Let's not talk about the tar monsters, because Cressida had no idea that they even existed until they were trying to kill them. Not to mention both her and her boyfriend's aversion to flying coupled with the tar monsters didn't make for a pleasant adventure. And the fact that it would take a small miracle to get the damn tar out of her hair. And that the bucket Percy held reeked as it was filled with the stuff. And that Percy had gotten a perfectly good purple shirt ruined because there was no saving it with the amount of tar that covered it.
"Roofing tar?" Piper guessed as they made it past Jason's room, Frank stumbling after them after he'd shifted back to human, and he had a big smear of the tar down his face.
"Tar monsters," Cressida explained as she tried to wipe the stuff from her hair. "Don't ask. Superman, welcome back to the land of the living," she said once she saw Jason was awake.
"Ok, Hazel, where's Leo and Annabeth?" Percy said as he tried not to gag, holding the bucket as far from him as possible.
"Engine room," she answered as she pointed down the hall.
Suddenly the entire ship listed to port. The demigods stumbled. Percy almost spilled his bucket of tar.
"Uh, what was that?" he demanded.
"Oh..." Hazel looked embarrassed. "We may have angered the nymphs who live in this lake. Like...all of them."
"Great." Percy handed the bucket of tar to Frank. "You guys help Leo. I'll hold off the water spirits as long as I can."
"On it!" Frank promised.
"Let's go," Cressida said and Piper thought he'd tell her to stay behind for a second, but Percy just grinned as they ran for the stairs, Frank running the other way for the engine room as Hazel hugged her stomach as the ship listed again.
The ship rocked back and forth for a time before it stabilized, yet the ocean still raged around it. It wasn't until Piper peeked out of the porthole in Jason's room that she realised Cressida had wrapped massive grapevines around the ship to keep it in place, her control over them better in water and with Percy's help it would seem. Percy and Cressida were shouting though, not at each other, Coach was yelling at the lake and at Percy - apparently, that was the first time they were meeting, and he had some choice things to say about how Percy should act, specifically how Percy should treat Cressida should he want to continue living. And then Cressida would yell at Coach to shut up so they could concentrate.
It was an interesting life, the daughter of Dionysus lived.
Eventually, Cressida let her vines sink as she felt the ship try to rise into the air and then Leo and Annabeth came up to announce that they were safely underway. Both of them were caked in sweat, lime dust and tar and Leo's shirt looked like it chewed to shred. But both of them looked happy as they high-fived one another and called a meeting in the mess hall in an hour.
Cressida had groaned, both from exhaustion and frustration. "That's never going to be enough time to get all the tar out of my hair."
Percy had just grinned, and Cressida looked as if she'd been about to kill him when he ran around, trying to catch her in a hug, getting more tar on them. But she'd just smeared some on his face and in his hair.
Annabeth separated them as she dragged Cressida down to her cabin, both the girls rinsing the grime out of each other's hair, so they didn't miss anything before they went their separate ways to get cleaned up.
Coach Hedge took the helm as the demigods all gathered for dinner.
And the tension in the room didn't just come from all the impending threats, it also came from Percy and Jason.
In an awkward moment, the two boys tried to sit in the same chair at the head of the table. Sparks literally flew from Jason's hands. After a brief silent standoff, like they were both thinking, Seriously, dude? Cressida got between them as she shoved the both of them away from the chair and then walked Annabeth to it before she took a seat on Annabeth's right. The boys sat on opposite sides of the table, Percy next to Cressida who refused to hold his hand after that ridiculous show with Jason as she dug into her pizza, and they began trading stories about what happened in Salt Lake City.
"So where to now?" Leo asked with a mouthful of pizza. "Annabeth and 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 was eating a piece of pie, which for some reason was completely blue—filling, crust, even the whipped cream. And despite Cressida not paying him any attention, he still let her steal bites from him every now and again.
"We need to put some distance between us and Camp Jupiter," he said. "Frank spotted some eagles over Salt Lake City. We figure the Romans aren't far behind us."
That didn't improve the mood around the table. Piper didn't want to say anything, but she felt obliged...and a little guilty. "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."
Jason took her hand. "It wasn't your fault, Pipes. Or Leo's," he added quickly. "Whatever happened, it was Gaia's doing, to drive the two camps apart."
Piper was grateful for his support, but she still felt uneasy. "Maybe if we could explain that, though—"
"With no proof?" Annabeth asked. "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 Gaia's up to, going back is suicide. Even if Cress could magic them all into believing us."
"I could-"
"Not happening," Percy said and Annabeth agreed before Cressida could protest, effectively shutting the girl up.
"She's right," Hazel said. She still looked a little queasy from seasickness, but she was trying to eat a few saltine crackers. The rim of her plate was embedded with rubies, and Piper was pretty sure they hadn't been there at the beginning of the meal. The sound of her voice though, had Cressida realising her state as she got up and walked over to Hazel.
"Can I help?" she asked as she held out a hand, completely leaving the choice up to her. But after a supportive nod from Percy, Hazel took it as Cressida's hand glowed and her eyes flamed. "Balance," she said and suddenly the queasy look on Hazel's face faded, and the colour began returning to her skin.
"Wow," Hazel said as she let go of Cressida's hand. "That feels better. A lot better. Thank you."
"You're welcome," she smiled back kindly before heading back to her seat, Percy kissing her cheek in thanks before he fed her a bit of pie and Hazel resumed talking.
"Reyna might listen, but Octavian won't. The Romans have honour to think about. They've been attacked. They'll shoot first and ask questions posthac."
Piper stared at her dinner, thinking about the visions she saw in her knife. "You're right," she decided. "We have to keep going. Not just because of the Romans. We have to hurry."
Hazel nodded. "Nemesis said we have only six days until Nico dies and Rome is destroyed."
Jason frowned. "You mean Rome Rome, not New Rome?"
"I think," Hazel said. "But if so, that's not much time."
"Why six days?" Percy wondered. "And how are they going to destroy Rome?"
No one answered.
Piper didn't want to add further bad news, but she felt she had to. "There's more," she said. "I've been seeing some things in my knife."
Frank froze with a forkful of spaghetti halfway to his mouth. "Things such as...?"
"They don't really make sense," Piper said, "just garbled images, but I saw two giants, dressed alike. Maybe twins."
"Ah," Cressida said, her semi-happy mood gone as she dropped her pizza slice and reclined in her recliner, the soft music she had playing not helping. "That would be the giants born to oppose my father."
They all stared at her.
"What?!" she exclaimed. "Collectively we've fought four giants already, I figured I'd do my homework and find out which one I could potentially pray to my father for help defeating in case we came across them," she explained which made sense. "Oh," she said before turning to Percy. "By the way, I fought the king of the giants and lived, I'm fairly certain that warrants a few thousand more points than freeing Death did."
A look of outrage blossomed on his face.
"Hell no!" he exclaimed. "That's not how it works."
"You're just saying that because you have nothing to one-up me with."
"Defeating my father's giant with the head of a godly statue would surely –"
"Not even close, dude."
"Alright. How about we just call it even? No points because we weren't together," Percy suggested and Cressida only smirked.
"Losers always say that. But have it your way. I'm still ahead after that battle with the tar monsters."
"And I'm ahead with saving you from the water nymphs."
"As if!"
"Ok, shut up," Annabeth scolded. "Going back to what you were saying about the twins," she said pointedly. "Twins like in Ella's prophecy. If we could figure out those lines, it might help me."
"Wisdom's daughter walks alone," Percy said. "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."
"Hera's always wrong," Cressida agreed.
Annabeth took a long breath. "Reyna was about to tell me something right before the ship fired on us. She said there was an old legend among the Roman praetors—something that had to do with Athena. She said it might be the reason Greeks and Romans could never get along."
Leo and Hazel exchanged nervous looks. "Nemesis mentioned something similar," Leo said. "She talked about an old score that had to be settled—"
"The one thing that might bring the gods' two natures into harmony," Hazel recalled. "'An old wrong finally avenged.'"
Percy drew a frowny face in his blue whipped cream. "I was only a praetor for about two hours. Jason, you ever hear a legend like that?"
Jason was still holding Piper's hand. His fingers had turned clammy. "I...uh, I'm not sure," he said. "I'll give it some thought."
Percy narrowed his eyes. "You're not sure?"
Jason didn't respond.
Hazel broke the silence. "What about the other lines?" She turned her ruby-encrusted plate. "Twins snuff out the angel's breath, Who holds the key to endless death."
"Giants' bane stands gold and pale," Frank added, "Won through pain from a woven jail."
"Giants' bane," Leo said. "Anything that's a giants' bane is good for us, right? That's probably what we need to find. If it can help the gods get their schizophrenic act together, that's good."
Percy nodded. "We can't kill the giants without the help of the gods."
Jason turned to Frank and Hazel. "I thought you guys killed that one giant in Alaska without a god's help, just the two of you."
"Alcyoneus was a special case," Frank said. "He was only immortal in the territory where he was reborn—Alaska. But not in Canada. I wish I could kill all the giants by dragging them across the border from Alaska into Canada, but..." He shrugged. "Percy's right, we'll need the gods."
"So..." Leo pushed his chair away from the table. "First things first, I guess. We'll have to put down in the morning to finish repairs."
"Someplace close to a city," Annabeth suggested, "in case we need supplies. But somewhere out of the way, so the Romans will have trouble finding us. Any ideas?"
No one spoke. Piper remembered her vision in the knife: the strange man in purple, holding out a goblet and beckoning to her. He'd been standing in front of a sign that read TOPEKA 32.
"Well," she ventured, "how do you guys feel about Kansas?"
"What's in Kansas?" Cressida asked with a frown and Piper met her eyes.
"If I'm right about what I saw in my knife," Piper began, "your father."