Meg stayed at camp. She had an appointment in an hour to feed the unicorns with Lavinia, and Meg was afraid if she went anywhere, she might miss it. Given Lavinia’s reputation for going AWOL, I supposed Meg’s concern was valid.
Frank led me through the main gates. The sentries snapped to attention. They had to hold that pose for quite a while, since I was moving at the speed of cold syrup. I caught them studying me apprehensively—perhaps because they were worried I might launch into another heartbreaking song, or perhaps because they still couldn’t believe this shambling heap of adolescence had once been the god Apollo.
The afternoon was California perfect: turquoise sky, golden grass rippling on the hillsides, eucalyptus and cedar rustling in the warm breeze. This should have dispelled any thoughts of dark tunnels and ghouls, yet I couldn’t seem to get the smell of grave dust out of my nostrils. Drinking a Lemurian-spice latte did not help.
Frank walked at my speed, staying close enough that I could lean on him if I felt shaky, but not insisting on helping.
“So,” he said at last, “what’s with you and Reyna?”
I stumbled, sending fresh jabs of pain through my abdomen. “What? Nothing. What?”
Frank brushed a raven feather off his cloak. I wondered how that worked, exactly—being left with bits and pieces after shape-shifting. Did he ever discard a spare feather and realize later, Whoops, that was my pinky finger? I’d heard rumors that Frank could even turn into a swarm of bees. Even I, a former god who used to transform himself all the time, had no idea how he managed that.
“It’s just that…when you saw Reyna,” he said, “you froze, like…I dunno, you realized you owed her money or something.”
I had to restrain a bitter laugh. If only my problem regarding Reyna were as simple as that.
The incident had come back to me with glass-shard clarity: Venus scolding me, warning me, upbraiding me as only she could. You will not stick your ugly, unworthy godly face anywhere near her, or I swear on the Styx…
And of course she’d done this in the throne room, in the presence of all the other Olympians, as they howled with cruel amusement and shouted Ooh! Even my father had joined in. Oh, yes. He loved every minute of it.
I shuddered.
“There is nothing with Reyna and me,” I said quite honestly. “I don’t think we’ve ever exchanged more than a few words.”
Frank studied my expression. Obviously, he realized I was holding something back, but he didn’t push. “Okay. Well, you’ll see her tonight at the funeral. She’s trying to get some sleep right now.”
I almost asked why Reyna would be asleep in the middle of the afternoon. Then I remembered that Frank had been wearing a pajama shirt when we’d encountered him at dinnertime…. Had that really been the day before yesterday?
“You’re taking shifts,” I realized. “So one of you is always on duty?”
“It’s the only way,” he agreed. “We’re still on high alert. Everyone is edgy. There’s so much to do since the battle….”
He said the word battle the same way Hazel had, as if it was a singular, terrible turning point in history.
Like all the divinations Meg and I had retrieved during our adventures, the Dark Prophecy’s nightmarish prediction about Camp Jupiter remained burned into my mind:
The words that memory wrought are set to fire,
Ere new moon rises o’er the Devil’s Mount.
The changeling lord shall face a challenge dire,
Till bodies fill the Tiber beyond count.
After hearing that, Leo Valdez had raced across country on his bronze dragon, hoping to warn the camp. According to Leo, he had arrived just in time, but the toll had still been horrendous.
Frank must have read my pained expression.
“It would’ve been worse if it hadn’t been for you,” he said, which only made me feel guiltier. “If you hadn’t sent Leo here to warn us. One day, out of nowhere, he just flew right in.”
“That must have been quite a shock,” I said. “Since you thought Leo was dead.”
Frank’s dark eyes glittered like they still belonged to a raven. “Yeah. We were so mad at him for making us worry, we lined up and took turns hitting him.”
“We did that at Camp Half-Blood, too,” I said. “Greek minds think alike.”
“Mmm.” Frank’s gaze drifted toward the horizon. “We had about twenty-four hours to prepare. It helped. But it wasn’t enough. They came from over there.”
He pointed north to the Berkeley Hills. “They swarmed. Only way to describe it.