Gone Girl.¹

𝟬𝟮𝟯. monsters and bumper cars

Pollux crouched next to a sleeping policeman. "I don't get it. Why didn't we fall asleep too? Why just the mortals?"

"This is a huge spell," Silena said. "The bigger the spell, the easier it is to resist. If you want asleep millions of mortals, you've got to cast a very thin layer of magic. Sleeping demigods is much harder."

Percy stared at her. "When did you learn so much about magic?"

Silena blushed. "I don't spend all my time on my wardrobe."

"Percy, Mar," Annabeth called. She was still looking at the shield. "You'd better see this."

The bronze image showed Long Island Sound near La Guardia. A fleet of a dozen speedboats raced through the dark water toward Manhattan. Each boat was packed with demigods in full Greek armor. At the back of the lead boat, a purple banner emblazoned with a black scythe flapped m the night wind. She'd never seen that design before, but it wasn't hard to figure out: the battle flag of Kronos.

"Deena, you idiot," Noelle said, looking at one specific demigod who was next to Ethan Nakamura.

She had curly brown hair and a golden apple painted on her armor, a symbol of her godly mother, Eris. Amaryllis remembered Deena's story — it was one of the most recent losses of the Camp and by the teary eyes of Noelle Yung, it seemed like the wound hadn't closed yet. Her joining Luke was quite the surprise for everyone.

"Scan the perimeter of the island," Amaryllis said. "Quick."

Annabeth shifted the scene south to the harbor. A Staten Island Ferry was plowing through the waves near Ellis Island. The deck was crowded with dracaenae and a whole pack of hellhounds. Swimming infront of the ship was a pod of marine mammals. Their doglike faces and the swords strapped to their waists made it obvious that they were telkhines — sea demons. The scene shifted again: the Jersey shore, right at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. A hundred assorted monsters were marching past the lanes of stopped traffic: giants with clubs, rogue Cyclopes, a few fire-spitting dragons, and just to rub it in, a World War II-era Sherman tank, pushing cars out of its way as it rumbled into the tunnel. It was a real monster-fest.

"What's happening with the mortals outside Manhattan?" Percy said. "Is the whole state asleep?"

Annabeth frowned. "I don't think so, but it's strange. As far as I can tell from these pictures, Manhattan is totally asleep. Then there's like a fifty-mile radius around the island where time is running really, really slow. The closer you get to Manhattan, the slower it is."

She showed them another scene — a New Jersey highway. It was Saturday evening, so the traffic wasn't as bad as it might've been on a weekday. The drivers looked awake, but the cars were moving at about one mile per hour. Birds flew overhead in slow motion.

"Kronos," Amaryllis said. "He's slowing time, just like that time in the Labyrinth."

"My mother might be helping," Scarlett Walsh, the daughter of Hecate, said. "Look how the cars are all veering away from the Manhattan exits, like they're getting a subconscious message to turn back."

"I don't know." Annabeth sounded really frustrated. She hated not knowing. "But somehow they've surrounded Manhattan in layers of magic. The outside world might not even realize something is wrong. Any mortals coming toward Manhattan will slow down so much they won't know what's happening."