The smoke faded to reveal Anubis staring down at the satchel in disbelief. I tried to hide my own astonishment. Darling and Dear were hardcore, and apparently Anubis wasn’t on their email list if he couldn’t recognize it. At least I could tell Callie the leather-makers weren’t Egyptian.

He hung the satchel on the arm of the throne and was suddenly crawling around in the pile of weapons. I heard the Candy Skulls murmuring uneasily, and even Virgil’s eyes widened at the sight of his King on all fours digging through the items from my bag. He even scooped up a few to sniff, as if hoping to find it wasn’t what it appeared to be. Some illusion, perhaps.

He jumped to his feet, breathing heavily. “Fine. You may keep it,” he snapped.

The bag was suddenly on my shoulders again, sans the armory of weapons he had dumped onto the floor. I didn’t feel a thing. One moment he had been holding the bag, and the next it was on my shoulders.

I dipped my head gratefully, waiting. He tapped his obsidian mask, looking angrier by the second – even though his mask didn’t actually change. Something about his posture promised unrestrained fury, and he was struggling to keep that down. “None of the keys,” he muttered under his breath. Virgil frowned at him for the length of a heartbeat before his face returned to bland nothingness.

Keys? What was he talking about?

Anubis slammed his palm down onto the arm of the throne, and a dozen bolts of lightning lanced into the lava ocean behind him, either erupting in more pillars or destroying those already in existence, depending on which lightning bolt I focused on. “Bring them out,” he finally snapped at the Candy Skulls. He turned to me. “This is as much for you as it is for them, but speak quickly. You don’t have long…” Then he laughed, a sad, disgusted sound. Maybe Anubis had a few screws loose after spending so long in the Underworld. His people skills – and personal control – were sorely lacking. The absurdity of pressing for time in Hell, where everyone suffered for eternity.

He didn’t speak, and was obviously waiting for my parents to arrive. Or he had forgotten about us, because he was leaning back, staring up at the ceiling and breathing deeply, as if trying to calm himself.

Talon and Carl were only smudges of darkness, now, and I knew they wouldn’t last long. “Why do we look like this?” I asked Anubis, pointing at myself and then my companions.

He lowered his head very slowly, chest heaving in silence. I forced myself not to take a step back. “They are dying,” he finally said. “As powerful as they are, they cannot last long. Only a god can survive down here.” His eyes twinkled.

“That would have been nice to know ahead of time,” I growled, glaring daggers at Virgil.

Talon spoke up uncertainly. “We also glow gold?” he asked Anubis. I whipped my head to him. Talon was staring at his arms as if searching for proof.

“Gold?” I asked him. “No, you’re smudged gray, like a charcoal sketch.”

Talon and Carl both stiffened, then slowly turned to me. Anubis roared with laughter. He pointed down at the mirrored floor for me to look. I did, and almost jumped. Rings of concentric light spun about me – weak, but definitely noticeable. And my skin… glowed faintly. But my eyes… were sheets of molten gold. I looked from Talon and Carl back to myself. We looked nothing alike. When I had seen them staring at me, I had thought I wore the same smudged look. But I only saw the golden glow in the reflected floor, not when I looked at my arms directly.

“What is the meaning of this, Anubis?” I whispered.

He leaned forward, his pulsing aura directed solely at me, no longer amused. “You murdered a God. Athena… You’re still stained by it, but not enough. Never enough!” He cackled, a harsh, pitiful sound. I stared down at my skin, searching for the once-familiar golden veins as I tugged my sleeves back. I hadn’t seen them in quite some time. To be honest, I had thought they were long gone after I used the Hammer to destroy the tree and free my Beast, Kai.

After about ten seconds, I finally saw a flicker of golden light. So faint it was almost unnoticeable – I only saw it again because I stared for ten more seconds, and knew what I was looking for. As if it took a long time for that miniscule sliver of ichor to circulate through my body. I couldn’t see the rings of light rotating around me unless I looked at the reflection. Same with the eyes, obviously. And in the reflection, my very skin seemed to glow with the golden light, but when I looked with just my eyes, no such glow was visible. Was this how everyone saw me down here?

“It is not enough…” Anubis whispered to himself. No one else seemed to have heard. His head abruptly shot up, staring past us. “Say hello to mommy and daddy for me. But remember, your friends don’t have long…”

Anubis dismissed us with a flick of his hands.

And we were suddenly standing on the edge of a crumbling stone cliff overlooking the ocean of lava.