Hermes grips the reins, his eyes glued to the horizon. Below us, the ocean rolls, endless, inexorable. Waves and wind and the mew of a gull are the only sounds. The gull arcs up below the chariot and tilts sideways to peer at me with an inquiring eye. Her curiosity satisfied, she zooms back down. Her wings shift the air.

   A thin white ribbon of land begins to unfurl at the ocean's edge. My breath catches, fear and hope mingling together. I've looked down on that land from a chariot exactly once before— down on green hills speckled with sheep, and lakes shining like jewels in the sun, and towns of white houses clustered together like chattering girls. And this time? What will I see?

   The white ribbon broadens into a swathe of sand rimming a cove. It's scattered with bright dots like brilliantly colored beetles. But as we come closer, the beetles grow and grow, until suddenly they become broken fishing boats. A tiny figure tugs a dinghy like an ant pulling an oversized leaf. Around him, painted boards lie splintered on the sand.

   Beyond the beach, everything is brown and gray under the leaden sky. At first I think this is a rocky area, but then I see twigs strewn across the ground—no, not twigs, tree trunks. Thin lines twist through mud, so many letters etched in clay; they turn into battered stone walls. That's where fields and houses used to stand. There's no green anywhere, not a leaf, or a bud, or a shoot.

   Even when the shades in the throne room spoke of crops withering away, of rain stripping the land, even when I saw how many newcomers crowded the floor, I never thought it would be like this: the earth's insides churned up and strewn around like bodies after a grisly battle.

   A battle fought in my name.

   My hands open and close—I need my spade so I can work that soil! I need plows and hoes and rakes! I need to be a hundred bodies, a thousand, with enough hands to reach into that earth and urge it back toward life.

   We fly over a hut that somehow survived intact. A small figure appears at the door, tossing out a bucket of mud. Another flap of the horses' wings and I see someone tugging on a rope, trying to clear away a bloated animal carcass. I feel my stomach rising in my throat.

   She was trying to rescue me, I tell myself. She did this in the name of love.

   But how can I make the leap from that word, love, to the carnage spread out below me? My mother cared about rescuing one life: mine. To save me she was willing to starve and suffocate and bury mankind.

   How did anyone survive?

   The thought fills me with a sense of urgency. Melita was right! A young child alone, what hope would she have down there? How much time do I have to reach her? Am I already too late?

   I stare at the earth below, searching for the rock like a rooster's comb, the one Melita said towers over her house. Maybe I can land and find Philomena before we even reach Mount Olympus.

   "Go faster," I say.

   Hermes shrugs. He must think we're going fast enough. And he's not that good with the horses, anyway, not like Hades.

   I've seen them do better. I grab the reins out of Hermes' hands and bring them down with a slap on the horses' backs, urging them on. The air starts whipping by; the ground blurs.

   "What do you think you're doing?" shouts Hermes, snatching back the reins. The chariot jolts sideways, throwing me against the railing.

   "Don't you see?" I shout back. "There's no time! Look down there!"

   "You forget," he says in a calmer voice. "I've been here every day. That"—he nods down at a man slogging through the mud—"is an improvement."

   If Hermes and Hades are right, if I never return to my husband's side, maybe it's what I deserve. Me, the girl who couldn't bother to leave her mother a note: "Ran away with the man I love. All is well. Don't worry."

   But wait. Is it all my fault? What about Hades? How could he revel in this? And my mother . . .

   Guilt, anger, and hope are shoving around inside me like a herd of hungry goats, each demanding a turn.

   "Anyway, we're almost there," says Hermes.

   The land is rising higher and higher to meet us. Craggy rock faces jut into the clouds, and on one of the uppermost peaks, a gold-pillared temple flashes through sunless skies. Mount Olympus, home of the gods.