Chapter Forty-Nine

Mrs Crook’s POV

I hadn’t intended to have to tell the entire story of how we all ended up in this situation again, but none the less, the entire tale comes gushing out of me, like the dam of thousands of years of silence has been broken.

Eleven faces gawp at me in horror and astonishment, and I have barley even scratched the surface of the depravity that sparked their rebellion in the first place. Zaine, George, Luca, Abernathy and Torrin are marginally less taken aback by what I have to say, but still, it’s a lot to take in.

By the time I have finished explaining how Sophia’s wolf is actually Alcmene, the mother of Heracles, who was conceived when Zeus came to her bed disguised as her husband, and that Zaine’s wolf is Alcmene’s husband, Amphitryon, there are a lot of puzzled faces in the room.

It’s really not that difficult to understand once one realises Zeus was a pig. If he saw a woman he wanted he took her, by force or deception, he saw it as his divine right. Perseus, Thomas’