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B odil!” Pritkin yelled, enraged, but Bodil’s knife at my throat didn’t waver. Except to press inward slightly, enough that I felt a trickle of blood, human-warm and red, start down my neck.

It was enough to throw me out of the godly hunger that had started to claw at my psyche again, and to remind me: no matter what it felt like when power was surging through my veins, I wasn’t a god. No more than those poor bastards I’d just killed had been, whose blood still stained my hands and was spreading rapidly across the water-drenched floor. We were all playing with fire, when one stroke of a blade in the right place would mean lights out—permanently.

I froze.

“Great Poseidon!” Bodil’s voice echoed around the space, sounding triumphant and subservient and almost giddy, all at once. “Great Poseidon! Your granddaughter beseeches thee!”

And, okay, that got his attention. He paused the fight, which had been trending that way anyway, as Mircea and Pritkin had been distracted, staring at me. The great lips pursed thoughtfully.

“Granddaughter? What is this?”

“Great-granddaughter in fact,” she said, her voice quavering with what might have been pride or possibly fear, as those blue-gray eyes were hard to meet. “Daughter of Aliacmon, son of Palaestinus, son of mighty Poseidon!”

“Are you?” The huge golden hand did something that made a transparent version of Bodil jump out in front of us, edged in faint golden light. It vanished after a moment, and one of the huge, bushy brows raised. “Yes, I see that you are. And yet you come here with my enemies?”

“It was the only way to reach you, great king, after my world… died.”

“Yes, shame about that,” he said, with no inflection in his voice. And already, I understood why Zeus had won the struggle over who would lead the gods. He had been so solicitous, so persuasive, so real in his supposed care for the half-human daughter of his greatest foe, that he had almost convinced me.

This guy couldn’t convince a deaf man of his sincerity, but maybe I was wrong. Because when Bodil spoke again, there was reverence in her voice. And eagerness.

“Yes, my world—my mother’s world—is dead, and I would find a new one in my father’s realm. I would join you, and serve you, most ably—”

Are you mad? Mircea’s voice echoed through our minds. He will betray you! Whatever you think—

But I guessed Bodil wasn’t interested in hearing Mircea’s take on things, because his voice abruptly cut out.

“I offer this one’s life as proof of my sincerity,” she said, her voice echoing around the room. And it was all there, what I should have seen before but hadn’t: ambition, pride, and enough ruthlessness to have allowed her to use us to reach the only family she had left. “I will kill her for you,” she added. “Now!”

“No! Bodil!” Enid screamed.

“What are you doing?” That was ?subrand, looking bewildered.

“I’ll gut you for it,” Pritkin said, sounding more vicious than I had ever heard him. “If it’s the last thing I do—”

“You will die here today,” she told him contemptuously. “You all will! The gods have no need of you, or of this one!”

And I felt the knife bite deeper into my flesh.

“Hold!” the towering god said, his voice so loud that I thought I would die with busted eardrums. “Bring her to me.”

“Grandfather?” Bodil sounded suddenly unsure.

“I will end this one myself.”

“But… she is more dangerous than she appears. You see how many of your children she has killed, how ruthlessly, how effortlessly—”

“Effortlessly when stolen power was thrumming through her veins, perhaps,” he said. “Not now. That is the problem with demigods, is it not?” he added, coming over himself, since Bodil hadn’t moved, and shaking the room with each footstep. “Some of them fight well, but in the end, they are not gods. Just trumped-up flesh that dies as easily as any human.”

He went down on one knee, shrinking slightly to get in my face, while his remaining children formed a wall at his back. Not that it was needed. Mircea and Pritkin had reduced in size, too, not as badly as I had, but they must have been feeding me some of the power they’d gotten from somewhere.

They were half the size they’d been, and Poseidon had more reinforcements arriving every moment, ranging in size from human-standard to towering. They ran in, wild-eyed and dirty in burnt tunics and robes, probably summoned from all over the city by their father’s call. And started attacking viciously as soon as they arrived, forcing Mircea and Pritkin to defend themselves.

This was over, I thought, as Poseidon got in my face, blocking out my view of the room, of my partners, of everything. Run! I thought through the bond, but couldn’t tell if they’d heard.

I guessed not, as sounds of battle came from beyond the big body, and no, no, no! They couldn’t die with me! “Run!” I screamed at the idiots. “Cut the bond!”

But nothing changed. I stared up at the massive face, now gazing almost fondly into mine, and wished I’d died already. I didn’t want to see this; I couldn’t see this!

“Yes, that’s what I expected,” he said. “My brother has developed a strange belief in your abilities, to the point that he almost equates you with your mother. But you aren’t your mother, are you? You’re just another pathetic demigod, panicking now that the end is near.”

“Please, my king,” Bodil said, and there was genuine fear in her voice. “Let me do this for you. Let me take the risk—”

“What risk?” Poseidon asked. “You will be rewarded, daughter, but this pleasure… I reserve for myself. Come here, so that my power doesn’t take you, too.”

I was surprised he cared. Was surprised he didn’t just blast us both at the same time, but I guessed that might make the demi squad unhappy, to see how easily he killed their sister. And how little he really thought of them.

Throw her a bone, keep them on the leash, it was what the gods had always done, I thought blankly, my head buzzing. I vaguely heard Enid screaming fey curses, saw ?subrand grab her to hold her back, glimpsed Mircea and Pritkin battling off to the left, trying to reach me, even though they never could. But suddenly, it all seemed irrelevant.

All I could concentrate on was a huge pair of gray-blue eyes, and all I could feel was a sense of wrongness. Not that I was dying; I’d been expecting that for a while. But it wasn’t supposed to be him.

“Your brother,” I croaked, as Bodil let me go, and pushed me back at the same time, I guessed so I couldn’t get a knife into her. Or the whip I no longer had. “He wants to be the one to kill me.”

And I guessed I’d managed to say something funny, because Poseidon laughed, the sound echoing around the large space. “Yes, he left strict instructions to that effect. Too bad you died in battle before I could save you for him.

“You see, Pythia ,” and in his voice, the title was an epithet, “your dear mother took everything from me. My wife, my realms, my power . I am going to enjoy taking the last part of her left in this world.”

I tried to say something else—to him, some final words of defiance; to Bodil, standing snuggled up against him like the favorite daughter she hoped soon to be; to Pritkin and Mircea—so much… but I couldn’t. I’d faced death before, but it had never been so sure. And while I’d always assumed I’d go out screaming, when it came down to it, I just stood there, numb and waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

I realized I’d closed my eyes at some point, like a blindfolded idiot in front of a firing squad, but apparently, I wasn’t to be allowed even that. He wanted to see my eyes when he killed me, and fuck him! If he wanted to see them, he could damned well see them.

I opened them to glare at the bastard who was drawing out my death, only I didn’t see him. I didn’t see anything but a blinding torrent of power, slamming into me so hard that it blew me back against the side of the fountain, where it felt like I’d just broken every bone I had. I lay there, stunned and gasping and wondering why I wasn’t dead yet.

For a second, I didn’t know, and suspected that he just intended to leave me like that, to bleed out slowly while I watched the rest of my friends be killed in front of me. But then, through the blazing aftereffects of all that light, I finally made something out. Poseidon, falling backward, while a torrent of power gushed up from his almost bifurcated throat; Bodil, her right arm and the golden knife it held disintegrating, dripping blood and liquified flesh and showing bone; Mircea leaping onto the collapsing god, and sinking his sword in deep; people screaming and running and the life blood of an elder god spurting—

Lifeblood.

I blinked, half convinced all that gleaming gold was just in my mind, but no, it was everywhere, coating every surface in the area and puddling by the body, which was fighting ferociously but silently, as Bodil’s attack had severed his vocal cords and he couldn’t roar.

I got to my hands and knees; I have no idea how. I could barely feel my body anymore, except for screaming agony. But I’d been in agony before, and there was a sure-fire cure for that. Yes, there was a cure for everything, just there, right there, if I could drag my broken body that far—

And I could. One leg no longer worked, one arm was fire, probably broken, and the pain in my ribs made it almost impossible to breathe. Even worse, my vision kept hazing in and out, bright with leaping after effects one minute, and almost grayed out the next. But there were drips of god-blood on the ground, and my searching hands found some.

They were small, as he’d thrown me quite far, and almost imperceptible to sight, being lost in a flood of brighter light from the battle, but I didn’t need sight. I could feel them calling to me, each singing a song unmistakable to my ears, and I searched them out and soaked them up. Each little hit was another few inches forward; each smear a feast compared to what I had left; and then I found a small puddle and shoved my whole face into it, sopping it up and a powerful hit of strength along with it.

It wasn’t enough to heal, although I could feel Mircea’s ability along the bond, also singing out to me. But there wasn’t enough power for that, no, not even close. But it gave me the energy to keep going, to keep dragging my leg behind me, to keep smearing my own blood across the floor, although not enough to stop me, not with the song of all that power pulling me forward like a magnet to metal.

I slapped my palm down on a dribble and pushed off it to the next. I dragged my bleeding leg through a smear and felt some small strength flow back into it. I snarled at my own weakness and kept.

On.

Crawling.

Until I finally reached it, the outer edges of that vast puddle flowing out from the great writhing body. The torrent hadn’t stopped or even slowed down, for Bodil, half dead though she was, along with Mircea and now Pritkin, were attacking the fallen god. His forces were in disarray, some trying to help him while stumbling through a field of Margygr magic, others were standing there stupefied in horror, and still more were rushing back out the way they’d come. And being cut down as they did so, as the witches were back in it, throwing everything they had at Poseidon’s demigod children, including some spells that I strongly suspected weren’t on the approved list any more than Jonas’s had been.

But ?subrand was fighting to get to Bodil, somehow not understanding that she’d basically just decapitated a god, until Enid jerked him back, and screamed something at him I couldn’t hear, because I couldn’t hear any of it.

Couldn’t see anything but gold, couldn’t feel anything but hunger, couldn’t focus on anything but—

Ahhhh. Yes. That .

Poseidon was trying to heal himself, but he suddenly found it a lot harder than a moment ago. I was fighting him now, too, with everything I had, but not the way the others were. I fought for this, life-giving, life-affirming, life , flooding into veins starved for it, yes, yes, a thousand times yes!

And I got help. I didn’t know why I hadn’t felt him before, perhaps too busy fighting to pay attention. Or freaking out, or dying, or starving, because I had been starving, I was always starving, it was hard to notice after a lifetime of it, but I could tell now, when I suddenly wasn’t anymore. Like I could tell who had been helping us, providing power we didn’t have, but he did, from the spill-over from the fight in the warehouse.

Pritkin’s incubus had absorbed some of the energy of that fight through the bond and held onto it. And then hitched a ride in spirit form with his other half into something far worse than hell because he loved me, too, he’d said as much once. And he couldn’t not come, no matter what he claimed.

He’d been the reason for the weird triple vision on the road, testing out the bond; he’d been the one helping us earlier, flooding that same bond with enough power to allow us to mimic gods, at least for long enough not to die—

And suddenly, it all made sense. Incubi could take traits from others if they consumed part of their souls, and the spell the three of us were under was a soul bond . All he’d needed to make a couple of extra demigods had been my mother’s legacy in my blood and power, and thanks to the fight, he’d had some of that. And now we both did.

He combined his abilities with mine with no words needed, and began feeding alongside me. And as it turned out, a prince of the incubi and a daughter of Artemis together could pull power from the dying bastard on the ground faster and harder than he could reclaim it. Yes, I thought, overwhelmed at the energy flooding into me, yes, this, just this, forever this!

And even more crazily, I wasn’t going mad with it.

You kept me sane , I thought at him in wonder, and felt it resonate through the bond. I felt Mircea and Pritkin realize who was with us, and their shock, surprise, and strange joy. And then an invitation, a hand outstretched, a brother willing to reconcile, finally understanding that this was what he had been born for—but would it be accepted?

So much hate, so much fear, so many recriminations and accusations, and stupid, stupid quarreling that had limited both of them—

Was it enough?

No , the incubus snarled. But it’s a start .

And the next moment, there he was, a fourth fully back and integrated into our bond, only not a fourth anymore, I realized. A third . And I was breaking away from the now nonexistent puddle, was grabbing Bodil, was healing her with Mircea’s ability before she could bleed out, and it was easy.

Everything was so easy .

Like that, I thought, shoving a burning golden whip into Poseidon’s side. Like this, I thought, pulling it out and drinking my fill, bathing in it, all that power, all that light. The fountain was going berserk behind us, but not like before. Like it was out of control and just spurting water everywhere, which mixed with the golden haze and the light from the glass mural overhead, while the dome was lit up by spell fire from outside so brilliantly that it rained down prisms like a multicolored disco ball.

But Poseidon was a beast, and he wasn’t going down without a fight. And healing Pritkin, who took a trident through the heart a moment later, and Mircea, who was staked by somebody who had realized what he was a moment after that, and ?subrand, who wouldn’t stop believing he could fight a god no matter how many times said god pounded him into the freaking marble, was taking a toll. A big one, I thought, as the room spun dizzily around me.

Slow down! Pritkin snarled in my head, and he was right. We were hemorrhaging power almost as fast as we took it in. But the operative word was almost, I thought viciously, and plunged my whip in again and again, up to the hilt, using up most of the slower gush of power healing myself from the beating I was taking from the dying god, but didn’t care because everything I took from him, he didn’t get back.

Until suddenly, there was nothing left to take.

The death of an elder god, it turned out, was anticlimactic. One second he was there, an almost human-sized body shrunken in power but still deadly enough to kill one of his own servants who had gotten too close, cleaving the man in two with a final burst that I think had been aimed at Pritkin. And the next he was gone, just sparkles on the air like the ones the faded ghosts gave off in the wastelands, mere glowing specs on the night.

Then even they were extinguished and we were sitting there, staring at each other, bloody and battered and exhausted, with Pritkin’s hair all standing on end, Bodil nursing the stump of her missing arm, and Mircea looking cool and calm except that his hands were shaking so badly that he couldn’t hold his sword anymore.

“Here,” Alphonse said, taking it gently from him, because Alphonse was somehow still alive, too—how were we all still alive?

“I don’t know,” Pritkin said hoarsely, having heard my disbelief through the bond. “God as my witness, I don’t know.”

“Fuck gods,” Mircea said viciously, and yeah.

Yeah.