Chapter 52 This Gift Is on Fire
I’M STILL TRYING TO FIGURE out what’s going on several minutes later when Arjun and Fifi finally make it downstairs.
Fifi looks awesome even though she’s wearing the same dress uniform as the rest of us.
But with heart jewels near her eyes and iridescent red and pink ribbons threaded through her hair, she looks amazing—almost as glamorous as Aphrodite herself.
Arjun, also in the required dress uniform, is wearing a tie with dinosaur cutouts all over it and he looks adorable—especially since he’s liberally glittered his hair.
To be honest, I feel a little plain next to both of them—even with my lip gloss and flower tie.
But I guess that’s the way it is when you’re an Athena girl who just happens to be best friends with the two most fabulous Aphrodites there ever were.
Besides, I like my tie and my nonglittery hair.
Though next time I just might borrow one of Fifi’s rhinestone hearts…
“Ready for your first Panathenaea?” Levi asks as he walks by us with a wink.
He doesn’t have any glitter on, but then, he doesn’t have to—his smile lights up the whole room.
Well, that and his neon-pink tie and socks.
“Make sure you grab a few of the loukoumades as soon as you get to the Stoa. They’re absolutely delicious, but they go fast.”
“Really fast,” Charlie adds as she and Leah walk by, arm in arm. “Last year they disappeared before we even presented the gifts.”
“We’ll make sure to grab some,” I promise them as I loop my arm through Fifi’s and drag her away from the mirror she’s currently primping in front of. I love the girl to death, but she really has never met a mirror she didn’t like.
“Speaking of gifts,” Fifi says as she jokingly swats my hand away. “What did Paris get for Athena?”
“Oh…” I pause, a little embarrassed to admit I don’t know.
The truth is, Paris almost never responds to my texts lately, and when I see him, he’s always with Rhea and it feels like they can’t get away from me fast enough.
I don’t care about her, but to have him treat me like that really, really hurts.
But there’s nothing but kindness in Fifi’s eyes, and I know if there’s anyone I can trust to be vulnerable with, it’s her. “I actually don’t know. He and I haven’t really spoken much lately.”
Fifi takes my hand and gently squeezes it, then bumps my shoulder with hers in a way that tells me she gets it and also that it will be okay.
“Siblings are seriously overrated,” Arjun adds, and we all laugh. The two best best friends ever.
Amazingly, Anaximander’s has cooperated for once, and the Stoa and amphitheater are actually really close to the residence halls tonight.
Which means we’re not soaking by the time we make it up the hill to them.
Which is especially nice considering the weather has definitely turned colder lately.
As soon as we get to the top of the hill, we can see the Stoa all lit up like New Year’s Eve, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Long garlands of multicolored flowers wrap around the hundred or so columns that line the perimeters of the open-air building, and the whole place is draped in a canopy of fairy lights.
Long strings of lights have also been woven through the branches of nearby trees.
Fifi gasps when she sees it, her eyes lighting up as she demands we take a selfie in front of the columns.
We end up taking several, hanging off each other and making faces at the camera.
A part of me is still thinking about Paris, and another part is worrying about the talk I had with Dr. Dione, but I decide to put it all out of my mind for tonight.
Tomorrow is soon enough to worry about those things—tonight is for the festival.
I glance over at the amphitheater, which is also lit up—not with fairy lights, but with dozens upon dozens of torches illuminating the many different game stations set up in various areas. And right in the middle stand the cauldron and poor PT, still trying to light it.
He catches me looking at him and raises a hand, so I wave back. The guy has been trying to light that thing for ages now, and he’s looking pretty stressed. When is the school going to just give up and let him rest?
When he turns back to the cauldron, I step inside the Stoa with my friends. And if the outside has had a glow-up, the inside has had a full-blown transformation from what it usually looks like.
Running directly down the center of the building is the longest buffet table I’ve ever seen.
It’s decorated in giant swaths of gold and white fabric and strewn with hundreds of flowers and tiny, twinkling candles.
Plus it’s piled—and I mean piled—with the most delicious-looking dishes I’ve ever seen.
My mouth waters just looking at them. Judging from the expressions on my friends’ faces, theirs do as well.
“Where do you want to start?” Arjun asks once we walk inside.
They have dessert tables set up in every corner, piled high with every kind of treat imaginable. But I know what he wants, so I say, “With the loukoumades, obviously.”
Arjun pumps a fist in the air, then proceeds to cut through the crowd like a pro, his eyes on a platter piled high with the deep-fried honey balls.
It turns out they’re even more delicious than Levi and Charlie told us, and I end up eating three, one right after the other, before my jumpy stomach forces me to stop.
“Want to grab a seat before everything starts?” I ask as more and more people file into the building.
“Sure,” Fifi says. “I want to find a good spot where we can see everything.”
There are five long rows of tables running the length of the Stoa—three on one side of the buffet and two on the other. They’re all decorated with ornate tablecloths and candles and flowers the same colors as the different halls.
We move to the end of the Aphrodite table closest to the circle of gifts and settle into the fabric-draped chairs.
Long chains of red and pink roses interspersed with ribbons of the same color run down the center of the table, twining around gold candelabras and pitchers of pink lemonade and pomegranate juice.
Aphrodite’s is totally the prettiest table in the whole place—and also the sparkliest. I never thought I’d say this, but pink and red have grown on me. As for the glitter…well, it really does make life more interesting.
All around us, other students are also taking their seats, and before we know it, Dr. Themis—decked out in a long, gold sequined dress with puffy sleeves and gold ribbons woven into her hair—makes her way to the center of the circle of gifts.
“Happy Panathenaea!” she tells us, her arms open wide to welcome all of us. “I’m so thrilled that you’re here, ready to celebrate this most amazing holiday. Our kitchen staff have truly outdone themselves tonight—with the ambiance and with the feast I know we are all so excited to partake in.”
She pauses and looks around, and somehow it feels like her golden gaze takes in the whole room, missing nothing.
When those eyes meet mine—even though it’s only for half a second or so—I find myself squirming in my chair.
It’s like she can see everything inside me with that one look—my struggle to let go of Athena Hall, the strange and terrifying things that keep happening to me, my unexpected trip to the Underworld, and my absolute burning desire to know who Hera is.
I tell myself she could be anybody—or nobody—just a character in some made-up story. But even as I try to convince myself that’s what she is, there’s something inside me that’s pushing me to dig deeper. Pushing me to find out the truth, whatever that truth may be.
But for now, I do my best to shove it out of my mind and concentrate on what Dr. Themis is saying.
“Tonight is absolutely a night of revelry, of celebration. Food, games, music, dancing, good friends and family—it’s a magnificent combination.
But I want us all to remember that tonight is also about something else.
It’s about honoring and giving back to the gods who have given us so much. ”
Her face turns quiet, reflective, as she asks, “What hall would like to start with their gifts tonight?”
All the halls cheer and try to get her attention, but in the end she chooses Athena Hall first. And try as I might to pretend everything is fine, there’s still a tiny tug inside me as I watch the students of Athena Hall line up in a perfect line.
The cauldron still isn’t lit, so like with the opening ceremonies, the gods are conspicuously absent from this celebration.
But we’ve been assured they’re here in spirit, and the large gift circle was created with that thought in mind.
Marked off from the rest of the room with flower-and-jewel-bedecked pillars, the gift circle’s got a small marble altar right in the center inscribed with ancient Greek words I can’t read.
One by one, Athena students file forward to place their presents on the marble stone.
Olive branches bedecked with ribbons to symbolize her quest for peace, small stuffed-animal owls to signify wisdom, and beautiful thrown pots and woven scarves and tapestries to honor her interest in the arts are all brought up by students, one after another, as powerful, wordless music plays in the background.
From what I can tell from my vantage point, Paris’s gift is a magnificent olive branch.
He looks so proud as he places it down that I feel a shiver of pride for my brother.
He may be being kind of a jerk lately, but he’s my twin. And I really do miss him.
Maybe tonight I’ll try to talk to him and clear the air. Find out whatever he thinks is going on between me and Rhea and fix it. I mean, she’s not my favorite person, but I can tolerate her if it means I get to have my brother back.
Once all the students have put the gifts on the altar, the presents disappear—a sign that Athena has accepted her presents.
Then it’s Poseidon Hall’s turn, with their rocks and tridents, their paintings of the ocean and bottles full of sea glass. The god of the sea starts accepting presents as soon as the students put them down, so there is no pile to vanish at the end of their turn.
Hades students bring bouquets of forget-me-nots and golden coins, stuffed-animal horses and more books than I can count.
The presents disappear in groups of ten or twenty, like the god of the Underworld is so busy he can only check in every few minutes.
After seeing all the seats on that train, I believe it.
I search the sea of cool-looking kids decked out in black, trying to catch a glimpse of Kyrian, but I don’t spot him.
I guess he really does come and go as he pleases.
Students from Zeus Hall come loaded with flowers, baskets of fruit, stuffed-animal eagles, and gemstones of all shapes and colors. Zeus doesn’t even wait for them to lay their gifts down on the altar—instead, each present disappears from its giver’s arms as soon as they approach it.
Finally—finally—it’s Aphrodite Hall’s turn. The gift giving goes from oldest class to youngest, so Fifi, Arjun, and I wait impatiently until we can go up. Then we walk forward and lay our gifts for Aphrodite in the giant pile in the center of the altar.
I have one moment of panic as I try to figure out what to do with the crown of flowers I made for Athena. I can’t put it in Aphrodite’s circle—that would be an insult to both of them. But I don’t know what else to do with it either.
In the end, I decide to take it to her table on my way back to my seat. But as I squeeze between the chairs of two upperclassers and start to lay it with the rest of the flowers in the center of the table, something totally unexpected happens.
Something terrible and completely inexplicable.
The whole crown goes up in flames.