For a few long, suspenseful seconds, nobody moved. All we could do was stare in horror at the tangled web of scales and teeth hovering just outside the cargo hold, waiting to strike. I turned towards Luke uncertainly, wondering what we should do. We'd barely been able to take down one of them, and while the drakon hadn't seemed to have much trouble with his opponent, I couldn't see how even our combined forces could take on four more of them at once.

Luke's face had gone white as a sheet. He stood immobile, eyes widened as he took in the new threat before us. Some of the demigods took note of his expression and began eyeing the doors to the interior of the ship, looking for an escape route. I knew what they were thinking — I had an instinctual urge to run and hide myself — but I knew if we were to flee deeper into the ship, Scylla would waste no time breaking in and picking us off one-by-one. Plus, we'd be leaving Kronos's sarcophagus wide open, a lonely king piece on the chessboard, his pawns fled.

Luke seemed to notice that his troops were beginning to lose heart. He shook himself out of his stupor and waved his sword towards our defenses, his jaw set in determination. "Back to your positions!" he ordered. "Anyone who runs now will taste Backbiter!"

Hesitantly, everyone fell back into position. I took my place behind the spear phalanx, but I realized we were down a few men from the last attack. Some of them lay on the ground, unconscious or nursing injuries, while others had taken themselves back to the infirmary. Even though I didn't have a spear, I did grab a shield from the Telkhines' armory, so I filled in one of the gaps in our shield wall.

Scylla was hesitating for some reason. Her wolf-like appendages were still positioned outside the hold. Two of them were snapping playfully at each other, while another sniffed the air cautiously, trying to get a feel for their surroundings. One of them poked its head in a bit further, eyeing the corpses of its fallen siblings.

On the other side of the hold, the Aethiopian drakon stamped its foot and roared tauntingly at them. Despite the circumstances, I grinned to myself. The beast was brave, I'd give it that. It was probably the only reason the monsters hadn't descended upon us yet.

That theory was quickly shot down, however, when each of the creatures locked their eyes on the drakon, and hungrily shot forward. I'd been expecting at least one or two of them to come after us demigods, but to my surprise, that wasn't the case. Instead, all four of them darted straight at the drakon, one of them managing to clamp its jaws around its front leg. The drakon howled and tried to sink its teeth into the monster's neck, but another bit down on its shoulder, and another onto one of its hind legs. I watched in horror as each of Scylla's appendages grabbed hold of the drakon and lifted it off the ground.

Realizing what was happening, Luke bellowed out, "Stop them! Arrows! Javelins!"

But it was too late. Together, the monsters pulled back, dragging the drakon along with them. Our archers did all they could, but the arrows may as well have been pebbles for all the damage they did. The drakon screamed and thrashed in their vice-like grips, managing to tear a good-sized chunk out of one of the monsters' necks, but it was ultimately futile. They hoisted our biggest combatant out of the hold like a slab of meat at a butcher shop and disappeared around the corner, the drakon roaring in defiance the whole way. After a few seconds, the roars turned to pained shrieks, and then horrible silence.

I swallowed the bile rising in my throat, and silently prayed that the drakon had been fattening enough to satiate Scylla's appetite, because if those things came after us again, we'd be doomed.

"Mother of Zeus…" Chris said, a bead of sweat rolling down his forehead, and that sentiment pretty much summed up all of my thoughts on the matter.

Nervous whisperings broke out through the room. I heard footsteps shuffle up behind me.

"Percy," Luke said. I could tell he was trying not to sound worried, but his eyes betrayed him. "Are we almost through the strait? Are you able to tell?"

I tried to focus on my bearings. It was hard to get a good measure of time when you're wired up on ADHD and adrenaline, but I figured our fight just now couldn't have been more than a minute or so. At our ship's cruising speed, that would mean we'd only travelled half a mile or so since Scylla first attacked. The problem was, I had no idea how long the strait was. When I'd viewed it from my vantage point in the navigation room, it had been little more than a smudge on the horizon. It could've been a hundred feet long or a hundred football fields long.

An idea occurred to me, something I hadn't thought of before. I thought about how submarines let out sonar pings when they were searching for obstacles in the underwater landscape. I wondered if I could do something similar. Wanting to test the theory, I walked to the side of the cargo hold and gripped a support beam, concentrating on the hull of the ship. Luke and Chris shared a perplexed look, but I kept my focus, feeling the water surrounding us, and the ship cutting a path through it.

I sent out an invisible wave. I don't really know what else to call it. To anyone else, it would've been imperceptible, but I could feel it rolling over the surrounding topography. The ocean floor lit up brilliantly in my mind, revealing a surprisingly shallow stretch that dropped off into the open ocean several hundred feet ahead. On our starboard side, the underwater rock sloped upwards until it met the water, indicating we weren't quite clear of Scylla's cliff yet. I didn't detect any sign of the monster or the drakon in the water, which meant they must have dragged it to the top of the escarpment.

On our port side, the sea floor dropped off sharply in what appeared to be a giant bowl. At the bottom, I felt her. Charybdis. A grotesque figure in the shape of a giant mouth, with teeth as sharp as stalagmites and metal from shipwrecks wound through them like the world's largest set of braces. Our fight with Scylla thus far had been harrowing to say the least, but seeing the shape of Charybdis, I wasn't sure if we would've done much better against her.

I opened my eyes and found Luke staring at me expectantly. "We're almost there," I told him. "Another minute or two and we'll be through the strait."

Luke nodded, somewhat relieved, and began barking orders to the group. We had to spread out to fill in the area the drakon was previously covering, which thinned our lines considerably. Now, nearly every demigod who wasn't injured had to join the front line, except Luke, who was commanding from the center with Sess.

Scylla must have been starving before we got here, because it wasn't long before the wolf-monsters came back for more. They ravenously bared their blood stained teeth at us, as if the drakon had simply been an appetizer for their five-course meal. But there was something different about them now. Their necks looked strained, as if they were having trouble just reaching the entrance to the cargo hold. One of them snapped at the rest and barked, and then just like that, they all ascended above the hold and out of sight. The two monsters we'd managed to kill, whose corpses had been stuck in the hold, began to get dragged out as the ship gained distance from Scylla. Their heads thudded against the side of the gate before they tumbled out into the ocean.

Nobody moved. We didn't dare to hope… Were we out of range? Had we made it through the strait? Slowly, the tension ebbed out of the room. The phalanxes lowered their spears, and the archers un-nocked their arrows. Luke put up a hand to hold everyone in place, listening attentively for any signs of an attack, but all we heard was the ocean and the usual creaks and groans of the ship.

Then the hull shook violently. Everyone was thrown off balance, waving their arms to try and stay upright. In the rear, Adri scrambled to keep her patients from slamming into the wall of the hold.

"What's happening?" Chris asked in a panic, his eyes fixing on me.

"We're… we're turning!" I said, feeling the shift in our orientation. My eyes scanned for Luke over the disarray of the troops, but he was too busy trying to get everyone under control.

Against my better judgement, I hopped over the crates and shelving and darted towards the entrance to the hold. "Percy, don't!" someone shouted, but I kept running. I skidded to a halt at the front of the hold and gripped the side railing, gazing out at our surroundings. Below me, the ocean churned. Above, four scaly, trunk-like necks stretched towards the bow of the ship. I could hear the holographic tourists screaming in terror from the upper decks.

I hopped the railing and swung myself around to the exterior of the ship to get a better view. My heart sank. I had been right, we were nearly free of the cliffs. Only, Scylla's reach extended a bit farther than I'd realized.

Stretched out to their maximum length, the wolf-like monsters had been able to reach the figurehead of the ship and coil themselves around it. I thought for sure that the Princess Andromeda bust would snap off of the bow from the strain, but it held firm. With the ship set to move forward automatically, and Scylla wrapped around its front pulling us in, we were now set on a collision course with the edge of the cliffs. In a minute or so, we'd wash up on the rocks the same way Luke did with the ship at Montauk. Only this time, I wasn't sure if we'd be able to cast off again.

Not good. Not good at all. If we got stuck there, it would be like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Scylla would pick the whole ship clean and use an umbrella stand as a toothpick. I glanced back at the Princess Andromeda figurehead, who now had a perfectly good reason to look terrified, and an idea struck me, something I couldn't believe hadn't occurred to me before. I heard footsteps approaching rapidly.

"Percy!" It was Luke. "What are you doing? Get back in here before you're eaten!"

I quickly filled him in on the situation, telling him we were about to run aground. "Can you make me a portal to my room?" I asked.

Luke stared at me, his eyebrows furrowing. "What? Why?"

"I know how to kill this thing, but I need something from my room."

He glanced between me and the massive beast currently pulling hundreds of thousands of tons of metal off course like it was just a rowboat in a pond. "You're going to kill that?!"

"Yes," I said impatiently. I didn't blame Luke for thinking I was out of my mind. We'd just watched Scylla devour the Aethiopian drakon with ease, after all. But I had a weapon stashed away somewhere in my room, a weapon so powerful that it could kill even the largest monsters in the blink of an eye. I just had to find it.

Luke must have realized his only options were to trust me or become monster chow, because he grit his teeth in frustration and drew his sword from its sheath.

"Whatever it is you're planning, don't do anything stupid," he warned before opening up the portal.

"I would never," I said, feigning hurt. Luke glared at me as the rippling gateway swallowed me up—

—and deposited me on the other side. I stumbled into the kitchen table, hands gripping the edges to steady myself as the vertigo faded away. { was back in my stateroom. Shaking my head, I focused my thoughts on the deadly item I'd come here to find, trying to remember the last place I'd seen it.

I wasted no time in sprinting to my bedroom, throwing the door open like a battering ram. My eyes scanned the floors and dressers, and I cursed myself for not taking after Luke and organizing my things. The Spartan lifestyle certainly would've saved me some much-needed time as I tossed dirty clothes, boxes, and soda cans out of the way.

I got down on my hands and knees and checked under the bed, but all that was down there were a couple of lackluster armor pieces and a takeout box from the ship's restaurant. Knowing I was running out of time, I dashed to the closet and threw it open. My eyes widened in horror at the piles of bags and clothes I'd been too lazy to hang up properly.

Before I could start chucking the offending objects over my shoulder, the ship lurched violently and sent me sprawling onto the carpet. I looked up at the window, and the scenic view of the open ocean I'd become accustomed to seeing was blocked by a wall of dark, jagged rocks. A horrible scraping noise pierced my eardrums like a drill as the ship scraped along the escarpment.

I felt the engines grind to a halt. Whether they overheated or were turned off manually by Tyson, I didn't know, but one thing was clear. We weren't moving anymore.

I dove for the closet, scooping armfuls of junk out of the way and berating myself for being so messy. I could practically hear my mom scolding me from over my shoulder. How many times have I told you to clean up your room, young man?

I bit back a cry of frustration. Where was it? It had to be in here. It'd been nearly a year since I had to use it, but I was almost certain I'd stashed it in my closet.

A shadow crept up the wall and darkened the room. I froze, a stab of fear staking its way into my chest. Slowly, I turned my head towards the window, and my gaze was met by a single, blood-red eye, seeming to cast a sinister glow throughout the room. I focused all my willpower on keeping still, praying it was too bright outside to see through the window clearly.

The creature pressed its face harder against the glass, trying to get a closer look. Its nictitating membrane coated its eye for a second, and then it refocused directly on me. Rearing its head back, it howled and launched itself forward.

I gasped and dove for cover behind my bed as broken glass sliced its way through the room. The creature's head smashed directly into the closet where I'd been standing, splintering the frame and sending the contents that had been piled up inside in all directions.

The monster shook its head in a daze, giving me time to get to my feet and draw Riptide. While Scylla may have seemed unstoppable before, I found I had one major advantage in this room over the cargo hold: it was way too small for the creature to easily maneuver. It was like a cat reaching into a hole in the wall to swat a mouse, except that mouse's name was Jerry and he was heavily armed.

Making sure to steer clear of its jaws, I leapt at its neck as it tried to swivel its gaze towards me. Belting out a war cry, I delivered a slash across its scales, opening up a deep laceration that spewed a sickly greenish substance. It bellowed in pain, thrashing against the walls of my room and splintering my furniture. I did my best to avoid getting flattened against the wall, but its wild movements were almost impossible to predict. Before I knew it, I was swept off my feet and thrown across the room. The scaly appendage hissed in anger and retreated out of the hole it made in my window, though I had no doubt it would be back soon.

I rose quickly and stood there for a moment, panting heavily with Riptide in my hands, before an object caught my eye. Directly in front of the window, lying amongst broken glass and splintered wood chips, was an unassuming brown cardboard box. The same one I'd miraculously found on my old bed at Gabe's apartment last year.

There it is!

I ran to it, nearly tripping over my dented bed frame in the process. I sliced through the translucent tape with Riptide and reached into the package, fingers trembling. I could hear the sounds of fighting elsewhere on the ship, howls and shouts echoing off the rocks. Scylla had begun her feast, and I knew that every second I wasted could mean one less soldier in Kronos's army. A shiver ran down my spine as I felt his presence bear down on me once again, as if the battle in the cargo hold was of little concern to the titan lord.

I withdrew the weapon I'd been looking for from the box, still wrapped in the Middle Eastern burqa, and not a moment too soon. The shadow once again darkened my room, and I looked up to see the eldritch horror bearing down on me, its wound seeping and its eyes narrowed in hatred. It struck forth like a lightning bolt, and I raised the weapon in front of me, screwing my eyes shut and letting the burqa fall away.

I stayed frozen there for a second, two seconds, three—and then I opened my eyes. Medusa's head was the only thing between me and a massive stone maw, stretched wide enough to fit me inside standing up.

It had worked. I couldn't believe it.

A collective cry of outrage sounded across the rocks, and I got the sense that Scylla's other appendages were still made of flesh and bones, and unhappy flesh and bones at that.

Capping Riptide and grabbing Medusa's head by its slimy, snaky hair, I tentatively began to climb the petrified monster. I ducked under the window pane and stepped out onto the creature's neck. The petrified scales resembled a cobblestone path leading straight up to the top of the cliffs. Whatever was controlling these monsters was up there, and if I could somehow get to it and petrify it, I was willing to wager the others wouldn't be able to move either. I inched forwards carefully, trying to keep my balance against the fierce winds and doing my best to ignore the ocean pummeling against the jagged rocks below.

I allowed myself to take a peek at the cargo hold, and what I saw made my stomach churn. Two of the heads had descended on the cargo hold, and were locked in combat with our troops. I watched one of the appendages drag an empousa out of the hold, the top half of her body sticking out of the creature's jaws. With a cry of rage, the empousa's hair caught fire, and her body disintegrated in a fiery blast that unhinged her attacker's jaw and set its mouth ablaze. It dove into the water in a panic, looking to put the fire out.

I was about halfway up to the top when the other hound finally noticed me, evidently losing interest in the cargo hold. Good news for my friends, but bad news for me. It took notice of the long, stone walkway that I'd fashioned out of its sibling and zeroed in on me. Teeth bared back in a snarl, it lashed forward with a vengeance, but a quick glance at Medusa's head caused it to meet the same fate as its kin.

Feeling more confident, I broke out into a run along the petrified creature's neck, ascending higher and higher up the cliff. I had to keep myself from looking down; I was high enough now to easily see over the top of the ship's bridge, and in a few more seconds I'd be cresting over the cliffs. One wrong step and I'd end up a shishkebab on the rocks below.

The one that had dived into the water must've sensed I was approaching its master, because an alarmed roar echoed off the cliffs as it resurfaced, its lower jaw hanging open and its badly burned tongue dangling limply from its mouth. With its blood stained teeth and hide peppered with arrows and javelins, the monster looked like a massive, nightmarish porcupine. I raised Medusa's head once more, and seconds later, it was nothing more than the finishing touch on the world's largest stone sculpture.

I would've laughed at how easy it was if I hadn't felt so stupid for forgetting where I'd stashed Medusa's head in the first place.

Besides the sounds of the wind and Charybdis, the cliffside became eerily silent. Surrounding me in twisting, winding corkscrews were the petrified bodies of three of Scylla's appendages, if you counted the one I was standing on. The drakon had killed one, and another had been killed by the new girl, so that made five.

'Is that all of them? Wasn't there another one?' a nagging voice in my head warned me.

I proceeded forward with caution, inwardly bracing myself for whatever horror was awaiting me at the top of the cliffs.

But as I crept closer, I began to slow, confusion overtaking me when I heard a voice carry over the edge of the cliff. It sounded like a young girl, but that couldn't be right. How could anyone survive up here without being eaten by Scylla?

"Oh, why aren't they coming back, Zoey?" the girl said anxiously. "It's not like them to run away for this long!"

I realized with a start that whoever was talking was just above me, directly where the petrified tendrils of the monster converged. There was no way I could go any further without being seen. I'd have to find another way up. Capping Riptide and fixing Medusa's head to my belt, I knelt down and examined the gap between my makeshift platform and the cliff face.

On the other side, about five feet of open air away, I spotted a handhold, a jagged rock protruding from the otherwise vertical drop. I leapt for it, my fingers wrapping around the rough stone, and I silently prayed it would hold as my feet scrambled for purchase. When a few seconds passed and it became apparent I wasn't falling to my doom, I began to scale the cliff horizontally, putting some distance between myself and whoever was up there.

"Ajax, come! Achilles, heel!" the voice cried out again, sounding more and more distressed with every call. "Cyril! Here, boy!" I could hear her clapping her hands and whistling every few seconds, like she was searching for a lost pet.

I almost lost my footing a few times, but once I was far enough away, I pulled myself over the edge of the rocks and onto the plateau above. What I found there made my skin crawl. Scylla's nest was littered with chewed up bones, rusty armor scraps, and chunks of wood and metal torn from shipwrecked vessels—snacks she must have shared with her sister. The bones ranged greatly in size, many of them distinctly human shaped, while others looked like they might have belonged to creatures the size of a whale. About 50 feet away was the carcass of the Aethiopean drakon, its skeleton having been picked clean. I guessed monsters didn't always disintegrate when they were killed by other monsters. There must've been hundreds of corpses up there from what I could see.

"Why won't they listen to me?" the voice said irritably.

I ducked behind the massive, white skull of a creature I didn't recognize and scanned the boneyard in front of me, hoping I hadn't been seen. Further down the cliffs where I'd begun my climb was the figure of a young woman, garbed in a raggedy, weather-beaten blue dress and a bronze tiara. Her auburn hair reached down to the small of her back in a braid. Growing out from underneath the dress, where her legs should have been, were several snake-like trunks, not unlike the dracanae I'd seen on the ship. Except theirs hadn't been much longer than a pair of human legs. The appendages I was looking at now stretched on and on over the cliff, where they continued growing wider and wider until they were thick around as tree trunks. Fortunately for me, she seemed to be incapable of moving them, thanks to the fact that they'd been turned to stone. She was rooted firmly in place, struggling to move.

She glanced to the side, gazing out over the cliff toward the ship, and I gasped when I saw her face. I couldn't believe this was the horrible monster Scylla. From what Luke had told me about her, I figured she'd be hideous, and from the waist down, I supposed that was true. But everything from her angular cheekbones to her poised demeanor was a sculpture of nobility and beauty. And something about her seemed familiar, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

I shook myself out of it. Beautiful or not, this was still the monster that attacked our ship. She injured and killed countless many over the past few millennia, and even if she was immobilized and no longer a threat, she had to die. For a moment, I debated about which weapon to use. Medusa's head had been effective thus far, but now my opponent's back was towards me and they were frozen up to their waist. I had no idea if she'd even be able to turn around and see it. I had the element of surprise, so it'd be easy enough to sneak up on her and run her through with Riptide. I just hoped her sense of smell wasn't great.

As I was reaching for Riptide, a shadow passed over me, and I realized too late what was happening. I tried to roll out of the way just as the last monster tentacle came crashing down, and I managed to move aside just enough that I wasn't instantly gored, but I didn't come away unscathed. One of the monster's jagged teeth left a gash in my side, and it had taken Medusa's head with it. I averted my eyes as it tossed the head into the air and swallowed it down its gullet like it had just been tossed a Scooby Snack.

Behind me, I heard Scylla's voice. She was trying to twist her body away from the dropoff to see what was going on, but I was in her blind spot. "What's this? What did you find, Zoey?" I paid her no heed, the monster in front of me requiring my full attention. It glared at me, its glowing red eyes fixing on me as if I were a juicy piece of bacon.

For the second time that day, I cursed myself for being so careless. I knew there'd been another one skulking around somewhere, but I'd been so focused on taking out the leader that I'd let my guard down. Now my most powerful weapon was gone, and I was left to fight Scylla on her own turf with just a sword.

I held Riptide in front of me, but I knew it was hopeless. I'd watched these things kill a drakon and take out a whole spear wall of demigods with blinding speed. Even if I managed to get a good slash in with Riptide, it was large enough to just shake it off and eat me anyway.

I felt the sea churning at the bottom of the cliffs. I could retreat and leap down into the water, but even if I got lucky and missed the spiky rocks at the bottom, I doubted I'd even hit the water before this thing snatched me out of the air.

Once again, a familiar, heavy presence pushed down on my shoulders, and I got the chilling sense I was being watched. Scylla must have felt it too, because she stopped struggling behind me. The wolf monster growled warily.

"Lord Kronos, please help me," I prayed under my breath.

His voice drawled lethargically across the boneyard. I have already given you everything you need to succeed. Use it.

I remembered the strange sensation I had felt when Ares stood over me on the beach, his weapon drawn back to kill me, and again when Luke had taken sparring practice just a little too far. Kronos's blessing, a distorted perception of time. But how did I use it?

Concentrate, Kronos ordered in my mind. How do you control your water? Time flows much the same way. Sometimes it trickles lazily onward, and others it storms forth like a flood.

I began to envision it in my mind. I saw myself manipulating the essence of time, feeling its flow the same way I felt individual strands of currents in the water.

Build a dam, Kronos commanded.

I felt a tug in my gut, but it was unlike any I felt before. This one chilled me to my very core. The monster lashed out, its maw stretching wide as it aimed to avenge its petrified siblings. I threw up a wall and felt the currents of time cascading against it. I let it build up, threatening to burst through my mental barrier and spill forward.

Everything slowed to a crawl.

The monster struggled forward like it was fighting against a hurricane. Even the stormy winds gusting around me seemed to calm into a gentle breeze. As the wolf-like head came down, I ducked underneath its jaw and came up on its side, plunging Riptide through the soft flesh behind its ears.

The monster didn't even know what hit it. It's trunk-like body crashed down on the rock, sending bones and scraps flying. The dam broke, and I dropped to my knees, my head swimming as time surged forward again. The winds picked up stronger than they'd been before. I watched the storm clouds above moving impossibly fast. My heart was beating a thousand miles an hour. It was as if Kronos's blessing had caused time to veer off course, and now it was rushing back to correct itself.

Everything kept speeding up and speeding up like someone was unwinding a VCR tape until, all at once, everything went back to normal, and I was left panting on the ground.

I stared at my hands, mind reeling. If you've never felt time being distorted before, let me tell you, it's not exactly pleasant. Think deja vu times a thousand.

"Zoey?" came a soft voice from the cliffside.

I'd nearly forgotten about the trapped woman, who all these monsters had been attached to in the first place. I glanced over and saw that she had spun herself around as far as she could and was now watching me out of the corner of her vision. When she saw what I'd done to 'Zoey', her eyes widened in horror.

"Nooo!" she wailed. "Don't hurt her. Zoey, come!"

Zoey didn't come. Instead, I moved forward, approaching her warily. She saw me advancing and redoubled her efforts to break free, but stayed rooted firmly in place. Tears sprang to her eyes.

"Did you kill the others, too? Is that why they won't come back?"

I stopped about five feet away, circling around to her side so she could see me. She froze when she saw my sword, fear creeping into her eyes.

"In my defense," I placated, "they were trying to eat my friends."

The girl's eyes widened in horror. "I-it's not their fault! They were just hungry, is all. Nobody's passed through here in weeks! Monsters gotta eat too, you know!"

She sniffled, and her eyes widened in surprise before narrowing at me. "That scent… You're a son of Poseidon, aren't you? Did Amphitrite send you? Here to finish me off, is that it?"

I stood there for a moment, transfixed at the way her eyes changed color depending on her mood. At first, they'd shimmered green and restless, but now they raged a stormy grey. Even with her glaring daggers at me, I couldn't help but stare in awe at her beauty. It suddenly struck me why she seemed so familiar. She reminded me of the woman I'd seen at the bottom of the Mississippi River last year, only she looked younger, probably closer to my age.

"You're a Nereid," I said.

She looked surprised for a moment, but then she crossed her arms as if to say hmph. "I was a Nereid. In fact, I was the most beautiful Nereid in the whole sea," she bragged, smiling wryly. "Even Poseidon couldn't resist me. Back in the day, he used to chase me all over the Aegean Sea in his flights of fancy. That is, until his wife found out. She had somehow gotten it in her mind that she was the most beautiful woman in the sea, and she teamed up with an evil sorceress to make it so. Together, they cursed me, transforming me into this." She gestured at the trunks extending from her midriff.

I remained silent, watching her as she recounted her tale. Her voice held a deep resentment, and it was clear she'd been harboring a grudge for a long time.

"Poseidon was revolted at the sight of what I'd become," she continued, bitter eyes cast downwards towards the sea. "He was so disgusted that he cast me up here and banished me from the sea forever. Jerk. I'm not that ugly. Has he even seen some of his other children? I mean, look at his daughter right down there!"

She pointed towards the other side of the strait at the massive set of teeth in the center of the whirlpool. As if in response to Scylla's insult, it erupted, belching out seawater hundreds of feet into the air like a geyser. Apparently, even hundreds of feet up, Scylla and I still weren't out of the splash zone. A heavy mist sprayed over the crags, drenching us. I stayed dry, of course, but Scylla's braided hair and ratty dress became soaked.

"Aagh, gross!" she wailed, waving her arms. She made a choice hand gesture at the raging maelstrom.

I looked between her and Charybdis confusedly. "Your sister is a daughter of Poseidon?"

Scylla scoffed. "Please, she's not my real sister. People just lump her in with me because we're stuck in the same strait. Charybdis got involved in some stupid fight millenia ago between Poesidon and his brother Zeus. She flooded some land, Zeus got mad, and he chained her to the sea-bed across from me and made her really, really thirsty. Now she just gargles seawater all day and drinks up all the good ships."

I glanced down at the Princess Andromeda, still marooned on the rocks. Tiny holographic figures were running around screaming on the upper decks, while down below, people and monsters the size of ants were walking up and down the base of the bluffs, inspecting the damage to the hull.

"So you've just been stuck up here for thousands of years, with nothing to do but attack people passing through?" I asked, taking a step towards her.

She eyes my sword warily. "Not like there was anything better to do. You'd be surprised what boredom can do to one's mind," she drawled.

My grip tightened around Riptide. I wondered how many of my friends had been injured or eaten alive by the monster next to me while I'd been searching my room for Medusa's head. She must've killed hundreds or even thousands of unsuspecting sailors over the past few millennia. She was a monster, plain and simple.

And yet, her story struck something within me. Scylla was no different from me, or Luke, or just about any other person down on that ship. She was just another victim of the gods, caught up in their pride and jealousy, and punished simply for existing. She wouldn't have even been stuck up here in the first place if it wasn't for Poseidon and his wife.

Maybe she did deserve to die for all the people she'd killed. Or maybe running her through simply would have been the more merciful thing to do, rather than leaving her rooted to the cliffs, surrounded by nothing but her dead "pets". But I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Riptide sang as I slid the cap back on, reverting back to its pen form. I could feel Scylla's look of surprise as I placed my weapon safely back in my pocket.

"You're… you're not going to kill me?" she asked, perplexed.

I looked at her and shrugged. "You ate my friends. I killed your pets. I'd say that makes us even."

I stepped forward and jumped off the cliff, landing on the scaly stone walkway I'd taken on my way up here.

"Wait!" she called, her voice rising in alarm. "So you're just going to leave me here?"

I glanced up at her. "Would you rather I slice you in half at the waist and bring you back to my ship full of angry monsters and demigods?"

She paused, clearly taken aback by the question, and I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for her.

"Look, for what it's worth, I'm sorry about what my father and his wife did to you," I said honestly. "We've both been wronged by the gods."

She blinked at me, as if unsure of what to make of that. I turned away and strode back down the ramp, eyeing the marooned ship below and contemplating how in Hades we were supposed to get it back into the water.