The journey to Earth was quiet. Too quiet. Hermes didn’t speak much, and when he did, his voice was careful, like every word cost him something. I knew what he wanted to say. I knew what he couldn’t. So I stayed quiet too, and watched the stars ripple through the mist as Olympus slipped behind us.

  When we arrived at the compound, I saw them—the twelve.

  They were smaller than I expected. Younger. Real. Laughing in the field as if the world wasn’t teetering on the edge of collapse. They didn’t know what I knew. They didn’t feel the weight I already carried.

  I met them one by one. Ella was the first to smile at me. Leander, the last to speak. Damian wouldn’t stop talking. Xandor watched everything. And Cassie…

  Cassie and I spent three days together.

  They were the strangest, most important days of my life. We were so different, and yet, something about her felt like coming home. She braided my hair. I helped her pack. We told stories and whispered fears neither of us had the words to understand. And though we never said it, we loved each other.

  The night before she left, she cried when she thought I was asleep. I wanted to hold her hand, but I was too afraid I’d never let go.

  We weren’t told what to say. But we knew. There was something in the way she looked at me. Like she knew I was taking her place. And she hated it—but not because she wanted to stay. Because she wanted to help. Because she believed she could’ve done more.

  We played cards. We shared a bed. We stayed up the last night staring at the stars through the cracks in the ceiling and never said goodbye.

  The next morning, I moved through the compound quietly.

  I didn’t want to forget her. I didn’t want to erase her.

  But I had promised.

  And promises, when made on Olympus, were never light things.

  I went to each of the demigods. To their guardians. And I erased her.

  One by one, I removed every memory of Cassie.

  It hurt. Every time. I felt it in my bones. But I made sure they remembered joy. They remembered laughter. They remembered love. They just didn’t remember her.

  Hermes stood beside the gate, waiting for me when I returned.

  Cassie didn’t look back.

  And when they were gone, I stood alone in the field, the cold morning air brushing against my skin.

  Then I closed my eyes.

  And I let go.

  Of my name.

  Of Olympus.

  Of my power.

  Of everything.

  Until I was nothing but a four-year-old girl.

  And I stepped forward into the life I had chosen.

  She stood over Cole’s still body for a moment longer, golden light still clinging to her skin like dawn refusing to fade. Then she turned to face us—her friends. Her family.

  We stared at her in stunned silence. Disbelief, joy, and something like fear flickered through the group. We had fought beside her for years, and yet we had never truly seen her. Not like this.

  She didn’t speak right away. She just walked forward, calm and purposeful. When she reached Peter, still gripped by Cole’s hold, she placed a single finger to his forehead. His eyes widened, the fog lifting like a veil torn away, and he gasped as Bay and Ella gently released him. He blinked, dazed—but himself again.

  Stephen stood motionless, eyes unfocused, hands limp at his sides. Leander and Hector still held him, not out of force, but in case the last of Cole’s grip flared up again. Zoe stepped closer and placed her palms gently on either side of his head. He didn’t resist. He didn’t even flinch. Her touch lingered, and I watched—frozen—as something shifted in him.

  His shoulders slumped. His eyes blinked fast, the confusion giving way to something deeper. Recognition. Pain. Remorse. He looked like a boy again. The boy I remembered from when we were kids. The one who used to sneak extra food to the others when rations were tight. The one who had always protected Phoenix.

  His lip trembled. He looked close to tears.

  Zoe leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.

  He let out a shaky breath. “Thank you,” he whispered. “For freeing me.”

  Then she turned to Angelina.

  Angelina had stopped crying, but she looked shattered. Hollow. Zoe didn’t hesitate. She walked to her, pulled her to her feet, and wrapped her in a hug that was more than just forgiveness. It was healing.

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  When she let go, she turned to me.

  And she smiled.

  It wasn’t radiant like the goddess she’d become—it was soft, familiar, the Zoe I had always known. And it undid me.

  She turned to Helena next and asked her to heal the wounded. Helena nodded, tears in her eyes, and moved quickly to those who needed her.

  Then Zoe looked at all of us.

  Damian—of course—was the one to break the silence. “Okay, what just happened?”

  Zoe laughed. Lightly. Gently. Then she grew quiet again.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “For not telling you sooner. For not knowing it myself.”

  She paused. The silence wrapped around us like reverence.

  “I’m not a demigod,” she said at last. “I’m a goddess. Daughter of Hermes… and Hecate. Goddess of the mental realms.”

  My heart pounded.

  She turned toward the gates of Olympus, her voice echoing like prophecy.

  “Now I must go to Olympus and set things right. There is someone you all need to meet—the real twelfth demigod. Your memories of her, the ones I stole long ago, will return while I’m gone.”

  The moment she said it, something cracked in my chest.

  It sounded like a farewell.

  Panic bloomed, quick and cruel.

  She couldn’t leave.

  She couldn’t just go—not now. Not when she had just come back.

  But even as I thought it, I remembered what she was.

  A goddess.

  She didn’t belong here—not really. Not with us. Not with me.

  She belonged on Olympus.

  With the other gods.

  Not among mortals.

  Not with the son of a Titan.

  Not with someone who was only ever half of anything.

  Even if—for the longest time—we’d all felt like a family.

  Even if I had fallen in love with her the moment she reached for my hand in the dark.

  There was no way a goddess would ever choose to stay.

  Not when she’d seen Olympus. Not when she had power thrumming in her veins like starlight. Not when the weight of prophecy and legacy called her back to the place she truly belonged.

  But gods, I wanted her to.

  I wanted her to stay for late nights and quiet smiles. For the way she looked at the world like it still had wonder in it. For the version of me that only existed when I was with her.

  I had no right to ask for it.

  But I still hoped.

  I placed a hand on the gates.

  The marble beneath my fingers pulsed faintly, as if it recognized me. The magic within the archway shimmered—waiting, ready.

  I looked up at the sky, my voice soft but sure. “Hermes… let me return to Olympus.”

  The gates answered before the wind could.

  They opened with a sound like distant bells, ancient and slow. The light beyond them was golden, endless, familiar.

  I stepped forward.

  Every footfall felt heavier than the last. I crossed the threshold, the warmth of Olympus brushing against my skin like a home I had forgotten—but still carried in my bones.

  And then I turned.

  The gates still stood open behind me. Through them, I saw my family—the eleven I had fought beside, laughed with, bled for. They were still. Watching.

  I met Helena’s gaze first. Her eyes were shining, her lips parted like she wanted to call out to me. I smiled at her—the kind of smile that carried everything I couldn’t say. She had been my big sister, even when I didn’t remember why it felt that way.

  And then my eyes found Xandor.

  He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. But I saw it in his face—the pain. The understanding.

  The goodbye.

  Gods, I didn’t want to say it.

  But this was the plan. The switch would happen once more. Cassie would return to Earth, to the life she had been meant to live. She belonged here—with them. And I… I belonged there.

  Where I had started.

  Where I was born.

  And yet, my heart ached.

  I would miss them all. But Helena—she had been my light in the dark. My constant. Losing her again felt like tearing off a piece of my soul.

  And Xandor…

  He had been the one who helped me face my fear and fly for the first time—he was the wind beneath my wings. He had been the starlight while I was the sunlight, different but in perfect harmony. He was the first one I reached for when my telepathic abilities began to form—I knew his mind nearly as well as my own. He had challenged me, supported me, seen me. Loved me. And I trusted him with everything.

  And I… I had waited too long.

  I would regret that forever.

  I gave them both one last look.

  Then I closed the gates behind me.

  And the world went quiet.

  But not for long.

  As I stepped fully into Olympus, the golden light wrapping around me like a cloak, I saw them—waiting. The golden corridors shimmered ahead, silent and grand, but I barely saw them. My eyes locked first on the people standing beneath the archway: four gods who had shaped the world I came from and the one I had stepped into.

  Cassie stood front and center, her hands clenched, eyes already filling. Her posture was strong, but her breath hitched the moment our eyes met. Hecate beside her, serene and powerful as always, offered me the smallest nod. Athena stood like a statue of marble come to life, fierce and composed, while Hera observed with that unreadable expression that saw everything and gave nothing away.

  And then there was Hermes—my father—his expression flickering between pride, sorrow, and awe.

  They had waited for me.

  They were welcoming me home.

  Cassie was the first to move.

  She moved fast—faster than anyone I’d ever seen besides our father. A streak of motion, all breath and emotion and urgency. She ran to me, no hesitation, no formality. Just two sisters colliding after a lifetime apart. She threw her arms around me, and I caught her, holding tight as emotion surged through both of us.

  For a moment, I didn’t feel like a goddess.

  I just felt like her sister.

  We were both daughters of Hermes. And finally, we were back together.

  When we pulled apart, her hands lingered on my shoulders, as if making sure I was real. Her fingers trembled slightly, her eyes still wide and wet with disbelief. I reached up and covered her hands with mine, grounding us both in the moment. “I’m here,” I whispered, voice shaking. She let out a tiny laugh, half relief, half overwhelmed wonder. I smiled through the tears in my eyes, heart full to breaking. We had found each other again.

  Then I turned.

  Hecate stood just behind her, eyes shimmering with pride and something more—something ancient and maternal.

  “Mother,” I whispered.

  I fell into her arms, and she wrapped me in a silence that said everything. Her embrace was grounding, powerful, like being held by magic itself. I buried my face into her shoulder for a moment, breathing in the scent of wild herbs and cool midnight air—everything that was her. She didn’t say a word, and she didn’t need to. It was all there in the way she held me: the love, the pride, the pain of letting me go.

  And then I turned to Hermes.

  He stood a few steps behind the others, his usual energy subdued beneath the weight in his eyes. When I walked toward him, he didn’t speak. His hands shook slightly when he reached for mine.

  “I’m so proud of you,” he said softly. “I always was.”

  “I know,” I whispered, and I reached up and pulled him into a hug.

  He held me close like he had when I was small, his heartbeat steady against mine. “I missed you,” he murmured.

  “I missed you, too.” I didn’t want to let go. But I did.

  But I did.

  Because Athena and Hera were waiting.

  They gave no speeches. No declarations. Just nodded once, their expressions solemn and knowing.

  “Come,” Athena said. “It’s time.”

  Together, the five of us turned toward the gleaming halls of Olympus.

  And walked toward the throne room.