The chapter opens with the narrator’s belief that the gods toy with mortals and that every century mortals enable their games. She states she has never been favored by the gods due to Zeus, establishing a hostile backdrop between her and Olympus. She works as a low-level, cursed office clerk within the Order of Thieves and survives by staying unnoticed.

She notes the difficulty of avoiding divine notice in San Francisco, which is under Zeus’s patronage, but insists she has managed to survive by keeping her head down. This routine ends when she encounters another god: Hades, whom she calls the worst god. His arrival breaks her careful anonymity and thrusts her into the gods’ arena.

The narrator explains the Crucible, a lethal contest held by the gods every hundred years to determine the next ruler of Olympus. Rather than fighting personally, the gods choose mortals to compete as their champions. This practice underscores the gods’ capricious power dynamics and the expendability of humans in their schemes.

For the first time, Hades has entered the Crucible. Against all expectations, he selects the narrator—whom she describes as a sarcastic nobody burdened by a curse—to be his champion. She cannot determine whether she is a pawn, bait, or something else in Hades’s plan, emphasizing her lack of information and agency.

Despite her fear and resentment, she admits an involuntary, unsettling attraction to Hades, noting her heart stutters when he claims she is his. She characterizes Hades as ruthless, mercurial, and secretive, asserting that he is playing by his own rules and that Death will win at any cost. The chapter closes with the narrator facing the terrifying prospect of the Crucible under Hades’s command.