“Infirmary for this one,” she said to someone next to her. Then I saw Josephine’s face looming over me like a Mount Rushmore president as she carried me through the corridor. I felt myself being gently lifted, wondering hazily if I was peach-surfing or if Zeus had recalled me to the heavens. I crumpled sideways, Meg spilling over on top of me. “The sonnet conveys only the most elaborate prophecies, with multiple moving parts. ![]() “That was all one poem? But it had four different sections.” Hmm…actually the line I just wrote was in iambic pentameter. I mean, in real life, no one talks like that! No one will accept this poetry! Du-DUH, du-DUH, du-DUH, du-DUH, du-DUH. I recalled my many arguments with William Shakespeare.īill, I said. But a full Shakespearean sonnet, complete with ABAB rhyme scheme, ending couplet, and iambic pentameter? Such a horror could only have come from Trophonius’s cave. I had thought the limerick of Dodona was bad. “May the gods help us it was a Shakespearean sonnet.” “It was a sonnet,” I said, still in disbelief. “What was that? Buy one prophecy, get three free? That was a lot of lines.” Her breathing was already more regular, her skin warmer. I rushed forward as Meg slumped into my arms. When three are known and Tiber reached alive, Then, the culminating horror, she spewed forth a rhyming couplet: To walk the path in thine own enemy’s boots. The cloven guide alone the way does know, She shivered and exhaled the third stanza:ĭemeter’s daughter finds her ancient roots. I wished I could stop this recitation and save Meg the agony, but there was nothing I could do. It had been centuries since I’d heard a prophecy in this form, yet I knew it well. To find the master of the swift white horseĪnd wrest from him the crossword speaker’s breath. Through mazes dark to lands of scorching death Yet southward must the sun now trace its course, I glanced at Calypso, who was scribbling furiously. The changeling lord shall face a challenge dire, The words that memory wrought are set to fire,Įre new moon rises o’er the Devil’s Mount. When she spoke, it was thankfully not in Trophonius’s voice-just a deep neutral monotone worthy of Delphi itself: We all backed away, forming a rough circle around her as dark smoke spewed from her mouth and encircled her legs. Her hands gripped the sides of the chair as if a strong electric current had taken hold of her. Her consciousness seemed to be withdrawing, getting smaller and smaller. I placed my hands on the sides of her face and checked her eyes. Her skin was too blue, her breath too ragged. I decided she would make an excellent high school student after all. “Got it!” She brandished her small legal tablet and pencil. The peach babies carefully lowered Meg into the seat. ![]() They placed it in the center of a still-smoldering Persian rug. Josephine and Leo rushed in from a side room, carrying between them my old backpack-the Throne of Memory. I wasn’t sure whether to thank him or curse him, but I slipped the arrow back into my quiver for safekeeping. One of the Peacheses had retrieved the Arrow of Dodona from under the Mercedes’s driver’s seat and now carried it in his teeth like a pirate’s accessory. We met the karpoi in the building’s front foyer. I almost jumped out the window to get to her. Rounding the corner were three karpoi, holding Meg McCaffrey aloft as if she were bodysurfing (or peach-surfing). If Commodus is still out there…” She gazed down South Illinois Street. “I guess we should do a sweep of the neighborhood. Her new gray highlights from my solar blast looked quite fetching. The two bumped fists as if they hadn’t spent the last few days talking about how much they wanted to kill each other. ![]() Am I right? Those were some sweet moves, man.” “He literally just flew out this window.” He and Hunter Kowalski now stood unscathed in the middle of a mosaic of fallen glass shards. He had run out of enemies to electrocute. “A little warning, perhaps?” Jimmy called. Some of our friends stood in the roundabout below, gazing up at us with confused expressions. WE GATHERED at the window and peered down.
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