ENTRAPPED ₂

47

MADELEINE ALLOWED PERCY TO LEAD THEIR LITTLE GROUP OVER TO A TABLE. She and Ethan typically had a strict rule of no touching in public, but their eight months of distance seemed to have zapped that. She clung to his knuckles. She had forgotten how perfectly their hands fit together, sliding like two puzzle pieces.

Sets of couches and low tables were carted into the forum. Romans lounged in groups of ten or twenty, talking and laughing while wind spirits swirled overhead, bringing an endless assortment of pizza, sandwiches, chips, cold drinks, and fresh-baked cookies. Lares drifted through the crowd, and fauns trotted from table to table, panhandling for food and spare change. In the nearby fields, Hannibal frolicked with Mrs. O'Leary, and children played tag around the statues of Terminus that lined the city limits.

Ethan observed all this with an expression that was carefully neutral. His fan club, Jason, Piper, and Leo, were looking around with faces much more wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Madeleine found this amusing. She couldn't tell if she hated them yet or not. Some small part of her was a little bitter that they existed in Ethan's realm when she couldn't.

She had no doubts about Ethan's loyalty to her. She knew she would always be his first priority. She was unafraid of any romantic relationships outside of her, especially. She had always been his number one, and it was proven now in the way that he sat with his shoulder against hers, pointedly ignoring everyone else.

It was just the fact that it had always been the four of them: Ethan, Drew, Lee, and Madeleine. Sure, there had been others, in and out groups. Ethan had a few allies left from his time on the other side during the war. There were Percy and Annabeth, but they were Ethan's friends as well as Madeleine's now. Madeleine had her brothers, had Castor and Pollux, but they weren't her best friends. Her best friends were Ethan's best friends. They shared everything.

Madeleine had been careful not to get too close to Frank and Hazel for this exact reason. They weren't her home. They would never replace the people that had her heart. She couldn't exactly feel out the Jason-Piper-Leo dynamic, and what they meant to Ethan.

She would, in time. But, meanwhile, when one of them looked at her, she just gave them a cold stare.

Two large pizzas settled onto the table. Frank scowled at them. "I'm lactose intolerant."

Piper gave him a glance, as if feeling the situation out. She said, "I'm vegetarian."

Frank offered her a soft, bashful smile.

Ethan was tracing Madeleine's new tattoo, which made her head buzz. She quickly tore her gaze away from the others sitting around them as his thumb outlined the delicate SPQR, the single stripe. His face was still impassive. She couldn't guess what he was thinking.

Carefully, Madeleine took his forearm. Her knife was imprinted there in black ink. She offered her other arm to him, showing him his own knife on her skin.

"I didn't forget you," she whispered. "Ever."

Ethan's fingers trailed down to her hand. He laced their fingers together. His mouth brushed her jaw.

She had missed him. She had missed him, she had missed him, she had missed him. She had missed him like a fatal, undying, irreversible part of her.

She had never missed anyone as much as she had missed him.

"Look at the lovebirds," Ethan murmured. His face was angled away from everyone else, hidden in her neck, so she knew only she could hear.

She looked. Percy was saying something to Annabeth, and she was scowling deeply. Madeleine bit back a smile.

"Typical," she told Ethan.

Ethan put an arm around her waist.

Reyna called a toast to friendship, and everyone introduced themselves. Jason began to explain how he'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood without his memory, and how he'd gone on a quest with Piper, Leo, and Ethan to rescue Hera from imprisonment at the Wolf House in northern California.