They gathered on deck so that Coach Hedge could hear the story. They told them everything and neither Jason nor Piper could believe it.
They went over the whole Annabeth thing but there was nothing they could do for her now. And with Hazel and the boys still gone they were left with the four of them going after Nico because they could wait no longer.
Piper had been reluctant to look for images in her knife again and for good reason because when she did, she saw the Romans gathered around a dining table. They'd set up a base in Manhattan and they were scouting Long Island.
Cressida felt sick to her stomach at the thought of her home being destroyed and she was literally half a world away and unable to help them. She didn't care what Percy thought about the Romans or what they could offer, but if she survived and her home didn't, she'd raze the Romans to the ground.
Piper concentrated herder before she saw ruins —a few crumbling walls, a single column, a stone floor covered with moss and dead vines—all clustered on a grassy hillside dotted with pine trees. It was the old Forum that Percy and Cressida had just been to.
The view zoomed in. On one side of the stone floor, a set of stairs had been excavated, leading down to a modern iron gate with a padlock. The blade's image zoomed straight through the doorway, down a spiral stairwell, and into a dark, cylindrical chamber like the inside of a grain silo.
Piper dropped the blade.
"What's wrong?" Jason asked. "It was showing us something."
Piper felt like the boat was back on the ocean, rocking under her feet. "We can't go there."
Percy frowned but Cressida spoke.
"Shakespeare, Nico is minutes away from running out of oxygen. He's my friend and we have to find him."
"Not to mention, Rome is about to get destroyed," Percy added.
Piper tried again, the blade was colder in her hand.
She saw two giants in gladiator armour sitting on oversized praetors' chairs. The giants toasted each other with golden goblets as if they'd just won an important fight. Between them stood a large bronze jar. The vision zoomed in again. Inside the jar, Nico di Angelo was curled in a ball, no longer moving, all the pomegranate seeds eaten.
"We're too late," Jason said.
"No," Percy said. "No, I can't believe that."
"Like hell Nico is giving up without a fight. He is not dead, but he will be if we don't move," Cressida said, her voice filled with a fiery determination as Piper slipped her blade back into its sheath.
"We should wait for the others," she said. "Hazel, Frank, and Leo should be back soon."
"We can't wait," Percy insisted.
Coach Hedge grunted. "It's just two giants. If you guys want, I can take them."
"Uh, Coach," Jason said, "that's a great offer, but we need you to man the ship—or goat the ship. Whatever."
Hedge scowled. "And let you four have all the fun?"
Cressida gripped his hands. "Gleeson, Hazel and the others will need your leadership when they get back. And only you are brave enough to lead them to us once they return."
Percy picked up on what she was doing quite quickly. "Cress is right," he agreed. "You're their rock."
"Yeah." Jason managed to keep a straight face. "Leo always says you're his rock. You can tell them where we've gone and bring the ship around to meet us at the Forum."
"And here." Piper unstrapped Katoptris and put it in Coach Hedge's hands. The satyr's eyes widened. A demigod was never supposed to leave their weapon behind, but Piper was fed up with evil visions. "Keep an eye on us with the blade," she suggested. "And you can check the baseball scores."
That sealed the deal. Hedge nodded grimly, prepared to do his part for the quest.
"All right," he said. "But if any giants come this way—"
"Then you have full permission to blast them back to Tartarus," Cressida promised.
"What about annoying tourists?"
"No," they all said in unison.
"Bah. Fine. Just don't take too long, or I'm coming after you with ballistae blazing."
Cressida kissed his cheek. "We're counting on it. Now let's go!"
Grabbing Percy's hand, they went running for the gangplank.
******************************************************************
Finding the place was easy. Percy and Cressida led them right to it, on an abandoned stretch of hillside overlooking the ruined Forum. Getting in was easy too. Jason's gold sword cut through the padlock, and the metal gate creaked open. No mortals saw them. No alarms went off. Stone steps spiralled down into the gloom.
"I'll go first," Jason said.
"No!" Piper yelped.
Cressida and both boys turned toward her.
"Pipes, what is it?" Jason asked. "That image in the blade...you've seen it before, haven't you?"
She nodded, her eyes stinging. "I didn't know how to tell you. I saw the room down there filling with water. I saw the four of us drowning."
Jason and Percy both frowned while Cressida just groaned.
"Not again," she moaned as Percy's grip on her tightened.
"I can't drown," Percy said, though he sounded like he was asking a question. "And I didn't let you drown before, I'm not going to let you drown again," he promised to Cressida, sounding a bit more certain this time.
"Maybe the future has changed," Jason speculated. "In the image you showed us just now, there wasn't any water."
Piper wished he was right, but she suspected they wouldn't be so lucky.
"Look," Percy said. "I'll check it out first. It's fine. Be right back."
"Percy-"
"Promise," he said as he kissed his girlfriend quiet and disappeared down the stairwell before anyone else could object and Cressida looked as if she was about to panic before Jason put a hand on her shoulder.
"He'll be fine," he assured her, and she took a deep breath.
"I know. It's just...a conversation we had after the sea centaurs," she said as if it explained everything. And while she counted her breaths, Piper counted seconds until he came back, looking more baffled than relieved as Cressida was instantly throwing her arms around him in a hug.
"I'm alright," he promised her, closing his eyes and taking the embrace in for a second before turning to the other couple. "Good news: no water," he said. "Bad news: I don't see any exits down there. And, uh, weird news: well, you should see this...."
They descended cautiously.
Percy took the lead, with Riptide drawn, Cressida at his back with her spear in hand. Piper followed after them, and Jason walked behind her, guarding their backs.
It seemed like they walked forever before they finally reached the bottom and Percy said, "Watch this last step."
He jumped to the floor of the cylindrical room, which was five feet lower than the stairwell.
Why someone would design stairs like that they had no idea, but Piper couldn't help but smile and how easily Percy and Cressida worked together.
Percy had landed, his sword still in hand as he looked up at his girlfriend, his head and shoulders just peaking above the gap since he was well over five feet. "Go, Cress."
And Cressida didn't hesitate to jump as he caught her in his arms effortlessly, seeming to take any opportunity to hold her or touch her, even on a quest, and she didn't even have to ask, nor did she protest.
Piper clambered down next as Jason followed and the room was exactly as she'd seen in Katoptris's blade, except there really was no water.
The curved walls had once been painted with frescoes, which were now faded to eggshell white with only flecks of colour. The domed ceiling was about fifty feet above. Around the back side of the room, opposite the stairwell, nine alcoves were carved into the wall. Each niche was about five feet off the floor and big enough for a human-sized statue, but each was empty. The air felt cold and dry. As Percy had said, there were no other exits.
"I wonder what this looked like two thousand years ago," Cressida admitted before she turned to Percy. "What is the weird part? Please don't tell me do you mean like scary weird."
"Do you trust me?" Percy asked and Piper watched as Cressida rolled her eyes, but her lips curved into a smirk.
"Do you ask stupid questions?"
"Then watch this," he said as he put his hands on her hips, his sword still gripped in one and shuffled her over a few steps so that she was standing in the middle of the room.
Instantly, green and blue light rippled across the walls. Piper heard the sound of a fountain, but there was no water. There didn't seem to be any source of light except for Percy's and Jason's blades.
"Do you smell the ocean?" Percy asked and Cressida's brows furrowed.
"Is that not you?" she questioned because he always smelled like the sea and Percy shook his head.
He was right.
The scent of salt water and storm was getting stronger, like a summer hurricane approaching.
"An illusion?" Piper suggested.
"I don't know," Percy said. "I feel like there should be water here— lots of water. But there isn't any. I've never been in a place like this."
Jason moved to the row of niches. He touched the bottom shelf of the nearest one, which was just at his eye level. "This stone...it's embedded with seashells. This is a nymphaeum."
Piper's mouth was definitely getting drier. "A what?"
"We have one at Camp Jupiter," Jason said, "on Temple Hill. It's a shrine to the nymphs."
Piper ran her hand along the bottom of another niche. Jason was right. The alcove was studded with cowries, conches, and scallops. The seashells seemed to dance in the watery light. They were ice-cold to the touch.
"This doesn't seem like a place any nymph I know would live," Cressida said and Piper and Percy were inclined to agree.
Jason stepped back and examined the row of alcoves. "Shrines like this were all over the place in Ancient Rome. Rich people had them outside their villas to honour nymphs, to make sure the local water was always fresh. Some shrines were built around natural springs, but most were man-made."
"So...no actual nymphs lived here?" Piper asked hopefully.
"Not sure," Jason said. "This place where we're standing would have been a pool with a fountain. A lot of times, if the nymphaeum belonged to a demigod, he or she would invite nymphs to live there. If the spirits took up residence, that was considered good luck."
"For the owner," Percy guessed. "But it would also bind the nymphs to the new water source, which would be great if the fountain was in a nice sunny park with fresh water pumped in through the aqueducts—"
"But this place has been underground for centuries," Piper guessed. "Dry and buried. What would happen to the nymphs?" The sound of water changed to a chorus of hissing, like ghostly snakes. The rippling light shifted from sea blue and green to purple and sickly lime. Above them, the nine niches glowed. They were no longer empty.
"Of course, we're about to find out," Cressida groaned once more.
Standing in each was a withered old woman, so dried up and brittle they looked like mummies—except mummies didn't normally move. Their eyes were dark purple, as if the clear blue water of their life source had condensed and thickened inside them. Their fine silk dresses were now tattered and faded. Their hair had once been piled in curls, arranged with jewels in the style of Roman noblewomen, but now their locks were dishevelled and dry as straw.
"What would happen to the nymphs?" said the creature in the centre niche.
She was in even worse shape than the others. Her back was hunched like the handle of a pitcher. Her skeletal hands had only the thinnest papery layer of skin. On her head, a battered wreath of golden laurels glinted in her roadkill hair.
She fixed her purple eyes on Piper. "What an interesting question, my dear."
The one next to her pinned Cressida with her gaze. "And find out what happened to them you will."
The first nymph spoke again, "Perhaps the nymphs would still be here, suffering, waiting for revenge."