The Tyrant's Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4)(82)

“All due respect, Praetor,” she said, “but it looks like you’re in more trouble than I am at the moment. Harold, Felipe—stabilize her leg and let’s get her out of this parking lot before more mortals arrive. Reginald, push Meg’s cart. Lotoya, retrieve whatever supplies they have in the truck, please. I’ll help Apollo. We make for those woods. Now!”


Lavinia’s definition of woods was generous. I would’ve called it a gulley where shopping carts went to die. Still, her People’s Park platoon worked with surprising efficiency. In a matter of minutes, they had us all safely hidden in the ditch among the broken carts and trash-festooned trees, just as emergency vehicles came wailing into the parking lot.

Harold and Felipe splinted Reyna’s leg—which only caused her to scream and throw up a little. Two other fauns constructed a stretcher for her out of branches and old clothing while Aurum and Argentum tried to help by bringing them sticks…or perhaps they just wanted to play fetch. Reginald extricated Meg from her shopping cart and revived her with hand-fed bits of ambrosia.

A couple of dryads checked me for injuries—meaning even more injuries than I’d had before—but there wasn’t much they could do. They didn’t like the look of my zombie-infected face, or the way the undead infection made me smell. Unfortunately, my condition was beyond any nature-spirit healing.

As they moved off, one muttered to her friend, “Once it gets fully dark…”

“I know,” said her friend. “With a blood moon tonight? Poor guy…”

I decided to ignore them. It seemed the best way to avoid bursting into tears.

Lotoya—who must have been a redwood dryad, judging from her burgundy complexion and impressive size—crouched next to me and deposited all the supplies she’d retrieved from the truck. I grabbed frantically—not for my bow and quiver, or even for my ukulele, but for my backpack. I almost fainted with relief when I found the Smucker’s jar inside, still intact.

“Thank you,” I told her.

She nodded somberly. “A good jelly jar is hard to find.”

Reyna struggled to sit up among the fauns fussing over her. “We’re wasting time. We have to get back to camp!”

Lavinia arched her pink eyebrows. “You’re not going anywhere with that leg, Praetor. Even if you could, you wouldn’t be much help. We can heal you faster if you just relax—”

“Relax? The legion needs me! It needs you too, Lavinia! How could you desert?”

“Okay, first, I didn’t desert. You don’t know all the facts.”

“You left camp without leave. You—” Reyna leaned forward too fast and gasped in agony. The fauns took her shoulders. They helped her to sit back, easing her onto the new stretcher with its lovely padding of moss, trash, and old tie-dyed T-shirts.

“You left your comrades,” Reyna croaked. “Your friends.”

“I’m right here,” Lavinia said. “I’m going to ask Felipe to lull you to sleep now so you can rest and heal.”

“No! You…you can’t run away.”

Lavinia snorted. “Who said anything about running away? Remember, Reyna, this was your backup plan. Plan L for Lavinia! When we all get back to camp, you’re going to thank me. You’ll tell everybody this was your idea.”

“What? I would never…I didn’t give you any such…This is mutiny!”

I glanced at the greyhounds, waiting for them to rise to their master’s defense and tear Lavinia apart. Strangely, they just kept circling Reyna, occasionally licking her face or sniffing her broken leg. They seemed concerned about her condition, but not at all about Lavinia’s rebellious lies.

“Lavinia,” Reyna pleaded, “I’ll have to bring you up on desertion charges. Don’t do this. Don’t make me—”

“Now, Felipe,” Lavinia ordered.

The faun raised his panpipes and played a lullaby, soft and low, right next to Reyna’s head.

“Can’t!” Reyna struggled to keep her eyes open. “Won’t. Ahhggghh.”

She went limp and began to snore.

“That’s better.” Lavinia turned to me. “Don’t worry, I’ll leave her someplace safe with a couple of fauns, and of course Aurum and Argentum. She’ll be taken care of while she heals. You and Meg, do what you need to do.”

Her confident stance and her take-charge tone made her almost unrecognizable as the gawky, nervous legionnaire we’d met at Lake Temescal. She reminded me more of Reyna now, and of Meg. Mostly, though, she seemed like a stronger version of herself—a Lavinia who had decided what she needed to do and would not rest until she did it.

“Where are you going?” I asked, still utterly confused. “Why won’t you come back to camp with us?”

Meg stumbled over, ambrosia crumbles stuck around her mouth. “Don’t pester her,” she told me. Then to Lavinia: “Is Peaches…?”

Lavinia shook her head. “He and Don are with the advance group, making contact with the Nereids.”

Meg pouted. “Yeah. Okay. The emperors’ ground forces?”

Lavinia’s expression turned somber. “They already passed by. We hid and watched. Yeah…It’s not good. I’m sure they’ll be in combat with the legion by the time you get there. You remember the path I told you about?”