LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE . . . pjo

XXXIX.

COMPARED TO MOUNT Olympus, Manhattan was quiet. It was the Friday before Christmas, but it was early in the morning, and hardly anyone was on Fifth Avenue. Argus, the many-eyed security chief, picked up Percy, Annabeth, Grover, and Mia at the Empire State Building and ferried them back to camp through a light snowstorm. The Long Island Expressway was almost deserted.

As they trudged back up Half-Blood Hill to the pine tree where the Golden Fleece glittered, Mia half expected to see Thalia there, waiting for them. But she wasn't. She was long gone with Artemis and the rest of the Hunters, off on their next adventure.

Chiron greeted them at the Big House with hot chocolate and toasted cheese sandwiches. Grover went off with his satyr friends to spread the word about a strange encounter with the magic of Pan, Mia didn't know. Within an hour, the satyrs were all running around agitated, asking where the nearest espresso bar was.

Percy, Annabeth, and Mia sat with Chiron and some of the other senior campers — Beckendorf, Silena Beauregard, who looked at Mia weirdly, and the Stoll brothers. Even Clarisse from the Ares cabin was there, back from a scouting mission. She had a new scar on her chin, and her dirty blond hair had been cut short and ragged, like someone had attacked it with a pair of safety scissors.

"I got news," she mumbled uneasily. "Bad news."

"I'll fill you in later," Chiron said with forced cheerfulness. "The important thing is you have prevailed. And you saved Mia and Annabeth!"

Mia stared down at her hands. Yeah, like she'd wanted to be saved.

"Luke is alive," Percy said, starting off the conversation on a good note. "Annabeth was right."

Annabeth sat up. "How do you know?"

Percy told her what his dad had said about the Princess Andromeda.

"Well." Annabeth shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "If the final battle does come when Percy is sixteen, at least we have two more years to figure something out."

Chiron's expression was gloomy. Sitting by the fire in his wheelchair, he looked really old. Well . . . he was really old, but he usually didn't look it.

"Two years may seem like a long time," he said. "But it is the blink of an eye. I still hope you are not the child of the prophecy, Percy. But if you are, then the second Titan war is almost upon us. Kronos's first strike will be here."

"How do you know?" Percy asked. "Why would he care about camp?"

"Because the gods use heroes as their tools," Chiron said simply. "Destroy the tools, and the gods will be crippled. Luke's forces will come here. Mortal, demigod, monstrous . . . We must be prepared. Clarisse's news may give us a clue as to how they will attack, but—"

There was a knock on the door, and the boy that they'd saved from Westover, Nico di Angelo, came huffing into the parlor, his cheeks bright red from the cold.

He was smiling, but he looked around anxiously. "Hey! Where's . . . where's my sister?"

Dead silence. Mia looked around, confused. What had happened to Bianca di Angelo?

Then she tapped into her Underworld powers, and saw that Bianca was approaching the judges that would try her to see if she would go to Elysium or not. Oh.

"Hey, Nico." Percy got up from his chair, trying to put on a smile, but it looked like a grimace. "Let's take a walk, okay? We need to talk."

* * *

A few minutes later, Percy called for Mia, Annabeth, and Grover to help him look for Nico di Angelo, who had gone missing after Nico had suddenly fled in the woods. They'd searched the woods for hours, but there was no sign of Nico di Angelo.