The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo #5)(52)

Meg and I crossed at the crosswalk. Gods forbid we jaywalk and get hit by a car on our way to a painful death. We attracted some strange looks from other pedestrians, which was fair since we were still dripping wet and smelled like a troglodyte’s armpit. Nevertheless, this being New York, most people ignored us.

Meg and I didn’t speak as we climbed the front steps. By silent agreement, we gripped each other’s hands as if another river might sweep us away.

No alarms went off. No guards jumped out of hiding. No bear traps were triggered. We pushed open the heavy glass doors and walked into the lobby.

Light classical music wafted through the chilly air. Above the security desk hung a metal sculpture with slowly swirling primary-colored shapes. The guard bent forward in his chair, reading a paperback, his face pale blue in the light of his desktop monitors.

“Help you?” he said without looking up.

I glanced at Meg, silently double-checking that we were in the right building. She nodded.

“We’re here to surrender,” I told the guard.

Surely this would make him look up. But no.

He could not have acted less interested in us. I was reminded of the guest entrance to Mount Olympus, through the lobby of the Empire State Building. Normally, I never went that way, but I knew Zeus hired the most unimpressible, disinterested beings he could find to guard the desk as a way to discourage visitors. I wondered if Nero had intentionally done the same thing here.

“I’m Apollo,” I continued. “And this is Meg. I believe we’re expected? As in…hard deadline at sunset or the city burns?”

The guard took a deep breath, as if it pained him to move. Keeping one finger in his novel, he picked up a pen and slapped it on the counter next to the sign-in book. “Names. IDs.”

“You need our IDs to take us prisoner?” I asked.

The guard turned the page in his book and kept reading.

With a sigh, I pulled out my New York State junior driver’s license. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that I’d have to show it one last time, just to complete my humiliation. I slid it across the counter. Then I signed the logbook for both of us. Name(s): Lester (Apollo) and Meg. Here to see: Nero. Business: Surrender. Time in: 7:16 p.m. Time out: Probably never.

Since Meg was a minor, I didn’t expect her to have an ID, but she removed her gold scimitar rings and placed them next to my license. I stifled the urge to shout, Are you insane? But Meg gave them up as if she’d done this a million times before. The guard took the rings and examined them without comment. He held up my license and compared it to my face. His eyes were the color of decade-old ice cubes.

He seemed to decide that, tragically, I looked as bad in real life as I did in my license photo. He handed it back, along with Meg’s rings.

“Elevator nine to your right,” he announced.

I almost thanked him. Then I thought better of it.

Meg grabbed my sleeve. “Come on, Lester.”

She led the way through the turnstile to elevator nine. Inside, the stainless-steel box had no buttons. It simply rose on its own as soon as the doors slid closed. One small mercy: no elevator music, just the smooth hum of machinery, as bright and efficient as an industrial-grade meat slicer.

“What should I expect when we get to the top?” I asked Meg.

I imagined the elevator was under surveillance, but I couldn’t help asking. I wanted to hear Meg’s voice. I also wanted to keep her from sinking completely into her own dark thoughts. She was getting that shuttered expression she often had when she thought about her horrible stepfather, as if her brain were shutting down all nonessential services and boarding itself up in preparation for a hurricane.

She pushed her rings back on her middle fingers. “Take whatever you think might happen,” she advised, “and turn it upside down and inside out.”

That was not exactly the reassurance I’d been hoping for. My chest already felt like it was being turned upside down and inside out. I was unnerved to be entering Nero’s lair with two empty quivers and a waterlogged ukulele. I was unnerved that no one had arrested us on sight, and that the security guard had given Meg back her rings, as if a couple of magical scimitars would make absolutely no difference to our fate.

Nevertheless, I straightened my back and squeezed Meg’s hand one more time. “We’ll do what we have to.”

The elevator doors slid open, and we stepped into the imperial antechamber.

“Welcome!”

The young lady who greeted us wore a black business suit, high heels, and an earpiece in her left ear. Her luxurious green hair was tied back in a ponytail. Her face was made up to give her a rosier, more human complexion, but the green tint in her eyes and the points of her ears gave her away as a dryad. “I’m Areca. Before you meet the emperor, can I get you a beverage? Water? Coffee? Tea?”

She spoke with forced cheerfulness. Her eyes said, Help, I’m a hostage!

“Um, I’m good,” I said, a feeble lie. Meg shook her head.

“Great!” Areca lied in return. “Follow me!”

I translated this to mean Run while you can! She hesitated, giving us time to reconsider our life choices. When we did not scream and dive back into the elevator, she guided us toward a set of double golden doors at the end of the hallway.

These opened from within, revealing the loft space/throne room I’d seen in my nightmare.