ONCE BRIAR HAD gotten ready, Jason summoned the wind to carry him, Reyna, and Briar ashore.

The man in purple was waiting for them.

Briar had heard tons of stories about Hercules. She'd seen several cheesy movies and cartoons. Before today, if she had thought about him at all, she'd just roll her eyes and imagine some stupid hairy dude in his thirties with a barrel chest and a gross hippie beard, with a lion skin over his head and a big club, like a caveman. She imagined he would smell bad, belch, and scratch himself a lot.

She was not expecting this.

His feet were bare, covered in white sand. His robes made him look like a priest. His beard was fashionably scruffy, like Briar's dad wore his — the sort of I just happened not to shave for two days and I still look awesome look.

He was well built, but not too stocky. His ebony hair was close-cropped, Roman style. He had startling blue eyes like Jason's, but his skin was coppery, as if he'd spent his entire life on a tanning bed. The most surprising thing: he looked about twenty. Definitely no older. He was handsome in a rugged but not-at-all-caveman way.

He did in fact have a club, which lay in the sand next to him, but it was more like an oversized baseball bat — a five-foot-long polished cylinder of mahogany with a leather handgrip studded in bronze. Coach Hedge would have been jealous.

Jason, Reyna, and Briar landed at the edge of the surf. They approached slowly, careful not to make any threatening moves. Hercules watched them with no particular emotion, as if they were some form of seabird he had never noticed before.

"Hello," Briar said, staring at Hercules uncertainly.

"Briar Lovelace," Hercules greeted. His voice was the same in her head and in person — deep but casual, very modern. "You look different in person. And so do your friends."

"Uh, thanks?" Briar resisted the urge to grab Reyna's hand for comfort. She had a feeling that she needed to prove herself to Hercules, just because he'd noticed her in the past. Because she's his champion, like she's the Olympians' champion. "So if you know me, then you probably know Reyna and Jason—"

"Where's your lion skin?" Jason interrupted.

Briar wanted to elbow him, but Hercules looked more amused than annoyed.

"It's ninety degrees out here," he said. "Why would I wear my lion skin? Do you wear a fur coat to the beach?"

"I guess that makes sense." Jason sounded disappointed. "It's just that the pictures always show you with a lion skin."

Hercules glared at the sky accusingly, like he wanted to have words with his father, Zeus. "Don't believe everything you hear about me. Being famous isn't as fun as you might think."

Reyna raised an eyebrow. "You don't like the fame? There's a lot of stories about you. Myths. Legends. Movies, even."

Hercules snarled. "Don't get me started with the movies. Gods of Olympus, they never get anything right. Have you seen one movie about me where I look like me?"

Briar had to admit he had a point. "I'm surprised you're so young."

"Ha! Being immortal helps. But, yes, I wasn't so old when I died. Not by modern standards. I did a lot during my years as a hero . . . too much, really." His eyes drifted to Jason. "Son of Zeus, eh?"

"Jupiter," Jason said.

"Not much difference," Hercules grumbled. "Dad's annoying in either form. Me? I was called Heracles. Then the Romans came along and named me Hercules. I didn't really change that much, though lately just thinking about it gives me splitting headaches . . ."

The left side of his face twitched. His robes shimmered, momentarily turning white, then back to purple.

"At any rate," Hercules said, "if you're Jupiter's son, you might understand. It's a lot of pressure. Enough is never enough. Eventually it can make a guy snap."

He looked at Briar. "You know this very well. Don't you?"

She stared at him, trying to decipher what exactly he wanted her to say. "Sure," she said finally.

Hercules raised an eyebrow at her. "I was the one who encouraged you to admit your feelings at your mother."

Jason and Reyna both looked toward Briar. She resolutely ignored them. Jason doesn't know what exactly happened at the Charleston trip. She wanted to keep it that way.

And as for Reyna . . . they'd probably talk later.

"I figured that out, at the very least," Briar reflexively crossed her arms. "I would've done it anyway, without your . . . push."

He looked at her in that way that was unnerving. "Would you have?"

Briar couldn't answer that.

"So, Lord Hercules," Reyna said, "we're on a quest. We'd like permission to pass into the Mediterranean."

Hercules shrugged. "That's why I'm here. After I died, Dad made me the doorkeeper of Olympus. I said, Great! Palace duty! Party all the time! What he didn't mention is that I'd be guarding the doors to the ancient lands, stuck on this island for the rest of eternity. Lots of fun."

He pointed at the pillars rising from the surf. "Stupid columns. Some people claim I created the whole Strait of Gibraltar by shoving mountains apart. Some people say the mountains are the pillars. What a bunch of Augean manure. The pillars are pillars."

"Right," Reyna said. "Naturally. So . . . can we pass?"

The god scratched his fashionable beard. "Well, I have to give you the standard warning about how dangerous the ancient lands are. Not just any demigod can survive the Mare Nostrum. Because of that, I have to give you a quest to complete. Prove your worth, blah, blah, blah. Honestly, I don't make a big deal of it. Usually I give demigods something simple like a shopping trip, singing a funny song, that sort of thing. After all those labors I had to complete for my evil cousin Eurystheus, well . . . I don't want to be that guy, you know?"

"Appreciate it," Jason said.

"Hey, no problem." Hercules sounded relaxed and easygoing, but he still made Briar nervous. That dark glint in his eyes reminded her of charcoal soaked in kerosene, ready to go up at a moment's notice. The Detroit shenanigans. Good times.

"So anyway," Hercules said, "what's your quest?"

"Giants," Jason said. "We're off to Greece to stop them from awakening Gaea."

"Giants," Hercules muttered. "I hate those guys. Back when I was a demigod hero . . . ah, but never mind. So which god put you up to this — Dad? Athena? Maybe Aphrodite?"

Briar should've been thinking faster, but Hercules had unsettled her. Too late, she realized the conversation had become a minefield.

"Hera sent us," Jason said. "She brought us together to—"

"Hera." Suddenly Hercules's expression was like the cliffs of Gibraltar — a solid, unforgiving sheet of stone.

"We hate her too," Briar said quickly. Gods, why hadn't it occurred to her? Hera had been Hercules's mortal enemy. "We didn't want to help her. She didn't give us much choice, but—"

"But here you are," Hercules said, all friendliness gone. "Sorry, you three. I don't care how worthy your quest is, or even if you're my champion. I don't do anything that Hera wants. Ever."

Jason looked mystified. "But I thought you made up with her when you became a god."

"Like I said," Hercules grumbled, "don't believe everything you hear. If you want to pass into the Mediterranean, I'm afraid I've got to give you an extra-hard quest."

"But we're like brothers," Jason protested. "Hera's messed with my life, too. I understand—"

"You understand nothing," Hercules said coldly. "My first family: dead. My life wasted on ridiculous quests. My second wife dead, after being tricked into poisoning me and leaving me to a painful demise. And my compensation? I got to become a minor god. Immortal, so I can never forget my pain. Stuck here as a gatekeeper, a doorman, a . . . a butler for the Olympians. No, you don't understand. The only god who understands me even a little bit is Dionysus. And at least he invented something useful. I have nothing to show except bad film adaptations of my life."

Briar glared at him. "You think you've got it bad? If I'm your champion, you must know some parts of my life. My father? He doesn't give a shit about me, because he worships my mother. And my mother? You know what she's done. I've grown up in the Twelfth Legion, one part of an oiled machine that had to work to get to where I was. And that was all taken away from me, by Juno, nonetheless. But even then, some of my success was owed to these two—" she gestured at Reyna and Jason, "—and my sister, Piper, who was also wronged by our mother. I have gone through six months of feeling like an alien because I was thrown into a scheme that I didn't want to be in. I have fought a Titan and two giants. I delayed one of the most powerful primordial beings from rising only using my voice. So you are going to help us right now, or, stars help me, I will go rogue and pull a Luke Castellan."

She thought she'd succeeded. Hercules hesitated. Then his jaw tightened, and he shook his head. "On the opposite side of this island, over those hills, you'll find a river. In the middle of that river lives the old god Achelous."

Hercules waited, as if this information should send them running in terror.

"And . . . ?" Reyna prompted.

"And," Hercules said, "I want you to break off his other horn and bring it to me."

"He has horns," Jason said. "Wait . . . his other horn? What—?"

"Figure it out," the god snapped. "Here, this should help."

He said the word help like it meant hurt. From under his robes, Hercules took a small book and tossed it to Briar. She barely caught it.

The book's glossy cover showed a photographic montage of Greek temples and smiling monsters. The Minotaur was giving the thumbs-up. The title read: The Hercules Guide to the Mare Nostrum.

"Bring me that horn by sundown," Hercules said. "Just the three of you. No contacting your friends. Your ship will remain where it is. If you succeed, you may pass into the Mediterranean."

"And if we don't?" Reyna asked.

"Well, Achelous will kill you, obviously," Hercules said. "And I will break your ship in half with my bare hands and send your friends to an early grave."

Jason shifted his feet. "Couldn't we just sing a funny song?"

"I'd get going," Hercules said coldly. "Sundown. Or your friends are dead."