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Then Colossae. She had brought a girl back to life with her potions! And how did the city reward her? With fear, hatred, torches, violence. They kicked her and spat on her. All she could do was hiss and scurry away into the shadows, fleeing for her life.

Now she had reached the end of her strength. She’d had such plans. Sheknewhow talented she was. She could be a goddess, invent an immortality potion—something even better than Dionysus’s gift of wine. Why not? Why should she not be rewarded by the gods?

Gale stopped at the top of a cliff, where the trail split to the left and right. Standing at that miserable deserted crossroads was a tall woman in dark flowing robes, her head crowned in a fiery wreath of silver.

“I warned you,” said Hecate, her tone surprisingly gentle. “They will never accept a woman of your power.”

Gale’s gut pain made her double over. She whimpered, hating herself for looking so weak.

“This is the final crossroads,” Hecate said. “You could give up your magical arts and live.”

“Never,” Gale insisted. “You are my goddess! Why do you not protect me?”

Hecate looked pained. “I cannot protect you from the way they see you. I cannot protect you from your own talent. They fear you. They will never allow you to rise.”

“The gods or men?” Gale snarled.

Hecate didn’t reply. She didn’t need to. Gale knew the answer wasboth.

“You could die,” Hecate said. “And the pain would stop.”

“No!” Gale snapped. “I won’t give them that satisfaction.”

Hecate nodded. “The only other choice is the hardest. To live—in eternal suffering. You would have your immortality, but not as a human or a god.Thatthey would never allow. Your existence must be a curse, not a blessing. It is the only way a witch of your talent could survive.”

“Then do it!” Gale snarled.

She began to change—shrinking, growing fur, cursing, and shrieking in pain—until a polecat lay prone at the goddess’s feet. Hecate knelt, gently picked up the little animal, and cradled it in her arms.

“So be it,” Hecate said.

I lifted my tentacle from Gale’s back. My gut hurt. My eyes burned.

I’d been wrong about Hecate. She hadn’t turned Gale into a polecat out of jealousy. The reason was worse. She’dempathized. She’d lacked faith that Gale could survive on her magical talents alone. Hecate of all people knew how the world saw witches. She’d pitied Gale, admired her, and yes, maybe even feared her a little, but she could not imagine a mere human succeeding when she, a goddess, had failed. So Gale had to cease being human.

The laboratory was still shaking apart. Gale waited for me to cut her chain. She gave no sign that she was aware of what I’d sensed.

I steadied the tentacle holding Riptide and brought the sword down on the golden restraint, severing it neatly a few inches from Gale’s collar.

The polecat stared at me with surprise.You didn’t kill me. Also, why are you crying?

“You can flee if you want.” My voice was hoarse. “Maybe your next adventure will end up better than this.…Or we can help each other. Either way, for what it’s worth, I believe in you.”

Gale’s whiskers quivered. She might’ve been sniffing the air, estimating how much time we had left based on the smell of the goo-pocalypse. Or maybe she was just thinkingYou are one strange kid.At last, she raced over to another table and put her paws on the rim of a mixing bowl.

I hobbled over on my twisted ankle and looked inside. “It’s empty.”

Her expression said,No kidding, Einstein. We’re going to mix the potion in here.

“Got it,” I said. “Show me what we need.”

Honestly, Gale was a pretty good teacher. She’d run to a vial or pot and tap it to indicate we should add its contents to our concoction. I couldn’t wear gloves, for obvious reasons, but after a few tries, I got the hang of picking up vials without breaking them, then tipping them just enough to pour the liquid into the bowl. I even learned how to hold a spoon with my tentacles to scoop and mix. My mom would have been so proud. If I could learn to tie my shoes, she’d probably never let me change back to having human hands.

Whenever it was time to stop pouring, Gale barked. She scratched her paws on the table in a digging gesture to indicate when I should stir.

Meanwhile, the room disintegrated around us. The biggest fissure on the floor was now a foot-wide chasm that glowed orange and went down as far as I could see. I didn’t want to find out if it led to the Underworld. And no way did I want to be around when orange goo started dripping through Hades’s palace ceiling. I’d met his plumbers. They tended to solve all his problems with fiery whips.

Slowly, our ingredients dissolved into a thick gray paste. I worried about the measurements, because every once in a while I’d spill too much powder or smoking liquid, and Gale would chirp at me in irritation. But she didn’t make me start over. That was good, because chunks of ceiling plaster kept raining down around us until I could see the support beams right over our heads.