In one corner of the main room gleamed a chef’s kitchen big enough to host several celebrity cook-offs at once. Sets of sofas and comfy chairs were clustered here and there. At the center of the hall stood a massive dining table of rough-hewn redwood with seating for twenty.
Under the rose window, the contents of several different workshops seemed to have been disgorged at random: table saws, drills, lathes, kilns, forges, anvils, 3-D printers, sewing machines, cauldrons, and several other industrial appliances I couldn’t name. (Don’t judge me. I’m not Hephaestus.)
Hunched over a welding station, throwing sparks from her torch as she worked on a sheet of metal, was a muscular woman in a metal visor, leather apron, and gloves.
I’m not sure how she noticed us. Perhaps the Waystation chucked a brick at her back to get her attention. Whatever the case, she looked in our direction, shut off her torch, then lifted her visor.
“I’ll be hexed!” She barked out a laugh. “Is that Apollo?”
She tugged off her safety gear and lumbered over. Like Emmie, the woman was in her sixties, but whereas Emmie had the physique of a former gymnast, this woman was built for brawling. Her broad shoulders and dark, well-sculpted arms stretched against the confines of a faded pink polo shirt. Wrenches and screwdrivers sagged from the pockets of her denim overalls. Against the umber skin of her scalp, her buzz-cut gray hair shimmered like frost.
She thrust out her hand. “You probably don’t remember me, Lord Apollo. I’m Jo. Or Josie. Or Josephine. Whichever.”
With each version of her name, she squeezed my hand tighter. I would not have challenged her to an arm-wrestling contest (though with her meaty fingers I doubt she could play guitar as well as I do, so ha). Her square-jawed face would’ve been quite intimidating except for her cheerful, twinkling eyes. Her mouth twitched as if she were exerting a great effort not to bust out laughing.
“Yes,” I squeaked, extracting my hand. “I mean, no. I’m afraid I don’t remember. May I introduce Leo?”
“Leo!” She crushed his hand with enthusiasm. “I’m Jo.”
All these people whose names ended in o—Jo, Leo, Calypso, Apollo—suddenly made me feel like my brand was being diluted. I thanked the gods we were not in Ohio and our dragon was not named Festo.
“I think I’ll call you Josephine,” I decided. “It’s a lovely name.”
Josephine shrugged. “Fine by me. Where’s your friend Calypso?”
“Wait,” Leo said. “How’d you know about Calypso?”
Josephine tapped her left temple. “Waystation tells me stuff.”
“Oooh.” Leo’s eyes widened. “That’s cool.”
I wasn’t so sure. Normally, when someone said that a building was talking to them, I got away from them as quickly as possible. Sadly, I believed Josephine. I also had the feeling we would be needing her hospitality.
“Calypso’s in the infirmary,” I offered. “Broke her hand. And foot.”
“Ah.” The sparkle dimmed in Josephine’s eyes. “Yeah, you met the neighbors.”
“You mean the blemmyae.” I imagined the neighbors stopping by to borrow a socket wrench, or take an order for Girl Scout cookies, or murder someone. “Do you often have problems with them?”
“Didn’t use to.” Josephine sighed. “By themselves, blemmyae are pretty harmless, as long as you’re polite to them. They don’t have enough imagination to organize an assault. But since last year—”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Indianapolis has a new emperor?”
A ripple of anger washed across Josephine’s face, giving me a glimpse of what it would be like to get on her bad side. (Hint: It involved pain.)
“Best we don’t talk about the emperor until Emmie and your friend join us,” she said. “Without Emmie around to keep me calm…I get worked up.”
I nodded. Not getting Josephine worked up sounded like an excellent plan. “But we’re safe here?”
Leo held out his palm as if checking for brick raindrops. “That was my question too. I mean…we kind of led an angry mob to your doorstep.”
Josephine waved aside our concern. “Don’t worry. The emperor’s forces have been searching for us for months. The Waystation isn’t easy to find unless we invite you in.”
“Huh.” Leo tapped the floor with his foot. “So, did you design this place? ’Cause it’s pretty awesome.”
Josephine chuckled. “I wish. A demigod architect with way more talent than me did that. Built the Waystation back in the 1880s, early days of the transcontinental railroad. It was meant as a refuge for demigods, satyrs, Hunters—pretty much anyone who needed one here in the middle of the country. Emmie and I are just lucky enough to be the present caretakers.”
“I’ve never even heard of this place,” I said grumpily.
“We…ah, keep a low profile. Lady Artemis’s orders. Need-to-know basis.”
As a god, I was the very definition of need-to-know, but it was typical of Artemis to keep something like this to herself. She was such a doomsday prepper, always hiding things from the other gods, like stashes of supplies, emergency bunkers, and small nation-states. “I assume this place isn’t a train station anymore. What do mortals think it is?”
Josephine grinned. “Waystation, transparent floor, please.”
Beneath our feet, the stained cement disappeared. I leaped back as if standing on a hot skillet, but the floor was not actually gone. It had simply turned see-through. Around us, the rugs, furniture, and workshop equipment seemed to hover two stories over the actual ground floor of the hall, where twenty or thirty banquet tables had been set up for some sort of event.
“Our living space occupies the top of the grand hall,” Josephine said. “That area below us was once the main concourse for the station. Now the mortals rent it out for weddings and parties and whatnot. If they look up—”
“Adaptive camouflage,” Leo guessed. “They see an image of the ceiling, but they don’t see you. Nice!”
Josephine nodded, obviously pleased. “Most of the time, it’s quiet around here, though it gets noisy on weekends. If I have to hear ‘Thinking Out Loud’ from one more wedding cover band, I may have to drop an anvil.”
She pointed to the floor, which immediately turned back to opaque cement. “Now if you guys don’t mind, I need to finish a section of a project I’m working on. Don’t want the metal plates to cool without proper welding. After that—”
“You’re a child of Hephaestus, aren’t you?” Leo said.
“Hecate, actually.”
Leo blinked. “No way! But that sweet workshop area you got—”
“Magical construction is my specialty,” said Josephine. “My dad, my mortal dad, was a mechanic.”
“Nice!” Leo said. “My mom was a mechanic! Hey, if I could use your machine tools, I left this dragon at the statehouse and—”
“Ahem,” I interrupted. As much as I wanted Festus back, I did not think a nearly indestructible, impossible-to-open suitcase was in any immediate danger. I was also afraid that if Leo and Josephine started chatting, they would soon be bonding over the wonders of serrated flange bolts and I would die of boredom. “Josephine, you were about to say after that…?”
“Right,” Josephine agreed. “Give me a few minutes. Then I can show you to some guest rooms and, uh, maybe get Leo here some clothing. These days, we’ve got plenty of vacancies, unfortunately.”