The Tyrant’s Tomb

Hazel’s corneas were still the color of wet clay. “I can’t get a read. There should be an exit here. We’re close to the surface, but…I’m sorry, guys.”

Meg retracted her blades. “That’s okay. Keep watch.”

“What are you doing?” Lavinia asked.

Meg touched the nearest wall. The ceiling shifted and cracked. I had a fleeting image of us getting buried like Tarquin under several tons of rock—which, in my present state of mind, seemed like an amusing way to die. Instead, dozens of thickening tree roots wriggled their way through the cracks, pushing apart the stones. Even as a former god accustomed to magic, I found it mesmerizing. The roots spiraled and wove themselves together, shoving aside the earth, letting in the dim glow of moonlight, until we found ourselves at the base of a gently sloping chute (A root chute?) with handholds and footholds for climbing.

Meg sniffed the air above. “Smells safe. Let’s go.”

While Hazel stood guard, Meg and Lavinia joined forces to get me up the chute. Meg pulled. Lavinia pushed. It was all very undignified, but the thought of Lavinia’s half-primed manubalista jostling around somewhere below my delicate posterior gave me an incentive to keep moving.

We emerged at the base of a redwood in the middle of the forest. The carousel was nowhere in sight. Meg gave Hazel a hand up, then touched the trunk of the tree. The root chute spiraled shut, submerging under the grass.

Hazel swayed on her feet. “Where are we?”

“This way,” Lavinia announced.

She shouldered my weight again, despite my protestations that I was fine. Really, I was only dying a little bit. We staggered down a trail among the looming redwoods. I couldn’t see the stars or discern any landmarks. I had no idea which direction we were heading, but Lavinia seemed undeterred.

“How do you know where we are?” I asked.

“Told you,” she said. “I like to explore.”

She must really like Poison Oak, I thought for the umpteenth time. Then I wondered if Lavinia simply felt more at home in the wild than she did at camp. She and my sister would get along fine.

“Are any of you hurt?” I asked. “Did the ghouls scratch you?”

The girls all shook their heads.

“What about you?” Meg scowled and pointed at my gut. “I thought you were getting better.”

“I guess I was too optimistic.” I wanted to scold her for jumping into combat and nearly getting us all killed, but I didn’t have the energy. Also, the way she was looking at me, I got the feeling that her grumpy facade might collapse into tears faster than Tarquin’s ceilings had crumbled.

Hazel eyed me warily. “You should have healed. I don’t understand.”

“Lavinia, can I have some gum?” I asked.

“Seriously?” She dug in her pocket and handed me a piece.

“You’re a corrupting influence.” With leaden fingers, I managed to unwrap the gum and stick it in my mouth. The flavor was sickly sweet. It tasted pink. Still, it was better than the sour ghoul poison welling up in my throat. I chewed, glad for something to focus on beside the memory of Tarquin’s skeletal fingers curling and sending scythes of fire through my intestines. And what he had said about the Sibyl…? No. I couldn’t process that right now.

After a few hundred yards of torturous hiking, we reached a small stream.

“We’re close,” Lavinia said.

Hazel glanced behind us. “I’m sensing maybe a dozen behind us, closing fast.”

I saw and heard nothing, but I took Hazel’s word for it. “Go. You’ll move faster without me.”

“Not happening,” Meg said.

“Here, take Apollo.” Lavinia offered me to Meg like I was a sack of groceries. “You guys cross this stream, go up that hill. You’ll see Camp Jupiter.”

Meg straightened her grimy glasses. “What about you?”

“I’ll draw them away.” Lavinia patted her manubalista.

“That’s a terrible idea,” I said.

“It’s what I do,” Lavinia said.

I wasn’t sure if she meant drawing away enemies or executing terrible ideas.

“She’s right,” Hazel decided. “Be careful, legionnaire. We’ll see you at camp.”

Lavinia nodded and darted into the woods.

“Are you sure that was wise?” I asked Hazel.

“No,” she admitted. “But whatever Lavinia does, she always seems to come back unscathed. Now let’s get you home.”

Cooking with Pranjal

Chickweed and unicorn horn

Slow-basted zombie

HOME. SUCH A WONDERFUL word.

I had no idea what it meant, but it sounded nice.

Somewhere along the trail back to camp, my mind must have detached from my body. I don’t remember passing out. I don’t remember reaching the valley. But at some point, my consciousness drifted away like an escaped helium balloon.

I dreamed of homes. Had I ever really had one?

Delos was my birthplace, but only because my pregnant mother, Leto, took refuge there to escape Hera’s wrath. The island served as an emergency sanctuary for my sister and me, too, but it never felt like home any more than the backseat of a taxi would feel like home to a child born on the way to a hospital.

Mount Olympus? I had a palace there. I visited for the holidays. But it always felt more like the place my dad lived with my stepmom.

The Palace of the Sun? That was Helios’s old crib. I’d just redecorated.

Even Delphi, home of my greatest Oracle, had originally been the lair of Python. Try as you might, you can never get the smell of old snakeskin out of a volcanic cavern.

Sad to say, in my four-thousand-plus years, the times I’d felt most at home had all happened during the past few months: at Camp Half-Blood, sharing a cabin with my demigod children; at the Waystation with Emma, Jo, Georgina, Leo, and Calypso, all of us sitting around the dinner table chopping vegetables from the garden for dinner; at the Cistern in Palm Springs with Meg, Grover, Mellie, Coach Hedge, and a prickly assortment of cactus dryads; and now at Camp Jupiter, where the anxious, grief-stricken Romans, despite their many problems, despite the fact that I brought misery and disaster wherever I went, had welcomed me with respect, a room above their coffee shop, and some lovely bed linens to wear.

These places were homes. Whether I deserved to be part of them or not—that was a different question.

I wanted to linger in those good memories. I suspected I might be dying—perhaps in a coma on the forest floor as ghoul poison spread through my veins. I wanted my last thoughts to be happy ones. My brain had different ideas.

I found myself in the cavern of Delphi.

Nearby, dragging himself through the darkness, wreathed in orange and yellow smoke, was the all-too-familiar shape of Python, like the world’s largest and most rancid Komodo dragon. His smell was oppressively sour—a physical pressure that constricted my lungs and made my sinuses scream. His eyes cut through the sulfuric vapor like headlamps.

“You think it matters.” Python’s booming voice rattled my teeth. “These little victories. You think they lead to something?”

I couldn’t speak. My mouth still tasted like bubble gum. I was grateful for the sickly sweetness—a reminder that a world existed outside of this cave of horrors.