~ ☼ ~

Alec was staring at me.

As I slowly came to, I remembered that I was on the train to Norfolk - a nearly 9 hour trip - having almost just died in Princeton. I wiped the sleep from my eyes, trying to forget about my throwback of a dream, but it was hard when Alec kept looking at me like I had two heads.

"What?" I snapped at him. "Take a picture, it'll last you longer."

"You talk when you sleep," Alec replied with a chuckle. "You kept muttering things about flooding and violins."

I groaned, tilting my head back and staring at the ceiling of the train car. "When did you wake up?" I asked without looking at him.

"Like, 10 minutes ago." I faced him again, and he gestured to Riley, still dozing away next to him. "Riles, on the other hand, has been sleeping since her head hit the headrest. And hasn't said a single word."

"Hmph." I crossed my arms. "Whatever. I'm hungry."

"We just ate!"

"Like 4 hours ago!"

"Okay, touché." Alec dug in his pocket for a second, then passed a 5 dollar bill across the table separating me from him and Riley. "Go get something in the dining car. And can you get me a water while you're there?"

"Sure." I pocketed the money, then made my way through the shaky train to the dining car, 3 cars ahead.

It was noticeably hotter in this car. Three women were sitting, waiting, at the bar, but there was no bartender, nor any cashier. I came up next to them, peering around to try to find an employee.

"There's no one here," one of the women, tall and blonde, said to me. "We rang the bell-" she stopped to gesture to a bell for service - "a few minutes ago, but no one has come."

"Oh." I pursed my lips.

"You'd think they'd have better service," another woman, this one with white hair cropped close to her head, said. "Considering the amount of godly - or partly godly, in your case - people we have on the train!"

My eyes widened. Gods, not another monster! I thought. What is up with my luck with strangers?

"Ha, ha, yeah..." I said awkwardly, backing away slowly before pivoting and speed walking the hell - Hades, sorry - out of there.

As I walked back to my car, I kept my head down, wondering who those women were. They'd said godly. Were they... gods? What gods would just be riding a random train from Princeton to Norfolk?

Or maybe it wasn't random. Maybe they were here for us.

When I got back to our seats, Riley was awake and stretching her arms, nearly punching Alec in the face in the process.

Alec raised his eyebrows when he saw me. "What's the matter? No luck?"

I scooted back into my seat, then hissed, "There was no cashier, but there were these women, and one of them said, 'You'd think they'd have better service, considering the amount of godly people we have on the train!'. Godly! I think they were gods!"

Riley and Alec stared at me blankly.

"You've got to be kidding me," Alec said.

"I am not kidding you!"

Alec shook his head, his messy golden brown hair shifting. "AJ, you probably just misheard the poor women. Maybe she doesn't speak English well. If you're really so scared, I'll come with you." He stood up, stretching his own arms.

"Wait, I'll come too," Riley piped up. "You know it's not a good idea to be alone."

"Right. And you know why that is? Because things are dangerous. There are monsters and gods everywhere!"

I was starting to talk too loudly; the couple sitting across the aisle from us turned and stared, which made my neck go hot.

"I'm sure it's fine, girl," Riley said soothingly, her dark brown eyes calm as she, too stood up. "Let's just all go together, just in case."

"Fine." I said flatly. "While we're at it, let's just go find some monsters and sing Kumbaya together around the campfire."

Alec suppressed a laugh. "Someone's grumpy."

I pressed my lips together, finally standing up as well. "Just... go. Lead the way, Mr. You've Got To Be Kidding Me."

And led, he did. We weaved through the shaking train cars, passing the conductor in his ticket-checking circuit. In only a moment, I was back in the dining car, and those women were still there.

The minute my siblings and I pushed through the doorway, all three turned towards us, a different, wicked sort of smile on each of their faces. Behind us and in front of us, the only exits slid shut, locking with a snap and a pop. My heart skipped a beat, but I also felt a sense of satisfaction. The suspicious looks that now painted Alec and Riley's faces - complete with narrowed eyes and clenched jaws - made me want to yell, "I told you so, suckers!"

However, I kept quiet, planting my feet in the carpet as the blonde women stood. Her outfit screamed of a combination of Hot Topic and a thrift store: a black velvet dress over ripped tights and a boxy gray tee, with Doc Martens the color of ravens and emo kids' souls. Now that I saw her in full, I realized that neither she nor either of her companions could be over 25. Either that, or they just aged really well.

"Ah, you're back," she said in a voice like honey, "And you brought fellow half-bloods to keep you company!"

My urge to glance smugly at my siblings got stronger with this statement, but it was tampered down by the fear that I was going to, y'know, DIE.

"Who are you?" Alec asked from beside me. "How do you know we're half-bloods?"

"Gods can sense that kind of thing, sweetie," the other women, the one with the short hair, answered with an almost sing-songy tone.

"We could smell you from 5 cars away," said the last one. This was the first thing she had spoken, and I was taken aback by how low and smooth her voice was compared to the other two. She brushed a dark strand of hair behind her ears and continued, "If you'd like to mask that, I saw on the Hephaestus TV Shopping Network that Hermes is selling a new Mist Fragrance for both Men and Women-"

"Ignore her," The Blonde One said, "She worships television like its her religion."

"If YOU hadn't gotten us kicked off of Mount Olympus, I would have other things to practice!"

"I-"

Blonde was interrupted before she could even start her second word. This was courtesy of my brother, who grumbled, "You only answered one of my questions. Who are you?"

Based off of his tense posture and furrowed brows, I could see Alec was getting annoyed. He seemed to do that a lot - jump from joking and happy-go-lucky to frustration within a few minutes. I had to wonder if he just had a temper, or there was something else there.

Riley, on the other hand, seemed more confused than anything. Her prophetic senses evidently hadn't set her off about this, and I don't think she liked that. She crossed her arms in an attempt at standing her guard, but it looked more like she was hugging herself.

"I am Mneme," Blonde - er, Mneme, - stated after taking a deep breath to calm herself. "My sisters are Aiode and Melete." Respectively, she gestured to Short Hair and TV Girl.

"We are the Muses," Aiode continued, "Goddesses of the arts and proclaimers of heroes."

"You're not the muses. There are 9 muses, and none of them share your names." This was Riley, shaking her head and letting her right hand move ever so slightly towards the long bow slung on her back. "And that whole thing about arts and heroes is just a quote from Disney's Hercules!"

I expected this to make the women/muses/whoever the Hades they were mad, but all it succeeded in doing was getting Aiode to stand too and exclaim, "I told Mneme people would recognize it! I wanted to use my own work for this whole prologue but nOooO, I had to read from the prepared script. You're so disgenuine, Mneme, you're just a pose-"

"Calm down," Mneme snapped, "Maybe if you had a better memory, I would've let you memorize your own damn song!"

This was... strange. I felt more like I was watching some MTV reality show than talking to three goddesses. I glanced sideways at Alec - he raised his eyebrows, his irritation dissipating into befuddlement. Still, like Riley, he kept his tan hand near his hip, ready to grab his dirk if need be.

Back on Real Housewives of Amtrak, Aiode snarled, "I have a perfectly fine memory. Nobody's going to compare to yours, all right? You're the actual Goddess of Memory, remember?!"

"Goddess of Memory..." Riley breathed. Whirling to face her, I watched her eyes become alight with realization and her jaw go slack. "If you're the Goddess of Memory, then that means Aiode is the Goddess of Song, and Melete is the Goddess of Practice. You're the Muses of the Titans."

Titans. Just that mere word made a spidery shiver crawl down my spine. My mind took me back to that first night, to memories of finding Liakada and fighting a Dracanae. The snake monster had said something to me about joining the Titan Army, and when I refused out of ignorance, she attempted to kill me.

Now, I tried to recall any background knowledge I had of titans. I knew Remember The Titans (which, by the way, is a spectacular movie about the dismantling of internalized racism), The RMS Titanic, and that was it... until one name entered my mind: Kronos.

We learned about him in 6th grade history, during our mythology unit. He was the king of the titans, the predecessor and father of Zeus, and an overall pretty bad dude. Apparently, he ate his kids, which is an immediate turn-off for me. If these three women were his muses, then what were they capable of?

Based on how they'd acted so far, maybe nothing. They were petty and tended to cat fight, but they seemed harmless else wise. This was confirmed by the darkening in Mneme's eyes when Alec finished his sentence.

"Yes, technically, I suppose we are," Mneme said, "But we rid ourselves of those terrible beings long ago. We are now servants of Zeus, bringing music and song to all who will listen. But, for the record, we were here before 'The Real Muses'. I'm so tired of people associating us with them. They're my daughters, but I would've never had them if I'd known they'd overshadow my spotlight!"

Okay, I'll add "Terrible Excuse for a Mom" to that list of bad qualities I mentioned in the last paragraph.

Alec and Riley didn't seem surprised by Mneme's low opinion of her children, but then again, they also didn't seem to get on very well with Apollo. And then there were Kiera and Aria, who were probably still back at camp, waiting for a single sign from their godly parents that they were worth anything at all. Perhaps parenting just wasn't a big priority for the Gods.

There was something else there, something deeper, something that had to do with the Titans, but I didn't have time to wonder.

"So what do you want?" I asked. "Why are you riding a south-bound train when you should be doing... godly things?"

Aiode and Melete glared at their leader, who only crossed her pale arms and pursed her lips. "I... may have gotten us kicked out of Olympus and demoted to mortality."

"What she means to say is that the Olympian muses were having a concert when she ran out on stage and demanded that people give us credit for who we are." Melete pinched her nose and shook her head, making her dark hair shift across her shoulders. "Zeus was there, he told us we were worthless and shouldn't even be on Olympus in the first place - that we should've been killed with the rest of the Titans - and then he kicked us to the curb."

"We landed in Princeton," Aiode leaned back against the bar and ran a hand through her feathery hair. "But before we fell, Calliope - the leader of the Olympic muses - told us that if we could find someone to perform with on the mortal plane, someone with who we made music fit for the Heavens, they would let us be their backing band."

"We've been wandering hopelessly ever since, looking for someone talented enough to keep up with us," Mneme finished, her thread weaving perfectly in sync with her sisters' to create a tapestry of a story. "We saw you three board the train back at the station and followed you on because we sensed that at least one of you was a Child of Apollo. And that, by extension, at least one of you was a musician - and could help us."

At that moment, everybody in the room looked directly at me, Alec and Riley hesitant and the muses eager. I felt like the center of attention, a suspect being interrogated for a crime she didn't commit. The back of my neck went cold. Great! I thought. I take back what I said about picking up the violin again! I don't want to do that, not one bit!

But then I thought about what could come out if it. If I helped these goddesses, shouldn't they be honor-bound to help me back? Then again, these were Greek gods, and from my experience so far with the beings in this ancient underworld, I guessed there really wasn't any sort of code of honor. In fact, I'm willing to bet that one of the requirements for being a Greek god was to be a lying, self-centered cheat!

"If I play with you," I said slowly, letting my hand fall towards Liakada, "What do we get in return?"

"Well, you three are on a quest, right?" Melete narrowed her eyes. "If you help us, and succeed, we will use our... godly powers to instantly transport you to your final destination!"

Final Destination? My internal conversation continued. Like, the movie series? Are they going to brutally kill us?

"She means that we'll take you wherever you want to go," Aiode rephrased. "Plus, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! We're giving you the chance to sing with The Elder Muses. I'd be thankful just for that. "

Thanks! I hate it.

Snark and mental monologues aside, I sifted through the offer. Play one song, get half of the quest over and done with. Although I never wanted anything to do with playing ever again, I had to admit, the sentiment of playing alongside goddesses of music - and getting their all-powerful help in the process - was ultimately too romantic to pass up.

"I only know how to play violin," I breathed on impulse, knowing I had to get it over with or else back out cowardly.

"Good thing we have one, then!" Melete spun her bar stool so her back was to us. When she turned back around, she was holding a snow-white violin and matching bow. I shifted on my feet and peered around her, just barely glimpsing a bag sitting on the seat beside her before Melete stood and handed the instrument to me.

I took it gingerly. It felt strange to hold a violin in my hands again, to feel the warm wood under my chin and the buzz of the strings under the pads of my fingers. Before I could even ask what song, exactly, I should play, Alec grabbed my arm and leaned towards me.

This close to me, I could smell his scent of sunscreen and fresh laundry. "You don't have to do this," he whispered, "We can find another way to escape."

"We'd have to fight them," I murmured back. "This is the easiest way. And I always like the easy route."

The problem is, what seems like the easy route isn't always the best route to take.

Alec shook his head, but backed away, letting me lift the violin to my shoulder.  "What do you want me to play?" I asked the muses.

"Whatever your heart tells you to," Aiode said, beaming now that I'd said yes. "We catch on quick."

This freedom made me nervous, but slowly, I lifted the bow to position, pressed my fingers down on the chords, and started to play.

It was the only song I could remember how to play, a devilish melody by Debussy or Saint-Saëns or one of those other nearly-forgotten composers. It's no blink-182, but it's still something my heart soared along with.

The music I made as I got into the song was nothing like that of Ancient Greece, and for a second I was worried that the muses would reject it. But just as soon as I launched into the main refrain, the muses started playing along - Melete pulled out a flute, Mneme blew into a clarinet, and Aiode started to sing.

Yet, I could hardly register their presence. The feeling of playing violin again was like a memory, a dream, and an acid trip all at once. As the bow sawed across the strings, I felt the train car - and the world - fall away around me.

Memories of my many lessons and recitals flooded through my head into my quivering fingers. The music crescendoed, and so did my feelings. Why had I ever given up this beautiful instrument? Why would I leave behind a world of melody and harmony for a life of sitting on the couch eating pretzels?

But then I remembered.

Everything changed at my 6th grade recital, only 3 years ago. My song was the Swan Lake overture by Tchaikovsky, and whereas the other kids had issues making the violin sound even remotely in tempo, I had played furiously. I remember I wanted to make my new middle school music teacher proud.

At first, I did well, but I got so lost in the music that I wasn't aware of what was going on around me. I finally snapped out when an audience member pulled the fire alarm, causing a shrill whistle to blow throughout the school. When asked why he did it, long after we had all evacuated the school and the recital was cut off, he pointed at newly 12 year-old me and snarled, "She made me do it. Her music hypnotized me!"

The faculty all thought he had lost his mind, of course, but the other kids in the recital, whose performances were never to be, teased me about it for years. It was a stupid, stupid memory of an event that probably only happened because the man was drunk or high or some combination thereof, but after that performance, I never could bring myself to play violin again.

Even though it made no sense, I was terrified that my song really had hypnotized the man. In the present, I realized it was all-too sensical: I had the blood of the god of music running through my veins. Who knew what I could do with that? What if I had powers of hypnotism that I simply couldn't control yet?

Wait. I thought. If you have powers that you can't control, then what are you doing right now?

I instantly stopped playing, so that the only noise was the breathy blow of Melete's flute. Opening my eyes, I saw my suspicions were true. The muses' and I's music had put Alec and Riley in a trance.

They had wandered past me and were now next to Mneme, who had set down her clarinet. On the counter next to where my siblings stood laid two papers, each with lots of fine print and then a giant X at the bottom. Alec was holding a pen, and then he was lowering it to the paper...

"What the Hades are you doing?!" I exclaimed. "Alec, stop!"

Alec turned his head up towards me, and for a moment his eyes were completely gold. Quickly, however, they faded back to to their regular sunbaked brown and narrowed significantly.

"What's going on?" he asked me, then to Mneme, "What is this?"

Melete blew one final, off-key note, then she lowered her flute, glaring at Mneme. "I told you she'd snap out of it! She's not a fool, you fool!"

With this, Riley blinked a few times and her eyes returned to their natural state as well. She glanced between Alec, the muses and I, then echoed, "What's going on?"

"You knew," I said to Mneme, "You knew I had uncontrollable powers with my music. This wasn't about helping you at all, this was about working Alec and Riley into a daze so they could do whatever that is!" I waved angrily at the contracts laying beside the lead muse.

Alec picked up a contract, and his already narrowed eyes became virtual slits. "This is a contract to join the Titan Army. Oh my gods, you were tricking us into betraying camp. Your allegiance is still to the titans!"

Again, I expected the Muses to get mad at the three of us, but, again, they instead exploded against each other.

"I told you!" Melete repeated, pointing a finger in Mneme's face. "In his first episode, Dr. Philoctetes said that in order to persuade people, you must 'Get real!' Not lie!"

"Dr. Philoctetes doesn't know what he's talking about!" This was Aiode, her hands flying up in exasperation. "We shouldn't even have to argue about this! We could've stayed on Mt. Olympus and portrayed ourselves as senile old goddesses, but instead YOU had to go and spill your guts about the Titans!"

She spun on Mneme too, and the argument deteriorated into a tumultous quarrel. I could barely catch what was happening; from the outside looking in, it was a flurry of flying hands and angry eyes.

Even as the train slowed to a stop and a voice on the intercom said, "We are now reaching Union Station," the muses continued to fight with each other. At one point, Melete straight-up slapped Mneme in the face, and I had to restrain from "ooh"-ing like it was a boxing match.

I glanced at Alec and Riley; the latter nodded at the door behind me and the former mouthed, Run.

So I did, turning to the door and pulling hard on the latch. It was still locked and wouldn't budge, but luckily, people were exiting the train at the moment, and a gentleman saw our predicament - er, saw we were locked in. I doubt he could even fathom the truth.

He slid open the door from the outside and my siblings and I burst through, pushing past with only Riley peeping a "Thank you!"

We merged with the line, and soon we found ourselves outside in the fading sun, on a station platform rimmed with benches and covered with an a-line metal canopy.

My head was spinning as we stumbled over to a bench. In an attempt at grounding myself, I tried to recount what just happened:

1.) More people brought up a mysterious thing called The Titan Army that's apparently pretty bad

2.) Titan muses pretending to be nice tried to use my strange, magic violin powers of hypnotism to get Alec and Riley to join said Titan Army

3.) I HAVE STRANGE, MAGIC VIOLIN POWERS OF HYPNOTISM.

I guess that man at my recital was never crazy. Maybe my music really had forced him to pull the fire alarm. The thought scared me, and my discomfort was made worse when I realized I was still holding the ivory violin in one hand and the bow in the other.

"That," Riley breathed after a moment, for once shaken, "Was very, very odd. Not the muses themselves, nor their betrayal, but the fact that I had no precognition of it happening. Usually... I know."

"And then there's the fact that apparently, you're a violin wizard," Alec added in my direction with a chuckle. "I guess I'm not the only one with newfound powers."

Well, they weren't exactly "newfound", but I felt myself smiling anyway. Yes, it was uncomfortable to know that every time I did the one thing I loved, I could end up causing strange and terrible things to happen, but at least I wasn't alone. Riley had her future vision, which evidently had the capacity to fail, and Alec had his photokinesis, which had come to our support once and never shown its face again.

And what all did my powers entail? I had no idea. But before I could figure that out, we had to figure out where the Hades we were.

As if we were mentally connected, Riley asked at that moment, "Where are we, anyway? Did we make it all the way to Norfolk?"

"I have no idea." Alec shielded his face with his hand as the sun, only beginning to set, glowed above the roof of the main station some distance away. I thought of Apollo, and wondered if he'd chosen for us to have these powers.

"We should probably find out," Riley said. "It's almost nighttime. Do we have enough money for another trip?"

Alec grimaced, fished around in his pocket, and came up empty handed. "No. I'm flat broke."

It was at this that I took my eyes away from the sunset and frantically stared at my brother. "What do you mean, you're broke? Are we just gonna hitch-hike to the Outer Banks?"

"We might have to."

Just like Aiode, I threw my hands up, but Riley put a calming hand in my shoulder.

"It'll be fine, but AJ," she said, then paused. "At least, I think it will..."

I desperately wanted to believe her.  The hopeful side of me wanted to think that it would all be okay, that with the camaraderie between my siblings and I we would escape any foe, just like we escaped Zephyros and Lamia and now The Elder Muses.

But my powers unnerved me. I knew there was something simmering, deep underneath this world's false facade of quirky characters and heart-pounding adventure. There was more to the gods than just bad parenting, and there was something more to our enemies than just bad morals.

So I asked, "What is the Titan Army?"

The uncomfortable, crestfallen looks on my siblings' faces told me everything I needed to know. But still, slowly but surely, as we made our way off of the platform and into the station, they explained everything. How rebel demigods were recruiting monsters to raise the Titans and rule the world. How the gods - and anybody associated with them - may meet certain death within the next few years. And how we were all in terrible danger.

It made my stomach hurt. I thought about my complacency that morning, how easily I'd said yes to going on this quest, with no knowledge of the safety I'd be ripping away from myself.

Screw you, 8 hours ago Me, I thought to myself as we finally exited the station. You may die now and it's all because you wanted Apollo to like you and to get a sense of "adventure". Adventure's overrated.

I may have stopped to laugh over the irony of how quickly I became jaded that day, but something caught my eye. In the distance beyond Union Station, silhouetted against the honey-gold of the setting sun, was the Washington Monument. It stood like a needle, guarding its home and piercing the heavens.

"I think," I murmured to Alec and Riley, "We've found ourselves in Washington D.C."

~ ☼ ~

Ah, man, finally another update! Thank you to anybody who is still willing to keep up with my sporadic writing style! Just for the record, the song AJ plays is "Danse Macabre" by Camille Saint-Saëns.

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