The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1)(78)

“I release you.”

“No!” I could not stand the idea of being abandoned. Not again. Not by this ragamuffin Dumpster queen whom I’d learned to care about so much. “You can’t possibly believe in Nero now. You heard him explain his plans. He means to level this entire island! You saw what he tried to do to his hostages.”

“He—he wouldn’t have let them burn. He promised. He held back. You saw it. That wasn’t the Beast.”

My rib cage felt like an over-tightened harp. “Meg…Nero is the Beast. He killed your father.”

“No! Nero is my stepfather. My dad…my dad unleashed the Beast. He made it angry.”

“Meg—”

“Stop!” She covered her ears. “You don’t know him. Nero is good to me. I can talk to him. I can make it okay.”

Her denial was so complete, so irrational, I realized there was no way I could argue with her. She reminded me painfully of myself when I fell to earth—how I had refused to accept my new reality. Without Meg’s help, I would’ve gotten myself killed. Now our roles were reversed.

I edged toward her, but Peaches’s snarl stopped me in my tracks.

Meg backed away. “We’re done.”

“We can’t be,” I said. “We’re bound, whether you like it or not.”

It occurred to me that she’d said the exact same thing to me only a few days before.

She gave me one last look through her cracked lenses. I would have given anything for her to blow a raspberry. I wanted to walk the streets of Manhattan with her doing cartwheels in the intersections. I missed hobbling with her through the Labyrinth, our legs tied together. I would’ve settled for a good garbage fight in an alley. Instead, she turned and fled, with Peaches at her heels. It seemed to me that they dissolved into the trees, just the way Daphne had done long ago.

Above my head, a breeze made the wind chimes jingle. This time, no voices came from the trees. I didn’t know how long Dodona would remain silent, but I didn’t want to be here if the oaks decided to start telling jokes again.

I turned and saw something strange at my feet: an arrow with an oak shaft and green fletching.

There shouldn’t have been an arrow. I hadn’t brought any into the grove. But in my dazed state, I didn’t question this. I did what any archer would do: I retrieved it, and returned it to my quiver.





Uber’s got nothing

Lyft is weak. And taxis? Nah

My ride is da mom

AUSTIN HAD FREED THE OTHER PRISONERS.

They looked like they had been dipped in a vat of glue and cotton swabs, but otherwise they seemed remarkably undamaged. Ellis Wakefield staggered around with his fists clenched, looking for something to punch. Cecil Markowitz, son of Hermes, sat on the ground trying to clean his sneakers with a deer’s thighbone. Austin—resourceful boy!—had produced a canteen of water and was washing the Greek fire off of Kayla’s face. Miranda Gardiner, the head counselor of Demeter, knelt by the place where the dryads had sacrificed themselves. She wept silently.

Paulie the palikos floated toward me. Like his partner, Pete, his lower half was all steam. From the waist up he looked like a slimmer, more abused version of his geyser buddy. His mud skin was cracked like a parched riverbed. His face was withered, as if every bit of moisture had been squeezed out of him. Looking at the damage Nero had done to him, I added a few more items to a mental list I was preparing: Ways to Torture an Emperor in the Fields of Punishment.

“You saved me,” Paulie said with amazement. “Bring it in!”

He threw his arms around me. His power was so diminished that his body heat did not kill me, but it did open up my sinuses quite well.

“You should get home,” I said. “Pete is worried, and you need to regain your strength.”

“Ah, man…” Paulie wiped a steaming tear from his face. “Yeah, I’m gone. But anything you ever need—a free steam cleaning, some PR work, a mud scrub, you name it.”

As he dissolved into mist, I called after him. “And Paulie? I’d give the Woods at Camp Half-Blood a ten for customer satisfaction.”

Paulie beamed with gratitude. He tried to hug me again, but he was already ninety percent steam. All I got was a humid waft of mud-scented air. Then he was gone.

The five demigods gathered around me.

Miranda looked past me at the grove of Dodona. Her eyes were still puffy from crying, but she had beautiful irises the color of new foliage. “So, the voices I heard from that grove…It’s really an oracle? Those trees can give us prophecies?”

I shivered, thinking of the oak trees’ limerick. “Perhaps.”

“Can I see—?”

“No,” I said. “Not until we understand the place better.”

I had already lost one daughter of Demeter today. I didn’t intend to lose another.

“I don’t get it,” Ellis grumbled. “You’re Apollo? Like, the Apollo.”

“I’m afraid so. It’s a long story.”

“Oh, gods…” Kayla scanned the clearing. “I thought I heard Meg’s voice earlier. Did I dream that? Was she with you? Is she okay?”

The others looked at me for an explanation. Their expressions were so fragile and tentative, I decided I couldn’t break down in front of them.