The Mark of Athena

“The giants’ bane,” Hazel added.

Percy nodded. “And in my dream, the twin giants said something about a statue.”

“Um…” Frank rolled his not-exactly-Chinese handcuffs between his fingers. “According to Phorcys, we’d have to be insane to try to find it. But what is it?”

Everyone looked at Annabeth. Her scalp tingled, as if the thoughts in her brain were agitating to get out: a statue…Athena…Greek and Roman, her nightmares, and her argument with her mom. She saw how the pieces were coming together, but she couldn’t believe it was true. The answer was too big, too important, and much too scary.

She noticed Jason studying her, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking and didn’t like it any more than she did. Again she couldn’t help but wonder: Why does this guy make me so nervous? Is he really on my side? Or maybe that was her mom talking.…

“I—I’m close to an answer,” she said. “I’ll know more if we find this map. Jason, the way you reacted to the name Charleston…have you been there before?”

Jason glanced uneasily at Piper, though Annabeth wasn’t sure why.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Reyna and I did a quest there about a year ago. We were salvaging Imperial gold weapons from the C.S.S. Hunley.”

“The what?” Piper asked.

“Whoa!” Leo said. “That’s the first successful military submarine. From the Civil War. I always wanted to see that.”

“It was designed by Roman demigods,” Jason said. “It held a secret stash of Imperial gold torpedoes—until we rescued them and brought them back to Camp Jupiter.”

Hazel crossed her arms. “So the Romans fought on the Confederate side? As a girl whose grandmother was a slave, can I just say…not cool?”

Jason put his hands in front of him, palms up. “I personally was not alive then. And it wasn’t all Greeks on one side and all Romans on the other. But, yes. Not cool. Sometimes demigods make bad choices.” He looked sheepishly at Hazel. “Like sometimes we’re too suspicious. And we speak without thinking.”

Hazel stared at him. Slowly it seemed to dawn on her that he was apologizing.

Jason elbowed Leo.

“Ow!” Leo yelped. “I mean, yeah…bad choices. Like not trusting people’s brothers who, you know, might need saving. Hypothetically speaking.”

Hazel pursed her lips. “Fine. Back to Charleston. Are you saying we should check that submarine again?”

Jason shrugged. “Well…I can think of two places in Charleston we might search. The museum where they keep the Hunley—that’s one of them. It has a lot of relics from the Civil War. A map could be hidden in one. I know the layout. I could lead a team inside.”

“I’ll go,” Leo said. “That sounds cool.”

Jason nodded. He turned to Frank, who was trying to pull his fingers out of the Chinese handcuffs. “You should come too, Frank. We might need you.”

Frank looked surprised. “Why? Not like I was much good at that aquarium.”

“You did fine,” Percy assured him. “It took all three of us to break that glass.”

“Besides, you’re a child of Mars,” Jason said. “The ghosts of defeated causes are bound to serve you. And the museum in Charleston has plenty of Confederate ghosts. We’ll need you to keep them in line.”

Frank gulped. Annabeth remembered Percy’s comment about Frank turning into a giant goldfish, and she resisted the urge to smile. She would never be able to look at the big guy again without seeing him as a koi.

“Okay.” Frank relented. “Sure.” He frowned at his fingers, trying to pull them out of the trap. “Uh, how do you —?”

Leo chuckled. “Man, you’ve never seen those before? There’s a simple trick to getting out.”

Frank tugged again with no luck. Even Hazel was trying not to laugh.

Frank grimaced with concentration. Suddenly, he disappeared. On the deck where he’d been standing, a green iguana crouched next to an empty set of Chinese handcuffs.

“Well done, Frank Zhang,” Leo said dryly, doing his impression of Chiron the centaur. “That is exactly how people beat Chinese handcuffs. They turn into iguanas.”

Everybody busted out laughing. Frank turned back to human, picked up the handcuffs, and shoved them in his backpack. He managed an embarrassed smile.

“Anyway,” Frank said, clearly anxious to change the subject. “The museum is one place to search. But, uh, Jason, you said there were two?”

Jason’s smile faded. Whatever he was thinking about, Annabeth could tell it wasn’t pleasant.

“Yeah,” he said. “The other place is called the Battery—it’s a park right by the harbor. The last time I was there…with Reyna…” He glanced at Piper, then rushed on. “We saw something in the park. A ghost or some sort of spirit, like a Southern belle from the Civil War, glowing and floating along. We tried to approach it, but it disappeared whenever we got close. Then Reyna had this feeling—she said she should try it alone. Like maybe it would only talk to a girl. She went up to the spirit by herself, and sure enough, it spoke to her.”

Everyone waited.

“What did it say?” Annabeth asked.