Leo cut the cheese. (You can interpret that any way you want.) The cheddar wheel turned out to be bright red all the way through and quite tasty. Josephine made dessert, which she said was her specialty. Today this meant fresh berries and homemade sponge cake in sweet red cream, with a meringue topping lightly toasted with a welding torch.

As for the ghost Agamethus, he hovered in one corner of the kitchen, holding his Magic 8 Ball dejectedly as if it were a third-place prize from a three-person competition.

Finally, we sat down to lunch. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. It had been quite a while since breakfast, and Festus’s in-flight meal service left much to be desired.

I shoveled my food in while Leo and Calypso told our hosts about our travels west. Between bites of fresh bread with bright red butter, I added commentary as needed, since of course I had the superior storytelling skills.

We explained how my ancient foe Python had retaken the original site of Delphi, cutting off access to the most powerful Oracle. We explained how the Triumvirate had sabotaged all forms of communication used by demigods—Iris-messages, magical scrolls, ventriloquist puppets, even the arcane magic of e-mail. With the help of Python, the three evil emperors now intended to control or destroy all the Oracles from ancient times, thus putting the very future of the world in a stranglehold.

“We freed the Grove of Dodona,” I summed up. “But that Oracle simply sent us here to secure the next source of prophecy: the Cave of Trophonius.”

Calypso pointed to my quiver, which lay against the nearest sofa. “Apollo, show them your talking arrow.”

Emmie’s eyes gleamed with the keen interest of an archer. “Talking arrow?”

I shuddered. The arrow I had retrieved from the whispering trees of Dodona had so far done me little good. Only I could hear its voice, and whenever I asked its advice, it spouted nonsense in Elizabethan English, which infected my speech patterns and left me talking like a bad Shakespearean actor for hours. This amused Calypso to no end.

“I will not show them my talking arrow,” I said. “I will, however, share the limerick.”

“No!” said Calypso and Leo in unison. They dropped their forks and covered their ears.

I recited:

“There once was a god named Apollo

Who plunged in a cave blue and hollow

Upon a three-seater

The bronze fire-eater

Was forced death and madness to swallow.”

Around the table, an uncomfortable silence fell.

Josephine glowered. “Never before has any voice dared to utter a limerick in this house, Apollo.”

“And let us hope no one will ever do so again,” I agreed. “But such was the prophecy of Dodona that brought us here.”

Emmie’s expression tightened, removing any lingering doubts that this was the same Hemithea I had immortalized so many centuries ago. I recognized the intensity in her eyes—the same determination that had sent her over a cliff, trusting her fate to the gods.

“ ‘A cave blue and hollow’…” she said. “That’s the Oracle of Trophonius, all right. It’s located in the Bluespring Caverns, about eighty miles south of town.”

Leo grinned as he chewed, his mouth an avalanche of earth-toned food particles. “Easiest quest ever, then. We get Festus back, then we look up this place on Google Maps and fly down there.”

“Doubtful,” Josephine said. “The emperor has the surrounding countryside heavily guarded. You couldn’t fly a dragon anywhere near Bluespring without getting shot out of the sky. Even if you could, the cave entrances are all way too small for a dragon to plunge into.”

Leo pouted. “But the limerick—”

“May be deceptive,” I said. “It is, after all, a limerick.”

Calypso sat forward. She had wrapped a napkin around her formerly broken hand—perhaps because it still ached, perhaps because she was nervous. It reminded me of torch wadding—not a happy association after my last encounter with the mad emperor Nero.

“What about the last line?” she asked. “Apollo will be forced death and madness to swallow.”

Josephine stared at her empty plate. Emmie gave her hand a quick squeeze.

“The Oracle of Trophonius is dangerous,” Emmie said. “Even when we had free access to it, before the emperor moved in, we would only consult the spirit in extreme emergencies.” She turned to me. “You must remember. You were the god of prophecy.”

Despite the excellent lemonade, my throat felt parched. I didn’t like being reminded of what I used to be. I also didn’t like the gigantic holes in my memory, filled with nothing but vague dread.

“I—I remember the cave was dangerous, yes,” I said. “I don’t recall why.”

“You don’t recall.” Emmie’s voice took on a dangerous edge.

“I normally concentrated on the godly side of things,” I said. “The quality of the sacrifices. What sort of incense the petitioners burned. How pleasing the hymns of praise were. I never asked what kind of trials the petitioners went through.”

“You never asked.”

I didn’t like Emmie echoing my words. I had a feeling she would make an even worse Greek chorus than Calypso.

“I did some reading at Camp Half-Blood,” I said defensively. “There wasn’t much about Trophonius. Chiron couldn’t help, either. He’d completely forgotten about the Oracle. Supposedly, Trophonius’s prophecies were dark and scary. Sometimes they drove people insane. Perhaps his cave was a sort of haunted house? With, uh, dangling skeletons, priestesses jumping out and saying BOO?”

Emmie’s sour expression told me that my guess was off the mark.

“I also read something about petitioners drinking from two special springs,” I persisted. “I thought swallowing death and madness might be a symbolic reference to that. You know, poetic license.”

“No,” Josephine muttered. “It’s not poetic license. That cave literally drove our daughter mad.”

A cold draft swept across my neck, as if the Waystation itself had let out a forlorn sigh. I thought about the apocalypse I’d seen crayoned on the wall of the child’s now-abandoned bedroom.

“What happened?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know—especially if it might be a portent of what I would soon face.

Emmie tore a piece of bread crust. She let the pieces fall. “Once the emperor came to Indianapolis…this New Hercules…”

Calypso started to ask a question, but Emmie raised a hand. “Please, dear, don’t ask me to name him. Not here. Not now. As I’m sure you know, many gods and monsters hear you when you speak their names. He is worse than most.”

A pang of sympathy pulled at the corner of Calypso’s mouth. “Please, go on.”

“At first,” Emmie said, “we didn’t understand what was happening. Our friends and companions began to disappear.” She gestured around her at the vast living area. “We used to have a dozen or so living here at any given time. Now…we’re all that’s left.”

Josephine leaned back in her chair. In the light of the rose window, her hair gleamed the same steel gray as the wrenches in her coverall pockets. “The emperor was looking for us. He knew about the Waystation. He wanted to destroy us. But like I said, this isn’t an easy place to find unless we invite you in. So, instead, his forces waited until our people were outside. They took our friends a few at a time.”