The Blood of Olympus(45)

The older Nico got, the more juvenile Percy seemed to him, though Percy was three years older. Nico found his sense of humour equal parts endearing and annoying. He decided to concentrate on the annoying.

Then there were the times Percy was deadly serious: looking up at Nico from that chasm in Rome – The other side, Nico! Lead them there. Promise me!

And Nico had promised. It didn’t seem to matter how much he resented Percy Jackson; Nico would do anything for him. He hated himself for that.

‘So …’ Reyna’s voice jarred him from his thoughts. ‘Will Camp Half-Blood wait for August first, or will they attack?’

‘We have to hope they wait,’ Nico said. ‘We can’t … I can’t get the statue back any faster.’

Even at this rate, my dad thinks I might die. Nico kept that thought private.

He wished Hazel was with him. Together they had shadow-travelled the entire crew of the Argo II out of the House of Hades. When they shared their power, Nico felt like anything was possible. The trip to Camp Half-Blood could’ve been done in half the time.

Besides, Hades’s words about one of the crew dying had sent a chill through him. He couldn’t lose Hazel. Not another sister. Not again.

Coach Hedge looked up from counting the change in his baseball cap. ‘And you’re sure Clarisse said Mellie was okay?’

‘Yes, Coach. Clarisse is taking good care of her.’

‘That’s a relief. I don’t like what Grover said about Gaia whispering to the nymphs and dryads. If the nature spirits turn evil … that’s not going to be pretty.’

Nico had never heard of such a thing happening. Then again, Gaia hadn’t been awake since the dawn of humanity.

Reyna took a bite of her pastry. Her chain mail glittered in the afternoon sun. ‘I wonder about these wolves … Is it possible we’ve misunderstood the message? The goddess Lupa has been very quiet. Perhaps she is sending us aid. The wolves could be from her – to defend us from Orion and his pack.’

The hopefulness in her voice was as thin as gauze. Nico decided not to rip through it.

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But wouldn’t Lupa be busy with the war between the camps? I thought she’d be sending wolves to help your legion.’

Reyna shook her head. ‘Wolves are not front-line fighters. I don’t think she would help Octavian. Her wolves might be patrolling Camp Jupiter, defending it in the legion’s absence, but I just don’t know …’

She crossed her legs at the ankles, and the iron tips of her combat boots glinted. Nico made a mental note not to get into any kicking contests with Roman legionnaires.

‘There’s something else,’ she said. ‘I haven’t had any luck contacting my sister, Hylla. It makes me uneasy that both the wolves and the Amazons have gone silent. If something has happened on the West Coast … I fear the only hope for either camp lies with us. We must return the statue soon. That means the greatest burden is on you, son of Hades.’

Nico tried to swallow his bile. He wasn’t mad at Reyna. He kind of liked Reyna. But so often he’d been called on to do the impossible. Normally, as soon as he accomplished it, he was forgotten.

He remembered how nice the kids at Camp Half-Blood had been to him after the war with Kronos. Great job, Nico! Thanks for bringing the armies of the Underworld to save us!

Everybody smiled. They all invited him to sit at their table.

After about a week, his welcome wore thin. Campers would jump when he walked up behind them. He would emerge from the shadows at the campfire, startle somebody and see the discomfort in their eyes: Are you still here? Why are you here?

It didn’t help that immediately after the war with Kronos, Annabeth and Percy had started dating …

Nico set down his fartura. Suddenly it didn’t taste so good.

He recalled his talk with Annabeth at Epirus, just before he’d left with the Athena Parthenos.

She’d pulled him aside and said, ‘Hey, I have to talk to you.’

Panic had seized him. She knows.

‘I want to thank you,’ she continued. ‘Bob … the Titan … he only helped us in Tartarus because you were kind to him. You told him we were worth saving. That’s the only reason we’re alive.’

She said we so easily, as if she and Percy were interchangeable, inseparable.

Nico had once read a story from Plato, who claimed that in the ancient times all humans had been a combination of male and female. Each person had two heads, four arms, four legs. Supposedly, these combo-humans had been so powerful they made the gods uneasy, so Zeus split them in half – man and woman. Ever since, humans had felt incomplete. They spent their lives searching for their other halves.