Hestia knelt on the warm marble steps of her golden gazebo, watching the eternal flame shrink inside its great bowl. She had tended this fire since the first home was built. Every mortal hearth drew its warmth from these embers. Tonight the flame was thin and blue, the lowest it had burned in a thousand years. Her bronze kettle sat beside her, still warm from the offerings she had poured all night. Dried herbs, scented oil, a careful spoon of nectar. Nothing fed the flame. She pressed her palm to the kettle and counted what she had tried. If she guessed wrong again, the fire would die. Then she saw it. Behind the gazebo, half-hidden by moss, sat a cracked stone vessel. Golden light leaked from its split side and ran into the ground. Hestia followed the glowing trail with her fingers. The light was the same gold as her flame. Something was pulling its life into the earth, drop by drop. She pressed both hands against the crack and the leak slowed. The flame above her steadied, then climbed a little higher. Hestia let out a long breath. She had found the wound. Now she had to learn who had made it.

Hestia kept one hand pressed to the crack while the flame above wavered. She could not stay here forever. Every hour she lingered, another mortal hearth went dark. She needed a way to slow the bleeding while she hunted the culprit. She reached for her bronze kettle and poured a slow ribbon of warm oil along the split stone. The oil thickened, sealing the wound like wax. The golden leak slowed to a drip. Inside the gazebo, the great bowl's flame steadied, no longer guttering blue but burning a soft, careful orange beneath the domed roof. Hestia opened her glowing journal across her knees. Pressed leaves marked each family she watched. Dozens of pages had dimmed to gray in a single night. She traced a finger down the cold names and felt her jaw tighten. The seal would hold for a day, perhaps two. No longer. She closed the journal and stood. The oil had bought her time, but time was already spent. Somewhere on Olympus, someone had carved that crack on purpose. Hestia banked the flame, lifted her kettle, and stepped down from the warm marble to find them.