Medusa had never been allowed into the mews, or what others had referred to as the “Owl House”, until she asked Athena to show it to her.

She wasn’t banned from it out of pettiness by the Rector Zeus or the administrators, but because snakes and birds of prey did not usually mix all that well. This was especially true when one’s hair would shed the scales of a rattlesnake or two in their day-to-day life, and Zeus had forbidden her from entering it for her own safety.

All that changed when she simply asked Athena, the owl house matriarch, if she could be allowed in. She had wanted to test how far the golden girl would go for her, and soon enough after their afternoon of pond bathing together, Athena and she began walking up the great staircases to get to the sanctuary.

Medusa felt she might be embarrassing Athena as they moved further up the large stone staircase, which had, according to university legend, been crafted from the ruins of Troy in an actual case of pettiness a long time ago. The embers of student gossip had already been quietly set alight by the time they came across Artemis on the cobbled steps.

Most mortals might think Artemis was above petty vindictive gossip—captain of the archery team, avoiding frat parties like the plague, second-most academically gifted student on campus—but Athena and Medusa both knew from scarred experiences that simply wasn’t true.

“Fetching some luncheon for your fur babies?” Artemis teased her half-sister. Athena could only roll her eyes at such an awful attempt at a snide remark. True, Artemis and she were related by blood, but so were a great many of the students on campus to Athena. It had stopped being as relevant to her as sharing skin colour with another person would be for any mortal man.

“Don’t tell me you’re still not over me trashing you at paintball, Arty,” Medusa sniped from behind Athena.