“All right,” he said. “But if any giants come this way—”
“Feel free to blast them,” Jason said.
“What about annoying tourists?”
“No,” they all said in unison.
“Bah. Fine. Just don’t take too long, or I’m coming after you with ballistae blazing.”
FINDING THE PLACE WAS EASY. Percy led them right to it, on an abandoned stretch of hillside overlooking the ruined Forum.
Getting in was easy too. Jason’s gold sword cut through the padlock, and the metal gate creaked open. No mortals saw them. No alarms went off. Stone steps spiraled down into the gloom.
“I’ll go first,” Jason said.
“No!” Piper yelped.
Both boys turned toward her.
“Pipes, what is it?” Jason asked. “That image in the blade…you’ve seen it before, haven’t you?”
She nodded, her eyes stinging. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I saw the room down there filling with water. I saw the three of us drowning.”
Jason and Percy both frowned.
“I can’t drown,” Percy said, though he sounded like he was asking a question.
“Maybe the future has changed,” Jason speculated. “In the image you showed us just now, there wasn’t any water.”
Piper wished he was right, but she suspected they wouldn’t be so lucky.
“Look,” Percy said. “I’ll check it out first. It’s fine. Be right back.”
Before Piper could object, he disappeared down the stairwell.
She counted silently as they waited for him to come back. Somewhere around thirty-five, she heard his footsteps, and he appeared at the top, looking more baffled than relieved.
“Good news: no water,” he said. “Bad news: I don’t see any exits down there. And, uh, weird news: well, you should see this.…”
They descended cautiously. Percy took the lead, with Riptide drawn. Piper followed, and Jason walked behind her, guarding their backs. The stairwell was a cramped corkscrew of masonry, no more than six feet in diameter. Even though Percy had given the “all clear,” Piper kept her eyes open for traps. With every turn of the stairs, she anticipated an ambush. She had no weapon, just the cornucopia on a leather cord over her shoulder. If worse came to worst, the boys’ swords wouldn’t do much good in such close quarters. Maybe Piper could shoot their enemies with high-velocity smoked hams.
As they wound their way underground, Piper saw old graffiti gouged into the stones: Roman numerals, names and phrases in Italian. That meant other people had been down here more recently than the Roman Empire, but Piper wasn’t reassured. If monsters were below, they’d ignore mortals, waiting for some nice juicy demigods to come along.
Finally, they reached the bottom.
Percy turned. “Watch this last step.”
He jumped to the floor of the cylindrical room, which was five feet lower than the stairwell. Why would someone design a set of stairs like that? Piper had no idea. Maybe the room and the stairwell had been built during different time periods.
She wanted to turn and exit, but she couldn’t do that with Jason behind her, and she couldn’t just leave Percy down there. She clambered down, and Jason followed.
The room was just like she’d seen it in Katoptris’s blade, except there was no water. The curved walls had once been painted with frescoes, which were now faded to eggshell white with only flecks of color. The domed ceiling was about fifty feet above.
Around the back side of the room, opposite the stairwell, nine alcoves were carved into the wall. Each niche was about five feet off the floor and big enough for a human-sized statue, but each was empty.
The air felt cold and dry. As Percy had said, there were no other exits.
“All right.” Percy raised his eyebrows. “Here’s the weird part. Watch.”
He stepped to the middle of the room.
Instantly, green and blue light rippled across the walls. Piper heard the sound of a fountain, but there was no water. There didn’t seem to be any source of light except for Percy’s and Jason’s blades.
“Do you smell the ocean?” Percy asked.
Piper hadn’t noticed at first. She was standing next to Percy, and he always smelled like the sea. But he was right. The scent of salt water and storm was getting stronger, like a summer hurricane approaching.
“An illusion?” she asked. All of a sudden, she felt strangely thirsty.
“I don’t know,” Percy said. “I feel like there should be water here—lots of water. But there isn’t any. I’ve never been in a place like this.”
Jason moved to the row of niches. He touched the bottom shelf of the nearest one, which was just at his eye level. “This stone…it’s embedded with seashells. This is a nymphaeum.”
