Julia was so terrified she could hardly breathe. Still, she didn't hesitate.
"Stop!" she cried, leaping away from the time passage. "It's not Markos' fault. We'll stay."
She glanced at Brody, but he appeared to be frozen in place. Julia couldn't believe it.
Was he thinking about stepping through the passage despite Hermes' threats against Markos and his family?
A second later she let out a sigh of relief as Brody stepped away from the passage too.
"It's cool," he said. "I didn't really want to go anyway.
I was totally looking forward to being in the Olympics."
"You have a funny way of showing it, boy," Hermes snarled, though he sounded slightly less angry already.
"Come. We need to have a talk about loyalty."
As Hermes dragged Brody out of the room, Julia glanced at Markos.
He'd taken a few steps forward and was staring through the passage.
Julia glanced through at her own world just in time to see a car drive by.
"Oh!" Markos exclaimed, pointing at it. "What was that?"
"It's a car," Julia said. "It's like a wagon, except you don't need a horse or ox to pull it."
Markos looked impressed.
"Never mind. Let's step away from the time passage, shall we?"
Caerus herded Markos and Julia into the outer room of the temple.
The guard, now awake, was waiting there.
"I'm so sorry, master," he said, cowering in front of Caerus.
"I swear upon my life, I've never fallen asleep on the job before.
It must have been some trick. Perhaps the mortals enlisted the aid of Hypnos or—"
"Silence!" Caerus ordered, sounding annoyed. "I might forgive your incompetence just this once, mortal fool.
But if you value your family and your sanity, you'll guard this chamber with your life from now on."
"Of course. Thank you, Caerus!" The guard said quickly, bowing.
"No mortal will get past me again!" As he turned away, he glared at the kids.
Julia's heart sank. It was obvious that nobody was going to be able to sneak into the temple again before the Games.
Besides, Hermes was aware of their plans now.
If she and Brody escaped, Markos and his family would certainly suffer.
"I guess we're stuck," she thought with a shiver.
"We'll just have to hope that Hermes will keep his word and let us go after the Games."
The next day Julia sat on the bench beside Markos.
They were watching Brody's training session. He had already spent a couple of hours running and tossing the javelin.
Now he was about to start practicing the long jump required for the pentathlon.
That was a competition in which athletes competed in five different events.
"Hermes is working Brody harder than ever today," Julia observed.
"Does that mean he's still mad at us for trying to escape?"
Markos looked thoughtful. "I doubt it," he said.
"I mean, of course he was angry at the time.
You're lucky he didn't turn us all into frogs or something." He shuddered.
"However, I'm sure he's mostly forgotten about it by now."
"Really?" Julia winced as Brody made his first attempt at the long jump and landed with a splat.
"But Hermes kept saying how Brody betrayed him."
"Yes," Markos said. "But remember, the gods view us as mortals view dogs.
Would you really bother to hold a grudge against a dog?"
Julia shrugged. She didn't like being compared to a dog, but she knew Markos didn't mean anything bad by it.
"Thanks again for distracting Hera," she said. "That was really brave."
Markos bowed his head. "You're welcome. Thanks for helping me in turn.
You two could have easily escaped and left me to my fate."
"We'd never do that. You're our friend." Julia smiled at him.
Just then Hermes let out a shout of annoyance.
Julia turned to look and saw that Brody had just attempted another jump.
He was sprawled on the ground, panting and looking frustrated.
"You're hopeless, boy!" Hermes cried. "How do you expect to win the pentathlon with that sort of performance?"
Artemis and Apollo were watching from nearby, where their own athletes were boxing.
Apollo snickered. "Do you really expect to beat Zeus' champion with that, Hermes?" he called.
Hermes scowled at him. "Nobody asked your opinion, Apollo," he snapped.
He spun around and pointed at Brody. "Again!"
Brody groaned and climbed to his feet. "Okay," he said.
"But we never had to do anything like this at football practice."
Markos turned to Julia. "Do you think he'll improve?" He sounded worried.
"Probably," Julia replied. "He's actually a very talented athlete.
I mean, he picked up javelin throwing in about five minutes, remember?
He beat Apollo's guy three times out of five." She grimaced.
"That's not counting the time the javelins turned into snakes."
Markos sighed. "I hope you're right." His gaze wandered around the field.
"Because some of the other champions are looking pretty good. Not to mention Alcides.
If that guy is even half as incredible as Zeus is claiming, none of the other athletes will have a chance."
"Yeah." Julia didn't like to think about that.
It was true that Brody was a good athlete. Maybe even a great one.
Not that she'd ever tell him that—his ego was already big enough.
But this was the Olympic Games, not a high school football game.
And Brody was just a kid. What if he couldn't live up to Hermes' expectations?
What if he couldn't beat a bunch of Greek champions who'd probably been training for this their whole lives?
What would happen then to Brody—and to Julia?
She cringed as Brody jumped again and Hermes let out a howl of dismay.
She muttered to Markos, "I just hope Brody gets better fast."