Jason had described Camp Jupiter to her in great detail. The Romans had spotted them.Īnnabeth thought she knew what to expect. Then, in the valley below, horns sounded. She almost ordered Leo to reverse course. Something was about to go terribly wrong. She thought she heard a faint voice in the wind, laughing. Not after last month, when she’d had that horrible encounter with her mom and gotten the worst present of her life.… The Celestial bronze shields along the rail were enchanted to ward off monsters, and their onboard satyr, Coach Hedge, would have sniffed out any intruders.Īnnabeth wished she could pray to her mother for guidance, but that wasn’t possible now. Even in a world of gods and monsters, Annabeth couldn’t believe a new warship would be haunted. She felt it again-that familiar shiver, as if a psychotic snowman had crept up behind her and was breathing down her neck. I have to stick to my plan and not get distracted. Percy…who was somewhere below them right now. None of that was Jason’s fault but every time Annabeth saw him, she remembered how much she missed Percy. In exchange, the Greeks had gotten Jason. Without warning, Hera had plucked up Percy Jackson, Annabeth’s boyfriend, wiped his memory, and sent him to the Roman camp. Her Most Annoying Majesty, Queen of Olympus, had convinced the other gods that their two sets of children-Roman and Greek-had to combine forces to save the world from the evil goddess Gaea, who was awakening from the earth, and her horrible children the giants. He’d been part of Hera’s forced “exchange program” to introduce the two camps. Still, she couldn’t look at him without getting a bitter taste in her mouth. In the back of her mind, she had a nagging thought: What if this is a trick and he betrays us? What if we sail into Camp Jupiter, and he says, Hey, Romans! Check out these prisoners and this cool ship I brought you!Īnnabeth doubted that would happen. He acted too perfect-always following the rules, always doing the honorable thing. He’d grown up at Camp Jupiter, so hopefully his familiar face would make the Romans hesitant to blow the ship out of the sky.Īnnabeth tried to hide it, but she still didn’t completely trust the guy. With his wind-ruffled blond hair and his icy blue eyes, he looked ruggedly handsome and in control-just like a son of Jupiter should. Over his jeans and orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt, he’d donned a toga and a purple cloak-symbols of his old rank as praetor. Otherwise he looked calm for a guy who was making himself a target. His knuckles were white on the hilt of his golden sword. He stood at the bow on the raised crossbow platform, where the Romans could easily spot him. (Maybe as a joke, though Annabeth could never be sure with Piper.) Her choppy brown hair was braided down the right side with an eagle’s feather. Today she was dressed in tattered jeans, worn-out sneakers, and a white tank top with pink Hello Kitty designs. What if this was a bad idea? What if the Romans panicked and attacked them on sight?įor a child of Aphrodite, Piper tried hard to play down her beauty. The warship descended through the clouds, but Annabeth couldn’t stop second-guessing herself. Even that mysterious chill she’d been feeling since the ship launched had dissipated, at least for now. The last thing they needed as they flew a magical Greek trireme into a potentially hostile Roman camp was a middle-aged satyr in gym clothes waving a club and yelling “Die!”Įverything seemed to be in order. Most important, she pulled aside their war-crazed chaperone, Coach Gleeson Hedge, and encouraged him to take the morning off in his cabin and watch reruns of mixed martial arts championships.
She reviewed the plan with the rest of the crew-and the backup plan, and the backup plan for the backup plan. She confirmed that the white “We come in peace” flag was flying from the mast. She’d paced the deck of their flying warship, the Argo II, checking and double-checking the ballistae to make sure they were locked down.
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