The Tower of Nero (The Trials of Apollo #5)(98)

“It’s all good,” he said, forcing a smile. “You know, a little time apart to think. We’ll make it work.”

Reyna passed by and heard the last part. “Talking about Calypso? Yeah, I had to have a heart-to-heart with mi hermano here.” She squeezed Leo’s shoulder. “You don’t call a young lady mamacita. You got to have more respect, entiendes?”

“I—” Leo looked ready to protest, then seemed to think better about it. “Yeah, okay.”

Reyna smiled at me. “Valdez grew up without his mom. Never learned these things. Now he’s got two great foster moms and a big sister who isn’t afraid to smack him when he gets out of line.” She flicked a finger playfully against his cheek.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Leo muttered.

“Cheer up,” Reyna said. “Calypso will come around. You’re a doofus sometimes, Valdez, but you’ve got a heart of Imperial gold.”

Next stop: Camp Jupiter.

It did not surprise me that Hazel and Frank had become the most efficient and respected pair of praetors ever to run the Twelfth Legion. In record time they had inspired a rebuilding effort in New Rome, repaired all the damage from our battle against Tarquin and the two emperors, and started a recruitment drive with Lupa’s wolves to bring in new demigods from the wild. At least twenty had arrived since I left, which made me wonder where they’d all been hiding, and how busy my fellow gods must have been in the last few decades to have so many children.

“We’re going to install more barracks over there,” Hazel told me, as she and Frank gave me the five-denarius tour of the repaired camp. “We’ve expanded the thermal baths, and we’re constructing a victory arch on the main road into New Rome to commemorate our defeat of the emperors.” Her amber eyes flashed with excitement. “It’s going to be plated with gold. Completely over-the-top.”

Frank smiled. “Yeah. As far as we can tell, Hazel’s curse is officially broken. We did an augury at Pluto’s shrine, and it came up favorable. She can summon jewels, precious metals…and use them or spend them now without causing any curses.”

“But we’re not going to abuse that power,” Hazel hastened to add. “We’ll only use it to improve the camp and honor the gods. We’re not going to buy any yachts or private airplanes or big golden necklaces with ‘H plus F 4Ever’ diamond pendants, are we, Frank?”

Frank pouted. “No. I guess not.”

Hazel ribbed him.

“No, definitely not,” Frank amended. “That would be tacky.”

Frank still lumbered along like a friendly grizzly bear, but his posture seemed more relaxed, his mood more cheerful, as if it were starting to sink in that his destiny was no longer controlled by a small piece of firewood. For Frank Zhang, like the rest of us, the future was open for business.

He brightened. “Oh, and check this out, Apollo!”

He swirled his purple praetor’s cloak like he was about to turn into a vampire bat (which Frank was fully capable of doing). Instead, the cloak simply turned into an oversize sweater wrap. “I figured it out!”

Hazel rolled her eyes. “My sweet, sweet Frank. Could you please not with the sweater wrap?”

“What?” Frank protested. “It’s impenetrable and comfortable!”

Later that day, I visited my other friends. Lavinia Asimov had made good on her threat/promise to teach the Fifth Cohort to tap-dance. The unit was now feared and respected in the war games for their ability to form a testudo shield wall while doing the three-beat shuffle.

Tyson and Ella were happily back at work in their bookshop. The unicorns were still weaponized. The Jason Grace temple-expansion plan was still moving forward, with new shrines being added every week.

What did surprise me: Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase had arrived and taken up residence in New Rome, giving them two months to adjust to their new environs before the fall semester of their freshman year in college.

“Architecture,” Annabeth said, her gray eyes as bright as her mother’s. She said the word architecture as if it were the answer to all the world’s problems. “I’m going to focus on environmental design at UC Berkeley while dual-enrolling at New Rome University. By year three, I figure—”

“Whoa, there, Wise Girl,” Percy said. “First you have to help me get through freshman English. And math. And history.”

Annabeth’s smile lit up the empty dorm room. “Yeah, Seaweed Brain, I know. We’ll take the basics together. But you will do your own homework.”

“Man,” Percy said, looking at me for commiseration. “Homework.”

I was pleased to see them doing so well, but I agreed with him about homework. Gods never got it. We didn’t want it. We just assigned it in the form of deadly quests.

“And your major?” I asked him.

“Yeah, uh…marine biology? Aquaculture? I dunno. I’ll figure it out.”

“You’re both staying here?” I gestured at the bunk beds. New Rome University may have been a college for demigods, but its dorm rooms were as basic and uninspired as any other university’s.

“No.” Annabeth sounded offended. “Have you seen the way this guy throws his dirty clothes around? Gross. Besides, dorms are required for all freshmen and they aren’t co-ed. My roommate probably won’t arrive until September.”