Before I left Olympus, I decided to make a few calls. It wasn't easy, but I finally found a
quiet fountain in a corner garden and sent an Iris-message to my brother, Tyson, under the
sea. I told him about our adventures, and Bessie—he wanted to hear every detail about the
cute baby cow serpent—and I assured him that Annabeth was safe. Finally I got around to
explaining how the shield he'd made me last summer had been damaged in the manticore
attack.
"Yay!" Tyson said. "That means it was good! It saved your life!"
"It sure did, big guy," I said. "But now it's ruined."
"Not ruined!" Tyson promised. "I will visit and fix it next summer."
The idea picked me up instantly. I guess I hadn't realized how much I missed having
Tyson around.
"Seriously?" I asked. "They'll let you take time off?"
"Yes! I have made two thousand seven hundred and forty-one magic swords," Tyson
said proudly, showing me the newest blade. "The boss says 'good work'! He will let me take
the whole summer off. I will visit camp!"
We talked for a while about war preparations and our dad's fight with the old sea gods,
and all the cool things we could do together next summer, but then Tyson's boss started
yelling at him and he had to get back to work.
I dug out my last golden drachma and made one more Iris-message.
"Sally Jackson," I said. "Upper East Side, Manhattan."
The mist shimmered, and there was my mom at our kitchen table, laughing and holding
hands with her friend Mr. Blowfish.
I felt so embarrassed, I was about to wave my hand through the mist and cut the
connection, but before I could, my mom saw me.
Her eyes got wide. She let go of Mr. Blowfish's hand real quick. "Oh, Paul! You know
what? I left my writing journal in the living room. Would you mind getting it for me?"
"Sure, Sally. No problem."
He left the room, and instantly my mom leaned toward the Iris-message. "Percy! Are
you all right?"
"I'm, uh, fine. How's that writing seminar going?"
She pursed her lips. "It's fine. But that's not important. Tell me what's happened!"
I filled her in as quickly as I could. She sighed with relief when she heard that Annabeth
was safe.
"I knew you could do it!" she said. "I'm so proud."
"Yeah, well, I'd better let you get back to your homework."
"Percy, I… Paul and I—"
"Mom, are you happy?"
The question seemed to take her by surprise. She thought for a moment. "Yes. I really
am, Percy. Being around him makes me happy."
"Then it's cool. Seriously. Don't worry about me." The funny thing was, I meant it.
Considering the quest I'd just had, maybe I should have been worried for my mom. I'd seen
just how mean people could be to each other, like Hercules was to Zoe Nightshade, like Luke
was to Thalia. I'd met Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, in person, and her powers had scared me
worse than Ares. But seeing my mother laughing and smiling, after all the years she'd suffered
with my nasty ex-stepfather, Gabe Ugliano, I couldn't help feeling happy for her.
"You promise not to call him Mr. Blowfish?" she asked.
I shrugged. "Well, maybe not to his face, anyway."
"Sally?" Mr. Blofis called from our living room. "You need the green binder or the red
one?"
"I'd better go," she told me. "See you for Christmas?"
"Are you putting blue candy in my stocking?"
She smiled. "If you're not too old for that."
"I'm never too old for candy."
"I'll see you then."
She waved her hand across the mist. Her image disappeared, and I thought to myself
that Thalia had been right, so many days ago at Westover Hall: my mom really was pretty
cool.
Compared to Mount Olympus, Manhattan was quiet. Friday before Christmas, but it
was early in the morning, and hardly anyone was on Fifth Avenue. Argus, the many-eyed
security chief, picked up Annabeth, Grover, and me at the Empire State Building and ferried
us back to camp through a light snowstorm. The Long Island Expressway was almost
deserted.
As we trudged back up Half-Blood Hill to the pine tree where the Golden Fleece
glittered, I half expected to see Thalia there, waiting for us. But she wasn't. She was long gone
with Artemis and the rest of the Hunters, off on their next adventure.
Chiron greeted us at the Big House with hot chocolate and toasted cheese sandwiches.
Grover went off with his satyr friends to spread the word about our strange encounter with the
magic of Pan. Within an hour, the satyrs were all running around agitated, asking where the
nearest espresso bar was.
Annabeth and I sat with Chiron and some of the other senior campers—Beckendorf,
Silena Beauregard, and the Stoll brothers. Even Clarisse from the Ares cabin was there, back
from her secretive scouting mission. I knew she must've had a difficult quest, because she
didn't even try to pulverize me. She had a new scar on her chin, and her dirty blond hair had
been cut short and ragged, like someone had attacked it with a pair of safety scissors.
"I got news," she mumbled uneasily. "Bad news."
"I'll fill you in later," Chiron said with forced cheerfulness. "The important thing is you
have prevailed. And you saved Annabeth!"
Annabeth smiled at me gratefully, which made me look away.
For some strange reason, I found myself thinking about Hoover Dam, and the odd
mortal girl I'd run into there, Rachel Elizabeth Dare. I didn't know why, but her annoying
comments kept coming back to me. Do you always kill people when they blow their nose? I
was only alive because so many people had helped me, even a random mortal girl like that. I'd
never even explained to her who I was.
"Luke is alive," I said. "Annabeth was right."
Annabeth sat up. "How do you know?"
I tried not to feel annoyed by her interest. I told her what my dad had said about the
Princess Andromeda.
"Well." Annabeth shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "If the final battle does come
when Percy is sixteen, at least we have two more years to figure something out."
I had a feeling that when she said "figure something out," she meant "get Luke to
change his ways," which annoyed me even more.
Chiron's expression was gloomy. Sitting by the fire in his wheelchair, he looked really
old. I mean… he was really old, but he usually didn't look it.
"Two years may seem like a long time," he said. "But it is the blink of an eye. I still
hope you are not the child of the prophecy, Percy. But if you are, then the second Titan war is
almost upon us. Kronos's first strike will be here."
"How do you know?" I asked. "Why would he care about camp?"
"Because the gods use heroes as their tools," Chiron said simply. "Destroy the tools, and
the gods will be crippled. Luke's forces will come here. Mortal, demigod, monstrous… We
must be prepared. Clarisse's news may give us a clue as to how they will attack, but—"
There was a knock on the door, and Nico di Angelo came huffing into the parlor, his
cheeks bright red from the cold.
He was smiling, but he looked around anxiously. "Hey! Where's… where's my sister?"
Dead silence. I stared at Chiron. I couldn't believe nobody had told him yet. And then I
realized why. They'd been waiting for us to appear, to tell Nico in person.
That was the last thing I wanted to do. But I owed it to Bianca.
"Hey, Nico." I got up from my comfortable chair. "Let's take a walk, okay? We need to
talk."
He took the news in silence, which somehow made it worse. I kept talking, trying to
explain how it had happened, how Bianca had sacrificed herself to save the quest. But I felt
like I was only making things worse.
"She wanted you to have this." I brought out the little god figurine Bianca had found in
the junkyard. Nico held it in his palm and stared at it.
We were standing at the dining pavilion, just where we'd last spoken before I went on
the quest. The wind was bitter cold, even with the camp's magical weather protection. Snow
fell lightly against the marble steps. I figured outside the camp borders, there must be a
blizzard happening.
"You promised you would protect her," Nico said.
He might as well have stabbed me with a rusty dagger.
It would've hurt less than reminding me of my promise.
"Nico," I said. "I tried. But Bianca gave herself up to save the rest of us. I told her not
to. But she—"
"You promised!"
He glared at me, his eyes rimmed with red. He closed his small fist around the god
statue.
"I shouldn't have trusted you." His voice broke. "You lied to me. My nightmares were
right!"
"Wait. What nightmares?"
He flung the god statue to the ground. It clattered across the icy marble. "I hate you!"
"She might be alive," I said desperately. "I don't know for sure—"
"She's dead." He closed his eyes. His whole body trembled with rage. "I should've
known it earlier. She's in the Fields of Asphodel, standing before the judges right now, being
evaluated. I can feel it."
"What do you mean, you can feel it?"
Before he could answer, I heard a new sound behind me. A hissing, clattering noise I
recognized all too well.
I drew my sword and Nico gasped. I whirled and found myself facing four skeleton
warriors. They grinned fleshless grins and advanced with swords drawn. I wasn't sure how
they'd made it inside the camp, but it didn't matter. I'd never get help in time.
"You're trying to kill me!" Nico screamed. "You brought these… these things?"
"No! I mean, yes, they followed me, but no! Nico, run. They can't be destroyed."
"I don't trust you!"
The first skeleton charged. I knocked aside its blade, but the other three kept coming. I
sliced one in half, but immediately it began to knit back together. I knocked another's head off
but it just kept fighting.
"Run, Nico!" I yelled. "Get help!"
"No!" He pressed his hands to his ears.
I couldn't fight four at once, not if they wouldn't die. I slashed, whirled, blocked, jabbed,
but they just kept advancing. It was only a matter of seconds before the zombies overpowered
me.
"No!" Nico shouted louder. "Go away!"
The ground rumbled beneath me. The skeletons froze. I rolled out of the way just as a
crack opened at the feet of the four warriors. The ground ripped apart like a snapping mouth.
Flames erupted from the fissure, and the earth swallowed the skeletons in one loud CRUNCH!
Silence.
In the place where the skeletons had stood, a twenty-foot-long scar wove across the
marble floor of the pavilion. Otherwise there was no sign of the warriors.
Awestruck, I looked to Nico. "How did you—"
"Go away!" he yelled. "I hate you! I wish you were dead!"
The ground didn't swallow me up, but Nico ran down the steps, heading toward the
woods. I started to follow but slipped and fell to the icy steps. When I got up, I noticed what
I'd slipped on.
I picked up the god statue Bianca had retrieved from the junkyard for Nico. The only
statue he didn't have, she'd said. A last gift from his sister.
I stared at it with dread, because now I understood why the face looked familiar. I'd
seen it before.
It was a statue of Hades, Lord of the Dead.
Annabeth and Grover helped me search the woods for hours, but there was no sign of
Nico di Angelo.
"We have to tell Chiron," Annabeth said, out of breath.
"No," I said.
She and Grover both stared at me.
"Um," Grover said nervously, "what do you mean… no?
I was still trying to figure out why I'd said that, but the words spilled out of me. "We
can't let anyone know. I don't think anyone realizes that Nico is a—"
"A son of Hades," Annabeth said. "Percy, do you have any idea how serious this is?
Even Hades broke the oath! This is horrible!"
"I don't think so," I said. "I don't think Hades broke the oath."
"What?"
"He's their dad," I said, "but Bianca and Nico have been out of commission for a long
time, since even before World War II."
"The Lotus Casino!" Grover said, and he told Annabeth about the conversations we'd
had with Bianca on the quest. "She and Nico were stuck there for decades. They were born
before the oath was made."
I nodded.
"But how did they get out?" Annabeth protested.
"I don't know," I admitted. "Bianca said a lawyer came and got them and drove them to
Westover Hall. I don't know who that could've been, or why. Maybe it's part of this Great
Stirring thing. I don't think Nico understands who he is. But we can't go telling anyone. Not
even Chiron. If the Olympians find out—"
"It might start them fighting among each other again," Annabeth said. "That's the last
thing we need."
Grover looked worried. "But you can't hide things from the gods. Not forever."
"I don't need forever," I said. "Just two years. Until I'm sixteen."
Annabeth paled. "But, Percy, this means the prophecy might not be about you. It might
be about Nico.We have to—"
"No," I said. "I choose the prophecy. It will be about me."
"Why are you saying that?" she cried. "You want to be responsible for the whole
world?"
It was the last thing I wanted, but I didn't say that. I knew I had to step up and claim it.
"I can't let Nico be in any more danger," I said. "I owe that much to his sister. I… let
them both down. I'm not going to let that poor kid suffer any more."
"The poor kid who hates you and wants to see you dead," Grover reminded me.
"Maybe we can find him," I said. "We can convince him it's okay, hide him someplace
safe."
Annabeth shivered. "If Luke gets hold of him—"
"Luke won't," I said. "I'll make sure he's got other things to worry about. Namely, me."
I wasn't sure Chiron believed the story Annabeth and I told him. I think he could tell I
was holding something back about Nico's disappearance, but in the end, he accepted it.
Unfortunately, Nico wasn't the first half-blood to disappear.
"So young," Chiron sighed, his hands on the rail of the front porch. "Alas, I hope he was
eaten by monsters. Much better than being recruited into the Titans' army."
That idea made me really uneasy. I almost changed my mind about telling Chiron, but I
didn't.
"You really think the first attack will be here?" I asked.
Chiron stared at the snow falling on the hills. I could see smoke from the dragon
guardian at the pine tree, the glitter of the distant Fleece.
"It will not be until summer, at least," Chiron said. This winter will be hard… the
hardest for many centuries. It's best that you go home to the city, Percy; try to keep your mind
on school. And rest. You will need rest."
I looked at Annabeth. "What about you?"
Her cheeks flushed. "I'm going to try San Francisco after all. Maybe I can keep an eye
on Mount Tam, make sure the Titans don't try anything else."
"You'll send an Iris-message if anything goes wrong?"
She nodded. "But I think Chiron's right. It won't be until the summer. Luke will need
time to regain his strength."
I didn't like the idea of waiting. Then again, next August I would be turning fifteen. So
close to sixteen I didn't want to think about it.
"All right," I said. "Just take care of yourself. And no crazy stunts in the Sopwith
Camel."
She smiled tentatively. "Deal. And, Percy—"
Whatever she was going to say was interrupted by Grover, who stumbled out of the Big
House, tripping over tin cans. His face was haggard and pale, like he'd seen a specter.
"He spoke.'" Grover cried.
"Calm down, my young satyr," Chiron said, frowning. "What is the matter?"
"I… I was playing music in the parlor," he stammered, "and drinking coffee. Lots and
lots of coffee! And he spoke in my mind!"
"Who?" Annabeth demanded.
"Pan!" Grover wailed. "The Lord of the Wild himself. I heard him! I have to… I have to
find a suitcase."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said. "What did he say?"
Grover stared at me. "Just three words. He said, 'I await you...'"