‘Of course.’
‘So does Leo.’ Piper handed her the mirror. ‘He’ll be watching from the ship. Go to the ridge –’
‘And flash him!’ Annabeth’s face reddened. ‘That came out wrong. But, yeah, good idea.’
She ran to the edge of the ruins.
Piper pulled out a flask of nectar and gave Jason a sip. ‘Hang in there. You are not dying from a stupid body piercing.’
Jason managed a weak smile. ‘At least it wasn’t a head injury this time. I stayed conscious the entire fight.’
‘You defeated, like, two hundred enemies,’ Piper said. ‘You were scary amazing.’
‘You guys helped.’
‘Maybe, but … Hey, stay with me.’
Jason’s head started to droop. The cracks in the stones came into sharper focus.
‘Little dizzy,’ he muttered.
‘More nectar,’ Piper ordered. ‘There. Taste okay?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, fine.’
In fact the nectar tasted like liquid sawdust, but Jason kept that to himself. Ever since the House of Hades when he’d resigned his praetorship, ambrosia and nectar didn’t taste like his favourite foods from Camp Jupiter. It was as if the memory of his old home no longer had the power to heal him.
Born a Roman, die a Roman, Michael Varus had said.
He looked at the smoke curling from his bandages. He had worse things to worry about than blood loss. Annabeth was right about Imperial gold. The stuff was deadly to demigods as well as monsters. The wound from Varus’s blade would do its best to eat away at Jason’s life force.
He’d seen a demigod die like that once before. It hadn’t been fast or pretty.
I can’t die, he told himself. My friends are depending on me.
Antinous’s words rang in his ears – about the giants in Athens, the impossible trip facing the Argo II, the mysterious hunter Gaia had sent to intercept the Athena Parthenos.
‘Reyna, Nico and Coach Hedge,’ he said. ‘They’re in danger. We need to warn them.’
‘We’ll take care of it when we get back to the ship,’ Piper promised. ‘Your job right now is to relax.’ Her tone was light and confident, but her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘Besides, those three are a tough group. They’ll be fine.’
Jason hoped she was right. Reyna had risked so much to help them. Coach Hedge was annoying sometimes, but he’d been a loyal protector for the entire crew. And Nico … Jason felt especially worried about him.
Piper brushed her thumb against the scar on his lip. ‘Once the war is over … everything will work out for Nico. You’ve done what you could, being a friend to him.’
Jason wasn’t sure what to say. He hadn’t told Piper anything about his conversations with Nico. He’d kept di Angelo’s secret.
Still … Piper seemed to sense what was wrong. As a daughter of Aphrodite, maybe she could tell when somebody was struggling with heartache. She hadn’t pressured Jason to talk about it, though. He appreciated that.
Another wave of pain made him wince.
‘Concentrate on my voice.’ Piper kissed his forehead. ‘Think about something good. Birthday cake in the park in Rome –’
‘That was nice.’
‘Last winter,’ she suggested. ‘The s’mores fight at the campfire.’
‘I totally got you.’
‘You had marshmallows in your hair for days!’
‘I did not.’
Jason’s mind drifted back to better times.
He just wanted to stay there – talking with Piper, holding her hand, not worrying about giants or Gaia or his mother’s madness.
He knew they should get back to the ship. He was in bad shape. They had the information they’d come for. But as he lay there on the cool stones, Jason felt a sense of incompleteness. The story of the suitors and Queen Penelope … his thoughts about family … his recent dreams. Those things all swirled around in his head. There was something more to this place – something he’d missed.
Annabeth came back limping from the edge of the hill.
‘Are you hurt?’ Jason asked her.
Annabeth glanced at her ankle. ‘It’s fine. Just the old break from the Roman caverns. Sometimes when I’m stressed … That’s not important. I signalled Leo. Frank’s going to change form, fly up here and carry you back to the ship. I need to make a litter to keep you stable.’
Jason had a terrifying image of himself in a hammock, swinging between the claws of Frank the giant eagle, but he decided it would be better than dying.
Annabeth set to work. She collected scraps left behind by the suitors – a leather belt, a torn tunic, sandal straps, a red blanket and a couple of broken spear shafts. Her hands flew across the materials – ripping, weaving, tying, braiding.