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“But, Ionna—”
“She’s right,” I sliced in, breaking through Daciana’s coming argument. “She’s the person who can best protect Tycho right now.”Because I won’t be in the way, messing up her visions like the fate black hole I am.“Jason, you’re with us. Nitsa, you scout ahead.”
Nitsa looked around like I could be talking to someone else. “Me?”
“You’re a spy, remember.” I smiled. “The best spy the Olympian army will ever have.”
“Oh. I—I—” She straightened, squaring her shoulders. “I mean, yes. I am.” Crouching down, she shifted into her cow form and trotted off.
We followed at a safe distance, lapsing into silence. At first I thought it was because we didn’t want to attract attention, but as we slipped through the tree line and tramped further into the island, I figured it was because we didn’t know what to say.
“Thanks again.” My voice sounded weird to my own ears. “For coming in here with me. You’re good friends. The best.”
“Happy to do it.” Theron faced his back to me. Ever the soldier, he kept a sharp eye on our surroundings. “If I’m honest, putting aside all the psychotic, homicidal traps, this place is...beyond belief. The gods—the actual gods of Olympus—created all of this. Might even be the last thing they created before they scattered. Who knows what else is down here? Perfectly preserved for three thousand years.”
“Just that library,” I replied. “There were recent books in there. I think it’s been updating all this time, filling up with all the books of the world. Imagine all the history that’s down there. Imagine what it’s worth.”
“All we can do is imagine. Whoever this goddess is that they trapped down here, she’s bad, Aella.” He turned to me. The look in his eyes chilled my soul. “She’s worse than we can possibly imagine.”
“Wha—? How do you know?” I forced out.
“I told you. Monsters and demons run free. The gods of carnage and suffering were left alone to scatter and continue on in their demigods, but this goddess—this one—was so dangerous, she couldn’t be allowed to scatter and live on. She was trapped down here to wither away into nothing—forgotten.
“I can’t imagine who or what could be so dangerous, and that’s the problem,” he said. “Everything I can think up exists, or has already happened, so she’s something beyond imagining. Something new.” His expression was grim. “The world’s got enough problems, don’t you think? It doesn’t need a new one.”
I swallowed hard. “Then, it’s a good thing they’re going to wipe this place and her out.” I flicked down to my wrist. Selene was there. She was listening to every word. “I’ve got no problem with that. As long as they do it after we leave.”
“Pssst!Guys.” Nitsa waved at us from behind a palm tree, concealing her nakedness, but not her face. Wide eyes rolled in their sockets, set in a face paler than a sheet. “I found it,” she hissed. I saw her trembling from where I stood. “I found the key.”
“That’s great.” Jason jogged over, covering her with a wave. “Where is it?”
“It’s in a cave a quarter of a mile that way.” She was still clinging to the tree. She was still trembling. “Where it is isn’t the issue. It’s... It’s what’s in the way.”
“What’s in the way?” I asked.
All too soon, I got my answer.
I stood at the mouth of the cave, shaking harder than an earthquake. If someone told me wetness was dripping down my leg, I’d have said good. My urine was smarter than me.
It was running away.
“Wha... What is it?” I rasped.
“Something that shouldn’t exist.” Theron kept sucking in sharp breaths like he wasn’t getting enough air. “Something that went extinct thousands of years ago.”
A hand the size of a blue whale rested on the rocky, black stone ground. Deep, sonorous breaths blew the hair on his knuckles—blown out of a nose bigger than my old home. Bigger thaneveryone’shome. Everywhere. In the whole world.
“Giant.”
Nitsa shook her head roughly. She had one foot slid back, fighting every urge to run. “Worse than a giant,” she hissed, jaw clenched. “Cyclops.”
“Why is a...?” I stopped and started again. My mouth was so dry. “Why is a cyclops worse than a giant?”
“Giants didn’t eat humans. Cyclopes do.”
My jaw hung open. I think I was silently screaming. I couldn’t be sure. My brain stopped working aftereat humans.
“What do we do?” Theron asked. His gaze traveled up and over the cave’s owner to a craggy ledge. An altar.
