❦𝓕𝓪𝓿𝓸𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓲𝓶𝓮❦ - 𝓟𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓬𝓴𝓼𝓸𝓷

𝒱𝐼. 𝒯𝒽𝑒𝓎 𝑀𝑒𝑒𝓉 𝒯𝒶𝓃𝓉𝒶𝓁𝓊𝓈

𝒯𝒽𝑒 sun was setting behind the dining pavilion as the campers came up from their cabins. The four of them stood in the shadow of a marble column and watched them file in. Annabeth was still pretty shaken up, but she promised she'd talk to them later. Then she went off to join her siblings from the Athena cabin. Annabeth wasn't the oldest, but she'd been at camp more summers than just about anybody. She had been there as long as Zoe had, you could tell that by looking at either of their camp necklaces—one bead for every summer, and they both had six. No one questioned Annabeth's right to lead the line.

Zoe hugged Percy and nodded at Tyson then headed over to her cabin mates. She hadn't seen them all school year. Not even by IMs. Zoe hugged all her siblings and exchanged cheek-kisses. Selina checked her twice to make sure Zoe was ok. After the reunion of the Aphrodite children, Selina and Zoe took their places at the front of the line, waiting for everyone else to fall into their lines.

Next came Clarisse, leading the Ares cabin. She had one arm in a sling and a nasty-looking gash on her cheek, but otherwise her encounter with the bronze bulls didn't seem to have fazed her. Someone had taped a piece of paper to her back that said, YOU MOO, GIRL! But nobody in her cabin was bothering to tell her about it.

After the Ares kids came the Hephaestus cabin—six guys led by Charles Beckendorf, a big fifteen-year-old African American kid. He had hands the size of catchers' mitts and a face that was hard and squinty from looking into a blacksmith's forge all day. He was nice enough once you got to know him, but no one ever called him Charlie or Chuck or Charles. Most just called him Beckendorf. Rumor was he could make anything. Give him a chunk of metal and he could create a razor-sharp sword or a robotic warrior or a singing birdbath for your grandmother's garden. Whatever you wanted.

Zoe had been working on a monster-proof phone with him and her dad. When Beckendorf had met The Tony Stark (as he put it), he almost passed out but now they work together like a well oiled machine.

The other cabins filed in: Demeter, Apollo, Dionysus. Naiads came up from the canoe lake. Dryads melted out of the trees. From the meadow came a dozen satyrs, who reminded Zoe painfully of Grover. She hadn't heard from him all year and with Percy having dreams about him, she was a little more than worried about one of her oldest friends.

After the satyrs filed in to dinner, the Hermes cabin brought up the rear. They were always the biggest cabin. Last summer, it had been led by Luke, Zoe's ex sudo big brother and the guy who'd fought with Thalia, Zoe, and Annabeth on top of Half-Blood Hill. Now the Hermes cabin was led by Travis and Connor Stoll.

Zoe knew Travis was the older sibling but they were both tall and skinny, with mops of brown hair that hung in their eyes. They weren't twins, but they looked so much alike it didn't matter. Zoe had taken to telling the duo apart by sensing which brother was head over heels for Katie Gardener. It seemed to work because she never guessed wrong.

The Stolls wore orange CAMP HALFBLOOD T-shirts untucked over baggy shorts, and they had those elfish features all Hermes's kids had: upturned eyebrows, sarcastic smiles, a gleam in their eyes whenever they looked at you—like they were about to drop a firecracker down your shirt.

Zoe always thought it was hilarious that the god of thieves would have kids with the last name "Stoll," and the one time Percy mentioned it to Travis and Connor, they both stared at him blankly like they didn't get the joke. Later, the Stolls and Zoe laughed their asses off at Percy's reaction.

As soon as the last campers had filed in, Percy led Tyson into the middle of the pavilion. Conversations faltered. Heads turned. "Who invited that?" somebody at the Apollo table murmured. 

Percy and Zoe glared in their direction, but the daughter of Aphrodite couldn't figure out who'd spoken.

From the head table, a familiar voice drawled, "Well, well, if it isn't Peter Johnson. My millennium is complete."