It was eleven in the morning when I stumbled out of Leo’s bedroom. It wasn’t quite five hours of sleep, but close, and if only one-third of what I needed to function, I’d have to make do. The morning light was too bright, the smell of food nauseating, the furniture too Lovecraftian in its bizarrely geometric shapes unknowable to any but the Swedes and Cthulhu’s fourth cousin. I kept moving to the kitchen where Zeke was cooking something in the skillet. It looked as if it had all the four basic food groups, but it smelled as if they’d all been gathered or caught in a swamp. “Someone left a present for you,” he said, one elbow indicating a countertop as he continued to earnestly scramble whatever he was cooking down to their separate molecular parts.
There it was, resting on the black granite countertop—a glass pitcher filled to the brim with crystal clear water. The pitcher itself was frosted with condensation and a heart had been drawn on it. Inside the heart, the name Anna was written in loops and swirls with a flourish at the end. The dream had been real. She’d done it, what most Greek heroes couldn’t pull off, Anna had done. I’d had faith in her with good reason.
I heard Zeke switch off the oven before he moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with me. “Not much of a present though. Water. You can’t wrap it. Can’t exchange it for ammunition. You can get your own out of a faucet. Pretty cheap gift.” He began to reach out a hand toward it.
“No.” I caught his hand. “Don’t touch it and don’t drink it. It’s from the River Lethe in Hades, the Greek underworld. If you drink it or touch it and get a drop in your mouth, you’ll forget.”
“Forget what?”
“Everything.” I picked up the pitcher with the greatest of care and took it into the living area where we had left the Namaru weapon mold. “What your name is, who you are, who you were. Every memory you have will be gone.”
“Huh.” He followed behind me. “This is for Cronus too? You’re going to set up a lemonade stand and convince him to drink it? Then he’ll forget all about taking over Hell and wander off? And I thought some of my plans were bad.”
“If I had a spare hand, I’d swat you. No, I’m not going to convince him to drink it. I’m persuasive, but no one is persuasive enough to convince a Titan on the warpath to stop for a cold one and a Super Soaker isn’t going to do the trick either.” I stopped with the mold at my feet. With a thought, a shadowed slot about six inches by one inch appeared in the top of once-solid rock. Kneeling beside it, I tilted the pitcher and poured the water into the block with exquisite care, not a drop spilled.
“Hey, what happened? What’d you do? Turn it on? And you’re going to make a weapon out of water? Hell, we could’ve just gone to the grocery store and bought some balloons. We didn’t have to go all the way to a museum, get Tasered, get in a car wreck, waste my grenades because Leo wouldn’t share, if the big plan is throwing water at Cronus.” By the time he finished, curiosity on his part had turned to exasperation for both of us.
I straightened with the empty pitcher in hand. “Kit, remember when you worked at the bar and someone wouldn’t flush or didn’t tip you or told you the fried cheese sticks you served them weren’t hot? Remember how you would bang their head against their table because Leo told you rudeness is one of the seven deadly sins?” He opened his mouth to comment, but I cut him off. “I’m looking for a table.”
He scowled and retreated back to the kitchenette, split the contents of the skillet onto two plates, and disappeared down the hall to the bedrooms. Lucky Griffin, breakfast in bed. Unlucky Griffin, Zeke had cooked it. “Your friend came through, then? Walked into Hades, picked out a souvenir, and brought it back to you?” Leo, who had waited for Zeke to pass, stood in the hall now, his hair half in and half out of the ponytail he’d secured it in for bed.
“I told you. Love and goodwill wherever I go.” Letting the pitcher drop onto the couch, I stretched my hand back down and pulled the sword from the stone. I held it high, a blade seemingly made of glass, but it was water. All of it. The blade, guard, grip, and pommel, the entire thing almost five feet long. The Namaru alone could make a weapon out of water, one you could hold firm in your hand and one that could cut absolutely anything.
Leo folded his arms. “All Hail the Once and Future Queen, but it has been done.”