Kato staggers back from Titos, hacking out a series of coughs that rattle like dust and gravel. In between, he gulps down half-strangled breaths, his chest rising and falling like bellows. The tattoo is still on his neck, the flesh around it raw and red. Almost immediately, though, the burn starts to fade, and the tattoo settles into healthy-looking skin again, more realistic and lifelike than ever.
Wary, my jaw still slack, I turn back toward Titos. Slowly, like he doesn’t want to startle me, Poseidon’s Drakon slithers toward me. He lays his head across my boot and stares at me with those lidless eyes. Still sprawled on my backside, I cringe and tense to kick him off me, but his tongue shoots out and curls around my calf.
Adrenaline spikes in my blood. I think the snake just hugged me. I’m disturbed.Verydisturbed.
“If you jump down my throat, Iwillcut myself open to get you out,” I say with surprising conviction.
I could swear the wordincompatiblewhispers through my mind on a soft hiss. The small hairs on the back of my neck prickle upright, and I shiver.
Titos slithers up my recently reset leg. Heat suffuses my thigh. Griffin steps forward, not looking at all comfortable with this, and I hold up my hand. “Wait. It’s okay. I think.”
From between locked jaws, he says, “Youthink?”
I nod, and then, through the tear in my pants, we all see the jagged, puckered, barely closed-over skin even out, losing all evidence of recent injury. The pervasive ache in my bone disappears.
Griffin lets out a soft grunt and visibly relaxes. So do I.
Titos wriggles into my lap, curls up, and then lays his shiny dark head on my lower abdomen. His tongue flutters out with leisurely vibrations against my belly, and a tingling warmth spreads through my pelvis and higher, soothing away the cramps and aches. Next, he coils around my torso, and my breathing turns completely pain-free. After that, Titos slides his head over my left shoulder and then wraps his sinuous body around my arm. It stops throbbing instantly.
“Titos is healing me,” I whisper.
“Then why do you look like you’re about to vomit?” Flynn whispers back.
“I’m trying to overcome my visceral dislike of snakes.” I speak through my teeth, not opening my mouth just in case Titos gets any ideas about a new host, despite my apparent incompatibility.
To my relief, Titos eventually slithers off me. I breathe deeply for the first time since the Hydra caught me and twist this way and that, testing my body and stretching my limbs. I grin. “I feel great!”
Squatting down next to me, Griffin squeezes my knee. His return smile looks strained and doesn’t reach his eyes.
Kato chokes on something, maybe leftover snake, and then neatly sidesteps a slow-moving Titos. Kato’s eyes shift from the serpent back to me. His expression turns incredulous. “I carried a Drakon around all this time on the off chance—no, thegoodchance—you’d get yourself nearly killed and need extreme magical healing?”
I grimace, apologetic. “I guess so. Titos couldn’t have survived the Ice Plains on his own. It’s too cold for snakes.” I look around. “This place is perfect for him. The hot springs will keep him warm, and there are bound to be frogs and other sources of food in the lake.”
Kato snorts. “So if something like this had happened when we were still on the glaciers, the snake would have jumped back down my throat?”
I have trouble meeting Kato’s eyes and pluck at my boot instead. I don’t like how the Gods have been using him. First the labyrinth, and now this. “Maybe.” I shrug. “I don’t know.”
Without even a last look in our direction, Titos slips into the warm lake. Gentle ripples form, spread out, and then melt into the water as he disappears under the surface.
“That was anticlimactic,” Carver says with a frown.
“Not for me,” Kato mutters, rubbing his neck.
“Titos must have helped you conjure the healing salamanders.” I look at Kato, my eyes drawn to the dark spiral of the tattoo peeking out from under his fingers. “That’s why they were so powerful.”
Frowning, Kato drops his hand. “I guess that’s the end of that.”
His tattoo gleams in the sunlight, still lifelike.Who knows?
Griffin tenses beside me. He rises, and I follow his gaze toward the lake. My eyes widen just as Griffin reaches down, grabs my wrist, and pops me off the ground with strength that still somehow surprises me. We all run away from the lake, Griffin towing me at breakneck speed. Part of me registers that I don’t hurt—anywhere.Amazing. The rest of me focuses on the next disaster. Something huge enough to displace massive amounts of water is hurtling straight for the shore.
I glance over my shoulder. Every Hydra head is turned toward the gargantuan disturbance. The frightening creature spins and splashes frantically for deeper water.
Uh-oh.When monster number one is terrified of monster number two, it’s definitely time to move faster. Unfortunately, I’m the slowest one here.
The Hydra shrieks, and I turn again. And stop dead. Griffin is still going and nearly rips my arm from the socket before he stops, too, whipping around.
Titos is rising from the lake. Only Titos grew.A lot.His black head flares, so high and huge it blocks the sun and throws the entire lakefront into shadow. He towers above the Hydra, an ebony mountain of muscle and fangs. Water cascades down his enormous, overlapping scales, hitting the lake with a tumbling crash. The lake froths and foams, bubbling around his giant column of a body as Titos unhinges his enormous jaws. They widen with a loud, dreadful click. The inside of the serpent’s mouth is wet and pink and bottomless. Plenty of room for the Hydra.
