I tried to hold on to that feeling of confidence, the elation of that successful first day.

I came back to my senses and found myself at the bottom of the pit, crouching in the flames.

“Helios,” I said. “It’s me.”

The blaze swirled around me, trying to incinerate my flesh and dissolve my soul. I could feel the presence of the Titan—bitter, hazy, angry. His whip seemed to be lashing me a thousand times a second.

“I will not be burned,” I said. “I am Apollo. I am your rightful heir.”

The fires raged hotter. Helios resented me…but wait. That wasn’t the full story. He hated being here. He hated this maze, this half-life prison.

“I will free you,” I promised.

Noise crackled and hissed in my ears. Perhaps it was only the sound of my head catching fire, but I thought I heard a voice in the flames: KILL. HER.

Her…

Medea.

Helios’s emotions burned their way into my mind. I felt his loathing for his sorceress granddaughter. All that Medea had told me earlier about holding back Helios’s wrath—that might have been true. But above all, she was holding Helios back from killing her. She had chained him, bound his will to hers, wrapped herself in powerful protections against his godly fire. Helios did not like me, no. But he hated Medea’s presumptuous magic. To be released from his torment, he needed his granddaughter dead.

I wondered, not for the first time, why we Greek deities had never created a god of family therapy. We certainly could have used one. Or perhaps we had one before I was born, and she quit. Or Kronos swallowed her whole.

Whatever the case, I told the flames, “I will do this. I will free you. But you must let us pass.”

Instantly, the fires raced away as if a tear had opened in the universe.

I gasped. My skin steamed. My arctic camouflage was now a lightly toasted gray. But I was alive. The room around me cooled rapidly. The flames, I realized, had retreated down a single tunnel that led from the chamber.

“Meg! Grover!” I called. “You can come down—”

Meg dropped on top of me, squashing me flat.

“Ow!” I screamed. “Not like that!”

Grover was more courteous. He climbed down the wall and dropped to the floor with goat-worthy dexterity. He smelled like a burnt wool blanket. His face was badly sunburned. His cap had fallen into the fire, revealing the tips of his horns, which steamed like miniature volcanoes. Meg had somehow come through just fine. She’d even managed to retract her sword from the wall before falling. She pulled her canteen from her supply belt, drank most of the water, and handed the rest to Grover.

“Thanks,” I grumbled.

“You beat the heat,” she noted. “Good job. Finally had a godly burst of power?”

“Er…I think it was more about Helios deciding to give us a pass. He wants out of this maze as much as we want him out. He wants us to kill Medea.”

Grover gulped. “So…she’s down here? She didn’t die on that yacht?”

“Figures.” Meg squinted down the steaming corridor. “Did Helios promise not to burn us if you mess up any more answers?”

“I—That wasn’t my fault!”

“Yeah,” Meg said.

“Kinda was,” Grover agreed.

Honestly. I fall into a blazing pit, negotiate a truce with a Titan, and flush a firestorm out of the room to save my friends, and they still want to talk about how I can’t recall instructions from the Farmer’s Almanac.

“I don’t think we can count on Helios never to burn us,” I said, “any more than we can expect Herophile not to use word puzzles. It’s just their nature. This was a onetime get-out-of-the-flames-free card.”

Grover smothered the tips of his horns. “Well, then, let’s not waste it.”

“Right.” I hitched up my slightly toasted camouflage pants and tried to recapture that confident tone I’d had the first time I addressed my sun horses. “Follow me. I’m sure it’ll be fine!”

FINE, in this case, meant fine if you enjoy lava, chains, and evil magic.

The corridor led straight to the chamber of the Oracle, which on the one hand…hooray! On the other hand, not so wonderful. The room was a rectangle the size of a basketball court. Lining the walls were half a dozen entrances—each a simple stone doorway with a small landing that overhung the pool of lava I’d seen in my visions. Now, though, I realized the bubbling and shimmering substance was not lava. It was the divine ichor of Helios—hotter than lava, more powerful than rocket fuel, impossible to get out if you spilled it on your clothes (I could tell you from personal experience). We had reached the very center of the maze—the holding tank for Helios’s power.

Floating on the surface of the ichor were large stone tiles, each about five feet square, making columns and rows that had no logical patterns.

“It’s a crossword,” Grover said.

Of course he was right. Unfortunately, none of the stone bridges connected with our little balcony. Nor did any of them lead to the opposite side of the room, where the Sibyl of Erythraea sat forlornly on her stone platform. Her home wasn’t any better than a solitary-confinement cell. She’d been provided with a cot, a table, and a toilet. (And, yes, even immortal Sibyls need to use the toilet. Some of their best prophecies come to them…Never mind.)

My heart ached to see Herophile in such conditions. She looked exactly as I remembered her: a young woman with braided auburn hair and pale skin, her solid athletic build a tribute to her hardy naiad mother and her stout shepherd father. The Sibyl’s white robes were stained with smoke and spotted with cinder burns. She was intently watching an entrance on the wall to her left, so she didn’t seem to notice us.

“That’s her?” Meg whispered.

“Unless you see another Oracle,” I said.

“Well, then talk to her.”

I wasn’t sure why I had to do all the work, but I cleared my throat and yelled across the boiling lake of ichor, “Herophile!”

The Sibyl jumped to her feet. Only then did I notice the chains—molten links, just as I’d seen in my visions, shackled to her wrists and ankles, anchoring her to the platform and allowing her just enough room to move from one side to the other. Oh, the indignity!

“Apollo!”

I’d been hoping her face might light up with joy when she saw me. Instead, she looked mostly shocked.

“I thought you would come through the other…” Her voice seized up. She grimaced with concentration, then blurted out, “Seven letters, ends in Y.”

“Doorway?” Grover guessed.

Across the surface of the lake, stone tiles ground and shifted formation. One block wedged itself against our little platform. Half a dozen more stacked up beyond it, making a seven-tile bridge extending into the room. Glowing golden letters appeared along the tiles, starting with a Y at our feet: DOORWAY.

Herophile clapped excitedly, jangling her molten chains. “Well done! Hurry!”

I was not anxious to test my weight on a stone raft floating over a burning lake of ichor, but Meg strode right out, so Grover and I followed.

“No offense, Miss Lady,” Meg called to the Sibyl, “but we already almost fell into one lava fire thingie. Could you just make a bridge from here to there without more puzzles?”