The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo #5) - Rick Riordan Page 0,27
who these three kids are that you sired and forgot about twelve or thirteen years ago, but don’t worry, Dad, I got you.
Jerry was from London, Gracie from Idaho, and Yan from Hong Kong. (When had I been in Hong Kong?) All three seemed stunned to meet me—but more in a you-have-to-be-kidding-me way, not in a wow-cool sort of way. I muttered some apologies about being a terrible father. The newcomers exchanged glances and apparently decided, by silent agreement, to put me out of my misery.
“I’m famished,” Jerry said.
“Yeah,” Gracie said. “Dining hall!”
And off we trekked like one big super-awkward family.
Campers from other cabins were also streaming toward the dining pavilion. I spotted Meg halfway up the hill, chatting excitedly with her siblings from the Demeter cabin. At her side trotted Peaches, her fruit-tree spirit companion. The little diapered fellow seemed quite happy, alternately flapping his leafy wings and grabbing Meg’s leg to get her attention. We hadn’t seen Peaches since Kentucky, as he tended to only show up in natural settings, or when Meg was in dire trouble, or when breakfast was about to be served.
Meg and I had been together so long, usually just the two of us, that I felt a pang in my heart watching her stroll along with a different set of friends. She looked so content without me. If I ever made it back to Mount Olympus, I wondered if she would decide to stay at Camp Half-Blood. I also wondered why the thought made me so sad.
After the horrors she’d suffered in Nero’s Imperial Household, she deserved some peace.
That made me think about my dream of Luguselwa, battered and broken on a stretcher in front of Nero’s throne. Perhaps I had more in common with the Gaul than I wanted to admit. Meg needed a better family, a better home than either Lu or I could give her. But that didn’t make it any easier to contemplate letting her go.
Just ahead of us, a boy of about nine stumbled from the Ares cabin. His helmet had completely swallowed his head. He ran to catch up to his cabinmates, the point of his too-long sword tracing a serpentine line in the dirt behind him.
“The newbies all look so young,” Will murmured. “Were we ever that young?”
Kayla and Austin nodded in agreement.
Yan grumbled. “We newbies are right here.”
I wanted to tell them that they were all so young. Their life spans were a blink of an eye compared to my four millennia. I should be wrapping them all in warm blankets and giving them cookies rather than expecting them to be heroes, slay monsters, and buy me clothes.
On the other hand, Achilles hadn’t even started shaving yet when he sailed off to the Trojan War. I’d watched so many young heroes march bravely to their deaths over the centuries.…Just thinking about it made me feel older than Kronos’s teething ring.
After the relatively ordered meals of the Twelfth Legion at Camp Jupiter, breakfast at the dining pavilion was quite a shock. Counselors tried to explain the seating rules (such as they were) while returning campers jockeyed for spots next to their friends, and the newbies tried not to kill themselves or each other with their new weapons. Dryads wove through the crowd with platters of food, satyrs trotting behind them and stealing bites. Honeysuckle vines bloomed on the Greek columns, filling the air with perfume.
At the sacrificial fire, demigods took turns scraping parts of their meals into the flames as offerings to the gods—corn flakes, bacon, toast, yogurt. (Yogurt?) A steady plume of smoke rolled into the heavens. As a former god, I appreciated the sentiment, but I also wondered whether the smell of burning yogurt was worth the air pollution.
Will offered me a seat next to him, then passed me a goblet of orange juice.
“Thank you,” I managed. “But where’s, uh…?”
I scanned the crowd for Nico di Angelo, remembering how he normally sat at Will’s table, regardless of cabin rules.
“Up there,” Will said, apparently guessing my thoughts.
The son of Hades sat next to Dionysus at the head table. The god’s plate was piled high with pancakes. Nico’s was empty. They seemed an odd pair, sitting together, but they appeared to be in a deep and serious conversation. Dionysus rarely tolerated demigods at his table. If he was giving Nico such undivided attention, something must be seriously wrong.
I remembered what Mr. D had said yesterday, just before I passed out. “‘That boy has had too much