¹Royal Cries, p. jackson

003.

ROYAL CRIES
━━ chapter three

━━ PERCY JACKSON MANAGED to say something so stupid as, "Uh ... okay."

Elisa truly wondered how he had managed as long as she had. Granted, she had never run into a god or goddess on her trek across the country. And she considered that a blessing, one of the very flew blessing the Fates allowed her to hold on to—until now, that is.

However, Elisa has read that Artemis is rather kind to young girls—merciful even, which was not common among the gods. That gave Elisa hope in that losing the blessing of never meeting a god means that a new blessing will come in the form of Artemis not killing her.

Somehow, Grover had come out with an even more crazy response than Percy. He gasped loudly, then knelt hastily in the snow. He started stammering, "Thank you, Lady Artemis! You're so ... You're so ... Wow!"

"Get up, goat boy!" Thalia snapped. "We have other things to worry about. Annabeth is gone!"

"Whoa," Bianca spoke up, making a T with her hands. "Hold up. Time out."

Everyone stopped, looking over at her, Elisa, and Nico. Bianca pointed a finger at all of them, like she was trying to connect the dots. "Who ... who are you people?"

Artemis's expression softened. "It might be a better question, my dear girl, to ask who are you! Who are your parents?"

Bianca glanced nervously at Nico and Elisa. Nico was still staring in awe at Artemis.

"Nico and my parents are dead," Bianca said. "We're orphans. There's a bank trust that pays for our school, but ..."

She faltered, seeing their faces, which screamed that they didn't believe her.

"What?" Bianca demanded. "I'm telling the truth."

"You are a half-blood," Zoë Nightshade. Her accent was hard to place. It sounded old-fashioned like she was reading from some book Shakespeare wrote. "One of thy parents was a mortal. The other was an Olympian."

"An Olympian ... athlete?" Bianca asked.

"No," Elisa spoke up. "No, an Olympian god. You know—all those Greek myths."

"Oh!" Nico gasped. "That's so cool! How do you know, Elisa?"

"No!" Bianca's voice quivered. "This is not cool! Elisa, you believe them?" she demanded, motioning to the people who had crashed their middle school dance.

Nico danced around like he had to use the restroom. "Does Zeus really have lightning bolts that do six hundred damage? Does he get extra movement points for—?"

Elisa grabbed the boy by the back of his jacket, planting him beside her. "Nico, stop," she said.

Bianca crossed her arms; not like she was angry, more like she was trying to protect herself from something. "You're all joking," she insisted. "There are no gods!"

All the anger that had been in Thalia's eyes vanished. Her eyes softened at Bianca's words. "Bianca, I know it's hard to believe. But the gods are still around. Trust me. They're immortal. And whenever they have kids with regular humans, kids like us, well ... our lives are dangerous."

"Dangerous," Bianca repeated, "like the girl who fell."

Thalia turned away. Even the goddess Artemis looked pained.