It must have been used for some kind of lesson for the initiates, because the hoary old oak was looking a bit strange. The trunk was a twist of variegated patterns: frost covered bark fading into mossy green, which in turn transitioned into the clean, bare wood of summer, and finally into a riotous scrawl of bright yellow leaves from an autumn vine. The canopy above reflected the same seasonal confusion, with branches heavy with new green leaves sitting cheek by jowl with ones loaded with a multicolored profusion, and still more that were completely bare, hung only with new fallen snow.

The snow appeared to be melting, and had just dropped a dollop onto the head of a plump red squirrel. It had been gathering some of the acorns shed by the fall-colored limbs, but at that it started and looked around. But unlike us humans, who had stumbled into the magical world and mostly remained confused by it, the little creature soon shrugged it off and went back to work.

Everything just flowed here, I thought, staring up at the sun sifting through the living artwork above. It contrasted uncomfortably with my home base, where we just tried to corral the chaos. The court reflected the Pythia, or so I’d always heard.

Yeah.

That was about right.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Gertie asked, watching me.

“Rhea didn’t?”

“Rhea is loyal to her Pythia.”

Translation, Rhea considered this to be my problem, which… fair enough. So, I told Gertie what I could, in between bites. I shouldn’t have, but she and I had long since passed the stage of strict rule adherence, which neither of us was very good at anyway. And I needed some advice.

And just like always, she skipped over the splashier stuff to zero in on the main issue.

“Why would Zeus want to talk to you?”

“That’s what I hoped you’d tell me.”

Of course, Gertie did not tell me. That wasn’t how Gertie rolled. She liked me to figure things out for myself.

Only that didn’t seem to be working today.

“He threatened me,” I said, trying to puzzle it out. “Showed me images of a desolate world, implied that if I didn’t stop fighting him, that’s what Earth would look like.”

“You think he was trying to intimidate you?”

“Maybe.” But that didn’t ring true, even to me. In order to intimidate someone, you had to make them believe that there was safety in doing what you wanted. That you’d spare their life, or the lives of those they cared about, if only they did certain things. But I was under no such delusion.