The Tyrant’s Tomb
Once Meg and I had settled on either side of her, Lavinia gave Meg the supersecret Unicorn Sisterhood fist bump, then turned and ribbed me with her sharp elbow. “So, you’re really Apollo, after all! You must know my mom.”
“I—what?”
Her eyebrows were extra distracting today. The dark roots had started to grow out under the pink dye, which made them seem to hover slightly off center, as if they were about to float off her face.
“My mom?” she repeated, popping her bubble gum. “Terpsichore?”
“The—the Muse of Dance. Are you asking me if she’s your mother, or if I know her?”
“Of course she’s my mother.”
“Of course I know her.”
“Well, then!” Lavinia drummed a riff on her knees, as if to prove she had a dancer’s rhythm despite being so gangly. “I wanna hear the dirt!”
“The dirt?”
“I’ve never met her.”
“Oh. Um…” Over the centuries, I’d had many conversations with demigods who wanted to know more about their absentee godly parents. Those talks rarely went well. I tried to conjure a picture of Terpsichore, but my memories of Olympus were getting fuzzier by the day. I vaguely recalled the Muse frolicking around one of the parks on Mount Olympus, casting rose petals in her wake as she twirled and pirouetted. Truth be told, Terpsichore had never been my favorite of the Nine Muses. She tended to take the spotlight off me, where it rightly belonged.
“She had your color hair,” I ventured.
“Pink?”
“No, I mean…dark. Lots of nervous energy, I suppose, like you. She was never happy unless she was moving, but…”
My voice died. What could I say that wouldn’t sound mean? Terpsichore was graceful and poised and didn’t look like a wobbly giraffe? Was Lavinia sure there hadn’t been some mistake about her parentage? Because I couldn’t believe they were related.
“But what?” she pressed.
“Nothing. Hard to remember.”
Down at the rostrum, Reyna was calling the meeting to order. “Everyone, if you’ll please take your seats! We need to get started. Dakota, can you scoot in a little to make room for—Thanks.”
Lavinia regarded me skeptically. “That’s the lamest dirt ever. If you can’t tell me about my mom, at least tell me what’s going on with you and Ms. Praetor down there.”
I squirmed. The bench suddenly felt a great deal harder under my clunis. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Oh, please. The way you’ve been sneaking glances at Reyna since you got here? I noticed it. Meg noticed.”
“I noticed,” Meg confirmed.
“Even Frank Zhang noticed.” Lavinia turned up her palms as if she’d just provided the ultimate proof of complete obviousness.
Reyna began to address the crowd: “Senators, guests, we have called this emergency meeting to discuss—”
“Honestly,” I whispered to Lavinia, “it’s awkward. You wouldn’t understand.”
She snorted. “Awkward is telling your rabbi that Daniella Bernstein is going to be your date for your bat mitzvah party. Or telling your dad that the only dancing you want to do is tap, so you’re not going to carry on the Asimov family tradition. I know all about awkward.”
Reyna continued, “In light of Jason Grace’s ultimate sacrifice, and our own recent battle against the undead, we have to take very seriously the threat—”
“Wait,” I whispered to Lavinia, her words sinking in. “Your dad is Sergei Asimov? The dancer? The—” I stopped myself before I could say The smoking-hot Russian ballet star, but judging from Lavinia’s eye roll, she knew what I was thinking.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Stop trying to change the subject. Are you going to dish on—?”
“Lavinia Asimov!” Reyna called from the rostrum. “Did you have something to say?”
All eyes turned toward us. A few legionnaires smirked, as if this was not the first time Lavinia had been called out during a senate meeting.
Lavinia glanced from side to side, then pointed to herself as if unsure which of the many Lavinia Asimovs Reyna might be addressing. “No, ma’am. I’m good.”
Reyna did not look amused by being called ma’am. “I notice you’re chewing gum as well. Did you bring enough for the whole senate?”
“Er, I mean…” Lavinia pulled multiple packs of gum from her pockets. She scanned the crowd, doing a quick guesstimate. “Maybe?”
Reyna glanced heavenward, as if asking the gods, Why do I have to be the only adult in the room?
“I’ll assume,” the praetor said, “that you were just trying to draw attention to the guest seated next to you, who has important information to share. Lester Papadopoulos, rise and address the senate!”
I now have a plan
To make a plan concerning
The plan for my plan
NORMALLY, WHEN I’M ABOUT to perform, I wait backstage. Once I’m announced and the crowd is frenzied with anticipation, I burst through the curtains, the spotlights hit me, and TA-DA! I am A GOD!
Reyna’s introduction did not inspire wild applause. Lester Papadopoulos, rise and address the senate was about as exciting as We will now have a PowerPoint about adverbs.
As soon as I started making my way to the aisle, Lavinia tripped me. I glared back at her. She gave me an innocent face, like her foot just happened to be there. Given the size of her legs, maybe it had been.
Everyone watched as I fumbled my way through the crowd, trying not to trip on my toga.
“Excuse me. Sorry. Excuse me.”
By the time I made it to the rostrum, the audience was whipped into a frenzy of boredom and impatience. No doubt they would’ve all been checking their phones—except demigods couldn’t use smartphones without risking monster attack, so they had no alternative but to stare at me. I had wowed them two days ago with a fantastic musical tribute to Jason Grace, but what had I done for them lately? Only the Lares looked content to wait. They could endure sitting on hard benches forever.
From the back row, Meg waved at me. Her expression was less like, Hi, you’ll do great, and more like, Get on with it. I turned my gaze to Tyson, who was grinning at me from the front row. When you find yourself focusing on the Cyclops in the crowd for moral support, you know you’re going to bomb.
“So…hi.”
Great start. I hoped another burst of inspiration might lead to a follow-up song. Nothing happened. I’d left my ukulele in my room, sure that if I’d tried to bring it into the city, Terminus would have confiscated it as a weapon.
“I have some bad news,” I said. “And some bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”
The crowd exchanged apprehensive looks.
Lavinia yelled, “Start with the bad news. That’s always best.”
“Hey,” Frank chastised her. “Like, decorum, you know?”
Having restored solemnity to the senate meeting, Frank gestured for me to proceed.
“The emperors Commodus and Caligula have combined forces,” I said. I described what I’d seen in my dream. “They’re sailing toward us right now with a fleet of fifty yachts, all equipped with some kind of terrible new weapon. They’ll be here by the blood moon. Which as I understand it, is in three days, April eighth, which also happens to be Lester Papadopoulos’s birthday.”