The Shadow Summoner | Book Three - PJO Universe

eighteen

PROPHECY TALK

By dinnertime, the main hall had been mostly put back together.

Even Festus, amazingly, had been more or less reconstructed. He was now parked on the roof, enjoying a large tub of motor oil and Tabasco sauce.

Leo looked pleased with his efforts, though he was still searching for a few last missing parts. He'd spent the afternoon walking around the Waystation, shouting, "If anyone sees a bronze spleen about yea big, please let me know!"

The Hunters sat in groups around the hall, as was their habit, but they had integrated the newcomers they had freed from Commodus's cells.

Fighting side by side had created bonds of friendship.

Emmie presided at the head of the dining table. Georgina lay asleep in her lap, a stack of coloring books and markers in front of her.

Thalia sat at the other end, twirling her dagger on its point like a top. Josephine and Calypso were shoulder to shoulder, studying Calypso's notes and discussing various interpretations of the prophetic lines.

Ariana sat next to Apollo and Apollo sat next to Meg. What else is new?

She seemed fully recovered, thanks to Emmie's healing. (At Ariana's suggestion, Emmie had removed her enclosure of curative snakes from the infirmary while treating Meg. Ariana feared if McCaffrey woke up and saw serpents, she might panic and turn them into chia pets.)

Her three peach-spirit attendants had gone off, for now, to the extra-dimensional plane of fruit.

Their young friend's appetite was even more voracious than usual. She shoveled in her Tofurky and dressing, her movements as furtive as if she'd gone back to being a half-feral alley child.

Ariana kept her hands well away from her.
At last, Josephine and Calypso looked up from the yellow legal pad.

"Okay." Calypso let out a deep sigh. "We've interpreted some of these lines, but we need your help, Apollo. Maybe you could start by telling us what happened at the Cave of Trophonius."

Apollo glanced at Meg.

She merely belched. "Don't remember much. Go ahead."

Under the table, Apollo reached for Ariana's hand then he explained how he had collapsed the Cave of the Oracle at Trophonius's request.

Josephine and Emmie did not look pleased, but they didn't yell or scream, either. Josephine's submachine gun stayed safely in its gun cabinet in the kitchen.

Emmie scanned the main hall. "Now that I think of it, I haven't seen Agamethus since before the battle. Has anyone?"

No one reported sighting a headless orange ghost.

Emmie stroked her daughter's hair. "I don't mind the Oracle being destroyed, but I worry about Georgie. She's always felt connected to that place. And Agamethus...she likes him a lot."

Ariana looked at the sleeping girl. She tried, for the millionth time, to see some resemblance to godly Apollo, but it would have been easier to believe she was related to Lester Papadopoulos.

"The last thing I want," Apollo said, "is to cause more pain to Georgina. I think, though, the destruction of the cave was necessary. Not just for us. But for her. It may free her to move forward."

Ariana remembered the dark crayon drawings on the girl's wall, made in the throes of her prophetic lunacy.

With a few cans of pastel paint, Josephine and Emmie could now give her a fresh canvas of bedroom walls.