{1} Princess - P. Jackson 🔱

"The angels gave us a ride. No, it wasn't to heaven."

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"I'm fucking flying, oh my gods!" I yelled, a smile surged on my face while I looked down the city.

"Have you ever gotten on an airplane before?" The angel that was carrying me asked.

"I mean, yeah, but it's not the same." I said.

"We are in the Sierras!" Zoë yelled. "I have hunted here before. At this speed, we should be in San Francisco in a few hours."

"Hey, hey, Frisco!" Thalia's and Percy's angel said. "Yo, Chuck! We could visit those guys at the Mechanics Monument again! They know how to party!"

"Oh, man," our angel said. "I am so there!"

"You guys have visited San Francisco?" Percy asked.

"We automatons gotta have some fun once in a while, right?" their statue said. "Those mechanics took us over to the de Young Museum and introduced us to these marble lady statues, see. And—"

"Hank!" our statue Chuck cut in. "They're kids, man."

"Oh, right." If bronze statues could blush, I swear Hank did. "Back to flying."

"Wait, you hook up with marble la—"

"We don't need to know, Princess!" Percy yelled in the back and I gave him the finger.

We sped up, so I could tell the angels were excited. The mountains fell away into hills, and then we were zipping along over farmland and towns and highways.

Grover played his pipes to pass the time. Zoë got bored and started shooting arrows at random billboards as we flew by. Every time she saw a Target department store—and we passed dozens of them—she would peg the store's sign with a few bulls-eyes at a hundred miles an hour. I kept playing with my mist, forming butterflies and little birds that followed us. Sometimes I would create a mist-snowball and throw it at Percy, who would take whatever opportunity to throw water at me when we were near it.

Thalia kept her eyes closed the whole way. She muttered to herself a lot, like she was praying.

"Where you guys want to land?" Hank asked, waking Percy up from a nap.

I looked down and said, "Whoa."

I'd seen San Francisco in pictures before, but never in real life. It was probably the most beautiful city I'd ever seen: kind of like a smaller, cleaner Manhattan, if Manhattan had been surrounded by green hills and fog. There was a huge bay and ships, islands and sailboats, and the Golden Gate Bridge sticking up out of the fog. I took my camera out from my back pocket and filmed the view, then filmed Zoë and Grover clenching on Chuck's neck. I took one last picture that I would for sure use as a card to my Aunt. Greetings from Frisco. Haven't Died Yet. Wish You Were Here.

"There," Zoë suggested. "By the Embarcadero Building."

"Good thinking," Chuck said. "Me and Hank can blend in with the pigeons."

We all looked at him.

"Kidding," he said. "Sheesh, can't statues have a sense of humor?"

As it turned out, there wasn't much need to blend in. It was early morning and not many people were around. We freaked out a homeless guy on the ferry dock when we landed. He screamed when he saw Hank and Chuck and ran off yelling something about metal angels from Mars.

We said our good-byes to the angels, who flew off to party with their statue friends. That's when I realized I had no idea what we were going to do next.

We'd made it to the West Coast. Artemis was here somewhere. Annabeth too, I hoped. But I had no idea how to find them, and tomorrow was the winter solstice. Nor did I have any clue what monster Artemis had been hunting. It was supposed to find us on the quest. It was supposed to "show the trail," but it never had. Now we were stuck on the ferry dock with not much money, no friends, and no luck.