The Tower of Nero

In the space of an evening, the imperial children had gone from enemies to victims who needed help, and Camp Half-Blood was stepping up to the challenge.

“They’ll need time,” Meg said. “And a lot of good support, like I got.”

“They’ll need you,” I added. “You showed them the way out.”

She gave me a one-shoulder shrug. “You really got a lot of wounds.”

I let her work, but as I sipped my high-octane beverages, I considered that perhaps courage was a self-perpetuating cycle, like abuse. Nero had hoped to create miniature, tortured versions of himself because that made him feel stronger. Meg had found the strength to oppose him because she saw how much her foster siblings needed her to succeed, to show them another way.

There were no guarantees. The imperial demigods had dealt with so much for so long, some of them might never be able to come back from the darkness. Then again, there had been no guarantees for Meg, either. There were still no guarantees that I would come back from what awaited me in the caverns of Delphi. All any of us could do was try, and hope that, in the end, the virtuous cycle would break the vicious one.

I scanned the rest of the throne room, wondering how long I had been unconscious. Outside it was full dark. Emergency lights pulsed against the side of the neighboring building from the street far below. The thwump-thwump-thwump of a helicopter told me we were still making local news.

Most of the troglodytes had vanished, though Screech-Bling and a few of his lieutenants were here, having what looked like a serious conversation with Sherman Yang. Perhaps they were negotiating a division of the spoils of war. I imagined Camp Half-Blood was about to be flush with Greek fire and Imperial gold weapons, while the trogs would have a fabulous new selection of haberdashery and whatever lizards and rocks they could find.

Demigod children of Demeter were tending the overgrown dryads, discussing how best to transport them back to camp. Over by the emperor’s dais, some of the Apollo kids (my kids) conducted triage operations. Jerry, Yan, and Gracie—the newbies from camp—now all looked like seasoned pros, shouting orders to the stretcher-bearers, examining the wounded, treating campers and Germani alike.

The barbarians looked glum and dejected. None seemed to have the slightest interest in fighting. A few sported injuries that should have made them crumble to ash, but they were no longer creatures of Nero, bound to the living world by his power. They were just humans again, like Luguselwa. They would have to find a new purpose for their remaining years, and I supposed none of them loved the idea of staying loyal to the cause of a dead emperor.

“You were right,” I told Meg. “About trusting Luguselwa. I was wrong.”

Meg patted my knuckles. “Just keep saying that. I’m right. You’re wrong. Been waiting months for you to realize it.”

She gave me a little smirk. Again, I could only marvel at how much she’d changed. She still looked ready to do a cartwheel for no reason, or wipe her nose on her sleeve with zero shame, or eat an entire birthday cake just because yum, but she was no longer the half-wild alley-dwelling urchin I’d met in January. She’d grown taller and more confident. She carried herself like someone who owned this tower. And for all I knew, she might, now that Nero was dead, assuming the whole place didn’t burn down.

“I…” My voice failed me. “Meg, I have to—”

“I know.” She looked away long enough to wipe her cheek, knocking her glasses cockeyed in the process. “You have to do this next part on your own, huh?”

I thought about the last time I’d physically stood in the depths of Delphi, when Meg and I had inadvertently wandered there through the Labyrinth during a three-legged race. (Ah, those were simpler times.) The situation now was different. Python had grown too powerful. Having seen his lair in my dreams, I knew that no demigod could survive that place. The poisonous air alone would burn away flesh and melt lungs. I did not expect to survive there long myself, but in my heart, I had always known this would be a one-way trip.

“I must do this alone,” I agreed.

“How?”

Leave it to Meg to distill the most important crisis of my four-thousand-year-plus life into a single unanswerable question.

I shook my head, wishing I had an unquestionable answer. “I guess I have to trust that…that I won’t screw up.”

“Hmm.”

“Oh, shut it, McCaffrey.”

She forced a smile. After a few more moments of putting salve on my wounds, she said, “So…this is good-bye?” She swallowed that last word.

I tried to find my voice. I seemed to have lost it somewhere down in my intestines. “I—I will find you, Meg. Afterward. Assuming…”

“No screw-ups.”

I made a sound between a laugh and a sob. “Yes. But either way…”

She nodded. Even if I survived, I would not be the same. The best I could hope for was to emerge from Delphi with my godhood restored, which was what I had wanted and dreamed about for the past half a year. So why did I feel so reluctant about leaving behind the broken, battered form of Lester Papadopoulos?

“Just come back to me, dummy. That’s an order.” Meg gave me a gentle hug, conscious of my injuries. Then she got to her feet and ran off to check on the imperial demigods—her former family, and possibly her family yet to be.

My other friends all seemed to understand, too.

Will did some last-minute bandaging. Nico handed me my weapons. Rachel gave me a new pack stuffed with supplies. But none of them offered any lingering good-byes. They knew every minute counted now. They wished me luck and let me go.

As I passed, Screech-Bling and the troglodyte lieutenants stood at attention and removed their headwear—all six hundred and twenty hats. I recognized the honor. I nodded my thanks and forged on across the broken threshold before I could melt into another fit of ugly sobbing.

I passed Austin and Kayla in the antechamber, tending to more wounded and directing younger demigods in clean-up efforts. They both gave me weary smiles, acknowledging the million things we didn’t have time to say. I pushed onward.

I ran into Chiron by the elevators, on his way to deliver more medical supplies.

“You came to our rescue,” I said. “Thank you.”

He looked down at me benevolently, his head nearly scraping the ceiling, which had not been designed to accommodate centaurs. “We all have a duty to rescue each other, wouldn’t you say?”

I nodded, wondering how the centaur had become so wise over the centuries, and why that same wisdom had escaped me until I had been Lesterized. “And did your…joint task force meeting go well?” I asked, trying to remember what Dionysus had told us about why Chiron had been away. It seemed like so long ago. “Something about a severed cat’s head?”

Chiron chuckled. “A severed head. And a cat. Two different…uh, people. Acquaintances of mine from other pantheons. We were discussing a mutual problem.”

He just threw that information out there as if it wasn’t a brain-exploding grenade. Chiron had acquaintances from other pantheons? Of course he did. And a mutual problem…?

“Do I want to know?” I asked.

“No,” he said gravely. “You really don’t.” He offered his hand. “Good luck, Apollo.”