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“Hey, what did you just say about propping each other up? We’re not going anywhere.”

I let out a breath I’d been holding for too long. “Okay. If you’re sure.”

She leaned against me. “I actually feel better now. Thanks for talking it through. And for doing the right thing, even if it’s risky.”

“You want to get back to the party?”

“Nah.” She kissed me. “I’m good.”

We sat for a while together, and I had to agree. We were pretty good.

There should be a rule that goddesses can never come home before 8:00 a.m.

Hecate blazed into the mansion at exactly 5:32.

I knew this because when I shot awake to the sound of trumpets and roaring flames, I found the goddess stepping through a fiery portal into the great room. Behind her, just for an instant, I saw a glowing golden clock—the one in Grand Central Station. The image of the clock hands set to such an offensive time was burned into my retinas.

Why Hecate had decided to portal from a train station just up the street, I had no idea. Maybe she liked the coffee at Café Grumpy.

“I HAVE RETURNED!” Hecate announced, as if we might have missed that fact. Her voice shook the living room.

We all reacted in our own particular ways. Annabeth got to her feet, rubbed her eyes, and bowed to the goddess like this was something she did every morning. I tried to rise, became entangled in my sleeping bag, and fell sideways onto a coffee table. Grover leaped into the air like a startled cat.

As for the animals, Hecuba and Gale took things in stride. The hellhound stretched, shook herself, then plodded over to sniff Hecate and find out where she’d been. The polecat climbed the goddess’s dress, settled around her shoulders, and let loose a welcome-home fart. Nope, who had never met the goddess, decidednope. He hid behind Annabeth’s legs.

Hecate looked like she’d had quite a Halloween. Something red was splattered on her orange gown—maybe wine, maybe blood, maybe I didn’t want to know. Confetti covered her shoulders like rainbow snow. An overflowing plastic jack-o’-lantern bucket hung from her wrist. When she bent down to pet Hecuba, Smarties and Reese’s Pieces spilled out.

She was also rocking her three-headed beast form, with some terrifying modifications. Someone had face-painted the horse’s visage to look like a Rainbow Pony. The lion’s head wore a cheap mask of some old politician’s face.…Give me a second. Richard Nixon. That’s the guy. The dog’s head wasn’t in costume, but it grinned and panted and drooled like it had just run ten miles and needed a bowl of water.

Gale scurried down the goddess’s arm and burrowed into the candy bucket, probably looking for chicken carcasses.

Hecate straightened. She scanned the great room, looking for anything out of place. She zeroed in on the hellhound puppy cringing behind Annabeth. Nothing escaped the keen gaze of the goddess.

“Who is that?” she asked.

“This is Nope,” Annabeth said. “We found him abandoned in an alley. Hecuba was nice enough to adopt him.”

Hecate’s three heads all tilted in sync. “Hecuba was…nice?”

Hecuba barked, a tone of challenge in her voice.

“No, of course,” Hecate said. “I’m just…surprised. Come here, little one.”

Nope cautiously slinked out from his safe space and padded over to the goddess. Hecate scratched behind his ear, which seemed to melt his fears. He thumped his leg and peed happily on the carpet.

“Nope!” he barked.

“What a good boy,” Hecate said.

Grover cleared his throat. “He, um, says he’ll call you Third Mom.”

“Awww,” Hecate said. “He’s trying to say Triple Mom. That’s so cute! Well, if Hecuba has adopted you, I am happy to have you in the family.”

Her form shimmered and changed into her at-home appearance: a single-faced, middle-aged lady in yoga pants and a T-shirt. She drifted through the room, running her fingers across the furniture. “So, Percy Jackson, did you have any difficulties?”

I’d been preparing for this conversation. But I’d been planning to have it when I was awake.

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” I started. “I did want to ask—”