself an inward shake.Great. Catalia Fisa. Humble as ever.I almost wonder if the skywillopen up and rain down lightning bolts.
Evening approaches, and the biting wind dies down as the sun sinks in the west. The wizard, motionless as ever, looks like he grew right out of his porch. I’m not nervous anymore, I’m bored. Luckily, Griffin chooses to be bored along with me. The guys, starting to finally relax and act normal again, play dice games where they set up camp a few dozen feet away. Two rabbits cook on a spit over a fire in one of the God Bolt pits, and Flynn tends to the evening meal, as usual.
The smell of roasting meat makes my stomach growl. “I’m hungry.”
Griffin retrieves the saddlebags and unloads bread, cheese, cured meat, and a plump orange. I try to hand back the meat, but Griffin won’t take it.
“Just a little,” he says. “To keep up your strength.”
I wrinkle my nose, dangling the dried strip between my thumb and forefinger. More disgusted than usual by it, I drop it in his lap. The smell of aged cheese reaches me next, and my stomach turns over. Grimacing, I push away everything but the bread and fruit.
Griffin frowns. “I thought you were hungry.”
“I’m starving.” I tear into the orange, free a quarter, and then ram the entire thing into my mouth.
Griffin watches me inhale the orange, an odd expression on his face.
