by Rick Riordan
Meg hadn’t mentioned Peaches to me once since we were in the Labyrinth. Now I realized his absence must have been weighing on her, along with all her other worries.
What a horribly insufficient friend I had been.
“Come here.” I held out my arms. “Please?”
Meg hesitated. Still sniffling, she rose from her cot and trudged toward me. She fell into my hug like I was a comfy mattress. I grunted, surprised by how solid and heavy she was. She smelled of apple peels and mud, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t even mind the mucus and tears soaking my shoulder.
I’d always wondered what it would be like to have a younger sibling. Sometimes I’d treated Artemis as my baby sister, since I’d been born a few minutes earlier, but that had been mostly to annoy her. With Meg, I felt as if it were actually true. I had someone who depended on me, who needed me around no matter how much we irritated each other. I thought about Hazel and Frank and the washing away of curses. I supposed that kind of love could come from many different types of relationships.
“Okay.” Meg pushed herself away, wiping her cheeks furiously. “Enough of that. You sleep. I’m—I’m going to get dinner or whatever.”
For a long time after she left, I lay in my cot staring at the ceiling.
Music floated up from the café: the soothing sounds of Horace Silver’s piano, punctuated by the hiss of the espresso machine, accompanying Bombilo singing in two-headed harmony. After spending a few days with these noises, I found them soothing, even homey. I drifted off to sleep, hoping to have warm, fuzzy dreams about Meg and me skipping through sunlit fields with our elephant, unicorn, and metal greyhound friends.
Instead, I found myself back with the emperors.
On my list of places I least wanted to be, Caligula’s yacht ranked right up there with Tarquin’s tomb, the eternal abyss of Chaos, and the Limburger cheese factory in Liège, Belgium, where stinking gym socks went to feel better about themselves.
Commodus lounged in a deck chair, an aluminum tanning bib around his neck reflecting the afternoon sun directly onto his face. Sunglasses covered his scarred eyes. He wore only pink swim trunks and pink Crocs. I took absolutely no notice of the way the tanning oil glistened on his muscular bronzed body.
Caligula stood nearby in his captain’s uniform: white coat, dark slacks, and striped shirt, all crisply pressed. His cruel face looked almost angelic as he marveled at the contraption that now took up the entire aft deck. The artillery mortar was the size of an aboveground swimming pool, with a two-foot-thick rim of dark iron and a diameter wide enough to drive a car through. Nestled in the barrel, a massive green sphere glowed like a giant radioactive hamster ball.
Pandai rushed around the deck, blanket ears flopping, their furry hands moving at preternatural speeds as they plugged in cables and oiled gears at the base of the weapon. Some of the pandai were young enough to have pure white fur, which made my heart hurt, reminding me of my brief friendship with Crest, the youthful aspiring musician who’d lost his life in the Burning Maze.
“It’s wonderful!” Caligula beamed, circling the mortar. “Is it ready for test-firing?”
“Yes, lord!” said the pandos Boost. “Of course, every sphere of Greek fire is very, very expensive, so—”
“DO IT!” Caligula yelled.
Boost yelped and scrambled to the control panel.
Greek fire. I hated the stuff, and I was a sun god who rode a fiery chariot. Viscous, green, and impossible to extinguish, Greek fire was just plain nasty. A cupful could burn down an entire building, and that single glowing sphere held more than I’d ever seen in one place.
“Oh, Commodus?” Caligula called. “You might want to pay attention to this.”
“I am fully attentive,” Commodus said, turning his face to better catch the sun.
Caligula sighed. “Boost, you may proceed.”
Boost called out instructions in his own language. His fellow pandai turned cranks and spun dials, slowly swiveling the mortar until it pointed out to sea. Boost double-checked his readings on the control panel, then shouted, “U¯nus, duo, tre¯s!”
With a mighty boom, the mortar fired. The entire boat shuddered from the recoil. The giant hamster ball rocketed upward until it was a green marble in the sky, then plummeted toward the western horizon. The sky blazed emerald. A moment later, hot winds buffeted the ship with the smell of burning salt and cooked fish. In the distance, a geyser of green fire churned on the boiling sea.
“Ooh, pretty.” Caligula grinned at Boost. “And you have one missile for each ship?”
“Yes, lord. As instructed.”
“The range?”
“Once we clear Treasure Island, we’ll be able to bring all weapons to bear on Camp Jupiter, my lord. No magical defenses can stop such a massive volley. Total annihilation!”
“Good,” Caligula said. “That’s my favorite kind.”
“But remember,” Commodus called from his deck chair, having not even turned to watch the explosion, “first we try a ground assault. Maybe they’ll be wise and surrender! We want New Rome intact and the harpy and Cyclops taken alive, if possible.”
“Yes, yes,” Caligula said. “If possible.”
He seemed to savor those words like a beautiful lie. His eyes glittered in the green artificial sunset. “Either way, this will be fun.”
I woke up alone, the sun baking my face. For a second I thought I might be in a deck chair next to Commodus, a tanning bib around my neck. But no. The days when Commodus and I hung out together were long gone.
I sat up, groggy, disoriented, and dehydrated. Why was it still light outside?
Then I realized, judging from the angle of the sun coming in the room, it must have been about noon. Once again, I’d slept through the night and half a day. I still felt exhausted.
I pressed gently on my bandaged gut. I was horrified to find the wound tender again. The purple lines of infection had darkened. This could only mean one thing: it was time for a long-sleeved shirt. No matter what happened over the next twenty-four hours, I would not add to Meg’s worries. I would tough it out until the moment I keeled over.
Wow. Who even was I?
By the time I changed clothes and hobbled out of Bombilo’s coffee shop, most of the legion had gathered at the mess hall for lunch. As usual, the dining room bustled with activity. Demigods, grouped by cohort, reclined on couches around low tables while aurae whisked overhead with platters of food and pitchers of drink. Hanging from the cedar rafters, war-game pennants and cohort standards rippled in the constant breeze. When they’d finished eating, diners rose cautiously and walked away hunched over, lest they get decapitated by a flying plate of cold cuts. Except for the Lares, of course. They didn’t care what sort of delicacies flew through their ectoplasmic noggins.
I spotted Frank at the officers’ table, deep in conversation with Hazel and the rest of the centurions. Reyna was nowhere in sight—perhaps she was catching a nap or preparing for the afternoon’s war drills. Given what we were facing tomorrow, Frank looked remarkably relaxed. As he chatted with his officers, he even cracked a smile, which seemed to put the others at ease.
How simple it would be to destroy their fragile confidence, I thought, just by describing the flotilla of artillery yachts I’d seen in my dream. Not yet, I decided. No sense spoiling their meal.
“Hey, Lester!” Lavinia yelled from across the room, waving me over as if I were her waiter.
I joined her and Meg at the Fifth Cohort table. An aura deposited a goblet of water in my hand, then left a whole pitcher on the table. Apparently, my dehydration was that obvious.
Lavinia leaned forward, her eyebrows arched like pink-and-chestnut rainbows. “So, is it true?”
I frowned at Meg, wondering which of the many embarrassing stories about me she might have shared. She was too busy plowing through a row of hot dogs to pay me any mind.
“Is what true?” I asked.
“The shoes.”
“Shoes?”
Lavinia threw her hands in the air. “The dancing shoes of Terpsichore! Meg was telling us what happened on Caligula’s yachts. She said you and that Piper girl saw a pair of Terpsichore’s shoes!”
“Oh.” I had completely forgotten about those, or the fact that I’d told Meg about them. Strange, but the other events aboard Caligula’s ships—getting captured, seeing Jason killed before our eyes, barely escaping with our lives—had eclipsed my memories of the emperor’s footwear collection.
“Meg,” I said, “of all the things you could have chosen to tell them, you told them about that?”
“Wasn’t my idea.” Meg somehow managed to enunciate with half a hot dog in her mouth. “Lavinia likes shoes.”
“Well, what did you think I was going to ask about?” Lavinia demanded. “You tell me the emperor has an entire boatload of shoes, of course I’m going to wonder if you saw any dancing ones! So it’s true, then, Lester?”
“I mean…yes. We saw a pair of—”
“Wow.” Lavinia sat back, crossed her arms, and glared at me. “Just wow. You wait until now to tell me this? Do you know how rare those shoes are? How important…” She seemed to choke on her own indignation. “Wow.”
Around the table, Lavinia’s comrades showed a mixture of reactions. Some rolled their eyes, some smirked, some kept eating as if nothing Lavinia did could surprise them anymore.
An older boy with shaggy brown hair dared to stick up for me. “Lavinia, Apollo has had a few other things going on.”
“Oh, my gods, Thomas!” Lavinia shot back. “Naturally, you wouldn’t understand! You never take off those boots!”
Thomas frowned at his standard-issue combat stompers. “What? They’ve got good arch support.”
“Yeesh.” Lavinia turned to Meg. “We have to figure out a way to get aboard that ship and rescue those shoes.”
“Nah.” Meg sucked a glob of relish off her thumb. “Way too dangerous.”
“But—”
“Lavinia,” I interrupted, “you can’t.”
She must have heard the fear and urgency in my voice. Over the past few days, I had developed a strange fondness for Lavinia. I didn’t want to see her charge into a slaughter, especially after my dream about those mortars primed with Greek fire.
She ran her Star of David pendant back and forth on its chain. “You’ve got new information? Dish.”
Before I could reply, a plate of food flew into my hands. The aurae had decided I needed chicken fingers and fries. Lots of them. Either that or they’d heard the word dish and taken it as an order.
A moment later, Hazel and the other Fifth Cohort centurion joined us—a dark-haired young man with strange red stains around his mouth. Ah, yes. Dakota, child of Bacchus.
“What’s going on?” Dakota asked.
“Lester has news.” Lavinia stared at me expectantly, as if I might be withholding the location of Terpsichore’s magical tutu (which, for the record, I hadn’t seen in centuries).
I took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure if this was the right forum for sharing my dream. I should probably report it to the praetors first. But Hazel nodded at me as if to say, Go on. I decided that was good enough.
I described what I’d seen—a top-of-the-line IKEA heavy mortar, fully assembled, shooting a giant hamster ball of green flaming death that blew up the Pacific Ocean. I explained that, apparently, the emperors had fifty such mortars, one on each ship, which would be ready to obliterate Camp Jupiter as soon as they took up positions in the bay.
Dakota’s face turned as red as his mouth. “I need more Kool-Aid.”
The fact that no goblets flew into his hand told me the aurae disagreed.
Lavinia looked like she’d been slapped with one of her mother’s ballet slippers. Meg kept eating hot dogs as if they might be the last ones she would ever get.
Hazel chewed her bottom lip in concentration, perhaps trying to extract any good news from what I’d said. She seemed to find this harder than pulling diamonds from the ground.
“Okay, look, guys, we knew the emperors were assembling secret weapons. At least now we know what those weapons are. I’ll convey this information to the praetors, but it doesn’t change anything. You all did a great job in the morning drills”—she hesitated, then generously decided not to add except for Apollo, who slept through it all—“and this afternoon, one of our war games will be about boarding enemy ships. We can get prepared.”
From the expressions around the table, I gathered the Fifth Cohort was not reassured. The Romans had never been known for their naval prowess. Last I’d checked, the Camp Jupiter “navy” consisted of some old triremes they only used for mock naval battles in the Colosseum, and one rowboat they kept docked in Alameda. Drilling to board enemy ships would be less about practicing a workable battle plan and more about keeping the legionnaires busy so they wouldn’t think about their impending doom.
Thomas rubbed his forehead. “I hate my life.”
“Keep it together, legionnaire,” Hazel said. “This is what we signed up for. Defending the legacy of Rome.”
“From its own emperors,” Thomas said miserably.
“I’m sorry to tell you,” I put in, “but the biggest threat to the empire was often its own emperors.”
Nobody argued.
At the officers’ table, Frank Zhang stood. All around the room, flying pitchers and platters froze in midair, waiting respectfully.
“Legionnaires!” Frank announced, managing a confident smile. “Relay activities will recommence on the Field of Mars in twenty minutes. Drill like your lives depend on it, because they do!”
See this right here, kids?
This is how you don’t do it.
Questions? Class dismissed.
“HOW’S THE WOUND?” HAZEL asked.
I knew she meant well, but I was getting very tired of that question, and even more tired of the wound.
We walked side by side out the main gates, heading for the Field of Mars. Just ahead of us, Meg cartwheeled down the road, though how she did this without regurgitating the four hot dogs she’d eaten, I had no idea.
“Oh, you know,” I said, in a terrible attempt to sound upbeat, “all things considered, I’m okay.”
My old immortal self would have laughed at that. Okay? Are you joking?
Over the last few months, I had drastically scaled back my expectations. At this point, okay meant still able to walk and breathe.
“I should have realized earlier,” Hazel said. “Your death aura is getting stronger by the hour—”
“Can we not talk about my death aura?”
“Sorry, it’s just…I wish Nico were here. He might know how to fix you.”
I wouldn’t have minded seeing Hazel’s half brother. Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, had been quite valuable when we fought Nero at Camp Half-Blood. And of course his boyfriend, my son Will Solace, was an excellent healer. Yet I suspected they wouldn’t be able to help me any more than Pranjal had. If Will and Nico were here, they would just be two more people for me to worry about—two more loved ones watching me with concern, wondering how long until I went full-on zombie.
“I appreciate the sentiment,” I said, “but…What is Lavinia doing?”
About a hundred yards away, Lavinia and Don the faun stood on a bridge across the Little Tiber—which was very much not on the way to the Field of Mars—having what looked like a serious argument. Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought this to Hazel’s attention. Then again, if Lavinia wanted to go unnoticed, she should have chosen a different hair color—like camouflage, for instance—and not waved her arms around so much.
“I don’t know.” Hazel’s expression reminded me of a tired mother who had found her toddler trying to climb into the monkey exhibit for the dozenth time. “Lavinia!”
Lavinia looked over. She patted the air as if to say, Just give me a minute, then went back to arguing with Don.
“Am I too young to get ulcers?” Hazel wondered aloud.
; I had little occasion for humor, given all that was happening, but that comment made me laugh.
As we got closer to the Field of Mars, I saw legionnaires breaking into cohorts, moving to different activities spread across the wasteland. One group was digging defensive trenches. Another had gathered on the shore of an artificial lake that hadn’t been there yesterday, waiting to board two makeshift boats that looked nothing like Caligula’s yachts. A third group sledded down a dirt hill on their shields.
Hazel sighed. “That would be my group of delinquents. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to teach them how to slay ghouls.”
She jogged away, leaving me alone with my cartwheeling sidekick.
“So where do we go?” I asked Meg. “Frank said we had, er, special jobs?”
“Yep.” Meg pointed to the far end of the field, where the Fifth Cohort was waiting at a target range. “You’re teaching archery.”
I stared at her. “I’m doing what now?”
“Frank taught the morning class, since you slept forever. Now it’s your turn.”
“But—I can’t teach as Lester, especially in my condition! Besides, Romans never rely on archery in combat. They think projectile weapons are beneath them!”
“Gotta think in new ways if you want to beat the emperors,” Meg said. “Like me. I’m weaponizing the unicorns.”
“You’re—Wait, what?”
“Later.” Meg skipped across the field toward a large riding ring, where the First Cohort and a herd of unicorns were staring suspiciously at one another. I couldn’t imagine how Meg planned to weaponize the nonviolent creatures, or who had given her permission to try, but I had a sudden horrible image of Romans and unicorns assaulting one another with large cheese graters. I decided to mind my own business.
With a sigh, I turned toward the firing range and went to meet my new pupils.
The only thing scarier than being bad at archery was discovering that I was suddenly good at it again. That may not sound like a problem, but since becoming mortal, I’d experienced a few random bursts of godly skill. Each time, my powers had quickly evaporated again, leaving me more bitter and disillusioned than ever.
