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Which, come to think of it... was kind of open to interpretation, but Ganymede relaxed his shoulders. He wiped his tears away with his gold-ringed fingers.
“Fine,” he said. “I suspect someone on Olympus is trying to embarrass me, make me look bad in front of Zeus. If he finds out I lost my cup...” The god shuddered. “No. I have to recover it.”
“You have enemies?” I asked. It was hard for me to imagine how the drink server of the gods would make people mad.
“Oh, yes,” Ganymede said. “Hera, for one. She’s hated me since the day Zeus snatched me up to Olympus. Zeus was always complimenting me, you see—how handsome I was, how much I brightened up the palace. It’s notmyfault I have nicer legs than she does.”
Annabeth grimaced. “Let’s hope it’s not Hera.”
“No...” Ganymede stared into his smoothie. “Probably not. She would consider it beneath her.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. If messing with my life wasn’t too petty for the queen of the gods, I wasn’t going to rule out her stealing beverage containers.
“But there are others,” Ganymede continued. “Everyone on Olympus hates me, really, because I’m a newcomer, an upstart kid made immortal. They call me a gold digger! Can you believe that?”
I tried not to stare at the twenty pounds of gold he was wearing. “You suspect anyone else in particular?”
He glanced around the shop, as if one of the himbos might have been a spy. He gestured for us to lean in.
“Before I was the cupbearer,” he said, “there were two other goddesses who had my job. First Hebe. Then Iris.”
Iris the messenger goddess, I had met. Every demigod calls on her from time to time to send rainbow messages—our version of video calls—but I also remembered visiting her organic health food store in California. The experience left a patchouli burn in my sinuses that took weeks to clear.
Grover slurped his Fiji Fro-Yo. “Iris seems kind of chill to be stealing chalices.”
“Perhaps.” Ganymede frowned. “But Hebe...”
Her, I didn’t know. She had a cabin at camp—one of the newer ones—but she’d never been on my quest bingo card before.
“The goddess of youth,” Annabeth said, probably noticing that I looked pretty clueless. “But, Ganymede, you’re, like, eternally young and beautiful. Why would she want to embarrass you?”
“Oh, you don’t know her,” Ganymede said. “In the early days, every time I would serve drinks at the feast table, she’d mutterSpill it, spill itas I walked past. She’s so immature.”
Grover shrugged. “Well, if she’s the goddess of youth...”
“That’s no excuse! She needs to grow up!” said the three-thousand-year-old twentysomething.
“Okay,” I said. “Do you have any proof she took it?”
“Proof?” He scoffed. “That’s what I needyoufor. Don’t you heroes dust for fingerprints, analyze DNA samples, that sort of thing?”
“You might be thinking ofCSI. But okay, we’ll start with Hebe. Then check Iris.”
“Fine.” Ganymede sipped his smoothie. “Hmm. Not bad. Maybe when I get fired and turned back into a mortal, I could work here.”
“You’d make a great himbo,” Annabeth admitted. “So how long has your chalice been missing?”
Ganymede paused to think. “A century?”
“Acentury?!” I asked.
“Or a week?” Ganymede pinched his nose. “I always get those time periods confused. Not long, anyway. So far, I’ve been able to fake it with my delivery orders. The other gods kind of expect to-go cups with those. But if I don’t get my proper chalice back before the next in-person feast, everyone will notice. I’ll be humiliated!”
“When is the next feast?” Grover asked. (Grover likes feasts.)
“I don’t know!” Ganymede cried. “Zeus is unpredictable! He might schedule one in twenty years. Or it could be tomorrow. The point is, I need that goblet back before word gets out!”
He leaned forward, his expression stern. “Question those goddesses. See what they know. Butdon’toffend them. Anddon’tsay I sent you. Anddon’tgive away that my cup was stolen.”
