“You're fine.” A hand gripped my arm, pulling me up. It was difficult to get my feet under me, but I did, though unsteadily. Out of breath, I stared at the man who still held onto me.
Achilles looked like he'd gone eight rounds with a prizefighter. His upper lip was split, and the lower one swollen. Dark purple bruises marred the skin beneath both eyes, but the left was nearly shut.
Behind him stretched crystal blue water, surrounded on both sides by gray, rocky cliffs. In the distance, jagged, steep hills surrounded us. I didn't see any way to get off the beach except to swim or climb those cliffs—which was going to be a bitch.
Where the hell were we?
It hit me like one of the punches Achilles must have taken. I spun toward the water. “Where's Leo?” We’d been on a ship, in the middle of the ocean. “What happened?”
Whirling back, I scanned the beach. My friends were here, my brother, but not Leo. Lightheaded, I gripped my knees and sucked in breath after breath. “What happened?” I said, clearer this time.
Hector licked chapped and split lips. “I don't know. I don't know where we are. I don't know how we got here. We were fighting, and then I woke up.” His hand was pressed against his side, like he was pinching a cramp.
“What's wrong with you?” I asked.
Hesitantly, he pulled his hand away from his side and held it out. Blood, wet and thick, stained his fingers. “It's getting better.”
I winced when he pulled his shirt from his side and lifted it. The skin was sliced from naval to rib, but he was right. The center of the wound was still seeping blood. The outer edges were red and angry but healed.
Each one of us appeared injured. The silver scar on Orestes's face beaded with blood, and he stood heavily on one leg while resting the weight of the other on his toes. Achilles's face was definitely the worst out of the five of us, and if his body looked anything the same, it was a miracle he was still standing.
Pollux stood at the edge of the water, staring out at the sea.
“Pollux.”
His shoulders tensed before he spun, and when he did, it was like staring at the demigod I'd first met millennia ago. There was nothing in his eyes but agony. “I lost her again.”
Immediately, whether it was because I was in denial or because the idea just couldn't be true, I shook my head. “No. She's here.”
We just had to find her. It was hard for me, panicked and injured, to focus my brain enough to remember everything that had happened seconds ago. There had been something in the air—something wrong and angry—that had us at each other's throats. The feeling had been familiar, and right before I could put my finger on when I'd felt it before, there had been that flash of light.
Why had we been fighting? As each moment passed, my mind cleared, and it came back to me.
Jealousy.
Jealousy?
I wasn't jealous of them, though, so why had we been fighting like that?
Pollux waded into the water, toeing off one boot after the other, uncaring that they bobbed in the surf behind him. He stripped his sweater over his head, then his shirt, and began to unbutton his pants.
“What are you doing?” Achilles asked.
“She's out there.” He didn't bother to face us, just jerked his chin toward the sea. “She's out there and she needs us.”
Turning away from him, I stared at the cliffs. A gust of wind blew in my face, chasing away the scent of the salt to leave cypress. “Greece.” I shook my head. This was some game of the gods, but it was a mistake to bring us here. “I think this is Corfu.”
Behind me, Pollux waded through the ocean to stand next to me. He held his shirt in one hand. “You think she's here?”
I closed my eyes. The sense of discord that had filled me back on the ferry was gone. “It feels different now. But back there, on the ferry, did you feel it? Doom and anxiety. It reminded me of having to choose which goddess was the most beautiful. That sense that things were going to end badly, no matter what I did.”
“Athena,” Hector said. I faced him, trying to figure out what he meant, so he said it again. “She set the stage.”
Was that what I had felt?
“She's running out of time,” Achilles said. "Using her power. The veil between the gods and us is thinning."
“Like with Castor,” I said.