𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 | 𝐏𝐉 𝟐

𝟎𝟏𝟖.𝟑

The next morning Juliet woke to a different ship's horn—a blast so loud it literally shook her out of bed.

She wondered if Leo was pulling another joke. Then the horn boomed again. It sounded like it was coming from several hundred yards away—from another vessel.

"Jules, turn it off," Percy whined throwing his arms around her to pull her back on bed.

"How do you not pickup the difference between an alarm and a blast?" Juliet grumbled slipping on a robe as Percy laid on the bed, watching her, "It's my charm,"

"It's concerning," Juliet kissed his cheek, before slipping off bed and walking to the door.

By the time she got up on deck, followed by a grumbling Percy, the others had already gathered—all hastily dressed except for Coach Hedge, who had pulled the night watch.

Frank's Vancouver Winter Olympics shirt was inside out. Percy wore his own night robe, over a pajama pants and a bronze breastplate, which was an interesting fashion statement. 

Augustus was naked from waist above, Annabeth's hastily thrown cardigan not hiding anything, Juliet wore a silk robe, courtesy of Aphrodite cabin and had curlers in her hair, which Daphne looked over wondering how the hell the girl had time to do that when they were fugitives.

Hazel's hair was all blown to one side, as though she'd walked through a cyclone; and Leo had accidentally set himself on fire. His T-shirt was in charred tatters. His arms were smoking. Jason and Daphne were the only normal dressed teens, and Juliet looked over Piper, ignoring her existence.

About a hundred yards to port, a massive cruise ship glided past. Tourists waved at them from fifteen or sixteen rows of balconies. Some smiled and took pictures. None of them looked surprised to see an Ancient Greek trireme.

Maybe the Mist made it look like a fishing boat, or perhaps the cruisers thought the Argo II was a tourist attraction. The cruise ship blew its horn again, and the Argo II had a shaking fit.
Coach Hedge plugged his ears. "Do they have to be so loud?"

"They're just saying hi," Frank speculated.

"WHAT?" Hedge yelled back.

The ship edged past them, heading out to sea. The tourists kept waving. If they found it strange that the Argo II was populated by half-asleep kids in armor and pajamas and a man with goat legs, they didn't let on.

"Bye!" Leo called, raising his smoking hand.

"Can I man the ballistae?" Hedge asked.

"No," Leo said through a forced smile.

Hazel rubbed her eyes and looked across the glittering green water. "Where are—oh...Wow."

Juliet followed her gaze and gasped. Without the cruise ship blocking their view, she saw a mountain jutting from the sea less than half a mile to the north. Juliet had seen impressive cliffs before. She'd driven Highway 1 along the California coast. She'd even seen the Slieve League in Ireland. 

But neither was as amazing as this massive fist of blinding white rock thrust into the sky. On one side, the limestone cliffs were almost completely sheer, dropping into the sea over a thousand feet below, as near as Juliet could figure. 

On the other side, the mountain sloped in tiers, covered in green forest, so that the whole thing reminded her of a colossal sphinx, worn down over the millennia, with a massive white head and chest, and a green cloak over its back.

"The Rock of Gibraltar," Annabeth and Daphne said in awe, before high fiving. "At the tip of Spain. And over there—" Annabeth pointed south, to a more distant stretch of red and ochre hills. "That must be Africa. We're at the mouth of the Mediterranean."