Goddess Boot Camp

condition.'

'I placed a protection on you,' Stella says. 'Nothing will happen to you while you're on the course.'

I relax a little.

Until Adara adds. 'But if you use the protection, you'll fail that obstacle.'

'Fail?' My heart thumps. 'Is this my test?'

'No, ' Xander answers. 'But treat it as if it were.'

I start to ask more questions, but he cuts me off. 'Remember when I said I hoped you never found out the consequences of failing the test?' he asks, like I could forget. I've been stressing about it ever since. He continues, 'Well, that's not exactly the truth. What I meant was I knewyou would never find out.'

'You knew?' That makes no sense. 'What do you-'

'No one at school knows my heritage,' he says, his voice low and right next to my ear so the girls can't hear. 'Only Headmaster Petrolas knows I'm a descendant of Narcissus.' He pauses, and then adds, 'His son.'

Whoa. That means he's even farther up the tree than I am. He makes my three degrees of separation seem like a seventh cousin thrice removed.

I remember the myth about Narcissus. He was completely infatuated with his own reflection, in love with his own perfection to the exclusion of everything else. I'm surprised Xander confided in me, but now his feelings about superficiality make a lot more sense.

'Believing he had learned his lesson on self-absorption, the gods paroled him with a grant of temporary immortality,' Xander's voice wavers a little. 'He met my mother. And quickly proved he had learned nothing.'

For a jaded rebel boy, he sure is sharing a lot of very personal info. He must have a reason. I ask, 'What does that have to do with me?'

'To make up for having to be his descendant,' Xander explains, 'and to protect me from succumbing to the same fatal flaw, the gods granted me the ability to see beneath the surface in others. I can see into a person's deepest center. Do you know what I see in you?'

I shake my head.

'A great and powerful hematheos,'he whispers, 'with a pure heart.'

That heart beats a little faster.

'You will succeed, Phoebe.'

Then he turns me, gives me a little push, and I know he's gone. I feel completely alone. Part of me is tempted to take off the blindfold and go home-I'm too old for games like this. But the rest of me knows that I have to do this. Solstice is days away, and after that little autoporting stunt I pulled in our training run, I know I need to get my powers under control once and for all.

Before something irreversible happens.

As worried as I am about the trials tomorrow, I won't be running any races if I'm smoted to Hades. This is more important than a single competition.

I focus my energy on my surroundings, trying to get a sense of what I have to do. I take three steps forward, then stop. An image of a fallen tree pops into my mind. I see it blocking the path, its tangled branches daring me to try climbing over. Carefully-like I'm feeling for the last step in the dark-I take a step forward.

Bending down, I feel around for what I sense is there. When my hand hits the rough bark of a pine trunk, I shriek, 'It's really a fallen tree!'

No one responds, but I know they're watching.

Telekinesis flashes in my mind like a neon sign.

Great, if this obstacle tests a single power, I bet the rest of the obstacles test the rest of the powers. Thank the gods I finally studied Stella's guide.

I focus on moving the tree out of the path, on the tree already being out of the path. Two seconds later, I sense that it's gone.

Forcing myself to trust my instinct, I take a step forward. Then another. And another. Until I'm well past the spot where the fallen tree had blocked my path.

'How was that for perfect?' I shout to the course.

Excited by my success, I turn and move on to the next obstacle. Twenty paces into the woods, I feel a spray of water across my face. An image of flood-making heavy rain appears.

'You've got to be kidding,' I mutter. When Adara tied the blindfold over my eyes five minutes ago, the sky was cloudless clear blue. Now it's pouring?

Must be obstacle number two.

Stay dry,I hear in my mind.

Okay. I hold out my hand, which promptly gets soaked in the deluge two feet in front of me. Hydrokinesis,I think. Control and movement of water. As I take a step forward, I focus on the water not hitting me. I'm staying dry,I think, Not a molecule is going to hit me.

Even as I move fully under the downpour, I can't feel a single drop on my skin or clothes. I hurry through the rainy section-it's like I can feel the rain sliding around me, over me, but not on me- and emerge on the far end completely dry.

'Woo-hoo,' I shout to myself.

Maybe this course isn't going to be as tough as I thought.

Three steps later, the image of a sheer drop-off blares red in my mind. I pull up just inches before the edge.

'What the-?'

Mentally, I try to see over the edge. Maybe it's just a short drop and I can climb down. But I can't see anything. It's like a fog is obscuring my mental view of the bottom.

Okay, so clearly I need to get down there, wherever that is, but how? Autoporting is out, since I don't know where I'm going-I don't really want to end up at the core of a boulder or something. What am I supposed to do, fly?

Then I remember Nicole asking me if I flew the day I earned my aerokinesis merit badge. That must be the way down.

Stepping forward until the toes of my Nikes hang over the edge, I try to call up the air. My track pants whip back in the wind. It feels like a mini-hurricane is swirling around me.

I hesitate.

Afraid you can't do it?Adara's taunting voice echoes in my mind.

'Of course I can do it,' I shout back above the wind. I feel like an idiot getting all defensive with a disembodied voice. Then I mutter even quieter, 'I hope.'

Taking the biggest leap of faith in my life-I know Stella's protection won't let me get hurt, but it's hard to make my brain fully believe-I step over the edge. Rather than plummet to the unseen depths below, I bob like a beach ball in the ocean, buoyed by a strong column of wind.

Slowly, I descend.

Halfway down I freak out. I mean, I'm floating on freakin' air. Literally. What if this isn't what I'm supposed to do? What if I'm really descending into a fiery pit or the jaws of a sea monster?

I stop descending. The air is holding me steady, not moving up or down. I'm about to send myself back up to the safety of the cliff above when I realize that my fear is the only thing holding me back. If I believe in my powers-and I've experienced them enough at this point to know that they're real-then I have to trust them.

Time to go for the gold. Taking one deep breath, I relax and let myself descend without hesitation. For three seconds, I drop through the empty air. My stomach flies up into my throat. My heart races as anticipation