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“Greek fire. Got it. I don’t suppose I could borrow a waiter’s outfit and maybe a fake mustache?”
Naomi grunted. “Friend of Maron. That’s hilarious.” She marched away to check on her soufflés.
I figured that was a no on the waiter’s costume. Since Annabeth’s invisibility cap wasn’t doing much more than making me look out of place and giving me a skin rash, I needed another plan.
I made my way over to the double doors. I waited for a dryad server to go through, then put my foot in between them, keeping them open just enough to peek through the crack.
I’d never seen Zeus’s private palace before. The few times I’d been to Olympus, I’d always made a beeline from the elevators to the gods’ council chamber, which is what you have to do when you’re delivering doomsday weapons or trying to keep the Titans from destroying the world.
Zeus’s dining room looked like an ancient Roman feast hall crossed with a Beverly Hills party pad. In the central conversation pit, gold-embroidered purple sofas surrounded a table laden with platters of fruit. The gold cutlery and dinnerware gleamed so brightly I thought my eyes would melt. Bordering the atrium were alabaster columns etched with gold lightning bolts, just in case you forgot whose palace you were in. I was surprised Zeus hadn’t monogrammed them... although maybe he had. If his monogram was just aZ, that was basically the same as a lightning bolt, right? Mind blown.
The view was suitably impressive—vast open balconies overlooking the other Olympian mansions where the lesser-schmuck gods were forced to live. But what really got me were the games. Lined up along the outer walls, every conceivable Zeus-themed arcade machine blinked and flashed—King of Olympuspinball,Mighty Zeusslots, evenLightning God 3000, which I remembered playing once on Coney Island. I wasn’t surprised that Zeus would collect his own memorabilia. That seemed very on-brand. But the fact that he would display it in his dining room was some god-level narcissism. Like,Why look at these amazing views when you can select my avatar in multiplayer mode and realize how much your powers suck compared to mine?I wondered if he sourced his machines from the same wholesaler as Hebe Jeebies.
I forced my ADHD brain to stop obsessing about the blinking lights and focus on the brunch guests instead. Plenty of old friends and frenemies lounged on the sofas. At the head of the table sat the big guy himself, the O.Z., chillaxing in a purple velour toga and gold sandals. Because obviously, if you are a god and you can look like anything you want, this is the look you would choose.
To his left was my buddy Hera, goddess of making Percy miserable. She looked regal in her sleeveless white dress and elegant braided hairdo, as if to make a point of how gross her husband was.
To Zeus’s right, with her back to me, was a woman I assumed was Rhea, queen of the Titans, aka Grandma Goddess. I’d expected her to look older than the gods, because she was probably pushing six thousand by now, but of course immortals don’t have to show their age. Brown-blond hair cascaded down her back in a waterfall of ringlets. She wore a tie-dyed caftan-style dress with silver bangles on each arm. Curled up asleep at her feet was a lion. Just another apex predator at the table.
Other celebrities in the brunch pit included Athena, Hermes, and Demeter... because of course the grain goddess would show up for a morning meal. There were a couple of other guests I didn’t recognize, either because they’d changed their appearance or because I hadn’t met them yet. And standing behind Zeus, trying to figure out what to do with his empty, chalice-free hands, was Ganymede.
He was literally sweating Greek fire. Every so often, a drop of glistening incendiary liquid would pop and smoke on the back of his neck. So far, no one else in the room seemed to be noticing, or maybe he always did that when he served at the boss’s table.
Zeus was holding forth about all the delicacies he had ordered for his mother’s special brunch day. Apparently, she hadn’t been to Olympus in a very long time, and nobody was allowed to start eating or drinking until Zeus finished his speech about how awesome she was. All their cups were empty.
Good. Now all I had to do was get the chalice into Ganymede’s hands without being noticed. It seemed so doable, and yet...
I stared at the cupbearer, willing him to look in my direction. Finally, as Zeus was extolling the virtues of phoenix eggs Benedict (they have a spicy kick!), Ganymede glanced at the kitchen doors. After a moment of hazy confusion, he saw me holding up the chalice.
His expression changed from surprise to relief to terrified pleading in less time than it would’ve taken him to pour a drink. His eyes said,Oh, thank the gods!I gestured at him to come to the kitchen.
He shuffled to one side, but immediately Zeus reached back and grabbed his wrist. “Stay, Ganymede. I want you to hear this! Then you can pour our drinks and we’ll have a nice toast.”
Nobody remarked on the obvious fact that the cupbearer didn’t have his cup. I suppose, being a servant, he was even more invisible than I was in my borrowed hat.
Ganymede looked in my direction again.Help!
“I thought,” Zeus told the group, “that I would honor our dear mother, Rhea, with a special story about her.”
“Oh, baby, you don’t have to,” Rhea said.
The other gods wore pained smiles as if they agreed that Zeus really didn’t have to.
“So, one time,” Zeus began, “back when I was just a lad and the rest of you were rolling around in Kronos’s stomach...”
At that moment, two horrible things became clear to me. First, I would have to listen to this story. Second, if Ganymede could not come to the chalice, I would have to bring the chalice to Ganymede.
Iwill now sing the praises of pastry carts.
Not only can they transport tasty baked goods to the vicinity of your face, they can also be covered with tablecloths that hide a lower shelf perfect for crouching on when you’re a demigod who needs to sneak into a brunch. Yes, I know that’s a cliché—I got the idea from old TV shows—but hey, you’ve got to do what works.
The only tough part was convincing Barbara, my new best friend and dryad server, to push me as close to Ganymede as possible.
Her price?
“I want to meet Annabeth Chase,” she said. “I want a selfie and an autograph.”
“I— Really?”
