“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 of them 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, pointed weakly down the passageway, and ran off.
Jason and Piper stayed below as the ship rocked back and forth. For a hero, Piper felt pretty useless. Waves crashed against the hull as angry voices came from above deck—Percy shouting, Coach Hedge yelling at the lake. Festus the figurehead breathed fire several times. Down the hall, Hazel moaned miserably in her cabin. In the engine room below, it sounded like Leo and the others were doing an Irish line dance with anvils tied to their feet. After what seemed like hours, the engine began to hum. The oars creaked and groaned, and Piper felt the ship lift into the air.
The rocking and shaking stopped. The ship became quiet except for the drone of machinery. Finally Leo emerged from the engine room. He was caked in sweat, lime dust, and tar. His T-shirt looked like it had been caught in an escalator and chewed to shreds. The TEAM LEO on his chest now read: AM LEO. But he grinned like a madman and announced that they were safely under way.
“Meeting in the mess hall, one hour,” he said. “Crazy day, huh?”
After everyone had 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 seven of them. Maybe their presence should’ve reassured Piper, but seeing all of them in one place only reminded her that the Prophecy of Seven was unfolding at last. No more waiting for Leo to finish the ship. No more easy days at Camp Half-Blood, pretending the future was still a long way off. They were under way, with a bunch of angry Romans behind them and the ancient lands ahead. The giants would be waiting. Gaea was rising. And unless they succeeded in this quest, the world would be destroyed.
The others must’ve felt it too. The tension in the mess hall was like an electrical storm brewing, which was totally possible, considering Percy’s and Jason’s powers. 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?, they ceded the chair to Annabeth and sat at opposite sides of the table.
The crew compared notes on what had happened in Salt Lake City, but even Leo’s ridiculous story about how he tricked Narcissus wasn’t enough to cheer up the group.
“So where to now?” Leo asked with 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, which for some reason was completely blue—filling, crust, even 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 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 Gaea’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 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. 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. “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 hac.”
Piper stared at her own dinner. The magical plates could conjure up a great selection of vegetarian stuff. She especially liked the avocado and grilled pepper quesadilla, but tonight she didn’t have much of an appetite.
She thought about the visions she’d seen in her knife: Jason with golden eyes; the bull with the human head; the two giants in yellow togas hoisting a bronze jar from a pit. Worst of all, she remembered herself drowning in black water.
Piper had always liked the water. She had good memories of surfing with her dad. But since she’d started seeing that vision in Katoptris, she’d been thinking more and more of an old Cherokee story her granddad used to tell to keep her away from the river near his cabin. He told her the Cherokees believed in good water spirits, like the naiads of the Greeks; but they also believed in evil water spirits, the water cannibals, who hunted mortals with invisible arrows and were especially fond of drowning small children.
“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.”
The big kid, Frank, froze with a forkful of spaghetti halfway to his mouth. “Things such as… ?”