Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods

The view was suitably impressive—vast open balconies overlooking the other Olympian mansions where the lesser-schmuck gods were forced to live. But what really got me were the games. Lined up along the outer walls, every conceivable Zeus-themed arcade machine blinked and flashed—King of Olympus pinball, Mighty Zeus slots, even Lightning God 3000, which I remembered playing once on Coney Island. I wasn’t surprised that Zeus would collect his own memorabilia. That seemed very on-brand. But the fact that he would display it in his dining room was some god-level narcissism. Like, Why look at these amazing views when you can select my avatar in multiplayer mode and realize how much your powers suck compared to mine? I wondered if he sourced his machines from the same wholesaler as Hebe Jeebies.

I forced my ADHD brain to stop obsessing about the blinking lights and focus on the brunch guests instead. Plenty of old friends and frenemies lounged on the sofas. At the head of the table sat the big guy himself, the O.Z., chillaxing in a purple velour toga and gold sandals. Because obviously, if you are a god and you can look like anything you want, this is the look you would choose.

To his left was my buddy Hera, goddess of making Percy miserable. She looked regal in her sleeveless white dress and elegant braided hairdo, as if to make a point of how gross her husband was.

To Zeus’s right, with her back to me, was a woman I assumed was Rhea, queen of the Titans, aka Grandma Goddess. I’d expected her to look older than the gods, because she was probably pushing six thousand by now, but of course immortals don’t have to show their age. Brown-blond hair cascaded down her back in a waterfall of ringlets. She wore a tie-dyed caftan-style dress with silver bangles on each arm. Curled up asleep at her feet was a lion. Just another apex predator at the table.

Other celebrities in the brunch pit included Athena, Hermes, and Demeter . . . because of course the grain goddess would show up for a morning meal. There were a couple of other guests I didn’t recognize, either because they’d changed their appearance or because I hadn’t met them yet. And standing behind Zeus, trying to figure out what to do with his empty, chalice-free hands, was Ganymede.

He was literally sweating Greek fire. Every so often, a drop of glistening incendiary liquid would pop and smoke on the back of his neck. So far, no one else in the room seemed to be noticing, or maybe he always did that when he served at the boss’s table.

Zeus was holding forth about all the delicacies he had ordered for his mother’s special brunch day. Apparently, she hadn’t been to Olympus in a very long time, and nobody was allowed to start eating or drinking until Zeus finished his speech about how awesome she was. All their cups were empty.

Good. Now all I had to do was get the chalice into Ganymede’s hands without being noticed. It seemed so doable, and yet . . .

I stared at the cupbearer, willing him to look in my direction. Finally, as Zeus was extolling the virtues of phoenix eggs Benedict (they have a spicy kick!), Ganymede glanced at the kitchen doors. After a moment of hazy confusion, he saw me holding up the chalice.

His expression changed from surprise to relief to terrified pleading in less time than it would’ve taken him to pour a drink. His eyes said, Oh, thank the gods! I gestured at him to come to the kitchen.

He shuffled to one side, but immediately Zeus reached back and grabbed his wrist. “Stay, Ganymede. I want you to hear this! Then you can pour our drinks and we’ll have a nice toast.”

Nobody remarked on the obvious fact that the cupbearer didn’t have his cup. I suppose, being a servant, he was even more invisible than I was in my borrowed hat.

Ganymede looked in my direction again. Help!

“I thought,” Zeus told the group, “that I would honor our dear mother, Rhea, with a special story about her.”

“Oh, baby, you don’t have to,” Rhea said.

The other gods wore pained smiles as if they agreed that Zeus really didn’t have to.

“So, one time,” Zeus began, “back when I was just a lad and the rest of you were rolling around in Kronos’s stomach . . .”

At that moment, two horrible things became clear to me. First, I would have to listen to this story. Second, if Ganymede could not come to the chalice, I would have to bring the chalice to Ganymede.





I will now sing the praises of pastry carts.

Not only can they transport tasty baked goods to the vicinity of your face, they can also be covered with tablecloths that hide a lower shelf perfect for crouching on when you’re a demigod who needs to sneak into a brunch. Yes, I know that’s a cliché—I got the idea from old TV shows—but hey, you’ve got to do what works.

The only tough part was convincing Barbara, my new best friend and dryad server, to push me as close to Ganymede as possible.

Her price?

“I want to meet Annabeth Chase,” she said. “I want a selfie and an autograph.”

“I— Really?”

“She’s my hero!” Barbara said.

“No, I get that. She’s my hero, too. It’s just . . .” I decided not to elaborate. I’d been prepared for Barbara to demand something much more difficult, like a personal quest or a box of gold-foil collectors’ edition Mythomagic cards. “I can definitely arrange a meet and greet.”

“Deal!” she said cheerfully. “But if you’re discovered, I have no idea who you are or how you got under the cart, and I will scream, ‘Demigod! Kill him!’ Cool?”

“I would expect nothing less.”

So I curled up under the cart with the chalice of immortality in my lap, hidden behind a white tablecloth embroidered with lightning bolts, as Barbara wheeled me into the dining room.

“Anyway,” Zeus was saying, “there I was, surrounded by angry llamas. . . . Well, you can imagine!”

“My dear,” said Hera, “there were no llamas in ancient Greece.”

“Well, there were in Crete!” Zeus growled. “I don’t know, maybe Kronos decided we couldn’t have nice things and he sent them all to Peru, but at the time, wow! Llamas everywhere! As I was saying, I was all alone. No Amalthea. No Kouretes. Just me in my diapers, a mere mewling babe, if you can picture it—”

“I can picture it, Dad,” Athena said dryly.

The cart creaked and wobbled. I was so close to the dining table I could smell wet lion fur. I didn’t dare look, but I figured I must be getting close to Ganymede.

Just a few more feet . . .

“Stop that!” Zeus snapped.

The cart stopped.

“I’m telling a story here, Barbara!”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

There was a long pause. I imagined all the gods staring at the cart, wondering why it seemed so heavily laden and why it was creaking more than usual. I waited for Barbara to yell Demigod! Kill him!

Finally, Zeus grunted. “Where was I?”

“Crete,” Hermes said. “Surrounded by llamas.”

“Right, so . . .”

I had trouble keeping track of the story. Partly, my heart was hammering too loudly. And partly, I just didn’t want to keep track of the story.

Zeus rambled on, trying to build sympathy for his poor baby self all alone on Crete. I doubted his audience was feeling the suspense since (spoiler) he was immortal, so the possibility of him getting killed by llamas was quite low. Nevertheless, I hoped everyone had stopped looking at the pastry cart. I risked lifting the bottom of the tablecloth.

I had a great view of Zeus’s sandaled feet. Did he polish those toenails or what?

Focus, Percy.

Ganymede stood on the other side of Zeus—only ten feet away, but still too far to slip him the chalice, especially since there was a lightning god between us. I tried to look up to see Ganymede’s face, but my angle wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t tell if he knew I was there or if he was too busy sweating Greek fire to notice.

I wondered if I could crawl from the cart to under the table, past all those immaculately groomed godly feet, without getting noticed. Probably not. Then I glanced to my right and locked eyes with the lion.

Well, that was super. He looked sleepy and surprised, like he was wondering if he was still dreaming or if the pastry cart really had a human head on the bottom shelf.

Probably the worst thing I could have done was to continue staring at him. So that’s what I did. He had pretty gold eyes. I’ve never been much of a cat person, but I could see the appeal of that big fuzzy face resting on giant fluffy paws, except for the fact that the face had fangs and the paws had claws.

I tried to use my son-of-the-sea-god patent-pending telepathy to send him a message: I am harmless. Please do not eat me. But I was pretty sure that 1) the lion was not a sea creature, and 2) even if I could communicate with him, he would not listen to me.