𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 ― j. grace ² ✓

seven

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EIGHT LETTERS

CHAPTER SEVEN
[ P E R C Y ]

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FORGET THE CHICKEN nugget smoke screen. Percy wanted Leo to invent an anti-dream hat.

That night he had horrible nightmares. First he dreamed he was back in Alaska on the quest for the Legion's eagle. He was hiking along a mountain road, but as soon as he stepped off the shoulder he was swallowed by the bog — muskeg, Hazel had called it. He found himself choking in mud, unable to move or see or breathe. For the first time in his life, he understood what it was like to drown.

It's just a dream, he told himself. I'll wake up.

But that didn't make it any less terrifying.

Percy had never been scared of water. It was his father's element. But since the muskeg experience, he'd developed a fear of suffocation. He could never admit this to anyone, but it had even made him nervous about going in the water. He knew that was silly. He couldn't drown. But he also suspected that if he didn't control the fear, it might start controlling him.

He thought about his friend Thalia, who was scared of heights even though she was the daughter of the sky God. Her brother, Jason, could fly by summoning the winds. Thalia couldn't, maybe because she was too afraid to try. Natalia had also told him once that she was scared of cold, dark places, like the night. That was her mother's element: moonlight at dark. If Percy started to believe he could drown . . .

The muskeg pressed against his chest. His lungs wanted to burst.

Stop panicking, he told himself. This isn't real.

Just when he couldn't hold his breath any longer, the dream changed.

He stood in a vast gloomy space like an underground parking garage. Rows of stone pillars marched off in every direction, holding up the ceiling about twenty feet above. Freestanding braziers cast a dim red glow over the floor.

Percy couldn't see very far in the shadows, but hanging from the ceiling were pulley systems, sandbags, and rows of dark theater lights. Piled around the chamber, wooden crates were labeled Props, Weapons, and Costumes. One read: Assorted Rocket Launchers.

Percy heard machinery creaking in the darkness, huge gears turning, and water rushing through pipes.

Then he saw the Giant . . . or at least Percy guessed that he was a Giant.