I had forgotten about Chiron’s tendency to lay out obvious and logical conclusions that I tried to avoid thinking about. It was an infuriating habit.

“In my present state, that’s impossible.” I pointed at Meg. “Right now, my job is to serve this demigod, probably for a year. After I’ve done whatever tasks she assigns me, Zeus will judge that my sentence has been served, and I can once again become a god.”

Meg pulled apart a Fig Newton. “I could order you to go to this Delphi place.”

“No!” My voice cracked in midshriek. “You should assign me easy tasks—like starting a rock band, or just hanging out. Yes, hanging out is good.”

Meg looked unconvinced. “Hanging out isn’t a task.”

“It is if you do it right. Camp Half-Blood can protect me while I hang out. After my year of servitude is up, I’ll become a god. Then we can talk about how to restore Delphi.”

Preferably, I thought, by ordering some demigods to undertake the quest for me.

“Apollo,” Chiron said, “if demigods keep disappearing, we may not have a year. We may not have the strength to protect you. And, forgive me, but Delphi is your responsibility.”

I tossed up my hands. “I wasn’t the one who opened the Doors of Death and let Python out! Blame Gaea! Blame Zeus for his bad judgment! When the giants started to wake, I drew up a very clear Twenty-Point Plan of Action to Protect Apollo and Also You Other Gods, but he didn’t even read it!”

Meg tossed half of her cookie at Seymour’s head. “I still think it’s your fault. Hey, look! He’s awake!”

She said this as if the leopard had decided to wake up on his own rather than being beaned in the eye with a Fig Newton.

“RARR,” Seymour complained.

Chiron wheeled his chair back from the table. “My dear, in that jar on the mantel, you’ll find some Snausages. Why don’t you feed him dinner? Apollo and I will wait on the porch.”

We left Meg happily making three-point shots into Seymour’s mouth with the treats.

Once Chiron and I reached the porch, he turned his wheelchair to face me. “She’s an interesting demigod.”

“Interesting is such a nonjudgmental term.”

“She really summoned a karpos?”

“Well…the spirit appeared when she was in trouble. Whether she consciously summoned it, I don’t know. She named him Peaches.”

Chiron scratched his beard. “I have not seen a demigod with the power to summon grain spirits in a very long time. You know what it means?”

My feet began to quake. “I have my suspicions. I’m trying to stay positive.”

“She guided you out of the woods,” Chiron noted. “Without her—”

“Yes,” I said. “Don’t remind me.”

It occurred to me that I’d seen that keen look in Chiron’s eyes before—when he’d assessed Achilles’s sword technique and Ajax’s skill with a spear. It was the look of a seasoned coach scouting new talent. I’d never dreamed the centaur would look at me that way, as if I had something to prove to him, as if my mettle were untested. I felt so…so objectified.

“Tell me,” Chiron said, “what did you hear in the woods?”

I silently cursed my big mouth. I should not have asked whether the missing demigods had heard anything strange.

I decided it was fruitless to hold back now. Chiron was more perceptive than your average horse-man. I told him what I’d experienced in the forest, and afterward in my dream.

His hands curled into his lap blanket. The bottom of it rose higher above his red sequined pumps. He looked about as worried as it is possible for a man to look while wearing fishnet stockings.

“We will have to warn the campers to stay away from the forest,” he decided. “I do not understand what is happening, but I still maintain it must be connected to Delphi, and your present…ah, situation. The Oracle must be liberated from the monster Python. We must find a way.”

I translated that easily enough: I must find a way.

Chiron must have read my desolate expression.

“Come, come, old friend,” he said. “You have done it before. Perhaps you are not a god now, but the first time you killed Python it was no challenge at all! Hundreds of storybooks have praised the way you easily slew your enemy.”

“Yes,” I muttered. “Hundreds of storybooks.”

I recalled some of those stories: I had killed Python without breaking a sweat. I flew to the mouth of the cave, called him out, unleashed an arrow, and BOOM!—one dead giant snake monster. I became Lord of Delphi, and we all lived happily ever after.

How did storytellers get the idea that I vanquished Python so quickly?

All right…possibly it’s because I told them so. Still, the truth was rather different. For centuries after our battle, I had bad dreams about my old foe.