The Shadow Summoner | Book Three - PJO Universe

eleven

HIDDEN SECRETS

They had to get past a teacher and two hall monitors, but thanks to Piper's charmspeak, they all agreed that it was perfectly normal for the five of them (including three females) to stroll into the dormitory during classroom hours.

Once they reached Jason's room, Piper stopped at the door. "Define not safe."

Jason peered over her shoulder. "Monsters have infiltrated the faculty. I'm keeping an eye on the humanities teacher. Pretty sure she's an empousa. I already had to slay my AP Calculus teacher, because he was a blemmyae."

Coming from a mortal, such talk would have been labeled homicidally paranoid. Coming from a demigod, it was a description of an average week.

"Blemmyae, huh?" Meg reappraised Jason, as if deciding that his glasses might not be so bad. "I hate blemmyae."

Jason smirked. "Come on in."

The fifty-foot-square space had a bookcase, a bed, a desk, and a closet. The only luxury was an open window that looked out across the canyons, filling the room with the warm scent of hyacinth. (Did it have to be hyacinth? Apollo's heart always broke when he smelt that fragrance, even after thousands of years.)

On Jason's wall hung a framed picture of his sister Thalia smiling at the camera, a bow slung across her back, her short dark hair blown sideways by the wind.

Except for her dazzling blue eyes, she looked nothing like her brother.

"Your sister says hello, by the way." Ariana said, before she forgot.

Jason's eyes brightened. "You saw her?"

Apollo launched into an explanation of their time in Indianapolis: the Waystation, the emperor Commodus, the Hunters of Artemis rappelling into the football stadium to rescue them.

Then he backed up and explained the Triumvirate, and all the miserable things that had happened to him since emerging from that Manhattan dumpster.

Meanwhile, Piper sat cross-legged on the floor, her back against the wall, as far as possible from the more comfortable sitting option of the bed.

Meg stood at Jason's desk, examining some sort of school project-foam core studded with little plastic boxes, perhaps to represent buildings.

When Apollo casually mentioned that Leo was alive and well and presently on a mission to Camp Jupiter, all the electrical outlets in the room sparked.

Jason looked at Ariana and Piper, stunned.

"I know," Piper said. "After all we went through."

"I can't even..." Jason sat heavily on his bed. "I don't know whether to laugh or yell."

"I'm pretty sure I did both, then I slapped him and pushed him. And then probably did all three on repeat." Ariana mumbled into her hands.

"Don't limit yourself," grumbled Piper. "Do both."

Jason looked at Ariana. "Are you and him okay?"

Ariana simply shrugged, she hadn't thought about Leo and her in ages- since she had kissed Apollo at WayStation. "There's a list of people wanting to punch him if you want to be added."

Meg called from the desk, "Hey, what is this?"

Jason flushed. "A personal project."

"It's Temple Hill," Piper offered, her tone carefully neutral. "At Camp Jupiter."

Ariana took a closer look. Piper was right. She recognized the layout of the temples and shrines where Camp Jupiter demigods honored the ancient deities.