𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐩

Chapter 27

22

Final Prophetic Words

The five of them were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, so of course everybody treated them as if they'd won some reality-TV contest. According to camp tradition, they wore laurel wreaths to a big feast prepared in their honor, then led a procession down to the bonfire, where they got to burn the burial shrouds their cabins had made for them in their absence.

  Annabeth's shroud was so beautiful—gray silk with embroidered owls—(y/n) told her it seemed a shame not to bury her in it. She lightly punched him and told him to shut up.

  Being the son of Poseidon, Percy didn't have any cabin mates, since Cyrus hadn't been properly introduced, so the Ares cabin had volunteered to make their shrouds. They'd taken an old bedsheet and painted smiley faces with X'ed-out eyes around the border, and the word LOSER painted really big in the middle.

  It was fun to see it burn.

  As the son of Persephone, (y/n) didn't have a cabin at all, so, in turn, the Demeter cabin made a shroud in the place of it. A beautiful black banner, with a silver crown in the middle, covered in vines and lined by fire.

  It was painful to put it to the flame.

  As Apollo's cabin led the sing-along and passed out s'mores, (y/n) was surrounded by his old Hermes cabinmates, his uncles and aunts from Demeter cabin, Annabeth's friends from Athena, and Grover's satyr buddies, who were admiring the brand-new searcher's license he'd received from the Council of Cloven Elders. The council had called Grover's performance on the quest “Brave to the point of indigestion. Horns-and-whiskers above anything we have seen in the past.”

  The only ones not in a party mood were Clarisse and her cabinmates, whose poisonous looks told (y/n) and Cyrus they'd never forgive them both for disgracing their dad.

  That was okay with both of them.

  Even Dionysus's welcome-home speech wasn't enough to dampen their spirits. "Yes, yes, so the little brat didn't get himself killed and now he'll have an even bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday...."

  Chiron promised (y/n) he'd always have a place to stay in the Hermes cabin, no matter the fact that he was a son of the underworld, but he didn't feel comfortable doing that. He was probably a bad omen to have around, so he didn't want that to spread to anyone else.

  "I don't think the Hermes cabin needs any more extra load," he'd told the activities director.

  With that, Chiron arranged it so (y/n) stayed in the Big House, in one of the spare bedrooms. It would've been a good things to do with children of other minor gods, like Nemesis or Nike, who were still cramped in the Hermes cabin, but it was still nice that (y/n) didn't infest a whole giant group of people with the scent of death.

  On the Fourth of July, the whole camp gathered at the beach for a fireworks display by cabin nine. Being Hephaestus's kids, they weren't going to settle for a few lame red-white-and-blue explosions. They'd anchored a barge offshore and loaded it with rockets the size of Patriot missiles. According to Annabeth, who'd seen the show before, the blasts would be sequenced so tightly they'd look like frames of animation across the sky. The finale was sup-posed to be a couple of hundred-foot-tall Spartan warriors who would crackle to life above the ocean, fight a battle, then explode into a million colors.

  As Annabeth and (y/n) were spreading a picnic blanket while Cyrus and Percy played with Benny, Grover showed up to tell the group goodbye. He was dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt and sneakers, but in the last few weeks he'd started to look older, almost high-school age. His goatee had gotten thicker. He'd put on weight. His horns had grown at least an inch, so he now had to wear his rasta cap all the time to pass as human.