Sun kissed - Apollo.

37: Demon Pigeons Attack.

The next few days were torture, just like Tantalus wanted.

First there was Tyson moving into the Poseidon cabin, giggling to himself every fifteen seconds and saying, "Percy is my brother and Daphne is my sister?" like he'd just won the lottery.

"Aw, Tyson," Percy would say. "It's not that simple."

But there was no explaining it to him. He was in heaven. And Percy . . . as much as he liked the big guy, he couldn't help feeling embarrassed. Ashamed, he said it.

While i didn't care, my family had gotten a little less small. Now i had two brothers.

My father, the all-powerful Poseidon, had gotten moony-eyed for some nature spirit, and Tyson had been the result. I mean, I'd read the myths about Cyclopes. I even remembered that they were often Poseidon's children. But I'd never really processed that this made them my family. Until Percy and I had Tyson living with us in the next bunk.

And then there were the comments from the other campers. Suddenly, My brother wasn't Percy Jackson, the cool guy who'd retrieved Zeus's lightning bolt last summer. Now he was Percy Jackson, the poor schmuck with the ugly monster for a brother.

"He's not my real brother!" Percy protested whenever Tyson wasn't around. "He's more like a half-brother on the monstrous side of the family. Like . . . a half-brother twice removed, or something."

Nobody bought it.

But nobody bothered me about it. They didn't treat me differently, i was just Daphne Jackson, everyone's favourite demigod. Seriously, it was getting a bit out of hand since they still wanted to see me use my water powers. Since they had gotten stronger since last summer.

I admit—Percy was angry at our dad. He felt like being his son was now a joke. And i felt bad for him.

Annabeth tried to make him feel better. She suggested they team up for the chariot race to take our minds off our problems. Don't get me wrong—we all hated Tantalus and we were worried sick about camp—but we didn't know what to do about it. Until we could come up with some brilliant plan to save Thalia's tree, we figured we might as well go along with the races. After all, Annabeth's mom, Athena, had invented the chariot, and our dad had created horses. Together they would own that track.

I didn't want to participate.

One morning Annabeth, Percy and I were sitting by the canoe lake sketching chariot designs when some jokers from Aphrodite's cabin walked by and asked Percy if he needed to borrow some eyeliner for his eye . . . "Oh sorry, eyes."

As they walked away laughing, Annabeth grumbled, "Just ignore them, Percy. It isn't your fault you two have a monster for a brother."

"He's not my brother!" Percy snapped. "And he's not a monster, either!"

Annabeth raised her eyebrows. "Hey, don't get mad at me! And technically, he is a monster."

"Well you gave him permission to enter the camp."

"Because it was the only way to save your life! I mean . . . I'm sorry, Percy, I didn't expect Poseidon to claim him. Cyclopes are the most deceitful, treacherous—"

"He is not! What have you got against Cyclopes, anyway?"

Annabeth's ears turned pink. I got the feeling there was something she wasn't telling us—something bad.

"Just forget it," she said. "Now, the axle for this chariot—"

"You're treating him like he's this horrible thing," Percy said. "He saved my life."