𝗪𝗔𝗜𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗠𝗘 ━━ l. valdez

xvii ━━ i know he's crazy, but he's the one i want

03. chapter seventeen

━━━━━━━━ ( 💫 ) ━━━━━━━━

THAT NIGHT, DESPITE MY HEAD INJURY, I GOT THE BEST SLEEP OF MY LIFE. it only ended when i woke up to a different ship's horn— a blast so loud it literally shook me out of bed.

i 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.

i rushed to get dressed. by the time i got up on deck, 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 pajama pants and a bronze breastplate, which was an interesting fashion statement. 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.

about a hundred yards to port, a massive cruise ship glided past. tourists waved at us 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."

i followed her gaze and gasped. without the cruise ship blocking our view, i saw a mountain jutting from the sea less than half a mile to the north. the only other time i had seen a cliff that came close to this was the grand canyon. but this mountain was even better; a massive fist of blinding white rock thrusting 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 i could figure. on the other side, the mountain sloped in tiers, covered in green forest pointed south, to a more distant stretch of red and ochre hills.

"that must be africa," piper assumed. "we're at the mouth of the mediterranean."

then morning was warm, but i shivered. despite the wide stretch of sea in front of us, i felt like i was standing at an impassable barrier. once in the mediterranean—the mare nostrum—we would be in the ancient lands. if the legends were true, our quest would become ten times more dangerous.

"what now?" i asked. "do we just sail in?"

"why not?" leo said. "it's a big shipping channel. boats go in and out all the time."

not triremes full of demigods, i thought.

annabeth gazed at the rock of gibraltar. i recognized that brooding expression on my friend's face. it almost always meant that she anticipated trouble.