Princess Medea and a boy named Jason go on a quest for the Golden Fleece in this twenty-third Goddess Girls adventure! Jason and Princess Medea are on a quest for the golden fleece, a symbol of kingship, that’s hanging from a limb of the great oak tree. But a huge sleeping serpent guards the fleece—and is the one (scary!) barrier for Jason and Medea. With the help of a special sleeping potion Medea creates, can Medea and Jason work their magic and take what is rightfully theirs? Joan Holub has authored and/or illustrated over 140 children’s books, including the Goddess Girls series, the Heroes in Training series, the New York Times bestselling picture book Mighty Dads (illustrated by James Dean), and Little Red Writing (illustrated by Melissa Sweet). She lives in North Carolina and is online at JoanHolub.com. Suzanne Williams is a former elementary school librarian and the author of over seventy books for children, including the award-winning picture books Library Lil (illustrated by Steven Kellogg) and My Dog Never Says Please (illustrated by Tedd Arnold), and several chapter book and middle grade series. She also coauthors the Goddess Girls and Thunder Girls series with the fantastic Joan Holub. Visit her at Suzanne-Williams.com. Medea the Enchantress 1 Danger! TWELVE-YEAR-OLD MEDEA TWIRLED A LOCK of her long black hair around a gold-tipped laurel-wood wand. Her wand was magic. A standard school supply, it had been issued to her at Enchantment Academy earlier in the year. With each twirl of the wand, streaks of rainbow sparkles zinged from its tip through her hair. And each time she unwound the curl from her wand, the streaks quickly faded to black again. However, as she sat on a window seat in the throne room of her father’s palace in the land of Colchis on the Black Sea, Medea didn’t notice any of this. Instead, her blue eyes were glued to the scroll in her lap. It was last week’s issue of Teen Scrollazine. On Friday she had traded her lunch money for it to a girl at school named Glauce. (Totally worth it!) It was Sunday night now, and all weekend Medea had been sneaking around here at home, reading the ’zine in secret. Not only was T-zine full of fashion advice and news stories, it contained a column penned by Pheme, the goddessgirl of gossip. Her column was all about the exploits of the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus. And it was especially delicious this week! It seemed that Aphrodite, the goddessgirl of love and beauty, had worn painted bronze accessories with one of her dazzling pink chitons recently, setting off a new fashion craze among mortals on Earth. Also, Eros, the godboy of love, was testing out mini-size versions of his magic crush-causing arrows. And if Pheme had her facts straight, some students in a class called Hero-ology, which was taught by Mr. Cyclops at Mount Olympus Academy, would soon embark on a mysterious, heroic adventure! Suddenly Medea’s head popped up like she was a rabbit scenting danger. Footsteps! And voices! King Aeëtes (her dad) and Circe (her aunt) were coming her way! With a quick wave of her wand, she caused the window seat’s curtains to magically whip shut around it, closing her off from the rest of the room. There was no telling what her dad would do if he caught her reading the ’zine. He had strict rules, and he disapproved of Teen Scrollazine big-time. He only wanted her to read things that made her “smarter.” Which he claimed gossip didn’t. Maybe not, but in her opinion Pheme’s column was a lot of fun. And shouldn’t reading be fun? Often the reading material her dad did approve of (hello, encyclopedia scrolls?) wasn’t. Besides, there was other stuff in the ’zine too. A few weeks ago there had even been an article about her dad’s amazing cape. The one he’d nicknamed the Golden Fleece. But even that article—which had been stuffed with facts—hadn’t impressed him. Still, everyone she knew practically devoured the stories in the ’zine. If she didn’t do the same, she wouldn’t know what they were talking about at school on Monday! Stomp, stomp! Tap, tap! The two sets of footsteps stopped right outside the window seat where she sat. Medea held the ’zine against her chest and tried not to breathe too loudly. “I’ve had a vision. Danger is coming,” she heard her aunt Circe say in that special faraway voice she used when she was telling a prophecy. Not only was she Medea’s aunt, she was also one of the greatest sorceresses of all time and the principal of Enchantment Academy, where Medea attended school. The king’s voice tightened. “Explain.” Medea heard the jangle of bracelets and knew her typically dramatic aunt must be waving her hands expressively as she announced, “A thief will soon come to Colchis to steal your Golden Fleece!” Medea’s eyes rounded and she let out a tiny gasp. Luckily, her dad snorted at the same time, covering the sound she’d made. “Probably thanks to the article in that blabby Teen Scrollazine telling the