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Annabeth III

"Annabeth III," Katie read.

"I can't believe there are four chapters..." Annabeth muttered under her breath. She brushed lose strands of hair away from her face. "Four chapters. Why four? Weren't two enough?"

"I know, right?" Leo agreed, he thoughtfully rocked his chair back. "You think there's a reason she chose your thoughts to be in the book?"

Annabeth mulled over his question.

"Nemesis is well-known for taking down powerful and prideful people," she began.

"Like Narcissus." Leo remembered.

"Right. Anyways, it's possible she decided to have my thoughts be read because she thinks I'm too prideful." the daughter of Athena scowled. "That's probably why my point of view is separated into four chapters." 

She frowned at Leo. "Not sure why she would chose you though."

"Your guess is as good as mine." he shrugged. He wasn't as powerful as Jason or Percy and he definitely wouldn't consider himself to be an overly prideful person. He could only imagine why the goddess would chose this type of punishment for him.

He untied the shoelaces of his sneaker (hand-me-downs from his brother, Shane).

Annabeth wished she had an appetite, because the Romans knew how to eat.

...Romans lounged in groups of ten or twenty, talking and laughing while wind spirits—aurae—swirled overhead, bringing an endless assortment of pizzas, sandwiches, chips, cold drinks, and fresh-baked cookies. 

"Sounds kinda like our Mess Hall." Chris mused. 

"But it doesn't sound like they're separated by godly parents." Katie noticed.

Leo pulled the shoelace out of his shoe. He wrapped the string around his arm.

Drifting through the crowd were purple ghosts—Lares—in togas and legionnaire armor. Around the edges of the feast, satyrs (no, fauns, Annabeth thought) trotted from table to table, panhandling for food and spare change.

"What?" Grover gasped, looking horrified by this revelation. "Why are they begging? Shouldn't they be searching for demigods?"

"No. There's no point in sending fauns when Flea Bag and her wolf pack are running around collecting brats." Dionysus said, flipping a page in his magazine.

"But can't they work at the stores or in their Senate House?" the satyr argued. "There are other things the Romans can be having them do instead of leaving them on the streets."

"Probably." the god of wine grunted. "But the fauns aren't interested in doing anything besides lazing around."

Grover looked stupefied. They can't really be okay with how things are.

...The whole scene was so familiar yet so completely alien that it gave Annabeth vertigo.

All she wanted to do was be with Percy—preferably alone.

"Ooooooo!" Aphrodite and the other demigods sang.

"That's not what I meant!" Annabeth snapped.

"How do you know? You haven't thought about this yet!...Or have you?" Connor wiggled his eyebrows at her.

Annabeth glared at him.

She knew she would have to wait. 

Preferably when the chapter stops being in my point of view. the daughter of Athena silently added.