The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)(108)

‘Oh, you’re not getting rid of me,’ said Leo. ‘You just earned a bronze dragon escort to Oklahoma.’

‘Leo –’

‘We’re not arguing about this,’ he insisted. ‘Besides, it’s more or less on the way back to Indianapolis.’

Piper’s smile was as faint as fog. ‘You’re settling in Indianapolis. Me, in Tahlequah. We’re really going places, huh?’

Leo turned to us. ‘Go on, you guys. Take … take Jason home. Do right by him. You’ll find Camp Jupiter still there.’

From the window of the plane, the last I saw of Piper and Leo, Coach and Mellie, they were huddled on the tarmac, plotting their journey east with their bronze dragon and their yellow Pinto.

Meanwhile, we taxied down the runway in our private jet. We rumbled into the sky – heading for Camp Jupiter and a rendezvous with Reyna, the daughter of Bellona.

I didn’t know how I would find Tarquin’s tomb, or who the soundless god was supposed to be. I didn’t know how we would stop Caligula from attacking the damaged Roman camp. But none of that bothered me as much as what had happened to us already – so many lives destroyed, a hero’s coffin rattling in the cargo hold, three emperors who were all still alive, ready to wreak more havoc on everyone and everything I cared about.

I found myself crying.

It was ridiculous. Gods don’t cry. But, as I looked at Jason’s diorama in the seat next to me, all I could think about was that he would never get to see his carefully labelled plans finished. As I held my ukulele, I could only picture Crest playing his last chord with broken fingers.

‘Hey.’ Meg turned in the seat in front of me. Despite her usual cat-eye glasses and preschool-coloured outfit (somehow mended, yet again, by the magic of the ever-patient dryads), Meg sounded more grown-up today. Surer of herself. ‘We’re going to make everything right.’

I shook my head miserably. ‘What does that even mean? Caligula is heading north. Nero is still out there. We’ve faced three emperors, and defeated none of them. And Python –’

She bopped me on the nose, much harder than she had Baby Chuck.

‘Ow!’

‘Got your attention?’

‘I – Yes.’

‘Then listen: You will get to the Tiber alive. You will start to jive. That’s what the prophecy said back in Indiana, right? It will make sense once we get there. You’re going to beat the Triumvirate.’

I blinked. ‘Is that an order?’

‘It’s a promise.’

I wished she hadn’t put it that way. I could almost hear the goddess Styx laughing, her voice echoing from the cold cargo hold where the son of Jupiter now rested in his coffin.

The thought made me angry. Meg was right. I would defeat the emperors. I would free Delphi from Python’s grasp. I would not allow those who had sacrificed themselves to do so for nothing.

Perhaps this quest had ended on a suspended fourth chord. We still had much to do.

But from now on I would be more than Lester. I would be more than an observer.

I would be Apollo.

I would remember.