Haunted || Leo Valdez

94 - I Simp For My Faraway Boyfriend

Rebecca stared at the Athena Parthenos sprawled in its precarious position. She groaned and rubbed her face. "We're not going to be able to get her down from there."

"Yes, I don't think we should try to shadow-travel it down," Reyna agreed. "At least we came farther this time."

"Did you find out where we are?"

"Portugal. This town is called Évora. Seems pretty quiet and sleepy."

"That's good." Rebecca yawned. "Do you want to sleep first?"

"No, you go ahead. I'll help Hedge finish getting Nico down."

They set up camp on a sunny lawn in the middle of the public square, opting to stay as close to the Athena Parthenos as possible. Beds of orange marigolds bloomed all around them. Reyna was sleeping curled up, with her two metal dogs at her
feet. A stone's throw away, little kids played tag around a white marble fountain. At a nearby pavement café, half a dozen people sipped coffee in the shade of patio umbrellas. A few delivery vans were parked along the edges of the square, but there was no traffic. The only pedestrians were a few families, probably locals, enjoying a warm afternoon.

The square itself was paved with cobblestones, edged with white stucco buildings and lemon trees. In the center stood the well-preserved shell of a Roman temple. Its square base stretched maybe fifty feet wide and ten feet tall, with an intact façade of Corinthian columns rising another twenty-five feet. The Athena Parthenos lay sideways along the tops of the columns of the square like a nightclub singer sprawled across a piano. Lengthwise, she fitted almost perfectly, but with Nike in her extended hand she was a bit too wide. She looked like she might topple forward at any moment. Rebecca wanted to figure out some way to get her down, but she doubted she'd be able to do it without rest, so she curled up and went to sleep.

Rebecca slept for a few hours, luckily with no dreams, but when she woke up, Nico was still asleep. This quest had been taxing on both of them, but Rebecca had the Malignant Spirit on her side. Nico was doing his part on his own. He needed rest, and Rebecca doubted she could wake him if she tried. Her brother slept like the dead. Rebecca knew trying to travel while Nico was still asleep would be a bad idea, so there was nothing to do but wait until he woke up.

Reyna acknowledged Rebecca's consciousness with a nod before curling up, covering herself up with her cape, and promptly falling asleep. Rebecca looked around for Coach Hedge and spotted him a couple street corners away, doing some sort of interpretive dance in front of his baseball cap. For some reason unknown to Rebecca, passerby actually dropped coins into the cap. Rebecca shook her head. At least they were getting money.

She reached into her bag, fishing for the Mythomagic Hades figurine to hold as a familiar weight. Then she remembered: She'd left it behind. It was still in that drawer full of the Argo II Girls' Night notes that Rebecca hadn't been able to bring herself to look at after Anne's death. Whenever Hedge barged in to complain about the noise, the girls would just write or doodle out the conversation, trying to stifle laughter whenever Anne accidentally used old English words and spelling or wrote "Yeeteth."

Rebecca pulled out a couple of drachma instead. She could try to Iris-Message Thalia about Orion, but things seemed to be quiet and Rebecca wanted to be a bit selfish and not think about saving the world for a few moments. What in Hades did she usually do when she had breaks between missions during a quest? Chatting with Reyna or Nico was out, they were both asleep. Obviously she couldn't help Leo do his routine maintenance on the Argo II. She looked down at the drachma. Maybe she could talk to him instead. She just needed a rainbow. Maybe there was a fountain nearby.

Coach Hedge came back, cheerfully jangling the coins in his cap. "Oh, good, you're awake."

"Yep," Rebecca replied. "I noticed the interesting... position of our statue friend."