The Tyrant's Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4)(64)

I shivered, thinking of the strixes that had attacked us in the Burning Maze, but strixes only hunted at nighttime. That dark shape had to be something else, maybe a hawk looking for mice. The law of averages dictated that once in a while I’d have to come across a creature that didn’t want to kill me, right?

Nevertheless, the fleeting shape filled me with dread. It reminded me of the many near-death experiences I’d shared with Meg McCaffrey, and of the promise I’d made to myself to be honest with her, back in the good old days of ten minutes ago, before Reyna had nuked my self-esteem.

“Meg,” I said. “Last night—”

“You saw Peaches. I know.”

She might have been talking about the weather. Her gaze stayed fixed on the doorway of the relay station.

“You know,” I repeated.

“He’s been around for a couple of days.”

“You’ve seen him?”

“Just sensed him. He’s got his reasons for staying away. Doesn’t like the Romans. He’s working on a plan to help the local nature spirits.”

“And…if that plan is to help them run away?”

In the diffused gray light of the fog bank, Meg’s glasses looked like her own tiny satellite dishes. “You think that’s what he wants? Or what the nature spirits want?”

I remembered the fauns’ fearful expressions at People’s Park, the dryads’ weary anger. “I don’t know. But Lavinia—”

“Yeah. She’s with them.” Meg shrugged one shoulder. “The centurions noticed her missing at morning roll call. They’re trying to downplay it. Bad for morale.”

I stared at my young companion, who had apparently been taking lessons from Lavinia in Advanced Camp Gossip. “Does Reyna know?”

“That Lavinia is gone? Sure. Where Lavinia went? Nah. I don’t either, really. Whatever she and Peaches and the rest are planning, there’s not much we can do about it now. We’ve got other stuff to worry about.”

I crossed my arms. “Well, I’m glad we had this talk, so I could unburden myself of all the things you already knew. I was also going to say that you’re important to me and I might even love you like a sister, but—”

“I already know that, too.” She gave me a crooked grin, offering proof that Nero really should have taken her to the orthodontist when she was younger. “ ’S’okay. You’ve gotten less annoying, too.”

“Hmph.”

“Look, here comes Reyna.”

And so ended our warm family moment, as the praetor reemerged from the station, her expression unsettled, her greyhounds happily circling her legs as if waiting for jelly beans.

“The place is empty,” Reyna announced. “Looks like everybody left in a hurry. I’d say something cleared them out—like a bomb threat, maybe.”

I frowned. “In that case, wouldn’t there be emergency vehicles here?”

“The Mist,” Meg guessed. “Could’ve made the mortals see anything to get them out of here. Clearing the scene before…”

I was about to ask Before what? But I didn’t want the answer.

Meg was right, of course. The Mist was a strange force. Sometimes it manipulated mortal minds after a supernatural event, like damage control. Other times, it operated in advance of a catastrophe, pushing away mortals who might otherwise wind up as collateral damage—like ripples in a local pond warning of a dragon’s first footstep.

“Well,” Reyna said, “if that’s true, it means we’re in the right place. And I can only think of one other direction to explore.” Her eyes followed the pylons of Sutro Tower until they disappeared into the fog. “Who wants to climb first?”


Want had nothing to do with it. I was drafted.

The ostensible reason was so Reyna could steady me if I started feeling shaky on the ladder. The real reason was probably so I couldn’t back out if I got scared. Meg went last, I suppose because that would give her time to select the proper gardening seeds to throw at our enemies while they were mauling my face and Reyna was pushing me forward.

Aurum and Argentum, not being able to climb, stayed on the ground to guard our exit like the opposable-thumb-lacking slackers they were. If we ended up plummeting to our deaths, the dogs would be right there to bark excitedly at our corpses. That gave me great comfort.

The rungs were slippery and cold. The chute’s metal ribs made me feel like I was crawling through a giant Slinky. I imagined they were meant as some kind of safety feature, but they did nothing to reassure me. If I slipped, they would just be more painful things for me to hit on my way down.

After a few minutes, my limbs were shaking. My fingers trembled. The first set of crossbeams seemed to be getting no closer. I looked down and saw we had barely cleared the radar dishes on the station’s rooftop.

The cold wind buffeted me around the cage, ripping through my hoodie, rattling the arrows in my quiver. Whatever Tarquin’s guards were, if they caught me on this ladder, my bow and my ukulele would do me no good. At least a flock of killer sheep couldn’t climb ladders.

Meanwhile, in the fog high above us, more dark shapes swirled—definitely birds of some kind. I reminded myself that they couldn’t be strixes. Still, a queasy sense of danger gnawed at my stomach.

What if—?