The contract was my ticket. I held my Copy-Blade. I needed to go to a place in the sky. I thought of the giant steel bird from the wasteland. I just needed the shape of its wings. I slashed the blade down.

  Two large, shimmering wings made of copied light unfolded from my back. They were silent. They were tools. I willed them to beat, and I flew.

  The world blurred. Then I was standing on bright white marble.

  Olympus.

  The air smelled of lightning. Huge golden gates stood before me. On either side of the gates stood two giant stone bowls, filled with clear, still water. I let the copied wings fade away.

  I looked up and shouted, my voice flat.

  “ZEUS! I am here for a debt! Come out!”

  A blur became a man. Hermes. He smiled. “A human at the door? What do you want?”

  “A contract,” I said. “It says I take something he owns.”

  Hermes looked me over. His smile thinned. “Wait.”

  He vanished.

  Hermes did not return.

  Instead, the giant golden gates began to open. From between them, Athena walked out. She was calm, her grey eyes full of knowing.

  At the same time, the water in the two stone bowls beside the gate began to swirl and rise. The water from both bowls came together and formed the shape of Poseidon. He stood dripping on the marble, his eyes like a stormy sea.

  “A stain on the perfection,” Poseidon growled, his voice like waves on rocks.

  Athena raised a hand. “Peace, Uncle.” She looked at me. “You do not belong here. Your ambition will be your death. Turn back. It is the only logical path.”

  I did not move. In my mind, I saw the debt: 4 UNIVERSES. Zeus’s head was the first step to being free.

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  “I am not here for logic,” I said. “I am here to collect.”

  Athena’s eyes changed. She pushed knowledge into my mind—all of war, all of history, every way I could die. It was a heavy weight.

  But my mind is not a normal mind.

  I am one-fifth of the god who first thought of knowing things.

  The flood of her knowledge hit me. It was big. But it felt familiar, like an old story. It did not break me. It was just words in my head.

  I blinked. “Are you done?”

  Athena’s calm face showed surprise.

  That was enough for Poseidon. A golden trident appeared in his hand. He didn’t run. He just pointed it at me, and a wall of ocean water, hard as stone, rushed at me.

  I didn’t think. My Copy-Blade moved on its own. It copied the hardness of diamond, the strength of the deepest earth, making a bright, solid shield in front of me.

  The tidal wave hit the shield.

  CRACK-BOOM!

  The shield shattered into pieces of light. The force was too great. It threw me back like a toy. I hit the marble hard, the air knocked from my lungs.

  Poseidon lowered his trident, looking down at me. “Pathetic.”

  I pushed myself up, my whole body aching. I looked at his trident. A thought, old and dusty, rose in my mind. “All trident users,” I coughed, “think they are the master of the sea. I’ve met the real one.” I was thinking of Lord Shiva, who holds a trident that can destroy worlds. This god was just a copy.

  Poseidon’s eyes flashed with rage. “You dare?!”

  He thrust his trident down at me. I rolled aside. The trident’s points smashed the marble where my head had been. The impact threw me toward the edge of the great staircase that led down from Olympus’s gates.

  I was falling backward, down the endless stairs.

  As I fell, I looked up. High above, on a balcony of clouds, I finally saw him. Zeus. He was watching, a faint frown on his face, as if I were a mildly interesting bug.

  There.

  My hand shot out. Not for the Copy-Blade, but for the Ur-Blade on my back. As I fell past Poseidon, who was leaning over the broken edge, I swung the dark blade.

  It didn’t make a sound. It passed through the air, and then through the edge of his watery robe.

  Nothing happened. No cut. No wound. But Poseidon flinched back as if burned, looking at the place where the blade had passed. A look of confusion and then cold fear flashed in his eyes. The Ur-Blade hadn’t cut his body. It had cut a tiny piece of his divine claim to the sea. A piece of his authority was now missing.

  I didn’t see more. I was falling.

  Wings, I thought.

  The Copy-Blade was still in my hand. I slashed it sideways as the wind screamed past me. The giant bird’ wing-template filled my mind again.

  Two shimmering, solid wings burst from my back. They caught the air. My fall turned into a swoop, then a climb. I beat the wings, hard, flying not away, but up.

  Up the great staircase.

  Up past the golden gates.

  Up toward the cloud balcony.

  Up toward Zeus.