“I’ll help!” Cyrene said, and threw herself into the backseat just as Maata gunned the engine and shot off after our target.

It took my fullest concentration to follow the car as it wound in and out of the twisty streets of town, but at last we left the city behind and headed south-east on a highway.

“Who is this man you want so badly to follow?” Maata asked in a quiet voice as Cyrene answered a call from one of her concerned sister naiads.

I glanced over my shoulder. Cyrene was busy retelling our meeting with Neptune and probably wasn’t paying much attention. “I think it’s the same man who followed me into the shadow world at the hotel in Paris.”

“What?” Maata shrieked.

The car spun around as she jammed on the brakes, jerking the steering wheel to keep us from going into oncoming traffic. Cyrene cried out as she was bounced around the backseat, ending up on the floor. Thankfully, the cars behind us were at a distance enough to allow them to swerve around us, horns blaring as they made gestures that left us in little doubt as to their opinion of Maata’s driving.

“What in the name of the seven seas is wrong with you?” Cyrene asked, climbing off the floor. “You could have broken my cell phone! As it is, I probably hung up on Thalassa, and she’s the head of the naiads!”

Maata’s eyes were not nearly as bright as Gabriel’s, but they glittered dangerously at me now. “No,” she said.

“We have to,” I said, gesturing toward the distant taillights as they disappeared into the night.

“We are not going after Baltic.”

“You don’t know it’s him,” I argued, frustrated at her refusal.

“Baltic!” Cyrene gasped. “The dead guy?”

Maata’s eyes glowed in the darkness. “Gabriel would kill me if he knew I helped you confront Baltic.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” I said, letting her see the resolution in my eyes. “He wouldn’t be happy, but he wouldn’t kill you. He’s not that sort of man.”

Her lips thinned for a moment. “He wouldn’t physically harm me, no. But his disappointment in me would shame me to death. I cannot do this, May. Do not ask me to.”

“Fine,” I said, getting out of the car and hurrying over to her side, ignoring the wrath of the car occupants coming up behind us. “Move over. I’ll drive. Gabriel can be as pissed at me as he likes—I’m not letting this guy get away from me again.”

Maata was going to refuse, but I didn’t give her a chance. She might be several inches taller and several pounds heavier than me, but I simply dropped my shoulder and shoved her over into the passenger seat, quickly getting the car back onto the highway.