[i]It’s Zeus you should fear.[/i] Redana’s hackles rise. When has she ever been afraid of her father? Even once? Her father is complicated and scared of the cycle of violence and wants you to be the most yourself that you can possibly be. And, sure, that might mean encouraging the Master of Assassins to be the best killer that she can be, but part of being Redana Claudius is being very good at not being killed, so it will even out, probably!

“Well, Zeus doesn’t give her favor to people who sit in the back,” she says, a little too loudly, before she remembers to keep talking through Lacedo. “She doesn’t! If I stay up here, she’ll turn out to have a plan for blowing this horrible ship out of the sky. At least if we all go down together, she’ll have to go through [i]all[/i] of us. And that way, my dad— Zeus the Thunderer will be more inclined to look on us with favor, too. I say we land and meet her with our heads held high.”

It’s a scary thought, but what’s scarier is the plan of staying up here while her friends risk their lives, or worse, not having a plan at all. Just spinning her wheels while, down there, Bella suffers and the Master of Assassins waits smugly. Better to do something, anything. Better to [i]try.[/i]