The Tower of Nero

Just ahead of us, a boy of about nine stumbled from the Ares cabin. His helmet had completely swallowed his head. He ran to catch up to his cabinmates, the point of his too-long sword tracing a serpentine line in the dirt behind him.

“The newbies all look so young,” Will murmured. “Were we ever that young?”

Kayla and Austin nodded in agreement.

Yan grumbled. “We newbies are right here.”

I wanted to tell them that they were all so young. Their life spans were a blink of an eye compared to my four millennia. I should be wrapping them all in warm blankets and giving them cookies rather than expecting them to be heroes, slay monsters, and buy me clothes.

On the other hand, Achilles hadn’t even started shaving yet when he sailed off to the Trojan War. I’d watched so many young heroes march bravely to their deaths over the centuries.…Just thinking about it made me feel older than Kronos’s teething ring.

After the relatively ordered meals of the Twelfth Legion at Camp Jupiter, breakfast at the dining pavilion was quite a shock. Counselors tried to explain the seating rules (such as they were) while returning campers jockeyed for spots next to their friends, and the newbies tried not to kill themselves or each other with their new weapons. Dryads wove through the crowd with platters of food, satyrs trotting behind them and stealing bites. Honeysuckle vines bloomed on the Greek columns, filling the air with perfume.

At the sacrificial fire, demigods took turns scraping parts of their meals into the flames as offerings to the gods—corn flakes, bacon, toast, yogurt. (Yogurt?) A steady plume of smoke rolled into the heavens. As a former god, I appreciated the sentiment, but I also wondered whether the smell of burning yogurt was worth the air pollution.

Will offered me a seat next to him, then passed me a goblet of orange juice.

“Thank you,” I managed. “But where’s, uh…?”

I scanned the crowd for Nico di Angelo, remembering how he normally sat at Will’s table, regardless of cabin rules.

“Up there,” Will said, apparently guessing my thoughts.

The son of Hades sat next to Dionysus at the head table. The god’s plate was piled high with pancakes. Nico’s was empty. They seemed an odd pair, sitting together, but they appeared to be in a deep and serious conversation. Dionysus rarely tolerated demigods at his table. If he was giving Nico such undivided attention, something must be seriously wrong.

I remembered what Mr. D had said yesterday, just before I passed out. “‘That boy has had too much bad news already,’” I repeated, then frowned at Will. “What did that mean?”

Will picked at the wrapper of his bran muffin. “It’s complicated. Nico sensed Jason’s death weeks ago. It sent him into a rage.”

“I’m so sorry.…”

“It’s not your fault,” Will assured me. “When you got here, you just confirmed what Nico already knew. The thing is…Nico lost his sister Bianca a few years back. He spent a long time raging about that. He wanted to go into the Underworld to retrieve her, which…I guess, as a son of Hades, he’s really not supposed to do. Anyway, he was finally starting to come to terms with her death. Then he learned about Jason, the first person he really considered a friend. It triggered a lot of stuff for him. Nico has traveled to the deepest parts of the Underworld, even down in Tartarus. The fact that he came through it in one piece is a miracle.”

“With his sanity intact,” I agreed. Then I looked again at Dionysus, god of madness, who seemed to be giving Nico advice. “Oh…”

“Yeah,” Will agreed, his face drawn with worry. “They’ve been eating most meals together, though Nico doesn’t eat much these days. Nico has been having…I guess you’d call it post-traumatic stress disorder. He gets flashbacks. He has waking dreams. Dionysus is trying to help him make sense of it all. The worst part is the voices.”

A dryad slammed a plate of huevos rancheros in front of me, almost making me jump out of my jeans. She smirked and walked off, looking quite pleased with herself.

“Voices?” I asked Will.

Will turned up his palms. “Nico won’t tell me much. Just…someone in Tartarus keeps calling his name. Someone needs his help. It’s been all I could do to stop him from storming down into the Underworld by himself. I told him: Talk to Dionysus first. Figure out what’s real and what’s not. Then, if he has to go…we’ll go together.”

A rivulet of cold sweat trickled between my shoulder blades. I couldn’t imagine Will in the Underworld—a place with no sunshine, no healing, no kindness.

“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said.

Will nodded. “Maybe if we can take down Nero—maybe that will give Nico something else to focus on for a while, assuming we can help you.”

Kayla had been listening quietly, but now she leaned in. “Yeah, Meg was telling us about this prophecy you got. The Tower of Nero and all that. If there’s a battle, we want in.”

Austin wagged a breakfast sausage at me. “Word.”

Their willingness to help made me feel grateful. If I had to go to war, I would want Kayla’s bow at my side. Will’s healing skill might keep me alive, despite my best efforts to get killed. Austin could terrify our enemies with diminished minor riffs on his saxophone.

On the other hand, I remembered Luguselwa’s warning about Nero’s readiness. He wanted us to attack. A full frontal assault would be suicide. I would not let my children come to harm, even if my only other option was to trust Lu’s crazy plan and surrender myself to the emperor.

A forty-eight-hour ultimatum, Nero had said in my dream. Then he would burn down New York.

Gods, why wasn’t there an option C on this multiple-choice test?

Clink, clink, clink.

Dionysus rose at the head table, a glass and spoon in his hands. The dining pavilion fell silent. Demigods turned and waited for morning announcements. I recalled Chiron having much more trouble getting everyone’s attention. Then again, Chiron didn’t have the power to turn the entire assembly into bunches of grapes.

“Mr. A and Will Solace, report to the head table,” Dionysus said.

The campers waited for more.

“That’s all,” Mr. D said. “Honestly, do I need to tell you how to eat breakfast? Carry on!”

The campers resumed their normal happy chaos. Will and I picked up our plates.

“Good luck,” Kayla said. “I have a feeling you’ll need it.”

We went to join Dionysus and Nico at the International Head-table of Pancakes.

DIONYSUS HAD NOT ASKED FOR MEG, BUT she joined us anyway.

She plopped down next to me with her plate of flapjacks and snapped her fingers at Dionysus. “Pass the syrup.”

I feared Mr. D might turn her into a taxidermied back end for Seymour, but he simply did as she asked. I suppose he didn’t want to polymorph the only other person at camp who liked pinochle.

Peaches stayed behind at the Demeter table, where he was getting fawned over by the campers. This was just as well, since grape gods and peach spirits don’t mix.

Will sat next to Nico and put an apple on his empty plate. “Eat something.”

“Hmph,” Nico said, though he leaned into Will ever so slightly.