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Meg hadn’t really been serious about the piano lessons.
It had been the first excuse that came to her when the policeman pulled them over. The first time she put words to that fierce feeling in her chest and called Apollo her brother. The first time she admitted her hope that maybe one day, she and Apollo would have the time to do nothing but sit together and learn to play the piano.
It was silly, of course. She’d always known they would never have that kind of time. Once they were finished with their quests, Apollo would either be dead or become a god again. And gods didn’t have time for piano lessons. Her mother Demeter didn’t even have time to send a packet of seeds for her birthday.
Now they had run out of time and Apollo had succeeded in his quest. Artemis had sent a sign – an image of the sun rising in the sky in the middle of the afternoon, and a dead snake on the ground just in case the message was unclear. Meg had no clue how Apollo had managed it, but that idiot did have a knack for coming through in the end, when there were no other options.
She had ordered Apollo to come back to her, back when he was still Lester, still her dummy. Of course he was a god again now, no longer bound to her. He probably had a lot of important things to do on Mount Olympus, more important than checking in with some random mortal. (Although honestly, the sun rose and set without him for a year, so gods know what he did up there.) He was probably glowing all the time now and would accidentally burn out her eyes if he came to see her.
Meg had returned to Aeithales with her family from the Imperial Household, such as it was. Aeithales seemed like a good place to put down roots. To help things grow instead of destroying them.
To Meg’s surprise, Apollo visited her two weeks after reclaiming his throne on Olympus. He still looked like Lester, the hapless mortal who had a tendency to cry and pass out. She gave him a hug, and he hugged back just as tightly. He gave her a unicorn. They talked, and Meg realized Apollo was serious about the piano lessons.
“I promised you, Meg,” he said. “And I intend to keep that promise. It’s not every day you get lessons from the god of music himself. But if you don’t want to learn –”
“Sure,” Meg replied. Piano lessons from a god. Why not. Maybe he really had nothing better to do. “But there’s no piano.”
Apollo gave her a cocky grin and snapped his fingers. A piano appeared in the corner of the room. It was built from dark oak and blended in perfectly with the surrounding trees.
Meg tried not to worry about the forced cheer in Apollo’s smirk or the careless ease in which he used his powers. She would keep an eye on him. The house had accepted the piano, and they could have weekly lessons.
“I have to go,” Apollo said with a sigh, looking almost wistful. “Sun’s almost set. But I won’t forget about our lessons, Meg.”
“You better not,” she warned him.
They hugged goodbye and she watched him walk away, the lone form of Lester Papadopoulos getting smaller and smaller until eventually he disappeared in a burst of light.
A week passed. She had spent her time settling back into Aeithales, showing her foster siblings how to care for the plants and introducing them to the dryads. She helped Lu figure out how to calibrate her mechanical hands. She nodded hello to Herophile, but steered clear of any further prophecies for the moment.
It was awkward at times. Some of her siblings resented her for taking so much of Nero’s attention. Some of them resented her for going away. Others were starting to realize that Nero’s attention was never something to covet, whether he was acting as Nero or the Beast.
It had taken Meg far too long to figure that out. She felt stupid sometimes, that she could have been manipulated like that. But she knew her siblings felt the same way. And in encouraging them, she also reassured herself. They had been too young, and far too vulnerable, and Nero had been a master at manipulation. He had all the power. But not anymore.
Apollo reappeared about a week after his first visit. He still looked like Lester, except his acne seemed to have mysteriously disappeared and his skin was lit with a soft glow. Meg rolled her eyes. Typical.
He hugged her in greeting, just as tightly as before. “I missed you, Meg.”
“It’s been a week, dummy,” Meg replied, but she had to smile.
They chatted a bit. Meg filled him in on the progress of her siblings. Apollo updated her on their mutual friends. Meg noticed, not for the first time, just how much Apollo could talk without actually saying anything.
“What about Mount Olympus?” She asked, since he had been noticeably silent on the subject.
Apollo shrugged, glancing off to the side. She thought the glow around him dimmed a little. “Same as always. I went to a concert with the Muses on Tuesday. I think they were happy to have me back. I spent some time with my horses as well. Nobody fed them while I was mortal. But Artemis actually said she missed me. She asked me to teach her Hunters a couple of archery tricks.”
He smiled, looking both confused and pleased, like he couldn’t believe his own twin was happy to have him back. This coming from the guy who used to claim that his mere presence was a gift. How much of that had been bluster, Meg wondered, and how much of it was real?
Meg was getting the sense that maybe Apollo wasn’t so thrilled to be a god again. He hadn’t mentioned Zeus once, and the only time he smiled was when he talked about his sister. But during their quests, it was all he talked about – how it was so horrible being mortal, how he couldn’t wait to be restored to his “divine splendor” or whatever. Although she supposed he had quieted down a bit about that lately, even singing about the value of mortal lives to the troglodytes.
He also hadn’t seemed to miss Mount Olympus as much. He had even compared living with Zeus to living with Nero. At first she had assumed he didn’t know what he was talking about, that he was trying to make everything about himself like he so often did. But as she spent more time with him and shared her own stories, as he listened and comforted her, she realized – you can’t fake that kind of empathy. And she recognized bits of herself in him, too – not that she’d ever admit it. They were both survivors.
Apollo had changed since he crash-landed in a New York dumpster. They both had. But Meg had moved on, broken free of Nero, while Apollo – he was right back where he started, with his eyes opened but just as powerless to leave. Being a god didn’t seem like such a great thing after all, in that environment.
They eventually walked inside the house, and Apollo glanced over at the piano. It sat untouched in the corner of the room. Sometimes Meg had thought about pressing a few keys, just to see what would happen, to see if Apollo would come down to tease her or to teach her. But then one of her siblings or a dryad had sought her out and she’d gotten distracted again.
“So, you really want these lessons?” Apollo asked, gesturing to the piano.
“Yep.”
He studied her for a moment, and then smiled like – well, like the sun breaking through the clouds. He even glowed a little brighter at the edges. She didn’t mention it.
“Come on, then,” he said, grabbing her hand and leading the way to the piano bench. Meg sat down next to him as he began rambling about notes, chords, and octaves. He pressed a few keys, the sound clear and sharp.
She copied his actions, paying more attention to how his shoulders were slowly relaxing than to his instructions. She hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until he started playing.
About halfway through the lesson, Meg asked him, “Are you okay?”
Apollo frowned in confusion. “Of course.”
She punched him. “Don’t lie to me, dummy.”
“Ow,” he complained, rubbing his shoulder, though she was sure she hadn’t really hurt him. Couldn’t really hurt him. He looked at her with a strange expression, like he was trying to figure her out.
Meg crossed her arms. “What?”
“Nothing,” Apollo said, shaking his head with a dull laugh. “It’s just – my family would never allow a mortal to disrespect them like that.”
Meg understood. She’d picked up on the cautious respect that most demigods displayed when speaking about their godly parent. She remembered the stories Nero had told her about wrathful, arrogant, and unreasonable gods. And of course she had learned about some of Apollo’s greatest hits, including how he’d had his cheating ex-lover killed, laid waste to cities with his plague arrows for the unforgivable crime of annoying him, and written horrible poetry for centuries. And that was probably just the tip of the iceberg.
But she also remembered Lester Papadopoulos, who made a fool of himself around cute guys and girls, and who couldn’t do much more than glare at Meg when she “disrespected” him. Who would never smite her out of existence. Who made self-deprecating comments and sang about how he was the worst of the Olympians to save her life.
It wasn’t like it had been with Nero and the Beast. She knew that Apollo and Lester were the same person. She didn’t fear one and feel indebted to the other. But Apollo was a god and Lester was human, and that had made all the difference.
Meg shrugged in response to Apollo’s comment. “Someone needs to keep that godly ego of yours in check.”
Apollo laughed, the sound as pure and melodic as the piano.
Meg didn’t tell him how she was worried. How she thought that maybe he would need a reminder, back there with his family, with Zeus, to remember what it was to be human. That maybe she could balance those scales a little – less worship, more friendship. Come to Meg’s for a piano lesson, to remember that you care about mortals, to remember that mortals care about you.
They continued with the lesson. Meg made sure to call Apollo “dummy” at least three more times. He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he shone a little bit brighter every time.