“Yay!” Tyson said. “That means it was good! It saved your life!”

“It sure did, big guy,” I said. “But now it’s ruined.”

“Not ruined!” Tyson promised. “I will visit and fix it next summer.”

The idea picked me up instantly. I guess I hadn’t realized how much I missed having Tyson around.

“Seriously?” I asked. “They’ll let you take time off ?”

“Yes! I have made two thousand seven hundred and forty-one magic swords,” Tyson said proudly, showing me the newest blade. “The boss says ‘good work’! He will let me take the whole summer off. I will visit camp!”

We talked for a while about war preparations and our dad’s fight with the old sea gods, and all the cool things we could do together next summer, but then Tyson’s boss started yelling at him and he had to get back to work.

I dug out my last golden drachma and made one more Iris-message.

“Sally Jackson,” I said. “Upper East Side, Manhattan.”

The mist shimmered, and there was my mom at our kitchen table, laughing and holding hands with her friend Mr. Blowfish.

I felt so embarrassed, I was about to wave my hand through the mist and cut the connection, but before I could, my mom saw me.

Her eyes got wide. She let go of Mr. Blowfish’s hand real quick. “Oh, Paul! You know what? I left my writing journal in the living room. Would you mind getting it for me?”

“Sure, Sally. No problem.”

He left the room, and instantly my mom leaned toward the Iris-message. “Percy! Are you all right?”

“I’m, uh, fine. How’s that writing seminar going?”

She pursed her lips. “It’s fine. But that’s not important. Tell me what’s happened!”

I filled her in as quickly as I could. She sighed with relief when she heard that Annabeth was safe.

“I knew you could do it!” she said. “I’m so proud.”

“Yeah, well, I’d better let you get back to your homework.”

“Percy, I . . . Paul and I—”

“Mom, are you happy?”

The question seemed to take her by surprise. She thought for a moment. “Yes. I really am, Percy. Being around him makes me happy.”

“Then it’s cool. Seriously. Don’t worry about me.”

The funny thing was, I meant it. Considering the quest I’d just had, maybe I should have been worried for my mom. I’d seen just how mean people could be to each other, like Hercules was to Zoë Nightshade, like Luke was to Thalia. I’d met Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, in person, and her powers had scared me worse than Ares. But seeing my mother laughing and smiling, after all the years she’d suffered with my nasty ex-stepfather, Gabe Ugliano, I couldn’t help feeling happy for her.

“You promise not to call him Mr. Blowfish?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Well, maybe not to his face, anyway.”

“Sally?” Mr. Blofis called from our living room. “You need the green binder or the red one?”

“I’d better go,” she told me. “See you for Christmas?”

“Are you putting blue candy in my stocking?”

She smiled. “If you’re not too old for that.”

“I’m never too old for candy.”

“I’ll see you then.”

She waved her hand across the mist. Her image disappeared, and I thought to myself that Thalia had been right, so many days ago at Westover Hall: my mom really was pretty cool.

Compared to Mount Olympus, Manhattan was quiet. Friday before Christmas, but it was early in the morning, and hardly anyone was on Fifth Avenue. Argus, the many-eyed security chief, picked up Annabeth, Grover, and me at the Empire State Building and ferried us back to camp through a light snowstorm. The Long Island Expressway was almost deserted.

As we trudged back up Half-Blood Hill to the pine tree where the Golden Fleece glittered, I half expected to see Thalia there, waiting for us. But she wasn’t. She was long gone with Artemis and the rest of the Hunters, off on their next adventure.

Chiron greeted us at the Big House with hot chocolate and toasted cheese sandwiches. Grover went off with his satyr friends to spread the word about our strange encounter with the magic of Pan. Within an hour, the satyrs were all running around agitated, asking where the nearest espresso bar was.

Annabeth and I sat with Chiron and some of the other senior campers—Beckendorf, Silena Beauregard, and the Stoll brothers. Even Clarisse from the Ares cabin was there, back from her secretive scouting mission. I knew she must’ve had a difficult quest, because she didn’t even try to pulverize me. She had a new scar on her chin, and her dirty blond hair had been cut short and ragged, like someone had attacked it with a pair of safety scissors.

“I got news,” she mumbled uneasily. “Bad news.”

“I’ll fill you in later,” Chiron said with forced cheerfulness. “The important thing is you have prevailed. And you saved Annabeth!”

Annabeth smiled at me gratefully, which made me look away.

For some strange reason, I found myself thinking about Hoover Dam, and the odd mortal girl I’d run into there, Rachel Elizabeth Dare. I didn’t know why, but her annoying comments kept coming back to me. Do you always kill people when they blow their nose? I was only alive because so many people had helped me, even a random mortal girl like that. I’d never even explained to her who I was.

“Luke is alive,” I said. “Annabeth was right.”

Annabeth sat up. “How do you know?”

I tried not to feel annoyed by her interest. I told her what my dad had said about the Princess Andromeda.

“Well.” Annabeth shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “If the final battle does come when Percy is sixteen, at least we have two more years to figure something out.”

I had a feeling that when she said “figure something out,” she meant “get Luke to change his ways,” which annoyed me even more.

Chiron’s expression was gloomy. Sitting by the fire in his wheelchair, he looked really old. I mean . . . he was really old, but he usually didn’t look it.

“Two years may seem like a long time,” he said. “But it is the blink of an eye. I still hope you are not the child of the prophecy, Percy. But if you are, then the second Titan war is almost upon us. Kronos’s first strike will be here.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “Why would he care about camp?”

“Because the gods use heroes as their tools,” Chiron said simply. “Destroy the tools, and the gods will be crippled. Luke’s forces will come here. Mortal, demigod, monstrous . . . We must be prepared. Clarisse’s news may give us a clue as to how they will attack, but—”

There was a knock on the door, and Nico di Angelo came huffing into the parlor, his cheeks bright red from the cold.

He was smiling, but he looked around anxiously. “Hey! Where’s . . . where’s my sister?”

Dead silence. I stared at Chiron. I couldn’t believe nobody had told him yet. And then I realized why. They’d been waiting for us to appear, to tell Nico in person.

That was the last thing I wanted to do. But I owed it to Bianca.

“Hey, Nico.” I got up from my comfortable chair. “Let’s take a walk, okay? We need to talk.”

He took the news in silence, which somehow made it worse. I kept talking, trying to explain how it had happened, how Bianca had sacrificed herself to save the quest. But I felt like I was only making things worse.

“She wanted you to have this.” I brought out the little god figurine Bianca had found in the junkyard. Nico held it in his palm and stared at it.

We were standing at the dining pavilion, just where we’d last spoken before I went on the quest. The wind was bitter cold, even with the camp’s magical weather protection. Snow fell lightly against the marble steps. I figured outside the camp borders, there must be a blizzard happening.

“You promised you would protect her,” Nico said.

He might as well have stabbed me with a rusty dagger.

It would’ve hurt less than reminding me of my promise.

“Nico,” I said. “I tried. But Bianca gave herself up to save the rest of us. I told her not to. But she—”