A 1

The goddess sipped her tea. Her eyes sparkled mischievously. “Annabeth Chase, you’ve grown
into quite a beautiful young lady. You really should do something with your hair, though. And, Hazel
Levesque, your clothes—”
“My clothes?” Hazel looked down at her rumpled denim, not self-consciously, but baffled, as if she
couldn’t imagine what was wrong with them.
“Mother!” Piper said. “You’re embarrassing me.”
“Well, I don’t see why,” the goddess said. “Just because you don’t appreciate my fashion tips, Piper,
doesn’t mean the others won’t. I could do a quick makeover for Annabeth and Hazel, perhaps silk ball
gowns like mine—”
“Mother!”
“Fine,” Aphrodite sighed. “To answer your question, Annabeth, I am both Aphrodite and Venus.
Unlike many of my fellow Olympians, I changed hardly at all from one age to the other. In fact, I like
to think I haven’t aged a bit!” Her fingers fluttered around her face appreciatively. “Love is love, after
all, whether you’re Greek or Roman. This civil war won’t affect me as much as it will the others.”
Wonderful, Annabeth thought. Her own mother, the most levelheaded Olympian, was reduced to
a raving, vicious scatterbrain in a subway station. And of all the gods who might help them, the only
ones not affected by the Greek–Roman schism seemed to be Aphrodite, Nemesis, and Dionysus.
Love, revenge, wine. Very helpful.
Hazel nibbled a sugar cookie. “We’re not in a war yet, my lady.”
“Oh, dear Hazel.” Aphrodite folded her fan. “Such optimism, yet you have heartrending days
ahead of you. Of course war is coming. Love and war always go together. They are the peaks of human
emotion! Evil and good, beauty and ugliness.”
She smiled at Annabeth as if she knew what Annabeth had been thinking earlier about the Old
South.