He holds up his hand and I stop midsentence. He looks so much like Zeus right now it’s easy to see that they’re brothers. Same square face, flowing gray hair, and intense stare. Except where Zeus’s eyes are stormy gray, Poseidon’s are deep sea blue.

“If you seek such a gift,” he finally says, “you must give a gift in return.”

A gift? I didn’t think to bring anything with me. I’m lucky I even thought enough ahead to leave my phone in my room. I tend to act first and figure it out later—shocking, I know.

“I’m sorry,” I admit. “I don’t have anything.”

He smiles. “But of course you do.”

Now why is the hair on the back of my neck standing up again?

He waves me closer to his desk. I inch forward, more than a little nervous to find out what he has in mind. I’ve heard plenty of stories from the old days—the really old days—when the gods were pretty much full-time hound dogs. How do you think we got so many hematheos in the first place? If he tries something, I’ll have to break out some long-lost martial arts moves.

But when I approach, he does nothing more than pull a silver seashell from his drawer and set it on his desk. I stare at the shell, seriously calculating the odds of grabbing it and getting out of the palace before he can stop me.

Very, very low.

“I have a daughter,” he begins, then laughs. “I have many daughters, but there is one.”

His eyes get this far-off, dreamy look, and I can tell that he loves this daughter more than all the others combined. Kinda sucks for the rest of the family, but she must be one special girl.

“She is an angel,” he continues. “Sees no evil in men.”

And by men he means one man in particular.

I get it. Naive daughter of one of the most powerful gods who ever lived. Less-than-naive guy who wants her for less-than-honorable reasons.

“You think she’s being conned?” I suggest.

“I—” Poseidon smiles and shakes his head. “Yes, that is it precisely.”

I watch him, waiting for him to explain what this has to do with me getting the seashell. What this has to do with my forgetting a gift.

He doesn’t speak, just sits there staring at the shell like he expects it to start talking to him.

“I’m sorry,” I finally say, “but I don’t get what that has to do with me. How can I possibly help?”

I have a sudden image of being asked to play cheat-catcher, acting as bait to lure the suspected con artist into hitting on me. So not my area of expertise. I’m better at scaring boys away.

“I would like you to tell me her future,” he says.