I twist my head sideways. Tell him her future? What am I, a fortune-teller?

“You’ve made a mistake,” I explain, backing away a step. “I can’t see the future.”

No, I’m trying to go back and fix the past.

“You have powers you do not yet realize.”

Poseidon reaches out and takes my hand, stopping my retreat. The moment his fingers touch me, my brain explodes with an intense image. I see a girl—a breathtakingly beautiful girl who could only be the daughter of a god—walking on a beach. As the image focuses in my mind, I see that she is walking hand in hand with a boy.

“What do you see?” Poseidon asks softly.

I don’t stop to ask how he knows I’m seeing something.

“A girl with pale blond hair and pretty green eyes,” I describe.

“My daughter,” Poseidon confirms. “What else?”

“She’s walking on the beach with a boy.” I squint my eyes, as if that will make the mental picture clearer. “He has dark blond hair and”—the image zooms in on his face—“a tattoo on the back of his neck.”

“That is the boy.” Poseidon releases my hand. “The con artist.”

The modern term sounds awkward in his accented voice.

The image fades and I open my eyes. “I—” I shake my head, not sure how I could possibly know this, but I feel it like a certainty in my gut. “He isn’t a con artist.”

“No?”

I shrug. “They seem . . .” I study the picture of the girl and the blissful smile on her beautiful face. “Happy.”

“Happy,” Poseidon echoes.

I can’t tell if he’s relieved or disappointed. Personally, I’m confused. What the heck just happened? One touch from a god and suddenly I’m seeing things I shouldn’t be able to know?

“Thank you,” he says, picking up the silver seashell and offering it to me. “It was not the answer I sought, but it is . . . acceptable.”

I let out a huge—water-filled—sigh of relief. Seems like I passed the test.

I reach out to take the seashell. Before I can grab it, Poseidon moves his hand back a few inches. When I look up, ready to call him out for pulling a dirty trick, he is giving me a serious look.

“You of all people, Nicole Matios,” he says, shocking the ever-loving crap out of me by knowing my name, “of all hematheos, should know that some things happen for reasons beyond our control.”

“I, um . . .”

Crazy guy says what? What kind of cryptic nonsense is that? Sure, the old guy gets points for knowing my name, but that ominous threat is filed under none of his business. He must be totally off the rails. If this all goes wrong at the last moment, I’m going to be seriously annoyed.