~ { Shadow and Beauty } ~

Really Good Brownies

{Piper}

Piper had a new entry in her top-ten list of Times Piper Felt Useless.

   Fighting Shrimpzilla with a dagger and a pretty voice? Not so effective. Then the monster had sunk into the deep and disappeared along with three of her friends, and she'd been powerless to help them.

   Afterward, Annabeth, Coach Hedge, and Buford the table rushed around repairing things so that the ship wouldn't sink. Percy, despite being exhausted, searched the ocean for their missing friends. Jason, also exhausted, flew around the rigging like a blond Peter Pan, putting out fires from the second green explosion that had lit up the sky just above the mainmast. Kiara—exhausted as well—had been tending to the scratches and bruises everyone had gotten.

   As for Piper, all she could do was stare at her knife Katoptris, trying to locate Leo, Hazel, and Frank. The only images that came to her were ones she didn't want to see: three black SUVs driving north from Charleston, packed with Roman demigods, Reyna sitting at the wheel of the lead car. Giant eagles escorted them from above. Every so often, glowing purple spirits in ghostly chariots appeared out of the countryside and fell in behind them, thundering up I-95 toward New York and Camp Half-Blood.

   Piper concentrated harder. She saw the nightmarish images she had seen before: the human-headed bull rising from the water, then the dark well-shaped room filling with black water as Jason, Percy, and she struggled to stay afloat.

   She sheathed Katoptris, wondering how Helen of Troy had stayed sane during the Trojan War, if this blade had been her only source of news. Then she remembered that everyone around Helen had been slaughtered by the invading Greek army. Maybe she hadn't stayed sane.

   By the time the sun rose, none of them had slept. Percy had scoured the seafloor and found nothing. The Argo II was no longer in danger of sinking, though without Leo, they couldn't do full repairs. The ship was capable of sailing, but no one suggested leaving the area—not without their missing friends.

   Piper and Annabeth sent a dream vision to Camp Half-Blood, warning Chiron of what had happened with the Romans at Fort Sumter. Annabeth explained her exchange of words with Reyna. Piper relayed the vision from her knife about the SUVs racing north. The kindly centaur's face seemed to age thirty years during the course of their conversation, but he assured them he would see to the defenses of the camp.

   Tyson, Mrs. O'Leary, and Ella had arrived safely. If necessary, Tyson could summon an army of Cyclopes to the camp's defense, and Ella and Rachel Dare were already comparing prophecies, trying to learn more about what the future held. The job of the eight demigods aboard the Argo II, Chiron reminded them, was to finish the quest and come back safely.

   After the Iris-message, the demigods paced the deck in silence, staring at the water and hoping for a miracle.

   When it finally came—three giant pink bubbles bursting at the surface off the starboard bow and ejecting Frank, Hazel, and Leo—Piper went a little crazy. She cried out with relief and dove straight into the water and Kiara yelled after her that she wouldn't look after her if she got sick.

   What was she thinking? She didn't take a rope or a life vest or anything. But at the moment, she was just so happy that she paddled over to Leo and kissed him on the cheek, which kind of surprised him.

   "Miss me?" Leo laughed.

   Piper was suddenly furious. "Where were you? How are you guys alive?"

   "Long story," he said. A picnic basket bobbed to the surface next to him. "Want a brownie?"

   Once they got on board and changed into dry clothes (poor Frank had to borrow a pair of too-small pants from
Jason) the crew all gathered on the quarterdeck for a celebratory breakfast—except for Coach Hedge, who grumbled that the atmosphere was getting too cuddly for his tastes and went below to hammer out some dents in the hull. While Leo fussed over his helm controls, Hazel and Frank related the story of the fish-centaurs and their training camp.