Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
chapter forty-six ☄︎. *. ⋆
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NOBODY BELIEVED ME when I told them Aphrodite didn't want anything from me. I'm pretty sure they were all onto me, but I didn't care. I wasn't going to tell anyone what she told me.
I was at the back of our group as we began our trudge through the junkyard. Apparently, Aphrodite had told Percy it's not as much of a landfill as it is a bunch of Hephaestus's old scraps and trinkets that he no longer needed. If that was all Aphrodite wanted with Percy, then I was jealous.
I'd hoped that my falling behind and staying out of everyone's way would give them all the hint that I didn't want to talk, but before we made it to the entrance of the junkyard, Grover came over and began asking me what was wrong. I wanted to tell him nothing, but then I remembered satyrs can detect feelings the same way they can smell monsters. It was no use lying to him.
I gripped my bow. "Don't worry about it," I told him, after his fourth time asking. I'd given up on telling him that I was fine. "It was nothing. She just wanted to tell me she's glad Connor and I are together."
I could tell he didn't believe me, though. "Aphrodite wouldn't make a special trip just to tell you that." His voice was sad. "You.. you don't have to tell me what she said, but, Theo—she's big on leading heroes astray. Please don't let her get to your head."
"Yeah, no," I scoffed, my voice bitter. "I'm definitely not letting love blind me."
Grover frowned. "You know, I still have an empathy link with Percy, but I don't have to be able to read his mind to know whatever Aphrodite told him was along the same lines as what she told you. And..." He sniffed the air around me, then leaned back and scrunched up his nose. "Phew! Yeah.. you smell like you've been bathed in hormones. Gross."
I smirked, hiding my laugh with a sniff. "And you smell like a lying satyr. Go catch up with the rest of them, Grover. I want to check this thing out."
As Grover jogged up to chat with (see also: talk at) Zoë, I veered to the side. I wasn't sure that this thing was, but it sure had caught my attention from afar. It was like a hill of metal... but more than one. Five of them, all clustered together, like—
Like toes.
I shuddered and stumbled over a scrap of metal, rushing back to catch up with the rest. "Guys," I called. "I found a shortcut."
Thalia inspected it closely. Everyone else just stared at it in silence, until Grover picked up a pebble and threw it at the toes—it ricocheted off with a ping.
"Why did you do that?" Zoë asked.
Grover cringed. "I don't know. I don't, uh, like fake feet?"
