Wildfires, Heroes of Olympus ₂

011, even he was weirded out tf

CHAPTER     ELEVEN
PERSEUS  JACKSON

₊࿐࿔✸⋆｡° ⚘༉ . ⊹

Percy was glad Riptide had returned to his pocket. Judging from Reyna's expression, he thought he might need to defend himself.

She stormed into the principia with her purple cloak billowing, and her greyhounds at her feet. Percy was sitting in one of the praetor chairs that he'd pulled to the visitor's side, which maybe wasn't the proper thing to do. He started to get up.

"Stay seated," Reyna growled. "You leave after lunch. We have a lot to discuss."

She plunked down her dagger so hard, the jelly-bean bowl rattled. Aurum and Argentum took their posts on her left and right and fixed their ruby eyes on Percy.

"What'd I do wrong?" Percy asked. "If it's about the chair—"

"It's not you." Reyna scowled. "I hate senate meetings. When Octavian gets talking..."

Percy nodded. "You're a warrior. Octavian is a talker. Put him in front of the senate, and suddenly he becomes the powerful one."

She narrowed her eyes. "You're smarter than you look."

"Gee, thanks. I hear Octavian might get elected praetor, assuming the camp survives that long."

"Which brings us to the subject of doomsday," Reyna said, "and how you might help prevent it. But before I place the fate of Camp Jupiter in your hands, we need to get a few things straight."

She sat down and put a ring on the table—a band of silver etched with a sword-and-torch design, like Reyna's tattoo.

"Do you know what this is?"

"The sign of your mom," Percy said. "The... uh, war goddess." He tried to remember the name but he didn't want to get it wrong—something like bologna. Or salami?

"Bellona, yes." Reyna scrutinized him carefully. "You don't remember where you saw this ring before? You really don't remember me or my sister, Hylla?"

Percy shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"It would've been four years ago."

"Just before you came to camp."

Reyna frowned. "How did you—?"

"You've got four stripes on your tattoo. Four years."

Reyna looked at her forearm. "Of course. It seems so long ago. I suppose you wouldn't recall me even if you had your memory. I was just a little girl—one attendant among so many at the spa. But you spoke with my sister, and I spoke with that girl Sylvie, just before you two and that other one, Annabeth, destroyed our home."

Percy perked up at the mention of Sylvie. He tried to remember, he really did. For some reason, he, Sylvie, and some girl named Annabeth had visited a spa and decided to destroy it. He couldn't imagine why. Maybe they hadn't liked the deep-tissue massage? Maybe they'd gotten bad manicures?