The Queen Anne's Revenge responded to Percy's every command. He seemed to know which ropes to hoist, which sails to raise, which direction to steer. They plowed through the waves at what Y/N figured was pretty flaming fast for a sailing ship.
They sailed through the night.
Annabeth tried to keep lookout, but sailing didn't agree with her. After a few hours rocking back and forth, her face turned the color of guacamole and she went below to lie in a hammock.
And so Y/N and Ethan climbed to the top of the mast to watch the horizon. More than once they spotted monsters. A plume of water as tall as a skyscraper spewed into the moonlight. A row of green spines slithered across the waves—something maybe a hundred feet long, reptilian.
"What do you figure it is?" Y/N asked.
"I don't really want to know," Ethan said.
Sometime after midnight, Y/N climbed down from the mast top, and Annabeth came up on deck. They were just passing a smocking volcano island. The sea bubbled and steamed around the shore.
"One of the forges of Hephaestus," Annabeth said. "Where he makes his metal monsters."
"Like the bronze bulls?"
She nodded.
He looked at her. He didn't know what to say, so he talked about the first thing that came to his mind. "The reason you hate Cyclopes so much . . . the story about how Thalia really died. What happened?" Immediately he wished he could take back what he had just said. Making any kind of small talk would have been better.
It was hard to see Annabeth's expression in the dark, but he didn't think she smiled.
"I guess you have a right to know," she said finally. "The night Grover was escorting us to camp, he got confused, took some wrong turns. You remember he told that once?"
Y/N nodded.
"Well, the worst wrong turn was into a Cyclops's lair in Brooklyn."
"They've got Cyclopes in Brooklyn?"
"You wouldn't believe how many, but that's not the point. This Cyclops, he tricked us. He managed to split us up inside this maze of corridors in an old house in Flatbush. And he could sound like anyone, Y/N. Just the way Tyson did aboard the Princess Andromeda. He lured us, one at a time. Thalia thought she was running to save Luke. Luke thought he heard me scream for help. And me . . . I was alone in the dark. I was seven years old. I couldn't even find the exit."
She brushed the hair out of her face. "I remember finding the main room. There were bones all over the floor. And there were Thalia and Luke and Grover, tied up and gagged, hanging from the ceiling like smoked hams. The Cyclops was starting a fire in the middle of the floor. I drew my knife, but he heard me. He turned and smiled. He spoke, and somehow he knew my dad's voice. I guess he just plucked it out of my mind. He said, 'Now, Annabeth, don't you worry. I love you. You can stay here with me. You can stay forever.'"
Y/N shivered. The way she told it—even now, years later—freaked him out worse than any ghost story he had ever heard. "What did you do?"
"I stabbed him in the foot."
He stared at her. "Are you kidding? You were seven years old and you stabbed a grown Cyclops in the foot?"
"Oh, he would've killed me. But I surprised him. It gave me just enough time to run to Thalia and cut the ropes on her hands. She took it from there."
"Yeah, but still . . . that was bloody brave, Annabeth."
She shook her head. "We barely got out alive. I still have nightmares, Y/N. The way that Cyclops talked in my father's voice. It was his fault we took so long getting to camp. All the monsters who'd been chasing us had time to catch up. That's really why Thalia died. If it hadn't been for that Cyclops, she'd still be alive today."
Sitting on the deck, they watched the Hercules constellation rise in the night sky.
Y/N's eyes were heavy, and it didn't take him long to fall asleep.
He woke with a start.
Ethan was shaking him. His mouth moved, but Y/N couldn't hear any word. The only sound that came to Y/N's ears was the rush of blood in his head.
Ethan pointed at his own ear. There was an earplug in it, made out of candle wax—same thing in the other ear. It didn't—no, it did not—make him look like an idiot.
Y/N touched his ears. He felt candle wax in them, too. At least, I've not become deaf in my sleep, he thought.
When he frowned to ask why he had that in his ears, Ethan pointed at the foremast.
Annabeth was there, ropes wrapped around her waist. And she strained against them. Her eyes were opened wide, and her expression was clear: She had to get out. This was life or death.
Y/N didn't understand anything till they neared the island ahead of them.
He couldn't see much of it—just mist and rocks—but floating in the water were pieces of wood and fiberglass, the wreckage of old ships, even some flotation cushions from airplanes. However, he felt voices vibrating in the timbers of the ship, pulsing along with the roar of blood in his ears. He got it at once; the Sirens' voices, like in the Odyssey. Annabeth was listening to them!
He glanced at Percy, who held the rudder and closed his eyes, apparently trying hard not to look at Annabeth and be tempted to cut her free.
"No!" Ethan's yell had been a whisper in Y/N's ears, and he turned to see what was the problem. He yelled too.
A heap of cut ropes lay beneath an empty foremast, Annabeth's bronze knife next to it. But that wasn't the worst.
Annabeth stood next to the rail, ready to climb over it.
Who's the bloody idiot who forgot to disarm her? Y/N cursed in his head.
He jumped up and rushed forward. Wind rose and pushed him from behind. For a second, it was so strong his feet got off the ground.
He arrived at Annabeth's level just as she jumped overboard. He reached out and caught her ankle.
For a fraction of a second he thought he could stop her, holding with his free hand to the rail. But her momentum pulled him with her, and he went overboard.
He'd never had any swimming lesson at Champlain, and he had no idea what to do right now.
Currents tossed him back and forth, up and down, and he waved his arms and legs madly, trying to keep his head above the surface.
His throat burned as water rushed in.
He dove under the wrecked hull of a yacht, wove through a collection of floating metal balls on chains—mines, he'd realized later. He had to hold his breath like never before to keep from drowning.
He didn't know how, but he found himself in a half-moon-shaped bay. He peered through the water to find something steady to put his feet on. The water was choked with more rocks and ship wreckage and floating mines. Then he saw it; the beach was black volcanic sand.
Annabeth was there, too.
Luckily or unluckily, she was a strong swimmer. She had made it past the mines and the rocks. She was almost to the black beach.
Then the mist cleared and he saw them—the Sirens.
To know what they looked like you should imagine a flock of vultures the size of people—with dirty black plumage, gray talons, and wrinkled pink necks. On top of those necks, human heads, but human heads that keep changing.
Y/N couldn't hear them, but he could see they were singing. As their mouths moved, their faces morphed into people he knew—Hera, Ethan, Grover, Tyson, Chiron, Argos. They smiled reassuringly, inviting him forward. But no matter what shape they took, their mouths were greasy and caked with the remnants of old meals. Like vultures, they had been eating with their faces, and it didn't look like they had been feasting on Monster Donuts.
Annabeth swam toward them.
A wave gulped Y/N away, and his body did somersaults underwater. He lost his bearings again. His arm rubbed painfully against a sharp stone. His head hit the sand at the bottom. Everything rang beyond his earplugs.
He opened his eyes at once. Salt burned them, but he saw Annabeth again. She was just in front of him. He reached out and grabbed her ankle.
The moment he touched her, a shock went through his body, and he saw the Sirens the way Annabeth must've seen them.
Three people sat on a picnic blanket in Central Park. A feast was spread out before them. Y/N recognized Annabeth's dad from photos she had shown him—an athletic-looking, sandy-haired guy in his forties. He was holding hands with a beautiful woman who looked a lot like Annabeth. She was dressed casually—in blue jeans and a denim shirt and hiking boots—but something about the woman radiated power. He knew that he was looking at the goddess Athena. Next to them sat a young man . . . Luke.
The whole scene glowed in a warm, buttery light. The three of them were talking and laughing, and when they saw Annabeth, their faces lit up with delight. Annabeth's mom and dad held out their arms invitingly. Luke grinned and gestured for Annabeth to sit next to him—as if he'd never betrayed her, as if he were still her friend.
Behind the trees of Central Park, a city skyline rose. It was Manhattan, but not Manhattan. It had been totally rebuilt from dazzling white marble, bigger and grander than ever—with golden windows and rooftop gardens. It was better than New York. Better than Mount Olympus.
Y/N knew immediately that Annabeth had designed it all. She was the architect for a whole new world. She had reunited her parents. She had saved Luke. She had done everything she'd ever wanted.
He blinked hard. When he opened his eyes, all he saw were the Sirens—ragged vultures with human faces, ready to feed on another victim. He wasn't trying to keep his head over the surface now. He was walking with Annabeth, straight at them.
Later, when talking about that moment, he'd say that he pulled Annabeth back into the surf to save her from the Sirens. Despite her screams, her kicking him in the face, he had saved her from them. Yet, deep down, he knew it wasn't the reason; he just didn't want to see Annabeth sitting next to Luke.
As water reached his shoulder, he felt a hand grabbing his T-shirt. Percy's hand. He squeezed Annabeth's arm harder, and Percy willed the currents to carry them out into the bay—at least, he thought it was what Percy did.
As they went under the surface and wove between the mines, Y/N's saw a dark veil coming down before his eyes. He could not hold his breath any longer; his throat burned. His strength started to fade away, and panic rang in his mind as Annabeth kicked him and tried to break free from his grasp.
They shot into the depths—ten feet, twenty feet. Bubbles came out of his mouth, he realized.
Then, all of a sudden, a huge wave woke and propelled him above the surface.
Next moment, he landed heavily on the deck of the Queen Anne's Revenge.
He gasped and coughed. His whole body shuddered. Never again; that was his only thought. Well, not the only one. A part of his mind thought that he should take swimming lessons, someday.
Ethan appeared next to him. He seemed more relieved than ever. He handed over a blanket to Y/N—a half torn sailor's shirt that would have to do the job.
The Queen Anne's Revenge slowly sailed out of earshot of the Sirens.
Y/N took out the earplugs. No singing. The afternoon was quiet except for the sound of the waves against the hull. The fog had burned away to a blue sky, as if the island of the Sirens had never existed.
"You okay?" Ethan asked.
"I've been better."
Ethan tried to laugh, but his muscles didn't seem to remember how to. "You can have the medal for the best jump overboard of the year, that's a start."
"I'm sorry." It was Annabeth. She was curled up under another sailor's shirt. "I didn't realize."
"What?" Y/N asked.
Her eyes were the same color as the mist over the Sirens' island. "How powerful the temptation would be."
"I saw the way you rebuilt Manhattan," he told her. "And Luke and your parents."
She blushed. "You saw that?"
"What Luke told you back on the Princess Andromeda, about starting the world from scratch . . . that really got to you, huh?"
She pulled her blanket around her. "My fatal flaw. That's what the Sirens showed me. My fatal flaw is hubris."
Percy said, "That brown stuff they spread on veggie sandwiches?"
She rolled her eyes. "No, Seaweed Brain. That's hummus. Hubris is worse."
"What could be worse than hummus?" Ethan said doubtfully. "If there's one thing against being a vegetarian, that's it."
"Hubris means deadly pride," Annabeth said. "Thinking you can do things better than anyone else . . . even the gods."
"You feel that way?" Y/N asked.
She looked down. "Don't you ever feel like, what if the world really is messed up? What if we could do it all over again from scratch? No more war. Nobody homeless. No more summer reading homework."
"I'm listening."
"I mean, the West represents a lot of the best things mankind ever did—that's why the fire is still burning. That's why Olympus is still around. But sometimes you just see the bad stuff, you know? And you start thinking the way Luke does: 'If I could tear this all down, I would do it better.' Don't you ever feel that way? Like you could do a better job if you ran the world?"
"Um . . . I don't know . . . maybe," Y/N said slowly. "I don't think I want to wonder about that."
"Then you're lucky. Hubris maybe isn't your fatal flaw."
"What is?"
"I don't know, Y/N, but every hero has one. If you don't find it and learn to control it . . . well, they don't call it 'fatal' for nothing."
He thought about that. It didn't cheer him up. The more he learned about being a hero, the less attractive it seemed to be.
"So was it worth it?" Ethan asked Annabeth. "Do you feel . . . wiser thanks to the Sirens' voices?"
She gazed into the distance. "I'm not sure. But we have to save the camp. If we don't stop Luke. . . ."
She didn't need to finish. If Luke's way of thinking could even tempt Annabeth, there was no telling how many other half-bloods might join him.
Suddenly Annabeth's eyes widened. "Look."
Y/N turned.
Up ahead was another blotch of land—a saddle-shaped island with forested hills and white beaches and green meadows.
"30 degrees, 31 minutes north, 75 degrees, 12 minutes west," Percy whispered.
They had reached the home of the Cyclops.