She would. She had to.
The Zimbabwe landscape, for the most part, looked surprisingly familiar. Drier and wilder, with scragglier underbrush, but closer to home than I’d expected. I pressed my forehead against the cracked window of the cab. A few people walked along the side of the road holding signs made out of battered cardboard, but the cabdriver sped past before I could see what they said.
We stopped at the edge of a village that looked more like a slum than a town. James held my hand tightly as we walked down the narrow way between cobbled-together buildings, some of which leaned dangerously to one side. Trash lined the makeshift streets, and a few children dressed in worn clothes began to follow us.
“Don’t we have anything we can give them?” I said. James paused long enough to take off his backpack, and he pulled out several apples that I was positive hadn’t been in there before. He handed one to each child, but the crowd continued to grow, and he frowned.
“Kate, I want to help as badly as you do, but we’re on a timetable.”
“We just wasted over a day flying when you could have dropped us off much closer,” I said. “We have a few minutes for this.”
James continued to hand them out. “You know how to create. Reach in and help me.”
“Actually, I don’t,” I said, but I reached into the bag and tried anyway. What was I supposed to do, just imagine it was there? I closed my eyes and pictured a juicy yellow apple. And then—
Nothing. Perfect.
James chuckled. “You’re the worst goddess I’ve ever met.”
“Calliope’s the worst goddess you’ve ever met. I’m just the most incompetent.” I scowled. “It’d help if anyone bothered to teach me how to do things, you know.”
“Hey, I showed you how to think.” He grinned, and I shot him a look. “In all seriousness, everyone’s sort of busy right now, but I’ll see what I can do. Most of it takes decades to learn.”
We didn’t have decades, not if I had any chance of helping in the war. James handed out a few more apples, but the crowd continued to build. Were they really so hungry that an apple was enough to stop what they were doing and come running?
A child shouted in a language I didn’t understand, but instinctively I knew what he was saying to the boy he wrestled. Mine.
“Whoa, hey, hold up,” called James, trying to wade through the wide-eyed boys and girls to reach them. “No fighting, there’s plenty more where—”
“Calm down, my children,” murmured a voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Immediately the boys stilled, and James let out a deep breath. He didn’t need to say a word for me to know what was going on. Rhea was here.
The crowd parted, and a girl who couldn’t have been older than thirteen walked barefoot down the path. Her eyes stood out against her dark skin, and she wore a colorful scarf around her head. She moved with inhuman grace, and though she blended into the crowd purely by her appearance, she radiated warmth and comfort. Not power and pain like Cronus. As she passed, the children reached out to touch her, as if that alone could cure illness or bring them luck.
“Grandmother,” said James reverently, and as she approached us, he knelt down. “I’ve missed you.”
Rhea touched his cheek. “Hermes,” she murmured. “I have been waiting for you. It has been far too long.”
“I meant to come sooner, but...” James trailed off. There was no excuse for not coming to see this girl. This Titan. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. You’re here now. Stand,” she said, and James did so, slipping his hand into hers. “Let us speak privately.”
They walked past me as if I weren’t even there. James seemed to be in a trance, and I hesitated. Should I follow?
“You, too, daughter of Demeter.” Rhea’s words whispered through the air, and my feet moved without me telling them to. In that moment I would have followed her off the end of the world if she wanted me to.
“We don’t go by those names anymore,” said James, and I trotted to catch up to them as they rounded a corner. None of the children followed, but every person we passed stared at us openly. Because of Rhea? Or because James and I were strangers?
She led us to what amounted to a large blue shanty with a white cross painted on the sign above. We entered, and James had to duck to avoid hitting the top of the doorway. Inside, instead of the church I expected, was a hospital.
Over two dozen men, women and children rested in cots and makeshift beds shoved so close together that the doctors and nurses—or at least I assumed they were doctors and nurses—had no room to slide between them. Instead, each patient was faced with their head near the aisle and feet to the wall. Several were coughing, and a few looked so frail and close to death that I tried to memorize their faces. Would I see them in the Underworld? Would I even have the chance to return if Henry didn’t make it? What would happen to the dead then?
No. I couldn’t think like that. Rhea would help us.
“This way,” she said, and we walked through the narrow aisle to a door toward the back. I expected an office, but instead we stepped into a cramped garden blooming with all sorts of flowers and herbs I didn’t recognize. My mother would’ve loved this place. “Now, why have you come?”
“You know why,” said James, albeit respectfully, and he sat down on a crate that served as a bench. “Cronus has destroyed Athens. Hera has abandoned us to fight with him. Hades is on the brink of fading. We are desperate, and we need your help.”