"Just write a book" they said. "It'll be easy," they said, "Everyone gets published these days." Yeah, well, it's a little harder when your editors are gods that will turn you into a gecko and use you as a ping pong ball if you don't write them exac...
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A COAST GUARD BOAT PICKED US UP. Thankfully, they were two busy to hold onto us, or even wonder how four kids in street clothes had gotten out into the middle of the bay. Impromptu swimming?
It probably helped that we were all soaked to the bone. I think if Percy and I had been dry, he would have been 100% more confused, but we had realized that as soon we spotted his boat. We'd somehow managed to will ourselves to get wet. We also didn't have to justify Grover's goat feet, because Percy had given him his shoes. Of all the weirdness, I don't think "Why is this kid barefoot?" was going to be on the guard's list of concerns.
They dropped us off at the Santa Monica Pier. They dropped towels around our shoulders, handed us water bottles that said I'M A JUNIOR COAST GUARD!, and headed off to the next set of stranded ocean children.
We stumbled down the beach. My eyes were locked on the city, still burning. My stomach clenched. We did this, said my brain – then, no, Hades did. Did it matter?
We didn't save Mom. The master bolt had ended up in our possession, somehow, before we even reached Hades's palace. There was a missing helm we'd need to find somehow...and it was the summer solstice. This whole thing had been a goose chase. We'd failed.
"I don't believe this," Annabeth said. "We went all that way –"
"It was a trick," Percy said. "A stratify worthy of Athena."
"Hey," she warned.
"What?" I was too tired and angry to be sensitive. "Your mom too good for tricks?"
"Attie," Percy scolded. To Annabeth, he said, "You get it, don't you?"
Annabeth's eyes dropped. "Yeah. I get it."
"Well, I don't!" Grover complained. "Would somebody –"
I would have, but now wasn't the time, so instead I gave Grover a sympathetic look and shook my head. He let out a sad little bray.
"Percy...Attie..." Annabeth said. "I'm sorry about your mother. I'm so sorry..."
I tried to shrug it off. "It's not your fault. We were never going to do it, anyway. 'You will fail to save what matters most in the end.'The prophecy was right."
"'Four shall go west and face the god who has turned,'" Percy recited. "But it wasn't Hades. Hades didn't want war among the Big Three. Someone else pulled off the theft. Someone stole Zeus's master bolt, and Hades's helm, and framed us because we're Poseidon's kids. Poseidon will get blamed by both sides. By sundown today, there will be a three-way war. And we'll have caused it."
Grover shook his head, mystified. "But who would be that sneaky? Who would want a war that bad?"
