ROSE

Pasiphae yelled, "Charge!"

The monsters dashed at us like some rabid animals on the loose, three dog-headed, human-bodied monsters attacked me at once. I was able to dodge one of their attacks, but the other two smacked me into the nearest bookshelf, toppling down the entire history genre section.

Just as the monsters were about to hit me again, an arrow pierced through all three of the monster's chests at one time. Amethyst helped me up as we continued fighting.

I cast a few fire, water, and electric spells at some of the dog things, but my last spell was deflected back at me by a forcefield. I was able to dodge the blow, having to roll out of the way quickly as the spell clattered a bookshelf almost right on top of me.

Pasiphae smiled with her pearly white teeth. "Ready for round two?"

"I can't believe I'm technically related to you," I grumbled.

I dodged one of her energy blasts and got a good strike on her leg. The last time I had fought Pasiphae, I had been able to defeat her pretty easily as she was certainly no combatant, but she seemed to have improved since then and I had had the aid of both Kai and Arthur that time.

I telekinetically lifted up a few books and threw them at her, but Pasiphae lifted up a table and blocked them. She then threw the table at me, which narrowly sailed by my head and knocked over yet another bookshelf. The real Clio, wherever she was, would likely be very ticked at the damage done to the library.

The two of us kept exchanging spells, matching each other shot-for-shot. Normally I'd take pride in being level to a goddess in magic prowess, but Pasiphae is a notoriously bad sorceress in terms of battling capabilities, with her whole gimmick being illusions and tricks of the Mist, and whenever that goes wrong, disappear into the Mist to terrorize more demigods.

I scanned the area around me very quickly and got a sliver of hope - my friends seemed to be doing well on their own, which meant that if I somehow screwed this up, they could have my back and take down Pasiphae. Alexander was smacking and swatting away the clay things with relative ease, Geneva was slaying monsters left and right, and Amethyst's shots were pinpoint and slayed each monster on hit.

Pasiphae snapped her fingers, and a bookshelf came falling onto me. I was able to catch it telekinetically, but she then blasted me backwards with an energy wave.

I got up quickly and cast a vine spell to bind Pasiphae's ankles together, as she waddled forward like a kid with their shoelaces tied together. I used the opportunity to fling books at Pasiphae until she was able to break herself out with a magic knife she created.

She threw the knife at me with razor sharp precision and speed, but I was just able to flick the knife to the side, impaling a dog monster who was trying to be all slick and sneaky and snap my neck without my knowing.

Pasiphae levitated herself off the ground and began firing energy blasts everywhere, destroying tables and throwing around books. Most of her blasts narrowly missed me, but one connected with my leg and sent me barreling into a wooden table, my back taking the brunt of the damage.

Pasiphae summoned a bunch of dark energy knives out of nowhere and prepared to fire me at them.

When the knives came towards me, I snapped, casting a reversal spell and sending the knives back at Pasiphae, hitting her into the librarian's desk. On impact with the table, some weird click sound occurred and the table scooted back three inches, revealing a secret staircase going down somewhere.

I heard a muffled scream from downstairs and ran down towards the sounds, Pasiphae still incapacitated.

Under the library was a regular-sized room that looked as if it had been through war. There was a queen-sized bed that had books and crumbs covering it. The sheets were extremely untidy and more than half of the pillows were lying on the pink carpeted floor, which was covered in paper, colored pencils, and books. There was a desk and multiple bookshelves which were all dusty and unkempt, as well as a random door that stood from across from me.

I heard the scream again, this time coming from the weird door. I busted the door open and saw Clio, the real one this time, locked in metallic bonds. She had tape over her mouth and was fidgeting like crazy, trying hopelessly to unbind herself.

Seeing her kind of reminded me of Hecate in Erebos' cage, but she was definitely a lot more vocal about her discomfort.

I quickly unchained and ungagged her, and she hugged me in cheeriness.

"Thank you, hero person!" Clio exclaimed, speaking very quickly. "Oh, I'm sorry about calling you a person. I mean, you are a person, but it sounds demeaning given the way I said it, so I'm very sorry."

"...okay then," I said, weirded out. "Um, what happened to you?"

Clio took a deep breath. "Well, I was in my library, minding my own business and reading the Iliad - the best book series ever, behind the Odyssey and Harry Potter and Pride and Prejudice and Lord of the Rings - when Pasiphae and the gegeines and the cynocephali arrived and chained me up here in these metallic, unbreakable bonds."

"I see," I said, taken aback by how she managed to say all of that in one breath. "Let's get you out of here, okay?"

Clio nodded as we exited the weird bathroom area we had just been in. Man, this Clio person had reminded me so much of Amethyst during that conversation to the point where I thought they were like, related or something, and then I took one look at the general messiness of her room and immediately ruled out the possibility.

I spotted Pasiphae waiting for us near the stairs, a deep scowl on her face and eyes that were blood red.

"I've been foiled for the last time," Pasiphae growled. "I will not be beaten by a demigod twice!"

She created a dark energy sword and lunged at me. As I held my knives up in defense, Clio easily caught Pasiphae's attack with her hand and kicked her into a table.

Pasiphae tried dashing again, but Clio swept her legs out. She was truly getting bodied by someone who I presume isn't your typical fighter, and it was kind of funny to see.

Suddenly though, Pasiphae roared angrily and Clio was lifted up telekinetically and flung across the room, smacking her head on the side of her bed.

Pasiphae turned her sights on me and blasted and cast an energy projectile of decent size, but I was able to cancel her blast out with one of my own. I then shot an electric spell at her, hitting her square in the chest and smacking her into the staircase.

Pasiphae hurriedly ran up the stairs and back to her troops, but she was completely taken by surprise when she realized that my friends had taken them all down. Clio and I dashed up the steps as the six of us surrounded Pasiphae in a circle. For good measure, I blasted Pasiphae with all I had, the sorceress being flung all the way to the glass doors up front.

I joined up with my friends as we stood in front of a knocked down Pasiphae, who had bruises all over her skin and had golden liquor dropping off her body.

"This is a classic bad guy situation," Alexander said. "Just give up, witch."

Pasiphae snarled. "No! I will take all six of you down!"

"Yeah, right," Geneva said.

She dashed at Pasiphae with her daggers raised, but Pasiphae smiled mischievously as a portal suddenly opened up beneath Geneva's feet and teleported her away.

"What the heck did you do to her?" I asked angrily.

"Oh, I sent her far away from here," Pasiphae said, cackling between words. "Somewhere she'll probably never return."

Alexander roared before throwing a table at the goddess, hitting her hard in the face. Before Pasiphae could get up, Amethyst shot a hydra arrow at her legs, binding her legs in rope, before repeating the process with her arms and torso region.

I then held my knives against her neck and demanded, "Where is Geneva?"

Pasiphae laughed before saying, "You heroes are so funny. I'll see you again, Rose. And when the time comes, I'll be ready."

Pasiphae then disappeared in a flash of light, leaving us with our own conflicting emotions.

I buried my head in my hands as I sat down in shame. Once again, this was my fault. The universe always had some way of proving me wrong. First it was picking Kai on the quest and him almost dying. Now it was Geneva.

"Not to rush your emotions or anything - if that saying even makes sense - but why did you four come here in the first place?" Clio asked.

"We came here because your sister told us to," Amethyst answered. "She said you'd have some knowledge to share or something."

"Well, she was right, I suppose," Clio replied. "I'll tell you this: seek out the father of excuses for the next step of your quest. And also, don't go to Athens until the time is right. Goodbye heroes."

Clio then speedily went downstairs as the desk closed up behind her.

"What in Zeus' name did she just tell us?" Alexander asked.

"We'll figure that out later," I said with exasperation. "For now, let's get back to Kai and Oman."

The three of us exited the library and began our way back to the ship. The trip back was honestly a blur, as I was too wrapped up with what a crappy leader I was to realize we had arrived back.

When Oman saw us, he perked up and ran to us. When he saw our gloomy expressions, he asked, "What's the matter with y'all?"

Amethyst quickly briefed him on what happened.

When Oman found out about Geneva, he gasped. "No! And y'all don't know where she is?"

"Just that she's going somewhere she will 'never come back'," Alexander answered.

"While that news isn't good, you three need to buck up," Oman said.

Amethyst looked at him, baffled and angry. "You want us to 'buck up' even though we know she's probably going to die? We already lost Arthur, but Geneva too?"

"That's probably not true," Oman said. "Pasiphae was probably just tryin' to toy with y'all. Geneva's a smart lass. She'll be able to survive whatever hits her."

I didn't believe him, but I appreciated his attempt to make us feel better. He hadn't had it easy either, so for him to try and keep our spirits up was nice of him. "I can only hope so. Thanks, Oman."

Oman smiled. "No problem, sweetheart. Now where are we headin' next?"

"I have no idea," I said.

"Sounds great," Oman said. "I'll just go ahead and start the engine and fly around. Maybe y'all will see something for us to do."

I nodded as the three of us headed back to our cabins, completely defeated.

As I sat on my bed, I asked myself a question, one that had been running in my head a lot as of recently; Was I fit to be leader of this quest?

I mean, the cons, so far, have heavily outweighed the pros. I'm inexperienced, I only found out I was a demigod three months ago, and because of me, Geneva was probably dead or lost. The only thing that justified my leadership was that 'I knew the Mist like no others' or whatever Chiron had said, and even that didn't really help much.

Additionally, I was supposed to die at some point. How in Olympus was I supposed to deal with or stop that? And I was also expected to prevent someone from dying to their own fire, whoever that was, since it apparently isn't Kai.

I got a knock on my door as I flashed back to the real world.

"Come in," I said.

I expected it to be Amethyst, as I often met with her late at night to talk, but instead, it was Kai. Not that I didn't want to talk with him, but I just didn't anticipate his arrival.

"Hey, I noticed you guys were all kind of sad earlier," he said. "What was that about? I was, uh, busy eating waffles and sleeping. Oh, and watching Friends."

I quickly told him about the events in Portugal.

"Dang, that sucks," Kai said. "But don't take what Pasiphae said too seriously. Geneva will be fine, wherever she is, because despite having the angry energy of the Hulk, she's pretty smart. She can probably take on anything."

I shrugged and muttered, "I guess."

"There's definitely something else bothering you, Rose," Kai said. "Wait, are you mad because you found out Alexander used your spellbook for his Cinderella experiment?"

I managed a weak laugh. "No, not that. Kai, do you think that Chiron made the right choice when he chose me to lead this quest?"

"Of course, Rose."

"Then why do I feel so helpless? Half the time, you guys have to save my butt and I never really know what to do. I don't think I'm cut out to be the leader of this quest, and this whole journey is major proof of that."

Kai sighed before saying, "Rose, every leader makes mistakes. And believe me, you're a good leader. An amazing one, actually. You may not believe it, but we all do. We believe and trust in you, Rose. That's why Chiron chose you for this quest. Also, you're the daughter of the Mist goddess. Saving the Mist is right in your wheelhouse."

"Thanks, Kai," I said. "That... means a lot."

Kai smiled. "No problem, Rose." He then patted me on the back and left my room.

I felt much better now that Kai had talked to me. When he wasn't acting like a complete jokester and rushing into things, he was a pretty down-to-earth guy. I mean, look at Alexander. The guy was a mess until Kai met him, and now he's a powerful, goofy demigod who I considered a dear friend.

My story was much the same. I was an emotional mess with an unloving sister and a dead father before I met Kai and Amethyst. If it hadn't been for the two Birchwood twins, I never would've gotten where I was now.

I sighed and took out my spellbook. I made a silent prayer to Olympus, hoping that Geneva would be safe wherever she was.