𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐥 - 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐨𝐜

¸„.-•~*°˜¨ 𝐬𝐢𝐱 ¨˜ˆ°*~•-.„¸

Phoenix focused on the target as she stood with her bow in her hands. She aimed and shot but missed terribly. As she turned around to go to the end of the line, she noticed Percy walking around by himself.

She looked at Harlow standing next to her, "I'll be right back."

The boy nodded and Phoenix transformed her bow into a necklace as she ran up the hill to meet the wandering Percy.

"Hey," she said.

"No one is in the Big House," he said.

"Okay?"

"So what if we went in there."

"Then we'd get in trouble."

"No, we could talk to The Oracle."

"What? Percy, we can't"

"Who's stopping us?" Percy asked. "I'm going, I need answers."

"Fine," she sighed and followed him through the doors.

Percy opened the trap door and stepped into the attic, Phoenix behind him.

The room was dark and dusty and cluttered with junk. There were shields with monster bites out of them, and swords bent in the shapes of daemon heads, and a bunch of taxidermy, like a stuffed harpy and a bright orange python. Over by the window, sitting on a three-legged stool, was the shriveled-up mummy of an old lady in a tie-dyed hippie dress. The Oracle.

Percy made himself walk toward her. He waited for green mist to billow from the mummy's mouth, like it had before, but nothing happened. Phoenix waited at the door.

"Hi," Percy said. "Uh, what's up? I have a question," Percy said a little louder. "I need to know about Annabeth and Davey. How can we save them?"

No answer.

The sun slanted through the dirty attic window, lighting the dust motes dancing in the air. Percy waited longer. Then he got angry. He was being stonewalled by a corpse.

"All right," Percy said. "Fine. we'll figure it out ourselves." Percy turned and bumped into a big table full of souvenirs. Heroes stored all kinds of stuff in the attic: quest trophies they no longer wanted to keep in their cabins, or stuff that held painful memories. Phoenix knew Luke had stored a dragon claw somewhere up here-the one that had scarred his face. There was a broken sword hilt labeled: This broke and Leroy got killed. 1999.

Then Percy noticed a pink silk scarf with a label attached to it. He picked up the tag and tried to read it: SCARF OF THE GODDESS APHRODITE RECOVERED AT WATERLAND, DENVER, CO., BY PHOENIX GOMEZ AND PERCY JACKSON.

He stared at the scarf and gave a quick glance to Phoenix, who wasn't paying attention. He'd totally forgotten about it. Two years ago, Phoenix had ripped this scarf out of Percy's hands and said something like, Oh, no. No love magic for you!

He'd just assumed she'd thrown it away. And yet here it was. She'd kept it all this time? And why had she stashed it in the attic? Percy turned to the mummy. She hadn't moved, but the shadows across her face made it look like she was smiling gruesomely. Percy dropped the scarf and tried not to run toward the exit.

"Let's go Phee," Percy said pulling her out of the attic.

¸„.-•~*°ˆ˜¨ ➶ ¨˜ˆ°*~•-.„¸

That night after dinner, Phoenix was seriously ready to beat the Hunters at capture the flag. It was going to be a small game: only twenty Hunters, including Bianca di Angelo, and about the same number of campers. Zoe Nightshade looked pretty upset. She kept glancing resentfully at Chiron, like she couldn't believe he was making her do this.