Camp Hermit-Blood: The Titan's Curse

Percy

Naturally, Percy and Thalia were chosen to carry the mummy back to the attic.

Of course. Don't send the muscular Ares kids or the Apollo kids, whose father this mummy technically belonged to. Send the idiot son of Posideon and the daughter of Zeus who may or may not have wanted to kill said son of Posideon.

That mummy was heavy, and she didn't seem to want to get up and walk the rest of the way back.

Percy tried to focus on not dropping the mummy instead of the glares Thalia repeatedly shot him.

"Uh... we won?" Percy said once the mummy was back in her place in the creepy attic.

Thalia shrugged. "Yeah."

"Aaaaand... we didn't die."

"Yep."

"That plan was actually pretty good."

"Mhm." Thalia looked away.

Of course, that plan had been devised by the Athena kids. But loyalty told Percy that if Annabeth had helped, they would have won even faster, anticipated the Hunters' moves, kept them from that close call. He was pretty sure Thalia was thinking the same thing.

Percy gave up with the small talk. "I had a dream last night. About Annabeth."

Thalia finally looked up in interest.

Percy swallowed. "I tried to tell you at Capture the Flag, but we were too focused on winning. She was in a cave. Luke was holding up the roof somehow. Annabeth went to him and helped him bear it because he looked like he was in pain. Then Luke made her carry it alone and just left."

Thalia thought for a minute. "There are like, ten billion caves in the world."

"No dip, Sherlock. I think it might be a representation of something else."

"Like?"

"I don't know. It's just a gut instinct."

"Well, Zoë had a dream about Artemis. I think that's why the mummy came," Thalia said with slight distaste.

"I need to get on this quest," Percy decided. "We both do. And some of the others."

Thalia nodded again. "Thing is, there's only six on this quest. And Zoë is gonna want it to be majority Hunters."

"I guess we might have to run away from camp again."

Thalia sighed. "You are an idiot."

They headed down the stairs to the rec room.

They held all of their meetings about the fate of the world around a ping pong table with crackers and Easy Cheese. A couple of Hermes kids had stolen the paddles several years before Percy arrived at camp and hidden them somewhere, so nobody could play table tennis anymore. And so the table was repurposed as the meeting table.

Thalia and Percy took their seats.

"About time," Mr. D grumbled.

"Why must all of these boys be here?" Zoë demanded.

"Hey," Connor Stoll said. "It wasn't our fault we were born with-"

Miranda Gardiner from Demeter clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Thank you," Zoë said to her, slightly begrudgingly. "Now. We are here because I had a dream last night."

"So did I," Percy volunteered.

Bianca glanced at him. Zoë glared.

Chiron looked at Percy with interest. So did the rest of the campers.