Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"the last time"
THE SKY WAS A BRILLIANT BLUE, AS IF THE STORMY WEATHER HAD NEVER HAPPENED. The sun rose over the distant hills, so everything below them shone and sparkled like the entire city of Rome had just come out of the car wash.
The girl was awoken by Jason when he knocked on her cabin door. He left quickly afterward, leaving Ariadne to nudge her sleeping boyfriend awake.
He insisted on sleeping in another five minutes while burying his head into her neck. It took a whole lot of kisses and threats before he stood up from the bed with her in tow.
Now, they looked at the sheer vastness of Rome. The city seemed to have no regard for the limits of geography. It spread through hills and valleys, jumped over the Tiber with dozens of bridges, and just kept sprawling to the horizon. Streets and alleys zigzagged with no rhyme or reason through quilts of neighborhoods. Glass office buildings stood next to excavation sites. A cathedral stood next to a line of Roman columns, which stood next to a modern soccer stadium. In some neighborhoods, old stucco villas with red-tiled roofs crowded the cobblestone streets. Everywhere she looked, there were wide piazzas and traffic-clogged streets. Parks cut across the city with a crazy collection of palm trees, pines, junipers, and olive trees, as if Rome couldn't decide what part of the world it belonged to—or maybe it just believed all the world still belonged to Rome.
"We're setting down in that park," Leo announced, pointing to a wide green space dotted with palm trees. "Let's hope the Mist makes us look like a large pigeon or something."
The Argo II set down in the grassy field and the oars retracted.
The noise or traffic was all around them, but the park itself was peaceful and deserted. To their left, a green lawn sloped toward a line of woods. An old villa nestled in the shade of some weird looking pines trees with thin curvy trunks that shot up thirty or forty feet, then sprouted into puffy canopies.
To their right, snaking along the top of a hill, was a long brick wall with notched at the top for archers—maybe a medieval defensive line, maybe Ancient Roman.
To the north, about a mile away through the folds of the city, the top of the Colosseum rose above the rooftops, looking just like it did in travel photos.
Jason pointed to the base of the archers' wall, where steps led down into some kind of tunnel.
"I think I know where we are," he said. "That's the Tomb of Scipios."
Percy frowned. "Scipio...Reyna's pegasus?0
"No," Annabeth put in. "They were a noble Roman family, and...wow, this place is amazing."
