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news of the bathroom incident spread in the blink of an eye. no matter where they went, campers pointed at percy and murmured something about toilet water. some were staring at annabeth and marcel, who were still pretty much dripping wet.
marcel was pissed.
the stench of water from the restroom, the clothes sticking to his skin - all of it was unbearable. even the stares from other campers - for someone who loved attention, marcel slowly started to hate it.
they showed percy a few more places. the metal shop where hephaestus' kids were forging their own weapons (was that an axe?). the arts-and-crafts room - satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goatman, pan - the god of the wild (again). the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.
marcel being a petty little bitch, he decided to keep his mouth shut the whole tour. not a single word left his lips.
but that didn't stop him from observing every little detail of percy. like those little round scars on his arms, near the inside of his elbows. or the way his steps made little to no noise. his eyes darting from one side to the other.
marcel frowned. connecting those dots wasn't hard - they could only mean one thing, but he sure as hell was hoping to be wrong for once.
as soon as they reached the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins, they took a break.
"i've got training to do," annabeth said flatly. "dinner's at seven-thirty. just follow your cabin to the mess hall."
"guys, i'm sorry about the toilets."
"whatever."
"it wasn't my fault."
marcel looked at him skeptically. he hoped that percy stopped with all the denial and accepted things as they were. percy was the one who made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. he controlled it. no one else could do this, even if they wanted to.
it made marcel anxious. he had a hunch that the arrival of percy jackson would change everything for the better or... worse. he hoped it'd be the former.
"you need to talk to the oracle," annabeth said.
"who?"
"not who. what. the oracle. i'll ask chiron."
percy stared into the lake with a distant expression.
at the bottom two naiads, nymphs of the inland waters, were sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier. they waved at marcel and percy with pretty smiles. both of them had icy-green eyes with long dark eyelashes, pink-tinted round cheeks, and brown hair floating loosely around their shoulders. they wore wide blue jeans and shimmering green tops with thin straps. they were gorgeous.
