The Mark of Athena

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just…I had to think of that to keep going. To give me hope. Forget I mentioned—”

“No!” she said. “No, Percy. Gods, that’s so sweet. It’s just…we may have burned that bridge. If we can’t repair things with the Romans—well, the two sets of demigods have never gotten along. That’s why the gods kept us separate. I don’t know if we could ever belong there.”

Percy didn’t want to argue, but he couldn’t let go of the hope. It felt important—not just for Annabeth and him, but for all the other demigods. It had to be possible to belong in two different worlds at once. After all, that’s what being a demigod was all about—not quite belonging in the mortal world or on Mount Olympus, but trying to make peace with both sides of their nature.

Unfortunately, that got him thinking about the gods, the war they were facing, and his dream about the twins Ephialtes and Otis.

“I was having a nightmare when you woke me up,” he admitted.

He told Annabeth what he’d seen.

Even the most troubling parts didn’t seem to surprise her. She shook her head sadly when he described Nico’s imprisonment in the bronze jar. She got an angry glint in her eyes when he told her about the giants planning some sort of Rome-destroying extravaganza that would include their painful deaths as the opening event.

“Nico is the bait,” she murmured. “Gaea’s forces must have captured him somehow. But we don’t know exactly where they’re holding him.”

“Somewhere in Rome,” Percy said. “Somewhere underground. They made it sound like Nico still had a few days to live, but I don’t see how he could hold out so long with no oxygen.”

“Five more days, according to Nemesis,” Annabeth said. “The Kalends of July. At least the deadline makes sense now.”

“What’s a Kalends?”

Annabeth smirked, like she was pleased they were back in their old familiar pattern—Percy being ignorant, she herself explaining stuff. “It’s just the Roman term for the first of the month. That’s where we get the word calendar. But how can Nico survive that long? We should talk to Hazel.”

“Now?”

She hesitated. “No. It can wait until morning. I don’t want to hit her with this news in the middle of the night.”

“The giants mentioned a statue,” Percy recalled. “And something about a talented friend who was guarding it. Whoever this friend was, she scared Otis. Anyone who can scare a giant…”

Annabeth gazed down at a highway snaking through dark hills. “Percy, have you seen Poseidon lately? Or had any kind of sign from him?”

He shook his head. “Not since…Wow. I guess I haven’t thought about it. Not since the end of the Titan War. I saw him at Camp Half-Blood, but that was last August.” A sense of dread settled over him. “Why? Have you seen Athena?”

She didn’t meet his eyes.

“A few weeks ago,” she admitted. “It…it wasn’t good. She didn’t seem like herself. Maybe it’s the Greek/Roman schizophrenia that Nemesis described. I’m not sure. She said some hurtful things. She said I had failed her.”

“Failed her?” Percy wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. Annabeth was the perfect demigod child. She was everything a daughter of Athena should be. “How could you ever—?”

“I don’t know,” she said miserably. “On top of that, I’ve been having nightmares of my own. They don’t make as much sense as yours.”

Percy waited, but Annabeth didn’t share any more details. He wanted to make her feel better and tell her it would be okay, but he knew he couldn’t. He wanted to fix everything for both of them so they could have a happy ending. After all these years, even the cruelest gods would have to admit they deserved it.

But he had a gut feeling that there was nothing he could do to help Annabeth this time, other than simply be there. Wisdom’s daughter walks alone.

He felt as trapped and helpless as when he’d sunk into the muskeg.

Annabeth managed a faint smile. “Some romantic evening, huh? No more bad things until the morning.” She kissed him again. “We’ll figure everything out. I’ve got you back. For now, that’s all that matters.”

“Right,” Percy said. “No more talk about Gaea rising, Nico being held hostage, the world ending, the giants —”

“Shut up, Seaweed Brain,” she ordered. “Just hold me for a while.”

They sat together cuddling, enjoying each other’s warmth. Before Percy knew it, the drone of the ship’s engine, the dim light, and the comfortable feeling of being with Annabeth made his eyes heavy, and he drifted to sleep.

When he woke, daylight was coming through the glass floor, and a boy’s voice said, “Oh…You are in so much trouble.”

PERCY HAD SEEN FRANK SURROUNDED by cannibal ogres, facing down an unkillable giant, and even unleashing Thanatos, the god of death. But he’d never seen Frank look as terrified as he did now, finding the two of them passed out in the stables.

“What… ?” Percy rubbed his eyes. “Oh, we just fell asleep.”

Frank swallowed. He was dressed in running shoes, dark cargo pants, and a Vancouver Winter Olympics T-shirt with his Roman centurion badge pinned to the neck (which seemed either sad or hopeful to Percy, now that they were renegades). Frank averted his eyes as if the sight of them together might burn him.