When she opened her eyes, all Kally could see was a wide open plain drenched in moonlight. There was nothing for miles except the hard-packed earth beneath the trio.

She realised she was still clutching Pollux's hand. She dropped it and spun around to study her surroundings.

Behind them was a small shack with a collapsed ceiling and peeling wall-paint. It couldn't have been more than ten feet long and eight feet wide. The brick was crumbled in places, creating cavities in the wall.

Beyond that, there was nothing but desert in all directions.

'Well great,' Kally said. 'We escape a giant killer snake and end up on Tatooine.'

The desert planet from Star Wars was the only comparison that popped into her head. Personally, she didn't have much of a taste for the sci-fi saga but Colton had been obsessed with it. He'd talked her into watching all six movies with him.

Sometimes, when he was sick or upset, Kally would go into his room and they would watch them together and ask controversial questions that didn't matter. Who was Anakin's father? How did Jabba the Hutt take over Tatooine? When did Anakin ever have a green lightsaber and say he wanted it given to Luke? Despite her reservations about the series, Kally enjoyed those days with her brother. It was probably the only time they really bonded over anything – just the two of them.

Nico spun around and scowled. 'This isn't Tatooine, it's Texas.'

'Okay, great,' Pollux said. 'Why are we in Texas?'

Nico looked like he wanted throttle Pollux already and they'd only been standing together for about thirty seconds. 'Because,' he almost spat, 'Texas is where the Triple G Ranch is.'

'Uh-huh,' Pollux mused. 'And we need to go to this ranch because?'

'Because we need to talk to Apollo,' Nico said curtly.

'Right,' Kally said. 'Naturally.'

Nico stared at them as though they were missing something blatantly obvious and he was waiting for them to connect the dots. It was the same look that one might give a toddler when in disbelief of their innocent ignorance. This would usually be the point where the metaphorical adult would give up and explain with something like "Magic!"

He rolled his eyes. 'We have no idea what this prophecy means. Before we go anywhere, we have to work out where to start. To do that we need someone who can decipher the prophecy. And who better than the god of prophecies himself?'

Kally waited for him to elaborate; perhaps tell them how finding this Triple G Ranch in the middle of a Texan desert would help them find Apollo. But no further explanation came.

Eventually Pollux voiced that exact question. 'So how is this ranch going to help us contact Apollo?'

'I went there two years ago, through the Labyrinth-'

'Wait, a labyrinth? Like, the one that Chris went insane in?'

'Yes, that one,' Nico said impatiently. 'Now do you want to hear the explanation or not?' When Kally didn't respond, he continued.

'As I was saying, I went through the Labyrinth and found the ranch where Apollo keeps his sacred cattle. He leaves the place to be tended by Geryon, a monster dude with three bodies. Percy killed him though, so now it's run by Eurytion – a demigod like us, son of Ares. But he's a cool dude,' Nico rambled. Then he realised the point. 'Anyway, I think if we can get to the ranch then maybe Eurytion will call Apollo down for us or something so we can ask him about the prophecy.'

Pollux nodded slowly. 'So where is this ranch?'

Nico looked away, sheepish all of a sudden. 'I… I don't know.'

'What?' Kally growled. 'You brought us out here to the middle of the desert and you don't even know where you're going?'

'I only ever accessed the place through the Labyrinth!' he shouted defensively. 'And I aimed for the ranch when I shadow travelled here, but I guess the magical defences threw me off course.'

Shadow travel. So that's what it was called. Kally could only describe shadow travel as a really cold, really fast rollercoaster with no safety harnesses or set course. Perhaps it was more like being at the front of a runaway train in winter.

But that was beside the point. She placed her hands firmly on her hips and did her best impression of the reprimanding older sister. 'Well how exactly do you propose getting there if we can't shadow travel? Walk through the desert in the middle of the night?'

Nico suddenly reminded her of an injured snake: wounded, but poised ready to strike back at any sign of weakness. 'I haven't got that far yet. I wasn't expecting this.'

Pollux stepped between the feuding siblings. Good timing – Kally was close to strangling the kid. 'Well, we don't have to do anything right this moment, do we? I mean, it's the middle of the night and we have no plan. Why don't we just set up camp for the night and plan for the morning?'

Nico and Kally agreed. Pollux took the backpack from Nico and stepped carefully around the debris of the little shack next to them, placing stones in a small circle for a makeshift fire pit.

Soon there was a little fire crackling away and the three of them were sitting in silence, staring aimlessly into the flames.

Kally broke the silence first. 'So what should we do?'

'Sleep?' Nico suggested. She hadn't noticed, but the dark circles beneath his eyes had gotten darker since yesterday, and his eyes were bloodshot. It looked like he hadn't slept in days.

'I think she meant about finding the ranch,' Pollux said. Nico gave him a tired look.

'I know what she meant. I was using something called wishful thinking,' he drawled.

'Nico, sleep,' Kally said quietly, if only to prevent an argument. 'We'll try and think of something and we'll wake you up in the morning.'

Nico looked like he wanted to argue but Kally guessed his fatigue won him over. He nodded and shuffled to the far corner, resting his head against the brick wall. Moments later, soft snores filled the air.

'Poor kid,' Pollux said, gazing over at Nico. 'I bet he barely sleeps at all.'

Kally shrugged. 'He's tough. He'll survive.'

'You two are a lot alike you know.'

'That's the second time you've said that,' she pointed out.

He slid back to sit next to her against the wall, shoulder to shoulder. He turned to her. 'That's because it's true. I mean, you guys don't look much alike or anything, but you both think the same. You have the same mindset.'

'You seem to be putting a lot of thought into this lately,' she noted.

'Well, you're my friend. I like to know everything about my friends. It's a sort of… flaw of mine, I suppose you could call it.' He gave a small smile. He turned back to the fire.

Suddenly what Travis had said about Pollux liking her rebounded in Kally's head. She turned her head away a little and stared at the dirt beneath her. Pollux noticed and asked what was wrong.

'Nothing,' she told him. 'I just… something somebody said to me.'

'Travis?' he guessed. She looked at him, confused. How did he know? He chuckled quietly. 'That kid couldn't say a truthful thing if he tried. You know how he is; he's always up to something.'

She decided to lie to change the subject. She really didn't want to get into this conversation right now. 'No, actually I was thinking about Kelsey.'

'Kelsey?' Pollux's brow furrowed. 'Why?'

Kally explained what had happened to Kelsey when she tried to attack the drakon. She was almost crying again by the time she finished. Pollux wrapped his arms around her and enveloped her in a hug.

'She was braver than I could ever have been,' Pollux tried to comfort her. Kally sniffled and replied, 'Yeah, and look what she got for it.'

He pulled her back to arm's length and gave her a serious look. 'Don't think like that. Remember what I've been telling you this whole time about Aphrodite's children?'

She sniffed again and nodded. 'She was stupidly overconfident, too proud to think she needed armour. I don't see the redeeming quality in that.'

Pollux sighed. 'Remember what Kelsey said to you right before she died? Remember what you told me? She said "I'm going the same way as my sister Silena."'

'Who is this Silena girl anyway?' Kally asked. 'Drew seems to have hated her.'

'Drew hates anyone who is prettier than her or better than her, which is a lot of people,' Pollux said. 'Silena was a daughter of Aphrodite too – Drew's half-sister, and Kelsey's. She impersonated Clarisse to lead the Ares cabin to fight in the Titan War. But she began to battle the drakon and it killed her. She sacrificed herself for the people she cared about.'

Kally stayed silent for a moment before realising something. 'Then why did Drew say she was a traitor?'

Pollux sighed deeply. He looked about to cry. 'Silena was a spy for Kronos in the war. But after the death of her boyfriend, a Hephaestus guy called Charles Beckendorf, at the enemy's base, she despised her job and ended up sacrificing herself for our side of the war.'

'You make it sound like it was personal,' she said after a while.

'Silena Beauregard was a lovely person,' he said sadly. 'She was a good friend to everyone. She was one of the few people who ever wanted to be my friend.'

Kally didn't have anything to say. Kelsey's death was exactly like Silena's. The only difference was that Kelsey had acted impulsively; Silena had acted out of true bravery.

'When I first met you and I told you I would have immediately placed you in the Aphrodite cabin, I wasn't referring to your good looks,' he said, not meeting Kally's eyes. 'I said it because you remind me of Silena: brave. Intelligent. And above all, a true friend.'

Then he curled up on his side against the wall, his back to her.

Kally sat in silence for a short while, listening to the sounds in the night and the fire crackling and the two boys next to her breathing deeply in their sleep. She snuck a peek at Pollux's face to make sure he was really asleep before whispering softly, 'I'm sorry.'

Then she leaned her own head against the failing wall and drifted into a restless sleep.

Upon opening her eyes, Kally discovered she was not curled up by the fire in the shack as she had expected. Instead, she was at what appeared to be the Triple G Ranch Nico had told her about. Well, she assumed so anyway.

Hills of barren land stretched across the horizon, dotted occasionally with a cactus or a small oak tree. Fences were set up like corrals in different areas, each holding some strange animal that Kally didn't even want to know about.

To her left was a house with white bricks and woodwork framing on the windows. It looked sturdy, like a hunting lodge, but the wooden beams indicated it was a farmhouse.

On the porch was an enormous man. He was human, definitely, but his muscles rippled from under his ripped denim jacket and he was wielding a monster of a club, with a spiked head. If Kally had seen him in an alley when she was on the streets, she would have immediately run and screamed monster.

However, the expression on his face made him far less intimidating. He was almost cowering from a man with a tri coloured plus-sized shirt and a pencil-thin moustache. Wait, his shirt wasn't tri coloured, it was three separate shirts – red, yellow, and green… And they were all on different torsos. The guy had three bodies.

'Eurytion, you fool!' he roared at the buff guy. 'I understand that you're a brain-dead hillbilly, but how on earth did you possibly manage to lose the entire herd?'

The bikie looking guy – Eurytion – trembled slightly. 'I'm sorry…'

'Sorry won't get my herd back, will it?' the three-bodied guy shouted.

'Your herd?' Eurytion's eyes lit up with defiance. 'I run this place now. See?'

He gestured angrily to a wooden sign wedged hastily into the ground that had Triple G Ranch written across it. The original name had been crossed out and written over in thick black ink so that it now read "Double E Ranch".

The three-bodied guy looked confused. He scratched his head and said, 'What in Hades does that stand for?'

'Double E,' Eurytion said proudly. 'Stands for "Two Eurytions". See?'

Eurytion seemed so proud of his sign that it was hard not crack a smile. To see a bulking man so happy about something… it was like watching a depressed person see a picture of a unicorn and light up from the excitement. You couldn't just not smile.

The three-bodied guy seemed less impressed though. 'Why double? I mean, it made sense with me; the Triple G Ranch – the Triple Geryon Ranch! But you don't have two bodies or two heads or anything that constitutes a double…'

'No,' Eurytion agreed. Then, with a smug smile, 'But Orthus does.'

Right on cue, the demonic double-headed dog stepped out from inside the farmhouse. It growled irritably at Geryon with one head and snapped its jaws towards Kally in a fierce bark with the other.

But this was a dream, wasn't it? How could that flea-ridden mongrel know she was there? Besides, Kally was pretty sure she'd sent that mutt on a one way trip to Tartarus not two days ago.

'Heel Orthus,' Eurytion commanded. The dog fell silent, one pair of its crimson eyes always watching the spot where Kally was standing.

Geryon seemed to shy away slightly at the sight of the two-headed monster. His master smirked, confidence reassured.

'You see, Geryon?' Eurytion gestured to the ranch. 'With Orthus here, you can't do squat. I run this barnyard, sonny. So don't you go claiming things that aren't yours no more.'

Geryon narrowed his eyes but didn't argue. Instead he made an angry statement. 'Well, boss, fine. You want to take the blame? Go ahead. Rather you than me.'

What followed was an intense staring contest between Eurytion and Geryon as well as Orthus and Kally. She had no idea what made the dog so fixated on her. Perhaps it was because she was the one who sent him to Tartarus.

Finally, Eurytion broke eye contact and sighed. 'It was my fault, and I will bear the responsibility.'

Kally's vision warped and shifted so that the only thing she could see was four ruby dots; Orthus's eyes still watching her. When her sight cleared, she was witnessing a completely different scene.

She stood now in a ruined temple. Stone walls had crumbled to the floor, intricate engravings broken into dust.

A forty foot tall statue made from ivory and interwoven with gold standing in the centre of the room depicted a beautiful woman in a Grecian-style dress. In her right hand was another statue of a woman in white robes that seemed almost fluid.

Kally realised the smaller statue actually wasn't a statue, but a living woman. She stepped off the hand of the statue and pulled back the hood of her robes to reveal the face of a confident young woman.

She had scars on her face; Kally guessed they were from battles. She was well-built and muscular, but not at all large. She was maybe only slightly taller than an average woman.

She wore glinting bronze armour under her robes. A Celestial Bronze sword was strapped to her side. Her dark hair was cut short and slicked back over her head. This woman was a warrior.

She looked down at Kally standing before her. Suddenly, Kally felt very aware of her flaws and of her weaknesses.

'Kalypso Anastas,' the warrior woman said calmly.

Kally stammered and tried to find her words. 'How do you know my name?'

'I know the names of all people who have fought a battle and won,' she said. 'Their triumphs will always be remembered in my temple.'

'Your temple?' Kally asked. This woman was obviously no mortal. She had to be a goddess.

She gave a tiny smile with no warmth. 'Yes. I am Nike, goddess of victory.'

Nike. The only thing Kally knew about Nike was that she had a cabin full of demigod children at camp and the shoe brand.

So then she said something super intelligent like, 'Uh… hi.'

The goddess's face remained unreadable. 'This statue, the Athena Parthenos, it is a stolen relic. A great victory for the Roman armies. Unfortunately, it was lost thousands of years ago.'

Kally frowned. 'If the statue got lost, why is it here in your… temple?'

It could hardly be called a temple, what with all the crumbling ruins and smashed carvings. Nike strode over to a small shrine that was still mostly intact. He stride was that of a general, or someone used to power and commandment.

'This is not the real Athena Parthenos,' she stated calmly. 'It is merely an image, projected from my mind.'

Kally moved towards the statue and tapped the big toe of Athena's left foot. Her knuckles throbbed and goosebumps spread up her arms from the cool marble. 'Seems pretty real to me.'

'As the goddess of victory, I have some amount of control over all spoils of war that go to the winning side,' she explained. 'This means that I can project what appears to be a solid statue into the minds of mortals and demigods alike using the Mist. This is what the mortals see in the reconstructed model of the Parthenon in Nashville.'

Kally took a moment to wrap her head around her proclamations. Chiron had told her about the Mist while she was training at Camp Half-Blood. He hadn't taught her a lot, but she'd managed to grasp the basics of its manipulation. Even so, it drained her energy more than creating rifts in the earth, and took more concentration than an ADHD kid could provide. She had no idea how the goddess could keep that illusion going full time.

'So what does this have to do with me?' Kally wondered.

'Why, nothing,' the goddess said, her face blank with surprise, like it should be obvious. 'I just thought you would like to know the history of such a wonderful relic.'

'Uh huh, and you thought that because?'

Nike cleared her throat. 'Anyway. My appearance in this dream of yours is not coincidental. I am here for a purpose.'

'What might that be, your highness?' Kally said. She thought about it. 'Your worship? Your ladyship? Sergeant?'

Nike ignored the suggested names and continued. 'I am here to help you Kalypso Anastas. You have fought valiantly in battles passed, and have earned my attention.'

Kally wasn't sure she liked having to earn this goddess's attention but she certainly wasn't going to complain. 'So what does that get me?'

'Assistance,' Nike answered. 'You seek the Triple G Ranch.'

'Double E actually,' Kally informed her. She gave Kally a puzzled look before Kally answered, 'Eurytion decided to take charge.'

Nike nodded and said, 'Well, you won't find the ranch on your own with just your half-brother and your boyfriend.'

'He's not my boyfriend,' Kally said instinctively.

'Oh?' Nike seemed genuinely amused and surprised. She pursed her lips. 'I was sure Aphrodite said something about… But never mind,' she said quickly. She smiled a determined smile and her brilliant blue eyes lit up in excitement.

'I haven't helped a demigod in many years,' she said. 'I haven't seen enough of a victorious leader's spirit in them before. But I see potential in you.'

'Does that mean that you'll help us out?' Kally asked. 'With the goddess of victory on our side, how can we lose?'

Nike shook her head, a devilish smile still etched upon her features. 'It doesn't work like that I'm afraid. I can help you learn to extend your abilities to give you a better chance in this quest. But I cannot take complete sides. At least, not until I see sufficient reason to.'

Kally slumped her shoulders. It was worth a try. 'So what can you do for us?'

Nike grinned maliciously and Kally backed off nervously. 'I'll tell you what I can do. I can train you.'

Then the goddess lunged and Kally's consciousness faded to black.