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    woo-woo and still sinking.”

    I grimaced. Yeah, that was kind of what I was afraid of. “Where’s a life vest when you
    need it?” I joked feebly.

    Maggie reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a slim compact. “There’s
    something I think you should see,” she said, thumbing the compact open and then handing it to
    me.

    Hesitantly, I took the compact from her hand. The makeup inside looked ordinary
    enough, so I guessed that the something I needed to see would be in the mirror. Holding my
    breath, I opened the compact all the way and looked at my reflection.

    I looked awful. There was a big lump on my temple, and my right eye was thoroughly
    blackened. The entire left side of my face was one big bruise from where Jamaal had kicked
    me—though the bruise looked like it was about three days old. But clearly, that wasn’t what
    Maggie had wanted me to see.

    No, what Maggie wanted me to see was the iridescent mark on my forehead. It vaguely
    resembled a half moon with an arrow through its middle. My mouth dropped open and my eyes
    widened as I reached up to touch the mark that quite obviously was not a tattoo.

    “What the fuck is that?” I whispered.

    “It’s a glyph,” Maggie explained, holding out her hand so I could see the mark on the
    back of it. Hers looked like stylized circular lightning bolt. “It represents whose line you’re
    descended from.”

    “Line?” My voice sounded hollow, and I stared intently at the mirror. The glyph wouldn’t
    go away, no matter how many times I blinked or how I rubbed it.

    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Maggie run a finger over the glyph on her hand.
    “Mine represents Zeus,” she said. “I’ve never seen one like yours before, but Anderson says it’s
    Artemis. I didn’t think she had any descendants—she was supposed to be a virgin goddess—but
    I’ll take his word for it.”

    “Artemis.” I sounded like a mentally challenged myna bird, but none of this was quite
    sinking in. My rational mind threw in the towel, deciding to go hide somewhere safe until the
    world returned to order.

    “Emmitt was from Hades’ line. Jamaal’s a descendant of Kali, and he and Emmitt bonded
    like brothers because both of them possessed death magic. Emmitt was mentoring him, teaching
    him control, but Jamaal still had a long way to go. Without Emmitt to balance him, it’s hard to
    know if he’ll be able to hold it together.

    “You also met Logan, right?” She didn’t wait for my answer. “He’s Tyr.” She cocked her
    head at me. “Are you familiar with Tyr?”

    Totally numb—and not comprehending a word of what I was hearing—I shook my head.

    “He was an old Germanic war god. Descendants of war gods tend to be kind of cranky,
    but Logan is one of the most easygoing people I know. Oh, and I almost forgot Blake.” She
    made a face, making it clear Blake was not her favorite person. “He’s a descendant of Eros.
    Despite that cutesy Cupid tattoo he’s got, there’s nothing even remotely cherubic about him.
    He’s easily as deadly as Jamaal. He’s just not as in-your-face about it.”

    I remembered the way Blake had looked at me while he was playing bad cop. That was
    plenty in-your-face for me.

    Maggie gave my shoulder another sympathetic squeeze. “I know this has got to be
    overwhelming, and you probably don’t believe half of what I’ve said. I’ll give you the quick
    highlights and then give you some time to try to absorb it all.

    “Anderson and the rest of us are what is known as Liberi Deorum , which means ‘children
    of the gods’ in Latin. A long time ago, when the ancient gods were still around, they had children
    with mortals. Before the gods left Earth, they gave each of their children a seed from the Tree of
    Life. This seed made them immortal, and the Liberi thought they were gods themselves as a
    result. The only limitation they had—as far as they knew—was that they couldn’t make their
    own