The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo #5)(60)

I had to think fast and move faster.

I needed my powers—strength to bend bars or break through walls, fire to melt Gunther’s face the next time he brought us crustless sandwiches.

I did not need a nap.

And yet…Lu wasn’t wrong. Dreams could be vehicles.

As the god of prophecy, I’d often sent visions to those who needed them—warnings, glimpses of the future, suggestions for what sort of temple incense I liked best. I’d driven dreams right into people’s heads. But since I’d been mortal, I’d lost that confidence. I had let my dreams drive me, rather than taking the reins like when I drove the sun chariot. My team of fiery horses could always feel when their driver was weak or uncertain. (Poor Phaethon had found that out the hard way.) Dreams were no less ornery.

I needed to see what was happening with Meg. I needed to see this guardian that watched the emperor’s fasces, so I could figure out how to destroy it. I needed to know whether Nico, Will, and Rachel were safe.

If I took the reins of my dreams and yelled, Giddyap!, what would happen? At the very least, I would have unsettling nightmares. At worst, I might drive my mind over the Cliffs of Insanity and never wake up.

But my friends were counting on me.

So I did the heroic thing. I closed my eyes and went to sleep.





DRIVING THE DREAM CHARIOT DID NOT go well. If the dream police had been on patrol, they would have pulled me over and given me a ticket.

Immediately, a psychic crosswind caught my consciousness. I tumbled through the floor, falling past stairwells and offices and broom closets, swirling into the bowels of the tower like I’d been flushed down the cosmic toilet. (Which is a disgusting plumbing fixture, by the way. No one ever cleans it.)

GO UP, GO UP! I willed my dream, but I couldn’t seem to find the reins.

I plummeted straight through a vat of Greek fire. That was different. I hit the tunnels below Manhattan, glancing around desperately for any sign of my friends and the troglodytes, but I was traveling too fast, spinning like a pinwheel. I broke through into the Labyrinth and hurtled sideways, swept along by a current of superheated ether.

I can do this, I told myself. It’s just like driving a chariot. Except with no horses. Or chariot. Or body.

I ordered my dream to take me to Meg—the person I most wanted to see. I imagined my hands reaching out, grasping reins. Just when I thought I had them, my dreamscape stabilized. I found myself back in the caverns of Delphi, volcanic gasses layering the air, the dark shape of Python moving heavily in the shadows.

“So, I have you again,” he gloated. “You shall perish—”

“I don’t have time for you right now.” My voice surprised me almost as much as it did the reptile.

“What?”

“Gotta go.” I lashed the reins of my dream.

“How dare you! You cannot—”

I rocketed into reverse like I was tied to a rubber band.

Why backward? I hated sitting backward in a moving vehicle, but I suppose the dream was still trying to show me who was boss. I did a roller-coaster rewind through the Labyrinth, the mortal tunnels, the stairwells of the tower. Finally, I lurched to a stop. My stomach clenched, and I retched up…well, whatever ethereal spirit-stuff one can retch in the dream world.

My head and stomach orbited each other like wobbly lava planets. I found myself on my knees in an extravagant bedroom. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked Midtown all the way to the Hudson River. The cityscape was still mercifully un-torched.

Meg McCaffrey was busy trashing the bedroom. Even without her blades, she was doing an A+ demolition job with a broken chair leg, which she swung wildly into just about everything. Meanwhile, a Germanus stood blocking the only exit, his arms folded, his expression unimpressed. A woman in an old-fashioned black-and-white maid’s uniform wrung her hands and winced every time something went CRASH. She held a stack of what looked like party dresses draped over one arm.

“Miss,” said the maid, “if you could just choose an outfit for tonight. Perhaps if you didn’t…Oh. Oh, that was an antique. No, that’s fine. I’ll get another— OH! Very well, Miss, if you don’t like those bed linens I can— There’s no need to shred them, Miss!”

Meg’s tantrum raised my spirits considerably. That’s it, my friend! I thought. Give them Tartarus! Meg threw her broken chair leg into a lamp, then picked up another whole chair and raised it over her head, ready to hurl it at the window.

A faint knock on the bedroom door made her freeze. The Germanus stepped aside, opened the door, and bowed as Nero swept into the room.

“Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry.” The emperor’s voice oozed sympathy. “Come. Sit with me.”

He moved smoothly to the bed and sat at the edge, patting the ripped comforter next to him.

I silently rooted for Meg to brain him with the chair. He was right there, in easy reach. But I realized that was Nero’s intention…to make himself seem to be at Meg’s mercy. To make her responsible for choosing violence. And if she did, he would be free to punish her.

She put down the chair, but she didn’t go to Nero. She turned her back and crossed her arms. Her lips trembled. I wanted so badly to go to her, to shield her. I wanted to drive my dream chariot into Nero’s face, but I could only watch.

“I know you feel terrible,” Nero said, “after what you did to your friend.”