Book Cult (New and Improved)

Piper XXI

"Piper XXI," Lacy read.

Leo stretched his arms.

"Just curious," he said. "How many chapters do we have left?"

Lacy quickly turned to the last chapter number and did the math.

"The last chapter is fifty-six, so we just have thirty-five left to go." she told him. Lacy squeaked in surprise when Leo groaned loudly in response.

"Thirty-five? That's going to take ages!" he complained, drumming his fingers on the wall. "And you guys always act so surprised when I try to leave! It's because I'm stuck here reading things I already went through and some of them are in my point of view!"

"So you're bored." Athena said which surprised the son of Hephaestus. He thought she would still be too mad to talk to him. 

"Um... yeah." he blinked. "Kinda. I mean, wouldn't you?"

Athena smiled in understanding, but she had this weird gleam in her eyes that Leo couldn't help but be wary at. "Of course. Don't worry, I think I can find something for you to do."

Leo wasn't so sure he wanted her to.

Annabeth watched Athena's actions with a troubled expression. 

Piper didn't relax until the glow of Quebec City faded behind them.

"You were amazing," Jason told her.

Lacy smiled in agreement.

Aphrodite beamed with pride.

The compliment should've made her day. But all she could think about was the trouble ahead. Evil things are stirring. Zethes had warned them. She knew that firsthand. The closer they got to the solstice, the less time Piper had time to make her decision.

Lacy's smile faded and the goddess of love grimaced.

She told Jason in French: "If you knew the truth about me, you wouldn't think I was so amazing."

"So that's what she said." Leo muttered.

"Why would she even say that?" Will asked.

"So she can tell Jason the truth and feel less guilty, without really telling him." Annabeth answered.

..."Hey," he said, "you saved me from joining Khione's subzero hero collection. I owe you one."

That was definitely the easy part, she thought. There was no way Piper would've let that ice witch keep Jason.

Thalia couldn't help but smile at that.

What had bothered Piper more was the way Boreas had changed form and why he'd let them go.

The demigods stiffened and looked over at their parents, but they looked like they were just going to ignore the elephant in the room.

Percy frowned. "They can't just ignore this. We already know about the Romans, they should just tell us what we know."

"You know how stubborn they can get." Annabeth said. "Besides, I don't think they will talk about it unless they're arguing about it. You saw their reactions earlier."

Percy's frown deepened. Yeah. It was horrible. He felt bad that Leo had to take the brunt of the gods' anger alone.

"What do you think he meant when he said 'I know they took it?'" he asked his girlfriend. "What did they take and why did Athena act like that?"