I did a double take, hoping that I was seeing things. But I’d been right the first time: what had been a maelstrom only a few moments ago was now a winter’s gale, still powerful, still scary. But patchy, as if some of its power was being drawn off.

Maybe because it was.

My inner eye focused on the battle for the first time in a while, and saw something concerning: the locus of the fight had shifted closer to us, as our advantage was slowly but steadily eroded. It wasn’t enough to make a difference, but it soon would be, because we were now the ones in retreat.

And for once, I thought I knew why.

I stared up at the circling clouds, black and silver, still twining together, still beautiful… but incomplete. There was no third color there, no bright flash of gold among the starker shades. Something was missing.

The Pythian power was absent.

I suddenly realized why all those claws in my flesh had been drawing up. Not because we were winning, but because that was what we were using as a power source—the energy that I’d stolen from Zeus and that Mircea had been laundering through the family. And only that, since my own power remained completely absent.

And without it, we had begun to falter.

Pritkin fell back against the bed a moment later, panting and spent, and stared up at me with confused panic on his face, the first time I’d ever seen that emotion from him. “Why isn’t it working? Why isn’t it working?”

Because we’re facing a god, I thought dully. We’d made power—a lot of it. Enough to have vanquished a hundred other foes. But it wasn’t enough for this one, and at this point, I didn’t know what would be. Because, if Pritkin didn’t know what to do…

It was over.

He was the smartest man I’d ever met. He knew a dozen languages, sped through massive old tomes like they were comic books, had forgotten more magic than most people ever knew. If he didn’t have an answer, it was probably because there wasn’t one.

Did you really think you could stand against Zeus? I thought, as Mircea’s arms tightened around me. He’d steamrollered the world—any number of worlds; he’d led a pack of human piranhas on a feeding frenzy that had wiped out half of the hells; he’d commanded the loyalty, however begrudging, of beings like Ares, who himself had been terrifying. Had I really thought that I was going to defeat something like that?

Yes, for one short moment, I had.

Probably sheer bloody mindedness, as Pritkin would say. But that wasn’t enough, any more than stubbornness, anger, desperation, or courage were. Whatever was needed, I didn’t have it, and I didn’t know who did.