UP ON THE DECK, Ophelia could faintly hear Annabeth interrogating Leo and Piper's calmer voice trying to mediate, but all she could really focus on was an unconscious Jason, who looked too close to death for comfort.
Apparently after Ophelia had sprinted to the ship, a brick had knocked her boyfriend out, and he still hadn't woken up. If Frank hadn't been there to get them out of the mob and to the ship, gods only knew what could have happened.
She felt sick—the sight of him just lying there reminded Ophelia too much of when he'd witnessed Juno in all her godly glory and nearly died because of it. The cut on his head was particularly nasty, and he wasn't showing any signs of waking up.
She glanced back at Percy Jackson. The son of Poseidon's presence wasn't helping her nerves in the slightest, and the tension was palpable.
She didn't know what to make of him. From what she'd seen of him—which was fairly little—he seemed so different from his Roman half-sister. From the stories Annabeth and some of Ophelia's half-siblings had told her, she knew he really was nothing like her, in a dozen different ways. He was popular at his camp; people loved him rather than feared him because of who his father was; he was a hero of the Second Titan War, and adored for it.
A small, secret part of Ophelia had hoped the legion would hate him as much as they'd hated Maren. She would never say it out loud, and she felt guilty just for thinking it, but she couldn't help it. From Maren's first day as a probatio, she'd been seen as a bad omen by the superstitious legionnaires and citizens of New Rome, all because her father was Neptune. Ophelia thought Percy's arrival and stay at Camp Jupiter would be the same—yet here he was, raised up as praetor days after arriving, heralded as a war hero by Greeks and Romans alike.
She wanted to hate him for it, even if it wasn't fair.
"How's he doing?" Percy asked, looking at Jason.
Ophelia felt Jason's forehead, frowning at the heat against the back of her hand. "I think he has a fever," she murmured.
Percy called for Annabeth, and after a few seconds, the blonde walked into the room, visibly tired and anxious. She studied Jason for a silent moment, checking his temperature as well. "Go grab an ice pack and a bottle of nectar from the sickbay," she told Percy.
He disappeared for about a minute before returning with the supplies. "He gonna be okay?" he asked Annabeth.
"Of course he is," Ophelia said, a bit more snappy than she'd intended.
Annabeth squeezed her shoulder lightly before unscrewing the vial of nectar. "Jason'll be fine," she told Percy. "He's tough." She trickled a little into Jason's mouth, then put the ice pack on his forehead. She handed Ophelia the rest of the nectar, nodding for her to drink it.
She did, and the cuts and bruises on Ophelia's arms—courtesy of the angry Roman mob—started to fade, along with the dull ache in her cheek from the bruise Leo had given her.
After swallowing, she said quietly, "That wasn't Leo, Annabeth. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't him."
Annabeth nodded, though she still looked uncertain. She wasn't like Ophelia—she couldn't sense the ghost that had possessed Leo. To her, it looked like Leo had aimed ballistae on the Roman camp and ruined their one shot at an alliance between their two camps.
"We'll all talk about it later," Annabeth promised. "Jason needs rest, and you could use some too, I bet. We'll be on the deck if you need anything."
She and Percy left Jason's cabin, heading back up to the main deck.
Ophelia closed her eyes, fully relaxing now that it was just her and an unconscious Jason. She knew logically that Percy wasn't a threat—Annabeth trusted him with her life, had fought beside him in the Titan War, and he'd earned the trust of her old camp in a matter of days (ignoring the fact that that trust was now shattered, possibly forever).
But Ophelia couldn't look at him or even think about him without her thoughts jumping right back to Maren.
For the briefest of moments, Ophelia missed her amnesia. During their quest to rescue Juno, she hadn't remembered Maren at all. Now, the daughter of Neptune was all she could think about.
Ophelia had never gotten the chance to heal from the war, not all the way. She and Jason had been plucked out of Camp Jupiter barely two months after the final battle, their memories—and the trauma embedded in them—wiped.
When the memories returned, it was like she'd killed Maren all over again. Her guilt had come back with a vengeance, the trauma she'd suffered stealing into her dreams every night for weeks before the nightmares finally calmed down.
She wasn't sure how long it was before Annabeth poked her head in Jason's cabin, warning Ophelia that they were about to have a bumpy landing. Warning signals sounded over the intercom, and a few moments later, the Argo II landed in water, listing dangerously to one side before righting itself. A few seconds passed before the All clear bell rung throughout the ship.
❖
As the rest of the crew split off to gather supplies for the ship's repairs, Piper and Ophelia sat in Jason's cabin, waiting for him to wake up. Ophelia leaned back against Jason's headboard, brushing her fingers through his hair. He looked farther away from death than he had before, which was a relief, but the worry was still hard to let go of.
Piper sat in the chair next to his bunk, studying her blade with her bottom lip stuck between her teeth, her eyes full of worry and despair. Ophelia wondered what kind of visions Katoptris was showing her. Piper's blade often provided glimpses of the future, but according to the daughter of Aphrodite, they almost never made sense and were usually terrifying.
"What do you see?" Ophelia asked softly.
Piper looked up from her knife. "That blond guy—Octavian... he's riling the Roman campers up. They're going to come after us."
Ophelia sighed, but she'd figured that out already. "Of course they will," she murmured. "Whether it was intentional or not, our ship fired on camp. We fired on New Rome—it's supposed to be a safe place for demigods and legacies to retire. Attacking the city is even more of a declaration of war than just attacking the legion's part of camp."
"How did it all go wrong so fast?" Piper whispered.
"Gaea's pulling out all the stops to keep us from completing our quest," Ophelia said. "Dividing the camps splits our attention between the giants and Camp Jupiter. Instead of just sailing for Rome like we'd hoped, we'll have to watch out for Roman assaults—and there'll be plenty of them if Octavian has any say in the matter."
Piper let out a breath. "As if the quest wasn't already hard enough," she mumbled.
The girls lapsed into silence again, and Ophelia lost herself in her thoughts.
What did the Romans think of her now? Were they even surprised? She hadn't been deaf to the whispers that had followed her after Maren's betrayal was brought to light—the distrust most of the legionnaires and even the wartime praetors had for her. She was the only person who'd been close to Maren before her betrayal, and the camp had treated Ophelia like a time-bomb. They'd all waited for her to join Maren, to turn her back on the legion just like her and join the Titans.
What they never understood—what they couldn't have understood—was that Maren had betrayed Ophelia before she betrayed the legion. After losing her aunt, her mother, and Matt, Ophelia had gotten used to heartache, but Maren's betrayal had stolen the hope she had somehow managed to keep up until that point. Hope that the world was still a good place, that the Fates weren't needlessly cruel, that everything happened for a reason.
Ophelia would never have joined the Titans, not even if her life had depended on it. She'd have let Maren kill her before she fought next to her.
And the Maren who betrayed the legion wouldn't have hesitated to do just that.
"Hey," Jason croaked, pulling Ophelia out of her momentary spiral back to the past.
Piper almost dropped her knife as she jumped in surprise. "You're awake!"
The tension that had been building up inside of Ophelia finally relaxed at the sight of his clear blue eyes.
Jason touched his bandaged head and winced. "What... what happened? I remember explosions, and—"
"Apparently you forgot how to duck," Ophelia said.
She helped him sit up and gave him some nectar as Piper brought him up to speed. She was just explaining Leo's plan to fix the ship when they heard horse hooves clomping across the deck over their heads.
Moments later, Hazel and Leo stumbled to a stop in the doorway, carrying a large sheet of hammered bronze between them.
"What—?" Ophelia started, staring in half-horror and half-confusion as she looked at Leo.
"Gods of Olympus," Piper said. "What happened to you?"
Leo's hair was greased back. He had welding goggles on his forehead, a lipstick mark on his cheek, tattoos all over his arms, and a t-shirt that read HOT STUFF, BAD BOY, and TEAM LEO.
"Long story," he said. "Others back?"
"Not yet," Piper said.
Leo cursed, then noticed Jason sitting up. "Hey, man! Glad you're better. I'll be in the engine room."
He ran off with the sheet of bronze, leaving Hazel in the doorway.
Ophelia raised an eyebrow at the daughter of Pluto. "Team Leo?" she asked.
"We met Narcissus," Hazel said, which didn't actually explain anything. "Also Nemesis, the revenge goddess."
Jason sighed. "I miss all the fun."
On the deck above, something went thump, as if a heavy creature had landed overhead. Annabeth and Percy came running down the hall. Percy was toting a steaming five-gallon plastic bucket that smelled awful. Annabeth had a patch of black sticky stuff in her hair, and Percy's shirt was covered in it.
"Roofing tar?" Piper guessed.
Frank stumbled up behind them, a big smear of black sludge on his face.
"Ran into some tar monsters," Annabeth said. "Hey, Jason, glad you're awake. Hazel, where's Leo?"
She pointed down. "Engine room."
Suddenly the entire ship listed to port. The demigods in the hallway stumbled, Percy nearly spilling his bucket of tar.
"What was that?" he demanded.
"Oh..." Hazel looked a bit embarrassed. "We may have angered the nymphs that live in this lake. Like... all of them."
Ophelia fought a shudder. She'd had one too many encounters with angry naiads.
Granted, it was only one encounter, but they had tried to drown her.
"Great." Percy handed the bucket of tar to Frank and Annabeth. "You guys help Leo. I'll hold off the water spirits as long as I can."
"On it!" Frank promised.
The three ran off, leaving Hazel at the cabin door. The ship listed again, and Hazel hugged her stomach like she was going to be sick. "I'll just..." She swallowed, pointing weakly down the passageway before running off.
Piper winced in sympathy. "I'll go try to help her," she said. "Think ambrosia helps with seasickness?" she wondered aloud, disappearing down the hall.
Ophelia and Jason stayed belowdecks as the ship rocked back and forth. Jason laid back down, his head in her lap, and her fingers resumed their mindless movements through his hair. She could hear Percy shouting at the water spirits, Coach Hedge yelling at the lake itself, Hazel moaning miserably in her cabin as Piper tried to soothe her with some gentle charmspeak. In the engine room below, Leo and his helpers pounded away like they were in an apartment trying to piss off their downstairs neighbor.
After what seemed like hours but probably wasn't that long, the engine began to hum. The oars creaked and groaned, and Ophelia felt the ship lift into the air. The rocking and shaking stopped, and the ship fell silent save for the drone of the machinery down below. Finally, Leo emerged from the engine room. He was caked in sweat, lime dust, and tar. His t-shirt was shredded and the TEAM LEO on his chest now just read AM LEO. But he grinned like a madman and announced that they were safely underway.
"Meeting in the mess hall, one hour," he said. "Crazy day, huh?"
❖
Once everyone got cleaned up, Coach Hedge took the helm and the demigods gathered below for dinner. It was the first time they'd all sat down together—just the eight of them.
It was finally happening. No more waiting for Leo to finish the ship. No more easy days at Camp Half-Blood, pretending their destiny was still a long way off. They were on their way, with a bunch of angry Romans behind them and the ancient lands ahead. The giants would be waiting. Gaea was rising. And if they failed in their quest, the world would be destroyed.
No pressure.
The others must've felt it, too. The tension in the mess hall was like an electrical storm brewing, which was entirely possible given Jason's and Percy's powers. There was an awkward moment where the two boys tried to sit in the same chair at the head of the table. Sparks literally flew from Jason's hands, which Ophelia thought was a little overdramatic. After a brief, silent standoff, they ceded the chair to Annabeth and sat on opposite sides of the table.
The crew compared notes on what they'd all been through, but even Leo's ridiculous story about how he tricked Narcissus wasn't enough to ease the tension.
"So, where to now?" Leo asked around a mouthful of pizza. "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 that was entirely blue—even the crust and the whipped cream. "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 spoke up. "I don't suppose we should go back and true to reason with the Romans? Maybe—maybe I didn't try hard enough with the charmspeak."
Ophelia shook her head. "It wasn't your fault, Piper. Or Leo's."
"Whatever happened, it was Gaea's doing," Jason said, "to drive the two camps apart."
"Maybe if we could explain that, though—" Piper started.
"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 Gaea's up to, going back is suicide."
"She's right," Hazel said. She still looked a little queasy from seasickness, but she was trying to eat a few saltine crackers. "Reyna might listen, but Octavian won't. The Romans have honor to think about. They've been attacked. They'll shoot first and ask questions post hoc."
Piper was quiet for a long moment, lost in thought. "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 had an answer.
"There's more," Piper said quietly. "I've been seeing some things in my knife."
Frank froze with a forkful of spaghetti halfway to his mouth, clearly confused. "Things such as...?"
"They don't really make sense," Piper said, "just garbled images, but I saw two giants, dressed alike. Maybe twins."
Annabeth stared at the magical video feed from Camp Half-Blood on the wall, her brow furrowed in thought, which was her usual expression. "Twins, like in Ella's prophecy," she murmured. "If we could figure out those lines, it might help."
"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."
Annabeth took a long breath. "Reyna was about to tell me something right before the ship fired on us. 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 hear a legend like that?"
Jason looked strangely nervous, which made Ophelia fight a frown. "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. Ophelia caught his eye, raising an eyebrow just enough to convey her silent question. Later, his eyes pleaded.
Hazel broke the suddenly tense silence. "What about the other lines? 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."
Everyone was quiet for a moment. Leo was the first to break the silence. "So..." He 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 said anything.
After a moment, Piper spoke up. "Well," she ventured, "how do you guys feel about Kansas?"
❖
merry christmas if you celebrate it, happy friday if you don't <3