{1} Princess - P. Jackson 🔱

"They could have put me to sleep too."

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"My lord," Annabeth said. "Kronos is going to attack New York. You must suspect that. My mother must have foreseen it."

"Your mother," Hermes grumbled. He scratched his back with his caduceus, and George and Martha muttered Ow, ow, ow. "Don't get me started on your mother, young lady. She's the reason I'm here at all. Zeus didn't want any of us to leave the front line. But your mother kept pestering him nonstop, 'It's a trap, it's a diversion, blah, blah, blah.' She wanted to come back herself, but Zeus was not going to let his number one strategist leave his side while we're battling Typhon. And so naturally he sent me to talk to you."

"But it is a trap!" Annabeth insisted. "Is Zeus blind?"

Thunder rolled through the sky.

"I'd watch the comments, girl," Hermes warned. "Zeus is not blind or deaf. He has not left Olympus completely undefended."

"But there are these blue lights—"

"Yes, yes. I saw them. Some mischief by that insufferable goddess of magic, Hecate, I'd wager, but you may have noticed they aren't doing any damage. Olympus has strong magical wards. Besides, Aeolus, the King of the Winds, has sent his most powerful minions to guard the citadel. No one save the gods can approach Olympus from the air. They would be knocked out of the sky."

I raised my hand. "Um...what about that materializing/ teleporting thing you guys do?"

"That's a form of air travel too, Jackson. Very fast, but the wind gods are faster. No, if Kronos wants Olympus, he'll have to march through the entire city with his army and take the elevators! Can you see him doing this?"

Hermes made it sound pretty ridiculous—hordes of monsters going up in the elevator twenty at a time, listening to "Stayin' Alive." Still, I didn't like it.

"Maybe just a few of you could come back," I suggested.

Hermes shook his head impatiently. "Percy Jackson, you don't understand. Typhon is our greatest enemy."

"I thought that was Kronos."

The god's eyes glowed. "No, Percy. In the old days, Olympus was almost overthrown by Typhon. He is husband of Echidna—"

"Met her at the Arch," I muttered. "Not nice."

"—and the father of all monsters. We can never forget how close he came to destroying us all; how he humiliated us! We were more powerful back in the old days. Now we can expect no help from Poseidon because he's fighting his own war. Hades sits in his realm and does nothing, and Demeter and Persephone follow his lead. It will take all our remaining power to oppose the storm giant. We can't divide our forces, nor wait until he gets to New York. We have to battle him now. And we're making progress."

"Progress?" I said. "He nearly destroyed St. Louis."

"Yes," Hermes admitted. "But he destroyed only half of Kentucky. He's slowing down. Losing power."

I didn't want to argue, but it sounded like Hermes was trying to convince himself.

In the corner, the Ophiotaurus mooed sadly.

"Please, Hermes," Annabeth said. "You said my mother wanted to come. Did she give you any messages for us?"

"Messages," he muttered. "'It'll be a great job,'they told me. 'Not much work. Lots of worshippers.' Hmph. Nobody cares what I have to say. It's always about other people's messages."

Rodents, George mused. I'm in it for the rodents.

Shhh, Martha scolded. We care what Hermes has to say. Don't we, George?