The Battle for Olympus

Reyna

Reyna grabbed Jason's arm and dragged him down the hallway. "This is not a conversation we have in front of prisoners."

"Prisoners? Do you normally take prisoners on walks around the senate building?"

Reyna raised her eyebrows. "Do you normally question my every move?"

"Fine," Jason said. "This isn't even what I want to talk about. I want to talk about how Hazel Levesque managed to escape just hours after our argument."

"Please. Is that really a mystery? She's a daughter of Pluto, Jason, it's a miracle we even caught her." Reyna was great at lying, but it still didn't feel good to lie to her old best friend.

Jason folded his arms. "It doesn't concern you that she escaped?"

"Of course not. She could have brought this whole camp crashing down, I'm glad the only thing she did was escape."

"You overestimate her abilities."

Reyna threw open the senate doors. "And you underestimate them." She took one look at the other figure in the room and turned back to Jason. "Oh gods," she murmured. "You brought Octavian?"

Jason held up his hands. "He's on my side!"

"I'm on your side. And coincidently, I'm not completely insane."

"Whatever."

Reyna tossed her knife on the table next to her jar of jellybeans. "Octavian. To what do I owe this pleasure."

The skinny blond grinned and stretched back in his chair. "I thought we could have a strategy meeting. The three most powerful people in New Rome."

"As fun as this might be," Reyna said, "I have stuff to do. Praetor stuff."

"Reyna, wait." Jason touched her arm. "Hear us out."

"Us? Since when are you two friends again?"

"Since Jason starting making sense," Octavian said. "I have a plan to wipe out the Greeks, and I think you're gonna want to hear it."

Reyna sighed and slumped into her chair. "Go on."

"I've been... having conversations with an associate. A, ah, friend of my family's."

Reyna nodded. Octavian's family had more wealth and influence over the legion than nearly any other family, and that didn't happen alone. Reyna wasn't sure she wanted to know who Octavian's associates were, there's no way to acquire that wealth without a little cheating and collusion.

"A good family friend? Or like that hitman you made us talk to back in Seattle?"

Octavian winced. "That was a misunderstanding. No one got hurt. I wouldn't say this is a bad family friend, but it probably isn't a good one either."

Reyna exchanged a glance with Jason. "Can you just tell me?"

"They're called Triumvirate Holdings," Octavian explained, "a company that provides financial and technical support to those who request it. Mythological or mortal. And my dad knows a guy who knows a guy and put me in contact with them."

"Triumvirate," Reyna mused. "I haven't heard that name in a very long time."

Jason frowned. "That man on the Carolina beach..." he glanced up at her, and Reyna knew he was recalling that quest too. After Jason killed that sea monster he was made a centurion.

"He was insane, blathering on about the triumvirate and an emperor," Reyna said, "I remember."

Octavian looked at Reyna, then Jason. "Anyway, they have a weapon they want to give us, a weapon that will wipe out the Greeks."