You know when you’re in an airplane and the pilot announces Folks, to our left is the Sierra Nevadas and to our right is Lake Tahoe. Enjoy the sights while we begin our descent, but you look out the left window and peer as far as you can through the right window though it’s blocked by three people plus the two next to you but either way, you see nothing but green or brown broken up by clouds and it’s more of a sightsee to go through a billowy cloud with the green and brown only the background and not the sight that takes your breath?

Well, the realm of the gods is surrounded by, you guessed it, clouds. But stone castles tower high above the tops of the clouds and jut near the dark sky high above. The plane ride to Monterrey reminds me of this sight – the clouds are the highlight, the earthly sights are the background.

We stand hilltops away, the castle the size of my pointer finger from this far. Before us, the clouds give way to solid ground intermingled with bright white fog. And the castle is more like pillars carved from marble with no walls or windows, completely open like the Persian king of old timey days which was eventually overtaken probably because of the no wall thing.

And my mind drifts like the clouds, from my advanced history course to the realm of the gods as smoothly as a car runs on square tires.

Pastures of grass combine with white and tan and purple sands speckled with a few trees. A massive river flows around the castle footing with a waterfall filling its rapids though the waterfall, I can’t tell where it starts, it just is.

“Will Zeus actually fight us if we didn’t bring the key?” I ask.

Talis pulls at a bracelet, one of many, before pulling the hood over his head. “Yes.” The twinge of a smile hints to what Talis might enjoy more than a quick trip to grab a key. “He and I do not work well together, as history has revealed.”

“What could you possibly mean?

He winks, the hint of the smile growing into a gentle one. “You have yet to realize you’re magic, so you will discover it today.”

“What?” The sun crests behind the castle, casting a mighty shadow against the grounds before us. “Don’t you know my magic if we’ve been together for so long?”

Talis chuckles and pats my back and I stumble forward. “You will be fine.”

“I wasn’t fine with Siegrist,” I say.

Talis grabs both of my shoulders and squares me to him. “Yes. Yes, you were. Did you not see it?”

The clouds around the castle charge with electricity. Crackles and sizzles fill the air. The words faint in the back of my mind, Priya and Mangha pause just long enough to send a chill down my spine. And the thought of the rat reminds me of Levon and Tessa. “Where do you think Levon is at now? If we’re here?”

He adjusts another bracelet, his chest puffed with air. But the exhale gives no words.

“Can we die here?” I ask.

His fingers tighten gently and release. “He knows we are near,” Talis says. “Here.” He pulls out the pouch mom gave me and closes my hand over top. “Protect this with your life for I will surely be the focus of his malevenous strikes but you, Lyla, you will slip by unnoticed and gather the map from Zeus’s holdings.”

I tuck the pouch into my bra, Talis glancing away while I nestle it in. “How will I know where it’s at? Or what it looks like? Also, how is he not going to notice me?”

His brow arches, an amused smirk tugs at the corner of his lips. “I have no idea.” He nudges me forward, my shoes sink just slightly into the purple sand, a blade of grass pressed over. “But if you took your shoes off, you would be able to find anything on the face of this earth.”

Oh my, oh my.