I fall asleep holding Helen, but when I wake, my arms are empty. The ship’s salt-crusted floor is no longer beneath me, and the sea air no longer sticks to my skin. I wake to brilliant white light and silk curtains.

Artemis reaches down to help me to my bare feet. I grimace at my reflection in the cold marble floor. My hair is a tangled rat’s nest, with reeds poking from the knots and mud clinging to my face.

“Always getting into trouble,” the goddess of the hunt mutters.

“And always cleaning up after Olympians,” I shoot back.

Her answering smile is crooked. She points to the hole in my leathers, the Midas Curse shimmering through. “You’re welcome.”

Grumbling under my breath, I follow her to the pantheon. Dread echoes my every step on the way there.

Angry voices greet me before I even step into the wooded throne room. A fire crackles, smoke singeing my nose.

In the center of the space, Hephaestus pounds a great hammer into an anvil above the hearth, spitting sparks into the dawn sky. Around him, gods balance weapons and argue. Athena and Hera are in each other’s faces, both dressed in shimmering battle leathers. The Queen of Olympus’s leathers are painted amethyst, and Athena’s are a dark blue. Poseidon, with his fists on his hips, towers over the working Hephaestus. Zeus and Hades argue in a corner, the latter’s wife quietly conferring in an opposite corner with her mother. Dionysus sits by himself, staring morosely into a cup of wine.

They all ignore us and continue their petty arguments. From the opposite end, Apollo strides through a pair of thrones toward me.

“You’re alive!” The happiness in my voice startles myself.

A small chuckle escapes him. “Of course I am. Ares has always been more bark than bite.”

There’s a dark bruise on his sharp jawline, and a gash that slices his left eyebrow in half. His palms are sticky with black blood—no, ichor. Checking for other wounds, I pat his body and pull down the top of his chiton, revealing the pale brands the centaurs gave him last year.

“You kept these?” I let go of his clothes. “Can’t you heal them?”

His gaze is unreadable. “When you’ve lived as many lifetimes as I have, scars are a memory not easily erased.”

Swallowing, I change the subject back to the god of war. “Where is he?”

Apollo shakes his head. “Only the Fates know.”

The gods have ceased their chatter and bickering, looking upon us with a mixture of disappointment and even fury. I cannot bring my gaze to meet Poseidon’s, shame eating away at me as my failure echoes with the steady drum of my heart.

The gods all turn as one, taking their seats around the pantheon. A chorus of rulers so similar to the menagerie of kings that crowded Helen’s palace.

“You can all fix this,” I say, marching forward. I curl a hand over my heart. “You can use your gifts.”

“We can’t, Daphne,” Apollo says softly, head hanging.

“Make the kings forget and go home. Return Helen and me to Sparta.” I wave to the world below the pantheon, covered in roiling clouds. “I gave you all your powers back. Use them.”

“It is beyond our power, girl,” Aphrodite says. She hugs her chest and begins to pace. “We cannot wipe the memories from a hundred people at once. We are powerful, but nothing like that. Each action has a reaction. If we wipe all the minds but forget one, they will all remember eventually. And the war will begin anyway.”

“But we did everything we could to keep Troy from going to war.”

“You had one task,” Zeus says, a rumble of thunder growing above us. “Protect Helen. And you managed to drag my daughter into a war instead.”

The Sparta you know will be gone forever more on the bloody fields of Troy.

Something cold and hollow thumps in my chest. “But we freed the Trojans. They agreed to not fight with Sparta, and to dropping the Hellespont tax.”

“You’re not so stupid as to believe the Achaeans ever gave a damn about that tax,” Poseidon says. I turn in his direction, my face growing hot. “Or were you and Apollo too distracted in each other’s arms to realize that the whole debate was a ruse? A mere diversion while the Achaeans plotted to incite a war with the greatest kingdom in the world.”

The whole thing just doesn’t make any sense. The Achaeans would be throwing away all trade with the eastern continent, and for what? Only the gods can say, and I doubt if I ask they would tell me.

I try anyway. “What do the Achaeans have to gain from a declaration of war? The cost should they lose is too damn high.”

“Obviously, there are darker powers at play here.” Athena thrums her fingers on her blue-painted vambraces. “Ones that give the Achaeans reason to believe they would actually win the war.”

Apollo speaks up. “Ares was there. No sign of Nyx and Hermes, but Ares stirred up trouble just fine without them.”

“Which brings me back to my other point.” Poseidon turns to his nephew, upper lip curling beneath his shining blond beard. “Were you so distracted, yet again, by the entice of a woman that you put the safety of our entire family at risk? Did you learn nothing from last summer?” His smile twists with cruelty. “Or was her rejection not clear enough?”

“Let Apollo live, Uncle,” Artemis protests, but he silences her with a severe look.

“Do you not tire of protecting him?” The god of the sea straightens. “Of spending all your life watching your brother’s back?”

Artemis isn’t cowed. She raises her chin, straightening, and tosses her mahogany hair over a shoulder. “That’s what family is for, which you would know if there was a single loyal bone in your body.”

“You don’t get to lecture me about loyalty, Artemis of the Arcadia.”

Curiosity flickers through me, but it’s quickly snuffed by a flash of lightning above. All turn to Zeus again, his gaze fixed on Apollo and me.

“You have failed, Daphne Diodorus.” His words are cold and edged with finality, brokering no argument. For how could I argue, when he goes on. “You have sentenced your people to needless death at the walls of Troy, and my daughter among them. Helen should have stayed in the palace that night, leaving you to guide the Trojans to safety.”

Despite the thunder rumbling above, I say, “I dare you to tell her that yourself. She gets her stubbornness from you.”

Silence echoes now in the pantheon, broken only by a chuckle from Dionysus. Zeus’s tan knuckles blanch as they grip the arms of his throne, the dark marble fracturing beneath his grip.

“As I said”—he stands, each word like a clap of thunder—“you have failed in your task of protecting Helen, even with our help.”

My next words are a death sentence. “Then don’t you mean that we failed to protect Helen?”

Pain, like none I have ever known, shoots through me. I scream and crumple to my knees. My back arches as lash after lash of lightning hits me. Rain begins to fall in the pantheon. It drenches me, and each drop is another stab of light and pain. I scream again, the cry tearing my throat apart. Dimly, as though down a deep, very dark cave, Apollo roars my name.

Behind my clenched eyelids, a flare of golden light bursts around me. Finally, both pain and storm stop. My hands sing as they clap the marble and I tumble forward.

My chest heaves, but no air will come in. Each breath sends a spasm throughout my entire body. Apollo rests a hand on my back, and the pain ebbs, unforgivingly slow.

“When you’re done lapping your own sweat from the floor, rise.” Zeus’s voice is like rocks colliding.

My fingers curl into fists against the cold marble. I shove myself to my feet.

“Well, that was delightful,” I mutter, smiling sweetly.

Zeus’s scowl must be ingrained in the very lines of his face. “You are lucky we still owe you a debt, young woman.”

And don’t you forget it. I will my face into an unreadable mask, once again the Shield of Helen and nothing more.

“We will gift you with another chance,” Hera says, gaze icy as always. “And you will continue in your task of protecting Helen. At any cost.”

She stands, followed by the other gods. They each pick a side of the pantheon, the gauze and silk and leathers of their clothes sighing as they choose sides. Athena and Poseidon join Hera, while Aphrodite, Artemis, and Demeter stand opposite. Hades and Persephone join Zeus in the center, with the latter giving me an apologetic look.

“Are you”—I swallow, at a loss—“really picking sides in a war where the life of Zeus’s daughter is at stake?”

“There is more at stake in this war than Helen’s safety,” Hera says with a sneer.

“Then why are you divided?” I cross my arms. “You are gods of Greece! You shouldn’t want the Achaeans—your people—to go to war!”

“What Hera means to say,” Dionysus drawls, still reclined on his throne, “is that some of us are not willing to put their egos aside for even the slightest moment, while the rest of us have a true understanding of what is at stake here.”

Hera blushes a furious red. Before the queen of Olympus can spit sparks, Zeus looks to Apollo.

“Come, son.” He gestures to his right, where Hera stands. “Join your family.”

Apollo’s warmth leaves my side as he walks, movements stiff, around the hearth and stands beside Artemis.

Opposite Hera.

“I will not tolerate insolence,” Zeus warns, “from either of you.”

“I think we’ve stated our case quite clearly.” Artemis widens her stance, as if bracing for a fight.

“We will defend Troy.” Apollo looks to me, a golden light framing his bronze curls. “Alongside Daphne.”

“Her failure to protect my daughter has a cost,” Zeus says, not even glancing to where I stand. “She will fight for Helen alone.”

“No.” Apollo stares his father down. “She won’t.”

“Then you leave me no choice.”

I brace myself for his power again. He takes a careful step, then another, toward his wife. He stands shoulder to shoulder with her and Poseidon, staring across the fiery hearth at the remainder of the gods. They take each other’s hands. Apollo straightens beside his sister, growing pale.

“For your insolence”—Zeus looks from Apollo to me—“and her failure, I now bind your power.”

A blast of silver light flares across the pantheon. It hits Apollo square in the chest.

A startled scream bursts from my lips as he crumples. The muscles in his shoulders and arms twitch, skin pulling taut. His head flings back, eyes and mouth clenched, as if he is fighting with every fiber of his immortal being against the curse now placed upon him.

Suddenly, he sprawls forward with a gasp. Now it is my turn to reach for him. I nearly jerk back at the feel of his skin. Where he is normally scalding to the touch, his back is now cool.

Shock grips me by the throat. “What did you do to him?”

“Apollo is now the weakest god of Olympus,” Aphrodite says with a breathy laugh.

Artemis’s lips curl back. “They’ve bound him.”

“Is your ego so small that you would condemn an entire kingdom to ruin?” I hardly believe it’s my own hollow voice that rings across the pantheon.

“This is not our doing,” Zeus says, waving a hand through the air. “You brought this on Troy.”

“Me?” I ask, voice sharp with indignation.

Zeus looks to me and raises a hand. Bolts of lightning dance between his fingertips.

I scoff. “There is no pain that you could inflict upon me that is greater than the shame I now carry.” My voice rises with each word. “You don’t deserve the throne you defile.”

The king of Olympus has raised both hands now, swirling storms rising from his palms.

I glare down my nose at them and say, “I regret ever helping you last summer. You don’t deserve the worship of mortals.”

Before I can blink, his power blasts me from my feet. Pain explodes in me, racing like branches of crackling hoarfrost from my toes to each hair on my head. I bite down around any scream that may steal from my lips.

I will not give him that satisfaction this time.

I tumble through the air. My back does not slam into the marble. My head does not crack into the floor.

I thud into sand. My breath steals from my lungs in a gasp.

Stars dance before my eyes, twinkling across the light blue sky. Gulls scream around me. Groaning, I flip myself over and crawl farther up the sand.

“Daphne!”

I look up just in time to watch Helen sprint across the beach toward me. She slides to a halt, body slamming into mine with enough force to knock the air from my chest yet again.

“I feel like we’ve done all this before,” I say under my breath.

The beach this time, though, is littered with pieces of ship. Helen’s dark hair is plastered to her face, seaweed threaded in the strands. Down the line of golden sand, sailors retch seawater and curse the gods. Lykou, likewise drenched, helps Hector to his feet. Paris staggers toward us.

I look for Apollo, but I can’t find him or any of the gods on the strip of beach. My fingers curl into the sand. Whatever they did to him, whatever it means to be bound, it can’t be good. I release a shuddering breath.

“What happened?” I turn my face up to Helen, squinting beneath the blaring sun. “What happened to our ship?”

“We were cursed by Poseidon, obviously,” Paris says.

“You don’t remember?” Helen assesses me. “You must have hit your head quite hard.”

“Our ship was captained by a madman is what happened.” Lykou heaves slightly, clutching his abdomen. “He sailed right into that bloody storm. It chewed us all up and spit us out onto this blasted beach.”

“Either madman,” Hector says, limping up to us, “or gods blessed.”

He looks inland. I follow his gaze, and a ringing starts in my ears. My mouth falls open and I reach a steadying hand to the ground.

Shimmering golden temples arc into the sky around us, before which black statues stand. The closest is a reflection of Apollo, standing proud and tall, a sword at one hip and a lyre atop the opposite shoulder. Across from his temple, Aphrodite’s temple beckons. The statue of the ethereal beauty is an incredible likeness, the marble hewn so that her flowy chiton leaves nothing to the imagination of the lithe body beneath. Ten more temples stand behind them, and beyond, surrounded by a wall of gold and red, is the greatest city I’ve ever seen.

“Is that…?” Helen’s mouth drops open, her eyes impossibly wide.

“Yes,” Hector says, pride filling his voice. “Welcome to Troy.”