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I stopped at the moray tank. “Where’d they go? The hellhound and the polecat?”

I ate them, said Janet.

“What?!”

She’s kidding, said Fortunato, because I guess moray eels are huge jokers.As soon as the doors busted open, both ran out. Can we eat them when you bring them back?

“No!”

Can we eat the satyr?

“No!”

I rendezvoused with Annabeth at the entrance to the library.

“Nothing,” she reported.

“The eels say Gale and Hecuba left. They’re in the wild.” I gestured vaguely toward Midtown, which is about as wild as it gets.

Annabeth took a deep breath. I guessed she was counting to ten, trying to find her Athena-Zen-logical-happy-place that would keep her from screaming. “First things first. Let’s check on Grover.”

Back in the kitchen, the satyr was slowly returning to normal. His left horn was still too big, curled like a nautilus shell. His right bicep was the size of a watermelon. He was splattered head to hoof with sticky pink goo, but otherwise he looked like regular old Grover, now with ninety-five percent more strawberry flavor.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

I told him. There was no use sugarcoating it, especially since he was already sugarcoated.

He put his face in his hands and groaned. “I’ve ruined everything. And it’s only Tuesday!”

“We’ll figure it out,” Annabeth said, though she didn’t sound confident. “Grover, we have to track down the animals. We’re going to need your talents for that. Can you stand?”

This was a smart move—enlisting Grover to help, making him feel like he was part of the solution. Why hadn’t I thought of it? Probably because I was so angry at him. I kept telling myself I shouldn’t blame my best friend for what had happened. I was the one who’d left him alone in the house, after all. Even Annabeth had contributed to the situation, by losing track of time at school. Still, despite these rationalizations, I was shaking with rage.

Annabeth must have seen it.

“Percy, why don’t you go get the leashes,” she said. “We’ll meet you at the front door.”

“Good idea,” I said, and off I went.

My brain was full of static. My hands felt numb. I didn’t realize I’d grabbed Gale’s harness until the spikes started biting into my palm. I snatched up Hecuba’s leash, then headed for the front door.

I remembered Hecate’s triple-headed form in the principal’s office. I’d been threatened by a lot of gods over the years. With Hecate it hit differently—beyond the usualObey me nowbluster. Maybe it was because Hecate had power over the Mist. Something about her made me doubt my own sanity. Like perhaps all goddesses weresupposedto have three different faces at once. Perhaps toiletsshouldbe on the ceiling. Perhaps polecatsweredifferent than weasels.

I felt like if she punished me for wrecking her house and, even worse, losing her beloved pets, I wouldn’t just die. I would be dissolved, rewritten, erased from reality. I would doubt myself right out of existence. She could control what mortals saw and what they thought. That was basically the same as controlling who they were.

The idea terrified me. It made me want to crawl into the eels’ tank and hide. I guess that’s why I felt so angry. I couldn’t let myself get dissolved into the Mist. And I definitely couldn’t let that happen to Grover or Annabeth.

There is nothing wrong with your sight.Hecate’s voice whispered in my mind, but I wasn’t sure if it was real, or a dream, or a haunted memory.

I stood in the shattered doorway, looking down the cranium-brick path toward Gramercy Park. For a moment, I saw that ghostly blue image on the bicycle again, fleeing as fast as a child could pedal.

There now. That’s better.Hecate’s laughter echoed through the foyer.

How could she be laughing, I wondered, in the face of all this mess? Could she not see it?

“Percy?”

Annabeth touched my shoulder and I nearly jumped out of my sneakers.