Pandora Gets Heart by Carolyn Hennesy

dabbing his eyes with the cloth, “that I have always wanted one of these for myself.”
    “What, sir?” Pandy said.
    Prometheus puffed his cheeks and blew the air out slowly.
    “Keep a secret?” he said, after a pause.
    “Absolutely,” Pandy replied.
    “A wedding,” Prometheus said, straightening up. “A wife, family . . . someone to come home to after a long day of . . . heroic deeds.”
    Pandy felt closer to her father in that instant than at any other moment of her life. And he was confiding in her, something she knew he didn’t do lightly, without knowing who she was . . . or would be.
    “Foolish of me, probably.”
    “I’m sure you’ll have that, sir.”
    “You think so?” he said, smiling.
    “I know so,” she answered, then realized she may have gone too far.
    “Oh, you know so, eh?” he said, looking at her, amused.
    “Well,” Pandy said, choosing her words carefully, “I think there must certainly be someone out there who will be just right for you, sir. And she’ll be beautiful. Really beautiful. Like, scary beautiful. And then you’ll have the family you want.”
    “Scary beautiful? All right then. I’ll be on the lookout,” he said, leaning his back against the railing. “And thank you for that vote of confidence; I will take it to heart. Now, if you wouldn’t mind keeping the fact that I was crying like an old woman to yourself, I’d be grateful.”
    “It will be our secret, sir.”
    From inside the palace, there was a loud call of a trumpet.
    “I guess they’re starting,” Prometheus said.
    “Yes,” Pandy replied. “I need to take my place.”
    “See you later,” he said.
    “Yes, you will. I mean, uh, I hope so, sir.”
    Prometheus looked at her as if she were both odd and amusing, then walked into the staging area and disappeared into the hall.
    “You don’t how right you are,” Pandy thought. “I will most definitely see you later!”
    She rushed back into the throng of guests and headed toward the staircase, where Alcie was already waiting. Reaching the top, she motioned Alcie over to the back wall near the doors.
    “Have something for you,” Pandy whispered.
    She pulled out the remaining bundle of coins and handed it to Alcie.
    “Here.”
    “Where’d you get that?” Alcie asked softly, looking at the pouch.
    “You have one, too. All the servants do now. They were a gift from Zeus when Echidna tried to take his tip from me.”
    Alcie looked at her waist: sure enough, there was a red pouch dangling from a chord. She untied the bundle and looked at the coins.
    “Wrong cloth,” Alcie said, handing it back to Pandy. “I had some funky-looking coins that had words like ‘Cyprus’ and ‘Kythira’ engraved on them and they’re not here.”
    “Oh, Ares’ beard,” Pandy muttered. “Like it really matters.”
    “I’m just sayin’.”
    Pandy emptied her pouch into her hand and handed all the coins to Alcie.
    “Okay. Satisfied?”
    “Yes,” Alcie said calmly. “Except this one is yours. Because I’m honest.”
    Alcie handed Zeus’s oversized gold coin back to Pandy, who was about to put it back into her pouch when she looked at it closely. The words MOUNT IDA were engraved on one side, and LOSE TWO WEEKS on the other.
    “What does that mean?” asked Alcie.
    Suddenly there was another loud blast of the trumpet and the crowd quieted, waiting. Pandy and Alcie moved into a better position and tried to look ceremonial. From their vantage point, they could see everything and watched King Peleus and Thetis’s father, Nereus, step onto the dais with great formality. Peleus acknowledged all assembled with a nod of his head. Then the music stopped and all eyes turned toward the purple curtain, now being slowly drawn aside.
    Then the curtain stopped.
    “Unh . . . wait!” screeched a female voice.
    “Move!” yelled someone else.
    The curtain began to move again.
    Suddenly a loud wail shot though the hall.
    Everyone turned to look at King Peleus, who