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It was a wonderful time of day, when a sun god should be wrapping up his work, heading to the old stables to park his chariot, then kicking back at his palace with a goblet of nectar, a few dozen adoring nymphs, and a new season of The Real Goddesses of Olympus to binge-watch.
We’d freed ancient Oracles, defeated legions of monsters, and suffered the untold horrors of the American public transportation system.
There was that word again: human, which not long ago I would have considered a terrible insult. Now, every time I heard it, I thought of Jason Grace’s admonition: Remember what it’s like to be human. He hadn’t meant all the terrible things about being human, of which there were plenty. He’d meant the best things: standing up for a just cause, putting others first, having stubborn faith that you could make a difference, even if it meant you had to die to protect your friends and what you believed in. These were not the kind of feelings that gods had…well, ever.
The only thing more unsettling than not understanding a prophecy was beginning to understand it.
As the god of poetry, I understood revisions. Facing monsters and imperial mercenaries was much easier.
Tyrants are not easy to oppose or walk away from, especially when you depend on them for everything.
Change is a fragile thing. It requires time and distance. Survivors of abuse, like Meg, have to get away from their abusers.
BROOKLYN. Normally, the greatest dangers there are congested traffic, expensive poke bowls, and not enough tables at the local coffee shops for all the aspiring screenwriters.
Mortals and gods had one thing in common: we were notoriously nostalgic for “the good old days.” We were always looking back to some magical golden time before everything went bad. I remembered sitting with Socrates, back around 425 BCE, and griping to each other about how the younger generations were ruining civilization.
But too often, survival depended on sheer luck. This was something we gods didn’t like to advertise, as it cut down on donations at our temples.
If his expression had been any smugger, the entire species of domestic cats would have sued him for plagiarism.
Making music was its own sort of divinity.
When you’ve gone through a life-changing shock, positive thinking is the most effective weapon you can wield.
He frowned, trying to make sense of the fact that a teenaged boy was telling him what to do. Clearly, he’d never had children.
How could someone twist the truth with such brazenness, telling you the exact opposite of what was clear and obvious, and still sound like they believed what they were saying? How could you defend against lies that were so blatant and brash they should have required no challenge?
You cannot change a tyrant by trying to out-ugly him.
Assembling this IKEA furniture is the toughest quest I’ve had in years.”
