She gave them a friendly wave and Jason gunned the outboard motor.

Jason, Meg, and I rushed to put on the guards’ Kevlar vests and helmets. This left Piper in civilian clothes, but since she was the only one capable of bluffing her way through a confrontation, she let us have all the fun playing dress-up.

Jason made a perfect mercenary. Meg looked ridiculous—a little girl swimming in her father’s Kevlar. I didn’t look much better. The body armor chafed around my middle. (Curse you, un-combat-worthy love handles!) The riot helmet was as hot as an Easy-Bake oven, and the visor kept falling down, perhaps anxious to hide my acne-riddled face.

We tossed the guns overboard. That may sound foolish, but as I’ve said, firearms are fickle weapons in the hands of demigods. They would work on mortals, but no matter what Meg said, I didn’t want to go around mowing down regular humans.

I had to believe that if these mercenaries truly understood whom they were serving, they too would throw down their arms. Surely humans would not blindly follow such an evil man of their own free will—I mean, except for the few hundred exceptions I could think of from human history….But not Caligula!

As we approached the yachts, Jason slowed, matching our speed to that of the other patrol vessels.

He angled toward the nearest yacht. Up close, it towered above us like a white steel fortress. Purple and gold running lights glowed just below the water’s surface so the vessel seemed to float on an ethereal cloud of Imperial Roman power. Painted along the prow of the ship, in black letters taller than me, was the name IVLIA DRVSILLA XXVI.

“Julia Drusilla the Twenty-Sixth,” Piper said. “Was she an empress?”

“No,” I said, “the emperor’s favorite sister.”

My chest tightened as I remembered that poor girl—so pretty, so agreeable, so incredibly out of her depth. Her brother Caligula had doted on her, idolized her. When he became emperor, he insisted she share his every meal, witness his every depraved spectacle, partake in all his violent revels. She had died at twenty-two—crushed by the suffocating love of a sociopath.

“She was probably the only person Caligula ever cared about,” I said. “But why this boat is numbered twenty-six, I don’t know.”

“Because that one is twenty-five.” Meg pointed to the next ship in line, its stern resting a few feet from our prow. Sure enough, painted across the back was IVLIA DRVSILLA XXV.

“I bet the one behind us is number twenty-seven.”

“Fifty super-yachts,” I mused, “all named for Julia Drusilla. Yes, that sounds like Caligula.”

Jason scanned the side of the hull. There were no ladders, no hatches, no conveniently labeled red buttons: PRESS HERE FOR CALIGULA’S SHOES!

We didn’t have much time. We had made it inside the perimeter of patrol vessels and searchlights, but each yacht surely had security cameras. It wouldn’t be long before someone wondered why our little dinghy was floating beside XXVI. Also, the mercenaries we’d left on the beach would be doing their best to attract their comrades’ attention. Then there were the flocks of strixes that I imagined would be waking up any minute, hungry and alert for any sign of disembowel-able intruders.

“I’ll fly you guys up,” Jason decided. “One at a time.”

“Me first,” Piper said. “In case someone needs charming.”

Jason turned and let Piper lock her arms around his neck, as if they’d done this countless times before. The winds kicked up around the dinghy, ruffling my hair, and Jason and Piper floated up the side of the yacht.

Oh, how I envied Jason Grace! Such a simple thing it was to ride the winds. As a god, I could have done it with half my manifestations tied behind my back. Now, stuck in my pathetic body complete with love handles, I could only dream of such freedom.

“Hey.” Meg nudged me. “Focus.”

I gave her an indignant harrumph. “I am pure focus. I might, however, ask where your head is.”

She scowled. “What do you mean?”

“Your rage,” I said. “The number of times you’ve talked about killing Caligula. Your willingness to…beat his mercenaries unconscious.”

“They’re the enemy.”

Her tone was as sharp as scimitars, giving me fair warning that if I continued with this topic, she might add my name to her Beat Unconscious list.

I decided to take a lesson from Jason—to navigate toward my target at a slower, less direct angle.

“Meg, have I ever told you about the first time I became mortal?”

She peered from under the rim of her ridiculously large helmet. “You messed up or something?”

“I…Yes. I messed up. My father, Zeus, killed one of my favorite sons, Asclepius, for bringing people back from the dead without permission. Long story. The point is…I was furious with Zeus, but he was too powerful and scary for me to fight. He would’ve vaporized me. So I took my revenge out in another way.”

I peered at the top of the hull. I saw no sign of Jason or Piper. Hopefully that meant they had found Caligula’s shoes and were just waiting for a clerk to bring them a pair in the right size.

“Anyway,” I continued, “I couldn’t kill Zeus. So I found the guys who had made his lightning bolts, the Cyclopes. I killed them in revenge for Asclepius. As punishment, Zeus made me mortal.”

Meg kicked me in the shin.

“Ow!” I yelped. “What was that for?”

“For being dumb,” she said. “Killing the Cyclopes was dumb.”

I wanted to protest that this had happened thousands of years ago, but I feared it might just earn me another kick.

“Yes,” I agreed. “It was dumb. But my point is…I was projecting my anger onto someone else, someone safer. I think you might be doing the same thing now, Meg. You’re raging at Caligula because it’s safer than raging at your stepfather.”

I braced my shins for more pain.

Meg stared down at her Kevlar-coated chest. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

“I don’t blame you,” I hastened to add. “Anger is good. It means you’re making progress. But be aware that you might be angry right now at the wrong person. I don’t want you charging blindly into battle against this particular emperor. As hard as it is to believe, he is even more devious and deadly than Ne—the Beast.”

She clenched her fists. “I told you, I’m not doing that. You don’t know. You don’t get it.”

“You’re right,” I said. “What you had to endure in Nero’s house…I can’t imagine. No one should suffer like that, but—”

“Shut up,” she snapped.

So, of course, I did. The words I’d been planning to say avalanched back down my throat.

“You don’t know,” she said again. “This Caligula guy did plenty to my dad and me. I can be mad at him if I want. I’ll kill him if I can. I’ll…” She faltered, as if struck by a sudden thought. “Where’s Jason? He should be back by now.”

I glanced up. I would have screamed if my voice were working. Two large dark figures dropped toward us in a controlled, silent descent on what appeared to be parasails. Then I realized those were not parasails—they were giant ears. In an instant, the creatures were upon us. They landed gracefully on either end of our dinghy, their ears folding around them, their swords at our throats.