Wildflowers, Percy Jackson ₁

033, where my (cabin 4's) hug at

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

₊˚࿐࿔ 𖥧‧₊⚘ ❀༉. 𓏲｡

Sylvie was sort of panicked about cabin inspection, for the first ever time in her life.

Every afternoon, one of the senior counselors came around with a papyrus scroll checklist. Best cabin got first shower hour, which meant hot water guaranteed. Worst cabin got kitchen patrol after dinner.

Usually, the Demeter cabin got fives, and maybe fours on a bad day. But now, Sylvie sort of figured she was on cabin cleanup duty for the next few weeks considering what she'd done during chariot racing. Which meant: cabin inspection time, but no clean cabin.

Sylvie sped over toward the commons area, where the twelve cabins—one for each Olympian god—made a U around the central green. She startled to a stop pretty quick when her cabin was in view.

Cedar was sweeping Cabin 4 out and Miranda was making fresh flowers grow in their window boxes. Florian snapped his fingers—honeysuckle vines bloomed over their doorway and daisies covered their roof.

"Wha—" Sylvie blinked.

"Florian made us do your dirty work," Cedar grumbled, finally done with his sweeping.

Sylvie looked to Florian incredulously. "You did?" He was the last person she'd ever expect to do that for her.

"Well, someone was off with her boyfriend, so we sort of had to," Florian covered his kindness easily. Sylvie saw right through it. "You're welcome, by the way."

"Thanks," she mumbled, because addressing what Florian had actually done was deeper than she wanted to go. He had undeniably been nicer to Sylvie recently, and she knew why. She just hated it.

"Are you super embarrassed?" Miranda asked eagerly.

"Yeah, 'cus you crashed the chariot when Percy showed up?" grinned Cedar.

"That's not what happe—!" Sylvie tried arguing, but she blew out a heavy breath to calm herself. So quick to anger these days. "That's not why I crashed the chariot. And I didn't mean to."

"You never mean to," Florian quipped, leaning against the porch's railing and sending her an assholish grin.

Sylvie rolled her eyes, shaking her head lowly to hide the entertained grin growing on her face. "You don't get a say in this," she said. "You were off with Castor and Pollux, because you hero-worship them too much."

Florian shrugged easily. "Maybe if you were awesome, I'd hero-worship you, too."

Sylvie scoffed. "I'm awesome."

"Henriette, if you have to say 'I'm awesome' to prove you're awesome, you are not awesome."

She glared, but she would like to think this served as a good sign of growth, because she didn't try attacking Florian for the nickname. Sylvie pointed at her other brother, said, "Cedar thinks I'm awesome."