“DOUCHE VON GOBBLECOCK.”

PERRY burst out laughing from her beach towel and sat up, propping herself on her elbows. She tilted her face to the sun.

“Okay, okay, um…Dongle McDicklicker.”

“Ooh. Good one.” Dita stretched out on her stomach, slipped her sunglasses off, and rested her chin on the back of her hands. “Penis McFrankfurter.”

Perry giggled. “Ares would not be amused by our new nicknames for him, and I don’t even care.”

Dita’s chest tightened at the sound of his name. “I thought we agreed not to say Fitz Von Landingstrip’s actual name.”

She offered an apologetic glance. “Sorry. I’ll get used to using Beaver Du Cockburn’s sobriquets.” Perry adjusted a balled-up towel under her head.

“Sobriquet? Really?” Dita glanced over with an eyebrow up.

“What? That’s a legitimate word.”

“No one has used that word conversationally since France in 1890.”

Perry lifted her chin defiantly. “I think it sounds fancy, and I don’t apologize. Abraham Dickchin.”

Dita snorted a laugh. “Oh my gods.”

They fell into content silence as the sun beat down on them, and Dita closed her eyes, hearing nothing but the waves as they hit the shore and hissed as the water slipped away again. Tension left her with every wave, and she emptied her mind of Ares, replacing her thoughts with the sounds of the ocean, wishing she could lie there forever.

Perry spoke after a little while. “So how not ready are you to go back tonight?”

When Dita opened her eyes, they fixed on a patch of sea grass swaying in the breeze, not wanting to meet Perry’s eyes. “I can’t even put a gauge on that. Right now, I feel like I can handle it. But actually seeing him again?” She sighed.

“Do you have a plan?” Perry dug her toes into the sand at the end of her towel and wiggled them until they showed again.

“Hmm, sort of.” Dita laid her cheek on her hand.

“Does it involve picturing him naked? Because I don’t think that will help you.”

“Ha, ha. Yes, I have a plan.” Dita paused, knowing exactly how lame her plan was. It sounded even stupider when she said it out loud. “I’m just going to pretend like he doesn’t exist.”

Perry’s chin dropped, and she eyed Dita over her Wayfarers. “That’s your big idea? To ignore him?”

“What else can I do? Facing him isn’t an option. Avoiding him is all I’ve got. So help me out by whispering dirty dick names in my ear.”

“That, I can do.” Perry looked up at the clouds.

Dita flipped onto her back, unable to get comfortable. “If I had my way, I’d stay here, maybe indefinitely. But I’m out of time. The next competition starts tomorrow, and I doubt Artemis will give a shit that I don’t want to be around Preston Dabutt.”

A laugh shot out of Perry. “I love this game.”

Dita smiled. “So do I. It’s hard to be afraid of someone with a name like Dick Van de Lick.”

The breeze skated across Dita’s body, and she closed her eyes against the sun, thinking over everything that would happen when she returned to Olympus. It had been almost two weeks, and she couldn’t hide any longer, couldn’t avoid turning the page, and she didn’t like what she knew was coming.

She’d have to see him.

She’d have to figure out how to be alone for the first time in thousands of years.

Everything had changed, and there was no going back. And in that, she found she was lost.

Even worse, she was afraid.

“Dita, you really freak me out when you’re quiet.”

She opened her eyes and blew out a breath as she stared up at the sky. “I just don’t know what to expect, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready. So, my flimsy plan is to go back to Olympus, avoid him, and try to keep myself busy. Luckily, I have the competition to distract me. Needling Artemis should be a great diversion.”

Perry looked sideways at Dita from behind her shades. “I dunno. You two have more in common now than you ever have before.”

“Why? Because she’s sworn off love or because she’s miserable?”

Perry chuckled.

“Artemis and I have never seen eye-to-eye. She treats me like I’m useless, like love is useless. Love is one of the most powerful forces in the universe, and she denies its relevance. Love can heal, hurt, start wars. End wars.” Dita sighed. “We’ll never get along.”

“Probably not, but she has her reasons for feeling the way she does. She might be wrong about love, but everyone has their own motivations for how they feel. It’s all about perspective.”

Dita pouted. “Ugh, you suck. Can we just not like her? Please?”

Perry held her hands up in surrender. “Fine, fine.”

“Okay, this is what we’re going to do,” Dita said with finality as she settled in. “We are going to spend the rest of the afternoon on the beach. Then, we are going to have a last, legitimate Greek meal, during which we will get very, very drunk.”

“I like this plan,” Perry said with a nod.

“Then, and only then, will I face the music. Hopefully Colon Peniston will be off fucking himself and he’ll leave me alone.”

“Operation Ostrich. Head in the sand with your feathered ass in the air.”

“Exactly.”

“Until you get eaten by the lion you don’t see coming. You know, because your head is buried?”

“You’re so morbid,” Dita said dryly.

Perry shrugged. “I’m the Queen of the Underworld. Morbidity comes with the territory.”

They fell into silence, soaking up the final hours before they would go back to reality, back to the game, back to their lives—Perry to Hades and Dita to an empty apartment and an empty heart. And it was all Dita could do to find hope that she would be able to keep herself together enough to survive.