The Tower of Nero

Frank smiled. “Yeah. As far as we can tell, Hazel’s curse is officially broken. We did an augury at Pluto’s shrine, and it came up favorable. She can summon jewels, precious metals…and use them or spend them now without causing any curses.”

“But we’re not going to abuse that power,” Hazel hastened to add. “We’ll only use it to improve the camp and honor the gods. We’re not going to buy any yachts or private airplanes or big golden necklaces with ‘H plus F 4Ever’ diamond pendants, are we, Frank?”

Frank pouted. “No. I guess not.”

Hazel ribbed him.

“No, definitely not,” Frank amended. “That would be tacky.”

Frank still lumbered along like a friendly grizzly bear, but his posture seemed more relaxed, his mood more cheerful, as if it were starting to sink in that his destiny was no longer controlled by a small piece of firewood. For Frank Zhang, like the rest of us, the future was open for business.

He brightened. “Oh, and check this out, Apollo!”

He swirled his purple praetor’s cloak like he was about to turn into a vampire bat (which Frank was fully capable of doing). Instead, the cloak simply turned into an oversize sweater wrap. “I figured it out!”

Hazel rolled her eyes. “My sweet, sweet Frank. Could you please not with the sweater wrap?”

“What?” Frank protested. “It’s impenetrable and comfortable!”

Later that day, I visited my other friends. Lavinia Asimov had made good on her threat/promise to teach the Fifth Cohort to tap-dance. The unit was now feared and respected in the war games for their ability to form a testudo shield wall while doing the three-beat shuffle.

Tyson and Ella were happily back at work in their bookshop. The unicorns were still weaponized. The Jason Grace temple-expansion plan was still moving forward, with new shrines being added every week.

What did surprise me: Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase had arrived and taken up residence in New Rome, giving them two months to adjust to their new environs before the fall semester of their freshman year in college.

“Architecture,” Annabeth said, her gray eyes as bright as her mother’s. She said the word architecture as if it were the answer to all the world’s problems. “I’m going to focus on environmental design at UC Berkeley while dual-enrolling at New Rome University. By year three, I figure—”

“Whoa, there, Wise Girl,” Percy said. “First you have to help me get through freshman English. And math. And history.”

Annabeth’s smile lit up the empty dorm room. “Yeah, Seaweed Brain, I know. We’ll take the basics together. But you will do your own homework.”

“Man,” Percy said, looking at me for commiseration. “Homework.”

I was pleased to see them doing so well, but I agreed with him about homework. Gods never got it. We didn’t want it. We just assigned it in the form of deadly quests.

“And your major?” I asked him.

“Yeah, uh…marine biology? Aquaculture? I dunno. I’ll figure it out.”

“You’re both staying here?” I gestured at the bunk beds. New Rome University may have been a college for demigods, but its dorm rooms were as basic and uninspired as any other university’s.

“No.” Annabeth sounded offended. “Have you seen the way this guy throws his dirty clothes around? Gross. Besides, dorms are required for all freshmen and they aren’t co-ed. My roommate probably won’t arrive until September.”

“Yeah.” Percy sighed. “Meanwhile, I’ll be all the way across campus in this empty boys’ dormitory. Two whole blocks away.”

Annabeth swatted his arm. “Besides, Apollo, our living arrangements are none of your business.”

I held up my hands in surrender. “But you did travel across the country together to get here?”

“With Grover,” Percy said. “It was great, just the three of us again. But man, that road trip…”

“Kind of went sideways,” Annabeth agreed. “And up, down, and diagonal. But we made it here alive.”

I nodded. This was, after all, about the most that could be said for any demigod trip.

I thought about my own trip from Los Angeles to Camp Jupiter, escorting the coffin of Jason Grace. Percy and Annabeth both seemed to read my thoughts. Despite the happy days ahead of them, and the general spirit of optimism at Camp Jupiter, sadness still lingered, hovering and flickering at the corners of my vision like one of the camp’s Lares.

“We found out when we arrived,” Percy said. “I still can’t…”

His voice caught. He looked down and picked at his palm.

“I cried myself sick,” Annabeth admitted. “I still wish…I wish I’d been there for Piper. I hope she’s doing okay.”

“Piper is a tough young lady,” I said. “But yes…Jason. He was the best of us.”

No one argued with that.

“By the way,” I said, “your mother is doing well, Percy. I just saw her and Paul. Your little sister is entirely too adorable. She never stops laughing.”

He brightened. “I know, right? Estelle is awesome. I just miss my mom’s baking.”

“I might be able to help with that.” As I had promised Sally Jackson, I teleported a plate of her fresh-baked blue cookies straight into my hands.

“Dude!” Percy stuffed a cookie in his mouth. His eyes rolled up in ecstasy. “Apollo, you’re the best. I take back almost everything I’ve said about you.”

“It’s quite all right,” I assured him. “Wait…what do you mean almost?”

SPEAKING OF PIPER MCLEAN, I EMBARRASSED myself when I popped in to visit her.

It was a lovely summer night in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The stars were out by the millions and cicadas chirred in the trees. Heat settled over the rolling hills. Fireflies glowed in the grass.

I had willed myself to appear wherever Piper McLean might be. I ended up standing on the flat roof of a modest farmhouse—the McLean ancestral home. At the edge of the roof, two people sat shoulder to shoulder, dark silhouettes facing away from me. One leaned over and kissed the other.

I didn’t mean to, but I was so flustered I flashed like a camera light, inadvertently changing from Lester to my adult Apollo form—toga, blond hair, muscles, and all. The two lovebirds turned to face me. Piper McLean was on the left. On the right sat another young lady with short dark hair and a rhinestone nose stud that winked in the darkness.

Piper unlaced her fingers from the other girl’s. “Wow, Apollo. Timing.”

“Er, sorry. I—”

“Who’s this?” the other girl asked, taking in my bedsheet clothing. “Your dad has a boyfriend?”

I suppressed a yelp. Since Piper’s dad was Tristan McLean, former A-list heartthrob of Hollywood, I was tempted to say Not yet, but I’m willing to volunteer. I didn’t think Piper would appreciate that, though.

“Old family friend,” Piper said. “Sorry, Shel. Would you excuse me a sec?”

“Uh. Sure.”

Piper got up, grabbed my arm, and guided me to the far end of the roof. “Hey. What’s up?”

“I…Uh…” I had not been this tongue-tied since I’d been a full-time Lester Papadopoulos. “I just wanted to check in, make sure you’re doing okay. It seems you are?”