This is the third installment in the Mount Olympus Academy series. In this book, Edie and Mavis’ reunion is violently interrupted by the werewolf Nico. In the end, Edie must bring Mavis to the academy to stand trial for her crimes as a traitor and as an accomplice with the monsters. Mavis is brutally treated while locked in the academy, especially by Mr. Zee (Zeus), who wants her dead. Zee becomes frightened and paranoid due to a prophecy which foretells his death by the hand of one of his offspring. The offspring, the prophecy declares, is of mixed blood. This prophecy provides Zee with the pretext to persecute mixed-blood students. Throughout the book, we encounter the harsh discrimination led by Zee against Moggies. A Moggy is a child of parents from different supernatural lineage, or a mortal and a supernatural being (for example, a mortal and a god, a witch and a vampire). Zee treats the Moggies as if they are social pariahs. He asks the witches to cast a spell to identify them, and Artemis sends small Stymphalian birds to follow them everywhere. This spell reveals that Tina and Val are not pure-blood vampires as well, yet Edie manages to escape the spell with a help of her witch friend, Fern. 

Trying desperately to save her sister, Edie seeks the help of the main healer Metis, Zee’s ex-wife. Metis tells her she must trace the pieces of a special sword which can kill Zee. The sword was forged for Metis by Hephaestus yet Zee discovered it and broke it into three parts. The pieces are located at Mount Olympus Academy, The Underworld Academy (managed by Hades) and the Amazon Island, a school for Amazons managed by Athena. Edie retrieves the missing pieces and completes the sword. While Metis eagerly waits to avenge Zee, Themis is reluctant to kill him, since she is afraid his death might cause lesser gods to cause havoc. Themis always scales the outcome of each actions, being cautious.

Meanwhile Edie discovers that her biological mother, Adrianna Aspostolos (a shifter), was having an affair with Zee and died at childbirth while having Edie. She knew that delivering a child with a god might cost her life but she wished to have her baby and tried to remain alive for her. Mavis’ mother, Bella Demopoulous was carrying the child of the god Hermes and also died at childbirth. Being Zee’s daughter makes Edie realize that she is the offspring from the prophecy. 

In the interim, a clash occurs in the school between Nico and his groups and the vampires because of the killing of Nico’s mother by Val the vampire. As a result, Val and his twin sister Tina are expelled and transfer to the Underworld Academy. Val confides in Edie that he is also helping the monsters against the gods, especially due to Zee’s atrocities and bigotry against Moggies. The relationship between Val and Edie intensify and they admit their mutual love and then consummate it.

When the day for Mavis’ trial arrives, the monsters organize a surprise attack to free her, yet Zee kills her with his thunderbolt. As a result, Edie becomes increasingly angry and demands to confront Zee in a dual. At the end of this fight she manages to kill him using the special sword. Zee’s death causes earthquakes and Themis fears it might destroy the world since the minor gods became undisciplined. It appears that Zee’s powers escaped him and may have found shelter in other individuals who are currently unknown. Themis and Cassie’s mother, Merilee, stay behind at the academy to investigate this matter further. 

To her great surprise, Edie discovers that Mavis is alive. Greg, a bat shifter and Edie’s friend, has replaced his soul with Mavis’ (unknown to her) and consequently, being dead, he is now enrolled in the underworld academy.

The story ends with Edie, Mavis and their friends determining to undo the disastrous effects on the world caused by Zee’s death. They are set on a mission to find the individuals who possess Zee’s powers and save the world.

As the series progresses, Edie matures more into adulthood, mentally, emotionally and physically. Part of it is her relationship with Val which also develop.

The question of identity and self-knowledge is a key motif in the series. Edie, as well as her friends, must come to term with who they are and what they want from life. Edie is torn between her birthparents and her adoptive family whom she considers her true family. Even though Edie and Mavis are unrelated by blood, their sisterhood is only getting stronger, especially as it is facing the growing challenges and the threat to Mavis’ life. Mavis makes Edie choose- to kill Zee and save her life, or spare him, knowing her sister will die. In the end, when Zee decides to kill Mavis he triggers Edie’s anger over the loss of her sister, which is stronger than any blood relation she shares with him.

The importance of family is again echoed in the character of Nico, the werewolf shifter. His mother raised him as a fierce soldier and he cannot break from her shadow, even after her death. As Edie muses, “even though she was dead, Maddox still held a lot of power over her son, and always had. I don’t think Nico had much of a chance to grow up into a loving, caring person. Maddox raised him to hate and to fight…” (p. 11).

The series portrays the Olympian gods as lustful, deceitful, and conniving. Zee becomes the greatest villain, who acts as a fascist against the Moggies (in a similar manner to Lord Voldemort and his hatred for “mud-blood” students). Zee is using his powers to humiliate the weaker students, due to his fear of them. He does not spare even his own daughter. As Edie thinks, “Mr. Zee lives by his own rules. And then makes the rest of us live by them too.” (p. 29).

In a way, the presentation of Zee in the series could almost be viewed as a kind of revenge against the mythological Zeus and his many harmful acts against mortals, especially his sexual violence against them. No wonder his fall in the book is orchestrated by the women around him, Themis, Metis and in the end, his own daughter, Edie. Zee is power hungry and lustful to a point of being a danger to those around him; he is even called “predatory” by Themis. The only gods who care for others in the series are Themis and to a lesser extent Metis, who is mainly obsessed with hurting her ex-husband. Hence we may conclude that the Olympian gods in total are described in a very negative light in the series, as the bringers of evil, discrimination and war. As Elizabeth Hale notes, there is a common trope in YA novels, “that of overcoming flawed adult authority and replacing it with a better world, in line with protagonists’ ideals” (Hale, peer-review). While in this series there are various flawed adult characters, some of them do provide guidance and direction for our heroes.

The academy does not educate students but is more interested in cultivating warriors to fight for them. In the end, when the world collapses, the academy fittingly falls as well, and Themis stays behind to rebuild it. The foundations of the academy were rotten from the start, since all the focus was on raising warriors against the monsters yet the real monsters are revealed to be the gods, especially Zee. However, while the catastrophe ensues, there is still hope. A new Zee might be found who may use his powers for good and to the benefit of all. There are no specific myths which are referred to here. As in the other books of the series, the mythological characters keep their names and attributes but they are now transformed to a new universe and are part of new stories.

The review refers to the Kindle edition.