“Don’t tell me,” she said, her voice muffled and miserable. “You have a lead on the Shield of Achilles.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We were never going to find that thing.”

She pulled the pillow off her face.

“What do you mean? Then what are we going to do?”

“We’re going to make our own.” Hermes sat and explained his plan to forge a new shield. A new set of weapons, given by the gods. And all they needed to do was find Hephaestus, the godly blacksmith, and make him do it.

“Hephaestus?” Henry frowned. “You mean Hera’s other son? The one she made all by herself in competition with Zeus? When he created Athena on his own and hatched her fully formed from his head?”

“And he was Aphrodite’s husband!” Andie added.

Hermes sighed. The mortals had been studying. How unfortunate.

“He’s a good god,” Hermes assured them. “I promise. He’s not going to be thrilled about what happened to his mother, but he’ll understand. As for the marriage, it was crap. Aphrodite was plastered all over Ares every time Hephaestus turned his back.”

“This is your only idea?” Andie asked.

“It’s the only idea.”

Henry and Andie exchanged a doubtful look.

“Even if we can convince him to do it,” Henry said, “which isn’t likely, how is finding Hephaestus any easier than finding the shield?”

“Ha! That’s the beauty.” Hermes went to his laptop and grabbed the stack of papers. He’d already been through it with a highlighter to pull out the pertinent information. “Here. Look at this. I know who he is. Or at least, who he was.”

Andie flipped through the first few pages and then put the pillow back on her face.

“Can you summarize?”

“I ran across Hephaestus in Germany during the Industrial Revolution. He was there making deals, touring factories. We ate white asparagus. We drank questionable German wine. I never saw him again after that one night. But I remember his name. Alexander Derby.”

Henry picked up the papers and leafed through them. What he held was essentially a comprehensive family history of the Derbys, from Alexander to Alexander Derby the second and third, to Alistair Derby the first through the third, and so on. They were titans of metallurgy. They built bridges, instituted innovations in the smelting process.

“So you’re saying that all of these guys … are Hephaestus?” Henry asked.

“No. Not all of them. That’s the interesting part. He’s fashioned himself a sort of family. But every generation or so, one Derby shows up who outshines the rest. He comes out of nowhere, a heretofore unmentioned relation, and dominates the industry for ten, sometimes twenty years before disappearing. Those Derbys in particular. They’re Hephaestus.”

“And you know which Derby he is now?” Andie asked.

Hermes nodded. “Rather cosmically, he’s come back around to Alexander. And he lives in a very big, very old house, just a few hours from here. Come on.” Hermes clapped his hands and jumped up.

Andie dropped the pillow and regarded him with eyes as large as one of Athena’s owls’.

“You want us to go now? Are you nuts?” She took a deep breath and made to push off of the sofa. “Okay.”

“No.” Hermes put his hand up. Of course they shouldn’t go now. They shouldn’t go at all. Who knew what Hephaestus might have waiting for them, especially if he’d heard about their part in his mother’s death. Who knew what state he was in, grappling with a death of his own. Just because they’d met as friends a couple hundred years ago didn’t mean they would do it again. Hephaestus might not even be sane anymore.

Hermes shut his eyes. How stupid of him, to rush in. How typical.

“I’ll go myself first,” he said. “I just meant, get up and get out, because I’m leaving as soon as I eat the rest of the Chinese and pizza.”

“Are you sure?” Henry asked. “I could go at least. I’m not hungover.”

“No. It’s not that. I have to be sure it’s safe first. And I’ll hurry, so you’re not left unwatched here long.”

*   *   *

Henry did his best to pay attention during History. It wasn’t easy. It never was, but just coming off a vacation made it worse. Everyone in the room fidgeted, discreetly texting photos and tales of wild spring breaks. Henry’s phone had buzzed in his pocket no less than ten times in that period alone. He finally took it out on the eleventh and read a text from Jen Thomsen, a friend of Ariel’s.