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something right, that she’d brought someone special into the world. Her tears spilled.
    “Knock off that crying,” Demeter croaked.
    “I lost her!”
    “Crying won’t help right now.”
    Eris sniffled and wiped her nose. “I can’t even put my will into the ground, like you just did. I can’t create the circle of energy you just created.”
    “You have feet, don’t you?”
    It’s just like Demeter to sit there all imperious and tell me what to do after I’ve ruined everything. Eris glared. “Feet?”
    “Your feet aren’t as good as your hands for focusing and directing energy, but that’s what you have, Eris. So buck up and start figuring out how you’re going to be a one-armed witch.”
    Eris turned her back on her mother, but that left her looking at the water that had just swept Seph to her doom. She choked on a sob she didn’t want Demeter to hear.
    “Your feet have carried you all your life,” Demeter said. “You just need to figure out a new way of walking.”
    Spinning back, Eris shouted, “Don’t lecture me! Persephone is”—she swung her arm and pointed, and it was so not normal to do this with her left arm—“ out there! ”
    “And you couldn’t—”
    “Don’t you dare lay this on me!” The tears sprang up again. “I tried. I did the best I could.” But she hadn’t. She hadn’t believed this could happen. She hadn’t believed the goddess would allow it to happen.
    Eris saw her mother’s pained face. “You’re lucky you didn’t break a hip.” She reached out to Demeter, ready to lever her up.
    Demeter accepted her hand and tried to stand, but she cried out, “Let me sit, let me sit!”
    Eris noticed the shallow trenches in the embankment mud. “You didn’t scoot over the edge and ease down. You fell.”
    “Everybody else did tonight. Why not me?”
    Eris invoked the Norse healing goddess. “Eir’s sweet mercy, Mom!”
    Demeter rubbed at her knee. “I could use some of Eir’s attention right now, but I’d settle for an OxyContin.”

CHAPTER FIVE

    H ecate’s dragon-drawn boat dropped me off at the island in the middle of the lake. It was comprised of a narrow, muddy shoreline around a sun-bleached stone that, when viewed from the opposite shore, seemed like a giant’s spearhead rammed into the earth.
    I walked to the backside of the huge rock, searching for the crevice I’d entered when Hecate, in the form of a mustang, had led me here during the sorsanimus . This time, there was no crevice.
    My shoulders slumped. She’d delivered me here, so what was I supposed to do now?
    The fog shifted and swirled. A thunderous cry heralded me.
    A griffon limped into view. He was missing a few talons on his right foreleg, and his gait identified him as much as his sleek black feathers and tiger body did. “Thunderbird!” He was missing his right eye as well, so he kept his head slightly aslant to monitor me. “How did you get here ?” He was supposed to be in the barn at my farmhouse in the real world.
    “The goddess,” he said.
    I stumbled, then froze. “You. Talk?”
    “Your totem animal can speak in this place. Why shouldn’t I?”
    He sounded unnervingly like the actor Patrick Stewart. “Right.” Still, the shock felt like a kick in the chest.
    He positioned himself facing the water and stretched the wing nearest me back toward his haunches. With a nod he indicated that I should sit astride him. “Shall we?”
    A test of air obviously included flying. Still, I hesitated. “What are we supposed to do?”
    “I do not know.”
    “That makes two of us.”
    He wiggled his wing insistently. “Get on.”
    He wasn’t quite the size of a pony. No grown-up in her right mind would expect him to ably carry her. “I’m too big.”
    His one eye tilted in its socket, up then down. “No, you’re not.”
    I gave him the once-over, assessing the muscular tiger body. This has to be done. This destiny of mine depends on the three of us.
    Hauling my skirt up, I