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The blood drained from Bracken’s face at that last bit of advice, but he nodded.

Rhadamanthus pointed at Coco but said to Bracken, “Forgiveness takes strength but is the only way forward.”

Bracken translated for her.

A small, thin Black girl with a head full of braids appeared beside Rhadamanthus.

Coco gasped, her gaze glued to the little girl with the big green eyes.

“This is who you blame? Look at her.” He shook his head. “A child should not be blamed for the evil adults do.” With a wave of his hand, the little girl disappeared.

Bracken turned to Coco and translated again. She, too, looked sick.

All three judges studied me a moment and then Aeacus said, “You have everything you’ll need if you remember the gifts of your friends and you accept who you’ve become. You are no longer who you once were. Don’t forget that. Trust yourself. You know the way.”

“We wish you well on your journey,” Minos said before all three turned and disappeared around a corner.

I craned around to see where they’d gone and came nose to rock with a wall. “Huh.” Turning back to the others, I said, “That way is closed off. Let’s go back to where we were before the tunnel gave us a sharp turn.”

“English?” Coco said.

We backtracked a few feet and found the original tunnel we’d been following before the Underworld had detoured us into the judges. “So, that happened.” Who had they been talking about at first? The one who was fading. Was she why I was here? “Here’s hoping Meg shows up soon to guide us the rest of the way. Knock on rock,” I said as I rapped my knuckles against the tunnel wall.

Stheno scoffed.

“What is with you?” Coco demanded. “You were ready to fight them when they were being polite to us. Some of us would really like to get out of this place alive.”

“Oh, they were princes,” Stheno sneered. “Except if you understood what they were really saying.”

I thought about it a minute, running over what the judges had said that seemed to set her off. “How is them asking if you and your sisters are okay an insult? What did I miss?”

Stheno swung around, her eye a hair short of taking me out. “Fine. You want to know why I didn’t want to come, why I don’t want to be here, why that fucking how are your sisters enraged me?” Her snakes rose up and slithered over her shoulders toward us.

“Medusa was the best of us, the kindest and gentlest of us. She wasn’t like Euryale and me. She hadn’t been born monstrous. She was beautiful. Perfect. She became a priestess and devoted her life to Athena. She worshipped her and did everything she could in her service, while Euryale and I mocked her for her piety.”

Bracken’s head had bowed. He seemed to know what was coming.

“Poseidon saw her and had to have her. No one ever said no to him, except my sister. Again and again, she said no. She’d made a vow of chastity to serve her goddess.”

My stomach dropped.

“Poseidon didn’t take no for an answer, so he attacked her in Athena’s temple. He raped her, my sweet, devoted sister. He left her sobbing on the floor of the temple. Athena arrived and did she help her servant who had just been violently raped? No. She did not. She raged against Medusa for defiling her temple. She cursed her to become like us, her sisters, and to live out her life as an exile.”

Stheno looked like she wanted to spit fire. “Then those three assholes take a dig at my sisters and me for being vagabonds, drunkenly wandering the world instead of honoring our vows. Fuck them!”

There was movement in the tunnel behind Stheno. I squinted into the dark and saw the silhouette of someone in robes with huge wings. Meg. Finally.

“Always the drama with this one. Is this why it’s taking so long?” Meg demanded, glaring at Stheno.

Stheno turned away from us and then spun back, too caught up in her own rage to have noticed Meg’s arrival. “Do you know why we drink all the time? To keep our broken sister company. That fucker impregnated her. She gave birth to Pegasus and Chrysaor. Medusa would have loved them, though, would have taken care of them and raised them, but he couldn’t even allow her that much comfort. He stole his children away from her. And that fucking cunt Athena refused her pleas for help. Again!”

The tunnel began to shake, though Stheno was too angry to notice that either.

“So, no, I don’t want to be back here. I don’t want to have to think about these pieces of shit who destroyed my sister’s life and then carried on contentedly with their own. What I want to do is take off my eye patch and fry them both while screaming Fuck you!”

The ground lurched beneath our feet. Meg dove for me but the path disappeared. We dropped into pitch black and then plunged into cold dark water.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been in dark water, but it’s disorienting as hell. Without light cues, it’s almost impossible to determine which way is up. My lungs felt like they were going to explode, and then I saw a faint green light to my right. I swam as hard as I could toward it and finally found the air.