Afterward, we stopped by the legion mess hall for food. Judging from the angle of the sun and the near-empty dining room, I guessed it was late afternoon, between lunch and dinner, which meant I’d been unconscious for almost a full day.
The day after tomorrow, then, would be April 8—the blood moon, Lester’s birthday, the day two evil emperors and an undead king attacked Camp Jupiter. On the bright side, the mess hall was serving fish sticks.
When I was done with my meal (here’s a culinary secret I discovered: ketchup really enhances fries and fish sticks), Meg escorted me down the Via Praetoria to legion headquarters.
Most of the Romans seemed to be off doing whatever Romans did in the late afternoon: marching, digging trenches, playing Fortiusnitius…I wasn’t really sure. The few legionnaires we passed stared at me as we walked by, their conversations sputtering to a stop. I guessed word had spread about our adventure in Tarquin’s tomb. Perhaps they’d heard that I had a slight turning-into-a-zombie problem and they were waiting for me to scream for brains.
The thought made me shudder. My gut wound felt so much better at the moment. I could walk without cringing. The sun was shining. I’d eaten a good meal. How could I still be poisoned?
Denial is a powerful thing.
Unfortunately, I suspected Pranjal was right. He had only slowed down the infection. My condition was beyond anything that camp healers, Greek or Roman, could solve. I needed godly help—which was something Zeus had expressly forbidden the other gods to give me.
The guards at the praetorium let us through immediately. Inside, Reyna and Frank sat behind a long table laden with maps, books, daggers, and a large jar of jelly beans. Against the back wall, in front of a purple curtain, stood the legion’s golden eagle, humming with energy. Being so near to it made the hairs on my arms stand up. I didn’t know how the praetors could tolerate working here with that thing right behind them. Hadn’t they read the medical journal articles about the effects of long-term exposure to electromagnetic Roman standards?
Frank appeared ready for battle in his full armor. Reyna looked like she was the one who’d just woken up. She wore her purple cloak hastily pulled over a too-large PUERTO RICO FUERTE T-shirt, which I wondered if she’d slept in—but that was none of my business. The left side of her hair was an adorable fuzzy black mess of cowlicks that made me wonder if she slept on that side—and, again, that was none of my business.
Curled on the carpet at her feet were two automatons I hadn’t seen before—a pair of greyhounds, one gold and one silver. They both raised their heads when they saw me, then sniffed the air and growled as if to say, Hey, Mom, this guy smells like zombie. Can we kill him?
Reyna hushed them. She dug some jelly beans out of the jar and tossed them to the dogs. I wasn’t sure why metallic greyhounds would like candy, but they snapped up the morsels, then settled their heads back on the carpet.
“Er, nice dogs,” I said. “Why haven’t I seen them before?”
“Aurum and Argentum have been out searching,” Reyna said, in a tone that discouraged follow-up questions. “How is your wound?”
“My wound is thriving,” I said. “Me, not so much.”
“He’s better than before,” Meg insisted. “I grated some unicorn-horn shavings on his cut. It was fun.”
“Pranjal helped, too,” I said.
Frank gestured at the two visitors’ seats. “You guys make yourselves comfortable.”
Comfortable was a relative term. The three-legged foldable stools did not look as cushy as the praetors’ chairs. They also reminded me of the Oracle’s tripod seat in Delphi, which reminded me of Rachel Elizabeth Dare back at Camp Half-Blood, who was not-so-patiently waiting for me to restore her powers of prophecy. Thinking about her reminded me of the Delphic cave, which reminded me of Python, which reminded me of my nightmare and how scared I was of dying. I hate stream of consciousness.
Once we were seated, Reyna spread a parchment scroll across the table. “So, we’ve been working with Ella and Tyson since yesterday, trying to decipher some more lines of prophecy.”
“We’ve made progress,” Frank added. “We think we’ve found the recipe you were talking about at the senate meeting—the ritual that could summon divine aid to save the camp.”
“That’s great, right?” Meg reached for the jar of jelly beans but retracted her hand when Aurum and Argentum began growling.
“Maybe.” Reyna exchanged a