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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 legionnaire armor. Around the edges of the feast, fauns trotted from table to table, panhandling for food and spare change. In the nearby fields, children played tag around the statues of Terminus that lined the city limits.
The whole scene was so familiar yet so completely alien that it gave me vertigo. Though the memories were all mostly back, I still had a little trouble adjusting. It felt right though. I belonged here.
Reyna and a few of her officers (including Octavian, freshly back from burning a teddy bear for the gods) sat with us. Percy joined them with his two new friends, Frank and Hazel.
Angelique sat beside me, her eyes ever vigilant and unreadable, as we were near people who were strangers to her. I wanted to tell her to relax and reassure that everyone was friends. But that would only be a half-truth as Octavian did not fit the description of a "friend".
After introductions all around, the Romans and we began exchanging stories. I explained how I'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood without my memory, and how I'd gone on a quest with Angelique, Piper and Leo to rescue Juno from imprisonment at the Wolf House in northern California.
"Impossible!" Octavian broke in. "That's our most sacred place. If the giants had imprisoned a goddess there—"
"They would've destroyed her," Angelique said while playing with a celestial bronze dagger.. "And blamed it on the Greeks, and started a war between the camps. Now, be quiet and let Jason finish."
Octavian opened his mouth to argue but Angelique arched a brow as she spun the weapon in her hand artfully. Naturally Octavian shut his mouth. I never noticed the dagger she always had in her right combat boot until now. It seems that Terminus didn't catch it. The dagger had engravings of waves on the handle and it looked unused. A gift from someone perhaps?
"So," I cleared my throat and continued, "that's how we found out about the earth goddess Gaea. She's still half asleep, but she's the one freeing the monsters from Tartarus and raising the giants. Porphyrion, the big leader dude we fought at the Wolf House: he said he was retreating to the ancient lands—Greece itself. He plans on awakening Gaea and destroying the gods by... what did he call it? Pulling up their roots."
Percy nodded thoughtfully. "Gaea's been busy over here, too. We had our own encounter with Queen Dirt Face."
Percy recounted his side of the story. He talked about waking up at the Wolf House with no memories except for one name—Annabeth.
Percy told them how he'd traveled to Alaska with Frank and Hazel—how they'd defeated the giant Alcyoneus, freed the death god Thanatos, and returned with the lost golden eagle standard of the Roman camp to repel an attack by the giants' army.
