AFTER CHECKING IN on Piper to check if she was fine with Kat leaving ( she'd seemed fine, though Kat knew better, but she couldn't stay for very long ), she went up the stairs to find that Hazel and Leo had already left.

"Rude," Kat scoffed, standing next to Frank at the rail. Percy and Annabeth were ready to go, but they were standing a distance away, letting them talk.

"You could come with us," he offered. "I wouldn't mind having you on my back."

She let out a laugh. "I'm usually riding on your back," she said. "But no, I inherited super speed from my papa."

"Your papa," Frank repeated. "Super speed . . . you're a daughter of Mercury?"

Kat nodded. "Hermes, but yeah." She glanced over at him. "Look, we'll talk later tonight, if that's fine with you, but before I do . . . I'm sorry I hid this from you. But mama didn't want me telling you, and your mom forbid me from telling you—"

"Wait," he interrupted. "My mom didn't want you telling me about . . . about this? Why?"

She smiled ruefully. "She wanted you to be happy."

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"All those stories I told you growing up?" Kat said, "they were true. Everything was true. I grew up surrounded by blades and battles, and look at me now." She nudged him with her elbow. "Don't worry about it, though. Duty calls, right? I'll see you later."

She went over to climb down the rope ladder when Frank yelped, "wait!"

"Hmm?" Kat stopped, her feet planted on the second rung down the ladder.

He leaned in and said quietly, "don't be too harsh on Hazel," he said. "She's had a rough time. She died in the 1940s and came back."

"Oh." She shrugged. "That's metal. I'll watch out for your girl."

"My wha—"

Kat was already halfway down the ladder, getting far enough down to where she jumped off and slight pain flared up her legs. She ignored it and ran in a direction, hoping for the best.

Eventually, she ran into Leo and Hazel. And by ran into, she meant almost knocked Leo over.

"Kat!" Leo yelped as she blurred to a stop, striking a pose dramatically because that's the type of person she is.

"You left without me, moron," Kat put a hand on his shoulder because her vision was blurry from running super fast. She flashed a grin to Hazel. "I don't blame you, though, Hazel. Just this idiot."

"You take too long talking to Piper," Leo declared, then he smirked at her. "Or should I say . . . talking."

She sighed, "I wasn't making out with her," she said, putting her hands up in surrender when she could finally fucking see again. "You know how she gets when she's in her moods."

"Really horny or really depressed?"

"No comment." Kat swatted at him. "What are we looking for, boy genius?"

Leo scanned the island, which was pretty much just bleach-white dunes, blankets of grass, and boulders encrusted with salt like frosting. "Festus said there was Celestial bronze close by, but I'm not sure where—"

"That way." Hazel pointed up the beach. "About five hundred yards."

"How do you—?"

"Precious metals," Hazel said. "It's a Pluto thing."

"Metal," Kat smirked. "That wasn't intentional, though. Lead the way, Miss Metal Detector."

The sun began to set. The sky turned a bizarre mix of purple and yellow. In another reality, Kat might've enjoyed a walk on the beach with her luchik and her best friend's girlfriend, but the farther they went, the edgier she felt. Finally Hazel turned inland.

"You sure this is a good idea?" Leo asked.

"We're close," she promised. "Come on."

"Like we have a choice," Kat muttered.

Just over the dunes, they saw the woman.

She sat on a boulder in the middle of a grassy field. A black-and-chrome motorcycle was parked nearby, but each of the wheels had a big pie slice removed from the spokes and rim, so that they resembled Pac-Men. No way was the bike drivable in that condition.

The woman had sleek blonde hair and a tall frame. She wore black leather biker's pants, tall leather boots, and a bloodred leather jacket — sort of a Michael Jackson joins the Hell's Angels look. Around her feet, the ground was littered with what looked like broken shells. She was hunched over, pulling new ones out of a sack and cracking them open. Shucking oysters? Kat wasn't sure if there were oysters in the Great Salt Lake. She didn't think so.

She wasn't anxious to approach. Strange ladies were always a red flag. But Hazel forged ahead, so Kat didn't have much choice except to follow, dragging Leo along.

As they got closer, Kat noticed disturbing details. Attached to the woman's belt was a curled whip. Her red-leather jacket had a subtle design to it — twisted branches of an apple tree populated with skeletal birds. The oysters she was shucking were actually fortune cookies.

A pile of broken cookies lay ankle-deep all around her. She kept pulling new ones from her sack, cracking them open, and reading the fortunes. Most she tossed aside. A few made her mutter unhappily. She would swipe her finger over the slip of paper like she was smudging it, then magically reseal the cookie and toss it into a nearby basket.

"What are you doing?" Leo blurted, making Kat roll her eyes.

The woman looked up. Kat's breath stopped, her blood starting to boil.

"Aunt Rosa?" Leo asked.

Kat frowned. There's no way his aunt was a white lady. In fact, there's no way that his aunt was Kat's mama unless they were somehow related, which she sincerely doubted. This woman looked like Kat's mama — cold stare, hard eyes, long blonde hair and all — but it couldn't be Viktoria Mikhailova. She would never wear clothes like that, because she would sooner shoot herself with Uncle Nikita's gun before wearing biker clothes. And as far as Kat knew, her mama was in Moscow negotiating something for the company. She wouldn't be cracking open fortune cookies in the middle of the Great Salt Lake.

"Is that what you see?" the woman asked. "Interesting. And you, Hazel, dear?"

"How did you—?" Hazel stepped back in alarm. "You — you look like Mrs. Leer. My third grade teacher. I hated you."

The woman cackled. "Excellent. You resented her, eh? She judged you unfairly?"

"You — she taped my hands to the desk for misbehaving," Hazel said. "She called my mother a witch. She blamed me for everything I didn't do and — No. She has to be dead. Who are you?"

"Oh, Katerina knows," the woman said. "How do you feel about your mama, Katyusha?"

Katyusha. Only her mama and her uncle called her that — not even her siblings could, and they could call her Katya. Growing up, Kat had hated her life. She had always been jealous of Frank for living a carefree, unknowing life. She hated being a soldier. She hated being a weapon.

You wanna know how she feels? She wants to leave. And she wants revenge.

Her eyes drifted to the motorcycle with the Pac-Man wheels. She knows that symbol, due to the lessons that had been drilled in her head.

"Lady Nemesis," Kat said. "You're the goddess of revenge."

"You see?" The goddess smiled at Leo and Hazel. "She recognizes me."

"Yeah, well, that's 'cause she was taught this shit," muttered Leo.

"Shut up," snapped Kat.

Nemesis cracked another cookie and wrinkled her nose. "You will have great fortune when you least expect it," she read. "That's exactly the sort of nonsense I hate. Someone opens a cookie, and suddenly they have a prophecy that they'll be rich! I blame that tramp Tyche. Always dispensing good luck to people who don't deserve it!"

Leo looked at the mound of broken cookies. "Uh . . . you know those aren't real prophecies, right? They're just stuffed in the cookies at some factory—"

"Don't try to excuse it!" Nemesis snapped. "It's just like Tyche to get people's hopes up. No, no. I must counter her." Nemesis flicked a finger over the slip of paper, and the letters changed to red. "You will die painfully when you most expect it. There! Much better."

"That's horrible!" Hazel said. "You'd let someone read that in their fortune cookie, and it would come true?"

Nemesis sneered. Kat was all too used to that expression on her mama's face. "My dear Hazel, haven't you ever wished horrible things on Mrs. Leer for the way she treated you?"

"That doesn't mean I'd want them to come true!"

"Bah." The goddess resealed the cookie and tossed it in her basket. "Tyche would be Fortuna for you, I suppose, being Roman. Like the others, she's in a horrible way right now. Me? I'm not affected. I am called Nemesis in both Greek and Roman. I do not change, because revenge is universal."

"What are you talking about?" Leo asked. "What are you doing here?"

Nemesis opened another cookie. "Lucky numbers. Ridiculous! That's not even a proper fortune!" She crushed the cookie and scattered the pieces around her feet.

"To answer your question, Leo Valdez, the gods are in terrible shape. It always happens when a civil war is brewing between you Romans and Greeks. The Olympians are torn between their two natures, called on by both sides. They become quite schizophrenic, I'm afraid. Splitting headaches. Disorientation."

"But we're not at war," Leo insisted.

"Um, Leo . . ." Hazel winced. "Except for the fact that you recently blew up large sections of New Rome."

Leo stared at her. "Not on purpose!"

"Yeah," Kat agreed, "but the Romans don't realize that. And they want revenge. Mama taught me that." She gave him a pointed look.

Nemesis cackled. "Leo, listen to the girls. War is coming. Gaea has seen to it, with your help. And can you guess whom the gods blame for their predicament?"

Leo's face fell. "Me."

The goddess snorted. "Well, don't you have a high opinion of yourself. You're just a pawn on the chessboard, Leo Valdez. I was referring to the player who set this ridiculous quest in motion, bringing the Greeks and Romans together. The gods blame Hera — or Juno, if you prefer! The queen of the heavens has fled Olympus to escape the wrath of her family. Don't expect any more help from your patron!"

Kat had mixed feelings about Hera. She'd hated the Mikhailov family until Kat had ( reluctantly ) saved her from being swallowed by the earth or marrying a fucking giant, but at least she had been on their side, more or less. If she was out of the picture now . . .

"So why are you here?" asked Kat.

"Why, to offer my help!" Nemesis smiled wickedly.

Kat glanced at Hazel. She looked like she'd just been offered a free snake. When Kat looked over at Leo, he didn't look much better.

"Your help," repeated Kat.

"Of course!" said the goddess. "I enjoy tearing down the proud and powerful, and there are none who deserve tearing down like Gaea and her giants. Still, I must warn you that I will not suffer undeserved success. Good luck is a sham. The wheel of fortune is a Ponzi scheme. True success requires sacrifice."

"Sacrifice?" Hazel's voice was tight. "I lost my mother. I died and came back. Now my brother is missing. Isn't that enough sacrifice for you?"

"Right now," Leo said, his voice half-filled with anger, "all I want is some Celestial bronze."

"Oh, that's easy," replied Nemesis. "It's just over the rise. You'll find it with the sweethearts."

"Wait," Hazel said. "What sweethearts?"

Nemesis popped a cookie in her mouth and swallowed it, fortune and all. "You'll see. Perhaps they will teach you a lesson, Hazel Levesque. Most heroes cannot escape their nature, even when given a second chance at life." She smiled. "And speaking of your brother Nico, you don't have much time. Let's see . . . it's June twenty-fifth? Yes, after today, six more days. Then he dies, along with the entire city of Rome."

Hazel's eyes widened. "How . . . what—?"

"As for you, Katerina Mikhailova," Nemesis gave her a wicked smile. "Your family has always given me sacrifices. They've never been afraid to do whatever it takes. And they've always been extraordinary. Unfortunately, your path to greatness won't be so easy, like your ancestors'."

"And as for you, child of fire." She turned to Leo. "Your worst hardships are yet to come. You will always be the outsider, the eight wheel. You will not find a place among your brethren. Soon you will face a problem you cannot solve, though I could help you . . . for a price."

Kat smelled smoke. She looked over and saw that Leo's fingers were ablaze, and Hazel was staring at him in terror.

He shoved his hand in his pocket to extinguish the flames. "I like to solve my own problems."

"Very well." Nemesis brushed cookie dust off her jacket.

"But, um, what sort of price are we talking about?"

The goddess shrugged. "One of my children recently traded an eye for the ability to make a real difference in the world."

Kat swallowed. Loudly. "Ethan . . ." she whispered, staring at her feet. She'd known him; not too well, but he'd been a part of her cabin for awhile. Rest in peace. Pieces? No. Peace.

"You . . . want an eye?" asked Leo.

"In your case, perhaps another sacrifice would do. But something just as painful. Here." She handed him an unbroken fortune cookie. "If you need an answer, break this. It will solve your problem."

Leo's hand trembled as he held the fortune cookie. "What problem?"

"You'll know when the time comes."

"No, thanks," Leo said firmly. But his hand slipped the cookie into his tool belt. Hypocrite.

Nemesis picked another cookie from her bag and cracked it open. "You will have cause to reconsider your choices soon. Oh, I like that one. No changes needed here."

She resealed the cookie and tossed it into the basket. "Very few gods will be able to help you on the quest. Most are already incapacitated, and their confusion will only grow worse. One thing might bring unity to Olympus again — an old wrong finally avenged. Ah, that would be sweet indeed, the scales finally balanced! But it will not happen unless you accept my help."

"I suppose you won't tell us what you're talking about," Hazel muttered. "Or why my brother Nico has only six days to live. Or why Rome is going to be destroyed."

Nemesis chuckled. She rose and slung her sack of cookies over her shoulder. "Oh, it's all tied together, Hazel Levesque. As for my offer, Leo Valdez, give it some thought. You're a good child. A hard worker, like your best friend Katerina. We could do business. But I have detained you too long. You should visit the reflecting pool before the light fades. My poor cursed boy gets quite . . . agitated when the darkness comes."

Kat didn't like the sound of that, but the goddess climbed on her motorcycle. Apparently, it was drivable, despite those Pac-Man–shaped wheels, because Nemesis revved her engine and disappeared in a mushroom cloud of black smoke.

Hazel bent down. All the broken cookies and fortunes had disappeared except for one crumpled slip of paper. She picked it up and read, "You will see yourself reflected, and you will have reason to despair."

"Fantastic," Kat grumbled. "Let's go see what that means."