invisible string | f. zhang

xix. topeka

Maribelle laughs.

"You are not defined by your past, or the mistakes you made. What matters is who you are now, the choices you make now. And you chose to assist Percy, a boy you barely knew who showed up out of the blue with no memories, on a quest—"

"Well, Mars actually said—"

"Not important. You still did it. And you made Frank's grandmother breakfast when we visited, and he trusted you with his life. Literally."

"Thanks, Hazel," Maribelle says.

"So, makeover, then dinner?" Hazel asks, and Maribelle feels her playing with her hair.

"Yea," Maribelle grins and rises to her feet. "C'mon."

Hazel grins and takes Maribelle's outstretched hand.

    Maribelle and Hazel head to dinner together, each sitting on one side of Frank. At one point, Maribelle makes the mistake of looking in Jason's direction and he catches her eye. He smiles and she quickly looks down at her salad, continuing to sort the tomatoes from the croutons and the croutons from the cucumbers.

"So where to now?" Leo asks with a mouthful of pizza, Maribelle crinkles her nose, "I did a quick repair job to get us out of the lake, but there's still a lot of damage. We should really put down again and fix things right before we head across the Atlantic."

Percy speaks up, "We need to put some distance between us and Camp Jupiter. Frank spotted some eagles over Salt Lake City. We figure the Romans aren't far behind us."

"I don't suppose we should go back and try to reason with the Romans? Maybe—maybe I didn't try hard enough with the charmspeak," Piper suggests.

"It wasn't your fault, Pipes," Maribelle hears Jason speak, "Or Leo's. Whatever happened, it was Gaea's doing, to drive the two camps apart."

"Maybe if we could explain that, though—"

"With no proof?" Annabeth asks, "And no idea what really happened? I appreciate what you're saying, Piper. I don't want the Romans on our bad side, but until we understand what Gaea's up to, going back is suicide."

"She's right," Hazel speaks up, "Reyna might listen, but Octavian won't. The Romans have honor to think about. They've been attacked. They'll shoot first and ask questions later."

"You're right," Piper decides, "We have to keep going. Not just because of the Romans. We have to hurry."

Hazel nods, "Nemesis said we have only six days until Nico dies and Rome is destroyed."

"You mean Rome-Rome, not New Rome?" Jason asks.

"I think," Hazel says, "But if so, that's not much time."

"Why six days?" Percy wonders, "And how are they going to destroy Rome?"

No one answers. Maribelle gives her pile of croutons to Frank. She eats half of a cucumber.

"There's more," Piper says, "I've been seeing some things in my knife."

Maribelle sees Frank freeze, a crouton half-way to his mouth, "Things such as . . . ?"

"They don't really make sense. Just garbled images, but I saw two giants, dressed alike. Maybe twins."

"Twins, like in Ella's prophecy," Maribelle speaks up, ignoring the general direction of Jason. She stares at Percy instead.

Annabeth nods at her, "If we could figure out those lines, it might help."

"Wisdom's daughter walks alone," Percy recites. ''''The Mark of Athena burns through Rome. Annabeth, that's got to mean you. Juno told me . . . well, she said you had a hard task ahead of you in Rome. She said she doubted you could do it. But I know she's wrong."