‘It’s hardly perfect,’ Aphrodite stated caustically, her eyes sweeping over the mound of oats, which had been pushed to the far end of the barn as a result of the gusting wind. ‘Not all the grain is separated.’

‘You are being somewhat unfair.’

‘The task was to properly divide all the wheat and oats.’

Zeus raised a single bushy eyebrow. ‘In twelve hours?Even you have to admit that she did a good job with the time she had.’

‘She had help. She couldn’t have done this alone.’

‘Your son hasn’t left Olympus for days.’

‘That doesn’t mean he didn’t inveigle someone else into helping.’

‘Aphrodite…’

‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘The girl passed.’

Zeus watched her, his face impassive. ‘He is really in love with her.’

‘The question is whether she returns the sentiment.’

‘Perhaps if you spoke to her, you would gain a better understanding of her character.’

A look of pain crossed her face. ‘Liking her won’t mean anything.’

‘Is that why you’re avoiding speaking to her face to face?You’re afraid you’ll like her?’

Aphrodite turned away. ‘I’m not afraid.’

‘You’ll need to let go of him sooner or later.’

‘And if she proves herself worthy, then it will be sooner. There are still three more tasks to go. We’ll see whether she can really come up with the goods or not. Besides, I’m hardly the only one around here who has to deal with problematic children.’

‘Apollo’s not a child.’

‘Neither is Coop. It doesn’t mean the pair of them don’t act like three year olds sometimes.’

‘You’re changing the subject.’

The goddess didn’t answer. Instead, without even turning, she snapped her fingers and vanished. Zeus remained where he was for another moment, his gaze thoughtful. Then he too disappeared.

Outside the barn, Skye was pacing up and down. She’d been too afraid to look inside to see whether her plan had worked and the wind tunnel she’d created had done its job. The thought of going back home without seeing Coop ever again was too painful to consider. She had to have passed.

‘You did it.’

Skye closed her eyes in relief for a moment, then turned to face Hermes.

‘Good,’ she answered briskly. ‘What’s next?’

‘When was the last time you got some sleep?’

‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’ Skye snapped. ‘What’s next?’

Hermes eyed her warily. ‘You’re a lot more … angry than you used to be.’

‘Well, I’ve got a lot more reason to be, don’t you think?’

‘Don’t let them change you, Skye. Don’t let all this,’ he gestured vaguely towards the barn, ‘change you.’

‘I’m still the same person. I’m just getting mightily tired of being treated like a toy.’

For once it was Hermes who looked embarrassed. ‘The gods are fickle. And jealous. And often slightly unbalanced. Being immortal does that to you.’

‘You’re not like that,’ she pointed out. ‘Coop’s not like that.’

Hermes smiled faintly. ‘Not since he met you anyway.’

Skye blushed ever so slightly.

He grinned at her. ‘Now that’s the Skye I know.’

She squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye. ‘Stop delaying and take me to the next task.’

He sighed. ‘Okay. Just be careful with this one. Not everything is what it seems.’

Skye opened her mouth to ask him what he meant but before the words could form she was standing alone in a different location. There was no sign of the barn and no sign of Hermes. Instead, she was facing a gushing river and several fields, all cordoned off with barbed-wire fencing. The gods of Olympus clearly had a thing for farming.

Looking around for another note to tell her what she was supposed to do, Skye felt buoyed by her earlier success. As long as she kept her wits about her, these stupid tasks would be a piece of cake. Hermes was right that the gods were fickle, jealous and unbalanced; what he’d failed to mention was that they’d obviously underestimated her. Maybe she wasn’t Hercules, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t pass these tests.

‘Roar,’ she whispered. Then louder, ‘Roar!’

‘I had been told to expect a young human woman,’ came a voice seemingly from nowhere, ‘not a lion hybrid.’

Startled, Skye whipped round her head. She was still alone,so where the hell had the voice come from?

‘Hello?’

‘Hello!’ came the cheerful rejoinder.

Skye looked upwards at clear blue sky. There was nothing there other than a few fluffy white clouds.

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m here, of course.’

Skye couldn’t pinpoint where the voice was coming from over the sound of the river. ‘Where’s here?’ she asked, exasperated.

‘Right in front of you. Can’t you see me?See me!See! Get it?’ The voice’s owner laughed.

Skye frowned and took a step towards the river.

‘There you go.’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘You’re the river?’

‘The river is the river.’

What on earth was that supposed to mean?‘And the sky is the sky,’ she responded. ‘Except when Skye is me.’

‘You’re a sky god?’

‘No,’ she answered slowly, ‘but you’re a river god?’ She tried and failed to keep the question out of her voice.

‘Well done!My name is Asterion.’

‘Hi.’

‘We’ve already done this part,’ Asterion said solemnly.

‘I suppose we have. So?’

‘So what?’

‘Are you going to tell me what my task is?’

‘Oh, that. You need to collect the wool from the sheep in the field up ahead. There’s only one. You’ll know the wool when you see it.’

‘That’s it?’

‘That’s it,’ he replied breezily.

‘How much am I supposed to get?’

‘An armful will do.’

That was remarkably vague, Skye thought to herself. Then she remembered what Hermes had said. ‘Is there anything else I should be aware of?’

‘Ah!This one’s no fool,’ laughed Asterion.

Getting impatient, Skye folded her arms. ‘Well?’

‘I’m a river god,not a well god. They’re dank and smelly. Surely even a human can tell the difference?’

Asterion brought new meaning to the phrase ‘babbling brook’. Skye sighed inwardly. ‘Of course I can,’ she said, trying a different tack. ‘You’re fresh and fast. I truly admire your stunning crystal swell. And even in winter, the song of spring is evident in your river shallows.’

‘Why, thank you,’ Asterion said.

Thank you John Keats for writing so many poems which featured rivers in them, Skye thought.

‘You’re welcome.’She leaned down towards the water and lowered her voice. ‘Can you tell me what I need to watch out for?’

‘Sadly no. I am forbidden from revealing anything about this task by command of Zeus himself.’

Skye rolled her eyes. Typical.

‘But I can tell you my sister Lethe has a very sweet tooth.’

‘Eh?’

‘E, I, O, U.’

Skye blinked. This was getting too weird. ‘Alright,’ she said finally. ‘Thank you for your help, Asterion.’Such as it was.

‘My pleasure, fair lady.’

Skye smiled overly brightly in the vague direction of the river, then bent down and took off her socks and shoes,rolled her jeans up to her knees and started wading across. The water was icy cold and made her gasp aloud while the stones on the river bed were slippery. More than once, she had to pause to regain her balance. Butit was nothing more than a river.

Hermes had said not everything was what it seemed. Had he meant that in relation to Asterion?Skye shook her head:she really had no idea. And considering she’d just held a conversation with a river, she was probably the crazy one.

Pulling herself out, she shook her legs and rubbed them down to dry them off as best she could, then padded to the edge of the field, carefully scanning every inch of it while she put her socks and shoes back on. She couldn’t see a sheep anywhere. There seemed to be plenty of cows, placidly chewing the grass and ignoring her, but she couldn’t see anything else. Skye walked down the length of the fence, searching the entire expanse.

A flicker of movement caught her peripheral vision and she turned to glance at it, before being forced to shield her eyes suddenly as whatever it was glinted brightly in the morning sun. Skye squinted towards the glare, trying to work out what it was. Her mouth dropped open in astonishment: it was indeed a sheep. Sort of. It was the same size as a sheep and to all intents and purposes it was the same shape as a sheep. This animal, however, wasn’t covered in a white fleece; its coat was a rich, burnished gold. The glare from the sun bouncing off it made it painful to look at. Then the sheep trotted back behind the tree it had been hiding behind and Skye’s vision returned to normal.

‘A golden sheep,’ she murmured to herself. ‘Unbelievable.’

No wonder she’d been tasked with collecting its wool; a cardigan made of that material would be a sight to behold. She smirked at the thought of Coop’s glamorous mother with a pair of knitting needles. Perhaps not.

Without pausing further, Skye carefully pushed down the barbed wire fence so she could clamber over it. Sheep were hardly vicious creatures – but then sheep didn’t usually have such valuable fleeces so it was entirely possible this was some kind of man-eater. She could just make out the gleaming edge of its coat from behind the oak so she made a beeline straight for it, her eyes searching the ground for something to coax it into submission long enough for her to pull off what she needed. The least Aphrodite could have done was to supply her with some shears, she thought ruefully. She didn’t want to hurt the animal.

A thought occurred to her. Her skin was scratching where a few grains were trapped in her clothes. Surely a sheep, even a golden one, would appreciate some wheat and oats. Grinning to herself, Skye paused and began to shake out her jeans and t-shirt. Several grains fell onto the grass under her feet. She reached under her t-shirt to grab the flakes of oat which were still trapped in the fabric of her bra, taking a quick glance around in case anyone happened to be watching. Then she bent down to scoop up her meagre findings.

Suddenly, there was a tremendous bellow. Skye looked up, her insides transforming into jelly as she realised where the sound was coming from. The cows, which had been contentedly chewing away while she was safely on the other side of the fence, were bearing down upon her. She had just enough time to spot gleaming white fangs protruding from the beasts’ large, cavernous mouths before she dropped everything, turned and ran.

Her heart was hammering against her ribcage as she pumped her legs as fast as she could. She covered the distance back to the fence in a time which any sprinter would have been proud of but, when she was barely an arm’s reach away, her toe connected with a stone and she went flying flat on her face. Skye had only just registered what had happened when a sharp pain, worse than anything she’d ever felt before, tore into her. One of the smaller cows, which was clearly faster than the others, had sunk its jaws into her calf.

Skye shrieked, desperately trying to get back to her feet and safety beyond the fence. The beast’s teeth tore through her flesh while the remainder of the herd thundered towards her. With an inarticulate yell, she yanked hard, freed herself from the cow’s jaws and vaulted over the barbed wire. The denim of her jeans caught on the wire and ripped and Skye fell forward. She turned quickly to make sure the fence would hold the monstrous cows. As one they had stopped, frozen like statues, and watched her with huge limpid brown eyes. Then they turned and slowly trotted away.

Breathing hard, Skye stared at her leg and the stream of blood. She gingerly pulled away the torn fragments of denim but, when she saw the wound reaching through her flesh and exposing the bone, she fainted dead away.

Skye had no idea how long she’d been unconscious. The sun was high in the sky when she opened her eyes. She tried to sit up but her stomach roiled with nausea and she felt so dizzy she was sure she was about to pass out again. Gritting her teeth, she took several quick shallow breaths. The pain in her calf was intense. Not even jellyfish stings could come close to a cow’s bite. She chided herself for not considering the animals might be a threat. Her success at the barn had caused her to become far too complacent;she’d almost paid for that complacency with her life.

Aphrodite didn’t just want her to fail, she thought dully. The goddess wanted her dead. For some reason, that strengthened her resolve rather than weakened it. Skye shrugged out of her coat and carefully peeled off her t-shirt, wincing in pain. Before she could faint again, she bound the cotton material tightly around the wound to staunch the bleeding. Then she forced herself back into her coat and staggered to her feet.

‘I will not fail!’ she shouted. ‘Do you hear me?I will not fail!’

Nobody answered. Feeling hopelessly alone, Skye staggered to the fence. Even if those bloody cows ripped her to shreds, she was not going to give up. She would never give up.

Despite the fact that her vision was blurry round the edges, she managed to spot the section of ripped denim clinging to the barbed wire. Skye reached out and touched it with her fingertips. Then she laughed aloud.

‘You see?’ she yelled again. ‘I can do this!’

Moving carefully from fence post to fence post and doing everything she could to keep the weight off her wounded leg, she hopped round the field. The terrible cows seemed to ignore her presence but she was fairly certain they were aware of where she was. Regardless, she continued until she found what she was looking for. At various points around the field, golden curls were caught on the barbed wire. The sheep had obviously brushed against the fence at different times and sections of its fleece had been pulled away. In one corner there was a bush where she gathered several gleaming handfuls. Although she was moving slowly, it wasn’t long before she had an armful.

A wave of agonising pain hit her and she collapsed backwards, still clutching the soft fleece. ‘Told you so,’ she murmured, before she closed her eyes and blackness took over once again.

Moments later, freed from the golden chains of Olympus, Coop was by her side. His hands were shaking with rage as he gently smoothed back Skye’s sweat-soaked hair and brushed the blood soaking through the makeshift bandage on her leg.

‘How could you let this happen, Mother?’ His voice was soft, but the steel lacing his tone left no doubt as to his true feelings.

Aphrodite’s face was pale. ‘I didn’t want her to get hurt.’

‘No,’ he snarled, ‘you just wanted to keep us apart. So much for being dedicated to the course of true love.’

‘Coop,’ she began.

‘Fuck off.’

He rearranged Skye’s limbs and lifted her carefully up in his arms, holding her warm body against his broad chest. He gazed tenderly down at her, before sending his mother a look of absolute loathing. Then his wings unfurled and he flew up into the air, taking Skye with him.