━━ ❝ 𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 to shine like a star you must burn
like one ❞
•--• ✹ •--•
[ i. completed / edited
ii. previously called folklore
iii. extended summary inside
iv. book 1 of the greek tragedy series ]
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
━━━━━━━ IT WAS ANNABETH'S IDEA (how not).
She loaded them into the back of a Vegas taxi as if they actually had money, and told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."
The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized them up. "That's three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay up front."
"You accept casino debit cards?" Annabeth asked.
He shrugged. "Some of 'em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em through first."
Annabeth handed him her green LotusCash card.
He looked at it skeptically.
"Swipe it," Annabeth invited.
He did.
His meter machine started rattling. The lights flashed. Finally an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign.
The cigar fell out of the driver's mouth. He looked back at them, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles. uh, Your Highness?"
"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. Cassie could tell she liked the "Your Highness" thing (who wouldn't?) . "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."
Maybe she shouldn't have told him that. The cab's speedometer never dipped beiow ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert.
On the road, they had plenty of time to talk. Percy told his friends about his latest dream.
"The servant had called the monster in the pit something other than "my lord" ... some special name or title...."
"The Silent One?" Annabeth suggested. "The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades."
"Maybe ..." Percy said, though neither sounded quite right.
"That throne room sounds like Hades's," Grover said.
"That's the way it's usually described." Cassie added, "sill something isn't adding up."
Percy nodded. "Something's wrong. The throne room wasn't the main part of the dream. And that voice from the pit ... I don't know. It just didn't feel like a god's voice."
Annabeth's eyes widened.
"What?" Percy asked.
"Oh... nothing. I was just-No, it has to be Hades. Maybe he sent this thief, this invisible person, to get the master bolt, and something went wrong-"
"Like what?"
"I don't know," she said. "But if he stole Zeus's symbol of power from Olympus, and the gods were hunting him, I mean, a lot of things could go wrong. So this thief had to hide the bolt, or he lost it somehow. Anyway, he failed to bring it to Hades. That's what the voice said in your dream, right? The guy failed. That would explain what the Furies were searching for when they came after us on the bus. Maybe they thought we had retrieved the bolt."
