The creatures looked very much like the Big Ear guard Piper had hit with her dart at the entrance to the Burning Maze, except these were older and had black fur. Their blades were blunt-tipped with serrated double edges, equally suited for bashing or hacking. With a jolt, I recognized the weapons as khandas, from the Indian subcontinent. I would have been pleased with myself for remembering such an obscure fact, had I not at that moment had a khanda’s serrated edge across my jugular vein.

Then I had another flash of recollection. I remembered one of Dionysus’s many drunken stories about his military campaigns in India—how he had come across a vicious tribe of demi-humans with eight fingers, huge ears, and furry faces. Why couldn’t I have thought of that sooner? What had Dionysus told me about them…? Ah, yes. His exact words were: Never, ever try to fight them.

“You’re pandai,” I managed to croak. “That’s what your race is called.”

The one next to me bared his beautiful white teeth. “Indeed! Now be nice little prisoners and come along. Otherwise your friends are dead.”

PERHAPS Jason, the physics expert, could explain to me how pandai flew. I didn’t get it. Somehow, even while carrying us, our captors managed to launch themselves skyward with nothing but the flapping of their tremendous lobes. I wished Hermes could see them. He would never again brag about being able to wiggle his ears.

The pandai dropped us unceremoniously on the starboard deck, where two more of their kind held Jason and Piper at arrow-point. One of those guards appeared smaller and younger than the others, with white fur instead of black. Judging from the sour look on his face, I guessed he was the same guy Piper had shot down with Grandpa Tom’s special recipe in downtown Los Angeles.

Our friends were on their knees, their hands zip-tied behind their backs, their weapons confiscated. Jason had a black eye. The side of Piper’s head was matted with blood.

I rushed to her aid (being the good person I was) and poked at her cranium, trying to determine the extent of her injury.

“Ow,” she muttered, pulling away. “I’m fine.”

“You could have a concussion,” I said.

Jason sighed miserably. “That’s supposed to be my job. I’m always the one who gets knocked in the head. Sorry, guys. Things didn’t exactly go as planned.”

The largest guard, who had carried me aboard, cackled with glee. “The girl tried to charmspeak us! Pandai, who hear every nuance of speech! The boy tried to fight us! Pandai, who train from birth to master every weapon! Now you will all die!”

“Die! Die!” barked the other pandai, though I noticed the white-furred youngster did not join in. He moved stiffly, as if his poison-darted leg still bothered him.

Meg glanced from enemy to enemy, probably gauging how fast she could take them all down. The arrows pointed at Jason and Piper’s chests made for tricky calculations.

“Meg, don’t,” Jason warned. “These guys—they’re ridiculously good. And fast.”

“Fast! Fast!” the pandai barked in agreement.

I scanned the deck. No additional guards were running toward us, no searchlights were trained on our position. No horns blared. Somewhere inside the boat, gentle music played—not the sort of sound track one might expect during an incursion.

The pandai had not raised a general alarm. Despite their threats, they had not yet killed us. They’d even gone to the trouble of zip-tying Piper’s and Jason’s hands. Why?

I turned to the largest guard. “Good sir, are you the panda in charge?”

He hissed. “The singular form is pandos. I hate being called a panda. Do I look like a panda?”

I decided not to answer that. “Well, Mr. Pandos—”

“My name is Amax,” he snapped.

“Of course. Amax.” I studied his majestic ears, then hazarded an educated guess. “I imagine you hate people eavesdropping on you.”

Amax’s furry black nose twitched. “Why do you say this? What did you overhear?”

“Nothing!” I assured him. “But I bet you have to be careful. Always other people, other pandai snooping into your business. That’s—that’s why you haven’t raised an alarm yet. You know we’re important prisoners. You want to keep control of the situation, without anyone else taking the credit for your good work.”

The other pandai grumbled.

“Vector, on boat twenty-five, is always spying,” the dark-furred archer muttered.

“Taking credit for our ideas,” said the second archer. “Like Kevlar ear armor.”

“Exactly!” I said, trying to ignore Piper, who was incredulously mouthing the words Kevlar ear armor? “Which is why, uh, before you do anything rash, you’re going to want to hear what I have to say. In private.”

Amax snorted. “Ha!”

His comrades echoed him: “HA-HA!”

“You just lied,” Amax said. “I could hear it in your voice. You’re afraid. You’re bluffing. You have nothing to say.”

“I do,” Meg countered. “I’m Nero’s stepdaughter.”

Blood rushed into Amax’s ears so rapidly I was surprised he didn’t faint.

The shocked archers lowered their weapons.

“Timbre! Crest!” Amax snapped. “Keep those arrows steady!” He glowered at Meg. “You seem to be telling the truth. What is Nero’s stepdaughter doing here?”

“Looking for Caligula,” Meg said. “So I can kill him.”

The pandai’s ears rippled in alarm. Jason and Piper looked at each other as if thinking Welp. Now we die.

Amax narrowed his eyes. “You say you are from Nero. Yet you want to kill our master. This does not make sense.”

“It’s a juicy story,” I promised. “With lots of secrets, twists, and turns. But if you kill us, you’ll never hear it. If you take us to the emperor, someone else will torture it out of us. We would gladly tell you everything. You captured us, after all. But isn’t there somewhere more private we can talk, so no one will overhear?”

Amax glanced toward the ship’s bow, as if Vector might already be listening in. “You seem to be telling the truth, but there’s so much weakness and fear in your voice, it’s hard to be sure.”

“Uncle Amax.” The white-haired pandos spoke for the first time. “Perhaps the pimply boy has a point. If it’s valuable information—”

“Silence, Crest!” snapped Amax. “You’ve already disgraced yourself once this week.”

The pandos leader pulled more zip ties from his belt. “Timbre, Peak, bind the pimply boy and the stepdaughter of Nero. We will take them all below, interrogate them ourselves, and then hand them over to the emperor!”

“Yes! Yes!” barked Timbre and Peak.

So it was that three powerful demigods and one former major Olympian god were led as prisoners into a super-yacht by four fuzzy creatures with ears the size of satellite dishes. Not my finest hour.

Since I had reached peak humiliation, I assumed Zeus would pick that moment to recall me to the heavens and the other gods would spend the next hundred years laughing at me.

But no. I remained fully and pathetically Lester.