Dreamless

suggested.”
    “I apologize, sir.” Helen racked her brain for what it was that he had suggested. There were a lot of confusing images swimming around in there. A ride on the ferry from Nantucket to the mainland was blending with the wooden deck of a giant battleship and the sound of creaking oars. A walk on a white-sand beach turned into a beach stained red with blood under her feet. She blinked and tried to get rid of the mental pictures. She knew that she had seen them before, but didn’t know how or where.
    “Be sure to remedy that, niece. The Scions are running out of time,” Hades warned her sadly as he and his queen disappeared into the shadows of their palace.
    “What does that mean?” Orion asked, turning to Helen urgently. “What about the ‘Scions running out of time’?”
    “I—I don’t know!” she stammered.
    “Well, what did Hades suggest to you?” Orion was trying to stay calm, but she could see that he was really frustrated with her. “Helen, think!”
    “I was supposed to ask the Oracle something!” she blurted out in a high-pitched voice. “Something about the quest.”
    “What was it ?”
    “Something about asking Cassandra what she thought about freeing the Furies. I’m supposed to ask if she thought it was a good idea. But that’s silly because she’s been helping me do this, so of course she’s all for it!”
    Orion frowned darkly, and Helen knew she had really messed up. Now that she thought about it, not taking a god’s advice seemed like an unbelievably dumb thing to do.
    “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, feeling like an ass.
    “Well, it’s too late, anyway. Besides, I don’t put that much faith in Oracles. Don’t worry about it,” he said dismissively. But he still wouldn’t look at her. Helen apologized again and promised to ask Cassandra as soon as she could, but Orion continued scowling at the ground, deep in thought. She reached out to touch his arm and get his attention.
    But before she could do so, Helen felt herself getting picked up by a mile-wide hand. She lurched against Orion, grabbing on to him.
    Matt lifted the unconscious woman off the street, opened an abandoned car door, and left her on the seat. Hopefully, she’d be safer in there than lying on the ground. There were a lot of people who had come to their senses after being trampled by the stampeding hordes, and they called out to him for help. Matt did what he could, but as soon as the most vulnerable were taken care of he ran off, feeling like he was betraying everyone he left behind.
    He wanted to help them all, but he knew that first he had to find Zach, and he had to do that while he still had some strength. Every muscle in his chest and arms was aching, and some of them were beginning to twitch, just to let him know how unhappy they were with the boss’s new hobby of lugging unconscious people around.
    Matt rubbed one of his many sore spots and spun in a circle. He had no idea which way to go. He remembered that Helen said she had last seen Zach heading down Surfside. Grasping at straws, Matt took off in that general direction, and ended up following a hunch that led him straight to the school grounds.
    Someone was on the football field, throwing perfect spiral passes into a soccer net. Matt jogged through the stiff, frosty grass in time to see Zach bury one in the back of the net.
    “Did you see that?” Zach asked, barely even glancing at Matt. “That was just pretty.”
    “Yeah, it was. But you always had a great arm. You could throw like that freshman year,” Matt replied, close enough now to see Zach in the bright moonlight. He looked awful—pale, sweaty, and haunted. If Matt didn’t know him better, he would have thought Zach was doing serious drugs. “Is that what this is all about? Football?”
    “How do you do it?” Zach asked with a bitter scowl on his face. “How do you hang out with them? Watch them do the things they can do and not hate them?”
    “It’s hard sometimes,” Matt admitted. “Damn. I wish I could fly.”
    “Right?” Zach said through a laugh. There were tears behind that sound, though, and Matt heard them threatening to break out. “It’s like you wake up one day and there are all these invaders, taking your opportunities away. They aren’t from here but we’re supposed to try and compete with them? It isn’t fair.”
    There was a dangerous note in Zach’s voice. He sounded calm when Matt knew he was anything but. Matt spread his stance,