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"this wasn't the plan"
THE ROMANS WENT INTO ACTION. All jumped right in, looking for the source of the rumbling, only to sigh when they saw the large vines surrounding Camp Jupiter reaching higher toward the sky.
Reyna shook her head.
Ariadne had only just noticed them. "What the hell?"
"They've been there for months," Reyna said. "We've tried all we could. Nothing has been good enough."
Jason's brows furrowed. "When did they appear?"
Hazel, who stood tall, looked straight at the boy. "Since December."
Annabeth looked at Ariadne, and the brunette cringed slightly. The blonde girl was giving her pinged look to explain the best she could. Ariadne wasn't in the mood of talking about the day she realized Percy had been kidnapped, but she had to.
"I might know why," Ariadne spoke, causing them to eye her. "Uh, the day we found out Percy was gone, I may or may not have set off this chain reaction sending vines everywhere. I have no idea how they ended up here."
Reyna raised a brow. "You caused them? Only gods have that kind of power."
"Well, is there another child of Dionysus—I mean, Bacchus here? Did they try?"
"Dakota tried all he could, and as well as the children of Ceres. None prevailed."
Ariadne sighed. She held out her hand. All at once, the vines quickly retreated into the ground. Romans stared at her with gaping mouths and wide eyes, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment.
Percy noticed his girlfriend begin to retreat behind her cold exterior she sought after when she became distressed or overwhelmed. "Why don't we eat?" he suggested.
Best idea yet.
***
ARIADNE WAS GLAD SHE HAD AN APPETITE, BECAUSE THE ROMANS KNEW HOW TO EAT.
Sets of couches and low tables were carted into the forum until it resembled a furniture showroom. Romans lounged in groups of ten or twenty, talking and laughing while wind spirits—aurae—swirled overhead, bringing an endless assortment of pizzas, sandwiches, chips, cold drinks, and fresh baked cookies. Drifting through the crowd were purple ghosts—Lares—in togas and legionary armor. Around the edges of the feast, satyrs—no, fauns—trotted from table to table, panhandling food and spare change. In the nearby fields, the war elephant frolicked with Mrs. O'Leary, and children playing tag around the statues of Terminus that lined the city limits.
The whole scene was so familiar yet so completely alien that it gave Ariadne vertigo.
She knew she needed to wait to be with Percy—alone, preferably. They needed to build a relationship with the Romans, which meant building some goodwill and explaining everything.
