Luminesence (Slow Updates)

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They were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, so of course everybody treated them as if they’d won some reality-TV contest.

According to camp tradition, they wore laurel wreaths to a big feast prepared in our honor, then led a procession down to the bonfire, where we got to burn the burial shrouds our cabins had made for us in our absence.

Phaedra's shroud was very beautiful-gold silk with embroidered suns and butterflies.

Annabeth’s shroud was also so beautiful—gray silk with embroidered owls—Percy told her it seemed a shame not to bury her in it. She punched him and told him to shut up. Phaedra laughed.

Being the son of Poseidon, Percy didn’t have any cabin mates, so the Ares cabin had volunteered to make his shroud. They’d taken an old bedsheet and painted smiley faces with X’ed-out eyes around the border, and the word LOSER painted really big in the middle. According to Percy, it was fun to burn.

As Apollo’s cabin led the sing-along and passed out s’mores, Phaedra was surrounded by her siblings, Will stuck to her side, looking at her proudly. She was singing along with her siblings. She could feel Percy staring at her. She looked at him and gave him a smile before turning her attention to the song and put her arm around Lee. Percy was surrounded by his old Hermes cabinmates, Annabeth’s friends from Athena, and Grover’s satyr buddies, who were admiring the brand-new searcher’s license he’d received from the Council of Cloven Elders. 

The council had called Grover’s performance on the quest “Brave to the point of indigestion. Horns-and-whiskers above anything we have seen in the past.”

The only ones not in a party mood were Clarisse and her cabinmates, whose poisonous looks told Percy they’d never forgive him for disgracing their dad.

Thanos did that one on his own.

Even Dionysus’s welcome-home speech wasn’t enough to dampen their spirits. “Yes, yes, so the little brat didn’t get himself killed and now he’ll have an even bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday....”

Even Dionysus was saying the same thing about his ego. I'm onto something here.

Phaedra went back to her cabin. she was utterly proud of herself for getting through this quest. Although she had to deal with a lot bickering between owl girl and Dr. P, yes she is going to keep using that nickname, but it turned out OK. Everything is settled. But who was the traitor? She would have to figure that out later. For now she's just going to enjoy the rest of the summer.

On the Fourth of July, the whole camp gathered at the beach for a fireworks display by cabin nine. Being Hephaestus’s kids, they weren’t going to settle for a few lame red-white-and-blue explosions. 

Of course. It's Hephaestus cabin. I would not expect nothing less.

They’d anchored a barge offshore and loaded it with rockets the size of Patriot missiles. According to Annabeth and Phaedra, who’d seen the show before, the blasts would be sequenced so tightly they’d look like frames of animation across the sky. The finale was supposed to be a couple of hundred-foot-tall Spartan warriors who would crackle to life above the ocean, fight a battle, then explode into a million colors.

As Annabeth, phaedra and Percy  were spreading a picnic blanket, Grover showed up to tell them good-bye. He was dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt and sneakers, but in the last few weeks he’d started to look older, almost high-school age.

His goatee had gotten thicker. He’d put on weight. His horns had grown at least an inch, so he now had to wear his rasta cap all the time to pass as human.